Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
Intel Sees a Future Where We Will Form 'relationships' with Our Gadgets
Rugged individualists aside, many people find themselves increasingly connected not just to one another but also to the devices that make those connections possible...
From ACM Opinion
The Nobel Prize in Physics Is Really a Nobel Prize in Math
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for the prediction of the Higgs boson, which was experimentally confirmed...
From ACM Opinion
The Many Meanings of Open
I was recently asked to talk about the idea of "open," and I realized the term is used in at least eight different ways.
From ACM Opinion
Nobel Prizes 2013: Computer Models That Can Mimic Life
We talk about computer modeling a lot in the context of climate science—powerful algorithms that help scientists get a better idea of how climate systems work,...
From ACM Opinion
Google in Jeopardy: What If IBM's Watson Dethroned the King of Search?
Remember Watson, IBM's Jeopardy! champion?
From ACM Opinion
Graphene: 'miracle Material' Will Be in Your Home Sooner Than You Think
Just under 10 years ago, the Dutch-British physicist Andre Geim stumbled across a substance that would revolutionize the way we understand matter and win him and...
From ACM Opinion
In Search of Planetary Intelligence
It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, "I think it would be a good idea."
From ACM Opinion
Design Thinker Don Norman on His Stealth Startup, Apple vs. Android vs. Microsoft, and Experience Design
Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things is the bible for design thinking and technology.
From ACM Opinion
Does Digital Age Overcomplicate Design?
There is a scene in the television series "Boss" in which the mayor of Chicago, played by Kelsey Grammer, is discovered by his wife washing bed sheets by hand at...
From ACM Opinion
Life on Mars: Down But Not Out Says Mars Society Founder
Hopes of alien life on Mars were dashed Thursday when a paper published in the journal Scienceconcluded that the Curiosity rover has yet to find any methane gas...
From ACM Opinion
Why Today's Inventors Need to Read More Science Fiction
How will police use a gun that immobilizes its target but does not kill? What would people do with a device that could provide them with any mood they desire? What...
From ACM Opinion
To Boldly Go Nowhere, For Now
On Aug. 20, NASA's administrator formally welcomed the newest candidates of the astronaut corpsand released a space exploration roadmap that includes robotic and...
From ACM Opinion
Neal Stephenson on Tall Towers and Nsa Cyber-Spies
Neal Stephenson is thinking big—20km (12.4 miles) big, to be precise.
From ACM Opinion
How Robots Can Trick You Into Loving Them
I like to think of my Roomba as cute and industrious.
From ACM Opinion
A Peek nder the Hood at the Brains of Self-Driving Cars
What car maker today doesn't seem to have an autonomous car bumbling around its test lot?
From ACM Opinion
Nasa Is Turning Science Fiction Into Fact
As a new moon orbiter gets set to launch, Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames, says forget the 20th—this is the real space century.
From ACM Opinion
Who Will Prosper in the New World
Self-driving vehicles threaten to send truck drivers to the unemployment office.
From ACM Opinion