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 Careers
Keeping Time By Rubidium at the Naval Observatory
You know when you dial a number, and a man reads you the exact time at the tone? That precise timekeeping starts at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
From ACM Opinion
7 Things You Should Know About Tor
We posted last week about the Tor Challenge and why everyone should use Tor.
From ACM Opinion
Snowden Asylum in Germany?
Revelations by Edward Snowden about U.S. surveillance continue to shake Germany more than one year after he came forward as a National Security Agency whistleblower...
From ACM Opinion
The Troubling Truth of Why It's Still So Hard to Share Files Directly
It's not always easy to spot the compromises in the technology we use, where we've allowed corporate interests to trump public ideals like privacy and press freedom...
From ACM Opinion
New N.s.a. Chief Calls Damage From Snowden Leaks Manageable
The newly installed director of the National Security Agency says that while he has seen some terrorist groups alter their communications to avoid surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
Larry Page on Google's Many Arms
One way to think of Google is as an extremely helpful, all-knowing, hyper-intelligent executive assistant.
From ACM Opinion
The Beautiful, Invisible Game
The first goal of the 2014 World Cup was Brazilian, and it was an own goal.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Sundar Pichai Is the Most Powerful Man in Mobile
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Samsung introduced new software for its tablets, called the Magazine UX.
From ACM Opinion
Nypd Commissioner Bill Bratton Advocates For Security Cameras to Be Added to All City Subway Cars
The NYPD could have dozens of new eyes in the transit system—without a cop setting foot on a train—if a plan to put surveillance cameras in subway cars gets the...
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions with Amazon's Technology Chief, Werner Vogels
In the eight years since Amazon.com rolled out its cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services, this has grown from a side project that took advantage of the...
From ACM Opinion
Former Nsa Chief Mike Mcconnell Says Culture, Not Tech, Is Key to Cyber Defense
John M. (Mike) McConnell says that technology alone isn't enough to secure corporate networks from pervasive and increasingly damaging cyberattacks.
From ACM Opinion
Quantum Chaos: After a Failed Speed Test, the D-Wave Debate Continues
How hard can it be to determine whether a computer works as promised?
From ACM Opinion
What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality
Even Sunday night HBO watchers are worried the Federal Communications Commission will soon put an end to net neutrality.
From ACM Opinion
Coder's High
These days I write more than I code, but one of the things I miss about programming is the coder's high: those times when, for hours on end, I would lock my vision...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Eyes in the Sky
When Sergey Brin and Larry Page built the search engine that would become Google, they started by making maps.
From ACM Opinion
The Eccentric Genius Whose Time May Have Finally Come (again)
I've been preoccupied lately with thoughts of marauding broomsticks, genies in bottles, and monkey's paws.
From ACM Opinion
The Nightmare on Connected Home Street
I wake up at four to some old-timey dubstep spewing from my pillows.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Quantum Search For the 'next Transistor'
Microsoft is making a significant investment in creating a practical version of the basic component needed to build a quantum computer, the company's head of research...
From ACM Opinion