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
Could a $500 Gadget Have Prevented the Metro-North Tragedy?
Investigators are still studying what caused the derailment of a Metro-North commuter train on its way to Grand Central Terminal just over a week ago, killing four...
From ACM Opinion
The Rise and Fall of Blackberry: An Oral History
In 1984, Mike Lazaridis, an engineering student at the University of Waterloo, and Douglas Fregin, an engineering student at the University of Windsor, founded...
From ACM Opinion
Why Obama Still ses a BlackBerry
Barack Obama is the world's most prominent BlackBerry user.
From ACM Opinion
Saving the Net from the Surveillance State: Glenn Greenwald Speaks p
Big Brother may be watching you. But Glenn Greenwald is watching Big Brother.
From ACM Opinion
Moore's Law Isn't Making Chips Cheaper Anymore
At a wine bar in San Francisco on Wednesday, Broadcom Chairman and CTO Henry Samueli delivered some sobering news: Moore's Law isn't making chips cheaper anymore...
From ACM Opinion
7 Epic Fails Brought to You By the Genius Mind of Thomas Edison
Almost everyone can name the man that invented the light bulb.
From ACM Opinion
Google Puts Money on Robots, sing the Man Behind Android
In an out-of-the-way Google office, two life-size humanoid robots hang suspended in a corner.
From ACM Opinion
Is the Future of the Internet in Iceland?
When you clicked on the link to read this article, your computer, tablet or phone sent a request that traveled hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles at the speed...
From ACM Opinion
Diagnosis For Healthcare.gov: nrealistic Technology Expectations
The fiasco with the $600 million federal health insurance website wasn't all bureaucratic.
From ACM Opinion
23andme Is Terrifying, But Not For the Reasons the Fda Thinks
If there's a gene for hubris, the 23andMe crew has certainly got it.
From ACM Opinion
Can You Hack It?
Wherever you're sitting right now, take a moment to note the connected devices around you.
From ACM Opinion
Answers to All the Tech Questions Your Family Will Ask You This Holiday
Maybe it's your mom and/or dad. Maybe it's a sibling or a grandparent. Or maybe it's just that one friend who still uses a Motorola Razr from the early 2000s.
From ACM Opinion
My Quantum Algorithm Won't Break the Internet… Yet
Internet security relies on the fact that our computers can't break its cryptosystems. But the quantum algorithm you devised has the potential to do just that.
From ACM Opinion
Charlie Rose Talks to Nathan Myhrvold
You worked for years at Microsoft, where things now look uncertain.
From ACM Opinion
Software Is Reorganizing the World
For the first time in memory, adults in the United States under age forty are now expected to be poorer than their parents.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Computing Pioneer Carver Mead
Computer scientist Carver Mead gave Moore's Law its name in around 1970 and played a crucial role in making sure it's held true in the decades since.
From ACM Opinion
A Neuroscientist's Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious
It's a question that’s perplexed philosophers for centuries and scientists for decades: Where does consciousness come from?
From ACM Opinion
Why Google's Fair Use Victory In Google Books Suit Is A Big Deal—And Why It Isn't
Federal judge Denny Chin rejected a copyright challenge Google’s practices of scanning books into digital format and presenting snippets of those scans in search...
From ACM Opinion
Will Ibm's Watson sher in a New Era of Cognitive Computing?
Computers as we know them have are close to reaching an inflection point—the next generation is in sight but not quite within our grasp.
From ACM Opinion