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
Interview with Brain Project Pioneer: Miyoung Chun
Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) project, which President Obama announced in his State of the Union address in February, will...
From ACM Opinion
Will Google's Ray Kurzweil Live Forever?
Ray Kurzweil must encounter his share of interviewers whose first question is: What do you hope your obituary will say?
From ACM Opinion
Name-Brand Genes: Is Our Genetic Makeup What's Next in Personal Branding?
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case that could decide whether it's possible to patent specific human genes that have been "snipped" out of our DNA...
From ACM Opinion
Human Genome, Then and Now
Eight years of work, thousands of researchers around the world, $1 billion spent—and finally it was done.
From ACM Opinion
Should We Fall Out of Love with Robot Surgery?
Last fall, shoppers outside a Macy's store in Boston were given a chance to test drive a robot. They were invited, compliments of Brigham and Women’s Hospital,...
From ACM Opinion
The Chilling Effects of the Dmca
It was hard to believe, but the student insisted it was true.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Eric Schmidt Warns on China's Attempts to Control the Internet
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has described China as "the most egregious" example of a nation attempting to control the Internet, as he issued...
From ACM Opinion
Peter G. Neumann: Top Cop on the Hair-Raising Cybersecurity Beat
The threat is always there—in your car, at the office, on the table next to where you sleep at night: a near-biblical plague of worms, phisher kings, identity thieves...
From ACM Opinion
Google's 10 Rules For Designing Data Centers
Google has long pushed the envelope of data center infrastructure design, particularly when it comes to renewable energy, efficient cooling, new power electronics...
From ACM Opinion
Homunculism
According to Wikipedia, Ray Kurzweil is an "American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google. Aside from futurology, he is involved in...
From ACM Opinion
Shedding More Light on National Security Letters
Our users trust Google with a lot of very important data, whether it’s emails, photos, documents, posts or videos.
From ACM Opinion
The Art of Cyberwar
The New York Times’ front-page report last week that the Chinese army is hacking into America's most sensitive computer networks from a 12-story building outside...
From ACM Opinion
The Definitive Story of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Phone Phreaking
Like the flap of a butterfly's wings causing a hurricane half a world away, the ripples of unintended consequences from Ron Rosenbaum's "Secrets of the Little Blue...
From ACM Opinion
The Newest Overhyped Mobile Industry Buzzword: Lte-Advanced
Admittedly, mobile technology evolves at a very fast pace. But somewhere along the way we seem to have skipped an entire generation of networks.
From ACM Opinion
Windows 8: Design Over sability
Windows 8 is a computer science masterpiece trapped inside a user interface kerfuffle.
From ACM Opinion
Why Mapping the Human Brain Matters
It turns out that President Barack Obama’s head-scratching mention of a project to map the human brain in his most recent State of the Union speech was more than...
From ACM Opinion
View from Iran: World Needs Rules on Cyberattacks
The world needs a new international legal instrument on cyberspace, in light of the new waves of trans-border cyberattacks that have become a disturbing aspect...
From ACM Opinion
A Sterling Future for HPC
For the past decade, keynote speakers at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) have examined the major accomplishments in HPC during the preceding year...
From ACM Careers
Cobol Will Outlive S All
In the early 1980s, I was told that COBOL was going away and that I should quickly move toward other programming languages.
From ACM Opinion