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
The Fuzzy Math Behind the Search For Mh370
Five weeks into the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, more than $30 million has been spent scouring great swatches of the southern Indian Ocean.
From ACM Opinion
The Most Expensive Lottery Ticket in the World
No Exit, the new book from Gideon Lewis-Kraus, should be required reading for anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to found a startup in Silicon Valley.
From ACM Opinion
If the Robots Kill s, It's Because It's Their Job
In the movie Transcendence, which opens in theaters on Friday, a sentient computer program embarks on a relentless quest for power, nearly destroying humanity in...
From ACM Opinion
It's Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet
The Heartbleed bug crushed our faith in the secure Web, but a world without the encryption software that Heartbleed exploited would be even worse.
From ACM Opinion
Captchas Are Becoming Security Theater
CAPTCHAs are a time-worn way for humans to tell computers that we are human.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Web Needs Perfect Forward Secrecy More Than Ever
EFF has long advocated for websites to support HTTPS instead of plain HTTP to encrypt and authenticate data transmitted on the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination
Self-driving cars, extreme life extension, and global wifi provided by weather balloons: Google makes projects that sound like science fiction into reality at its...
From ACM Opinion
Can We Really pload Johnny Depp's Brain?
When Wally Pfister's Transcendence is released on April 17, millions of moviegoers will be asking themselves, "Could we really upload Johnny Depp into a computer...
From ACM Opinion
Heartbleed: Developer Who Introduced the Error Regrets 'oversight'
The developer who introduced the "Heartbleed" vulnerability to the open-source code used by thousands of websites has told the Guardian it was an "oversight"—but...
From ACM Opinion
900 Years of Tree Diagrams, the Most Important Data Viz Tool in History
You'd be excused for thinking infographics are a modern invention.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Eugene Kaspersky
The Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab has analyzed major new kinds of malware, including Stuxnet, which four years ago was revealed to have damaged...
From ACM Opinion
Bruce Schneier: Technology Magnifies Power in Survellance Era
History is not entirely kind to those responsible for the Industrial Age in the 19th century.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet's Telltale Heartbleed
The cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, who has been writing about computer security for more than fifteen years, is not given to panic or hyperbole.
From ACM Opinion
Steve Matteson: Fonts in the Time of Wearables
As gadgets get smaller, and mobile manufacturers find new ways to shrink their devices to fit on a user's wrist, people like Steve Matteson are focused on keeping...
From ACM Opinion
A Veteran Programmer Explains How the Stock Market Became "Rigged"
A small group of financial firms are using their technological superiority to skim the top off the market, Michael Lewis claims in his new book "Flash Boys."
From ACM Opinion
If You Like Immersion, You'll Love This Reality
The news that Facebook paid $2 billion for a virtual reality start-up, Oculus VR, might strike you as a bit zany.
From ACM Opinion
The Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer
Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week.
From ACM Opinion