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
biquity Symposium: 'what Is Computation?'
A new series on ACM's Ubiquity seeks to answer the question: 'What is computation?' In this opening article, Ubiquity's editor-in-chief Peter J. Denning and co-author...
From ACM Opinion
"this Paper Should Not Have Been Published"
Scientists see fatal flaws in the NASA study of arsenic-based life.
From ACM Opinion
Long Live the Web: A Call For Continued Open Standards and Neutrality
The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending.
From Communications of the ACM
Literate Coding
While it is true that "programmers aren't English majors," there are many days that I wish they were, or that...
From ACM Opinion
Beverly Harrison's Supersmart Computers
The Intel researcher is designing computers that can recognize gestures and objects to better bridge the virtual and real worlds.
From ACM Opinion
Why China's New Supercomputer Isn't Actually the World's Fastest
Peak performance doesn't equal sustained performance, and the NVIDIA GPUs in the Tianhe 1A are especially bad at the latter.
From ACM Opinion
On the Threshold of the Avatar Era
In a garage in Palo Alto, Calif., in the 1980s, some friends and I were the first humans to experience becoming avatars—that is, movable representations of ourselves...
From Communications of the ACM
Why Do Software Startups Patent (or Not)?
Assessing the controversial results of a recent empirical study of the role of intellectual property in software startups.
From ACM Opinion
Why Graphene Is the Stuff of the Future
Everything in our three-dimensional world has a width, length and height. That was what we thought, at least. But this picture overlooks a whole class of materials...
From Communications of the ACM
Score: Agile Research Group Management
Adapting agile software development methodology toward more efficient management of academic research groups.
From Communications of the ACM
Version Aversion
The way you number your releases communicates more than you might think.
From Communications of the ACM
Risks of Undisciplined Development
An illustration of the problems caused by a lack of discipline in software development and our failure to apply what is known in the field.
From ACM Opinion
Crisis in Computing
It may not be obvious, but if you’ve checked the weather today, ridden in a car or an airplane, made a phone call, or used any number of consumer products, down...
From ACM Opinion
Why God Did Not Create the niverse
There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world—no gods required.
From Communications of the ACM
Objects Never? Well, Hardly Ever!
Revisiting the Great Objects Debate.
From Communications of the ACM
Principles of the Law of Software Contracts
An overview of a new set of legal principles for software contracts developed by the American Law Institute.
From ACM Opinion
The First Church of Robotics
This constant stream of stories about artificial intelligence suggests that machines are becoming smart and autonomous, a new form of life, and that we should...
From ACM Opinion
The Itch of Curiosity
Curiosity is one of those personality traits that gets short scientific shrift. It strikes me as a really important mental habit—how many successful people are...
From Communications of the ACM