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
Smoke Screening
Not until I walked with Bruce Schneier toward the mass of people unloading their laptops did it occur to me that it might not be possible for us to hang around...
From Communications of the ACM
Interfaces For the Ordinary User: Can We Hide Too Much?
Increasing the visibility and access to underlying file structure on consumer devices can vastly improve the user experience.
From Communications of the ACM
The IBM PC: From Beige Box to Industry Standard
Looking back at three decades of PC platform evolution.
From Communications of the ACM
The Difference Engine
Observations on cognitive diversity and team performance.
From Communications of the ACM
The Yin and Yang of Copyright and Technology
Examining the recurring conflicts between copyright and technology from piano rolls to domain-name filtering.
From ACM Careers
Infosec Careers: The New Demands
A major goal for information security students and institutions should be developing a cultural way of learning, instead of simply studying for tests and doing...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Moral Machines
A robot walks into a bar and says, "I’ll have a screwdriver." A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says "Give me what’s in your cash register."...
From ACM Opinion
An Open Letter from Internet Engineers to the .s. Congress
Today, a group of 83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers sent an open letter to members of the United States Congress, stating their opposition to the...
From ACM Opinion
Carrier Iq Gets Transparent About Its Mobile Monitoring
It's been a tumultuous few weeks for Carrier IQ, the mobile analytics outfit at the center of a continuing privacy brouhaha over what its diagnostic software...
From ACM Opinion
Why Transparent Tracking Needs Its Own App
Amid widespread concern over an obscure piece of smart-phone diagnostic software that some experts say could be used to collect and transmit sensitive information...
From ACM Opinion
Who Watches the Watchers?
Once again, specialized security technology from a western vendor was found being used by foreign regime on the U.S. trade embargo list.
From ACM Opinion
The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time
The data revolution has turned customers into unwitting business consultants, as our purchases and searches are tracked to improve everything from Web sites to...
From Communications of the ACM
Doctoral Program Rankings For U.S. Computing Programs: The National Research Council Strikes Out
A proposal for improving doctoral program ranking strategy.
From Communications of the ACM
The Grounding Practice
The skill of making and recognizing grounded claims is essential for professional practice. Getting objective data to support your conclusions is not enough.
From Communications of the ACM
Data Trends on Minorities and People with Disabilities in Computing
Seeking a comprehensive view of minority student demographics to determine what programs and policies are needed to promote diversity.
From Communications of the ACM
Debugging on Live Systems
It is more of a social than a technical problem.
From Communications of the ACM
On Turbocharged, Heat-Seeking, Robotic Fishing Poles
There is a well-known proverb, "If you give someone a fish, they'll eat for a day; if you teach them how to fish, they'll eat for a lifetime." The point is obvious...
From Communications of the ACM
The Legacy of Steve Jobs
Reflecting on the career and contributions of the Apple cofounder.
From Communications of the ACM
Life, Death, and the iPad: Cultural Symbols and Steve Jobs
In the days that followed Steve Jobs' death, he was frequently compared to Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. But Jobs was creating experiences, not technologies or...
From Communications of the ACM