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 Communications of the ACM
Training Users vs. Training Soldiers: Experiences from the Battlefield
How military training methods can be applied to more effectively teach computer users.
From Communications of the ACM
The Idea Idea
What if practices rather than ideas are the main source of innovation?
From Communications of the ACM
Do Software Copyrights Protect What Programs Do?
A case before the European Court of Justice has significant implications for innovation and competition in the software industry.
From Communications of the ACM
War 2.0: Cyberweapons and Ethics
Considering the basic ethical questions that must be resolved in the new realm of cyberwarfare.
From ACM Opinion
Apple Needs More Than A Good Lawyer in China
Apple has no problem getting Chinese consumers to desire its products, as a near-riot outside its Beijing store showed in January. But the U.S. tech giant has been...
From ACM Opinion
Why Lightsquared Failed: It Was Science, Not Politics
The seeds of LightSquared's failure to win government clearance to build a 4G-LTE network can, ironically, be found in the "approval" the company received just...
From ACM Opinion
Harvard Mapping My Dna Turns Scary as Threatening Gene Emerges
Four months after I walked into a lab at Harvard University and gave a vial of blood to have my genome sequenced, my search to understand my DNA led me to Mark...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is Broken; We Need to Start Over
Last year, the level and ferocity of cyberattacks on the Internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: let the Internet wither...
From ACM Opinion
Lightsquared Blew It, and Here's Why
LightSquared may have had a great case for building its wireless network, but the fledgling company lacked the political tact to see it through.
From ACM Opinion
A High-Tech War on Leaks
Back in 2006, before the Obama administration made leak prosecutions routine, a panel of three federal appeals court judges in New York struggled to decide whether...
From ACM Opinion
The Mathematical Equation that Caused the Banks to Crash
It was the holy grail of investors. The Black-Scholes equation, brainchild of economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, provided a rational way to price a financial...
From ACM Opinion
Cyberwar Is the New Yellowcake, Fueling a Cybersecurity-Industrial Complex
In last month's State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to pass "legislation that will secure our country from the growing dangers of cyber...
From ACM Opinion
A Cyber Risk to the .s.
In a recent briefing to Congress about worldwide threats, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the danger of cyberattacks will equal or surpass the danger...
From ACM Opinion
Tides Are Changing For Web Surfers
David Weinberger has a new book out entitled Too Big to Know in which he argues that one of the implications of a comprehensively networked society is that the...
From ACM Opinion
Are Supercomputers Worth Their Super Price Tags?
"Why do we have to aim for the world's No. 1 — what's wrong with being the world's No. 2?" That short question about Japan's vaunted K supercomputer program has...
From ACM Opinion
Google Knows Too Much About You
If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and...
From ACM Opinion
Five Reasons The Robo-Car Haters Are Wrong
The self-driving cars we’ve been promised since the dawn of the auto age are here.
From ACM Opinion
No Objections to Nano?
Some forms of biotechnology have become notoriously controversial. Genetic modification of crops, for example, altered the food supply in ways some consumers...
From ACM Opinion