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
The Idea Idea
What if practices rather than ideas are the main source of innovation?
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
Tech Pioneer Channels Hard Lessons Into Silicon Valley Success
Modern computer games and their fast-paced graphics require an incredible amount of computing horsepower. So much, in fact, that the kinds of chips commonly used...
From ACM Opinion
Graphic Designers Are Ruining the Web
What happens when you click on a Weblink? Here's one answer: A request goes from your computer to a server identified by the URL of the desired link. The server...
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
Apple's Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the Ipad
Apple's iPhones and iPads get most of the attention, but Apple is now directing the spotlight on the Mac.
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
Researchers Detail Flaw in Online Cryptography, but Don't Panic
First, the bad news: A small number of active RSA public encryption keys, a popular type of encryption protocol that secures billions of online transactions, offer...
From ACM Opinion
What Dropbox Can Teach S About Cloud Computing
Dropbox is the most deceptively simple of services.
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
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
Apps For Ipad 3: What Apple Should Demo at the Grand nveiling
All indicators suggest Apple will unveil the iPad 3 during the first week of March. That’s less than a month away, and sources at The Next Web say Apple is in "crunch...
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
Who Cares About Apple TV? Bring Us the Apple Car
The much-mythologized Apple television could be a terrible next step for the company.
From ACM News
Api: Three Letters That Change Life, the niverse, and Even Detroit
Sam Ramji met AT&T chief technology officer John Donovan on a speed date—or at least the tech world equivalent of a speed date.
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
Designing Windows 8, or How to Redesign a Religion
There are lot of hard jobs at Microsoft. But Sam Moreau just might have the hardest of all. Or at least the most harrowing. Over the past five years, he's taken...
From ACM Opinion
How to Tackle Cybersecurity
There is a right way and a wrong way to address cybersecurity.
From ACM Opinion