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
Digital First Isn't an Option for Media—It's the Only Way Forward
Everywhere you look in the traditional media industry, you can see signs of turmoil and disruption: to take just a few recent examples, the New York Times is ...
From ACM Opinion
Even Ray Kurzweil Is Nervous About a Future with Hyper-Intelligent Machines
Ray Kurzweil is looking forward to the year 2029.
From ACM Opinion
Rose's Law For Quantum Computers
When I first met Geordie Rose in 2002, I was struck by his ability to explain complex quantum physics and the "spooky" underpinnings of quantum computers. I had...
From ACM Opinion
Hp: Why Bill And Dave Would Back A Break-p Plan
The time has come to break up Hewlett-Packard into parts. That’s the view of UBS analyst Steve Milunovich, who goes so far as to assert that founders Bill Hewlett...
From ACM Opinion
The Supreme Court Needs To Weigh In on Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking By Law Enforcement
Americans should have no reasonable expectation of privacy over the location data stored by their mobile phone.
From ACM Opinion
Ibm's Ginni Rometty Looks Ahead
Ginni Rometty's first customer conference as CEO of IBM was an unusual affair, especially by Big Blue's buttoned-up standards.
From ACM Opinion
Do Patent and Copyright Law Restrict Competition and Creativity Excessively?
To evaluate optimal patent protection for an invention, one has to consider both the cost of inventing and the cost of copying; the higher the ratio of the former...
From ACM News
Apple Designs the Future
It’s impossible to look anywhere these days without noticing how profoundly Apple has influenced design and computing interfaces.
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Gave the Mars Rover Its Eyes
Iconic pictures from the latest mission to the Red Planet are coming courtesy of space-imaging expert Michael Malin.
From ACM Opinion
How Can We Make Devices Better? By Studying What People Actually Do
Many new technologies are based on what companies and designers seem to think their users might want to do, or what they envision them wanting to do, but not as...
From ACM News
Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple should have continued to use Google’s mapping application in iOS 6 instead of swapping it out for its poorly received home...
From ACM Opinion
Could the Internet Ever 'Wake Up'?
In the world of sci-fi movie geekdom, Aug. 29, 1997, was a turning point for humanity: On that day, according to the Terminator films, the network of U.S. defense...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet? We Built That
Who created the Internet and why should we care? These questions, so often raised during the Bush-Gore election in 2000, have found their way back into the political...
From ACM Opinion
Interview With Eugene Kaspersky
Eugene Kaspersky has had an interesting, varied life, with more than his share of adventures, successes and challenges. He's seen and done a lot, but when he learned...
From ACM Opinion
Why Everyone (not Just Geeks) Should Care About Big Data
Hugo Campos has a cardiac defibrillator implanted in his body. It sends data about his heart to his doctors and back to the manufacturer, but it takes days to get...
From ACM Opinion
Meet Mira, the Supercomputer That Makes niverses
Cosmology is the most ambitious of sciences. Its goal, plainly stated, is to describe the origin, evolution, and structure of the entire universe, a universe that...
From ACM Opinion
Who's Behind the Wheel? Nobody.
The Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca is a 2.2-mile asphalt roller coaster plunging and soaring across California's tawny Monterey highlands.
From ACM Opinion
Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow
A number of Internet service providers, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., have recently upped the maximum speeds of broadband they offer...
From ACM Opinion
When Gps Tracking Violates Privacy Rights
For the right to personal privacy to survive in America in this digital age, courts must be meticulous in applying longstanding privacy protections to new technology...
From ACM Opinion