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
As We May Type
In 1984, the personal-computer industry was still small enough to be captured, with reasonable fidelity, in a one-volume publication, the Whole Earth Software Catalog...
From ACM Opinion
N.s.a. Director Gives Firm and Broad Defense of Surveillance Efforts
The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, said in an interview that to prevent terrorist attacks he saw no effective alternative to...
From ACM Opinion
A Court Order Is an Insider Attack
Commentators on the Lavabit case, including the judge himself, have criticized Lavabit for designing its system in a way that resisted court-ordered access to user...
From ACM Opinion
Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Here's What It Takes
Nico Sell, the cofounder of a secure communication app called Wickr, has appeared on television twice.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Microsoft's New Head of Research, Peter Lee
Microsoft's new head of research, Peter Lee, is tasked with helping the company invent the future.
From ACM Opinion
What Last Week's Anti-.s. Shift in Internet Governance Means to You
Last week a group of the Internet's governing organizations announced they were effectively turning their backs on the United States.
From ACM Opinion
Intel Sees a Future Where We Will Form 'relationships' with Our Gadgets
Rugged individualists aside, many people find themselves increasingly connected not just to one another but also to the devices that make those connections possible...
From ACM News
Here's Everything You Should Know About Nsa Address Book Spying in One Faq
A new report from The Washington Post, based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals that the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds...
From ACM Opinion
The Argument For Making the Misuse of Your Personal Data a Felony
Craig Mundie is Microsoft's senior advisor to the CEO, spending his time on big-picture stuff such as (according to his bio) "key strategic projects within the...
From ACM Opinion
Breaking the Internet
Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff's recent indictment of the United States' cyber-spying practices has profound global repercussions for the U.S vision of a borderless...
From ACM Opinion
The Nobel Prize in Physics Is Really a Nobel Prize in Math
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for the prediction of the Higgs boson, which was experimentally confirmed...
From ACM Opinion
Playing War: How the Military ses Video Games
According to popular discourse, video games are either the divine instrument of education’s future or the software of Satan himself, provoking young men to carry...
From ACM Opinion
Yep, Apple's A7 Looks Twice As Fast–at Least For Fractal Math
Is Apple's A7 chip twice as fast at processing and graphics, as Apple promised when announcing the new iPhone 5S?
From ACM Opinion
The Double Danger of the Nsa's 'collect It All' Policy on Surveillance
By now, most people are aware that the NSA collects massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans.
From ACM Opinion
The Evil Genius of Fantasy Football
Watching football means watching young men damage their brains.
From ACM Opinion
Here's Why Cops Should Be Required to Wear a Lapel Camera While on Duty
Police officers in Rialto, Calif., carry cameras to record their every action while on duty.
From ACM Opinion
Mongodb's Eliot Horowitz: The Database Renaissance Has Begun
MongoDB's CTO and cofounder Eliot Horowitz talks about the growing strength of the NoSQL market and the issues involved with alternatives to the traditional relational...
From ACM Opinion
The Many Meanings of Open
I was recently asked to talk about the idea of "open," and I realized the term is used in at least eight different ways.
From ACM Opinion
Nobel Prizes 2013: Computer Models That Can Mimic Life
We talk about computer modeling a lot in the context of climate science—powerful algorithms that help scientists get a better idea of how climate systems work,...
From ACM Opinion