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
Thoughts on Pew's Latest Report: Notable Findings on Race and Privacy
Pew Internet and American Life Project (in collaboration with Berkman) unveiled a brilliant report about "Teens, Social Media, and Privacy." As a researcher who's...
From ACM Opinion
Telecom's Big Players Hold Back the Future
If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs' Dream Device Has Arrived
Just before he died, Steve Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson about his dream for revolutionizing television.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Propaganda: Sean Gourley on Big Data and the 'war of Ideas'
In 2009, Sean Gourley, an Oxford-trained physicist, gave a TED talk called "The Mathematics of War."
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's T.j. Campana
The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has been spearheading botnet takedowns and other anti-cybercrime operations for many years, and it has had remarkable success.
From ACM Opinion
Will Giving the Internet Eyes and Ears Mean the End of Privacy?
The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool.
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to Google Island
I awoke aboard a boat, just before daybreak, which was weird.
From ACM Opinion
Is Computing Speed Set to Make a Quantum Leap?
"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost," wrote Richard Feynman, the greatest physicist of his day, "not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really...
From ACM Opinion
Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?
Forty-five years after Intel was founded by Silicon Valley legends Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, it is the world's leading semiconductor company.
From ACM Opinion
'big Brother' Is Big Business?
The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer.
From ACM Opinion
Calea Ii: Risks of Wiretap Modifications to Endpoints
I join a group of twenty computer scientists in issuing a report criticizing an FBI plan to require makers of secure communication tools to redesign their systems...
From ACM Opinion
Should Patents Be Awarded to Software?
The goal of the U.S. patent system is clear: to provide individuals or companies with an incentive to innovate by offering them 20 years of exclusive rights to...
From ACM Opinion
At Google Conference, Cameras Even in the Bathroom
The future came crashing down on me this week at the Google I/O developer conference while I stood at a bathroom urinal.
From ACM Opinion
Google Glass Isn't Lame
I've spent the last few weeks lowering my expectations for Google Glass.
From ACM Opinion
Strongbox and Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz was not yet a legend when, almost two years ago, I asked him to build an open-source, anonymous in-box.
From ACM Opinion
Moshe Vardi: Robots Could Put Humans Out of Work By 2045
Robots began replacing human brawn long ago—now they're poised to replace human brains.
From ACM News
Laptop
Gregory Nagy, a professor of classical Greek literature at Harvard, is a gentle academic of the sort who, asked about the future, will begin speaking of Homer and...
From ACM Opinion
Stanford Professor (former Nasa Official) Explains How Nasa Might Revive the Kepler Space Telescope
NASA officials announced Wednesday, May 15, that the Kepler space telescope—the agency's primary instrument for detecting planets beyond our solar system—had suffered...
From ACM Opinion
Escape Plans
When the Russian asteroid became a fireball in the air over Chelyabinsk, destroying buildings and injuring hundreds, we were lucky it wasn’t worse.
From ACM Opinion