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The Meaning of (making) Life
From ACM Opinion

The Meaning of (making) Life

Christina Agapakis is a rising star among the new generation of biology researchers. Trained in the science of custom-building organisms known as synthetic biology...

Nate Silver: What Big Data Can't Predict
From ACM Opinion

Nate Silver: What Big Data Can't Predict

Statistician Nate Silver isn't famous because he's a mathematical genius. (Although, he is.)

Here's Why Bitcoin Is the Future of Money
From ACM Opinion

Here's Why Bitcoin Is the Future of Money

The interesting thing about Bitcoin isn't what it is today. What's interesting is that this experiment is turning into a serious proving ground for the idea of...

Christoph Bregler on the Future of Surveillance
From ACM Opinion

Christoph Bregler on the Future of Surveillance

Surveillance camera images of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev catalyzed not only the manhunt which caught them, but calls for more surveillance cameras around the...

Why the Anatomy Lab Remains a Fixture of Medicine
From ACM Careers

Why the Anatomy Lab Remains a Fixture of Medicine

For hundreds of years, physicians have been dissecting the dead to learn about the inner workings of the human body.

The Medium of the Moment
From ACM Opinion

The Medium of the Moment

After the Boston Marathon bombings, the process by which breaking news and information are generated and disseminated looked more ragged and exposed than ever: ...

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt
From ACM Opinion

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt

The first official announcement that law enforcement agencies had concluded their manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't come at a...

How Ray Kurzweil Will Help Google Make the ­ltimate AI Brain
From ACM Opinion

How Ray Kurzweil Will Help Google Make the ­ltimate AI Brain

Google has always been an artificial intelligence company, so it really shouldn't have been a surprise that Ray Kurzweil, one of the leading scientists in the field...

Apple's Next Big Thing
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Next Big Thing

The iPad has always labored under the shadow of its little brother the iPhone.

­nraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link By Link
From ACM Opinion

­nraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link By Link

It is America's first fully interactive national tragedy of the social media age.

Human-Centered Computing
From Communications of the ACM

Human-Centered Computing: A New Degree For Licklider's World

Combining computing and psychology, J.C.R. Licklider's prescient ideas are being applied in contemporary educational settings.

Google Execs Say 'the Power of Information Is ­nderrated'
From ACM Opinion

Google Execs Say 'the Power of Information Is ­nderrated'

"We fear that the natural action for, in particular, autocratic governments experiencing what we describe as 'virtual urbanization' will be to balkanize the Internet...

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution
From ACM Opinion

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet?

The Flattening of Design
From ACM Opinion

The Flattening of Design

It might sound audacious to think that Microsoft, the arbiter of uncool, was at the forefront of design a few years ago. But it was.

#freejahar Hashtag Rallies Emerging Cult of Boston Bomb Suspect
From ACM Opinion

#freejahar Hashtag Rallies Emerging Cult of Boston Bomb Suspect

Barely two days after cops apprehended Suspect #2 in the Boston Marathon bombings, supporters of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are rallying online.

'total Noise,' Only Louder
From ACM Opinion

'total Noise,' Only Louder

Kids used to ask each other: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears, does it make a sound? Now there's a microphone in every tree and a loudspeaker on every...

In New Home, Exploratorium Widens Its Interactive Appeal
From ACM Opinion

In New Home, Exploratorium Widens Its Interactive Appeal

The Exploratorium science museum, which reopened Wednesday on a new nine-acre campus by the San Francisco Bay, is striking for how closely it has hewed to its quirky...

The $12 Gongkai Phone
From ACM Opinion

The $12 Gongkai Phone

How cheap can you make a phone?

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
From ACM Opinion

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now

On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Geer, Thieme: Specialization and Institutionalization Have Transformed Security
From ACM Opinion

Geer, Thieme: Specialization and Institutionalization Have Transformed Security

Two elders of information security came to Source Boston 2013 Wednesday morning to encourage the next generation to grab the torch from them and to urge great caution...
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