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
One Year on Mars: Curiosity Rover's Chief Scientist John Grotzinger Speaks Out
One year ago Monday (Aug. 5), NASA's Mars rover Curiosity pulled off a stunning and unprecedented landing inside Gale Crater, kicking off a two-year surface mission...
From ACM Opinion
Hacktivist Richard Stallman Takes On Proprietary Software, Saas, and Open Source
Richard Stallman, revered by some as a genius (after all, he won a McArthur "genius" grant in 1990) and by others as a crackpot, was in New York Monday where he...
From ACM Opinion
Tech Essentials: How Cory Doctorow Gets Around
The co-editor of Boing Boing, novelist and fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation shares his tools for circumventing censorship in airports, easing back pain...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe
Ten years ago this week, Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican from Oklahoma, used a two-hour floor speech to launch his campaign on the credibility of climate...
From ACM Opinion
The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership
Imagine the government passed a law requiring all citizens to carry a tracking device. Such a law would immediately be found unconstitutional. Yet we all carry...
From ACM Opinion
The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can't Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook
"People love Facebook. They really love it," Biz Stone wrote earlier this month. "My mother-in-law looks hypnotized when she decides to put in some Facebook time...
From ACM Opinion
They Know Much More Than You Think
In mid-May, Edward Snowden, an American in his late twenties, walked through the onyx entrance of the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road in Hong Kong and checked in.
From ACM Careers
The Brains Behind Research on the Brain
While studying physics and electrical engineering as an MIT undergraduate in the late 1990s, Mehmet Fatih Yanik managed to avoid taking any biology classes until...
From ACM Opinion
A Day in the Life of My Iphone
Each morning at 7 a.m., I am awakened by the sound of a spaceship next to my bed.
From ACM Opinion
Mail from the (velvet) Cybercrime nderground
Over the past six months, "fans" of this Web site and its author have shown their affection in some curious ways.
From ACM Opinion
Ars Speaks with Vocal Nsa Critic Sen. Ron Wyden
As a series of top-secret NSA documents have been leaked over the past several weeks, the issue of widespread government surveillance has been front-and-center...
From ACM Opinion
Software-Defined Data Centers Could Change the It Landscape
IT vendors like VMware, Red Hat and Citrix are close to realizing a decades-old vision of virtualized data centers, which could usher in an era of commoditized...
From ACM Opinion
Justice For Alan Turing?
What do we do with the knowledge that people not all that different from ourselves have behaved with astounding stupidity and cruelty, over and over again, in the...
From ACM Opinion
Eff to Court: Forced Decryption nconstitutional
You shouldn't have to surrender your constitutional rights in order to safeguard your electronic privacy.
From ACM Opinion
Could the Government Get a Search Warrant For Your Thoughts?
We don't have a mind reading machine.
From ACM Opinion
I'm Still Waiting For My Phone to Become My Wallet
During the sweltering heat wave earlier this month, it seemed too hot to wear much, carry much or do much of anything at all.
From ACM Opinion
The Mooc Racket
The word mooc sounds a bit like slang from Goodfellas or the affectionate shortening of the already-affectionate name of a former outfielder for the New York Mets...
From ACM Opinion
To Develop Tomorrow's Engineers, Start Before They Can Tie Their Shoes
Think "student engineers" and you probably have visions of high school or college students.
From ACM Opinion