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
Your Privacy Is a Sci-Fi Fantasy
The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone...
From ACM Careers
The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever
Stanford doesn't want me. I can say that because it's a documented fact: I was once denied admission in writing.
From ACM Opinion
Was Cameron's Deep Dive as seless as Manned Space Flight?
Ninety-nine percent of what we know about the solar system came to us from unmanned probes.
From ACM Opinion
A National Id Card that Protects Voting Rights
In December, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened under the Voting Rights Act to stay a South Carolina voter ID law.
From ACM Opinion
Apps Could Be Overtaking the Web
An app for weather. An app for banking. An app for news, for sports, for games, for travel, for department stores, for insurance companies, for ….wait: Who needs...
From ACM Opinion
Vernor Vinge Is Optimistic About the Collapse of Civilization
"I think that [civilization] coming back would actually be a very big surprise," he says. "The difference between us and us 10,000 years ago is … we know it can...
From ACM TechNews
Robotics Trends For 2012
IEEE's Erico Guizzo and Hizook.com founder Travis Deyle make several predictions regarding what will be big news in robotics this year.
From Communications of the ACM
Is Human Mobility Tracking a Good Idea?
Considering the trade-offs associated with human mobility tracking.
From ACM Opinion
Dangerously Vague Cybersecurity Legislation Threatens Civil Liberties
There is a spate of proposed cybersecurity legislation working its way through the House and Senate. The bills are aimed primarily at facilitating cooperation regarding...
From ACM Opinion
Can Speech-Recognition Software Work in Mandarin?
In anticipation of Apple’s introduction of Siri in Chinese this year, I decided to try Dragon, a line of smartphone voice apps by Nuance Communications—the company...
From ACM Opinion
Data Mining and Kids: Thank Goodness She Didn't Pay Cash!
Remember the movie The Minority Report? It is based upon a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. Well, the movie is supposed to portray an implausible dystopian...
From ACM Opinion
The 4g Fakeout
Not long ago, when desktops and laptops were the main computers we used every day, PC makers peddled what's known as the megahertz myth.
From ACM Opinion
The Personalized Web Is Just an Interest Graph Away
You know how our social graphs are creeping into every aspect of our Web lives, from search results to coupons? Well, get ready for something a lot more personal...
From ACM Opinion
Ray Ozzie on Startups, Microsoft, and What He's Dreaming p Next
Ray Ozzie, online collaboration pioneer and former Microsoft chief software architect, shared his thoughts on the startup climate, his tenure at Microsoft, the...
From ACM Opinion
Safecast Geiger Counter Reference Design
This past weekend marked the anniversary of the Tohoku-Oki earthquake that devastated Japan.
From ACM Opinion
Xbox at 10 in Europe: How the Console Shaped Gaming History
The games industry was a very different place 10 years ago. Still dominated by Japanese games and Japanese games machines, Microsoft's plans to launch its own dedicated...
From ACM Opinion
Was Our Interview with Lulzsec Hacker an Fbi Set-p?
In the early hours of 30 June last year, my time spent monitoring the Anonymous chat room finally paid off: "Sabu" would grant me an interview.
From ACM Opinion
The Technology of a Better Footnote
Footnotes—or endnotes, or just notes; whatever you want to call them—are a problem. They're a problem for writers and a problem for readers and a problem for typesetters...
From ACM Opinion