acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Opinion


bg-corner

Seeing the Future of the Office Internet
From ACM News

Seeing the Future of the Office Internet

Inside the headquarters of networking giant Cisco in San Jose, California, lies a technology showcase where executives can test out advanced technologies like...

Let's Get Back to Real Space Exploration
From ACM Opinion

Let's Get Back to Real Space Exploration

Time to ditch the black armbands and look beyond low Earth orbit again. The shuttle's passing marks the start of an exciting new era.

From ACM Opinion

A Turbulent End to the Pc Era

The personal computer recently celebrated its 30th birthday. Then last week, Silicon Valley staged the PC's funeral.

In Praise of 'Wilkes, Wheeler, and Gill'
From Communications of the ACM

In Praise of 'Wilkes, Wheeler, and Gill'

Sixty years ago, Maurice Wilkes, David Wheeler, and Stanley Gill produced the first textbook on programming: The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital...

From ACM News

The Death of Booting ­p

Remember "booting up"? It was the first thing you did every morning—you waited two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even longer while your computer ran through...

Apple's Rise to Top Means Less Than You Think
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Rise to Top Means Less Than You Think

With Apple officially becoming the world's most valuable company—at least for a day—it's tempting to engage in lofty talk about what this says about the rise...

From ACM News

Google's Self-Driving Wreck: Really Human Error?

When a self-driving car crashes, one just has to wonder about those robots. Are they really all they're cracked up to be? Or might they be just as cracked as...

Director of Mit's Personal Robots Group on Designing Robots that Will Be ­seful in Our Everyday Lives
From ACM Opinion

Director of Mit's Personal Robots Group on Designing Robots that Will Be ­seful in Our Everyday Lives

It's all about human-robot interaction in this more interpersonal sense, like you saw in Star Wars. Until then, the way we reacted with robots was [by] remote...

Meet Dark Tangent, the Hacker Behind Black Hat and Def Con
From ACM News

Meet Dark Tangent, the Hacker Behind Black Hat and Def Con

The word "hacker" evokes all kinds of scary images. But Jeff Moss says hackers are exactly what the world needs more of, because they can make the Internet safer...

David Ferrucci, Lead Researcher of Ibm's Watson Project
From ACM News

David Ferrucci, Lead Researcher of Ibm's Watson Project

How do you improve on a computer that beat the world's best Jeopardy! players? Have Watson team up with humanity.

The Next Mars Rover
From ACM Opinion

The Next Mars Rover

Maria Zuber, the Earle A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Planetary Science and head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, says...

From ACM News

The Auteur vs. the Committee

At Apple, one is the magic number.

The Edison of Silicon Valley
From ACM Opinion

The Edison of Silicon Valley

Steve Perlman, Silicon Valley’s self-styled Thomas Edison, has found a way to increase wireless capacity by a factor of 1,000.

From ACM Opinion

The Internet of Things (infographic)

When we think of being connected to the Internet, our minds immediately shift to our computers, phones, and most recently tablets. This week at Cisco live, I...

The Campaign to Terrify You About Emp
From ACM Opinion

The Campaign to Terrify You About Emp

From Newt Gingrich to a Congressional "EMP Caucus," some conservatives warn the electronics-frying blast could pose gravely underestimated dangers to the U.S.

Kevin Mitnick Shows How Easy It Is to Hack a Phone
From ACM News

Kevin Mitnick Shows How Easy It Is to Hack a Phone

British tabloid News of the World said it is closing down over a phone hacking scandal in which workers for the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper allegedly snooped...

Should the Government Need a Search Warrant to Track Your Car with Gps?
From ACM News

Should the Government Need a Search Warrant to Track Your Car with Gps?

The Supreme Court ended its term with a high-profile ruling that violent video games are protected by the First Amendment, but a bigger technology decision could...

Nasa's Lessons From The Outer Limits
From ACM Opinion

Nasa's Lessons From The Outer Limits

In April 1981, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a space shuttle program meant to take astronauts, cargo, research experiments and military...

The Tragic Decline of Blackberry
From ACM Opinion

The Tragic Decline of Blackberry

Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the venerable BlackBerry devices, will always be remembered as the company that liberated corporate email from the PC. In...

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
From ACM Opinion

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?

Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account