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
The End of Privacy Began in the 1960s
In the fall of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson's administration announced a plan to consolidate hundreds of federal databases into one centralized National Data...
From ACM Opinion
Nailing Down the Nature of 'Oumuamua; It's Probably a Comet, but . . .
Shortly before Halloween, the chairman of Harvard's astronomy department openly declared that an interstellar object hurtling through our Solar System might just...
From ACM Opinion
CRISPR Inventor Feng Zhang Calls for Moratorium on Gene-Edited Babies
Feng Zhang, one of the inventors of the gene-editing technique CRISPR, has called for a global moratorium on using the technology to create gene-edited babies. ...
From ACM Opinion
Try Landing InSight on Mars (Without Exploding)
NASA just parked its InSight lander on Mars. Yes, Mars. This is a pretty big deal since quite a few Mars missions didn't make it.
From ACM Opinion
Inspired by Sci-Fi, an Airplane with No Moving Parts and a Blue Ionic Glow
Since their invention more than 100 years ago, airplanes have been moved through the air by the spinning surfaces of propellers or turbines.
From ACM Opinion
The New Radicalization of the Internet
Social media has played a key role in the recent rise of violent right-wing extremism in the United States, including three recent incidents—one in which a man...
From ACM Opinion
Alphabet Chairman Struggles With Google CEO's China Strategy
Alphabet Inc. Chairman John Hennessy is unsure about a banner strategy of the company's most-important executive.
From ACM News
The Snowden Legacy: What's Changed, Really?
Digital privacy has come a long way since June 2013. In the five years since documents provided by Edward Snowden became the basis for a series of revelations that...
From Communications of the ACM
Opportunities and Challenges in Search Interaction
Seeking to address a wider range of user requests toward task completion.
From ACM Opinion
How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars?
During the summer before the 2016 presidential election, John Seymour and Philip Tully, two researchers with ZeroFOX, a security company in Baltimore, unveiled...
From ACM Opinion
You Know What? Go Ahead and se the Hotel Wi-Fi
As you travel this holiday season, bouncing from airport to airplane to hotel, you'll likely find yourself facing a familiar quandary: Do I really trust this ...
From ACM Opinion
Video Doesn't Capture Truth
The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump...
From ACM Opinion
The Case Against Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is all the rage. It seems like hardly a day goes by without some news outlet describing the extraordinary things this technology promises.
From ACM Opinion
Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation
In my book Data and Goliath, I write about the value of privacy. I talk about how it is essential for political liberty and justice, and for commercial fairness...
From ACM Opinion
Your Smartphone Photos Are Totally Fake, and You Love It
The little camera on this phone has a superpower: It can see things our eyes cannot.
From ACM Opinion
Fake News: Can Teenagers Spot It?
If we are to make it less of a threat to democracy, that effort is going to need to start in schools.
From ACM Opinion
At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges
Every year at the World Internet Conference, held since 2014 in the photogenic canal town of Wuzhen near Shanghai, companies and government officials have convened ...
From ACM Opinion
AI Is Not 'Magic Dust' for Your Company, Says Google’s Cloud AI Boss
Andrew Moore is the new head of Google's Cloud AI business, a unit that is striving to make machine-learning tools and techniques more accessible and useful for...
From ACM Opinion
How to Hack an Election (Without Touching the Machines)
On Monday morning, just 24 hours before polls opened in the US midterm elections, President Trump sounded an alarm with a Tweet: "Law Enforcement has been strongly...
From ACM Opinion