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
Many Hands Make Fractals Tactile
Human beings are born with an innate capacity to learn languages. Yet while mathematics is the language of pattern and form, many people struggle to acquire even...
From ACM Opinion
The Fbi Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors
Just imagine if all the applications and services you saw or heard about at CES earlier this month had to be designed to be "wiretap ready" before they could be...
From ACM Careers
Atari's Bankruptcy: Gen X Bids Pong Farewell
Reading the news that Atari’s U.S. subsidiary is filing for bankruptcy was a little like hearing that Bob Hope died—in that you were surprised to discover he had...
From ACM Opinion
For Amusement Only: The Life and Death of the American Arcade
If you’ve never been inside a "real" arcade, it could be hard to distinguish one from say, oh, a Dave & Buster's. Authenticity is a hard nut to crack, but there...
From ACM Opinion
Chipmaker Races to Save Stephen Hawking's Speech as His Condition Deteriorates
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has long relied on technology to help him connect with the outside world despite the degenerative motor neuron disease he has...
From ACM Opinion
What the Fbi Doesn't Want You To Know About Its 'secret' Surveillance Techniques
The FBI had to rewrite the book on its domestic surveillance activities in the wake of last January’s landmark Supreme Court decision in United States v. Jones.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Oracle's Latest Java Patch. Just Kill the Program in Your Browser For Good
After months of inaction and even a warning from the Department of Homeland Security, Oracle has finally released a fix for yet another security vulnerability in...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Kurzweil on Teaching Human Language to Computers
Famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Google last month to work on "some of the hardest problems in computer science," specifically machine learning and...
From ACM Opinion
What the Baseball Hall of Fame Decision Could Mean For the Singularity
If you buy into Ray Kurzweil's vision of the Singularity, then the future is a marvelous place where we’re all physically and mentally enhanced and living longer...
From ACM Opinion
Where Is Lt. Zuckerberg?
I often wonder how General Billy Mitchell must have felt as he relentlessly advocated for the use of strategic airpower while surrounded by leadership who did not...
From ACM Opinion
Hp Ceo Whitman Dubs Windows 8 a Work in Progress
There are plenty of Meg Whitman doubters out there. Some say the former EBay chief executive officer doesn't have the requisite big company experience to run a...
From ACM Opinion
President Reif Writes to Mit Community Regarding Aaron Swartz
Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community...
From ACM Opinion
Meeting with Biden Is a Mistake for the Game Industry
A couple weeks ago, an industry friend of mine told me that the office for Vice President Joe Biden was reaching out to so-called "game industry leaders."
From ACM Opinion
Is It Time For the Internet to Get the Plumber In?
The strange thing about the Internet is that it went from being something exotic to something mundane almost without us noticing it.
From ACM Opinion
Aaron Swartz and Me, Over a Loosely Intertwined Decade
I don't remember the first time I heard about Aaron Swartz. It probably was from reading Dave Winer's blog more than 10 years ago when I was an undergraduate at...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Should Remember Aaron Swartz
The Internet is not so old. Its graybeards live still. Vint Cerf, author of the Internet Protocol, has been installed as Google's "chief Internet evangelist," a...
From ACM Opinion
Seven More Questions For Sap's Co-Ceo Bill Mcdermott
The last time we heard from SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, he talked a great deal about a then-upcoming product strategy called HANA. The idea was to move all of SAP's...
From ACM Opinion
The Future According to Google's Larry Page
When Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, the giant advertising agency, visited Google this past fall, CEO Larry Page sent a car to pick him up at the Rosewood...
From ACM Opinion