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
How to Design a Better World
When I was young, my teachers praised me for being good at math and art, but my father would always tell people, "You know, John is good at math."
From ACM Opinion
Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.
From ACM News
'hashtag' Is the 2012 Word of the Year
In its 23rd annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted "hashtag" as the word of the year for 2012. Hashtag refers to the practice used on...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Medicine Is Now
In our era of instant gratification, the world of medicine seems like an outlier.
From ACM Careers
5 Nerds to Watch in 2013
When Steve Jobs died, there was a lot of talk about who would be the next Steve Jobs. But the truth is, rarely can one person reshape the future. And breakthroughs...
From ACM Opinion
What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?
I couldn't help thinking of John Le Carré's spy novels as I awaited my rendezvous with Jaron Lanier in a corner of the lobby of the stylish W Hotel just off Union...
From ACM Opinion
2012: What We Learned
There's a natural inclination for people at the end of each year to look back, take stock and try to draw some grand meaning or life lessons out of the events of...
From ACM Opinion
Marking the Birth of the Modern-Day Internet
A long time ago, my colleagues and I became part of a great adventure, teamed with a small band of scientists and technologists in the U.S. and elsewhere.
From ACM Opinion
How Big Data Can Solve America's Gun Problem
Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek.
From ACM Opinion
Looking Back: The Five Most Important Security Stories of 2012
The dance among blackhat, whitehat, and grayhat hackers grew ever more intricate in 2012, thanks to a steady stream of exploits, vulnerability discoveries, and...
From ACM Opinion
Social Media: Five Predictions For 2013
When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive—and...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Code Frees S to Think in New Ways
At the start of 2012, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York tweeted: "My New Year's resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy."
From ACM Opinion
Why China's Homemade Microchips Will Struggle to Displace Western Giants
If China's ultimate aim in the sphere of technology is to become completely self-sufficient, it is well on the way to achieving this ambitious goal.
From ACM Opinion
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Has Restored the Soul of Politics
In 1979, I was an aeronautical-engineering major at San Jose State University, sneaking time in the laser lab to make holograms or running over to the computer...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Yolo: Why 'big Data' Should Be the Word of the Year
"Big Data" hasn't made any of the words-of-the-year lists I've seen so far. That's probably because it didn't get the wide public exposure given to items like "...
From Communications of the ACM
Conference-Journal Hybrids
Considering how to combine the best elements of conferences and journals.
From Communications of the ACM
Five Lessons from Really Good History
Lessons learned from four award-winning books on the history of information technology.
From Communications of the ACM