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 Communications of the ACM
How We Build Things: . . . and Why Things Are 90% Complete
It seems to be a law of software development that things always take longer than we expect. When a project manager talks to a designer, programmer, or tester...
From Communications of the ACM
The Apple-Samsung Lawsuits
In search of a middle ground in the intellectual property wars.
From ACM Opinion
Debunker of Doomsday: Nasa Scientist Tries to Talk Some Sense Into the World
Swirling with lunacy and paranoia, the theories warn of mayhem and cataclysm.
From ACM Opinion
'the Idea We Live in a Simulation Isn't Science Fiction'
If the universe is just a Matrix-like simulation, how could we ever know? Physicist Silas Beane thinks he has the answer.
From ACM Opinion
How Hackers Exploit 'the Seven Deadly Sins'
This isn't the high tech wizardry of Hollywood but is a good, old-fashioned confidence trick.
From ACM News
How Google Is Taking the Knowledge Graph Global
Earlier this month, Google shared a fascinating statistic. The number of items in the company's Knowledge Graph—its database of people, places, and things, and...
From ACM Opinion
Intellectual Ventures: Why the Patent System Needs Aggregators Like S
The U.S. patent system borrowed from mainland Europe a concept that had evolved over hundreds of years: the "moral right" for inventors to protect their ideas....
From ACM Opinion
A Plea to Google: Protect Our Email Privacy
We recently learned that even the director of the CIA, David Petraeus, can't seem to secure his private email conversations properly, and over the past month tech...
From ACM Opinion
Internet Regulation Seen at National Level As Treaty Talks Fail
The world's major Internet companies, backed by U.S. policymakers, got much of what they wanted last week when many nations refused to sign a global telecommunications...
From ACM Opinion
Red Pill, Blue Pill: Is the niverse Just a Giant Computer Simulation?
I've started making my way (skeptically) through Ray Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind, and at the recommendation of a friend, I've also started keeping tabs on ...
From ACM Opinion
Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi
For those of us who have been intoxicated by the powers and possibilities of mathematics, the mystery isn't why that fascination developed but why it isn't universal...
From ACM Opinion
How the n's 'game-Changing' Internet Treaty Failed
Did you know that, for the past two weeks, the future of the Internet has been at stake?
From ACM Opinion
I Am Not Big Brother
I've grown accustomed to reading inaccurate accounts of my day job. I'm in political data.
From ACM Opinion
Zeitgeist 2012: What Piqued Your Curiosity This Year?
As 2012 comes to a close, it's time for our 12th annual Year-End Zeitgeist—an in-depth look at the "spirit of the times" as seen through the billions of searches...
From ACM Opinion
IBM Research Honcho: From the Pentagon to the 'toy Shop'
Zachary Lemnios, who was U.S. assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, gave up his Pentagon role to become IBM's vice president of research...
From ACM Opinion
Workplace Distractions: Here's Why You Won't Finish This Article
In the few minutes it takes to read this article, chances are you'll pause to check your phone, answer a text, switch to your desktop to read an email from the...
From ACM Opinion
The Fog of Cyberwar
In mid-2010, thousands of centrifuges, enriching uranium at Iranian nuclear research facilities, spun out of control.
From ACM Opinion
'biology Is a Manufacturing Capability'
Soon we'll be able to engineer living things with mechanical precision, says Tom Knight, father of synthetic biology.
From ACM Careers
How London's Silicon Roundabout Really Got Started
Four years ago developer Matt Biddulph jokingly coined "Silicon Roundabout" as a description of East London's small but growing startup scene—now it's become the...
From ACM Opinion