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
Author Richard K. Morgan Wants to Destroy Your Mars Fantasies
Richard K. Morgan has spent most of the past decade working on his fantasy trilogy A Land Fit For Heroes.
From ACM Opinion
Prepping for a Flood of Heavenly Bodies
This is a story of getting the good out of the bad, said Mario Jurić.
From ACM Opinion
My Thoughts Are My Password, Because My Brain Reactions Are nique
Your brain is an inexhaustible source of secure passwords—but you might not have to remember anything. Passwords and PINs with letters and numbers are relatively...
From ACM Opinion
How the Blockchain Could Break Big Tech's Hold on A.I.
Pairing artificial intelligence and the blockchain might be what you would expect from a scammer looking to make a quick buck in 2018.
From ACM Opinion
Paper and the Case for Going Low-Tech in the Voting Booth
In September 2017, barely two months before Virginians went to the polls to pick a new governor, the state's board of elections convened an emergency session. The...
From ACM Opinion
Brain Implants: Will They Be sed to Heal or for Control?
Would you trust a Manchurian Candidate or a Terminator to heal you? Shouldn't you automatically distrust anyone who has received a brain implant by the military...
From ACM Opinion
No, A.I. Won't Solve the Fake News Problem
In his testimony before Congress this year, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, addressed concerns about the strategically disseminated misinformation...
From ACM Opinion
A Q&A With Micron Technology's Memory Mastermind
For over 50 years, the exponential shrinking of circuit components on chips predicted by Gordon Moore has allowed all sorts of modern wonders, from personal computers...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Search for Aliens Could nite s Here on Earth
If aliens are trying to talk to us (or even if they are not), Jill Tarter will be the one to find them.
From ACM Opinion
Blockchains Won't Fix Internet Voting Security, and Could Make It Worse
Looking to modernize voting practices, speed waiting times at the polls, increase voter turnout and generally make voting more convenient, many government officials—and...
From ACM Opinion
Evolution Is at Work in Computers as well as Life Sciences
Artificial intelligence research has a lot to learn from nature.
From ACM Opinion
You're Expecting Too Much Out of Boston Dynamics' Robots
At the WIRED25 festival in San Francisco Sunday evening, Boston Dynamics' SpotMini robot got onstage and did what no other quadruped robot has done before: It danced...
From ACM Opinion
Editing the Internet's Second Screen
The great social media cleanup of the past two years hasn't seemed to leave it much cleaner.
From ACM Opinion
How Do You Find an Alien Ocean? Margaret Kivelson Figured It Out
The data was like nothing Margaret Kivelson and her team of physicists ever expected.
From ACM Opinion
How Sci-Fi Like WarGames Led to Real Policy During the Reagan Administration
This year, John Badham's WarGames—one of the movies most beloved by hackers, techies, and tech policy wonks (like me!)—celebrates its 35th anniversary.
From ACM Opinion
Why Do Computers se So Much Energy?
Microsoft is currently running an interesting set of hardware experiments.
From ACM Opinion
This Tech Would Have Spotted the Secret Chinese Chip in Seconds
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, spies in China managed to insert chips into computer systems that would allow external control of those systems.
From ACM Opinion