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
We Can Survive Killer Asteroids
The chances that your tombstone will read "Killed by Asteroid" are about the same as they'd be for "Killed in Airplane Crash."
From ACM News
Jeffrey Bigham: sing the Crowd to Help People With Disabilities
Jeffrey Bigham's research uses Web-based applications and crowdsourcing to help people with disabilities in near real-time. Is it any surprise he won a NSF Career...
From ACM Opinion
How China Steals Our Secrets
For the last two months, senior government officials and private-sector experts have paraded before Congress and described in alarming terms a silent threat: cyberattacks...
From ACM Opinion
Vint Cerf Attacks European Internet Policy
Mr. Cerf, often called the father of the Internet, said that the so-called "right to be forgotten" online was "not possible to achieve."
From ACM Opinion
Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun
From state-sponsored cyberattacks to autonomous robotic weapons, 21st century war is increasingly disembodied.
From ACM Opinion
Living on a Stream: The Rise of Real-Time Video
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about streaming. I was marveling how easy it’s becoming to beam a live video feed, anywhere, not only to a friend...
From ACM Opinion
The Philosopher Whose Fingerprints Are All Over the Ftc's New Approach to Privacy
A mile or two away from Facebook's headquarters in Silicon Valley, Helen Nissenbaum of New York University was standing in a basement on Stanford's campus explaining...
From ACM Opinion
A Rosie Future: Jetsons-Like Gadgets with 'ambient Intelligence' Are Key to Smart Homes and Cities
Fifty years after The Jetsons promised us a future of robot maids, flying cars, video phones and meals at the push of a button, it seems that reality may actually...
From ACM Opinion
Review: Bad Apple
Apple's 1997 "Think Different" marketing campaign was one of its most memorable ever.
From ACM Opinion
Dns Changer
One fine night in November 2011 I got an opportunity to get my hands dirty, working on a project for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
From ACM Opinion
Kinect Lab Boss on the Future of Computer Interfaces
Andrew Blake is managing director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, the U.K. lab responsible for the machine learning software behind Kinect.
From ACM News
Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack
The story Richard Clarke spins has all the suspense of a postmodern geopolitical thriller.
From ACM Opinion
Your Privacy Is a Sci-Fi Fantasy
The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone...
From ACM Opinion
Was Cameron's Deep Dive as seless as Manned Space Flight?
Ninety-nine percent of what we know about the solar system came to us from unmanned probes.
From ACM Opinion
A National Id Card that Protects Voting Rights
In December, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened under the Voting Rights Act to stay a South Carolina voter ID law.
From ACM Opinion
Vernor Vinge Is Optimistic About the Collapse of Civilization
"I think that [civilization] coming back would actually be a very big surprise," he says. "The difference between us and us 10,000 years ago is … we know it can...
From ACM Opinion