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
Schmidt: The Web Will Dissolve National Barriers
Google's Eric Schmidt believes the Internet is breaking down national barriers. "Loyalty is not just to a nation but to friends and interests," Schmidt said in...
From ACM Opinion
Good Reasons Not to Force Online Teaching
The average teen spends 16.7 hours a week on the Internet, not counting time spent with e-mail. Yikes. It's a good thing the Indiana General Assembly dropped...
From ACM Opinion
Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You
GM's current commitment to electric vehicle technology reminds me of the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s.
From ACM Opinion
I Love You, Killer Robots
It was way back in May 2010 that I first spotted the flying drones that will take over the world. They were in a video that Daniel Mellinger, one of the robots'...
From ACM Opinion
Nobody Wants to Learn How to Program
Many programming tutorials begin with basic programming principles: variables, loops, data types. This is an obvious way to teach programming to adults, but not...
From ACM Opinion
.s. Senators: No Time to Lose on Strengthening Cybersecurity
Four U.S. senators sound a warning on cybersecurity, comparing the present to the days prior to September 11, 2001. The system is blinking red, and we are failing...
From ACM Opinion
The Dark Side of Facebook
Your social networking pages are being policed by outsourced, unvetted moderators from third-world countries paid just $1 an hour.
From ACM Opinion
Why Driverless Cars Will Increase Tensions in Cities and Suburbs Alike
Driverless cars sound less and less like science fiction with each passing month, and that's prompted widespread discussion about how they might change society.
From ACM Opinion
How Young Is Too Young to Learn to Code?
When the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 spend exactly zero time in front of screens, what its members are concerned about is substitution—all...
From ACM Opinion
Is Ted Elitist?
In a nutshell, no. It certainly attracts people who are regarded as elite in their area of expertise. But the word "elitist" implies exclusionary, and there have...
From ACM Opinion
Social Media in 2012 Elections Will Make 2008 Look Like the Digital Dark Ages
Forget all the jibber-jabber in this presidential campaign about policy and strategy. The highlight for me of this election cycle came when the Obama campaign released...
From ACM Opinion
The Coming Entanglement: Bill Joy and Danny Hillis
Digital innovators Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Danny Hillis, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, talk with Scientific American Executive Editor...
From ACM Opinion
Web Privacy Standards: Easy to Break, Hard to Enforce
Over the past week, Google has been called out for bypassing default privacy settings in both Safari and Internet Explorer in order to serve up advertising cookies...
From ACM Opinion
Pinterest: Hot New Network or Another Quora?
After a decade of struggle, the social networking battlefield has quietened down. Facebook is the undisputed champion, while Twitter serves for instant news and...
From ACM TechNews
IBM Says Future Computers Will Be Constant Learners
Tomorrow's computers will constantly improve their understanding of the data they work with, which will help them provide users with more appropriate information...
From ACM Opinion
The .n. Threat to Internet Freedom
On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet.
From ACM Careers
Bill Campbell Makes Future of Journalism His Next Crusade
Buried way down in a recent news release announcing a media innovation institute to be shared by Stanford and Columbia universities was an intriguing tidbit: The...
From ACM Opinion
The Connected Human: How the World Is About to Get Even Smaller
It may be difficult to imagine a world where human beings are even more connected than we are now.
From Communications of the ACM
Q&A: Chief Strategiest
ACM CEO John White talks about initiatives to serve the organization's professional members, increase international activities, and reform computer science education...
From Communications of the ACM