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
Software Studies, Rethinking Computing For Development in Africa
The field of computer science builds on Western industry, military and government interests. Modern day computing has almost wholly emerged out of a western context...
From ACM Opinion
In Defense of Computers and the Internet For Learning
If you’re reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader, please stop what you’re doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever...
From ACM Opinion
Does the Internet Make You Dumber?
The cognitive effects are measurable: We're turning into shallow thinkers, says Nicholas Carr.
From ACM Opinion
Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?
Amid the silly videos and spam are the roots of a new reading and writing culture, says Clay Shirky.
From ACM TechNews
Vint Cerf on What the Net Needs Now
Google's Vint Cerf says the Internet needs better security across all of its levels, and says that common ground must be found concerning what constitutes Internet...
From ACM TechNews
The Cybersecurity Changes We Need
The Obama administration's progress toward the goal of making the U.S. digital infrastructure "secure, trustworthy, and resilient" has been sluggish due to the...
From ACM Opinion
Against Instant Replay
Extraordinary cases make bad law. In a sense, Armando Galarraga’s non-perfect perfect game, spoiled by an umpire’s call on what should have been the 27th out, offers...
From ACM Opinion
Venter: The Implications of Our Synthetic Cell
We did not create life from scratch: we transformed existing life into new life. Nor did we design and build a new chromosome from scratch. Rather, using only digitised...
From Communications of the ACM
Institutional Review Boards and Your Research
Researchers in computer science departments throughout the U.S. are violating federal law and their own organization's...
From Communications of the ACM
Intel's Rebates: Above Board or Below the Belt?
Over several years, Intel paid billions of dollars to its customers. Was it to force them to boycott products developed by its rival AMD or so they could sell its...
From Communications of the ACM
Privacy By Design: Moving From Art to Practice
Designing privacy into systems at the beginning of the development process necessitates the effective translation of privacy principles, models, and mechanisms...
From Communications of the ACM
Myths and Fallacies of 'Personally Identifiable Information'
Developing effective privacy protection technologies is a critical challenge for security and privacy research as the amount and variety of data collected about...
From ACM Opinion
From Facebook, Answering Privacy Concerns with New Settings
Six years ago, we built Facebook around a few simple ideas. People want to share and stay connected with their friends and the people around them. If we give people...
From ACM Opinion
The Death of the Open Web
The Web is a teeming commercial city. It's haphazardly planned. Its public spaces are mobbed, and signs of urban decay abound in broken links and abandoned projects...
From ACM Opinion
How the .s. Military Can Win the Robotic Revolution
One of the great conundrums of war and technology is the odd fact that there is no such thing as a permanent first-mover advantage.
From ACM Opinion
The Cyborg Insects Are Coming!
Telepathic helmets. Grid-computing swarms of cyborg insects, some for surveillance, some with lethal stingers. New cognitive-enhancement drugs. (What? AdderallProvigil...
From ACM Opinion
Web Browsers Leave 'fingerprints' Behind as You Surf the Net
New research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has found that an overwhelming majority of web browsers have unique signatures--creating identifiable "fingerprints"...
From ACM TechNews
Gary Mcgraw on Developing Secure Software
Cigital CTO Gary McGraw and colleagues examined 30 companies' secure software development practices to create a measurement instrument that companies could use...
From ACM Opinion
Why Publishers Should Beware the App Store
In a brilliant column published 16 years ago, the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco explained the difference between Apple and Microsoft in terms of the divide between...
From ACM Opinion