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
In 2018, Voice Assistants Will Make the Leap Out of Your Home
At one section of Google's giant outdoor booth at CES was an impromptu, carney-style one-man show, with a guy wearing dark sunglasses and a white Google Assistant...
From ACM Opinion
Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance, and Makes It Even Worse
In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was legally collecting millions of Americans' phone calls and electronic communications—including...
From ACM Opinion
Nissan Wants to Make You a Better Driver By Reading Your Mind
Might the car of the future be able to read your mind?
From ACM Opinion
Meltdown and Spectre Expose the Dark Side of Superfast Computers
Hundreds of gadget makers and software companies at this week's annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas are staking the success of their newest products...
From ACM Opinion
Exoplanet Science 2.0
It is more than two decades since we learnt that the Universe is awash with other worlds. Since 1992, more than 3,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars...
From ACM Opinion
Even Realistic Videogames Like Call of Duty Won't Help S Win Wars
Millennials can now storm the beaches of Normandy and fight Nazis with a new level of realism.
From ACM Opinion
Trust in Digital Technology Will Be the Internet's Next Frontier, For 2018 and Beyond
After decades of unbridled enthusiasm—bordering on addiction—about all things digital, the public may be losing trust in technology.
From ACM Opinion
The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...
From ACM Opinion
8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018
It was a very strange year for technology companies. They have become a "bipartisan whipping boy," a new sexist institution, responsible for the muddying of the...
From ACM Opinion
What Telegram Owes Iranians
After the 2009 Green Movement—a failed attempt to overturn a stolen presidential election through street protests—the Iranian political establishment took away...
From ACM Opinion
10 Ways Tech Will Shape Your Life in 2018, For Better and Worse
Is the outlook for technology in 2018 exciting—or slightly terrifying? Flip a coin. You'd be right either way.
From ACM Opinion
3 Brain Technologies to Watch in 2018
Technologies to detect brain activity—fine, we'll come right out and call it mind reading—as well as to change it are moving along so quickly that "a bit of a gold...
From ACM Opinion
License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch
Wow, that 2017, though. Quite a year. Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months...
From ACM Opinion
New York City's Bold, Flawed Attempt to Make Algorithms Accountable
The end of a politician's time in office often inspires a turn toward the existential, but few causes are as quixotic as the one chosen by James Vacca, who this...
From ACM Opinion
How Nasa's Search For Et Relies on Advanced AI
The biggest knock against sending robots to explore the solar system for signs of life has always been their inability to make intuitive, even creative decisions...
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch
As self-driving cars inch closer to everyday reality, journalists, futurists, economists, and ethicists have weighed in with numerous predictions about autonomous...
From ACM Opinion
Science Fiction When the Future Is Now
AlphaGo, fake news, cyberwar: 2017 has felt science-fictional in the here and now. Space settlement and sea-steading seem just around the bend; so, at times, do...
From ACM Opinion
The Year the Home Button Died
The most convincing lie Steve Jobs ever told was "you already know how to use it."
From ACM Opinion
Don't Get Your Kid an Internet-Connected Toy
For last-minute shoppers, tech toys hold a special appeal.
From ACM Opinion