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
Brogrammers Making Sex Jokes and Other Reasons Startups Need Hr Departments
When I worked at a startup, we jokingly referred to our "HR department"—a cardboard box that held resumes, NDAs, tax forms, whatever.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Twitter Is Robots Tweeting at Each Other
Twitter is full of weird stuff none of us ever notice because it mostly just looks like spam or nonsense.
From ACM Opinion
Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet, 1974
The year is 1974, and Arthur C. Clarke is standing inside one of those cavernous computer centers that held the massive machines of the day.
From ACM Opinion
Why It's Time For Our Devices to nderstand What We Mean, Not Just What We Say
It wasn’t just cost and Moore’s law. The graphical user interface—now known as the GUI ("gooey")—is what really made computing widespread, personal and ubiquitous...
From ACM Opinion
The Touch-Screen Generation
On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children’s apps for phones and tablets gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Eric Schmidt Warns on China's Attempts to Control the Internet
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has described China as "the most egregious" example of a nation attempting to control the Internet, as he issued...
From ACM Opinion
The Era of Deep Archiving Begins
As a Dartmouth student in the early 1970s, William McDonough went, somewhat casually, to hear a lecture by a visiting celebrity. Mr. McDonough had little idea beforehand...
From ACM TechNews
Smartphones Can Help S Keep Stress at Bay
University of Cambridge researcher Dirk Trossen has created the AIRS app, which uses all of the sensors built into mobile devices to measure physical changes in...
From ACM Opinion
The District Court's Remarkable Order Striking Down the Nsl Statute
On Friday, EFF received the long-awaiting ruling on its 2011 petition to set aside a National Security Letter (NSL) issued to a telecommunications company. The18...
From ACM Opinion
Jaron Lanier: The Digital Pioneer Who Became a Web Rebel
Jaron Lanier is that rarest of rare birds—an uber-geek who is highly critical of the world created by the technology he helped to create.
From ACM Opinion
Googling You
The settlement last week between a group of state attorneys general and Google over the company’s improper data collection from home wireless networks shows the...
From ACM Opinion
Q&a with Samsung's Mobile Chief
Samsung Electronics Co. is coming off its strongest year ever, reporting record earnings, and leapfrogging Apple Inc. to become the world's biggest smartphone maker...
From ACM Careers
10 Companies Chasing Innovations That Really Matter
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin faced some flak recently when he announced he was starting a new company in the already crowded field of digital payments.
From ACM Opinion
Qwerty Keyboards: Time For a Rethink?
Q-W-E-R-T-Y. Six letters that define so much of our waking lives.
From ACM Opinion
Why We'll Never Make an npickable Lock
It would be roughly accurate to say that there have been locks as long as there have been things humans wanted to guard.
From ACM Opinion
Peter G. Neumann: Top Cop on the Hair-Raising Cybersecurity Beat
The threat is always there—in your car, at the office, on the table next to where you sleep at night: a near-biblical plague of worms, phisher kings, identity thieves...
From ACM Opinion
From 'wargames' to Aaron Swartz: How .s. Anti-Hacking Law Went Astray
Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never...
From ACM Opinion
Google's 10 Rules For Designing Data Centers
Google has long pushed the envelope of data center infrastructure design, particularly when it comes to renewable energy, efficient cooling, new power electronics...
From ACM Opinion
Rethinking Objects and Form Are Key to 3D Printing Revolution
3D printing has already changed the game for manufacturing specialized products such as medical devices but the real revolution will come when designers start to...
From ACM Opinion