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
The Giant nderground Machinery That Runs San Francisco's Famous Cable Cars
Every day and night, beneath the streets of San Francisco, huge wheels turn, pulling cable cars to their far-flung destinations and back again, as if weaving them...
From ACM Opinion
What Sinofsky's Departure Suggests About the Current State, and Likely Future, of Microsoft
Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division, abruptly left the company on November 12, shortly after introducing the latest version of the company's...
From ACM Opinion
How Far Away Is Mind-Machine Integration?
Okay, great: we can control our phones with speech recognition and our television sets with gesture recognition.
From ACM Opinion
A Touch Literate World: The Global Tablet Craze
I haven't been shy about expressing my belief that tablets represent the reinvention of the personal computer.
From ACM Opinion
.s. Science Could Face Fiscal Cliff Doom
Scientific R&D stands to lose 31,000 jobs and face a starvation diet of reduced funding if politicians fail to halt march towards the fiscal cliff's sequestration...
From ACM News
A Short To-Do List For Intel's Next Ceo
With Paul Otellini heading in May to the nearest 18-hole course, speculation is rampant about who will replace him.
From ACM Opinion
Smartphone Patent Wars Show the System Works, Patent Chief Says
David J. Kappos, director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, is thoughtful, patient, even genial in interviews. But he was showing some pique in...
From ACM Opinion
Why Jakob Nielsen's Windows 8 Critique Is Old-School Thinking
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was once asked what market research went into the creation of the iPad.
From ACM Opinion
Windows 8—Disappointing sability for Both Novice and Power sers
With the recent launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablets, Microsoft has reversed its user interface strategy.
From ACM Opinion
Siri Versus Google Voice Search: Fight!
Voice-controlled smartphone searches are slowly becoming all the rage, thanks to tools like Apple's Siri and Google's "enhanced" voice search.
From ACM News
Blue Waters Opts Out of Top500
The NCSA Blue Waters system is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, but it won't appear on the TOP500 list—nor will it be taking part in the HPC Challenge...
From ACM Opinion
Clear Need to Define Cyberweapons and Cyberwar
The term cyberwar has become a catch-all used by politicians, talking heads and others to encompass just about any online threat, regardless of the attacker or...
From ACM Opinion
China's Innovation Success Depends on Political Changes
Since 1978, the Chinese economy has seen phenomenal growth. While that’s not in dispute, the reason why China has managed to grow so fast and whether it can maintain...
From ACM Opinion
This Is Your Brain on Neural Implants
You are in the future with technologies more advanced than today's.
From ACM Opinion
How James Dyson Makes the Ordinary Extraordinary
James Dyson leaps out of his chair like a restless child and picks up a big yellow-and-gray vacuum—one of several Dyson contraptions congregated around the podium...
From ACM Opinion
Otellini's Legacy of Intel Profit Marred By Arm Competition
When Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini retires in May, he'll leave a mixed record.
From ACM Opinion
Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can't Protect S Anymore
You have a secret that can ruin your life.
From ACM Opinion
Was Petraeus Borked?
In 1987, when Judge Robert Bork was enmeshed in a partisan struggle over his Supreme Court nomination, a reporter for an alternative weekly in Washington, D.C.,...
From ACM Opinion
Bluebrain: Noah Hutton's 10-Year Documentary About the Mission to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain
"Nothing quite like it exists yet, but we have begun building it," Henry Markram wrote in the June 2012 issue of Scientific American. He was referring to a "fantastic...
From ACM Opinion