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
How Html5 Will Shake p the Web
HTML5, the next version of the markup language used to build Web pages, has attracted attention for its ability to show video inside a Web browser without using...
From ACM Opinion
Five Things that Could Topple Facebook's Empire
Facebook is primed to announce this week that it's amassed a half billion active friends, a milestone reinforcing its status as the king of social networks—a company...
From ACM Opinion
Protecting the Data You Don't Even Know You Have
Let's assume for a moment that Google's collection of Wi-Fi "payload" data really was unintentional. And that Google never used the data, didn't even know it...
From ACM Opinion
Search Top Secret America's Database of Private Spooks
Figuring out exactly who's cashing in on the post-9/11 boom in secret programs just got a whole lot easier.
From ACM Opinion
Lithium: Why It Makes Such Great Batteries
One theme I ran into over and over while writing about the periodic table was the future of energy and the question of which element or elements will replace carbon...
From ACM Opinion
The Google Algorithm
Google handles nearly two-thirds of Internet search queries worldwide. Analysts reckon that most Web sites rely on the search engine for half of their traffic....
From ACM Opinion
What Apple Must Do to Stop the Iphone 4 Bleeding
It'd be an understatement to say that this has been a terrible week for Apple, and we haven't even reached the halfway point.
From ACM Opinion
Wendy Tan-White on Skeptical Men and Twitter Success
Wendy Tan-White says the corporate world needs to take social media and the Internet far more seriously, but instead is allowing bureaucracy and uncertainty to...
From ACM Opinion
Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis By (insert Name)
A friend who teaches at a well-known eastern university told me recently that plagiarism was turning him into a cop.
From ACM TechNews
A to Z of Programming Languages: Smalltalk-80
Much of modern-day programming is based on the Smalltalk-80 programming language, which was co-developed by Alan Kay, widely considered the father of the concept...
From ACM TechNews
A to Z of Programming Languages: Smalltalk-80
Much of modern-day programming is based on the Smalltalk-80 programming language, which was co-developed by Alan Kay, widely considered the father of the concept...
From ACM Opinion
China May Displace Oak Ridge For Fastest Computer
China is expected to dethrone Tennessee as the home of the world's fastest computer by November, a top U.S. Energy Department official said Monday (July 12).
From ACM Opinion
The Medium Is the Medium
Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school...
From ACM Opinion
Google Should Answer Some Searching Questions
Google woos people with its "don't be evil" slogan and assures us that everything it does is meant to enhance our online experience. But a new study by U.S. advocacy...
From ACM TechNews
Q&A: Intel CEO Paul Otellini
Intel CEO Paul Otellini is concerned that U.S. technological and economic competitiveness is eroding due to long-term neglect of support for education, research...
From ACM Opinion
Five Reasons Why China Will Rule Tech
China's focus on science and technology is relentless, and is occurring at all levels of its society. Recent development points to growing concern in Washington...
From ACM Opinion
Threat of 'cyberwar' Has Been Hugely Hyped
There's a power struggle going on in the U.S. government right now. It's about who is in charge of cyber security, and how much control the government will exert...
From ACM TechNews
Enlist It Tools
Throwing more teams of specialists at intelligence gaps that allowed terror suspects to slip through the net will not solve the problem, write Rensselaer Polytechnic...
From ACM Opinion
How E-Maps Curtail Our Freedom
Electronic maps are arguably the quintessential innovation of 20th-century cartography. Although a few academic cartographers accord the map mystical powers, it...
From ACM Opinion