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
Quantum Computing Is the Next Big Security Risk
The 20th century gave birth to the Nuclear Age as the power of the atom was harnessed and unleashed.
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin Mining Guzzles Energy and Its Carbon Footprint Just Keeps Growing
A somewhat neglected issue in discussions of bitcoin is the tremendous increase in power consumption used by miners. The rising power required to mine bitcoin conflicts...
From ACM Opinion
How Hardy Is Webb? A Q&a About the Toughness of Nasa's Webb Telescope
Just how resilient does a space telescope have to be to survive both Earth's environment and the frigid, airless environment of space?
From ACM Opinion
Could Intelligent Machines of the Future Own the Rights to Their Own creations?
Intellectual property may be the legal term for creations, including literary or artistic, but there is something inherently human about it as well.
From ACM Opinion
The Mission to Learn Everything We Always Wanted to Know About the Universe
The Cosmic Microwave Background was created as the first atoms formed hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang, and it retains information about the formation...
From ACM Opinion
The F.c.c. Wants to Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of...
From ACM Opinion
Connectivity Hacking Back Makes a Comeback—but It's Still a Really Bad Idea
In spite of the billions of dollars companies collectively spend each year on cyberdefenses, hackers keep defeating them.
From ACM Careers
Google, Amazon Find Not Everyone Is Ready For AI
Executives at ascendant tech titans like Amazon and Google tend to look down on their predecessor IBM.
From ACM Opinion
Apple Is Sharing Your Face with Apps. That's a New Privacy Worry.
Poop that mimics your facial expressions was just the beginning.
From ACM News
The Genesis of Kuri, the Friendly Home Robot
Over the course of thousands of years, dogs have evolved alongside humans to be awesome.
From ACM Opinion
How an nderwater Sensor Network Is Tracking Argentina's Lost Submarine
On 15 November, Argentina's Navy lost contact with the ARA San Juan, a small diesel-powered submarine that had been involved in exercises off the east coast of...
From ACM Opinion
The Quantum Spy Author David Ignatius on the Future of High-Tech Espionage
The intersection of quantum computing and espionage may feel like a faraway future. But in his latest novel, David Ignatius, Washington's own John le Carré, tackles...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality
Back in 2005, a small phone company based in North Carolina named Madison River began preventing its subscribers from making phone calls using the internet application...
From ACM Opinion
The Tech Giants' Secret War Against Fake News Is Too Secret
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have a problem with harmful content.
From ACM Opinion
Borders in the Cloud
Amazon may well be one of the companies with the strongest data security in the world.
From ACM TechNews
Martonosi Sketches a Path For a New Type of Computing
Princeton University professor Margaret Martonosi says quantum computing has reached an inflection point.
From ACM Opinion
Q&a: The Ethics of sing Brain Implants to pgrade Yourself
Neurotechnology is one of the hottest areas of engineering, and the technological achievements sound miraculous: Paralyzed people have controlled robotic limbs and ...
From ACM Opinion
Andy Weir: By the Book
The author of "The Martian" and, most recently, "Artemis" has never read Frank Herbert's "Dune": "Yes, I know. I'm the worst sci-fi fan in the universe."
From ACM Opinion
How Driverless Cars Will Change the Feel of Cities
It's 6 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona and pitch-black outside. I'm standing in the middle of a five-lane thoroughfare, among a group of people too numerous for the narrow...
From ACM Opinion