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­pdate: Seti Sees No Alien Signals From Weird Star
From ACM Opinion

­pdate: Seti Sees No Alien Signals From Weird Star

A few weeks ago, I (and a zillion other people) reported on a star about 1,500 light-years away that was acting … weirdly.

From Army of One to Band of Tweeters
From ACM Opinion

From Army of One to Band of Tweeters

It was the end of a long combat patrol near a district called Adhamiyah, in northwest Baghdad, in the fall of 2008.

America's Crypto Battles
From ACM Opinion

America's Crypto Battles

John Miller reckons he can get into pretty much any safe.

Tangled Up in Entanglement
From ACM Opinion

Tangled Up in Entanglement

No area of physics causes more confusion, not just among the general public but also among physicists, than quantum mechanics.

The Hot New Job in Silicon Valley Is Being a Robot's Assistant
From ACM Opinion

The Hot New Job in Silicon Valley Is Being a Robot's Assistant

"I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords." So goes the joke every time artificial intelligence threatens to supersede humans in another job.

If There Is Water on Mars, Who Gets to ­se It?
From ACM Opinion

If There Is Water on Mars, Who Gets to ­se It?

Humans settle around water, especially in the desert.

The Master Algorithm: A World Remade By Machines that Learn
From ACM Opinion

The Master Algorithm: A World Remade By Machines that Learn

Pedro Domingos's new book is a compelling but rather unquestioning insider view of the search for the ultimate in machine learning.

The Room Where the Internet Was Born
From ACM Opinion

The Room Where the Internet Was Born

Starting a cross-country drive to New York in Los Angeles is pretty inconvenient, unless your cross-country drive is also a vision quest to see the Internet.

The Light-Beam Rider
From ACM Opinion

The Light-Beam Rider

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the General Theory of Relativity, the most beautiful theory in the history of science, and in its honor we should take...

The Physical Origin of ­niversal Computing
From ACM Opinion

The Physical Origin of ­niversal Computing

Imagine you're shopping for a new car, and the salesperson says, "Did you know, this car doesn't just drive on the road."

David Divincenzo on His Tenure at IBM and the Future of Quantum Computing
From ACM Opinion

David Divincenzo on His Tenure at IBM and the Future of Quantum Computing

Theoretical physicist David DiVincenzo is widely viewed as one of the pioneers of quantum computing. He authored a 1996 paper (PDF) outlining five criteria he predicted...

Apple's Deep Learning Curve
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Deep Learning Curve

In the world of artificial intelligence, one of the year's biggest coming-out parties is the Neural Information Processing Systems conference.

Cassini Seeks Insights to Life in Plumes of Enceladus, Saturn’s Icy Moon
From ACM News

Cassini Seeks Insights to Life in Plumes of Enceladus, Saturn’s Icy Moon

Where there is water, is there life?

Why Fully Autonomous Robot Cars Hail from the 20th Century
From ACM Opinion

Why Fully Autonomous Robot Cars Hail from the 20th Century

A vision of fully autonomous, self-driving cars allowing human owners to nap or read in the car seems to come from the future.

What Is Life?
From ACM Opinion

What Is Life?

"Why would NASA want to study a lake in Canada?"

These 5 Facts Explain the Rise of the Drone
From ACM Opinion

These 5 Facts Explain the Rise of the Drone

The October 15 release of the so-called Drone Papers, leaked reports that appear to document the U.S. use of drone aircraft for military purposes, has given the...

The Myth of Basic Science
From ACM Opinion

The Myth of Basic Science

Innovation is a mysteriously difficult thing to dictate. Technology seems to change by a sort of inexorable, evolutionary progress, which we probably cannot stop—or...

We Don't Need Humans on Mars
From ACM Opinion

We Don't Need Humans on Mars

The two mobile robots Spirit and Opportunity were launched from Earth in 2003 and arrived on opposite sides of Mars in 2004. A suite of cameras, instruments, and...

An Interview with Fred Brooks
From Communications of the ACM

An Interview with Fred Brooks

ACM Fellow and A.M. Turing Award recipient Fred Brooks reflects on his career.

Max Schrems, Who Torpedoed Safe Harbor 1, Sees No Safe Harbor 2
From ACM Opinion

Max Schrems, Who Torpedoed Safe Harbor 1, Sees No Safe Harbor 2

He's just helped bring down a longstanding trans-Atlantic data-transfer pact used by thousands of businesses and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems is already...
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