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Immortal But Damned to Hell on Earth
From ACM Opinion

Immortal But Damned to Hell on Earth

Imagine a supercomputer so advanced that it could hold the contents of a human brain.

Looking For Creativity in Brains Will Take More Creativity
From ACM Opinion

Looking For Creativity in Brains Will Take More Creativity

About a decade and a half ago, the neuroscience world got super-stoked about a sexy new way to look at living brains: functional magnetic resonance imaging.

A Murky Road Ahead For Android, Despite Market Dominance
From ACM Opinion

A Murky Road Ahead For Android, Despite Market Dominance

In 2005, Google bought a tiny mobile software company named Android, and almost nobody in the technology industry saw its potential—not even Eric Schmidt, Google's...

Project Exodus
From ACM Opinion

Project Exodus

On March 27th, an American astronaut named Scott Kelly blasted off from Earth and, six hours later, clambered onto the International Space Station.

Behind the Downfall at Blackberry
From ACM Opinion

Behind the Downfall at Blackberry

Ever since Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepped down as co-chairmen and co-chief executives of BlackBerry, neither has spoken much in public about the once-dominant...

An Npr Reporter Raced a Machine to Write a News Story. Who Won?
From ACM Opinion

An Npr Reporter Raced a Machine to Write a News Story. Who Won?

Even the most creative jobs have parts that are pretty routine—tasks that, at least in theory, can be done by a machine. Take, for example, being a reporter.

As Congress Haggles Over Patriot Act, We Answer 6 Basic Questions
From ACM Opinion

As Congress Haggles Over Patriot Act, We Answer 6 Basic Questions

The rest of the month is setting up to be pretty dramatic in the Senate.

Created Computed Universe
From Communications of the ACM

Created Computed Universe

Computing crosses cosmology and makes the case for agnosticism.

Why Robots Will Always Need ­S
From ACM Opinion

Why Robots Will Always Need ­S

"Human beings are ashamed to have been born instead of made," wrote the philosopher Günther Anders in 1956. Our shame has only deepened as our machines have grown...

The Second Job You Don’t Know You Have
From ACM Opinion

The Second Job You Don’t Know You Have

Technology has knocked the bottom rung out of the employment ladder, which has sent youth unemployment around the globe skyrocketing and presented us with a serious...

Hacking the Brain
From ACM Opinion

Hacking the Brain

The perfectibility of the human mind is a theme that has captured our imagination for centuries—the notion that, with the right tools, the right approach, the right...

How the Battle For the Future of the Web Is Shaped By Economics
From ACM Opinion

How the Battle For the Future of the Web Is Shaped By Economics

There are two stories people are trying to tell right now about the future of the Internet.

Attention White-Collar Workers: The Robots Are Coming For Your Jobs
From ACM Opinion

Attention White-Collar Workers: The Robots Are Coming For Your Jobs

From the self-checkout aisle of the grocery store to the sports section of the newspaper, robots and computer software are increasingly taking the place of humans...

Behind the Indie Video Game Sensation that Caught Nasa's Attention
From ACM Careers

Behind the Indie Video Game Sensation that Caught Nasa's Attention

"Here let's zoom in so you can see your Kerbal floating above Kerbin," my boyfriend suggests before hitting the "M" key on his keyboard.

New Ways to Crash the Market
From ACM Opinion

New Ways to Crash the Market

Five years ago, on the afternoon of May 6, 2010, the Dow and the S. & P. fell more than six per cent in a matter of minutes, losing a trillion dollars in value.

Intel's Gordon Moore Speculates on the Future of Tech and the End of Moore's Law
From ACM Opinion

Intel's Gordon Moore Speculates on the Future of Tech and the End of Moore's Law

Gordon Moore appeared in person to talk about the 50th anniversary of Moore's Law, the prediction that he made that has fueled the tech industry and driven the...

'rise of the Robots' and 'shadow Work'
From ACM Opinion

'rise of the Robots' and 'shadow Work'

In the late 20th century, while the blue-collar working class gave way to the forces of globalization and automation, the educated elite looked on with benign condescension...

Why Nsa Surveillance Is Worse Than You've Ever Imagined
From ACM Opinion

Why Nsa Surveillance Is Worse Than You've Ever Imagined

Last summer, after months of encrypted emails, I spent three days in Moscow hanging out with Edward Snowden for a Wired cover story.

Does Artificial Intelligence Pose a Threat?
From ACM Opinion

Does Artificial Intelligence Pose a Threat?

After decades as a sci-fi staple, artificial intelligence has leapt into the mainstream.

The Illegal Phone-Data Sweeps
From ACM Opinion

The Illegal Phone-Data Sweeps

There is a lot to praise in the powerful ruling issued by a three-judge federal appeals panel in New York on Thursday, which held that the government's vast, continuing...
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