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
Why the Black Box on Airplanes Needs to Go Away
In another 10 years, the very idea of a "black box" flight data recorder on an airliner will seem as naive and outdated as a smoking section.
From ACM Opinion
3 Ways to Make Software Patents Suck Less (without Abolishing Them Altogether)
This week, the Supreme Court tackled one of the thorniest problems in tech policy: software patents.
From ACM Opinion
Bots on the Beat
On March 24 at 2:36 p.m., the New York Post reported that the body of former Nets basketball player Quinton Ross had been found in a shallow grave on Long Island...
From ACM Opinion
Abstract Ideas Don't Deserve Patents
The Constitution gives Congress the power to grant inventors a temporary monopoly over their creations to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
From ACM Opinion
Five Ways to Make Sure We Never Lose a Plane Again
For the past few weeks the world's attention has been focussed on the lost Malaysia Airlines plane and its 239 passengers and crew that has apparently crashed in...
From ACM Opinion
A Conversation With Danah Boyd, Author of 'it's Complicated,' About Teenagers Online
Danah Boyd is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, a research assistant professor in Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, and a fellow...
From Communications of the ACM
MOOCs Revisited, With Some Policy Suggestions
Assessing the rapidly evolving realm of massive open online courses.
From Communications of the ACM
Thinking Outside the Continent
Encouraging the opportunities for digital innovation and invention to flourish in a variety of social environments.
From Communications of the ACM
Small Data, Where N = Me
Seeking personalized data-derived insights from analysis of our digital traces.
From Communications of the ACM
Is Multicore Hardware For General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?
The current generation of general-purpose multicore hardware must be fixed to support more application domains and to allow cost-effective parallel programming.
From ACM Opinion
Anger on Weibo Over Flight 370
Tragedy, when its cause and the fate of its victims are still unknown, is supposed to occasion solidarity.
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Security Chief Talks Encryption Plan
Facebook has built its business upon the sharing of content between people worldwide, but protecting that data is a gargantuan responsibility—one that demands an...
From ACM Opinion
When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume that the physical spaces we inhabit are different.
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab
Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat...
From ACM Opinion
Three Things to Take Away from Cansecwest, Pwn2own
Browsers, brokers, and BIOS: You could safely call that triumvirate the past, present, and future of security, but you'd be wrong.
From ACM Opinion
Hacking Your Dna
Keeping track of what we reveal about ourselves each day—through email and text messages, Amazon purchases and Facebook "likes"—is hard enough.
From ACM Opinion
A Close Look at the Nsa's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
We already knew that the NSA has weaponized the Internet, enabling it to "shoot" exploits at anyone it desires.
From ACM Opinion
The Data Brokers: Selling Your Personal Information
Over the past six months or so, a huge amount of attention has been paid to government snooping, and the bulk collection and storage of vast amounts of raw data...
From ACM Opinion
Flight 370 and the Terror of Being Off the Grid
How can a commercial airliner go missing?
From ACM Opinion