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
Trigger Finger: Apple Fires Biometrics Into the Mainstream
By adding a fingerprint scanner to its newest mobile phone, Apple Inc. is offering a tantalizing glimpse of a future where your favorite gadget might become a biometric...
From ACM Opinion
The Real Reasons Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip Makes Sense
Apple injected a lot of marketing hyperbole into its claims about the wonders of 64-bit computing when it showed off the A7 processor at the heart of the new ...
From ACM Opinion
Google Security Exec: 'passwords Are Dead'
New startups looking for ways to keep their users secure should know one thing, a top Google security executive said Tuesday: "Passwords are dead."
From ACM Opinion
Apple's New Iphone 'touch Id' Makes Fingerprint Scans Easy, But Don't Ditch Passcodes Yet
The latest iPhone has arrived, and along with it what may be the slickest integration of biometric security yet: A fingerprint scanner built seamlessly into the...
From ACM Opinion
Why a Cyberwar Won't Happen
Exactly two decades ago, the RAND Corporation, an influential think tank, proclaimed that "cyberwar is coming!"
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Surveillance Makes For Strange Bedfellows
The controversy over U.S. government surveillance has produced a king-size collection of strange bedfellows. Beneath the covers one finds both amusing ironies and...
From ACM Opinion
A Peek nder the Hood at the Brains of Self-Driving Cars
What car maker today doesn't seem to have an autonomous car bumbling around its test lot?
From ACM Opinion
If the New Iphone Has Fingerprint Authentication, Can It Be Hacked?
When Apple bought AuthenTec for its biometrics technology—reported as one of its most expensive purchases—there was a lot of speculation about how the company would...
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Surveillance: A Guide to Staying Secure
Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the Internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems...
From ACM Opinion
Why the .s. Should se Cyber Weapons Against Syria
If the Obama administration does conduct military strikes against Syria, as seems likely, it should use military cyber weapons at the earliest possible moment to...
From ACM Opinion
How Advanced Is the NSA's Cryptanalysis—And Can We Resist It?
The latest Snowden document is the U.S. intelligence "black budget."
From ACM Opinion
Nasa Is Turning Science Fiction Into Fact
As a new moon orbiter gets set to launch, Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames, says forget the 20th—this is the real space century.
From ACM Opinion
Beyond The Shadows: Apple's Ios 7 Is All About The Screen
At some point in the coming weeks, users of Apple iPhones and iPads will wake up to an alert that there is a new version of the company's mobile operating system...
From ACM Opinion
Tech Pioneer Vint Cerf on the Age of Context and Why You Can't Be a Citizen of the Internet
Few people have as much claim as Vint Cerf to the title "Father of the Internet," but as the technologies he helped develop in the 1970s and 1980s become increasingly...
From ACM Opinion
Go Ahead, Mess With Texas Instruments
Last year, while cleaning out the basement of my childhood home, I discovered a plastic storage bin marked "Calcusoft." Inside were piles of notebooks filled with...
From ACM Opinion
Choosing Real-World Impact Over Impact Factor
My annual report for the 2012-13 academic year stares at me from an undisturbed corner of my desk.
From ACM News
Think You Can Drive a Bulldozer?
As he closed the door, leaving me alone at the controls of a 41,000-pound bulldozer with list price of nearly $432,000, a Komatsu Ltd. executive shouted, "No worries...
From ACM Opinion
Madden Turns 25: How the Video Game Sacked Its Rivals
The year was 1988. George Michael's "Faith" was top of the pops. "Roseanne" was the number-one show on TV. Bruce Willis, starring in "Die Hard," still had hair.
From ACM News