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
The World Loves the Smartphone. So How About a Smart Home?
My coffee maker is texting me again. It's scheduled to make coffee tomorrow, the message says, but I need to refill its water tank.
From ACM Opinion
Why Everyone Was Wrong About Net Neutrality
Today, the Federal Communications Commission, by a vote of three to two, enacted its strongest-ever rules on net neutrality, preserving an open Internet by prohibiting...
From ACM Opinion
Invasion of the Friendly Movie Robots
Robots are becoming more of a reality in everyday life, and movies have started to overhaul their depiction of them. They're gentler, friendlier, and often better...
From ACM Opinion
Surveillance-Based Manipulation: How Facebook or Google Could Tilt Elections
Someone who knows things about us has some measure of control over us, and someone who knows everything about us has a lot of control over us.
From ACM Opinion
Why Digital Natives Prefer Reading in Print. Yes, You Read That Right.
Frank Schembari loves books—printed books.
From ACM Opinion
Outing A.I.: Beyond the Turing Test
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is having a moment, albeit one marked by crucial ambiguities.
From ACM Opinion
A Plunge and Squish View of the Mind
How can we bring our knowledge to bear on a problem?
From Communications of the ACM
A Technician Shortage
In our elation about rising CS enrollments, we are overlooking a growing shortage of computing technicians. Our education system is not responding to this need.
From Communications of the ACM
Reaching a Broader Population of Students Through 'Unplugged' Activities
Introducing children to fundamental computing concepts through Computer Science Unplugged.
From ACM Opinion
Frank Drake Thinks It's Silly to Send Messages to Et
Making contact with aliens: the subject of many a sci-fi story, and a variety of imagined outcomes. Though no one knows what will happen if we encounter intelligent...
From ACM Opinion
The Reality of Quantum Weirdness
In Akira Kurosawa's film "Rashomon," a samurai has been murdered, but it's not clear why or by whom.
From ACM Opinion
Secrets Become History: Edward Snowden in Citizenfour Wins Documentary Oscar
Citizenfour is filmmaker Laura Poitras' account of the first meetings between herself, Glenn Greenwald, and Edward Snowden.
From ACM Opinion
What 'the Imitation Game' Didn't Tell You About Turing's Greatest Triumph
Freeman Dyson, 91, the famed physicist, author and oracle of human destiny, is holding forth after tea-time one February afternoon in the common room of the Institute...
From ACM Opinion
The Robot That Knows When to Swipe Right
I have come to think of Tinder as a sort algorithm for the mind.
From ACM Opinion
How to Fight the Next $1 Billion Bank Hack
Good news! A major hack you don't have to worry about! Unless, that is, you happen to be an executive or security employee at one of the hundreds of banks targeted...
From ACM Opinion
The Shape of Things to Come
In recent months, Sir Jonathan Ive, the forty-seven-year-old senior vice-president of design at Apple—who used to play rugby in secondary school, and still has...
From ACM Opinion
Astro Teller, Google's ‘captain of Moonshots,' on Making Profits at Google X
Google is all over the place.
From ACM Opinion