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
We Flew a Simulated 747 at Nasa and Didn't Crash or Barf
From a viewing spot in a high bay room at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, I peer through a glass window at a cab that simulates the cockpit of a commercial...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Carplay Review: Siri's Finally on the Right Road
I take back all—OK most—of the expletives I’ve ever hurled at Siri.
From ACM Opinion
Why Is Blue Light Before Bedtime Bad For Sleep?
In the modern age of technology it is not uncommon to come home after a long day at work or school and blow off steam by reading an e-book or watching television...
From ACM Opinion
Robot Weapons: What's the Harm?
Last month over a thousand scientists and tech-world luminaries, including Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak, released an open letter calling for a global...
From ACM Opinion
Humans, Not Robots, Are the Real Reason Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
Unfortunately, much of the recent outcry against artificial-intelligence weapons has been confused, conjuring robot takeovers of mankind.
From ACM Opinion
Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?
Famed science-fiction writer Fredric Brown (1906–1972) delighted in creating the shortest of short stories. "Answer," published in 1954, encapsulated a prescient...
From ACM Opinion
Palmer Luckey: Making Virtual Reality a Reality
"Why shouldn't people be able to teleport wherever they want?" asks Palmer Luckey, the 22-year-old founder of Oculus VR, the virtual-reality company that Facebook...
From ACM Opinion
Let's School the Presidential Hopefuls on Cybersecurity
In the build up to the 2016 U.S. election, both Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls are talking about cybersecurity—and specifically state-sponsored...
From ACM News
For Virtual-Reality Movies, Old Methods Don't Fit New Medium
I'm standing on the bow of what looks to be a sunken pirate ship.
From ACM TechNews
Algorithms and Bias: Q and A With Cynthia Dwork
In an interview, Microsoft Research scientist Cynthia Dwork describes how algorithms can learn to discriminate because they are programmed by coders who incorporate...
From ACM News
The Backbone of the Internet Could Detect Earthquakes, but No One's sing It
December 26, 2004: It is an idyllic morning at a beachside resort in Indonesia.
From ACM Opinion
When Phone Encryption Blocks Justice
In June, a father of six was shot dead on a Monday afternoon in Evanston, Ill., a suburb 10 miles north of Chicago.
From ACM Opinion
Why Larry Page Is Stepping Away
In the ten years that I’ve been watching him, Larry Page has always wanted to play by his own rules.
From ACM Opinion
With Google as Alphabet, a Bid to Dream Big Beyond Search
Shortly after its founding, Google posted a document on its site called "Ten things we know to be true," an effort to distill its unusual corporate culture into...
From ACM Opinion
Movies That Predicted the Future—and Some That Didn't
Making fun of how movies screw up the future is one of the main reasons why the Internet was invented.
From ACM Opinion
How Fiction Can Reveal the Horrors of Future Wars
The fact that he couldn't feel the drill going into the back of his skull made the noise all the more terrifying.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Ftc Is Showing p at Hackers' Biggest Conferences
The Federal Trade Commission, the de facto federal watchdog for consumers' privacy and data security, knows it needs help.
From ACM Opinion
'right to Be Forgotten' Online Is Poised to Spread
More than a year ago, in a decision that stunned many American Internet companies, Europe's highest court ruled that search engines were required to grant an unusual...
From ACM News
What a Comet Looks Like … From 9 Meters Away!
The European Space Agency has just released some fantastic close-up images taken by the Philae lander of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
From ACM Opinion