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 Lightsquared Failed: It Was Science, Not Politics
The seeds of LightSquared's failure to win government clearance to build a 4G-LTE network can, ironically, be found in the "approval" the company received just...
From ACM Opinion
Tech Pioneer Channels Hard Lessons Into Silicon Valley Success
Modern computer games and their fast-paced graphics require an incredible amount of computing horsepower. So much, in fact, that the kinds of chips commonly used...
From ACM Opinion
Graphic Designers Are Ruining the Web
What happens when you click on a Weblink? Here's one answer: A request goes from your computer to a server identified by the URL of the desired link. The server...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is Broken; We Need to Start Over
Last year, the level and ferocity of cyberattacks on the Internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: let the Internet wither...
From ACM Opinion
Lightsquared Blew It, and Here's Why
LightSquared may have had a great case for building its wireless network, but the fledgling company lacked the political tact to see it through.
From ACM Opinion
Researchers Detail Flaw in Online Cryptography, but Don't Panic
First, the bad news: A small number of active RSA public encryption keys, a popular type of encryption protocol that secures billions of online transactions, offer...
From ACM Opinion
What Dropbox Can Teach S About Cloud Computing
Dropbox is the most deceptively simple of services.
From ACM Opinion
The Mathematical Equation that Caused the Banks to Crash
It was the holy grail of investors. The Black-Scholes equation, brainchild of economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, provided a rational way to price a financial...
From ACM Opinion
A Cyber Risk to the .s.
In a recent briefing to Congress about worldwide threats, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the danger of cyberattacks will equal or surpass the danger...
From ACM Opinion
Tides Are Changing For Web Surfers
David Weinberger has a new book out entitled Too Big to Know in which he argues that one of the implications of a comprehensively networked society is that the...
From ACM Opinion
Apps For Ipad 3: What Apple Should Demo at the Grand nveiling
All indicators suggest Apple will unveil the iPad 3 during the first week of March. That’s less than a month away, and sources at The Next Web say Apple is in "crunch...
From ACM Opinion
Google Knows Too Much About You
If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and...
From ACM Opinion
Who Cares About Apple TV? Bring Us the Apple Car
The much-mythologized Apple television could be a terrible next step for the company.
From ACM News
Api: Three Letters That Change Life, the niverse, and Even Detroit
Sam Ramji met AT&T chief technology officer John Donovan on a speed date—or at least the tech world equivalent of a speed date.
From ACM Opinion
Designing Windows 8, or How to Redesign a Religion
There are lot of hard jobs at Microsoft. But Sam Moreau just might have the hardest of all. Or at least the most harrowing. Over the past five years, he's taken...
From ACM Opinion
Facebook Is Using You
Last week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public. It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Desktop Degree
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in 1995 to be precise, a scholar named Eli Noam published an article in the prestigious journal Science under the titleElectronics...
From ACM Opinion