October 2019 - Vol. 62 No. 10

Features

Opinion From the President Oct 1 2019

How ACM Evolves in Response to Community Needs

One question people ask me as President is how ACM — as a global, volunteer-based organization — can evolve over time. Does it evolve to keep up with changes going on in our profession?

Cherri M. Pancake

Computing Profession

Opinion Cerf's up Oct 1 2019

AI Is Not an Excuse!

I keep hearing excuses for not working on difficult problems: "Eventually AI will solve this so there's no point working on it now." Sorry, wrong answer.

Vinton G. Cerf

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

BLOG@CACM Oct 1 2019

Pinning Down Variables, and Taking an Agile Approach

Robin K. Hill tries to better define variables, while Edwin Torres acknowledges he is his own greatest obstacle.

Robin K. Hill and Edwin Torres

Computing Applications

News Oct 1 2019

Closing In on Quantum Error Correction

Quantum computers will only become practical when they implement quantum error correction.

Don Monroe

Architecture and Hardware

News Oct 1 2019

Protecting Industrial Control Systems

Finding, and plugging, the security holes in SCADA.

Keith Kirkpatrick

Computing Profession

News Oct 1 2019

The CS Teacher Shortage

How can we fill more computer science classrooms when there just aren't enough teachers to go around?

Esther Shein

Computing Profession

Opinion Technology strategy and management Oct 1 2019

The Cloud as an Innovation Platform for Software Development

How cloud computing became a platform.

Michael A. Cusumano

Computing Applications

Opinion Inside risks Oct 1 2019

How Might We Increase System Trustworthiness?

Summarizing some of the changes that seem increasingly necessary to address known system and network deficiencies and anticipate currently unknown vulnerabilities.

Peter G. Neumann

Computing Applications

Opinion Kode Vicious Oct 1 2019

What Is a Chief Security Officer Good For?

Security requires more than an off-the-shelf solution.

George V. Neville-Neil

Security and Privacy

balloon supports man over shark-infested waters

Opinion Viewpoint Oct 1 2019

Multi-Device Digital Assistance

Increased availability of cloud services and ownership of multiple digital devices create unique opportunities for digital assistants to provide guidance across a range of tasks and scenarios.

Computing Applications

man slicing fruit on kitchen cutting board

Practice Oct 1 2019

Open Source Firmware

Step into the world behind the kernel.

Jessie Frazelle

Architecture and Hardware

Practice Oct 1 2019

Demo Data as Code

Automation helps collaboration.

Thomas A. Limoncelli

Computing Applications

Practice Oct 1 2019

The Evolution of Management

Transitioning up the ladder.

Kate Matsudaira

Computing Profession

Research and Advances Contributed articles Oct 1 2019

Unlocking Data to Improve Public Policy

When properly secured, anonymized, and optimized for research, administrative data can be put to work to help government programs better serve those in need.

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Oct 1 2019

Sampling-Based Robot Motion Planning

To address the computational challenges that arise when planning for robotic systems, traditional CS algorithms, tools, and paradigms must be revisited.

Oren Salzman

Architecture and Hardware

constructed figure walks around obstacles, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Oct 1 2019

Consumer-Grade Fabrication and Its Potential to Revolutionize Accessibility

Digital fabrication technologies open new doors — and challenges — for real-world support.

Computing Applications

boy with a prosthetic limb plays the cello

Research and Advances Review articles Oct 1 2019

Protein Design by Provable Algorithms

Protein design algorithms can leverage provable guarantees of accuracy to provide new insights and unique optimized molecules.

Mark A. Hallen and Bruce R. Donald

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Protein Design by Provable Algorithms, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2019

Technical Perspective: The Scalability of CertiKOS

The authors of "Building Certified Concurrent OS Kernels" illustrate that formal verification can scale up to a moderate-size program (6,500 lines of C) that has substantial shared-memory concurrency.

Andrew W. Appel

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2019

Building Certified Concurrent OS Kernels

In this work, we present CertiKOS, a novel compositional framework for building verified concurrent OS kernels.

Computing Applications

Opinion Last byte Oct 1 2019

Dust Wars

Considering willful approaches to a golden opportunity.

Dennis Shasha

Computing Applications

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