Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before
It is now 30 years since I launched the campaign for freedom in computing, that is, for software to be free or "libre" (we use that word to emphasize that we're...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Foreign Languages and Music. Teach Our Kids to Code
J. Paul Gibson began to teach programming classes for teens out of frustration.
From ACM Opinion
How Startup Culture Is Killing Innovation
Far from being the measure of disgrace it once was, failure now seems to be a sort of badge of honor. Somewhere along the way, it got to be uncool to reduce one's...
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
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
How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion
The technological values promoted by Apple are part of the Faustian bargain of technology, which both giveth and taketh away.
From ACM Opinion
How Protecting Your Privacy Could Make You the Bad Guy
There's a funny catch-22 when it comes to privacy best practices.
From ACM Opinion
Your Creative, Open Hackathon Is Ripe For Legal Challenges
NASA's Space Apps Challenge recently became the world's largest open hackathon, with over 8,000 participants spanning 44 countries.
From ACM Opinion
The End of Digital Tyranny: Why the Future of Computing Is Analog
Our world is ruled by 1s and 0s.
From ACM Opinion
Phew, Nsa Is Just Collecting Metadata. (you Should Still Worry)
We now know that every day, U.S. phone companies quietly send the government a list of who called whom and when—"telephony metadata"—for every call made on their...
From ACM Opinion
Connecting the Dots on Prism, Phone Surveillance, and the Nsa's Massive Spy Center
Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards.
From ACM Opinion
Senator Rand Paul Talks Tech, Civil Liberties, and Keeping the Government Out of Your Email
Rand Paul is having some problems with the jerks back at the office. So today he's bypassing them on a road trip through Silicon Valley.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Google Glass. These Are the Interfaces of the Future
When we talk about design nowadays, the focus has been on the lures (or dangers) of flat design and skeumorphism; whether there should be (or really are any) ...
From ACM Opinion
Why Moma Is Exhibiting Tetris and Pac-Man
Last November, the Museum of Modern Art said that it had acquired 14 videogames, adding working copies and the source code of games like Tetris and The Sims to...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Sold a Month-Old App to Dropbox For $100m
When Mailbox sold itself to Dropbox for a reported $100 million or so this March, the month-old iPhone app wasn’t even available to the public.
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to Google Island
I awoke aboard a boat, just before daybreak, which was weird.
From ACM Opinion
Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press
We now live in a world where public servants informing the public about government behavior or wrongdoing must practice the tradecraft of drug dealers and spies...
From ACM Opinion
New Android Boss Finally Reveals Plans For World's Most Popular Mobile Os
For the past few years, Sundar Pichai has been part of a tag-team routine staged at Google's annual I/O developer conference.
From ACM Opinion