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Meet the Man Who's Rewiring Google From the Inside Out
From ACM Opinion

Meet the Man Who's Rewiring Google From the Inside Out

It was a tweet that fired the imagination like few others. On May 10, 2011, at 1:35 in the afternoon, Eric Brewer told the world he was redesigning the most important...

Todd Akin and the Anti-Science House Science Committee
From ACM Opinion

Todd Akin and the Anti-Science House Science Committee

Aside from the sheer biological ludicrousness of Todd Akin's ideas on female physiology, one unsettling subplot to the debacle is his presence on the House of Committee...

Nasa Mohawk Guy Bobak Ferdowsi on Sci-Fi, Legos, and Becoming a Meme
From ACM Opinion

Nasa Mohawk Guy Bobak Ferdowsi on Sci-Fi, Legos, and Becoming a Meme

As space geeks watched nervously to see if NASA's Curiosity rover would land safely on Mars, many found themselves wondering, "Hey, who's that cool dude with the...

Robot Master
From ACM Opinion

Robot Master

When you visit Manuela Veloso at Carnegie Mellon University, you're not guided to her office by a security officer or even issued instructions by a secretary at...

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
From ACM Opinion

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking

In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed.

Meet the Man Who Put the '@' in Your Email
From ACM Opinion

Meet the Man Who Put the '@' in Your Email

Who invented email? That's a bit like asking, "Who invented the Internet?" Even those with intimate knowledge of its creation can’t agree on the moment it actually...

Why Shooting Games Make Your Brain Happy
From ACM Opinion

Why Shooting Games Make Your Brain Happy

Modern videogames are obsessed with guns, and there are a lot of reasons why.

Timing Is Everything For the Games' Chief Timer
From ACM Opinion

Timing Is Everything For the Games' Chief Timer

Timing is everything for Peter Hürzeler, a man for whom "good enough" simply isn't.

Xerox: ­h, We Didn't Invent the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Xerox: ­h, We Didn't Invent the Internet

Who invented the Internet?

Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils ­S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals
From ACM Opinion

Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils ­S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals

It's early February in Cancun, Mexico. A group of 60 or so financial analysts, reporters, diplomats, and cybersecurity specialists shake off the previous night's...

Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself
From ACM Opinion

Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself

For almost 30 years, Will Wright’s creations have attracted people who would never have played videogames. He's also managed the trick of developing games that...

How to Fly the ­.s.'s Trillion-Dollar Stealth Fighter Jet
From ACM Opinion

How to Fly the ­.s.'s Trillion-Dollar Stealth Fighter Jet

The first rule of flying the world's most advanced fighter jet: Do not push the red button until you absolutely mean to.

Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'
From ACM News

Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'

Google started work on the Google Compute Engine over a year and a half ago, and it was all Peter Magnusson could do to keep his mouth shut.

Google Glass Team: 'wearable Computing Will Be the Norm'
From ACM Opinion

Google Glass Team: 'wearable Computing Will Be the Norm'

Even though I followed Google's I/O Conference from across the country, the event made it obvious that a company created with a strict focus on search has become...

Microsoft's Research Boss Celebrates Legacy of Alan Turing
From ACM Opinion

Microsoft's Research Boss Celebrates Legacy of Alan Turing

What does Alan Turing mean to Microsoft and the rest of the modern tech world? Rick Rashid can tell you.

'brave' Director Talks About the Pixar Process
From ACM Opinion

'brave' Director Talks About the Pixar Process

Mark Andrews has worked in animation and live-action as a storyboard artist, story supervisor, writer, and even as a voice actor, including The Incredibles, John...

Economist Paul Krugman Is a Hard-Core Science Fiction Fan
From ACM Opinion

Economist Paul Krugman Is a Hard-Core Science Fiction Fan

If you follow the news at all, you've probably seen Paul Krugman—Princeton professor, New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize-winning economist—championing the idea...

Berners-Lee: World Finally Realizes Web Belongs To No One
From ACM Opinion

Berners-Lee: World Finally Realizes Web Belongs To No One

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the reason you're reading this story in a web browser, complete with hypertext like this and an internet address that looks like this: ...

Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet
From ACM Opinion

Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Iran. It was sent by an analyst from the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team, and it was informing me about...

Craig Venter Wants to Solve the World's Energy Crisis
From ACM Opinion

Craig Venter Wants to Solve the World's Energy Crisis

There is one version of Craig Venter's life story where he would’ve been a dutiful scientist at the National Institutes of Health, a respected yet anonymous researcher...
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