Communications of the ACM
Facebook's Unglamorous Mistakes
Facebook's little mistakes have big consequences, too, but only for us
From ACM Opinion
As Moore's Law Dies, the Chip Giants Seek Fresh Prey
After a five-year, $240 billion acquisition spree, there's a suspicion that the nature of deal-making in the semiconductor industry may be starting to change.
From ACM Opinion
Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not
As a Japanese, I grew up watching anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion," which depicts a future in which machines and humans merge into cyborg ecstasy.
From ACM Opinion
How NASA Was Born 60 Years Ago from Panic Over a 'Second Moon'
The origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration can be traced all the way back to the Wright brothers, but the real story happened over less than...
From ACM Opinion
The Ethics of Computer Science: This Researcher Has a Controversial Proposal
In the midst of growing public concern over artificial intelligence (AI), privacy and the use of data, Brent Hecht has a controversial proposal: the computer-science...
From ACM Opinion
Supreme Court Struggles to Define 'Searches' as Technology Changes
What the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means when it protects citizens against an unreasonable search by government agents isn't entirely clear.
From ACM Opinion
How Plausible Are All Those Mission: Impossible Gadgets, Anyway?
It's been 22 years since Tom Cruise infiltrated a CIA vault suspended from a wire in the first Mission: Impossible flick.
From ACM Opinion
How .S. Intelligence Agencies Can Find Out What Trump Told Putin
President Donald Trump's insistence on holding a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin hobbled U.S. intelligence agencies that would usually...
From ACM Opinion
"I Was Devastated": Tim Berners-Lee, the Man Who Created the World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets
"For people who want to make sure the Web serves humanity, we have to concern ourselves with what people are building on top of it," Tim Berners-Lee told me one...
From Communications of the ACM
Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
Cache is king. And if your cache is cut, you are going to feel it.
From ACM Opinion
AI Can Be Sexist and Racist; It's Time to Make It Fair
When Google Translate converts news articles written in Spanish into English, phrases referring to women often become "he said" or "he wrote."
From ACM Opinion
How to Tell If You're Talking to a Bot
Twitter recently took drastic action as part of an effort to slow the spread of misinformation through its platform, shutting down more than two million automated...
From ACM Opinion
Microprocessor Designers Realize Security Must Be a Primary Concern
Computers' amazing abilities to entertain people, help them work, and even respond to voice commands are, at their heart, the results of decades of technological...
From ACM Opinion
Darpa Plans a Major Remake of .S. Electronics
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is launching a huge expansion of its Electronics Resurgence Initiative, boosting the program to US $1.5 billion...
From ACM Opinion
Alexa: Don't Let My 2-Year-Old Talk to You That Way
Parents, your child may have a new secret friend: your smart speaker.
From ACM Opinion
Don Eyles: Space Hacker
In the early hours of 5 February 1971, Don Eyles had a big problem: Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were orbiting the moon, preparing to land...
From ACM Opinion
The S May Have Just Pulled Even with China in the Race to Build Supercomputing's Next Big Thing
There was much celebrating in America last month when the US Department of Energy unveiled Summit, the world's fastest supercomputer. Now the race is on to achieve...
From ACM Opinion
How We Proved Einstein Right on a Galactic Scale, and What It Means for Dark Energy and Dark Matter
Gravity may be the weakest of the fundamental forces in nature, but it is ultimately what enabled life on Earth to evolve.
From ACM Opinion
Senior Scientist Argues that We Should Bypass Europa for Enceladus
In its quest to find extant life in the Solar System, NASA has focused its gaze on the Jovian moon Europa, home to what is likely the largest ocean known to humans...
From ACM Opinion
China's Scientific Revolution
An old Chinese proverb says: "If you're planning for the year, cultivate rice; if you're planning for the decade, cultivate trees; if you're planning for the century...
From ACM Opinion