Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
Nailing Down the Nature of 'Oumuamua; It's Probably a Comet, but . . .
Shortly before Halloween, the chairman of Harvard's astronomy department openly declared that an interstellar object hurtling through our Solar System might just...
From ACM Opinion
Mars Beckons
The science and technology behind NASA's latest space explorer to land on Mars are so awe-inducing that it's hardly surprising when scientists commenting on the...
From ACM Opinion
CRISPR Inventor Feng Zhang Calls for Moratorium on Gene-Edited Babies
Feng Zhang, one of the inventors of the gene-editing technique CRISPR, has called for a global moratorium on using the technology to create gene-edited babies. ...
From ACM Opinion
Try Landing InSight on Mars (Without Exploding)
NASA just parked its InSight lander on Mars. Yes, Mars. This is a pretty big deal since quite a few Mars missions didn't make it.
From ACM Opinion
Inspired by Sci-Fi, an Airplane with No Moving Parts and a Blue Ionic Glow
Since their invention more than 100 years ago, airplanes have been moved through the air by the spinning surfaces of propellers or turbines.
From ACM Opinion
One of the Fathers of AI Is Worried About Its Future
Yoshua Bengio is a grand master of modern artificial intelligence.
From ACM Opinion
You Know What? Go Ahead and se the Hotel Wi-Fi
As you travel this holiday season, bouncing from airport to airplane to hotel, you'll likely find yourself facing a familiar quandary: Do I really trust this ...
From ACM Opinion
Video Doesn't Capture Truth
The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump...
From ACM Opinion
The Case Against Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is all the rage. It seems like hardly a day goes by without some news outlet describing the extraordinary things this technology promises.
From ACM Opinion
Sci-Fi Movies Are the Secret Weapon that Could Help Silicon Valley Grow Up
If there's one line that stands the test of time in Steven Spielbergs 1993 classic "Jurassic Park," it's probably Jeff Goldblum's exclamation, "Your scientists...
From ACM Opinion
Your Smartphone Photos Are Totally Fake, and You Love It
The little camera on this phone has a superpower: It can see things our eyes cannot.
From ACM Opinion
Fake News: Can Teenagers Spot It?
If we are to make it less of a threat to democracy, that effort is going to need to start in schools.
From ACM Opinion
At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges
Every year at the World Internet Conference, held since 2014 in the photogenic canal town of Wuzhen near Shanghai, companies and government officials have convened ...
From ACM Opinion
What the Midterm Election Results Mean for Big Tech
It may not have been the tsunami some expected, but the Democrat's long-promised blue wave was enough to carry the party to a majority in the House of Representatives ...
From ACM Opinion
Colonizing Mars Means Contaminating Mars, and Never Knowing for Sure If It Had Its Own Native Life
The closest place in the universe where extraterrestrial life might exist is Mars, and human beings are poised to attempt to colonize this planetary neighbor within...
From ACM Opinion
Even a Few Bots Can Shift Public Opinion in Big Ways
Nearly two-thirds of the social media bots with political activity on Twitter before the 2016 U.S. presidential election supported Donald Trump.
From ACM Opinion
What the Boston School Bus Schedule Can Teach s About AI
When the Boston public school system announced new start times last December, some parents found the schedules unacceptable and pushed back.
From ACM Opinion
The Real Houseguest of the Ecuadorian Embassy
If Julian Assange of WikiLeaks denies the Ecuadorian government's stinging charge that he's a disgusting houseguest, he'd do well not to deny that charge "categorically...
From ACM Opinion
The Vulnerabilities of Our Voting Machines
A few weeks ago computer scientist J. Alex Halderman rolled an electronic voting machine onto a Massachusetts Institute of Technology stage and demonstrated how...
From ACM Opinion