Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
Disappearing Act
Jack Dorsey is the creator and executive chairman of the popular communications network Twitter. In 2009, he cofounded another company, called Square, which lets...
From ACM Opinion
The Problem with Design Education
University industrial design programs are usually cloistered in schools of art or architecture, and students in such programs are rarely required to study science...
From ACM Opinion
Patents and Innovation
The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation.
From ACM Opinion
When Will Sci-Fi Tech Become Real? Sooner Than You Think
Growing up, physicist Michio Kaku had two heroes. The first, predictably enough for the man who co-founded a branch of string theory, was Albert Einstein. "Second...
From ACM Opinion
China's War in Cyberspace, August
Strategic theorists frequently lament that military planners are very effective at preparing for the last war, not the next one. Planners today must cope with...
From ACM Opinion
The Anti-Predictor: A Chat with Mathematical Sociologist Duncan Watts
The Yahoo! Labs scientist and author explains why the "law of the few" is bunk, why history is full of failed hedgehogs, and why we can't make good predictions...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Basis of the niverse Isn't Matter or Energy
Information flows everywhere, through wires and genes, through brain cells and quarks. But while it may appear ubiquitous to us now, until recently we had no...
From Communications of the ACM
Coder's Block
Programming is a creative endeavor, and therefore there is such a thing as coder's block. What does it take to clear the blockage?
From Communications of the ACM
Managing Global IT Teams: Considering Cultural Dynamics
Successful global IT team managers combine general distributed team management skills enhanced with cultural sensitivity.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Things "cyber"
Years ago, when I was an ROTC instructor, the first unit of instruction for rising juniors dealt with communication skills. Near the beginning of the unit, I...
From ACM Opinion
Another Win For Artificial Intelligence: The Turing Award
It's been a banner year or so for artificial intelligence, from the recent triumph of I.B.M.'s Jeopardy-winning supercomputer to a wave of news coverage of the...
From ACM Opinion
Google Schools Its Algorithm
To humans, computer intelligence is a puzzle, as if the machines have split personalities. They can be so remarkably smart at times, yet so bafflingly dumb at...
From ACM News
Is the Navy Trying to Start the Robot Apocalypse?
Whenever the military rolls out a new robot program, folks like to joke about SkyNet or the Rise of the Machines. But this time, the military really is starting...
From ACM News
10 Questions For David Ferrucci
Why aren't you letting Watson speak for himself today? Watson is trained to answer questions for Jeopardy! It's not an interactive dialogue system, so it can't...
From ACM Opinion
Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail, Venture Capitalist
Soon after Paul Buchheit joined Google in 1999, he coined the phrase "Don't be evil," which along with profit and loss, remains the yardstick by which Google...
From ACM News
How We Know
James Gleick's first chapter has the title "Drums That Talk." It explains the concept of information by looking at a simple example.
From ACM Opinion
Cubelets: Modular, Affordable Robotics For Kids and Students
Robotics can be a tricky subject to teach children, and it's hard to know where to start. Cubelets is a system of modular cubes that each have one use, interaction...
From ACM Opinion
My Puny Human Brain
Jeopardy! genius Ken Jennings on what it's like to play against a supercomputer.
From ACM Opinion
A Worthwhile Contest For Artificial Intelligence
If IBM's Watson machine defeats people on TV's Jeopardy this week, does that mean that computers are smarter than humans? Maybe not. But the performance could...
From ACM Opinion