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Lady of the Rings: Saturn Surveyor Carolyn Porco
From ACM Opinion

Lady of the Rings: Saturn Surveyor Carolyn Porco

When Carolyn Porco started exploring the outer solar system, it was all about the rings. Her 1983 doctoral thesis at Caltech focused on shifting spokes in Saturn’s...

Bill Would Keep Big Brother's Mitts Off Your Gps Data
From ACM News

Bill Would Keep Big Brother's Mitts Off Your Gps Data

The reauthorization of the Patriot Act looks like a forgone conclusion. But next month, a bipartisan band of legislators will try to mitigate a different kind...

Why Google Does Not Own Skype
From ACM Opinion

Why Google Does Not Own Skype

So Microsoft is buying Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest deal ever. It’s too soon to make a pronouncement on whether the purchase is an idiot move, a brilliant...

Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business
From ACM News

Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business

Cisco is shutting down a business unit that it bought for over half-a-billion dollars: the Flip camcorder division. That's a shame, considering how high the Flip...

Why the Basis of the ­niverse Isn't Matter or Energy
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...

No Moammar, No Fly: How to Stop Gadhafi
From ACM Opinion

No Moammar, No Fly: How to Stop Gadhafi

Keep the surveillance planes flying. Fry the radar. While the sun hangs in the sky, let Libya’s pilots know they’re on borrowed time if they take off.

From ACM News

The 'Panda' That Hates Farms: A Q&A With Google

Google's new update to its search engine addressed the growing complaint that low-quality content sites (derisively referred to as content farms) were ranked higher...

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

Nsa's Home Base May Have Crappiest Web Site Ever

Through the gates of Fort George Meade pass the most powerful technical minds that the government employs. But Fort Meade's website contains pixelized, faux-shaded...

From ACM Opinion

Why Wikileaks Is Good For America

A truly free press—one unfettered by concerns of nationalism—is apparently a terrifying problem for elected governments and tyrannies alike.

5 Reasons the Media Cover Apple So Much
From ACM Opinion

5 Reasons the Media Cover Apple So Much

A study published Monday drew on a host of metrics to conclude something we all already knew: The media covers Apple more than any other company.

The Itch of Curiosity
From ACM Opinion

The Itch of Curiosity

Curiosity is one of those personality traits that gets short scientific shrift. It strikes me as a really important mental habit—how many successful people are...

Search Top Secret America's Database of Private Spooks
From ACM Opinion

Search Top Secret America's Database of Private Spooks

Figuring out exactly who's cashing in on the post-9/11 boom in secret programs just got a whole lot easier.

From ACM Opinion

How to Silence the Obnoxious and Deafening Vuvuzela

Do you hear that? The hideous, piercing dirge of a B-flat drone that is the unfortunate backdrop to every single World Cup match? It’s the vuvuzela, a stupid plastic...

From ACM Opinion

Apple: The Microsoft of Mobile?

Apple could soon be the target of an antitrust investigation by either the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice, according to numerous press reports...

Why We Should Learn the Language of Data
From ACM Opinion

Why We Should Learn the Language of Data

"How can global warming be real when there’s so much snow?" Hearing that question—repeatedly—this past February drove Joseph Romm nuts. A massive snowstorm had...

From ACM Opinion

Today Facebook, Tomorrow the World

With a dizzying array of announcements this week, it seems almost inevitable that the web will become, at least for the near future, an extension of Facebook. Like...

Why Nasa Is Sending a Robot to Space That Looks Like You
From ACM Opinion

Why Nasa Is Sending a Robot to Space That Looks Like You

A humanoid robot will visit space for the first time in September aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, NASA announced Wednesday. The Robonaut 2, which was co-developed...

From ACM Opinion

Beware the Nsa

Early this year, the big brains at Google admitted that they had been outsmarted. Along with 33 other companies, the search giant had been the victim of a major...

From ACM Opinion

How Movies Activate Your Neural G-Spot

Here’s a typical “date night” with me and Hollywood: I don’t know what I want to see. Neither does Hollywood. But it bangs on my eyeballs and eardrums like Stanley...
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