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Beware of Plausible Predictions of Fantasy Materials
From ACM Opinion

Beware of Plausible Predictions of Fantasy Materials

The hunt is on for materials that have exotic properties, to enhance quantum computers, touch screens and electronic displays, and to double the efficiency of solar...

Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.
From ACM Opinion

Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.

When Bill Gates floated the idea of imposing a tax on robots a couple of years ago, Lawrence Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, called...

China Will Likely Corner the 5G Market, and the ­S Has No Plan
From ACM Opinion

China Will Likely Corner the 5G Market, and the ­S Has No Plan

You may have heard that China has cornered much of the world's supply of strategic metals and minerals crucial for new technology, including lithium, rare earths...

An Intrepid Explorer of Mars Falls Silent
From ACM Opinion

An Intrepid Explorer of Mars Falls Silent

Opportunity, formally known as Mars Exploration Rover B but as Oppy to its many friends and admirers, was pronounced dead on Wednesday after a final round of beamed...

The ­S Cannot Crush ­s, Says Huawei Founder
From ACM Opinion

The ­S Cannot Crush ­s, Says Huawei Founder

The founder of Huawei has said there is "no way the US can crush" the company, in an exclusive interview with the BBC.

There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology
From ACM Opinion

There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

In his 2008 white paper that first proposed bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto concluded with: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without...

How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent
From ACM Opinion

How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent

The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon's terms and...

Google Assistant Is Getting Sci-Fi Ambitious
From ACM Opinion

Google Assistant Is Getting Sci-Fi Ambitious

From 550 feet in the air, Google's Scott Huffman peers down at the Las Vegas skyline. It's a sunny afternoon in early January and, at the moment, Google owns this...

Trump Pledges Investment, But Is Silent on Key Tech Issues
From ACM Opinion

Trump Pledges Investment, But Is Silent on Key Tech Issues

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Trump promised legislation to invest in "the cutting edge industries of the future." But the speech was characteristically...

How to Land a Journal Cover
From ACM Opinion

How to Land a Journal Cover

Researchers: Felice Frankel will make photographers of you all. Photography—both macro- and microscopic—is an essential tool in science, because pictures are both...

Technologies to Watch in 2019
From ACM Opinion

Technologies to Watch in 2019

Seven specialists forecast the developments that will push their fields forward in the year ahead.

Cinematic and Scientific Techniques Combine to Show How a Long-Extinct Creature Moved
From ACM Opinion

Cinematic and Scientific Techniques Combine to Show How a Long-Extinct Creature Moved

The trolls and orcs in The Lord of the Rings films aren't real. The dragons and dire wolves on the hit television show Game of Thrones are simulated. The dinosaurs...

Have Aliens Found ­s? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua
From ACM Opinion

Have Aliens Found ­s? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua

On October 19, 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii spotted a strange object travelling through our solar system, which they later described as "a red...

Offices Are Too Hot or Too Cold; Is There a Better Way to Control Room Temperature?
From ACM Opinion

Offices Are Too Hot or Too Cold; Is There a Better Way to Control Room Temperature?

In any office, home or other shared space, there's almost always someone who's too cold, someone who's too hot—and someone who doesn't know what the fuss around...

Five Emerging Cyber-Threats to Worry About in 2019
From ACM Opinion

Five Emerging Cyber-Threats to Worry About in 2019

Last year was full of cybersecurity disasters, from the revelation of security flaws in billions of microchips to massive data breaches and attacks using malicious...

What the Future of Work Means for Cities
From ACM Opinion

What the Future of Work Means for Cities

Two weeks ago, MIT's David Autor gave the prestigious Richard T. Ely lecture at the annual meeting of American economists in Atlanta. Introduced by the former chair...

The Quiet Threat Inside 'Internet of Things' Devices
From ACM Opinion

The Quiet Threat Inside 'Internet of Things' Devices

As Americans increasingly buy and install smart devices in their homes, all those cheap interconnected devices create new security problems for individuals and...

Tiny Computers Could Transform Our Lives
From ACM Opinion

Tiny Computers Could Transform Our Lives

Remember Innerspace, the comedy sci-fi movie from the '80s about a microscopic manned pod injected into a human?

To Cover China, There's No Substitute for WeChat
From ACM Opinion

To Cover China, There's No Substitute for WeChat

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Li Yuan, a technology columnist in Hong Kong, discussed the tech she's...

When Chinese Hackers Declared War on the Rest of ­s
From ACM Opinion

When Chinese Hackers Declared War on the Rest of ­s

Late one Wednesday in March 2015, an alarm sounded in the offices of GitHub, a San Francisco-based software firm. The company's offices exemplified the kind of...
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