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Alan Turing's Other Universal Machine
From Communications of the ACM

Alan Turing's Other Universal Machine

All computer scientists know about the Universal Turing Machine, one of the foundation stones of theoretical computer science. Much less well known is the practical...

An Information Strategy For Environmental Sustainability
From Communications of the ACM

An Information Strategy For Environmental Sustainability

Many proposed solutions to the species-threatening transformations born of human industrialization have an engineering orientation. Often the suggested remedies...

Can Online Piracy Be Stopped By Laws?
From Communications of the ACM

Can Online Piracy Be Stopped By Laws?

Considering the legal responsibilities of Internet intermediaries in the aftermath of the Stop Online Privacy Act controversy.

Business Models For Strategy and Innovation
From Communications of the ACM

Business Models For Strategy and Innovation

While often ambiguously defined, business models are central to innovation.

Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the Pc Industry
From ACM Opinion

Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the Pc Industry

On June 18, Microsoft beckoned 200 or so members of the media to a grimy, industrial part of Hollywood for what it described as a can’t-miss affair.

How Flame Virus Has Changed Everything For Online Security Firms
From ACM Opinion

How Flame Virus Has Changed Everything For Online Security Firms

Here's a question: if you connect an unprotected Windows computer to the Internet, how long will it take before it is infected by malicious software?

Meet the Intel Man Who's Out to Beat Arm in Smartphones
From ACM Opinion

Meet the Intel Man Who's Out to Beat Arm in Smartphones

It's not often you meet someone in the tech industry for whom the only way is up, but Intel's Michael A. Bell is one of those people.

What Have We Learned: Flame Malware
From ACM Opinion

What Have We Learned: Flame Malware

When the news about the Flame malware first broke several weeks ago, people from all parts of the security community, political world and elsewhere quickly began...

The Vulnerabilities Market and the Future of Security
From ACM Opinion

The Vulnerabilities Market and the Future of Security

Recently, there have been several articles about the new market in zero-day exploits: new and unpatched computer vulnerabilities. It's not just software companies...

'brave' Director Talks About the Pixar Process
From ACM Opinion

'brave' Director Talks About the Pixar Process

Mark Andrews has worked in animation and live-action as a storyboard artist, story supervisor, writer, and even as a voice actor, including The Incredibles, John...

Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever
From ACM Opinion

Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever

The ugly truth is that computers don't know anything. They have no common sense.

Linus Torvalds: Linux Succeeded Thanks to Selfishness and Trust
From ACM Opinion

Linus Torvalds: Linux Succeeded Thanks to Selfishness and Trust

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has won the Millennium Technology Prize and an accompanying cheque for 600,000 euros ($756,000; £486,000) from the Technology Academy...

Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones
From ACM Opinion

Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones

If you're an experienced computer user, you probably remember explaining to newbies how a desktop computer worked: Your photos should go in this folder; your documents...

From ACM Opinion

Apple's Strategy of Built-In Obsolescence

Ross Miller made a good point about Apple's new flagship laptop, in his review for the Verge. Once you take into account that it has a solid-state drive, it's actually...

What Facebook Knows
From ACM News

What Facebook Knows

If Facebook were a country, a conceit that founder Mark Zuckerberg has entertained in public, its 900 million members would make it the third largest in the world...

Economist Paul Krugman Is a Hard-Core Science Fiction Fan
From ACM Opinion

Economist Paul Krugman Is a Hard-Core Science Fiction Fan

If you follow the news at all, you've probably seen Paul Krugman—Princeton professor, New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize-winning economist—championing the idea...

Google Fights Back in China
From ACM News

Google Fights Back in China

Two giants on the world stage are battling over the future of information.

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon
From ACM News

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon

That little iPhone in your pocket is perfectly positioned to become a clone of the credit cards in your wallet or purse.

How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to 'understand' the Web
From ACM Opinion

How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to 'understand' the Web

Despite the massive amounts of computing power dedicated by search engine companies to crawling and indexing trillions of documents on the Internet, search engines...

Is It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?
From ACM Opinion

Is It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?

In the last week or so, cyberwarfare has made front-page news: the United States may have been behind the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran; Iran may have suffered another...
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