Communications of the ACM
The Danger of Thinking We're All 'Addicted' to Tech
Telling ourselves that devices and platforms "hijack" our brains promotes passivity instead of empowerment.
From ACM Opinion
Big Tech's 'Innovations' That Aren't
Silicon Valley's giants are no longer producing better products and services. They're exploiting people.
From ACM Opinion
How Voice Assistants Reinforce the Tech Gender Gap
Voice assistants are becoming commonplace in most homes and offices, but using women's voices for most devices may be doing more harm than good.
From Communications of the ACM
Inspired by the Home of the Future
2018 ACM Prize in Computing recipient Shwetak Patel pushes old tools to new heights.
From ACM Opinion
VR Could Be the Most Powerful Teaching Tool Since the PC
Virtual reality is much more than a gaming technology. In fact, VR has the makings of a pedagogical silver bullet.
From ACM Opinion
Silicon Valley Wants To Read Your Mind. You Should Be Worried
Mind-reading systems such as Facebook's brainwave-reading device and Neuralink's brain implants can affect privacy, security, identity, equality and personal safety...
From ACM Opinion
CS Professor Says We Can Probably Make Email Better For Everyone
Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University, argues that our grandkids will be mystified by our addiction to email. He has some thoughts...
From ACM Opinion
Shoot-'Em-Up Videogames Don't Warp Minds – Big Tech Does
It takes a lot of effort, research, and efficiency to manipulate people online and influence their behavior in the real world. Silicon Valley has it down to a science...
From ACM Opinion
Our Disabilities Have Made s Better Scientists
Scientific research is rarely designed to accommodate scientists with medical conditions or disabilities.
From ACM Opinion
Caroline Criado Perez Explains the 'Gender Data Gap'
In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez examines elements of the modern world that appear to be designed with less consideration for women, including smartphones...
From ACM Opinion
The U.S. Is Losing a Major Front to China in the New Cold War
A swathe of the world is adopting China's vision for a tightly controlled internet over the unfettered American approach, a stunning ideological coup for Beijing...
From ACM Opinion
Untold History of AI: The DARPA Dreamer Who Aimed for Cyborg Intelligence
At 10:30pm on 29 October 1969, a graduate student at UCLA sent a two-letter message from an SDS Sigma 7 computer to another machine a few hundred miles away at...
From ACM Opinion
The Robocall Crisis Will Never Be Totally Fixed
Years into the robocalling frenzy, your phone probably still rings off the hook with "important information about your account," updates from the "Chinese embassy...
From ACM Opinion
A Journey, If You Dare, Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers
Code seems cold and objective, the raw logic of the internet, and Silicon Valley likes it that way.
From ACM Opinion
Despite Consumer Worries, the Future of Aviation Will Be More Automated
In the wake of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes, people are thinking about how much of their air travel is handled by software...
From ACM Opinion
Robots on the Run
Young animals gallop across fields, climb trees and immediately find their feet with enviable grace after they fall.
From ACM Opinion
Facebook and Google Aren't the Only Ones Tracking Your Clicks
Criticism of big tech companies that track us across the internet without our informed consent misses a bigger picture: There are hundreds of ad-tracking companies...
From ACM Opinion
The ncanny Valley Nobody's Talking About: Eerie Robot Voices
Call it the Great Convergence of Creepiness. The first bit, the uncanny valley, we're all familiar with by now: If a humanoid robot looks super realistic, but not...
From ACM Opinion
The FAA Rigorously Tested the Boeing 737's Software
Two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes have crashed under similar circumstances in the past six months, one in October in Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia last week....
From ACM Opinion