Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2018
From ACM Opinion
Why the Search for Aliens Could Unite Us Here on Earth
If aliens are trying to talk to us (or even if they are not), Jill Tarter will be the one to find them.
From ACM Opinion
Blockchains Won't Fix Internet Voting Security, and Could Make It Worse
Looking to modernize voting practices, speed waiting times at the polls, increase voter turnout and generally make voting more convenient, many government officials—and some companies hawking voting systems—are looking to an …
From ACM Opinion
Evolution Is at Work in Computers as well as Life Sciences
Artificial intelligence research has a lot to learn from nature.
From ACM Opinion
Paul Allen Thought Like a Hacker and Never Stopped Dreaming
From ACM Opinion
There May Soon Be Three Internets. America's Won't Necessarily Be the Best.
In September, Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and Alphabet chairman, said that in the next 10 to 15 years, the internet would most likely be split in two—one internet led by China and one internet led by the United…
From ACM Opinion
You're Expecting Too Much Out of Boston Dynamics' Robots
At the WIRED25 festival in San Francisco Sunday evening, Boston Dynamics' SpotMini robot got onstage and did what no other quadruped robot has done before: It danced the running man like it was born to.
From ACM Opinion
Jeff Hawkins Is Finally Ready to Explain His Brain Research
From ACM Opinion
Trolling, Hacking and the 2016 US Presidential Election
Late in 2016, then-US President Barack Obama mused in an interview with The New Yorker magazine that he had probably been elected because his campaign had begun before the old media order collapsed.
From ACM Opinion
A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
From ACM Opinion
Editing the Internet's Second Screen
The great social media cleanup of the past two years hasn't seemed to leave it much cleaner.
From ACM Opinion
How Do You Find an Alien Ocean? Margaret Kivelson Figured It Out
The data was like nothing Margaret Kivelson and her team of physicists ever expected.
From ACM Opinion
How Sci-Fi Like WarGames Led to Real Policy During the Reagan Administration
This year, John Badham's WarGames—one of the movies most beloved by hackers, techies, and tech policy wonks (like me!)—celebrates its 35th anniversary.
From ACM Opinion
Why Do Computers Use So Much Energy?
Microsoft is currently running an interesting set of hardware experiments.
From ACM Opinion
Introducing the Internet Bill of Rights
Should American citizens get a new Bill of Rights for the internet?
From ACM Opinion
This Tech Would Have Spotted the Secret Chinese Chip in Seconds
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, spies in China managed to insert chips into computer systems that would allow external control of those systems.
From ACM Opinion
Behind the Scenes of Japan's Daring Asteroid Mission
As Japan lands a third probe on Ryugu asteroid, Nature looks at the Hayabusa2 mission in more detail.
From ACM Opinion
Clicks, Lies and Videotape
This past April a new video of Barack Obama surfaced on the Internet. Against a backdrop that included both the American and presidential flags, it looked like many of his previous speeches.
From ACM Opinion
50 Years Old, '2001: A Space Odyssey' Still Offers Insight about the Future
Watching a 50th anniversary screening of "2001: A Space Odyssey," I found myself, a mathematician and computer scientist whose research includes work related to artificial intelligence, comparing the story's vision of the future…
From ACM Opinion
Brett Kavanaugh and the Information Terrorists Trying to Reshape America
Since the advent of Donald Trump's candidacy, there's been a ton of focus on botnets and sockpuppets—automated and semiautomated social media accounts that use disinformation to manipulate public opinion.
From ACM Opinion
Why We're Training the Next Generation of Lawyers in Big Data
Artificial intelligence is transforming the traditional delivery of legal services.
From ACM Opinion
How Programmable Calculators and a Sci-Fi Story Brought Soviet Teens Into the Digital Age
Despite the ubiquity of computers in modern society, the vast majority of today's students never study computer science or computer programming.
From Communications of the ACM
The Business of Quantum Computing
Considering the similarities of quantum computing development to the early years of conventional computing.
From Communications of the ACM
A Pedagogic Cybersecurity Framework
A proposal for teaching the organizational, legal, and international aspects of cybersecurity.
From Communications of the ACM
The Obscene Coupling Known as Spaghetti Code
Teach your junior programmers how to read code.
From Communications of the ACM
Building the Universal Archive of Source Code
A global collaborative project for the benefit of all.
From Communications of the ACM
Are CS Conferences (Too) Closed Communities?
Assessing whether newcomers have a more difficult time achieving paper acceptance at established conferences.
What Children Want to Know About Computers
10.19.2018Does a super computer have a really big chip in it? Would we be more or less clever if computers …
Changing Who Pays for CS Professional Development in the U.S. and Who Controls It: It Has to be Local
10.17.2018In the U.S., a shift in who pays to prepare computer science (CS) teachers.
Mystery Dating of the World-famous 'Millionaire' Calculating Machine Solved
10.15.2018Regarding the discovery of new documents about the H.W. Egli AG (Zurich) company in the Museum für Kommunikation, Berne, Switzerland.
Google Wants China. Will Chinese Users Want Google?
10.19.2018Google CEO Sundar Pichai was upbeat Monday when he told WIRED about …
Double the Fun: Mars Scientists Push NASA to Send Rock-Harvesting Rover to Two Sites
10.19.2018NASA's next Mars rover—the first to gather rock samples meant …
Researchers Unveil AI System That Predicts Problems During Surgery
10.19.2018A new artificial intelligence system uses patient data to predict …