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Why the Internet Makes It Impossible to Stop Giant Wall Street Losses
From ACM Opinion

Why the Internet Makes It Impossible to Stop Giant Wall Street Losses

In 1984, Yale sociologist Charles Perrow published his classic book, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. The odd term, "normal accident," Perrow...

How Computers Are Creating a Second Economy Without Workers
From ACM Opinion

How Computers Are Creating a Second Economy Without Workers

When the disappointing jobs numbers were reported last week (employers added 120,000 jobs in March, about half the number reported in the two previous months),...

Homeland Security's 'pre-Crime' Screening Will Never Work
From ACM Opinion

Homeland Security's 'pre-Crime' Screening Will Never Work

Here is a quiz for you.

Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun
From ACM TechNews

Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun

Information technology is changing the way nations wage war, with philosophical and ethical perspectives struggling to keep pace with those changes.  

From ACM Opinion

The Technology of a Better Footnote

Footnotes—or endnotes, or just notes; whatever you want to call them—are a problem. They're a problem for writers and a problem for readers and a problem for typesetters...

How Does Siri Knockoff Evi Compare to the Iphone's Original Digital Assistant?
From ACM Opinion

How Does Siri Knockoff Evi Compare to the Iphone's Original Digital Assistant?

Evi, the Siri knockoff that got attention last week for looking too much like Siri, has beendownloaded over 200,000 times, leading us to believe that this one might...

'a Clockwork Orange' Strikes 40
From ACM Opinion

'a Clockwork Orange' Strikes 40

The New York Times recently ran an opinion piece about the concept of a morality pill, a theoretical-but-apparently-not-implausible panacea for humankind's ethical...

The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time
From ACM Opinion

The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time

The data revolution has turned customers into unwitting business consultants, as our purchases and searches are tracked to improve everything from Web sites to...

Cloud-Powered Facial Recognition Is Terrifying
From ACM Opinion

Cloud-Powered Facial Recognition Is Terrifying

"I never forget a face," goes the Marx Brothers one-liner, "but in your case, I'll be glad to make an exception." Unlike Groucho Marx, unfortunately, the cloud...

From ACM Opinion

Life in the Age of Extremes

The Internet causes connections to multiply and strengthen, creating a frenzy of positive feedback, which can drive people apart—not together.

Technology Is Our Friend... Except When It Isn't
From ACM Opinion

Technology Is Our Friend... Except When It Isn't

The technology in question starts with "gigapixel" photography. Gigapixel photos are giant panoramas that themselves consist of hundreds of component mega-pixel...

The Campaign to Terrify You About Emp
From ACM Opinion

The Campaign to Terrify You About Emp

From Newt Gingrich to a Congressional "EMP Caucus," some conservatives warn the electronics-frying blast could pose gravely underestimated dangers to the U.S.

From ACM Opinion

How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code

When Colin Hughes was about 11 years old his parents brought home a rather strange toy. It wasn't colorful or cartoonish; it didn't seem to have any lasers or...

From ACM Opinion

On the Latest Google Chinese-Hacking News

Thanks to many people who have written in asking whether the recent Google announcement of a new China-based wave of attacks on Gmail accounts is related to the...

Are You Following a Bot?
From ACM Opinion

Are You Following a Bot?

How to manipulate social movements by hacking Twitter.

Eric Schmidt: What I Read
From ACM Opinion

Eric Schmidt: What I Read

What I read varies widely based on what kind of information I’m looking for at the time.

Mind vs. Machine
From ACM News

Mind vs. Machine

In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial...

From ACM Opinion

The Anthropology of Hackers

A "hacker" is a technologist with a love for computing and a "hack" is a clever technical solution arrived through a non-obvious means. It doesn't mean to compromise...

School For Hackers
From ACM Opinion

School For Hackers

The do-it-yourself movement revives learning by doing.

From ACM Opinion

Robots vs. Suicide Terrorists

In February 2008, a pair of suicide bombers struck the Israeli town of Dimona. One of the attackers detonated his explosive vest, killing an Israeli, and injuring...
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