Communications of the ACM
Breaking Up a Digital Monopoly
How to decompose a vertically integrated digital monopoly to enable competitive services based on a shared data structure.
From ACM Opinion
Going To the World Cup? Leave the Laptop at Home
A Russian sports official earlier this year estimated that as many as 2 million people would flock to the country during the World Cup, the month-long celebration...
From ACM Opinion
Self-Driving Cars Likely Won't Steal Your Job (ntil 2040)
The self-driving robots are coming to transform your job. Kind of. Also, very slowly.
From ACM Opinion
The Many Shades of Bad Physics
What happens when you see bad physics in the world? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh?
From ACM Opinion
The Responsibility of Immortality: Welcome to the New Transhumanism
In the summer of 1990, I was running a pretty weird nightclub in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo.
From ACM Opinion
How Wired Lost $100,000 in Bitcoin
Back in 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, Wired was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs.
From ACM Opinion
Europe's New Data Protections Will Affect You Too. Here's How.
Starting tomorrow, a new framework for consumer data protection goes into effect in Europe.
From ACM Opinion
Facial Recognition Tech Is Creepy When It Works, And Creepier When It Doesn't
For the last few years, police forces around China have invested heavily to build the world's largest video surveillance and facial recognition system, incorporating...
From ACM Opinion
When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders
On a fall day in 1999, in the heart of Silicon Valley, I arrived at a two-story, L-shaped structure off the 101 freeway. It was young Google's headquarters, and...
From ACM Opinion
Why Police Should Monitor Social Media to Prevent Crime
In February, the ACLU of Massachusetts released a damning report detailing prejudice in social media surveillance efforts by the Boston Police Department (BPD)....
From ACM Opinion
The Questions Zuckerberg Should Have Answered About Russia
Over the last two days, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned for more than 10 hours by two different Congressional committees. There was granular focus on...
From ACM Opinion
The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data
The headlines about the trade wars being touched off by President Trump's new tariffs may telegraph plenty of bombast and shots fired, but the most consequential...
From ACM Opinion
The Blockchain Solution to Our Deepfake Problems
Blockchain has always seemed to me like a solution looking for a problem, which isn't a criticism.
From ACM Opinion
Med Students Are Getting Terrible Training in Robotic Surgery
If you think your on-the-job training was tough, imagine what life is like for newbie surgeons.
From ACM Opinion
How Trump Conquered Facebook, Without Russian Ads
It's not every day that a former work colleague gets retweeted by the president of the United States.
From ACM Opinion
How Snapchat Is Sending #MeToo Down the Memory Hole
If you have something personal or private to communicate, you know where to turn.
From ACM Opinion
Want Awesome Robots? You'll Have to Best These Challenges
We are living in the midst of a profound technological restructuring of human society. The machines that once only frolicked in science fiction have begun to infiltrate...
From ACM Opinion
Remembering rsula Le Guin, Imaginer of Difficult Worlds
Ursula Le Guin imagined the future for a living, but her most prescient statement may have come in a speech.
From ACM Opinion
Forget the Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let's Talk About the Multiplicity
For a species that's conquered Earth and traveled through space and invented the Slapchop, we humans sure are insecure when it comes to technology.
From ACM Opinion
Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance, and Makes It Even Worse
In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was legally collecting millions of Americans' phone calls and electronic communications—including...
From ACM Opinion