Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
Could Robots Become Too Cute For Comfort?
Would you share your innermost secret with a robot?
From ACM Opinion
William Gibson Writes the Future
William Gibson lives in an overwhelmingly green suburb with old-money roots south of Vancouver's downtown, and it is in this suburb that I am currently wandering...
From ACM Opinion
Machine-Learning Maestro Michael Jordan on the Delusions of Big Data and Other Huge Engineering Efforts
The overeager adoption of big data is likely to result in catastrophes of analysis comparable to a national epidemic of collapsing bridges.
From ACM Opinion
Okcupid's Xoxo For Big Surveillance
Christian Rudder is a good writer—so good, in fact, it's easy for readers of Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) to be smitten by his engaging...
From ACM Opinion
To Siri, With Love
Just how bad a mother am I? I wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with Siri.
From ACM Opinion
Fbi Director on Privacy, Electronic Surveillance
James Comey, the director of the FBI, says the Internet is the most dangerous parking lot imaginable.
From ACM Opinion
How Big Data Algorithms See s—while They Eat S p
Four years ago I interviewed Sam Yagan, then CEO of OKCupid, about the mathematics underlying his free matchmaking site.
From ACM Opinion
Why Germans Are Afraid of Google
These days Germany is known for being many things: a leader in clean technology, a manufacturing powerhouse, Europe's foreign policy center.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Schmidt Fires Back Over Encryption
To hear Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt tell it, the U.S. government has only itself to blame for new efforts by Google and Apple Inc. to keep police...
From ACM Opinion
The Nsa and Me
The tone of the answering machine message was routine, like a reminder for a dental appointment. But there was also an undercurrent of urgency.
From ACM Opinion
How The Cold War And George Orwell Helped Make The Internet What It Is
The story of how the digital age came to be involves a cast of more than 40 people, ranging from a 19th century English countess to California hippies.
From ACM Opinion
Intel Meets its 'makers,' with Chips For Diy Set and the Firms They'll Found
Intel's Edison chip has been launched in a rocket, floated in a weather balloon, fitted into a futuristic light-emitting dress and used to power a dancing robot...
From ACM Opinion
Cyber Spy High: Meet the Nsa's Hacker Recruiter
The National Security Agency has a recruiting problem.
From ACM Opinion
How Humans Could Inhabit the Solar System
With our rising planet's population competing for space and resources, some people are convinced we need to look beyond Earth to help ensure humanity's survival...
From ACM Opinion
What It Will Take For Computers to Be Conscious
Is a worm conscious? How about a bumblebee? Does a computer that can play chess "feel" anything?
From ACM Opinion
'glass Brain' Offers Tours of the Space Between Your Ears
Former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart takes pride in his brain.
From ACM Opinion
Cyborgs: The Truth About Human Augmentation
At the height of summer, when London was baking in unseasonable heat, I made an ill-fated trip to the Serpentine lido in central London.
From ACM Opinion
The Toughest Case: What If Osama Bin Laden Had an Iphone?
In rebuking Apple and Google for their new smartphone encryption polices on Thursday, FBI Director James B. Comey became the latest law enforcement official to...
From ACM Opinion
When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone
Everyone understands what it means to own a plunger.
From ACM Opinion