Former Communications editor-in-chief Robert L. Ashenhurst, who died last October at age 80, served ACM for 35 years with dedication, humor, and panache, according to fellow ACM volunteers.
Sometimes the impacts of powerful technologies are relatively clear and pretty much expected. For example, we all realize that nuclear bombs are capable of impacting the world in drastic and dramatic ways via their very existence, even when not detonated. But some technologies, even seemingly ordinary consumer products, can impact global events and society in […]
Edward E. Lee's "Computing Needs Time" (May 2009) might be the most important, stimulating, and timely article I have read in Communications over the past 50 years.
Many people continue to ignore the long-term implications of decisions made for short-term gains, often based on overly optimistic or fallacious assumptions. In principle, greater benefits can result from farsighted vision based on realistic assumptions. For example, serious environmental effects (including global warming, water and air pollution, and adverse genetic engineering) are largely ignored in […]
The story of the Aceville elections has received some attention in the national press, but it is worth considering from a Risks perspective. This column is based on reports by AP (Affiliated Press, "Unusual Election Results in Ohio Town," 2/30/04) and Rueters ("Losers Question Ohio Election," 2/30/04). The Aceville, OH, municipal elections last February—the city’s […]
Old-timers remember crossing zeros (Ø) in program listings to avoid confusing them with the letter O. This has long been obsoleted by advances in editing tools and font differentiation. However, the underlying problem of character resemblance remains, and has now emerged as a security problem. On April 7, 2000, an anonymous site published a bogus […]
Communications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
