Communications of the ACM
An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Y No Go Viral: The Emerging Science of Memes
Scientists are beginning to study how memes are created, which ones fail, and how certain memes go viral.
From ACM Opinion
What the Digital Brains of the Future Might Be Like
It is the rare entrepreneur who hits it truly big twice. Those who do—such as Ev Williams, Ted Turner, and Elon Musk—tend to stay within the original industry that...
From ACM News
Where Rich People Live (AKA Maps of iPhone Use)
Our stuff often says a lot about us, whether we own a hybrid car or a station wagon, a MacBook Pro or an ancient desktop.
From ACM News
Is This Virtual Worm the First Sign of the Singularity?
For all the talk of artificial intelligence and all the games of SimCity that have been played, no one in the world can actually simulate living things. Biology...
From ACM News
Chatting in Code on Walkie-Talkies in Pakistan's Restive Tribal Areas
Sharif loves using his mukhabera. "I use it daily, mostly at night time, because signals are clear at that time," he says. "I am in touch with most of my friends...
From ACM Opinion
Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?
Forty-five years after Intel was founded by Silicon Valley legends Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, it is the world's leading semiconductor company.
From ACM News
How Facebook Designs the 'perfect Empty Vessel' For Your Mind
One day in March, I was sitting across from Facebook's design director, Kate Aronowitz, at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park when she told me, "It takes a lot of work...
From ACM News
How the Boston Pd Could Examine the Videos From the Bombing
As investigators try to figure out what happened during the bombings at the Boston Marathon, they'll turn to video taken at the scene of the explosions.
From ACM Opinion
How Augmented-Reality Content Might Actually Work
Augmented reality is very exciting. The promise of it is this: all the information on the Internet overlaid on the real world exactly where and when you need it...
From ACM Opinion
In China, 25 Million People se Only Their Cell Phones to Read Books
On vacation in China earlier this month, I stopped by Shanghai's seven-story downtown "Book City," bustling with activity on a weekday afternoon that, as a publisher...
From ACM News
An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business
Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books.
From ACM News
The World Is Not Enough: Google and the Future of Augmented Reality
It is The Future. You wake up at dawn and fumble on the bedstand for your (Google) Glass. Peering out at the world through transparent screens, what do you see?
From ACM Opinion
The Consequences of Machine Intelligence
The question of what happens when machines get to be as intelligent as and even more intelligent than people seems to occupy many science-fiction writers.
From ACM Opinion
Iphone 5? Yawn. What Will the 'phone' of 2022 Look Like?
The near-term future of phones is fairly well-established. The iPhone 5 was released Wednesday and its similarity to every Apple phone since 2007 serves as a reminder...
From ACM News
How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means For the Future of Everything
Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view.
From ACM Opinion
The Jet Propulsion Lab Is Way Weirder (and Awesomer) Than You Even Imagined
For a center of cutting-edge scientific research, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab seems to be a pretty wacky place. Luke Johnson, a graphic designer at the lab, set...
From ACM News
The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars
I want to tell you about a special place on the surface of Mars. Back in the solar system's early days, a large object slammed into the red planet, leaving behind...
From ACM Opinion
Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever
The ugly truth is that computers don't know anything. They have no common sense.
From ACM News