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Pentagon Puts Cyberwarriors on the Offensive, Increasing the Risk of Conflict
From ACM Opinion

Pentagon Puts Cyberwarriors on the Offensive, Increasing the Risk of Conflict

The Pentagon has quietly empowered the United States Cyber Command to take a far more aggressive approach to defending the nation against cyberattacks, a shift...

Getting a Flood of G.D.P.R.-Related Privacy Policy ­pdates? Read Them.
From ACM Opinion

Getting a Flood of G.D.P.R.-Related Privacy Policy ­pdates? Read Them.

You have probably noticed a flood of emails and alerts from companies in the past few weeks informing you about changes to their privacy policies.

How Tech Can Turn Doctors Into Clerical Workers
From ACM Opinion

How Tech Can Turn Doctors Into Clerical Workers

There are times when the diagnosis announces itself as the patient walks in, because the body is, among other things, a text.

Europe's Data Protection Law Is a Big, Confusing Mess
From ACM Opinion

Europe's Data Protection Law Is a Big, Confusing Mess

There is a growing realization that our data is under attack.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the '­ltimate Trip'
From ACM Opinion

'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the '­ltimate Trip'

In the spring of 1964 the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried. NASA was about to fly the Mariner 4 space probe past Mars.

In Washington, a Brighter Spotlight on Technology
From ACM Opinion

In Washington, a Brighter Spotlight on Technology

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Cecilia Kang, a technology reporter based in Washington, discussed the...

Why Silicon Valley Must Go to War
From ACM Opinion

Why Silicon Valley Must Go to War

Should technologists prevent their tools from being used to wage war? This question was answered with a furious yes at Google recently, when more than 3,000 employees ...

A Brand-New Version of Our Origin Story
From ACM Opinion

A Brand-New Version of Our Origin Story

For over a decade, National Geographic's Genographic Project has been collecting saliva samples from willing participants, analyzing small pieces of their mother's...

Why Silicon Valley Shouldn't Work With the Pentagon
From ACM Opinion

Why Silicon Valley Shouldn't Work With the Pentagon

Is Silicon Valley going to war?

Can Europe Lead on Privacy?
From ACM Opinion

Can Europe Lead on Privacy?

"We have a responsibility to protect your information," Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, declared recently in a full-page newspaper advertisement...

What '2001' Got Right
From ACM Opinion

What '2001' Got Right

It's a testament to the lasting influence of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," which turns 50 this week, that the disc-shaped...

How Lies Spread Online
From ACM Opinion

How Lies Spread Online

The spread of misinformation on social media is an alarming phenomenon that scientists have yet to fully understand.

How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly
From ACM Opinion

How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly

For a field that was not well known outside of academia a decade ago, artificial intelligence has grown dizzyingly fast. Tech companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing...

The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains
From ACM Opinion

The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains

Something strange, scary and sublime is happening to cameras, and it's going to complicate everything you knew about pictures. Cameras are getting brains.

How to Monitor Fake News
From ACM Opinion

How to Monitor Fake News

The indictment of 13 Russians filed on Friday by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election,...

Welcome to the Post-Text Future
From ACM Opinion

Welcome to the Post-Text Future

I'll make this short: The thing you're doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.

Our Hackable Political Future
From ACM Opinion

Our Hackable Political Future

Imagine it is the spring of 2019. A bottom-feeding website, perhaps tied to Russia, "surfaces" video of a sex scene starring an 18-year-old Kirsten Gillibrand. ...

Tackling the Internet's Central Villain: The Advertising Business
From ACM Opinion

Tackling the Internet's Central Villain: The Advertising Business


Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble
From ACM Opinion

Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble

The other day my barber asked me whether he should put all his money in Bitcoin. And the truth is that if he'd bought Bitcoin, say, a year ago he'd be feeling pretty...

Artificial Intelligence's 'black Box' Is Nothing to Fear
From ACM Opinion

Artificial Intelligence's 'black Box' Is Nothing to Fear

Alongside the excitement and hype about our growing reliance on artificial intelligence, there's fear about the way the technology works.
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