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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectComputers And Society
authorTechnology Review
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From ACM Opinion

Why Obama's Brain-Mapping Project Matters

Last week, President Obama officially announced $100 million in funding for arguably the most ambitious neuroscience initiative ever proposed.

Geeks Are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties
From ACM Opinion

Geeks Are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties

A decade-plus of anthropological fieldwork among hackers and like-minded geeks has led me to the firm conviction that these people are building one of the most...

It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines
From ACM News

It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines

The amount of time and money needed to sequence genomes continued to fall in 2012, perhaps to no one’s surprise.

Why China's Homemade Microchips Will Struggle to Displace Western Giants
From ACM Opinion

Why China's Homemade Microchips Will Struggle to Displace Western Giants

If China's ultimate aim in the sphere of technology is to become completely self-sufficient, it is well on the way to achieving this ambitious goal.

How Technology Has Restored the Soul of Politics
From ACM Opinion

How Technology Has Restored the Soul of Politics

In 1979, I was an aeronautical-engineering major at San Jose State University, sneaking time in the laser lab to make holograms or running over to the computer...

China's Innovation Success Depends on Political Changes
From ACM Opinion

China's Innovation Success Depends on Political Changes

Since 1978, the Chinese economy has seen phenomenal growth. While that’s not in dispute, the reason why China has managed to grow so fast and whether it can maintain...

The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years
From ACM Opinion

The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years

If you were asked to name the most important innovation in transportation over the last 200 years, you might say the combustion engine, air travel, Henry Ford’s...

How Young Is Too Young to Learn to Code?
From ACM Opinion

How Young Is Too Young to Learn to Code?

When the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 spend exactly zero time in front of screens, what its members are concerned about is substitution—all...

From ACM Opinion

The Year on the Web

We've been living in the age of social media for a long time, but 2011 was the year that all the information we share online began to accrete into something greater...

From ACM Opinion

Why Transparent Tracking Needs Its Own App

Amid widespread concern over an obscure piece of smart-phone diagnostic software that some experts say could be used to collect and transmit sensitive information...

From ACM Opinion

The Personal Computer Is Dead

Power is fast shifting from end users and software developers to operating system vendors.

From ACM Opinion

Don't ­nderestimate the Singularity

Although Paul Allen paraphrases my 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, in the title of his essay (cowritten with his colleague Mark Greaves), it appears that he...

From ACM Opinion

The Singularity Isn't Near

 Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter...

From ACM Opinion

A Cloud Over Ownership

Online services set content free from the physical world's constraints—including those that have defined the very idea of possession.

From ACM Opinion

Why Isn't America Innovating Like It ­sed To?

America isn't innovating like it used to. And by "like it used to," I mean the period from after World War II to 1973, when an explosion of new technologies increased...

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
From ACM Opinion

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?

Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand...

From ACM Opinion

Iran's Answer to Stuxnet

Might a "halal Internet" be in the wings?

A Worthwhile Contest For Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

A Worthwhile Contest For Artificial Intelligence

If IBM's Watson machine defeats people on TV's Jeopardy this week, does that mean that computers are smarter than humans? Maybe not. But the performance could...

Everything You Need to Know About Wikileaks
From ACM Opinion

Everything You Need to Know About Wikileaks

Two experts lay out the facts surrounding the controversy.

Technology Lessons from the Wikileaks Saga
From ACM Opinion

Technology Lessons from the Wikileaks Saga

There's already debate about whether Wikileaks's release of 92,000 classified documents on the war in Afghanistan was more of a milestone in the annals of national...
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