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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectTheory
authorThe New York Times
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A Force For Face-to-Face Communication
From ACM Opinion

A Force For Face-to-Face Communication

Clifford I. Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford who died on Saturday, regaled me several times over the years about his method for torturing students...

Does Digital Age Overcomplicate Design?
From ACM Opinion

Does Digital Age Overcomplicate Design?

There is a scene in the television series "Boss" in which the mayor of Chicago, played by Kelsey Grammer, is discovered by his wife washing bed sheets by hand at...

How Robots Can Trick You Into Loving Them
From ACM Opinion

How Robots Can Trick You Into Loving Them

I like to think of my Roomba as cute and industrious.

Who Will Prosper in the New World
From ACM Opinion

Who Will Prosper in the New World

Self-driving vehicles threaten to send truck drivers to the unemployment office.

From ACM Opinion

Visit to the World's Fair of 2014

The New York World's Fair of 1964 is dedicated to "Peace Through Understanding."

Welcome to the Age of Denial
From ACM Opinion

Welcome to the Age of Denial

In 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population...

The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
From ACM Opinion

The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain

The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human,...

Talking, Walking Objects
From ACM Opinion

Talking, Walking Objects

Meeting Simon for the first time was one of the most sublime experiences I've had. With every coy head nod, casual hand wave and deep eye gaze, I felt he already...

From ACM Opinion

Science Is the Key to Growth

Mitt Romney said in all three presidential debates that we need to expand the economy. But he left out a critical ingredient: investments in science and technology...

Is Failure to Predict a Crime?
From ACM Opinion

Is Failure to Predict a Crime?

I learned with disbelief last Monday about the decision of an Italian judge to convict seven scientific experts of manslaughter and to sentence them to six years...

From ACM Opinion

Apple Case Muddies the Future of Innovations

Apple's victory on Friday in a patent lawsuit against Samsung could, if upheld, give its rivals a kick in the pants to create more original products.

God and Man in Tennessee
From ACM Opinion

God and Man in Tennessee

Earlier this month state senators in Tennessee approved an update to our sex-education law that would ban teachers from discussing hand-holding, which it categorizes...

Building the Team That Built Watson
From ACM Opinion

Building the Team That Built Watson

The assignment was one of the biggest challenges in the field of artificial intelligence: build a computer smart enough to beat grand champions at the game of...

From ACM Opinion

The Future of Moral Machines

A robot walks into a bar and says, "I’ll have a screwdriver." A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says "Give me what’s in your cash register."...

From ACM Opinion

The Genius of Jobs

One of the questions I wrestled with when writing about Steve Jobs was how smart he was. On the surface, this should not have been much of an issue.

From ACM News

The Auteur vs. the Committee

At Apple, one is the magic number.

From ACM Opinion

How to Design a Hot Product

When Cisco killed the beloved Flip camcorder a few months ago, a lot of people were shocked and upset—including me. It just seemed like such a ham-handed, thoughtless...

One on One: Jaron Lanier
From ACM Opinion

One on One: Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier, a partner architect at Microsoft Research, has had a long and varied career in technology. Mr. Lanier popularized the term "virtual reality" in...

Patently Obvious
From ACM Opinion

Patently Obvious

On Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether to fundamentally alter the way American patent law is litigated. Specifically, in the context of an otherwise...

Another Win For Artificial Intelligence: The Turing Award
From ACM Opinion

Another Win For Artificial Intelligence: The Turing Award

It's been a banner year or so for artificial intelligence, from the recent triumph of I.B.M.'s Jeopardy-winning supercomputer to a wave of news coverage of the...
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