DEPARTMENT:
Editor's letter
Around the World: (The First Time) with Communications' Regional Special Sections
In 2017, we made the strategic decision to launch Communications' Regional Special Sections. Next month (April 2021), we will publish the special section for Arabia, completing our circumnavigation of the world. The special sections …
Andrew A. Chien
Pages 5-7
DEPARTMENT:
Departments
The People vs. Tech
Today, the top seven companies in the S&P 500 index are all tech companies. Large companies wield power, and that often leads to a clash between these companies and "The People," that is, with governments.
Moshe Y. Vardi
Page 9
DEPARTMENT:
Career paths in computing
Enabling Renewable Energy Through Smarter Grids
We have enormous power to change the world through the systems we create. A world with clean air and water in which every person is respected seems like something we can all aspire to.
Graham Oakes
Page 11
DEPARTMENT:
[email protected]
Disputing Dijkstra, and Birthdays in Base 2
Mark Guzdial takes issue with Dijkstra's metaphors, while Joel C. Adams considers how birthdays might differ if based on binary numbers.
Mark Guzdial, Joel C. Adams
Pages 12-13
COLUMN:
News
The Power of Quantum Complexity
A theorem about computations that exploit quantum mechanics challenges longstanding ideas in mathematics and physics.
Don Monroe
Pages 15-17
Fact-Finding Mission
Artificial intelligence provides automatic fact-checking and fake news detection, but with limits.
Neil Savage
Pages 18-19
Can the Biases in Facial Recognition Be Fixed; Also, Should They?
Many facial recognition systems used by law enforcement are shot through with biases. Can anything be done to make them fair and trustworthy?
Paul Marks
Pages 20-22
Edmund M. Clarke (1945–2020)
Edmund Melson Clarke, Jr., a celebrated American academic who developed methods for mathematically proving the correctness of computer systems, died on December 22, 2020 at the age of 75 from complications of COVID-19.
Simson Garfinkel, Eugene H. Spafford
Pages 23-24
COLUMN:
Legally speaking
The Push for Stricter Rules for Internet Platforms
Considering the origins, interpretations, and possible changes to Communications Decency Act §230 amid an evolving online environment.
Pamela Samuelson
Pages 26-28
COLUMN:
Privacy
Informing California Privacy Regulations with Evidence from Research
Designing and testing 'Do Not Sell My Personal Information' icons.
Lorrie Faith Cranor
Pages 29-32
COLUMN:
Computing ethics
What To Do About Deepfakes
Seeking to reap the positive uses of synthetic media while minimizing or preventing negative societal impact.
Deborah G. Johnson, Nicholas Diakopoulos
Pages 33-35
COLUMN:
The profession of IT
Science Is Not Another Opinion
The issue is not who has the "truth," but whose claims deserve more credence.
Peter J. Denning, Jeffrey Johnson
Pages 36-38
COLUMN:
Viewpoint
50 Years of Pascal
The Pascal programming language creator Niklaus Wirth reflects on its origin, spread, and further development.
Niklaus Wirth
Pages 39-41
What Can the Maker Movement Teach Us About the Digitization of Creativity?
Experimenting with the creative process.
Sascha Friesike, Frédéric Thiesse, George Kuk
Pages 42-45
The Transformation of Patient-Clinician Relationships with AI-based Medical Advice
A "bring your own algorithm" era in healthcare.
Oded Nov, Yindalon Aphinyanaphongs, Yvonne W. Lui, Devin Mann, Maurizio Porfiri, Mark Riedl, John-Ross Rizzo, Batia Wiesenfeld
Pages 46-48
SECTION:
Practice
A Second Conversation with Werner Vogels
The Amazon CTO sits with Tom Killalea to discuss designing for evolution at scale.
CACM Staff
Pages 50-57
Out-of-This-World Additive Manufacturing
From thingamabobs to rockets, 3D printing takes many forms.
Jessie Frazelle
Pages 58-62
SECTION:
Contributed articles
The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology
Technological and economic forces are now pushing computing away from being general purpose and toward specialization.
Neil C. Thompson, Svenja Spanuth
Pages 64-72
Educational Interventions and Female Enrollment in IT Degrees
A study of female students enrolled in IT degrees in Australia traces how programs influenced decision making.
Andreea Molnar, Therese Keane, Rosemary Stockdale
Pages 73-77
Gender Trends in Computer Science Authorship
Under optimistic projection models, gender parity is forecast to be reached after 2100.
Lucy Lu Wang, Gabriel Stanovsky, Luca Weihs, Oren Etzioni
Pages 78-84
SECTION:
Review articles
Cyber Reconnaissance Techniques
The evolution of and countermeasures for existing reconnaissance techniques.
Wojciech Mazurczyk, Luca Caviglione
Pages 86-95
Knowledge Graphs
Tracking the historical events that lead to the interweaving of data and knowledge.
Claudio Gutierrez, Juan F. Sequeda
Pages 96-104
SECTION:
Research highlights
Technical Perspective: Why Don't Today's Deep Nets Overfit to Their Training Data?
"Understanding Deep Learning (Still) Requires Rethinking Generalization," Chiyuan Zhang, et al., brings a fundamental new theoretical challenge: Why don't today's deep nets overfit to training data?
Sanjeev Arora
Page 106
Understanding Deep Learning (Still) Requires Rethinking Generalization
In this work, we presented a simple experimental framework for interrogating purported measures of generalization.
Chiyuan Zhang, Samy Bengio, Moritz Hardt, Benjamin Recht, Oriol Vinyals
Pages 107-115
Technical Perspective: Localizing Insects Outdoors
"3D Localization for Subcentimeter-Sized Devices," by Iyer, et al., neatly separates and solves the problems of robotic locomotion, sensing, localization, and communications packaged into a tiny payload.
Prabal Dutta
Page 116
3D Localization for Subcentimeter-Sized Devices
We present the first localization system that consumes microwatts of power at a mobile device and can be localized across multiple rooms in settings such as homes and hospitals.
Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, Vikram Iyer, Shyamnath Gollakota
Pages 117-125
COLUMN:
Last byte
Awakening
Some technical support will never change.
Brian Clegg
Pages 128-ff