December 2021 - Vol. 64 No. 12

Features

Opinion From the ACM CEO Dec 1 2021

The need for diversity, equity, and inclusion is not only an issue of fairness, but also of excellence; research consistently finds that diverse teams produce better results than non-diverse teams.

Vicki L. Hanson

Computing Profession

Opinion Editor's letter Dec 1 2021

Good, Better, Best: How Sustainable Should Computing Be?

The grid faces major challenges to decarbonize, and the computing community can and should help accelerate the process.

Andrew A. Chien

Architecture and Hardware

Opinion Cerf's up Dec 1 2021

On Heterogeneous Computing

Computing is an endless frontier in which we have an unending supply of new problems to confront in the search for new solutions.

Vinton G. Cerf

Architecture and Hardware

Opinion Letters to the editor Dec 1 2021

Common Ails

Michael A. Cusumano's October 2021 column, "Section 230 and a Tragedy of the Commons," contains some fundamental factual errors that further muddle a debate that already has been rife with inaccuracies.

CACM Staff

Computing Profession

BLOG@CACM Dec 1 2021

Seeking Out Camille, and Being Open to Others

Robin K. Hill on overcoming biases against alternative views, and Carlos Baquero on his search for the elusive Camille Noûs.

Robin K. Hill and Carlos Baquero

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Dec 1 2021

Trouble at the Source

Errors and biases in artificial intelligence systems often reflect the data used to train them.

Don Monroe

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

light emanating from a chip, illustration

News Dec 1 2021

The Road Ahead for Augmented Reality

A heads-up look at augmented reality head-up displays.

Keith Kirkpatrick

Computing Applications

automotive head-up display, illustration

News Dec 1 2021

What Is the Cost of Living Online?

The cost of powering streaming and other rapidly growing online services will not "take down the Internet."

Samuel Greengard

Computing Applications

News ACM publications finances Dec 1 2021

ACM Publications Finances for 2020

This annual update on ACM Publications finances summarizes income and expenses for the 2020 calendar year.

Jack W. Davidson, Joseph A. Konstan, and Scott E. Delman

Computing Profession

Opinion The profession of IT Dec 1 2021

Computational Thinking for Professionals

Professionals practice a form of computational thinking that is significantly more advanced than popular descriptions suggest.

Peter J. Denning and Matti Tedre

Computing Profession

Opinion Economic and business dimensions Dec 1 2021

‘In Situ’ Data Rights

Improving on data portability.

Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Georgios Petropoulos, Geoffrey Parker, and Bertin Martens

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Dec 1 2021

Accelerator-Level Parallelism

Charging computer scientists to develop the science needed to best achieve the performance and cost goals of accelerator-level parallelism hardware and software.

Mark D. Hill and Vijay Janapa Reddi

Computing Applications

Opinion Kode Vicious Dec 1 2021

Patent Absurdity

A case when ignorance is the best policy.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Applications

patent label and binary code, illustration

Opinion Viewpoint Dec 1 2021

What Every Engineer and Computer Scientist Should Know: The Biggest Contributor to Happiness

Seeking the fundamental factors instrumental to happiness.

Rosalind Picard

Computing Applications

person holding smily face sign in front of face

Practice Dec 1 2021

When Curation Becomes Creation

Algorithms, microcontent, and the vanishing distinction between platforms and creators.

Liu Leqi, Dylan Hadfield-Menell, and Zachary C. Lipton

Computing Applications

roadblock in browser window, illustration

Practice Dec 1 2021

Digging into Big Provenance (with SPADE)

A user interface for querying provenance.

Computing Applications

concentric bands of colored orbs, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2021

The Hardware Lottery

After decades of incentivizing the isolation of hardware, software, and algorithm development, the catalysts for closer collaboration are changing the paradigm.

Sara Hooker

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2021

AI-CHD: An AI-Based Framework for Cost-Effective Surgical Telementoring of Congenital Heart Disease

3D heart modeling and AI bring new cardiac surgery to remote and less-developed regions.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

open hand under human heart, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2021

Digital Agriculture for Small-Scale Producers: Challenges and Opportunities

Smart Farming with technologies such as IoT, computer vision, and AI can improve agricultural efficiency, transparency, profitability, and equity for farmers in low-and middle-income countries.

Ranveer Chandra and Stewart Collis

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Review articles Dec 1 2021

Datasheets for Datasets

Documentation to facilitate communication between dataset creators and consumers.

Computing Applications

individuals moving word blocks, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2021

Technical Perspective: Cooking Up a Solution to Microwave Heat Distribution

"Software-Defined Cooking Using a Microwave Oven," by Haojian Jin et al., introduces a feedback mechanism to microwave heating through a technique the authors call software-defined cooking.

Fadel Adib

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2021

Software-Defined Cooking Using a Microwave Oven

We present software-defined cooking (SDC), a low-cost closed-loop microwave oven system that aims to heat food in a software-defined thermal trajectory.

Haojian Jin, Jingxian Wang, Swarun Kumar, and Jason Hong

Computing Applications

arms removing cooked meal from microwave oven

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2021

Technical Perspective: A Recipe for Protecting Against Speculation Attacks

"Speculative Taint Tracking (STT): A Comprehensive Protection for Speculatively Accessed Data," by Jiyong Yu et al., might be a beginning of an end to speculation-based attacks.

Timothy Sherwood

Security and Privacy

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2021

Speculative Taint Tracking (STT): A Comprehensive Protection for Speculatively Accessed Data

This paper proposes speculative taint tracking (STT), a high security and high performance hardware mechanism, to block speculative execution attacks.

Security and Privacy

Meltdown and Spectre icons inside walled area

Opinion Last byte Dec 1 2021

Exploring the Promise of Quantum Computing

ACM Computing Prize recipient Scott Aaronson discusses his work in quantum complexity.

Leah Hoffmann

Architecture and Hardware

Recent Issues

Explore the Issue Archive