Tech

"Footage of last week’s massacre in New Zealand, which the shooter streamed in real time via Facebook Live, quickly proliferated. The original 17-minute webcast was viewed fewer than 200 times and wasn’t immediately reported, Facebook says."

"Anxious, I asked the Google gods for advice. I expected I’d find something from a lifestyle blogger, or a life coach, or a Reddit thread — the corners of the web that have always been there for me during pivotal life moments..."

"What would happen if you put together a group of diverse people to produce information? What would the results look like? Evans knew just the place to conduct the experiment: Wikipedia."

"The traces we leave on the Web and on our digital devices can give advertisers and others surprising, and sometimes disturbing, insights into our psychology."

"The fax machine is a symbol of obsolete technology long superseded by computer networks — but faxing is actually growing in popularity."

"Warren’s policies are misguided and premature. Undeniably, the big tech platforms have resulted in innovations enabling the launch of new products and services resulting in many benefits to consumers."

"Warren unveiled her latest war against corporate titans last week -- a proposal to break up tech companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google... Over the weekend, Facebook handed Warren a prime example of its power..."

"The first politicians who master this tech revolution and shape it for the public goodwill determine what the next century will look like..."

"The Mind Game, as it’s called, is designed primarily to gauge the psychological state of young recruits, and it often presents its players with impossible situations to test their mental fortitude in the face of inescapable defeat."

"For months, there have been rumors of Facebook preparing a major “pivot” toward messenger services. On Wednesday, in a blog post, Zuckerberg officially called the turn."

"Creativity is, and always will be, a human endeavor... Creativity is among the most mysterious and impressive achievements of human existence. But what is it?"

"The gender pay gap at Google – at least within one pool of software engineers – doesn't seem to point in the direction that most people expected..."

"The Momo Challenge is a moral panic spreading through new and powerful channels. It’s also true that she is able to entrance people almost instantly by appearing, jarringly, in the middle of their media..."

"Today’s smart cities were born from tragedy. After the 9/11 attacks, New York City and other cities installed 24x7 surveillance cameras and AI to protect public spaces through public-private partnerships (PPP) driven by cities and corporations."

"Thanks to everyone embracing 4G LTE, we'd finally gotten to the point where phones could be taken to almost any carrier and still work. Then 5G came along."

"The old robots were blue-collar workers, burly and clunky, the machines that rusted the Rust Belt...the new ones are “white-collar robots,” knowledge workers and quinoa-and-oat-milk globalists, the machines that will bankrupt Brooklyn."

"What could the internet have been? We’ve grown so used to our digital networks that they can seem like a force of nature, with laws as immutable as the laws of physics. "

"The situation is fluid, but it’s clear that legislators, regulators, and consumer advocates are fed up with big tech companies and that some form of stricter control almost certainly is coming."

"The latest devices from Samsung and Huawei are aimed less at driving sales than showing the average punter what the future might look like."

"There's great pleasure to be had in browsing through search results, stumbling upon new sources, and discovering adjacent facts. But what most users really wanted was answers, not the thrill of a hunt."

"Teens in the United States are coming of age at a time when digital technology is truly ubiquitous, where smartphones are all of our “constant companions.”"

" In the last twenty-five years, Amazon has gorged on late capitalism’s values of ease and cheapness, threatening to monopolize not only the book world, but the world-world."

"When is the future no longer the future? Only a decade ago, air travel seemed to be moving ineluctably towards giant planes, or “superjumbos”. But last week Airbus announced it will cease manufacturing its A380, the world’s fattest passenger jet..."

"“Alexa, can I use you on Shabbat?” The journalist spoke into a small glass-and-metal device he held in his hand, which connected him to a distant supercomputer in a place known only as “the Cloud.”"

"... platforms now have a stranglehold over publishers who, individually and even as a group, have little-to-no bargaining power when it comes to algorithmic changes, ad rates, and much else."

"Bill came on The Vergecast to talk about the letter, his work as a philanthropist, and how he and Melinda choose which initiatives to focus on with their foundation’s impressive team and enormous resources."

"The mirrorworld doesn't yet fully exist, but it is coming. Someday soon, every place and thing in the real world—every street, lamppost, building, and room—will have its full-size digital twin in the mirrorworld. "

"I’ve found that ignoring my family for the sake of my sanity can be therapeutic. Smartphones seem to cause more trouble than they’re worth..."

"Mission statements are as much directed internally as they are externally, at the public. The hours may be long and the competition fierce, the implicit message goes, but it’s worth it because the reward is spiritual as well as tangible..."

"Google and Facebook were restructuring the world, not just solving its problems. The general public, seduced by the tech world’s youthful, hoodie-wearing ambassadors and lobotomized by TED Talks, was clueless."