If you’re interested in technology and where it’s headed next, there’s no way around Benedict Evans. Every year, he does a big presentation on the state of technology. The focus of the latest one: What’s the next big thing after the smartphone revolution?
This is one of those tools that take the «magic» out of Arthur Clarke’s famous quote: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from…dystopia? Here’s what Clearview.ai does: It can analyse a face (let’s say: your face) from a photograph or surveillance feed and instantly connect it to other publicly available images of you. And since some of those other images are connected to your name (say, a profile image on Facebook or Linkedin), it knows who you are. It claims to have 3000 million faces in its database already. The New York Times has all the details.
A close look at China’s social credit system, which becomes mandatory in 2020. Straight out of Black Mirror.
«I imagine a future in which our clothes, music, film, art, books come with stickers like organic farmstand produce: Algorithm Free.» (full disclosure: as I’m writing this, I’m listening to music Spotify thinks I’ll like)
With its latest invention, Labo, Nintendo is bringing cardboards to life. This looks super fascinating.
When Facebook is not just a threat to people’s privacy, but to their lives.
A close look at the spying company that has been much better than Cambridge Analytica at staying in the shadows and that is arguably a lot more powerful. «An intelligence platform designed for the global War on Terror was weaponized against ordinary people at home.»
Here’s a feeling I have: I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg is a bad person, or driven by the wrong motives. However, he’s most certainly out of his depth when it comes to the societal implications of the behemoth he has created. Zeynep Tufekci tells the story of Facebook as a series of apologies.
I really like this Wikipedia approach to news: An explainer piece you can contribute to, both by asking the right questions and by providing answers. This one on Palantir’s links to Cambridge Analytica is far from comprehensive, but I’m pretty sure some among could contribute to make that happen.
«Unfortunately, ethics don’t scale as well as systems. We’ve poisoned ourselves, and more than a little.» After a week of revelations and (mostly) justified outrage over Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, a proposal.