Maybe TEDConnect could save the stupidest part of conferences

TEDConnect

Interesting fact: TED2015 starts next week in Vancouver (Larry Page spoke last year and said some interesting things) while SXSW is going on right now in Austin. So, those events overlap. (They quite possibly always do; I’m unclear on that.)… Continue Reading

Should Jibo the robot (and social robotics in general) terrify you, or is it a good step?

This is an interesting thing to think about: let’s say ‘The Internet of Things’ may be fully normative by 2030 or so. That means your house is all connected, and you can update everything via a smartphone, etc. People have been… Continue Reading

Buffer, a social media startup, let the world know all its salaries. That’s gauche, right? Or maybe it’s genius…

A little over a month ago, Buffer — a startup that, among other things, lets you schedule your social media postings — decided to publish its salary format and the salaries of all its current employees on its blog. You could… Continue Reading

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On Eli Pariser and the algorithm bubble

Eli Pariser, who’s currently the chief executive of Upworthy, wrote a book in 2011 called The Filter Bubble. A nine-minute TED Talk on many of the same topics is embedded above, but essentially, the idea is that personalized search — i.e. the… Continue Reading

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In which I actively consider quitting Facebook and the pros and cons therein (alternate title: the downfall of Americana)

I’ve been thinking about quitting Facebook a lot recently. In the last 2-3 weeks, it’s become almost more of a when, not if scenario. I still have some hesitations, which I’ll attempt to outline below, but I figured this was something worth discussing… Continue Reading