Saturday, January 18, 2020

It’s not you. Phones are designed to be addicting.

The 3 design elements that make smartphones so hard to put down, explained by Google’s former design ethicist. Check out Christophe's video on how designers find inspiration in nature: http://bit.ly/2DDIQAL Read Ezra Klein's full interview with Tristan Harris: http://bit.ly/2og5v0H Read our interview with Catherine Price: http://bit.ly/2C8gxsT Batch notification research by the Center for Advanced Hindsight, Duke University & Synapse Inc Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Today’s phones are hard to put down. Push notifications buzz in your pocket, red bubbles demand attention, and endless distractions sit at your fingertips. It can feel impossible to pull away from. But that’s kind of the point. When people talk about the “attention economy,” they’re referring to the fact that your time and attention are the currency on which today’s applications make money. Because apps profit off of the total time you spend on their platform, there’s a strong incentive to use psychological tricks to keep you endlessly hooked. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Tristan Harris, who runs Time Well Spent, is working to create a world where platforms can more honestly respect their users’ time. By Design is a new Vox video series about the intersection of design and technology, hosted by Christophe Haubursin. Stay tuned for more, and check out Christophe's most recent work exploring design in our Vox + 99% Invisible collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... The 3 design elements that make smartphones so hard to put down, explained by Google’s former design ethicist. Check out Christophe's video on how designers find inspiration in nature: http://bit.ly/2DDIQAL Read Ezra Klein's full interview with Tristan Harris: http://bit.ly/2og5v0H Read our interview with Catherine Price: http://bit.ly/2C8gxsT Batch notification research by the Center for Advanced Hindsight, Duke University & Synapse Inc Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Today’s phones are hard to put down. Push notifications buzz in your pocket, red bubbles demand attention, and endless distractions sit at your fingertips. It can feel impossible to pull away from. But that’s kind of the point. When people talk about the “attention economy,” they’re referring to the fact that your time and attention are the currency on which today’s applications make money. Because apps profit off of the total time you spend on their platform, there’s a strong incentive to use psychological tricks to keep you endlessly hooked. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Tristan Harris, who runs Time Well Spent, is working to create a world where platforms can more honestly respect their users’ time. By Design is a new Vox video series about the intersection of design and technology, hosted by Christophe Haubursin. Stay tuned for more, and check out Christophe's most recent work exploring design in our Vox + 99% Invisible collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... The 3 design elements that make smartphones so hard to put down, explained by Google’s former design ethicist. Check out Christophe's video on how designers find inspiration in nature: http://bit.ly/2DDIQAL Read Ezra Klein's full interview with Tristan Harris: http://bit.ly/2og5v0H Read our interview with Catherine Price: http://bit.ly/2C8gxsT Batch notification research by the Center for Advanced Hindsight, Duke University & Synapse Inc

Friday, January 17, 2020

AI, Ain't I A Woman? - Joy Buolamwini

www.notflawless.ai Poet of Code shares "AI, Ain't I A Woman " - a spoken word piece that highlights the ways in which artificial intelligence can misinterpret the images of iconic black women: Oprah, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Shirley Chisholm AI, Ain't I A Woman - Full Poem My heart smiles as I bask in their legacies Knowing their lives have altered many destinies In her eyes, I see my mother's poise In her face, I glimpse my auntie's grace In this case of deja vu  A 19th century question comes into view In a time, when Sojourner truth asked "Ain't I a woman?" Today, we pose this question to new powers Making bets on artificial intelligence, hope towers The Amazonians peek through Windows blocking Deep Blues As Faces increment scars Old burns, new urns Collecting data chronicling our past  Often forgetting to deal with  Gender race and class, again I ask "Ain't I a Woman?" Face by face the answers seem uncertain Young and old, proud icons are dismissed Can machines ever see my queens as I view them? Can machines ever see our grandmothers as we knew them? Ida B. Wells, data science pioneer Hanging facts, stacking stats on the lynching of humanity Teaching truths hidden in data Each entry and omission, a person worthy of respect Shirley Chisholm, unbought and unbossed The first black congresswoman But not the first to be misunderstood by machines Well-versed in data drive mistakes Michelle Obama, unabashed and unafraid To wear her crown of history Yet her crown seems a mystery To systems unsure of her hair A wig, a bouffant, a toupee? May be not Are there no words for our braids and our locks? Does sunny skin and relaxed hair Make Oprah the first lady? Even for her face well-known Some algorithms fault her Echoing sentiments that strong women are men We laugh celebrating the successes  Of our sisters with Serena smiles No label is worthy of our beauty.

World's first gender neutral voice assistant

The world's first gender neutral voice assistant, named "Q", has been developed in a tech company's effort to be more inclusive, as well as challenge gender stereotypes in personal assistants, like Siri and Alexa. STORY: https://bit.ly/2VKLH40

Saturday, January 11, 2020

The Hype Over Quantum Computers, Explained

In October 2019, Google made a big announcement. It announced its 53-qubit quantum computer named Sycamore had achieved ‘quantum supremacy.’ That’s when quantum computers can complete tasks exponentially more quickly than their classical counterparts. In this case, Google said its quantum machine completed a task in 200 seconds that would have taken the world’s most powerful computer 10,000 years to complete. IBM, another major player in quantum computing, took issue with the findings. Either way, it was a big milestone in quantum computing, and it’s leading to a lot of hype in the field. Here’s how quantum computing works, and how it could change everything from Wall Street to Big Pharma and beyond.

Monday, January 6, 2020

"Google and Amazon are now in the oil business

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are teaming up with Big Oil to squeeze more oil and gas out of the ground using machine learning technology. Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Sources: Brian Merchant (Gizmodo) https://gizmodo.com/how-google-micros... Christopher M. Matthews (Wall Street Journal) https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-... Matt Novak (Gizmodo) https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/artic... Kasia Tokarska Daniel Civitarese Ghassan AlRegib - https://ghassanalregib.info/ Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have been very vocal about their efforts to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels. But as The Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo have reported, these same companies are currently teaming up with fossil fuel industry to help them squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible. Oil has always been hard to find and hard to extract, and so the industry has teetered precariously on the edge of profitability several times over the course of its history. Over and over again, experts have predicted that we'll soon run out of accessible, affordable oil - but so far, they've been wrong. Just when things look bleakest for black gold, new technology swoops in to keep the industry afloat. Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com. Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H