Weekly Links & Thoughts #52
Here is a weekly selection of thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday, just in time so you have something good to read during the weekend.
This will (most likely) be the last edition for this year. Hope I’ll see you in 2016!
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- The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
Excellent and encompassing overview about the revolution that currently unfolds at the heart of the automobile. - To See the Future of Electric Cars, Look East
It’s not unlikely that the driving force behind electric cars will be China, not the U.S. or Europe. Because of the notorious pollution and bad air decreasing life quality in Chinese cities, the country has major incentives to push electric cars. - Pirate Bay Founder: ‘I Have Given Up’
Peter Sunde, the founder of The Pirate Bay, has no optimism left for the future development of the Internet. I refuse to accept that he his right, even though sadly, he might be. - Inside Netflix’s Plan to Boost Streaming Quality and Unclog the Internet
Relying on sophisticated methods described in this article, Netflix is in the process to re-encode its entire catalog so it can deliver higher quality streams with less data. - Software has diseconomies of scale – not economies of scale
Many areas of life and business are characterized by economies of scale: the cost of creating a new unit of something drops with an increase in the number of units created. Allan Kelly offers some strong points for that, when it comes to software development, one ought to think about “diseconomies of scale”. - You are your phone
True story. - The Great Bot Rush of 2015-16
That’s a good way to call what’s going on with bots right now, and it leads to important questions: Who will benefit from the rise of bots? - Slack Is Releasing Botkit To Make Bots Easier To Build
Slack and developers building apps on top of Slack will clearly be among those who benefit from the bot economy. - Podcasting is getting huge. Here’s why.
In my eyes, podcasts are the new radio. - Facebook’s open-sourcing of AI hardware is the start of the deep-learning revolution
In a remarkable trend, Facebook, Tesla and others are launching initiatives to ensure that the world at large benefits from advances in artificial intelligence research and deep learning. I really like this quote by Elon Musk: “I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to empower as many people as possible to have AI. If everyone has AI powers, then there’s not any one person or a small set of individuals who can have AI superpower.” - The Rise of Hate Search
When a major news event involving criminal acts or terrorism happens, many people turn to Google. Some look for information, while others use the search engine to vent hate. What motives people to perform “hate searching”, and could data on these searches help to prevent hate crimes? This piece investigates. - Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp And Brazil’s Congress Wants To Shut Down The Social Web Next
The desperation of governments about the perceived threat to their and the incumbent’s powers is inspiring some countries to increasingly ridiculous measures. One must hope that the Brazilian public won’t accept that officials take away their preferred communication tool. - Europe’s Move to Block Teenagers From Social Media Is Totally Crazy
Another rather absurd idea of politicians to regulate the Internet, in this case by the European Union: The official minimum age for joining online services that collect data is about to be raised to 16. Member countries will be able to set it to 13, nevertheless, some countries will for sure make use of the 16 year limit. In my opinion, a much better approach would be to ensure that 13 year olds have enough media and digital competence so that they are able to understand the implications of their actions on social media. - Rwanda’s Not-So-Improbable Ambition To Be A Startup Hub of Africa
Based on what I have read about Rwanda, in this piece and elsewhere, the rise of the country 20 years after the genocide is more than remarkable. - What can a technologist do about climate change?
A very comprehensive and insightful take on how technology and people representing it can join the fight against climate change. - Typeform: Building the Lego Of User Interaction
Typeform is an amazing service to build surveys. It is soo much fun to create them, it’s almost absurd. I was surprised (and pleased) to learn that the company is actually based in Europe, more specifically in Barcelona. - The state of UX in 2015 / 2016
Good read if you are even slightly interested in user experience design.
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