Squeaky Dolphin

From an article about the anxieties of big data by Microsoft researcher Kate Crawford. 2014 is the year we learned about Squeaky Dolphin. That’s the Pynchon-worthy code name for a […]

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Packets

Nice little movie that simply describes how packet switching allows the page you’re now reading to get delivered to you in under a second:

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Incommunicado

As J.B. Priestley noted – “The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” – a thought captured elegantly in this series of photos documenting our obsession […]

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Possessive companies

Typically sharp and incisive piece by Benedict Evans on the tendency for companies to think, and talk, about owning their customers. He relates this specifically to Google Glass but the […]

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Orwell vs. Huxley

Since NSA surveillance became apparent with the leaks by Edward Snowden, sales of Orwell’s 1984 have leapt. Orwell’s view of the future was one in which power deprives us of […]

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On Fear

Mark Bernstein on digital education Fear of The Digital runs deep. (….) Our fears are nowhere more visible than in our idiosyncratic compulsion to repeatedly study the same tired, settled […]

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Social serfs?

From a thought-provoking Paul Ford article in the New York Magazine on the $1bn Facebook Instagram deal: “When people write critically about Facebook, they often say that “you are the […]

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Devices vs. Things

“The stereo as a device contrasts with the instrument as a thing. A thing, in the sense in which I want to use the term, has an intelligible and accessible […]

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Nudging Older Drivers

  ILC-UK, a London based think tank that focus exclusively on ageing related matters, launched a report today on older drivers. Specifically, it addresses how ideas from the ‘nudge’ agenda […]

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