We’ve started a new series where we curate some of interesting reads on how technology affects us. They range from stories or blogs on how to run a tech business to detailed analysis of emerging industry sectors. Tell us what you think and also share some good reads you’ve come across.
Searching for the algorithms underlying life – Quanta Magazine
“A toddler fumbling with a rubber ball and a deep-learning network classifying cat photos are both learning; calling the latter system a “machine” is a distinction without a difference.”
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Snowden’s chronicler reveals her own life under surveillance – Wired
“The heavily redacted documents show that the US Army Criminal Investigation Command requested in 2006 that the FBI investigate Poitras as a possible “U.S. media representative … involved with anti-coalition forces.””
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How Zano raised million on Kickstarter and left most backers with nothing – Medium
“Even more importantly, perhaps: Does the failure of a project this prominent and this well-funded call into question the future of crowdfunding itself? Can we ever trust the crowd again?”
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The case for making self-driving cars think like humans – Wired
“If your car’s autonomous mode makes it behave like a hyper-cautious teenager during a road test, you’ll probably never hand over control. And that means missing a big opportunity to save lives.”
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New logo and identity for Uber done in-house – Under Consideration
“Having a separate icon for drivers that looks even less like anything doesn’t help the cause of establishing a consistent, recognizable mobile environment.”
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Tech’s most unlikely venture capitalists – Medium
“I had left my native Iran and landed in the United States with $700. I couldn’t speak English and knew handful of people in California. But I knew America stood for opportunity, and I was ready to seize it.”
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Are you the writer Theranos is looking for to tell great stories about Theranos? – re/code
“Though it’s unclear what “conceptual problem solving” is, presumably one problem being solved involves all the critical things that have been written about Theranos in the last few months.”
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Google’s creepy plan to kill the password – Engadget
“Abacus would lock or unlock devices and apps based on a cumulative “trust score” — as your phone continually monitors and recognizes your location patterns, voice and speech patterns, how you walk and type, and your face (among other things).”
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Andy Rubin unleashed Android on the world. Now watch him do the same with AI – Wired
“Just as MS-DOS gave way to Macintosh and Windows, which gave way to the web, which gave way to smartphones, he thinks the forces are in place to begin a decades-long transition to the next great platform: artificial intelligence.”
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A rant about why Twitter’s past failures make it nearly unfixable – Techcrunch
“For years, especially in the 2007 to 2011 era, Twitter did everything it could to get people to sign up. But Twitter was pouring users into a bucket with a hole in it. The new user onboarding experience was thin and confusing.”
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Also read: What we’re reading: Uber, Drones, UI, IoT, Facebook and more
Image source: Flickr user Robert under CC BY-NC 2.0
