Petervan's Delicacies - Issue #120

The very best

From ‘the cloud’ to invisible beams carrying billions of dollars, our world can often feel like a neverland of terrifying tech. A new radio series is here to help

Impressively translating theoretical physics and astronomically vast scales of time and space into 29 breathtaking minutes, Timelapse of the Future takes us all the way into the sublime of the unimaginable, with all the wonder and terror that might provoke.

About the delusion of digital escapism

I'm starting to publicise my personal campaign to kill that Bloody Pyramid. You know the one, it's ubiquitous in management text books and nestled into just about every slide deck of every pedlar of coffee-shop psychology. I'm loathed to even show it on my own blog, but I suppose I have to, albeit with a…

This year began with the writer David Pogue identifying six important lessons that he’s learned from observing how tech companies behave. One of them is this: “Frictionless always wins.” “If you want…

In their endless quest for clicks, Chinese livestreamers turned a waste-picker named Shen Wei into a fashionable prop — so what does that say about those of us who pressed play?

cambridge-based firm matter design has unveiled research on seemingly 'weightless' concrete forms that can be easily moved using only your hands.

What we found shows the technology’s promise — and perils.

Google’s AI Experts Try to Automate Themselves

Google has partnered with scientists on a Milan design week exhibition that shows how different aesthetic experiences can impact our health and wellbeing.

In the past week, the French government's L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC) have sent 500 "terrorism" takedown demands to the Internet Archive demanding the removal of tens of millions of works: the entire archive of Project Gutenberg; an archive of 15 million texts,…

YouTube’s C.E.O. spends her days contemplating condoms and bestiality, talking advertisers off the ledge and managing a property the size of Netflix.

One reason early humans survived what the world threw at them is that the wiser of our ancestors listened to and acted on the advice of their elders. Now former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a…

Data and Society

The agency wanted to crack the iPhone of Syed Farook, a suspect in the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. The Apple CEO took a stand.

Even as BigTech companies like Facebook and Apple are pivoting into encrypted privacy chat and services, let’s make no mistake — a 5G world will be even more prone to cybersecurity attacks, ID theft…

The Department of Homeland Security says it expects to use facial recognition technology on 97 percent of departing passengers within the next four years. The system first started rolling out in 2017.

Urban data is used to trace issues even before they occur. Sounds comforting perhaps — unless we’re going to be judged on predicted behavior. There’s a long history of data being generated from…

A New Age of Warfare: How Internet Mercenaries Do Battle for Authoritarian Governments. Sophisticated surveillance, once the domain of world powers, is increasingly available on the private market. Smaller countries are…

Why Amazon workers sometimes listen in on users’ conversations with Alexa, and what it tells us about the technology that powers “smart” devices

» When employees are tracked by their employers, science fiction may actually become science fact (screening surveillance project) - The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada funded the Screening Surveillance project: a trio of Creative Commons licensed short science fiction films about

If it seems as though the app you deleted last week is suddenly popping up everywhere, it may not be mere coincidence. Companies that cater to app makers have found…

Zeitgeist

As more of daily life moves not only online but into the orbit of intelligent machines, computer scientists and lawyers are debating a fuzzy line: when are you hacking a computer and when are you simply tricking it?

Americans have long projected their fantasies onto the desert. Now, it’s a backdrop for the multimillion-dollar experience economy.

Letters: Readers welcome the Guardian’s decision to publish the Mauna Loa global benchmark on atmospheric CO2 every day and suggest other measures to raise awareness

Innovation

Mobile Marketer

A new type of quantum material can directly measure neural activity and translate it into electrical signals for a computer.

As Uber finally closes in on its IPO, its self-driving car unit is getting a big cash infusion and some independence. The company announced tonight that Toyota,...

Two patients are currently being treated using CRISPR as part of a University of Pennsylvania study.

Researchers created a biological dual-core processor, similar to those in the digital world, by integrating two cores into a cell with CRISPR.

When an unborn baby is diagnosed with a life-threatening defect, it can be devastating. So some scientists hope to treat the fetus in the uterus, using gene editing.

Robots for diagnosing patients and sorting drugs are among the featured attractions at this week’s technology expo in Shanghai.

Facebook has confirmed a report from earlier today saying it’s working on an artificial intelligence-based digital voice assistant to rival Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. The company says it’s designed for Facebook’s family of AR/VR and Portal devices.

French officials say a robot named Colossus played a crucial role in saving the Notre Dame from complete destruction. The robot is part of a new wave of firefighting machines that are being used to keep people out of harms way when fires break out.

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine successfully restored some functions to pig brains that had been dead for hours. They hope the technology will advance our understanding of the brain, potentially developing new treatments for debilitating diseases and disorders.The research raises many ethical questions and puts to the test our current understanding of death.

We had the opportunity to attend Google Next 2019, held from April 9th till 11th 2019 at the Moscone Center and adjacent hotels in San Francisco. Attendance with over 30k registrants (my estimate about 20k present, comparing to Dreamforce and Oracle OpenWorld), and a large mix of exhibitors across Moscone South makes Google Next a major player in the cloud conference circuit.

Agriculture is a crucial industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers and feeding a big chunk of the world’s population. ...

Future of work

He defended the 12-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week work culture.

A happy worker is 12 percent more productive than the average employee and 22 percent more productive than the unhappy ones. Additionally, disengaged employees cost U.S. businesses up to $450 billion…

Bringing your ‘whole self’ to work can feel like a risky manoeuvre. Here’s why

They impart a feeling of connection and credibility.

“Many women simply aren’t cut out for the corporate rat race, so to speak, and that’s not because of ‘the patriarchy,’” a Microsoft employee wrote.

Internet Culture

Opinion: Controlling the spread of insidious content online is extremely difficult—but combining efforts across platforms raises serious threats to free expression.

Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and This Guy Is Declaring War on Them. Tristan Harris thinks big tech is taking advantage of us all. Can its power be used for good?

FinTech

Jack Dorsey wants to help build a native currency for the internet. Square’s commitment to open source development is a good step forward.

Facebook is shutting down its P2P payment service in the UK and France after the Messenger-based service failed to gain traction with consumers.

US Bank has hired Barclays and BBVA veteran Derek White as its first chief digital officer, putting him in charge of a new combined digital team.

AI, Robots, Algorythms

Google's AutoML software uses machine learning to generate better machine learning. It competed last week against high-powered data scientists.

Find out how natural language processing and predictive analytics could help pharmaceutical companies with drug discovery, drug manufacturing, and salt and polymorph testing.

We test and control drugs, so why do we freely allow the spread of potentially harmful products by unregulated entrepreneurs?

Civilisations evolve through strategic forgetting of once-vital life skills. But can machines do all our remembering?

Digital Ethics

People want to do business with and work for companies they trust. And that’s only increasing. But the daily headlines reveal the many ways in which intense social media conversations around…

Tech companies need more than advisory boards if they want to create ethical products and services.

In contrast to Amazon, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that the potential for civil rights abuse of this AI was too great.

Contrary to sci-fi dystopias in which the machines become conscious and take over, artificial-intelligence applications will do only what humans tell them to do. So it is in everyone's interest to consider how technologies such as self-driving cars will navigate life-or-death ethical dilemmas in the real world.

The Google affiliate's Quayside project has been hit by a massive legal challenge from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association targeting all three levels of government.

There's a widening gap between those who trust artificial intelligence algorithms and those who are navigating away from them.

Are black box AIs all bad? Must we reject them? Surely not, because we often rely on human thought processes that the thinker can't necessarily explain.

Post Capitalism

Art related

It started with white-coated boffins; now its figureheads wear masks and play Vegas. A new exhibition tells the story of electronic dance music, from old synths to a statue of Brian Eno

Aesthetics

This is a story on the theme of nautiluses: A chambered nautilus never forgets. Nature's math equation. And finding Captain Nemo… What do you see when you pi...

There are wineries that look great, and others that function well. Sadly it feels like somewhat of a rarity when they achieve both. But the Great Wine Capitals’ global architecture winner last year is a rare gem that really does achieve both, and will please the most exacting oenophile as well as the most passionate architect. The new Zuccardi Piedra Infinita winery in the Uco Valley was born out of desire, rather than necessity. The Zuccardi family have a large, functional and busy winery to the east of Mendoza, in Maipu. With each new generation of the family, the winery has expanded and the horizons lifted. It homes the winemaking facilities for several wine labels (including their popular day-to-day wine label, Santa Julia), two restaurants, an olive farm, and an art gallery. And there is room to expand.

Koichi Takada Architects has unveiled photos of the cavernous interiors it has built within Jean Nouvel's National Museum of Qatar in Doha, Qatar.

Work is already underway on the Ras Abu Aboud stadium in Doha, designed by Fenwick Iribarren Architects for the controversial 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar. Made...

American architect Jeanne Gang has been listed on Time 100, Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people for 2019.

Other

An automated typewriter that takes dictation. A few details: Some code running on my laptop (off screen) uses Windows' voice recognition to turn speech to te...