Business, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

Every Startup Needs to Prepare for Its Downfall Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

Last year, Jibo—“the world's first social robot for the home”—began to lose its mind. First came memory problems. The bot started to spend less time swiveling its head like the animated Pixar lamp and more time staring blankly at the wall. Its cognitive demise was slow, then fast. At one point, Jibo itself delivered the fatal diagnosis: “The servers out there that let me do what I do will be turned off soon,” it said in its computerized voice.

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The Apple Card Didn't 'See' Gender—and That's the Problem Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

The Apple credit card, launched in August, ran into major problems last week, when users noticed that it seemed to offer smaller lines of credit to women than to men. The scandal spread on Twitter, with influential techies branding the Apple Card “fucking sexist,” “beyond f’ed up,” and so on. Even Apple’s amiable cofounder, Steve “Woz” Wosniak, wondered, more politely, whether the card might harbor some misogynistic tendencies.

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Microtasks Might Be the Future of White-Collar Work Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

Normally, when you open Facebook, you see pictures of your friends' awesome vacations or links to maddening political stories your dad is sharing—your basic emotional goulash of FOMO and TMI. But last year, the nerds at Microsoft Research tried something different: They put bits of office work into the News Feed.

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Every Tech Company Wants to Be a Bank—Someday, At Least Nov 19, 2019

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Why Is Google Slow-Walking Its Breakthroughs in AI? Nov 19, 2019

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Opinion: AI For Good Is Often Bad Nov 18, 2019

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How Facebook Gets the First Amendment Backward Nov 18, 2019

Show notes

What does the First Amendment have to do with Facebook? It depends on whom you ask. Mark Zuckerberg would probably say: a lot. Over the past few weeks, he has repeatedly invoked the First Amendment to justify Facebook’s controversial decision to exempt posts and paid advertisements by political candidates from its fact-checking system. In a speech to Georgetown students last month, he claimed that the company’s policies are “inspired by the First Amendment.

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Google Is Basically Daring the Government to Block Its Fitbit Deal Nov 15, 2019

Show notes

Google’s plan to buy Fitbit took chutzpah from the start. The company was already being investigated by Congress, state attorneys general, and federal antitrust regulators, a reflection of growing alarm over a conglomerate whose dominant market share is built on unrivaled access to personal data. Now it was announcing a $2.

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Google Is Slurping Up Health Data—and It Looks Totally Legal Nov 15, 2019

Show notes

Last week, when Google gobbled up Fitbit in a $2.1 billion acquisition, the talk was mostly about what the company would do with all that wrist-jingling and power-walking data. It’s no secret that Google’s parent Alphabet—along with fellow giants Apple and Facebook—is on an aggressive hunt for health data. But it turns out there’s a cheaper way to get access to it: Teaming up with healthcare providers.

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Opinion: China is Pushing Toward Global Blockchain Dominance Nov 14, 2019

Show notes

In a speech late last month, Chinese leader Xi Jinping declared blockchain “an important breakthrough,” and promised that China would “seize the opportunity.” He detailed the ways the Chinese government would support blockchain research, development, and standardization. The significance shouldn’t be underestimated. Xi is the first major world leader to issue such a strong endorsement of the much-hyped, and much-maligned, distributed ledger technology.

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