Business, Spoken

Latest Episodes:

A Straightforward Timeline of the FCC's Twisty DDoS Debacle Aug 27, 2018

Show notes

For anyone watching the net neutrality debate unfold, it feels like a never-ending, ever-evolving complicated saga of a complicated topic. So, here’s one more tick to track in the timeline: earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission’s Office of the Inspector General released a report saying the agency misled Congress and the public and last year when it claimed its site was the victim of a cyberattack in 2017.

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Pro Gamers Fend off Elon Musk’s AI Bots—for Now Aug 24, 2018

Show notes

One way to measure progress in artificial intelligence is to chart victories by algorithms over champions of increasingly challenging games---checkers, chess, and, in 2016, Go. On Wednesday, five bots sought to extend AI’s mastery to e-sports, in the fantasy battle game Dota 2. They failed, as a team of pro gamers from Brazil called paiN defended humanity’s honor---for now.

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NewsGuard Wants to Fight Fake News With Humans, Not Algorithms Aug 24, 2018

Show notes

Say you're scrolling through Facebook, see an article that seems a little hinky, and flag it. If Facebook's algorithm has decided you're trustworthy, the report then might go to the social network's third-party fact checkers. If they mark the story as false, Facebook will make sure fewer people see it in the News Feed. For those who see it anyway, Facebook will surface related articles with an alternative viewpoint just below the story.

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The Solo JavaScript Developer Challenging Google and Facebook Aug 23, 2018

Show notes

It's hard to escape the gravity of internet giants like Facebook and Google. Not only do they offer an ever-growing number of apps and services that are hard to live without, many other popular websites and applications incorporate code written by these companies. That's because today's web developers don't typically write all of their code themselves.

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Even Teens Worry That Teens Are Addicted to Their Phones Aug 23, 2018

Show notes

American teenagers have a complicated and sometimes contradictory relationship with their smartphones—just like the rest of us. A new Pew Research study shows that kids are trying to negotiate between worry that they spend too much time on their phones and anxiety when they are separated from their devices.

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At Y Combinator, Startups Manage Molecules Rather Than Code Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

This week, a couple of hundred venture capitalists descended on the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California, for Y Combinator's twice-annual Demo Day. The event showcases graduates of the famous incubator's training program to investors who hope to sniff out the next Dropbox, Airbnb, or Stripe, all of which emerged from Y Combinator. But increasingly, the entrepreneurs marching onto the stage are as likely to be experts at manipulating molecules as writing lines of code.

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Airbnb Wants to Find a Home in China Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

At the start of August, Airbnb announced an essay contest: Four winners would fly to China to stay in a watchtower on the Great Wall. They’d be treated to a gourmet dinner at sunset, a traditional Chinese music experience, and a sunrise historical hike through the countryside. The official Beijing Tourism Twitter account even promoted it. Six days later, the company called the contest off abruptly.

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FiftyThree, Maker of Popular Paper and Paste Apps, Gets Acquired Aug 21, 2018

Show notes

Back in 2012, a Seattle-based startup named FiftyThree launched a drawing app designed for iPad, with a name that sounded like it was designed specifically for an Apple crowd: Paper. Despite its simplicity and also because of it, Apple crowned the iPad App of the Year. Tech writers described it as “the next great iPad app”, “a superbly designed sketching app,” and “a fresh canvas ready and waiting for your ideas, inspiration, and art.

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Schools Are Mining Students' Social Media Posts for Signs of Trouble Aug 21, 2018

Show notes

Aaah, the traditions of a new school year. New teachers, new backpacks, new crushes—and algorithms trawling students’ social media posts. Blake Prewitt, superintendent of Lakeview school district in Battle Creek, Michigan, says he typically wakes up each morning to twenty new emails from a social media monitoring system the district activated earlier this year.

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'It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature.' Trite—or Just Right? Aug 20, 2018

Show notes

We’ll never know who said it first, nor whether the coiner spoke sheepishly or proudly, angrily or slyly. As is often the case with offhand remarks that turn into maxims, the origin of It’s not a bug, it’s a feature is murky. What we do know is that the expression has been popular among programmers for a long time, at least since the days when Wang and DEC were hot names in computing.

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