Business, Spoken

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Millions Need the Broadband Program the FCC Just Put on Hold Feb 15, 2017

Show notes

Even before an electrical fire burned her house down in 2014, Jennifer Sneperger had trouble affording home internet. A little more than a year after the fire, she and her young son joined a program that fast-tracked them into a spot in a Sarasota, Florida, public housing complex. But the spot came with a condition: Sneperger had to get a job or go back to school.

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How to Keep Your AI From Turning Into a Racist Monster Feb 14, 2017

Show notes

Working on a new product launch? Debuting a new mobile site? Announcing a new feature? If you’re not sure whether algorithmic bias could derail your plan, you should be. Algorithmic bias—when seemingly innocuous programming takes on the prejudices either of its creators or the data it is fed—causes everything from warped Google searches to barring qualified women from medical school.

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The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet. It’s the End of the Middle Class Feb 13, 2017

Show notes

In February 1975, a group of geneticists gathered in a tiny town on the central coast of California to decide if their work would bring about the end of the world. These researchers were just beginning to explore the science of genetic engineering, manipulating DNA to create organisms that didn’t exist in nature, and they were unsure how these techniques would affect the health of the planet and its people.

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Tech Still Doesn’t Get Diversity. Here’s How to Fix It Feb 10, 2017

Show notes

Last month, in response to news of President Donald Trump’s controversial executive orders, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that his company, whose founder Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant, would not exist if the US didn’t have sound immigration policies.

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Time for Snap to Prove It’s Bigger Than Snapchat Feb 09, 2017

Show notes

Snap Inc. is a camera company. It's very important to Snap Inc. that you understand it's not a social networking app or a messaging service. It's something else. It's a camera company. "We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way that people live and communicate," it says in an S1 filing made public today, ahead of its $3 billion public offering.

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In Trump, Tech Finds a Troll It Can’t Ignore Feb 08, 2017

Show notes

To adapt one of our new president’s favorite aphorisms: We knew he was a troll when we elected him. Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump gleefully behaved more like a social-network scourge than a presidential candidate, combining a slash-and-burn approach to social norms with an aggressive strategy of constant provocation. So it’s perhaps not surprising that, in the not-quite-two-weeks since his inauguration, internet companies have struggled to respond to his presidency.

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AI Is About to Learn More Like Humans—with a Little Uncertainty Feb 07, 2017

Show notes

Neural networks are all the rage in Silicon Valley, infusing so many internet services with so many forms of artificial intelligence. But as good as they may be at recognizing cats in your online photos, AI researchers know that neural networks are still quite flawed, so much so that some wonder whether these pattern recognition systems are a viable path to more advanced—and more reliable—forms of AI.

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Comcast Looks All Set to Keep Controlling Your Cable Box. Yay Feb 06, 2017

Show notes

Nearly a decade ago, Comcast promised liberation from the tyranny of the cable box. But today its control seems here to stay—as does big cable’s control over how you consume the programming you pay for. This week, the Federal Communications Commission met for the first time under its new chairman, Ajit Pai, a Republican.

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Google’s Go-Playing Machine Opens the Door to Robots that Learn Feb 03, 2017

Show notes

Two robotic arms face two closed doors. Both reach forward and miss the door handles entirely. So they reach again, and this time, they hit the handles head-on, rattling the door frames. So they try again. And again. Finally, they grab the handles cleanly and pull the doors open, and after a few more hours of trial and error, they can repeat the trick every time.

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Trump’s SCOTUS Pick Needs to Get Tech—These Cases Show Why Feb 02, 2017

Show notes

During a primetime television appearance tonight, President Donald Trump announced his final pick for the man who could be the next Apprentice—er, we mean the next justice to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

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