Legally blind since age 18, my father missed out on the first digital revolution. “Is it ‘Electra?’” my father asks, leaning in close to the Amazon Echo my mother has just installed. Leaning in close is his trademark maneuver: Dad has been legally blind since age 18, the result of a horrible car crash in […]
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Alexa Is a Revelation for the Blind
Generation Z is already bored by the internet
Teenagers today have unprecedented access to technology, and yet many report that they’ve never been so bored. There is a notion among older people that teens, with their smartphones and unlimited internet access, never experience boredom. CNN and other media outlets have repeatedly declared that smartphones have killed boredom as we know it. “Today, we […]
How social media can reveal overlooked drug reactions
When patients connect online, they often share information that reveals how treatments work in the real world. When Allison Ruddick was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in October 2014, she turned to the world of hashtags. After her initial diagnosis it wasn’t clear if the cancer had metastasized, so she was in for a […]
The new internet from space
If they make it through regulatory approvals and meet financial projections, the new satellites will create new industries A new era of global communications is on the launch pad. Eleven companies have applied to the Federal Communications Commission and other telecom regulators to beam broadband internet from clouds of more than 15,000 new satellites. Not […]
Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent ‘weaponised’ web
Tim Berners-Lee: ‘What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms.’ Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, has called for large technology firms to be regulated to prevent the web from being “weaponised at scale”. The web can […]
Platform power is crushing the web, warns Berners-Lee
On the 29th birthday of the world wide web, its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has sounded a fresh warning about threats to the web as a force for good, adding his voice to growing concerns about big tech’s impact on competition and society. The web’s creator argues that the “powerful weight of a few dominant” […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to launch the first of 11,925 internet satellites — more than all satellites that orbit Earth today
The launch is expected to also deploy two experimental communications satellites. The two satellites may test aspects of Starlink, a project to bath Earth in high-speed internet access. The Starlink plan calls for nearly 12,000 interlinked satellites — many more than currently orbit Earth — but Musk and SpaceX have been relatively quiet about it.
High-speed broadband will be a legal right for homes and businesses in the UK
The UK Government has announced that homes and businesses will have a legal right to high-speed broadband of at least 10 Mbps by 2020. Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, says that 10 Mbps is the minimum speed needed to meet the requirements of an average family. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport has […]
When kids get their first cell phones around the world
About 45% of US children ages 10 to 12 have a smartphone with a service plan Outside the US and Europe, children tend to get their first mobile phones when they are older
Chinese Singles’ Day spending blows Black Friday and Cyber Monday out of the water
Americans see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the ultimate consumer spending extravaganzas, but the annual “record breaking ” sales days have nothing on China’s so-called Singles’ Day. As we can see in this chart from Statista, Singles’ Day sales make the US Thanksgiving weekend spending look like chump change.