Shortly after the company’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit in 2019, Google Senior VP Rick Osterloh wrote a blog post proclaiming that the merger would result in better and cheaper fitness tracking tech: “We’re confident the combination of Fitbit’s leading technology, product expertise and health and wellness innovation with the best of Google’s AI, software […]
ShotSpotter isn’t having a great year. Or two. Its tech has been called into question — both for its ability to truly detect gunshots and for its contribution (if any) to public safety. What is known about ShotSpotter isn’t great. The most in-depth examination of the tech was performed by the Inspector General of the […]
If you found out that 500,000 books had been removed from your local public library, at the demands of big publishers who refused to let them buy and lend new copies, and were further suing the library for damages, wouldn’t you think that would be a major news story? Wouldn’t you think many people would […]
We had a post earlier this week about the silliness of the Surgeon General’s idea for a warning on social media, and that linked to a longer piece Mike wrote about it at The Daily Beast, which talked about a similar push by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop getting upset about video games. The […]
MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creating of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages. That’s all well and good, but it means nothing if you don’t have a firm grasp of the data types used within MATLAB. In this course you’ll cover not just data […]
There’s a large contingent of people who want you to believe each successive year is worse than the last one. Despite being the beneficiary of a two-decade run of historically low crime rates, the United States is often portrayed as a crime-ridden wasteland where only the bravest dare to police the mean streets. This year […]
Like so many of Elon Musk’s accomplishments, the importance of his Starlink low-Earth orbit efforts is quite often overstated. While a great option for those in remote locations who can actually afford the steep price tag (affordability often tops access as the top barrier to broadband adoption), the network has struggled with speed issues due to satellite […]
If you’re in any way interested in tabletop board games, you will likely be familiar with the term “meeple.” If you’re not, the term refers to the small game piece that represents the player or the player’s people, to be moved around the board or gameset during play. It has become a ubiquitous term in […]
In terms of percentages, does the law enforcement community employ a larger number of sexual abusers? Or is it something else? It’s difficult to prove any of this with statistics, especially since most law enforcement agencies in the nation are able to bury this information, citing state laws, confidentiality agreements with police unions, or the […]
In the conversation about keeping kids safe online, the actual experts with the most to offer are all too often treated as outsiders and interlopers. One such expert is Candice Odgers, Professor of Psychological Science and Informatics at the University of California Irvine, who has recently been involved in a lot of debates against people […]
We’ve noted repeatedly how early attempts to integrate “AI” into journalism have proven to be a comical mess, resulting in no shortage of shoddy product, dangerous falsehoods, and plagiarism. It’s thanks in large part to the incompetent executives at many large media companies, who see AI primarily as a way to cut corners, assault unionized labor, and […]
This lawsuit might be a long shot, but it’s not completely a foregone conclusion at this point. The state of Illinois has tougher privacy laws than most states, which may factor into the judge’s decision. On the other hand, this lawsuit — filed by two Illinois residents with the assistance of the Liberty Justice Center […]
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You may have heard that yesterday the Surgeon General of the US, Vivek Murthy, announced that Congress should mandate “Surgeon General warnings” on social media, saying that it is harmful to kids. Over at the Daily Beast I went into great detail about just how far from the actual science this suggestion is. As with […]
We’ve noted repeatedly how T-Mobile simply hasn’t been the same company since its controversial 2020 merger with Sprint. All of the pre-merger concerns deal critics warned about came true, whether it was 9,000 layoffs, worse service, or higher wireless prices. Long gone is the company’s John Legere-era pretense that it was ever seriously interested in […]
Every report delivered by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division can be described as “scathing” or “damning.” There are simply no exceptions to this rule. It’s not like the Civil Rights unit picks a US law enforcement agency out of the hat and then initiates an investigation. (Maybe it should? I mean, I’m sure there’s plenty […]
Last Halloween, thousands of users for U.S. broadband provider Windstream began complaining online about the fact that their routers simply stopped working. At the time, Windstream (one of the worst ranked ISPs in the country) sent users replacement routers, but couldn’t be bothered to transparently inform customers what was happening. More than half a year […]
Clearview was probably its healthiest when it was still flying under the radar. It courted billionaires with a new facial recognition tech plaything — one capable of searching millions (and, ultimately, billions) of images for a match for any uploaded photo. The dirty secret? All of the images and data had been scraped from the […]
You know those lawsuits where you kinda hope everyone can lose? Yeah. This is one of those. Some crypto bros are suing the world’s most hated pharma bro, who jacked up prices on some essential pharmaceuticals before eventually being arrested and sentenced to jail. And the lawsuit is about a Wu-Tang album that almost no […]
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