A team from Vice News flew to Huawei headquarters in China at the invitation of the company. It was clearly a PR junket. Huawei has been accused of copying Apple before and after seeing the video of their company store, I can see that they have a point.
Category: Office
Algorithms don’t get humor
April Fool’s Day is always a busy day at SmartNews as our news discovery algorithm get overly excited with all the cool, interesting and unique news released that day. Here’s a running log of what we’ve had to gently remind the algorithm is actually just a joke. Eurovision SHOCK as Britain will LEAVE song contest […]
Elizabeth Holmes – The Inventor
Elizabeth Holmes, a reading list
SXSW 2019 Highlights
It’s been twelve years since I last was at SXSW – time flies – I wrote about it then so for continuity’s sake I might as well share some highlights from this year. What I learned Following the success of the New York Times’ The Daily podcast, the Grey Lady will dip its toe into […]
Kevin Kelly on Mirrorworld
Digitizing all the things.
Personalized Discovery
When asked what we’re trying to build at SmartNews, I sometimes explain it with a department store metaphor. When algorithms are applied to online shopping, they are optimized to show you exactly what you are looking for. Amazon and Netflix are famous for perfecting the “others-that-bought-what-you-bought-also-bought-this” algorithm to great effect. If you’re looking for a […]
SmartNews & Breaker
As a commuter, I have two blocks of time going to and from the office when I am not able to read. During these times, I listen to podcasts as a way to get a deeper perspective on the news of the day or learn something new. Most podcast apps ask you to subscribe or […]
Citizen WTF?
The Citizen app is available in NYC and the SF Bay Area. The app is designed to alert you when crime happens nearby with location-based push notifications. But, because the platform is crowdsourced, it exposes all the idiosyncratic definitions of “crime” that you would expect from its voyeuristic users. Here are some of my favorites. […]
Jordan Peele warns of Fake News
Don’t believe everything you see online. Good on Jordan Peele for making this PSA which uses some readily available software literally put words in Obama’s mouth. You can read more about it on Buzzfeed. We’re about to enter into an intense period of “he said/she said” with the Cohen trial and Comey’s book tour that […]
Wendy’s vs. McDonalds
The @wendys twitter account is having all sorts of fun making fun of McDonalds frozen beef. Tomorrow is International Womens Day and they may have had the last laugh. Your turn Wendy’s.