Author: Dr. Donna Murdoch

Adult Learners. Lifelong Learning and Relevancy. Opinions are my own.
Tech Hardware

We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It

From Wired:  Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it.

via We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It | Wired Opinion | Wired.com.

New visions

Apple, Google, and What May Be the Floating Store of the Future

From Wired – With a glamorous, modular showroom to sell what could be the most radical advance in wearable communication technology ever, Google may have done just that. Until Apple puts a Genius Bar on the moon, its stores are in serious danger of looking like the past. If its floating store is real, Google looks like the one barging in on the future.

via Apple, Google, and What May Be the Floating Store of the Future | Wired Business | Wired.com.

Misc

Can’t Get Away From It All? The Problem Isn’t Technology — It’s You

From Wired.  The practice of taking an intentional break from technology and civilization is probably as old as technology and civilization. But it seems increasingly urgent now, in an era when the Internet—and thus most of the planet—is as close as an iPhone. We go to seek waldeinsamkeit, as the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson described it—the feeling of being alone in the woods.

via Can’t Get Away From It All? The Problem Isn’t Technology — It’s You | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Digital Puglishing

The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It

From MIT Technology Review – Look something up on Google or ask Siri a question on your iPhone, and you’ll often get back tidbits of information pulled from the encyclopedia and delivered as straight-up facts.

Yet Wikipedia and its stated ambition to “compile the sum of all human knowledge” are in trouble. The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia—and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation—has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking.

via The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It | MIT Technology Review.

Digital Literacy, Digital Puglishing

The Hyphen in ‘E-Mail’ Just Lost a Major Ally

From Mashable – Still use a hyphen in the word email? Mashable does not, as you can see — and as of Monday, neither does the New York Times.

\”By popular demand, we\’re going to remove the hyphen from e-mail,\” declared the Grey Lady\’s editor of \”news presentation,\” Patrick LaForge, in a post on the newsroom\’s internal blog. He later confirmed the news in a tweet, along with some other tech word style changes:

via The Hyphen in ‘E-Mail’ Just Lost a Major Ally.

New visions

Three Cognitive Traps that Stifle Global Innovation

From Harvard Business Review:  Which is the more likely cause of death — shark attack or falling airplane parts? The answer to Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahnemann’s question is surprising; falling airplane parts. (In fact, you are 30 times more likely to die from a piece of falling airplane than you are at the jaws of a shark.) We have tested this query with senior executives across multiple continents, and they inevitably get it wrong. Why does this happen? Events are perceived as more likely to occur if they are easier to bring to mind. We have the TV special Shark Week and movies like Jaws to remind us of the danger of sharks, but there is no Airplane Debris Week. With unfamiliar, low probability events,  disproportionate media coverage can lead to gross estimation errors.

via Three Cognitive Traps that Stifle Global Innovation – Simone Ahuja, Ranjan Banerjee , and Neil Bendle – Harvard Business Review.