Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple's unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple's critical product-development process"
Enjoyable two-part interview with Jonathan Ive, Apple's design guru. "We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense"
Inside the world of DIY synthetic biology. Where amateurs attempt genetic engineering in homemade labs. Will it lead to a wave of scientific breakthroughs, and valuable new life forms? Or a new generation of Dr Frankensteins?
For one thing, no more parking spaces. "In peak periods, virtually all cars will be on the roads driving people around. In off-peak periods, cars will still be on the roads, they’ll just pull over to the side of the road and stop"
Ted Kaczynski killed three and injured 23 with mailbombs. He was crazy. But he wasn't stupid. He did a lot of deep thinking about the philosophy of technology. Should we take his ideas seriously, despite his crimes?
Fascinating report. "Today, with Gadhafi dead and a provisional government of former rebels in charge, we can begin to uncover the secret, high tech spying machine that helped the dictator and his regime cling to power"
Story of Hans-Jürgen Kuhl. Made fortune in leather hot pants. Bankrupt, turned to "art". His quest? A perfect $100 bill. "Warhol copied currency, and his prints are now priceless. Kuhl copied currency, got busted, and is now broke"
The future has arrived: Two tetraplegics, paralysed and unable to speak, have regained some independence. They can control robotic arms by power of thought alone. Tiny electrodes implanted in the motor cortex work the magic
"Glancing at a photo of the Pebble smartwatch, you wouldn’t notice anything too different or special about it — it looks like an understated digital watch." But it's much more than that. This promises to be a watch unlike any other
Trip to a Swedish car test site reveals complexity of new safety sytems. “It is not difficult to automatically brake a car. That is easy. It is a difficult decision on when to brake and not to brake, when to warn and not to warn”
Media mogul Barry Diller on disrupting TV market. "Television wasn’t the destruction of radio. Cable wasn’t the destruction of broadcast networks. What happens is new alternatives come, and they live alongside whatever existed"
"As much as we think the old world of phone numbers may one day disappear, and we’ll eventually be calling each other through Facebook or something, the practical reality is that they won’t." They're a gold mine for web advertisers
"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10"
