Consumer Electronics & Product Reviews

In a rare show of bipartisan unity this past Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee expressed concerns over the rapid spread of facial recognition software used by technology companies. This should make you stop and think very long and hard about what your elected leaders do not understand about the world we live in. Continue Reading →

Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Can you imagine seeing a technology and completely misunderstanding what it was doing and how it might work? Continue Reading →

"WARNING! The music you are about to hear and the audio mix you are about to experience are being composed, produced and performed in real time to fit your mood and match your personal preferences and listening environment by an AI system called AutoScoreAI-2. We have previously sought, and you have granted, permission for us to collect and analyze data generated by your audio and video consumption behavior for the quality of your enjoyment. No humans were harmed during this production." Or were they? Continue Reading →

When will all the data (or a significant amount of data) from all the disparate, specialized, purpose-built artificial intelligence systems be hacked into a single, massive artificial control system? Or even worse, several competing massive artificial control systems? We could call it Meta-AI or Artificial Control – but whatever we call it, it won’t be good for us. Continue Reading →

Google dissolved its 10-day-old AI ethics council. Why? Because of AI bias, a super-important, completely misnamed topic. We can chat all we like about human biases creating AI biases with our Western cultural ideology, but if there is going to be anything like an AI bias council, it should probably be held in Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen. Chinese cultural and political norms are going to have a much bigger influence over AI bias than anything we do here in America. Continue Reading →

Mark Zuckerberg is founder and chief executive officer of Facebook, the world’s largest population. In reading his op-ed in the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let’s start in these four areas, I was struck by its similarities to Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, which for all practical purposes incited the Colonies to rebel against the King. Both of these manifestos deserve to be read in their entirety. Continue Reading →

I’ve been at SXSW (one of my favorite annual gatherings) for about 24 hours and my head is about to explode. While there are incredible experiences to be had here and there is some amazing tech on display, Buzzword BS is at record levels. Here are just a few excerpts from the dozens of elevator pitches I listened to today. Continue Reading →

On Wednesday, Samsung announced its line of Galaxy S10 handhelds, promising “more screen, cameras and choices.” Here’s what you need to know about the Galaxy S10, S10+, S10e, and S10 5G. Continue Reading →

I wrote an article back in April 2009 entitled Metamerica: Evolving The Governance Of A Digital Democracy. It begins, “Dateline New York: April 3, 2021” with breaking news about a massive, catastrophic data breach. So how would the Great Data Crash of 2021 happen? Or, perhaps more importantly, why have the questions I posed in 2009, and the very clear predictions of known consequences of our digital society, not only gone unanswered by our leaders but in many cases gone unasked? Let’s look back to help us see the future. Continue Reading →

Recent studies predict that by 2025 there may be as many as 100 billion IoT devices deployed worldwide. That’s roughly 14 connected devices or sensors for every person on Earth. My good friend Rob Mesirow and I have been spending a lot of time talking about the most practical ways to integrate “smart” technology into business processes. Continue Reading →