Data

My Sunday essay, "Talking to Data: The Real Power of Generative AI," is about the prevailing misconception that platforms like ChatGPT have a near-magical ability to answer intricate business questions… but the devil is in the details. The true magic of generative AI emerges when businesses create systems that empower their workforces to "talk" directly to their own data. Continue Reading →

At a dinner party the other night, a very accomplished business person told a story about how he and his wife were certain that their devices were listening to their conversations. “I was talking to my wife about a pair of designer shoes that she wanted to purchase, and not 10 minutes later while she was doing some online research for work, she saw an ad for that exact pair of shoes. She hadn’t searched for the shoes; the ad just appeared. Clearly, our computers or our phones are listening.” Some people nodded in agreement, and others began to chime in. Continue Reading →

According to Nature, by the 2030s, the world will generate around a yottabyte of data per year — that's 10^24 bytes, or the amount that would fit on DVDs stacked all the way to Mars. Continue Reading →

In an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the company is working on a way to tailor experiences based on how you interact with its physical and digital offerings: “When you’re in a park, we should know what your viewing habits are on Disney Plus.” Continue Reading →

Sharing is caring… unless you're a Netflix subscriber. In that case, the streaming giant wants you to pay for your own account. However, in a move that is actually far more interesting than its crackdown on password sharing, Netflix will let users transport their profiles from the account they share to a new (paid) account. Continue Reading →

Amazon just bought iRobot, the company that makes Roomba, for $1.7 billion. Shelly Palmer speaks with Robert Moses and Tashanea Whitlow about what Amazon is going to do with the data -- and whether or not you should be worried. Continue Reading →

iRobot, the company that makes Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, has agreed to be acquired by Amazon for $1.7 billion, according to a joint statement. If the deal closes, Amazon will have access to the maps a Roomba makes of each room it cleans. Continue Reading →

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has given the CEOs of Apple and Google until July 8 to respond to his open letter asking Mr. Cook and Mr. Pichai to remove TikTok from their respective app stores. Continue Reading →

The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act was introduced Thursday by a group of key senators on the Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust: the ranking member and chair, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. If passed, the bipartisan bill would force Google to break up its ad business. Continue Reading →

Data is a lot like pizza, or at least that's what Wide Open West (an ISP with about 800,000 customers) would like you to believe. The company sent an email to its internet users telling them that it was instituting data caps on June 1 because they want everyone to get the amount of pizza they ordered. If this sounds weird or confusing or condescending, I'm not doing it justice. It's way worse than that. Continue Reading →