OneZero: The First 26 Months

Access every story published in the first era of Medium’s flagship technology and science publication

Damon Beres

Apr 7·45 min read

Hello, friends!

Today is my last day at Medium.

As co-founder and editor-in-chief of OneZero, I want to say thank you to Medium CEO Ev Williams and VP of Editorial Siobhan O'Connor for giving my team an unparalleled opportunity to tell important, mind-expanding stories about technology and science. I am deeply grateful for our freelance and platform writers—including our columnists and other weekly contributors (especially long-timers Angela Lashbrook, Owen Williams, and Eric Ravenscraft)—who forged this publication into something unique and special. Thank you also to our staff writers Dave Gershgorn, Emily Mullin, Sarah Emerson, Drew Costley, and Will Oremus, and our audience development trio Nadia Rawls, Peter Slattery, and Nate Goldman. Most of all, I bow in gratitude to our readers, who kept us going day after day.

I wanted to offer, in one place, links to every month of coverage that I oversaw (along with interim/launch editor Bryan Walsh, executive editor Michael Zelenko, senior editors Yasmin Tayag, Sarah Kessler, and Brian Merchant, and senior platform editor Megan Morrone), plus a handful of highlights. This is a monument to two-plus years of hard work that made a difference in the world. Thank you for being a part of it.

—Damon Beres

An incomplete look at team OneZero, from pre-pandemic times. From left: Nate Goldman, Will Oremus, Dave Gershgorn, Sarah Kessler, Emily Mullin, Megan Morrone, Sarah Emerson, Damon Beres, Drew Costley. Not pictured: Peter Slattery, Yasmin Tayag, Michael Zelenko, Bryan Walsh, Brian Merchant, Rachel Kalson.

February 2019 (Starting on Feb. 27)

Highlights:

The Brain That Remade Itself

Doctors removed one-sixth of this boy’s brain — and what was left did something incredible

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Is the Universe Real?

Rethinking the idea that makes you rethink reality

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Your Speech, Their Rules: Meet the People Who Guard the Internet

Olivia: I remember deciding what to do about the Google video of Saddam Hussein's hanging that wound up on the front…

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The Ethically Questionable Math Game Taking Over U.S. Schools

Kids love “edutainment,” but does the business model exploit them?

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Why Apple’s Notification Bubbles Are so Stressful

Plus, the simple changes that could make a big difference

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We’re Already Designing Babies

Expanded genetic testing of embryos represents a new era of family planning. But how far should the technology go?

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We Can Learn to See Through ‘Deepfake’ Video Hoaxes

The latest in hoaxing technology is powerful, but it’s not unbeatable

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The Internet Is Broken. Here’s Who Can Fix It.

The fight for local broadband is finally heating up

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March 2019

Highlights:

Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The Planned Obsolescence of Old Coders

Old coders never die, they just become middle managers.

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The Sharing Economy Was Always a Scam

‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us. Instead, it became a Trojan horse for a precarious economic future.

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The Relentless Misery of Working Inside an Amazon Warehouse

Life as a cog in Amazon’s retail machine

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How Google Wiped a Neighborhood off the Map

Inside the big, twisted industry of neighborhood data collection

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Meet the ‘Hillbilly Lawyer’ Fighting to Take Down Big Pharma

Inside the massive lawsuit that seeks to assign blame — and financial penalties — for the opioid epidemic

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How Air Purifiers Became the Newest Wellness Craze

Air purifiers are being sold as health devices. But do they work?

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Computer-Generated Faces Are Getting Real

Too real, maybe

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This Company Wants to Help Women Hack Their Fertility

How helpful is it really to know your ovarian hormone levels?

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Virtual Reality Is Helping Kids Cope With Pain

Hospitals are leaning on the distracting power of immersive technology

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Closing Wikipedia’s Gender Gap

An interview with Wikipedia editor Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight

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Can High Times Survive in the Age of Vaping?

For decades, High Times was the flagship of cannabis culture. Now it’s struggling to keep up.

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April 2019

Highlights:

Amazon Has Gone From Neutral Platform to Cutthroat Competitor, Say Open Source Developers

For open-source developers, AWS has gone from a neutral platform to a cutthroat competitor

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The Definitive Oral History of TiVo

How the original DVR paved the way for Netflix

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No One Knows How Dangerous Boeing’s 737 Max Actually Is

A faulty automated system leaves lingering questions

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Inside the Biotech Startup That Wants to Extend Your Life

Longevity scientist David Sinclair believes too many of us end up in old age as “the living dead.” He’s searching for…

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The Racist Origins of America’s Tech Industry

How the tools built to conduct the U.S. Census fueled Nazi genocide, internment, and state-sanctioned racism — ushering…

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When the Web Loses Its Memory

As sites like Tumblr perform mass purges, archivists are fighting a losing battle to save disappearing parts of the…

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The Machine Behind Twitter’s Strangest Promoted Tweets

It costs $99, and we tried it

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Google Could Get Tons of Data From Its Gaming Platform

Stadia sounds great, but don’t forget Google is a research company

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Your Smartphone Apps Are Filled With Trackers You Know Nothing About

The privacy crisis Apple and Google need to fix—now

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How Hedgehogs Became Instagram’s Most Miserable Celebrities

Notoriously shy and antisocial, pet hedgehogs have developed big followings online

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Beyond Prime: Inside the Race to Deliver Packages to the Moon

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic is set to be the first private company to make a lunar landing

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Tech Platforms Love Moving Fast — Except When Their Users Are in Trouble

The CEOs of YouTube and Twitter are being far more cautious in addressing the problems of their platforms than they…

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The Tyranny of Convenience

Welcome to the future we all chose, but that nobody seems to want

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May 2019

Highlights:

Warning Signs That a Bubble Is About to Burst

You don’t need a Nobel to see the similarities between 1999 and 2019

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The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

Why the dark forests of the internet — podcasts, newsletters, and other private channels — are growing, and why might…

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The End of App Stores Is Rapidly Approaching

Progressive web apps may soon free you from Google Play and the iOS App Store

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What Really Happens to AirPods When They Die

Apple finally opens up about their complicated afterlife

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Your Dirty AirPods Are Grosser Than You Think

Here’s what lives on your grimy earbuds — and how to clean them

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A Disaster Is Unfolding in Consumer Tech

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is just the tip of the iceberg

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How Satan Was Disappeared From Twitter

The deamplification of a popular parody account shows the platform’s inconsistent — and often unexplained — rules

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Meet the World’s Most Bio-Tracked Man

Scientist Michael Snyder tracked his own basic measurements for years. Now he’s released a study of over 100 people…

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One Inventor’s Race to Manage His Parkinson’s Disease With an App

Ray Finucane was dubbed an engineering ‘wizard.’ Managing his own brain is his toughest challenge yet.

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This ID Scanner Company is Collecting Sensitive Data on Millions of Bargoers

PatronScan says it sells security. Privacy advocates worry it’s selling mass surveillance.

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June 2019

Highlights:

Bullhead City, Arizona Was a Retiree Paradise. Then Came a Biblical Plague of Flies.

Meet the small, greasy insects upending life in an idyllic community.

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Amazon Is Watching

The Internet giant is wiring homes, neighborhoods, and cities, and powering the nation’s intelligence services. Are we…

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People Are Buying Fillers Online and Injecting Them Into Their Own Faces

Sketchy online shops and YouTube are serving a dangerous market for “DIY” cosmetic procedures

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Don’t Be a Phonehead

The plague of people locked into their smartphones is subtly destroying city life

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Congress Must Act on Regulating Deepfakes

An A.I. policy expert on the desperate need for a new law that will seek to protect Americans from manipulated video

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Building a Better Berry

Vertical farming startup Plenty is on a quest to engineer the perfect strawberry

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A Group of Microsoft Employees Is Fighting the Company’s Political Action Committee

Employees say there’s no way to dictate how the PAC spends their money, even when it conflicts with the company’s…

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July 2019

Highlights:

Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

It’s past time for a new era at Apple

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Do You Really Need Another Computer Monitor?

Short answer? Yes. Yes, you do.

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The Dot-Com Don: Meet the Domain Prospector Turning Stray URLs Into Real Businesses

Most entrepreneurs acquire domains to fit their businesses. Peter Askew does the opposite.

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How ‘Digital Nomads’ Game the System to Work in Paradise

Visa scams and tax evasion are common as locals struggle with a low minimum wage

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The Illinois Artist Behind Social Media’s Latest Big Idea

Instagram and Twitter are removing the numbers of likes and retweets from public view. But it began with a man named…

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Can Virtual Assistants Gain Real Intelligence?

A small New Zealand lab is attempting to build “digital humans” that can learn, feel, and even remember us.

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The Hidden History of How the Government Kick-Started Silicon Valley

Author Margaret O’Mara explains why it’s time to move past the tech sector’s creator myths

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How the Internet Transformed the World of Custom Poetry

Sites like Etsy and Instagram are remaking a classic artistic hustle

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Facebook’s Poker Bot Shows How A.I. Can Adapt to Liars

In a new study with significant real-world implications, a poker bot crushed human pros at six-player, no-limit Texas…

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Designers Are Imagining Video Games Without Guns

At a moment when real life is wracked by crisis, designers say that games should offer a respite from violence, rather…

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Palmer Luckey Revolutionized VR. Now He’s Selling A.I. to the Marines.

The technology will allow for 24/7 automated surveillance near the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona, among other…

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CRISPR Could Be the Future of Disease Diagnosis

The biotechnology tool best known for gene editing is being used to develop portable, at-home tests for infectious…

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CRISPR Pioneer Jennifer Doudna on the Future of Disease Detection

The co-inventor of the groundbreaking gene editing technology talks to OneZero about a world where illness could be…

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Why Do People Film Others in Distress Instead of Helping Them?

It’s not as simple as ‘people are the worst’

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August 2019

Highlights:

How Ancestry.com’s Find A Grave Encourages Bad Actors and Bad Data

By gamifying memorials, the world’s largest digital memorial became a Wild West for the dead

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Will It Ever Be Possible to Understand the Human Brain?

Despite technical breakthroughs like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, scientists still have no reliable model of how the brain…

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California Police Are Sharing Facial Recognition Databases to ID Suspects

New emails reveal how a private technology company is working to change law enforcement as we know it

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The League of Entropy Is Making Randomness Truly Random

A new alliance of organizations and individuals is decentralizing randomness for more equitable and trustworthy…

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Here’s What Those Phone Charging Lockers Are Doing With Your Personal Information

Mall kiosks gather email addresses and phone numbers, and it’s not all about your security

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In Defense of The Small Social Network

Ditch Facebook. Log off Twitter. The path to a better internet is going small

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Want to Know When You’ll Die? A New Blood Test May Hold the Answer

It’s not perfect, but scientists are excited by the potential

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In a World of Smart Gadgets, Why Are Toilets Still so Dumb?

Your butt deserves better!

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OpenAI Wants to Move Slow and Not Break Anything

The Sam Altman-led company is gradually rolling out more and more powerful versions of its A.I. to study how it’s…

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Lab-Grown Mini Brains Have Human-Like Brain Activity

New research on mental illness is also raising questions about whether so-called organoids could develop consciousness

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September 2019

Highlights:

Our Skulls Are Out-Evolving Us

A motley crew of scientists argue that our ever-shrinking skulls are wreaking havoc on our well-being

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Leak of Microsoft Salaries Shows Fight for Higher Compensation

The numbers range from $40,000 to $320,000 and reveal key details about how pay works at big tech companies

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Almost Everything About Goodreads Is Broken

Despite Amazon’s innovation elsewhere, Goodreads has stagnated for 12 years, and its problems are endless

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Facing the Great Reckoning Head-On

‘I benefited from the generosity of men who tolerated and, in effect, enabled unethical, immoral, and criminal men.’

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The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

Who should be responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting open-source projects?

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Being ‘Indistractable’ Will Be the Skill of the Future

How the difference between traction and distraction could transform your productivity

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Africa Is Building an A.I. Industry That Doesn’t Look Like Silicon Valley

Researchers want to pave their own path. But the growing industry is still dependent on tech giants like Google and…

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Dog Poop DNA Tracking Introduces Spy Tech to Our Backyards

Companies say they can pinpoint tenants who aren’t cleaning up after their pets. But is a clean lawn worth giving up…

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This Phone Will Change Your Life

A work of informed speculative fiction

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The Apple Card Explains Everything You Need to Know About Apple Today

Forget the iPhone 11 Pro: a simple slab of titanium is at the heart of the company’s core business

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How Much Is Your Privacy Really Worth?

No one knows. And it might be time to stop asking.

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The Mystical Side of A.I.

Technology could be part of some bigger plan to enable us to perceive other dimensions. But will we believe our…

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The Healthy Way To Scroll Through Instagram

Research suggests the photo-sharing app can soothe depression symptoms… if you use it right

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Inside ‘Proplifting,’ a Booming Digital Community Obsessed With Plant Clippings

One year ago ‘Proplifting’ started as a joke. Now it’s practiced by thousands.

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Siri Is Too Important for Apple to Ignore

iPhone owners with disabilities deserve better than what the company currently offers them

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The Defense Department Plans to Build Radiation-proof CRISPR Soldiers

A government project plans to temporarily alter human genes, and shield people from deadly radiation exposure

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On Nextdoor, the Homeless Are the Enemy

The platform built for neighborhood news often scapegoats the most disadvantaged communities

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October 2019

Highlights:

Unraveling the Secret Origins of an AmazonBasics Battery

One of Amazon’s smallest and most popular products has a surprisingly large footprint

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Speaking Truth to Power: Reflections on a Career at Microsoft

Microsoft engineer James Whittaker on how to fix the company

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How Spotify’s Algorithm Knows Exactly What You Want to Listen To

A set of powerful algorithms use your music and your personal details to shape your entire listening experience

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Computer Files Are Going Extinct

Technology services are changing our internet habits

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How Pinterest Built One of Silicon Valley’s Most Successful Algorithms

Inside the company’s powerful recommendations tool — and their strategies for keeping it under control

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The Last True Sticker Factory in America

As sparkles and unicorns go digital, a legendary California business is holding on

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Kindle Hackers Are Disabling Tracking and Ads

And installing ‘Zork’ while they’re at it

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This Brain Computer Uses Your Jugular Like a USB Cable

A new way to insert neural implants doesn’t require brain surgery

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Robot Truckers Are Here — They Just Happen to Be Human

Electronic tracking devices monitor just about everything human drivers do, automating what was once an independent job

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How Adobe InDesign Conquered the World of Graphic Design

Adobe InDesign’s initial release looked like a complete flop. Here’s how the company turned things around.

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What Happens When Your Tweet Becomes a Subway Ad

Twitter’s latest branding campaign features tweets from its users. The authors did not get paid, but they did get swag.

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Domino’s Is Using A.I. Surveillance to Manage Store Performance

The company’s ‘pizza checker’ makes sure your order is right, but also pinpoints low performing stores

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‘Managed Retreat’ From Climate Change Is Leaving the Most Vulnerable People Behind

FEMA’s program to help Americans adapt to climate change isn’t helping everyone

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How the App Store Ended a Golden Era of Software

As an app reviewer in the early 2000s, I had a front-row seat to free apps’ evolution from delightful to predatory

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Google’s A.I.-Powered Camera Was Destined to Fail

A program just can’t tell what’s ‘interesting’

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The Best Use of a Pot Breathalyzer Isn’t for Driving, It’s for Jobs

Pot breathalyzer tests, if they work, could help sort out how employers should handle legal marijuana use

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Synthetic Psychedelics May Soon Replace Your Shrooms

Scientists are engineering microbes that can produce the hallucinogen psilocybin

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This Is What Would Happen If You Literally Ate Your Phone

Minced, baked, or swallowed whole, a smartphone makes a terrible meal

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Hospital Algorithms Are Biased Against Black Patients, New Research Shows

Health care software prioritizes white patients, even when they’re not as sick

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Amazon’s A.I. Emotion-Recognition Software Confuses Expressions for Feelings

People’s faces say a lot less about their emotions than companies think

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Eating Roadkill Is Our Future, and That’s Okay

‘Why let it waste if it is still good?’

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Florida Claims to be a Driverless Car Paradise. Critics Call It a Lawless Mess

The Sunshine State has lured AV companies with lax legislation, perennial fair weather, and an endless supply of…

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Startup Molekule Is Using the California Wildfires to Sell Its Crummy Air Purifier

Wirecutter called Molekule ‘the worst air purifier we’ve ever tested’

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DeepMind’s StarCraft Bot Has a 191-Year Head Start on Humanity

AlphaStar learned from half a million human games, then played itself 120 million times to master its technique

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Looking At Cute Animals Online Is Literally Good for Your Brain

And definitely better than porn or even reading, according to one researcher

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People Are Killing Puppy Clones That Don’t Come Out “Perfect”

And the procedure costs $60,000 per animal

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November 2019

Highlights:

A Nude ‘Playboy’ Photo Has Been a Mainstay in Testing Tech for Decades

The documentary ‘Losing Lena’ is about the many small ways in which women are told they don’t belong in tech

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EXCLUSIVE: This Is How the U.S. Military’s Massive Facial Recognition System Works

Documents obtained by OneZero show how the military captures biometric data around the world

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The Magical Science of Wi-Fi on Airplanes

How we browse the internet at 35,000 feet

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This Science Vigilante Calls Out Bogus Results in Prestigious Journals

With pressure to “publish or perish,” some scientists fake their research results. Elisabeth Bik spends her days…

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White Instagram Influencers Have Created a New Form of Blackface

Digital media has spawned a pervasive, elusive performance that’s dangerous to Black culture

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Inside Discord’s Unmoderated, Potentially Dangerous Teen Dating Network

Faced with lax moderation, teens are building ad hoc tools to protect their own dating servers

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Why xHamster Is So Much Better at Content Moderation Than Facebook

Laws hold the porn industry accountable for dangerous content — and it’s thriving nonetheless

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What Happens When You Tweet a Death Threat to the President?

Quite possibly the worst tweet you can send

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EXCLUSIVE: Ambrosia, the Young Blood Transfusion Startup, Is Quietly Back in Business

The company says it paused operations after an FDA notice, but customer demand remained high

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The High-Stakes Race to Breed Cannabis With 0% THC

Farmers are scrambling to cash in on the CBD boom. But when their hemp crops tip over the .3% legal limit for THC, they…

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Here’s How Knightscope’s Security Robots Surveil the Public

OneZero obtained a presentation that reveals how Knightscope uses facial recognition and license plate readers to track…

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Reddit’s r/SkincareAddiction Community Has a Dark Side

It’s easy for a love of skincare to turn into an obsession

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Transcription Site Rev Leaves Customer Data Out in the Open

Gig workers warn that more than 40,000 transcribers could access private customer information, including job details

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Experts Say Your Fingers Can Type 24/7, Forever, Until You Die

There is no relief on the horizon

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Nazis Got Me Kicked Off of Twitter

How the far right exploits the platform’s clueless approach to hate speech

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Apple Has Been Gaslighting Us for Years

The company says it created a new keyboard for the MacBook Pro because it’s ‘listening,’ but customers have been…

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A Blind Man Sees His Birthday Candles Again, Thanks to a Bionic Eye

A brain implant helped restore his sight after a tragic car crash

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The Utah Statement: Reviving Antimonopoly Traditions for the Era of Big Tech

A new framework for holding private power to account

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The Rape Kit Is Horribly Outdated

We have the technology to make the experience better for survivors, so why haven’t we?

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Our Emojis Need to Represent Everyone

A more diverse approving body and a more transparent and inclusive approval process could lead to emojis that better…

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Plastic Surgeons Are Using A.I. to Determine Beauty

Will algorithms destroy the cultural diversity of what qualifies as pretty?

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‘I Can Hear the Suffering’: Rev Exposes Freelance Transcribers to Violent, Disturbing Content

Transcribers say they’ve come across descriptions of child sex trafficking and domestic abuse — all without warning

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There Still Aren’t Any Rules Preventing Scientists From Making Gene-Edited Babies

The anniversary of He Jiankui’s botched experiment brings more questions than answers

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Here’s a Kinda Genius, Kinda Evil Way People Are Gaming Spotify Playlists

It’s just the latest trick in a long history of hacking digital music services to promote your own songs

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Android Becomes Basically Unusable If You Turn Off All of Google’s Tracking

I know, because I tried

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Amazon Finally Reveals Who Makes Its Branded Products

Until now, there’s been no easy way to track where AmazonBasics really come from

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December 2019

Highlights:

The Influencer and the Hit Man: How a Years-Long Domain Name Feud Ended in a Bloody Shootout

To get his URL, the founder of State Snaps turned to extreme measures

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Scientists Are Contemplating a 1,000-Year Space Mission to Save Humanity

Relocating the human race to a more hospitable planet would mean that multiple generations would be born in-transit

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The Forgotten Pixel Art Masterpieces of the PlayStation 1 Era

Video games simply aren’t made like this anymore

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Amazon and Google Are Practically Giving Away Smart Speakers. Here’s Why.

It’s not about giving you a deal

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Inside Discord’s Thriving Black Market for Stolen Credit Cards and Gift Cards

Cracked PayPal accounts and stolen debit card numbers are sold in the open

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How to Totally Escape Ad Tracking at Home

Shutting down ad trackers at the network level is difficult, but not impossible

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Authoritarian Nations Are Turning the Internet Into a Weapon

From Twitter’s spies to complete shutdowns, repressive regimes are using A.I. and VPN fingerprinting to silence their…

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‘Everything That Promised Glory Became Gory’: Exclusive Excerpt

The author of ‘Annihilation’ returns to the post-apocalyptic world of ‘Borne’

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Chicago Cops Use Social Media to Track Grieving Families of Gunshot Victims

‘These are victims, not perpetrators’

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Plastic Surgeons Are Using Eye-Tracking Tech to Make Better Breasts

But the eye doesn’t necessarily gaze at what is beautiful

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A Googler Explains Exactly How the Pixel 4 Captures the Night Sky

We went stargazing with product manager Alex Schiffhauer to learn more about the new phone’s astrophotography mode

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Uber Delivery Workers in Mexico Are Tracking Thieves Through Google Maps and WhatsApp Networks

A 1,000-person WhatsApp community keeps delivery workers safe

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The Blackest City in the U.S. Is Facing an Environmental Justice Nightmare

Detroit’s most vulnerable residents face inequalities like toxic air, lead poisoning, and water shutoffs

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When DNA Testing Gives You a Past and Threatens Your Future

The troubling risks of genetic testing while Black

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Airports Are Normalizing Facial Recognition in the United States

The quest for total security has transformed airports into a playground for surveillance tech

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January 2020

Highlights:

Alien Nations: Why Life on Other Planets Will Resemble Ours

Hard science offers a remarkably detailed portrait of how extraterrestrials may live — and clues on where our own…

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We Finally Figured Out Who Makes wikiHow’s Bizarre Art

Getting to the bottom of one of the internet’s most ridiculously drawn mysteries

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Reaction GIFs of Black People Are More Problematic Than You Think

‘Digital blackface’ dehumanizes Black people by flattening our stories

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Millennials Love Zillow Because They’ll Never Own A Home

Real estate apps and Instagram accounts have become a digital fantasyland for broke millennials

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How Science Fiction Imagined the 2020s

What ‘Blade Runner,’ cyberpunk, and Octavia Butler had to say about the age we’re entering now

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Why You Don’t Need an Advanced Mathematics Degree to Be a Programmer

A computer science professor explains the evolution of coding careers

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The Pinched Fingers Emoji’s Creator Explains Its Meaning

Here’s how the most popular new addition to the Unicode was conceived. Its origin has nothing to do with fisting.

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A ‘SexTech Revolution’ Could Smash the Internet of Men

Andrea Barrica, who launched a popular sextech startup, wants to usher in a revolution to upend the oppressive mores of…

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Why Recipe Bloggers Make You Scroll so Far to Read the Recipe

Hint: Blame Google

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The U.S. Government’s Mass Collection of Immigrant DNA Hints at Surveillance Future

Genetic data collected will be added to an FBI database for violent criminals

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We Feared Deepfakes. Then Tech Monetized Them.

TikTok and Snap are experimenting with deepfake-style filters

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Swarms of Teeny Robo-Tractors Will Outmaneuver Tesla’s Driverless Cars

While Elon Musk and Waymo get all the attention, autonomous vehicles for farming face fewer tech barriers and could be…

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The Military Is Building Long-Range Facial Recognition That Works in the Dark

Infrared cameras recognize the heat emitted from your face

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It’s No Surprise That 23andMe Created a Drug From Customers’ Genetic Data

It’s the first and likely not the last to come out of the company

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15 Years After Katrina, a Fight Against ‘the Jim Crow of Climate Change’ Rages on in the Gulf Coast

After inequitable responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, climate activists are preparing their communities for the…

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How to Keep Child Predators Out of Virtual Playgrounds Like ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Minecraft’

There’s no perfect fix, but experts on moderation, sexual exploitation, and internet law tell OneZero there is hope

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A Viral Tweet Sent Me Searching for My Dead Mom on Google Street View

The mapping app can provide surprising solace for grieving loved ones

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An Exclusive Excerpt From William Gibson’s New Novel, ‘Agency’

The celebrated sci-fi author returns with a novel set in an alternate — but familiar — timeline

onezero.medium.com

Why Google Gets Away With So Much

It’s time to stop letting ourselves be the ‘abandoned carcass’ of our data

onezero.medium.com

Scientists Are Ready to Move Beyond ‘Screen Time’

All screens are not equal. Stanford’s Human Screenome Project promises to map people’s digital behaviors in far more…

onezero.medium.com

The Future Doesn’t Last

A controversy around old Sonos devices is a reminder that software updates can be a death sentence

onezero.medium.com

Here’s What Happened to the Theranos Headquarters

There’s a satisfying irony in a medical school replacing a company that grew briefly rich and famous for fraudulent…

onezero.medium.com

How Instagram’s Viral Face Filters Work

Computer vision is incredibly valuable to Facebook, and Pokémon, Disney princesses, and ‘Friends’ characters help us…

onezero.medium.com

Smart Toilets Are Revealing the Health Data That Wearables Can’t

More than heart rate and exercise, smart toilets may soon track disease, sleep patterns, and drug use

onezero.medium.com

Health Care Is the Next Battleground for Big Tech

Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon are all getting involved in your health care. Here’s why.

onezero.medium.com

How Google Earth Mapped 98% of the World

And how it overcame device constraints to bring it to you

onezero.medium.com

The Scientist Who Got a Brain Implant to Cure His Alcoholism

Deep brain stimulation could help curb drug and alcohol addiction

onezero.medium.com

February 2020

Highlights:

How Google Got Its Employees to Eat Their Vegetables

The tech giant is engineering a way to encourage its employees to eat healthier — and it might just help the rest of…

onezero.medium.com

Inside a Secretive $250 Million Private Transit System Just for Techies

1,000 white-collar tech shuttles are stalling Bay Area public transit

onezero.medium.com

Apple’s Secret Monopoly

Its App Store has a choke hold on your devices. That may not last much longer.

onezero.medium.com

Rising Seas May Force U.S. Climate Refugees to the Same 5 Cities

But even if people escape sea-level rise, they’ll have other climate-related dangers to deal with

onezero.medium.com

This Super-Clean Smart Screen Puts a Newspaper on Your Wall

Sometimes no user interface is the best user interface

onezero.medium.com

Exclusive Survey Reveals Discrimination Against Visa Workers at Tech’s Biggest Companies

OneZero conducted a 10,000-person poll to shed light on the plight of H-1B workers

onezero.medium.com

The Future of Housing May Be $2,000 Dorm Rooms for Grownups

Some have doubts

onezero.medium.com

The Future of Coding Is ‘No Code’

Drag-and-drop tools make anyone a maker

onezero.medium.com

‘Brand Blockers’ Are Trying to Scrub Their Feeds Clean of Every Advertiser on Twitter

I’ve blocked over 1,000 brands on Twitter, and I can’t stop them

onezero.medium.com

Clearview AI’s Surveillance Dystopia Isn’t New for People of Color

Facial recognition technology is already biased against marginalized groups

onezero.medium.com

A Smear of DNA Can Hold 10,000 Gigabytes of Data

Facing a storage crisis, the U.S. is investing $48 million to turn DNA into living hard drives

onezero.medium.com

Twitter Rallied to Find a Missing Woman — And Then Turned On Her

How #we’relookingforyoukaren transformed into #lyingkaren.

onezero.medium.com

TikTok’s Digital Blackface Problem

Under the hashtags #Ghetto and #CripWalkChallenge, white teens appropriate Black culture

onezero.medium.com

NEC Is the Most Important Facial Recognition Company You’ve Never Heard Of

The company supplies its software to everyone from Carnival Cruises to your local police department

onezero.medium.com

The Price of DNA Sequencing Dropped From $2.7 Billion to $300 in Less Than 20 Years

You can now access your entire genetic makeup for less than the price of an Apple Watch

onezero.medium.com

The U.S. Could Run Out of Metals That Are Crucial to Tech

Entire industries, including consumer electronics, may be disrupted

onezero.medium.com

Google Engineers, Uber Drivers, and the Voices of a New Tech Labor Revolution

Inside an unprecedented surge of activism in the tech industry

onezero.medium.com

Silicon Valley’s Spandexed Biker Bros Are Going Extinct

Elite VC bike rides are giving way to chill adventures

onezero.medium.com

An Exclusive Club of Black Women Is Disrupting Silicon Valley

Started as a listserv, Visible Figures is a support network for Black women in tech

onezero.medium.com

This Filter Makes Your Photos Invisible to Facial Recognition

Digital cloaking, and how you can reclaim a modicum of digital privacy

onezero.medium.com

The Future Is Already Here, It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed and Also It Sucks

How ‘the future’ reveals our inequalities, divisions, and ingenuity, one electric unicycle at a time

onezero.medium.com

The Internet of Things Almost Starved My Cat

And other perils of the digital age

onezero.medium.com

Tech Can’t Handle Criticism: A Conversation with Anna Wiener and Jessica Powell

The authors discuss sexism, power, and diversity in Silicon Valley

onezero.medium.com

The Birthplace of the Hard Drive is Now an AutoZone Parking Lot

Why can’t Silicon Valley build itself a single decent monument?

onezero.medium.com

The Definitive Ranking of Silicon Valley Shoes

Matching pairs

onezero.medium.com

Silicon Valley Destroyed Everything. Or Maybe Not.

Ambivalence.com

onezero.medium.com

March 2020

Highlights:

I Got My File From Clearview AI, and It Freaked Me Out

Here’s how you might be able to get yours

onezero.medium.com

My Summer Internship at Google Turned Me Off Silicon Valley Forever

I still work in tech, but I’ll never go back to the Valley

onezero.medium.com

Classic iPod Hackers Say There’s No Better Way to Listen to Music

Apple may have discontinued click-wheel iPods, but a community of iPod modders resurrects them for their sound and…

onezero.medium.com

Coronavirus Is a Preview of Our Self-Isolating Future

How working from home could reshape society

onezero.medium.com

How to Build the Speedy Home Wi-Fi Network of Your Dreams

You might even have some fun while you’re at it

onezero.medium.com

A Battery Breakthrough Could End Lithium-Ion’s Reign

Potassium batteries are coming for the throne

onezero.medium.com

The Simplest Way to Spot Coronavirus Misinformation on Social Media

A digital literacy expert shares his method

onezero.medium.com

The Untold Story of the Man That Made Mainstream Encryption Possible

Meet Whit Diffie, the man who invented public key cryptography and brought encryption to the masses

onezero.medium.com

Argentina Police Are Arresting Innocent People Based on Facial Recognition

Live facial recognition has been in use in the capital of Argentina for nearly a year.

onezero.medium.com

Clothes-Fitting Technology Could Save Online Shopping

A deep dive into an overlooked innovation

onezero.medium.com

Clearview AI: We Are ‘Working to Acquire All U.S. Mugshots’ From Past 15 Years

Newly obtained emails reveal a new side of the controversial facial recognition company

onezero.medium.com

Amazon, Uber, and Lyft Pressure Drivers Amid Coronavirus Fears

“Keep your car clean”

onezero.medium.com

How I Survived Nearly 40 Years in Silicon Valley as a Woman in Tech

My story of Silicon Valley from the ’80s to now

onezero.medium.com

How a Crisis Researcher Makes Sense of Covid-19 Misinformation

Collective sensemaking during times of uncertainty and anxiety

onezero.medium.com

Your DNA Test Could Crack a Cold Case

Consumer DNA databases are a powerful new tool for police but raise privacy concerns

onezero.medium.com

This Is the Ad Clearview AI Used to Sell Your Face to Police

Emails obtained by OneZero reveal the controversial company’s marketing to law enforcement

onezero.medium.com

OK Google, Black History Month Is Over. What Now?

A commercial and four flawed algorithms

onezero.medium.com

I Did a 24-Hour Dopamine Fast and I Felt Everything, Not Nothing

A day of nothing flipped my brain into a low-energy mode

onezero.medium.com

Why the Web Isn’t Working for Women and Girls

Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee says we must all address this dangerous trend

onezero.medium.com

It’s Time to Resurrect the Airship Hospitals

An idea devised to beat the tuberculosis pandemic 100 years ago could apply to coronavirus

onezero.medium.com

The Community Labs Built on Silicon Valley’s Junk

Trash from biotech startups are citizen scientists’ treasure

onezero.medium.com

Inside the Democratic Candidates’ War for Your Inbox

An exhaustive 2,700-email analysis of donation requests, emojis, and dog pictures

onezero.medium.com

The Tamagotchi Hacking Community’s Quest to Cheat Death

To keep their digital pets alive just a little bit longer, Tamagotchi hackers get creative

onezero.medium.com

Gig Workers Can’t Go on Unemployment — So They’re Turning to GoFundMe

People who have lost their income during the crisis now turn to the crowdfunding platform for help

onezero.medium.com

How to Mass Manufacture Humanoid Robots

What kind of materials, minerals, and supply chain would we need to create Westworld-style hosts or Blade Runner…

onezero.medium.com

Coronavirus Is Speeding Up the Amazonification of the Planet

As restaurants, bars, and local shops close down, platform-based monoliths are vacuuming up the customers and the jobs

onezero.medium.com

Why Slack Isn’t Winning the Remote-Work Revolution — Yet

It needs to reach a different type of customer. A timely redesign might help.

onezero.medium.com

Facial Recognition Companies See the Coronavirus as a Business Opportunity

Facial recognition companies are pitching the technology as a sanitary alternative to fingerprint scanners

onezero.medium.com

Coronavirus Is Spurring a New Era of Digital Funerals

It’s easier than ever to bury your loved ones online

onezero.medium.com

‘These People Are Evil’: Drivers Speak Out Against Uber’s New Coronavirus Sick Leave Fund

The program excludes those who don’t have access to medical care or who must isolate themselves for their own…

onezero.medium.com

Grocery Runs, Donations, and Memes: Inside the Rise of Neighborhood Slack Groups During the…

From New York to Columbus, Ohio, Slack groups are organizing to help neighbors in need

onezero.medium.com

Lemons for Yeast for Flour: The Bartering Economy Explodes on Nextdoor

Nextdoor suddenly looks like Oregon Trail 2.0

onezero.medium.com

Coronavirus Is Bringing Back the Forgotten Tech Trends of 2012

MOOCs, 3D printers, and smart thermometers are having another moment

onezero.medium.com

Jealousy, Rumors, and Suspicion: How Facebook Disaster Groups Turn On Themselves

The Paradise Fire Adopt a Family Facebook group had almost 30,000 members helping and seeking help. Then it imploded.

onezero.medium.com

April 2020

Highlights:

CEO of Surveillance Firm Banjo Once Helped KKK Leader Shoot Up a Synagogue

Documents reveal Damien Patton, CEO of SoftBank-backed Banjo, admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

onezero.medium.com

Banjo’s Surveillance Systems Grind to a Halt After CEO’s KKK Past Revealed

Government agencies in Utah and Indiana have suspended their contracts with Banjo

onezero.medium.com

Banjo Suspends All Operations in Utah Following OneZero Investigation

‘Banjo believes that any company working with the government should be subject to audits and oversight’

onezero.medium.com

This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me for My 1,000,000 Viewed Video

Here is the answer to the question that everyone asks me

onezero.medium.com

Our Government Runs on a 60-Year-Old Coding Language, and Now It's Falling Apart

O ver the weekend, New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, made an unusual public plea during his daily coronavirus briefing…

onezero.medium.com

We Mapped How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World

At least 30 countries are ramping up surveillance to combat the coronavirus

onezero.medium.com

The Pandemic Has Ended the Amazon Debate

It’s clearer than ever that supporting Amazon is a tacit endorsement of abusive work policies and more

onezero.medium.com

‘Immunity Passports’ Could Create a New Category of Privilege

Proof of a prior infection could come with more freedom

onezero.medium.com

Instagram Turned a User’s Tweet Into a Feature Overnight

It moved fast and didn’t break anything

onezero.medium.com

I Lived Off Homemade Soylent for a Week During a Global Crisis

Drinking sludge to get through the tough days

onezero.medium.com

Data Thieves Are Targeting Dead People’s Social Media Accounts

Identity theft is a problem in the afterlife

onezero.medium.com

The Big Business (and Cheap Thrill) of Personal Carbon Credits

I’m paying Project Wren $15.70 per month to offset my carbon footprint. Can it do more than absolve my guilt?

onezero.medium.com

Online Learning Was Supposed to Democratize Education. Coronavirus Shows It Hasn’t.

OneZero spoke to teachers worried about students being left behind

onezero.medium.com

Coronavirus Will Destroy Years of Scientific Progress

Scientists all over the world have to put their research on hold due to coronavirus and their work could be lost…

onezero.medium.com

An MIT Lab Is Building Devices to Hack Your Dreams

From improving your mood to focusing your creativity, scientists at MIT’s Dream Lab want to prove the power of dreams

onezero.medium.com

The World’s Smartphones Are Filled With Gold. That’s a Problem.

Small amounts of gold used in electronics quickly add up to environmental and humanitarian disasters

onezero.medium.com

Amazon Is at War With Its Workers

A surge of protests has demanded safer conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. But will they make a difference?

onezero.medium.com

Scientists Are Racing to Get Us Faster, Simpler Coronavirus Tests

Rapid and at-home tests could give results in minutes rather than days

onezero.medium.com

Why Solarpunk, Not Cyberpunk, Is the Future We Need Right Now

You don’t need to be stoned in a dorm room to imagine a brighter future

onezero.medium.com

Medical Researchers Worry Silicon Valley Could Screw Up Psychedelics

Entrepreneurs are hoping psychedelics will follow marijuana’s path to the lifestyle industry, but researchers aren’t…

onezero.medium.com

How Bias Ruins A.I.

In wake of Banjo CEO revelations, bias in A.I. comes under new scrutiny

onezero.medium.com

The Real Reason Apple Made the iPhone SE So Cheap

Apple is all about services now

onezero.medium.com

May 2020

Highlights:

Banjo CEO Resigns Following Revelation of KKK Ties

‘I believe Banjo’s best path forward is under different leadership’

onezero.medium.com

The Future of Movie Theaters Might Look a Lot Like an Apple Store

From the people who brought you the iPhone: a whole new theatrical experience

onezero.medium.com

Inside Twitter’s Decision to Fact-Check Trump’s Tweets

‘We knew from a comms perspective that all hell would break loose,’ says Twitter’s vice president of global…

onezero.medium.com

Deepfake Music Is So Good It Might Be Illegal

And other fascinating A.I. research from this week

onezero.medium.com

What Facebook’s Remote Work Policy Means for the Future of Tech Salaries Everywhere

‘For some kinds of jobs, it really could become a more national and less local labor market’

onezero.medium.com

The Future of Code Is in Your Browser

Cloud-based coding environments like GitHub’s new Codespaces make programming more accessible

onezero.medium.com

We Already Have a Blueprint for What Comes Next

From the Bible to ‘Epidemics and Society’ to ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,’ these works map out our…

onezero.medium.com

A New Zealand Startup Is Using Microbes to Suck Solid Gold Out of E-Waste

Microscopic organisms can extract precious metals from discarded devices

onezero.medium.com

The Coronavirus Puts Restaurants at the Mercy of the Tech Industry

Social distancing is pushing restaurants toward delivery-only models powered by tech platforms

onezero.medium.com

Two Book Startups Compete Where Amazon Won’t

Bookshop and Libro.fm hope to change your shopping habits. Will it last after the pandemic?

onezero.medium.com

Why I’m Joining Facebook’s Oversight Board

Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on why the social media giant ‘needs independent, external oversight’

onezero.medium.com

I Joined Uber 11 Years Ago. I Quit Last Week, Again.

Uber’s first app developer explains how the company grew from three people in a coffee shop to 30,000 people around the…

onezero.medium.com

The Case for Stanislaw Lem, One of Science Fiction’s Unsung Giants

By reprinting six key works by the slowly fading Polish SF giant, MIT Press hopes to revive his varied and considerable…

onezero.medium.com

Tech Union Leaders Are Dodging Surveillance on Platforms Like Facebook and Zoom

For worker movements, digital tools are a double-edged sword

onezero.medium.com

Amazon Is Quietly Fighting Against a Sweeping Facial Recognition Ban in Portland

‘They’re hoping that they can stop it, and they can’t’

onezero.medium.com

Training a Neural Network Can Emit More Than 600,000 Pounds of CO2. But Not for Long.

A new technique for training and running a neural network, proposed by researchers at MIT, has a much smaller carbon…

onezero.medium.com

Google Says It Will Not Build Custom A.I. for Oil and Gas Extraction

A Greenpeace report details Silicon Valley’s ties to Big Oil — and spurs Google to take a step towards opting out

onezero.medium.com

Now Is the Time for Nationwide Free Internet

Internet should a right, not a privilege

onezero.medium.com

How Google Killed My Content Farm

Everything was fine until the Panda showed up

onezero.medium.com

Peter W. Singer Explains Why His “Robot Revolution” Is Inevitable

His sci-fi novel about WWIII got him invited to the White House. He thinks his next one, about A.I., will do more than…

onezero.medium.com

What to Do When Your Video Game Gets Co-opted by Neo-Nazis

Crusader Kings 3 depicts a more diverse and connected version of the Middle Ages than its predecessors

onezero.medium.com

‘We Were the Petri Dish’: Facebook’s Shift to Remote Work Leaves Neighbors in a Lurch

The company’s Menlo Park headquarters have shaped the city. So too would an exodus of employees.

onezero.medium.com

Is the Coronavirus Really Having a Positive Impact on Our Atmosphere?

Fighting climate change requires long-term policies, not short-term lifestyle tweaks

onezero.medium.com

Remote Work Isn’t the End of Silicon Valley, but It Is the End of Something

A golden era of tech offices sputters to a close

onezero.medium.com

How Apple Decides Which Products Are ‘Vintage’ and ‘Obsolete’

The surprising definitions present serious challenges for repairability

onezero.medium.com

The Future of Gaming Is on Your Face, on Instagram

Instagram game filters could make augmented reality more mainstream, experts say

onezero.medium.com

Vietnam’s Coronavirus Death Toll Is Zero. The Cost? Total Surveillance.

The nation’s response to the pandemic reveals a resourceful — and often troubling — use of technology

onezero.medium.com

June 2020

Highlights:

A Deadly Mosquito-Borne Illness Is Brewing in the Northeast

EEE kills almost half of its victims. And cases are on the rise.

onezero.medium.com

Inside the Social Media Cult That Convinces Young People to Give Up Everything

The DayLife Army always seemed like a troll. Then it became a nightmare.

onezero.medium.com

30,000 Unsuspecting Rose Bowl Attendees Were Scooped Up in a Facial Recognition Test

Cameras gathered information on attendees’ gender, age, and whether they matched a list of suspicious persons

onezero.medium.com

Scientists Edited Human Embryos in the Lab, and It Was a Disaster

The experiment raises major safety concerns for gene-edited babies

onezero.medium.com

Apple’s Brilliant Plan to Dominate Without Intel Processors

The company solved the chicken-or-egg problem that haunts its rivals

onezero.medium.com

How Facebook Can Fix Itself

A former spokesperson for the social network says the stakes are too high for employees not to advocate for change

onezero.medium.com

Our Ability to Process Information Is Reaching a Critical Limit

The result feels like a mental DDoS attack

onezero.medium.com

This $35 Keyboard for Children Transformed Me Into a Novelist

And I’m far from alone

onezero.medium.com

The Segway’s Inventor Has a New Project: Manufacturing Human Organs

When the FDA approves lab-grown human organs for patients, Dean Kamen wants to be ready to mass-produce them

onezero.medium.com

A Break-up Letter with Astronomy, From a Young Black Woman

It’s not me, it’s you

onezero.medium.com

Scammers Are Gaming Spotify by Faking Collaborations With Famous Artists

Users like Wali Da Great are growing infamous for tricking streaming listeners with falsified metadata

onezero.medium.com

The Emptiness of Blackout Tuesday

The moment it became A Moment, the message got lost in the sauce.

onezero.medium.com

From RealPlayer to Toshiba, Tech Companies Cash in on the Facial Recognition Gold Rush

At least 45 companies now advertise real-time facial recognition

onezero.medium.com

The Police Are Watching on Nextdoor

While posting content about individuals may seem innocuous, Nextdoor users should be aware that in all likelihood, the…

onezero.medium.com

The Hidden Costs of Deploying Tear Gas at Protests

Experts worry about the environment and health impacts of the chemical weapon

onezero.medium.com

We Must Fight Face Surveillance to Protect Black Lives

An urgent letter from the Algorithmic Justice League

onezero.medium.com

Facial Recognition Is Law Enforcement’s Newest Weapon Against Protesters

Police in Seattle, Austin, and Dallas, as well as the FBI have asked for images of violence and protests

onezero.medium.com

Amazon Is Really Interested in the Blood of Covid-19 Patients

The company is backing efforts that could make its warehouses safer

onezero.medium.com

Amazon Program Raises Money for Police Departments While the Company Says ‘Black Lives Matter’

AmazonSmile generates donations for the Los Angeles Police Foundation, San Diego Police Foundation, and others

onezero.medium.com

The Protests Remind Us Why Social Media Is Worth Fixing

Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok are distorting our view of a crisis. But they’re also countering the distorted view we…

onezero.medium.com

It’s Not Just You: Websites Really Do All Look the Same Now

New research explains why

onezero.medium.com

This Simple Facial Recognition Search Engine Can Track You Down Across the Internet

PimEyes markets its service as a tool to protect privacy and the misuse of images

onezero.medium.com

250 Microsoft Employees Call on CEO to Cancel Police Contracts and Support Defunding Seattle PD

The letter also asks for the resignation of Seattle’s mayor and for full support of Black Lives Matter

onezero.medium.com

The Viral ‘Breaking911’ Twitter Account Is Not a Trustworthy Source, Experts Say

A nesting doll of fakery shows how difficult it can be to parse out what’s real on social media

onezero.medium.com

Facebook Deplatforms Hundreds of Anti-Racist Skinheads and Musicians

‘They wanted to see my ID before they would give me my account back’

onezero.medium.com

BLM Activists Devised a Brilliant Way to Raise Money From YouTube’s AdSense

Clicktivism is having a Renaissance

onezero.medium.com

The Digital Archives of the Oldest Black Newspaper in America Show a Long Struggle for Justice

Today’s events aren’t simply another turn of the news cycle

onezero.medium.com

Here’s How Easy It Is for Cops to Get Your Facebook Data

Police can access everything from “pokes” to private Messenger data — and increasingly do

onezero.medium.com

Gamers Are Using A.I. to Completely Remake Old-School Graphics

Generative adversarial networks redefine classics for a new era

onezero.medium.com

Defunding the Police Is an Environmental Justice Issue

Getting rid of the police could remove a key environmental stressor of Black people

onezero.medium.com

America Has Always Been a Dystopia

Too many of us just haven’t been paying attention

onezero.medium.com

The U.S. Rubber-Stamps Facial Recognition Systems Used to Round Up Uighurs in China

National Institute of Standards and Technology’s facial recognition audits are used for marketing purposes in China

onezero.medium.com

The Right’s New Favorite Social Media Platform Parler Is Just as Restrictive as Twitter

The platform bans ‘fisticuffs’ but allows ‘buttock’

onezero.medium.com

5 Ideas to Make Silicon Valley Less Racist

Leslie Miley, Safiya Noble, and other Black tech thinkers on how to build a more equal industry

onezero.medium.com

The Tech Elite Are Selling Job Referrals to Facebook, Google, and Amazon

Blind’s sister site, Rooftop Slushie, has built a marketplace for job referrals

onezero.medium.com

July 2020

Highlights:

The Gig Economy Is Failing. Say Hello to the Hustle Economy.

Unemployed teachers, cooks, dancers are turning to Patreon, Twitch, and OnlyFans

onezero.medium.com

Tiny Weed-Killing Robots Could Make Pesticides Obsolete

This swarm of robots may herald a chemical-free food revolution

onezero.medium.com

This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave

Patricia Crowther’s ex-husband coded her cave maps into one of the first hit adventure games in the 1970s, and she had…

onezero.medium.com

My Bizarre Stint As an Amazon Reviewer for Hire

In exchange for positive Amazon reviews, the mysterious Facebook accounts who recruited me promised me free stuff. They…

onezero.medium.com

‘A Permanent Nightmare’: Pinterest Moderators Fight to Keep Horrifying Content Off the Platform

Moderators reported seeing child pornography content ‘every couple hours’

onezero.medium.com

Pinterest Hosts Sexual Images of Young Girls, Anti-Vax Memes Despite Moderation Efforts

The moderation oversight is a result of hiding rather than deleting illicit content

onezero.medium.com

Gaming During the Pandemic Is Starting to Feel Like Work

And that’s not a bad thing

onezero.medium.com

I Got a Job at an Amazon Warehouse Without Talking to a Single Human

And what that experience taught me about the path forward automating the hiring process

onezero.medium.com

The Amazon Effect Is Making Customer Service Reps’ Lives Hell

The pandemic has exposed a major rift in the retail industry

onezero.medium.com

Can Silicon Valley Be Fixed — Or Should We Burn It All Down?

The authors of ‘Always Day One’ and ‘Abolish Silicon Valley’ square off in an exclusive debate about the future of tech

onezero.medium.com

What a Better Social Network Would Look Like

An offhand tweet sparked an outpouring of ideas to fix what’s broken about Facebook and Twitter

onezero.medium.com

What I Learned From My Engineering Interview With Amazon

How failing a technical screen helped me grow as a developer

onezero.medium.com

Yes, Adults Are Still Renting $2,000 Co-Living Dorm Rooms During the Pandemic

Nonresidents must wear masks, and some residents are staying in their rooms

onezero.medium.com

I Chatted With a Therapy Bot to Ease My Covid Fears. It Was Bizarre.

Makers of therapy bots say they can help manage the ‘tsunami’ of latent mental illness emerging with the stress of the…

onezero.medium.com

Facebook Cannot Separate Itself from the Hate It Spreads

The social network doesn’t just ‘hold a mirror up to society’— it does something much more powerful and concerning

onezero.medium.com

The Pandemic Makes It Clear: We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism

The Covid crisis shows we need to radically harness technology to remake our economy, now

onezero.medium.com

How Amazon Lures ‘Artisanal’ Sellers and Hangs Them Out to Dry

This is Handmade’s tale

onezero.medium.com

The Enduring Anti-Black Racism of Google Search

How neoliberalism, Google, and the U.S. porn industry coded searching for ‘black girls’ with racism

onezero.medium.com

Inside a Facebook ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ for Cat Drugs

Desperate pet owners must either buy illegal medications or watch their cats die

onezero.medium.com

The Man Whose Science Fiction Keeps Turning Into Our Shitty Cyberpunk Reality

Why I Made This Future is a recurring feature that invites speculative fiction authors, futurists, screenwriters, and…

onezero.medium.com

Inside Randonautica, the App Leading Zoomers to Discover Rainbows, Dead Bodies, and Hidden…

All I found was a barbecue grill

onezero.medium.com

Don’t Get Distracted by the Spectacle of Tech’s Big Antitrust Hearing

A top Amazon critic explains the big picture behind the media circus

onezero.medium.com

A Year After an HR Crisis, Microsoft Employees Say They’re Still Waiting for Change

Two former employees say that a lack of HR action was a primary reason for leaving the company

onezero.medium.com

Companies Are Using Employee Survey Data to Predict — and Squash — Union Organizing

Employee survey platforms allow employers to sort groups of employees by the departments, locations, and demographics…

onezero.medium.com

What Big Tobacco’s Fall Tells Us About Big Tech’s Future

onezero.medium.com

You Will Never Leave

A cultural shift to remote work may keep you working at home even when the pandemic passes, if history is any guide

onezero.medium.com

August 2020

Highlights:

How to Destroy ‘Surveillance Capitalism’

Surveillance capitalism is just capitalism — with surveillance. Here’s how to beat it.

onezero.medium.com

How a Band of Activists — and One Tech Billionaire — Beat Alphabet’s ‘Smart City’

Alphabet bet big in Toronto. Toronto didn’t play along.

onezero.medium.com

Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom

Put simply, Ted Chiang is one of our generation’s greatest speculative fiction writers. This may seem like hyperbole…

onezero.medium.com

Uber and Lyft’s Business Model May Be Dead. Good.

The biggest startups in modern history were built on old-fashioned worker exploitation. Time for an upgrade.

onezero.medium.com

Here’s What It’s Like to Work in an Amazon Warehouse Right Now

Convenience comes at a price

onezero.medium.com

GPT-3 Is an Amazing Research Tool. But OpenAI Isn’t Sharing the Code.

Some A.I. experts warn against a lack of transparency in the buzzy new program

onezero.medium.com

Social Movements Are Pushing Google Sheets to the Breaking Point

A sea of viral Google Sheets and Docs that break attests to the need for scalable collaboration tools

onezero.medium.com

Here’s How Professional Union Busters Talk About ‘Woke’ Tech Organizers

A law firm webinar advised employers on how to avoid becoming a target of CODE, an organizing initiative in tech and…

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The Dream of a Global Internet Is Dead

Trump’s ban on Chinese apps is part of a tide of digital nationalism

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An A.I. Training Tool Has Been Passing Its Bias to Algorithms for Almost Two Decades

The data set’s ripple effects are immeasurable

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A.I. Can Make Music, Screenplays, and Poetry. What About a Movie?

How long will it be until an A.I. can make an actual feature film on demand?

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The Future of Uber and Lyft Might Look a Lot Like FedEx

Moving to a ‘franchise’ model could help the companies without necessarily improving working conditions for drivers

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Facebook’s Technocratic Reports Hide Its Failures on Abuse

These reports obscure a torrent of hate speech and other toxic content

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How ‘Breaking Up’ Apple and Amazon Might Actually Work

A banking law from 1956 offers a realistic model for regulating dominant internet platforms

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September 2020

Highlights:

OneZero Expands With New Publications on Gadgets and Science

Debugger and Future Human serve readers thoughtful stories on the forces shaping our future

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The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods

Technology gave us the dream of a cocooned future. Now we’re living it.

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Leaked Salary Spreadsheet Reveals Microsoft Employee Earnings for a Second Year

Sharing compensation data has become an annual tradition at Microsoft during this time of year

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Why Spotify Has So Many Bizarre, Generic Artists Like ‘White Noise Baby Sleep’

The platform is filled with search-optimized spammers, and there’s no end in sight

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Inside the Tech Industry’s Decades-Long Failure to Reckon with Risk

The nuclear, auto, and food industries are forced to account for risk. Why should Silicon Valley’s most prominent…

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The Newly Legal Process for Turning Human Corpses to Soil

Reusable eight-by-four-foot steel cylinders, packed with wood chips, straw, and alfalfa, present an eco-friendly…

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Bird Is Quietly Luring Contract Workers Into Debt Through a New Scooter Scheme

One Bird Charger estimates that he took on $40,000 in scooter debt

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Casey Newton on Leaving ‘The Verge’ for Substack and the Future of Tech Journalism

Sarah Jeong talks to Newton about the details of his deal, subscription journalism, and what makes email such a good…

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Our Emergency Alert Systems Rely on an Overlapping Mess of Privatized Services

FEMA has approved 25 private software platforms to disseminate alerts for authorities at state, local, territorial, and…

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Border Patrol Used Facial Recognition to Scan More Than 16 Million Fliers — and Caught 7 Imposters

A new report lays out CBP’s shoddy implementation of facial recognition technology

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The Privatized Internet Is Failing Our Kids

The failure of online schooling highlights a basic flaw in our digital infrastructure: It wasn’t built to supply public…

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Uber and Lyft’s California Proposal Is a Mishmash of Old Ideas for Fixing the Gig Economy

The past is our best guide for understanding the future of ride-hailing apps

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The 2020 Hurricane Season Is a Turning Point in Human History

We’ve run out of letters to name our storms, and entered a brand-new, catastrophic era

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Virtual Learning Is Helping Indigenous Languages Fight off Extinction

As indigenous language classes become more accessible to people living away from tribal lands, they risk becoming less…

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Amazon Uses Automation to Hide a Disastrous Record of Workplace Injuries

As robotization scales up, so do injuries

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October 2020

Highlights:

I Watched My Friend Dying on Facebook. But It Was All a GoFundMe Scam.

How a group of friends ended up donating over $100,000 to a sick friend — who was perfectly fine

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Clear Conquered U.S. Airports. Now It Wants to Own Your Entire Digital Identity.

‘You are your driver’s license, your credit card, your health care card, your building access card’

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Bloodchild

This peerless short story by visionary fiction writer Octavia Butler examines the legacy — and future — of colonization…

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A Popular Online Learning Platform Was Actually Created by an Underground Religious ‘Cult’

The creator of Acellus and the ‘cult’s leader has been accused of violence and abuse

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The Philosophy That Explains Why So Many Silicon Valley CEOs Are Always Playing Victim

A Stanford professor explains how tech titans channel obscure philosophies to convince us — and themselves — they’re…

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The Zoom Signal Protecting Domestic Violence Survivors

A simple gesture allows survivors to seek help without leaving a digital trail

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The Overlooked Conservative Case for Reining in Big Tech

Democrats aren’t the only ones ready to rewrite the antitrust rules for internet platforms

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An Inside Look at How Badly the Pandemic Hit Clear at the Start of 2020

The coronavirus pandemic momentarily halved Clear’s revenue at some airports

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Hawai’i Set to Drop Acellus Remote Learning Platform Following Allegations of Abuse Against Creator

But other school districts across the country continue to use the platform

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Pinterest Is Still Hosting QAnon Content Despite Ban

A search for a widely used QAnon phrase was autocompleted by Pinterest’s search bar

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To Understand Facebook Today, Read Its Earliest Critics

These early and overlooked books revealed Facebook was plagued from the start — and are crucial to understanding it now

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To Build a Future Without Police and Prisons, We Have to Imagine It First

A strain of science fiction called visionary fiction empowers activists, artists, and organizers to seed a better…

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Eight Works of Visionary Fiction That Help Us Imagine — and Realize — Better Futures

From ‘Parable of the Sower’ to ‘Sorry to Bother You,’ these works of visionary fiction will help you conceptualize and…

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The Battle That Will Define Big Tech for Decades

Google’s antitrust case won’t reshape the industry. But it’s the start of something that might.

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Banished From Facebook, Far-Right Militias Prepare for the Election on Zello and MeWe

Far-right groups are increasingly relying on an ecosystem of alternative apps and platforms like Zello, MeWe, Parler…

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The Future of Decent Work Depends on the Failure of Prop 22

If the Uber-backed ballot initiative passes, it may lay the groundwork for unrest not seen since the onset of the…

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November 2020

Highlights:

The Modern World Has Finally Become Too Complex for Any of Us to Understand

Vast systems, from automated supply chains to high-frequency trading, now undergird our daily lives — and we’re losing…

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‘Like Being Grilled Alive’: The Fear of Living With a Hackable Heart

A device connected to my heart could save my life. It could also be hacked.

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The Social Media Managers Are Not Okay

They’re on the front lines of a relentless and overwhelming news cycle that is pushing them to the edge

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The Ad-Based Internet Is About to Collapse. What Comes Next?

The web as we know it relies on advertising, but that model is headed for a crash. Fortunately, we can build something…

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Facebook Shuts Down Massive ‘Stop the Steal’ Group

The pro-Trump group attracted 300,000 members in just two days

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Google Photos Just Made the Case for Breaking Up Big Tech

A new policy perfectly illustrates a core issue across the industry

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‘Their Loads Are Garbage’: Drivers Say Uber’s Trucking Business Is Making a Tough Job Worse

Uber Freight says its app offers drivers more transparency and consistent earnings, but some truckers are worried it…

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What Happens When You Actually DM a ‘DM to Collab’ Instagram Scammer

I tried it. Here’s what I learned.

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Facebook Is the ‘Mainstream Media’ Now

The election proved that social platforms are the new gatekeepers

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Neighborhood Watch Has a New Tool: License-Plate Readers

Residents fear the gadgets will enable snooping — and much worse

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Welcome Back to the Office. Please Wear This Tracking Device.

A boom in contact tracing devices could herald a new era of worker surveillance

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God Mode Activated: Meet the Gamers Bringing Jesus to Twitch

Christian evangelists use streaming platforms to spread the gospel while playing Fortnite

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How Twitter Is Redefining Itself for a Post-Trump Future

New product features are rolling out to broaden the platform’s appeal. Will they work?

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The Delicate Art of Making Robots That Don’t Creep People Out

Agility Robotics created a robot that could walk up stairs and carry boxes. But the main complaint from customers? It…

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December 2020

Highlights:

The Giving Apps: How Venmo and Cash App Upended a Century-Old Charity Model

In 2020, Venmoing strangers in need became a radical act of support — and trust

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How a 1980s AIDS Support Group Changed The Internet Forever

As the AIDS epidemic spread, Ben Gardiner took to the nascent internet — and shaped the way we share health information…

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An ‘Ethical’ Instacart Alternative Is Now Facing Its Own Worker Backlash

Grocery delivery app Dumpling attracts couriers with the promise of full autonomy. Some drivers say it’s not following…

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Amazon’s Plague Year

As small businesses closed and layoffs hit, Amazon expanded its power — despite a string of crises and worker uprisings

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Experimenting With GPT-3 Felt Like Witnessing a Technological Revolution

The potential for the new artificial intelligence program is nearly unfathomable

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Parler Users Are Gathering on Facebook to Complain About Parler

‘Seeming more like social solitude than social networking so far’

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The Best Tech Books of 2020 Are All About Giving Power to the User

These 21 books about technology and its impact on society are crucial to understanding our fractious future

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Dr. Timnit Gebru, Joy Buolamwini, Deborah Raji — an Enduring Sisterhood of Face Queens

‘Achievement and acclaim, we have learned many times over, do not provide immunity to racism, sexism, misogynoir…

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Becoming a Monopoly Was Always Facebook’s Goal

‘Copy, acquire, and kill’

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2020 Was a Disastrous Year for Uber Drivers

This year, the plight of gig drivers went mainstream

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Covid-19 Ushered in a New Era of Government Surveillance

Government-mandated drone surveillance and location tracking apps could be here to stay

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January 2021

Highlights:

Nextdoor Is Quietly Replacing the Small-Town Paper

While Facebook and Twitter get the scrutiny, Nextdoor is reshaping politics one neighborhood at a time

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An Oral History of Wikipedia, the Web’s Encyclopedia

The definitive story of Wikipedia on its 20th anniversary

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Recent Grads Are Being Lured Into ‘Indentured Servitude’ by a Coding Bootcamp

Revature promises jobs — and charges students $36,500 to quit

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Larry Farwell Claims His Lie Detector System Can Read Your Mind. Is He a Scam Artist, or a Genius?

30 years after it was first pioneered, the Brain Fingerprinting system is finally being put to the test

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Inside the Surprisingly Big Business of Spotify’s Secretive White-Noise Spammers

Search engine optimized accounts that publish hundreds of nearly identical tracks rake in streams and profits

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MeWe Sold Itself on Privacy. Then the Radical Right Arrived.

'Have you tried to moderate 15 million people?’ MeWe founder Mark Weinstein told OneZero

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YouTube’s Spammy Sex Bots Make a Ton of Money

Here’s how scammers turn those ubiquitous, meaningless comments into profits

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The Moderation War Is Coming to Spotify, Substack, and Clubhouse

Smaller services are coming under scrutiny now that the big platforms have warmed to aggressive moderation

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How Lulz Took Down Wall Street

r/WallStreetBets delivered cybernetic karma to those who deserve it

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GPT-3 Contains Disturbing Bias Against Muslims

OpenAI disclosed the problem on GitHub — but released GPT-3 anyway

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After a TikTok Craze, Pet Owners Are Trying (and Often Failing) to Get Their Own Animals to Talk

One owner reported their bored dog simply lays on top of all their buttons and ‘just starts mashing them’

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Claims Antifa Embedded in Capitol Riots Come From a Deeply Unreliable Facial Recognition Company

XRVision also has a track record of spreading conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden

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Facebook Chucked Its Own Rulebook to Ban Trump

The move is a reminder of social platforms’ power over online speech — and the inconsistency with which they wield it

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Twitter’s Trump Ban Will Mark a New Era for ‘Free Speech’ Social Media Platforms

‘This is Gab’s moment’

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The End of Social Media’s ‘View From Nowhere’

Trump’s extremism is forcing tech companies to abandon the pretense of political objectivity — for now

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‘I Am Not Sad. I Am Really Not Sad’: Trump’s Twitter Reply Guys Reckon With a Post-Trump Era

What happens when your arch nemesis is gone?

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How the Pandemic Turned Refugees Into ‘Guinea Pigs’ for Surveillance Tech

An interview with Dr. Petra Molnar, who spent 2020 investigating the use of drones, facial recognition, and lidar on…

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Men Wear Suits, Women Wear Bikinis: Image Generating Algorithms Learn Biases ‘Automatically’

The algorithms also picked up on racial biases linking Black people to weapons

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Black-Box Algorithms Shouldn’t Decide Who Gets a Vaccine

A failure at Stanford teaches us the limits of medical algorithms

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February 2021

Highlights:

Families Torn Apart by Decades of War Are Finally Finding Each Other on Facebook

Parents whose children disappeared decades ago are turning to the world’s biggest social network as a final lifeline.

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Hex Factor: Inside the Group Offering $250,000 for Proof of Superpowers

To defend science, the Paranormal Challenge devises experiments to test claims of X-ray vision, telekinesis, and other…

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Clubhouse Is Suggesting Users Invite Their Drug Dealers and Therapists

The app pressures you to upload your phone’s contacts — and makes them visible in surprising ways

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3G Could End This Year. For People Who Rely on Basic Phones, That’s a Big Problem.

Some rural residents, religious communities, and people who just like simple phones are still reliant on the vanishing…

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Technology Disrupts at Two Different Speeds

This is what a Harvard economist warned me about a decade ago

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The New Era of Social Media Isn’t About Feeds

Products like Clubhouse and Twitter’s “Super Follows” offer a new kind of engagement

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How Amazon Swindled Its Own Drivers, Got Caught, and Ended Up Richer

The company’s $62 million FTC settlement shows ‘corporate crime pays’

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Amazon’s New CEO Is Shaping How the Military Uses Killer Robots

Andy Jassy is a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence

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Note to Reporters: If Surveillance Data Shouldn’t Exist, Then Don’t Use It

The New York Times fails in its attempt to report on the surveillance economy

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Facebook Vaccine Information Groups Find Themselves in Moderation Gray Area

‘I’m concerned that Facebook could misinterpret what we’re about’

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Banjo Quietly Rebranded Itself Following Report on Former CEO’s KKK Past

After OneZero’s investigation, Banjo became safeXai

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Employer-Tied Health Care Is Also a Tech Accountability Issue

Can you afford to speak up if losing your job also means losing access to physical and mental health services?

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The A.I. Industry Is Exploiting Gig Workers Around the World — Sometimes for Just $8 a Day

A new paper sheds light on the industry’s troubling relationship with the global gig economy

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What Really Caused the Supply Chain Mess Over PPE Last Year

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I’m a High School Student. I Don’t Want Online Learning to End.

‘Just as we had to shrink our lives by living inside, we also need to expand how we define public education.’

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‘People in My Group Are So White’: Facebook Vaccine Hunter Groups Underscore Inequity of Rollout

‘Vaccine hunters are the result of short supply, disorganization, inadequate sign-up systems, dire circumstances, and…

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March 2021

Highlights:

China’s ‘Sharp Eyes’ Program Aims to Surveil 100% of Public Space

The program turns neighbors into agents of the surveillance state

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Girl & Computer

I wrote a version of this post in 2012. Nine years later, I have a seven-year-old son, my career has grown in ways I…

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Facebook Scraped 1 Billion Pictures From Instagram to Train Its A.I. — But Spared European Users

The team purposely excluded Instagram images from the European Union, likely because of GDPR

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Why Machines Will Never Feel Empathy: A Q&A With MIT’s Sherry Turkle

The pathbreaking MIT professor on her new memoir, and the past, present, and future of our efforts to make technology…

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I Broke Amazon’s API to Make Alexa Start a Conversation You’d Never Want to Have

‘Alexa, Call Mom!’ watches, listens, and exploits your grief for capitalistic gain

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YouTube Explains Why a Racist Video Didn’t Violate Its Hate Speech Rules

A grotesque segment mocking Black farmers illustrates just how much bigotry a conservative star can get away with.

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Clubhouse Is Disrupting Another Industry: Charity Telethons

A Clubhouse charity drive raised more than $140,000 for Texans hit by disaster

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Who Really Writes Twitter’s ‘Trending’ Summaries

‘Twitter description guy’ isn’t a guy. It’s Twitter’s Curation team, and I talked to the woman who runs it.

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How Google Will Target Ads Without Singling Users Out

A handful of new standards will personalize ads without the privacy violations of today

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Google’s ‘Privacy-First Web’ Is Really a Google-First Web

Why the search giant can afford to kill the cookie

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Anti-Vax Groups Still Thrive on Facebook, Despite Content Ban

Tens of thousands of Facebook users participate in groups that spread misinfo about vaccines — some with an odd…

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Apple and Google Won’t Save Online Privacy. Take It From a Former DoubleClick Executive.

An industry veteran on why recent moves from the tech giants should be the impetus for a federal privacy law

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The Algorithmic Auditing Trap

‘Bias audits’ for discriminatory tools are a promising idea, but current approaches leave much to be desired

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I Confronted Instagram Scammers About Their Plot to Steal Blue-Check Accounts

Here’s what I learned DM’ing with fake copyright phishers

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A.I.’s Most Important Dataset Gets a Privacy Overhaul, a Decade Too Late

The authors of the image dataset that changed the world have made one long-overdue tweak

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Moving the Big Boat Did Not Magically Fix the Global Economy

The big boat may be unstuck, but our deeply technologized, infinitely complex economy is just beginning to get jammed

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How Journalists and Academics Hold Tech Accountable

Evan Selinger in conversation with Clive Thompson

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April 2021

Highlights:

Homeless in the Shadow of Apple’s $5 Billion Campus

Ex-tech workers, gig employees, and locals priced out of the housing market are fighting for affordable housing in…

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Oklahoma Quietly Launched a Mass Surveillance Program to Track Uninsured Drivers

Cash-strapped governments are turning to tech that converts cameras into automated license plate readers to penalize…

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People Are Betting Big on Risky Crypto ‘Crash’ Games

Gamblers flock to a new kind of online casino that’s open 24 hours a day

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The Prototype for Clubhouse Is 40 Years Old, and It Was Built by Phone Hackers

In the late 1970s, hackers forged a social media network using the dominant audio tech of the time — the telephone

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The Real Moms of TikTok

‘At 50, you’re just getting started’

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Texting Through a Pandemic With Obama and J.Lo

The Community app connects A-listers with their fans—an odd proposition in the era of Covid lockdowns

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A.I. Can’t Detect Our Emotions

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