Foundry’s WTF (15-Apr-2017)
The Foundry’s Weekly Technology Fix (WTF) is a curated list of articles/posts/etc. we found interesting. The Foundry @ Cornell Tech transforms research and ideas into products.
Send your suggestions to wtf-digest@cornelltech.io .
Department of 🎮 💉 (Digital Addictions)
Smartphone rehab centers for kids; going off-the-grid at home; optical illusions to trick machines; apps colluding to steal your data; how to set-up a VPN service to protect your privacy; and presentation from the infamous Cambridge Analytica.
Department of 💡🏙 (Smarter Cities)
My favorite LinkNYC innovation so far; Paris's war on cars; and self-driving cars vs bikes.
Department of 🤑 🔌 (Shameless Plugs)
The NYU AD hackathon for social good; an effective way to teach programming to kids; machine learning for people like me who cannot draw; Reddit's pixel experiment in the spirit of the Million Dollar Homepage (circa 2005).
Department of 🌈🎆(Silver Linings)
Voice assistant for people with special needs; magnets movies, backwards; and anti-libraries.
Department of 🇺🇸 🗳 (US Elections)
Nothing to report, which is probably a good thing.
Department of 🎬 📖 (worthy quotes)
« The difference between design and research seems to be a question of new versus good. Design doesn’t have to be new, but it has to be good. Research doesn’t have to be good, but it has to be new. » – Paul Graham.
« In order to mount a revolution, numbers are never enough. Revolutions are usually made by small networks of agitators rather than by the masses. If you want to launch a revolution, don’t ask yourself, ‘How many people support my ideas?’ Instead, ask yourself, ‘How many of my supporters are capable of effective collaboration?’ » — Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus.
« There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here’s the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they on’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf. No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime membership program, but it sure turns out they wanted it, and I could give you many such examples. » – Jeff Bezos, Letter to shareholders, 2016. (read the full letter).
Send your suggestions to wtf-digest@cornelltech.io .
