Who Controls Your Facebook Feed

Every time you open Facebook, one of the world’s most influential, controversial, and misunderstood algorithms springs into action.

Notes to Our Future Selves: Bamboo Spark and Calm Technology

Amber Case has been deeply integrated in technology since her first coding job at 14 years old. Today, she is known for many things: cyborg anthropologist, writer, speaker, product developer and author.

Mathematical Model Reveals the Patterns of How Innovations Arise

Innovation is one of the driving forces in our world. The constant creation of new ideas and their transformation into technologies and products forms a powerful cornerstone for 21st century society.

The Ultimate Guide to Learning Anything Faster

If only. For many of us, there are more things we want to learn than we have time for. And as information becomes more readily accessible online, the number of things we want to learn has only increased. That means that the only variable we can actually control is the time we spend learning them.

131 Actionable Ideas from Ten Books I Wish I Had Read Ages Ago

I highly recommend you read these books and form your own takes. But if you only have 45–90 seconds time blocks, here is a list of times to go through the actionable ideas from each book. · Strive to have a growth mindset. It will allow you to develop and improve your abilities.

Inside the sad, expensive failure of Google+

Create a social network or risk everything. That was the original pitch for Google's Facebook rival, Google+, a refrain hammered over and over by the social network's chief architect, Vic Gundotra, in meetings with the company's top brass.

8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 A.M.

Here is the Italian and French translations. Life is busy. It can feel impossible to move toward your dreams. If you have a full-time job and kids, it’s even harder.

7 books that will give you the tech knowledge you need to start a business

We hear of Mark Zuckerberg's possible interest in running for president. We refer to Elon by his first name. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. And every college kid dreams of becoming a tech billionaire. There's a certain 'hollywoodization' of entrepreneurship.

All Tips for Google Reader users migrating to feedly

Welcome to all the new Google Reader users migrating to feedly. Here are some tips on how to adapt to the feedly desktop interface. To import your google reader feeds and categories over to feedly, simply login to your feedly using your google account.

Perfecting your digital assistant

Your company exists, in part, because mobile devices enable us to demand consumer-quality experiences in our work software. Five years from now-ish, how close will we be to parity between work and consumer software? Will we even recognize a distinction ultimately between these two things?

There's a dark secret at the heart of artificial intelligence: no one really understands how it works

Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey.

The Software Startup Sectors Raising the Most Capital in 2017

Over the last seven years, software startup investing has changed quite a bit. In 2010, classic SaaS was booming, the benefits of a subscription model were finally becoming clear to the public markets and the mass-market.

Implications of Tech Stack Complexity for Executives

In order for you to thrive in the digital environment, you need to understand the implications of the changing technology landscape on your organization.

The Facebook experiment has failed. Let’s go back.

I am signed into Facebook right now. At a quick glance, the entire list of posts on the first screen are irrelevant to me. If I scrolled down I can find 4 stories I actually care about, from a list of about 30.

Technology firms and the office of the future

FROM the 62nd floor of Salesforce Tower, 920 feet above the ground, San Francisco’s monuments look piddling. The Bay Bridge, Coit Tower and Palace of Fine Arts are dwarfed by the steel-and-glass headquarters that will house the software company when it is completed later this year.

This Page Lets You Disable a Lot of Google's Activity Tracking

Google tracks a lot of your data. If you’re comfortable with that, it can make your life a little easier. If you’re not, it can be a pain to figure out how to turn it off. Fortunately, there’s one settings page where you can disable a lot of it.

How To Kill People: A Problem of Design

I saw the future. It was empty. In his 1963 film “How to Kill People” designer George Nelson argues that killing is a matter of design, next to fashion and homemaking. Nelson states that design is crucial in improving both the form and function of weapons.

They called it 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

Comments on the website can exceed 70,000 a day. Yes, there are trolls, but there is also wit, wisdom and a community worth fighting for, says a former moderator Comments on the website can exceed 70,000 a day.

Things I wish I knew about MongoDB a year ago

I’ve used MongoDB for over a year at scale at both Heyzap and Bugsnag and I’ve found it to be a very capable database. As with all databases, there are some gotchas, and here is a summary of the things I wish someone had told me earlier.

Inside the 20-Year Quest to Build Computers That Play Poker

Four of the best professional poker players in the world spent most of January holed up at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, losing. They’d show up before 11 am, wearing sweatpants and stylish sneakers, and sit down in front of computer screens.

Disruption is not a strategy

I was at a research lab to talk about commercialization. The presenter put up a slide of some exciting new technologies. The slide’s tagline said these technologies would “disrupt the biomedical industry.

Staying Private on the New Facebook

Facebook is a personal vault that can contain photos of your firstborn, plans to bring down your government and, occasionally, a record of your indiscretions. It can be scoured by police officers, partners and would-be employers. It can be mined by marketers to show tailored advertisements.

The Problem with Easy Technology

In the history of marketing, there’s a classic tale that centers on the humble cake mix. During the nineteen-fifties, there were differences of opinion over how “instant” powdered cake mixes should be, and, in particular, over whether adding an egg ought to be part of the process.

Why (and how) I'm saying goodbye to Gmail

It was great while it lasted, but I finally broke up with Gmail.

Hail the maintainers

Innovation is a dominant ideology of our era, embraced in America by Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the Washington DC political elite.

6 Ways to Get a Tech Job Without a Tech Degree

Aaron Shapiro is CEO of Huge, a global digital agency based in Brooklyn, and author of Users Not Customers. He has spent more than a decade as a technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist and management consultant. Jobs in tech are stronger than ever.

6 links that will show you what Google knows about you

Want to find out all the things Google knows about you? Here are 6 links that will show you some of the data Google has about you. In order to serve relevant ads, Google collects data about you and creates a profile. You can control and review the information Google has on you here:

The Apple Watch

Apple Watch is, in many ways, the Bizarro iPhone — in some ways parallel and similar, but in others, the inverse, the opposite. Both were introduced as three things in one. Steve Jobs, introducing the iPhone back in 2007: “The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls.

A Note About Git Commit Messages

I want to take a moment to elaborate on what makes a well formed commit message. I think the best practices for commit message formatting is one of the little details that makes Git great. Understandably, some of the first commits to rails.

How to Win with Automation (Hint: It’s Not Chasing Efficiency)

In 1900, 30 million people in the United States were farmers. By 1990 that number had fallen to under 3 million even as the population more than tripled. So, in a matter of speaking, 90% of American agriculture workers lost their jobs, mostly due to automation.

The Humans Hiding Behind the Chatbots

Amy Ingram, the artificial intelligence personal assistant from startup X.ai, sounds remarkably like a real person. The company designed her to take on the mundane tasks of scheduling meetings and e-mailing about appointments.

A fault in our design

On 10 February 1853, a ship named the Charles Mallory arrived in port in Honolulu, Hawaii, having made the journey from San Francisco in only 13 days, a near-record time, particularly for a ship of its small size.

Snapchat Launches a Colossal Expansion of Its Advertising, Ushering in a New Era for the App

Imran Khan was an internet-focused investment banker at Credit Suisse, where, in September 2014, he orchestrated Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba's high-profile IPO.

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned -- and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious.

Delivery drones will mean the end of ownership

What does a day look like five to 10 years from now? The real answer is I don’t know, and much more importantly, I don’t think anyone knows. Trying to prognosticate is a very dangerous business.

Mobile Is Eating the World, 2014 (slides only)

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. They are the same. In other words, technology is now outgrowing the tech industry.

What Is Disruptive Innovation?

The theory of disruptive innovation, introduced in these pages in 1995, has proved to be a powerful way of thinking about innovation-driven growth.

Apple Vowed to Revolutionize Television. An Inside Look at Why It Hasn’t

Earlier this month, Apple Inc. poached the chief of Amazon's Fire TV unit to run its television operations. Timothy D. Twerdhal brings hardware and content experience to his new gig, and his hiring suggests a renewed focus on the Apple TV set-top box.

That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest Ticket

In less than two years Slack Technologies has become one of the most glistening of tech’s ten-digit “unicorn” startups, boasting 1.1 million users and a private market valuation of $2.8 billion.

Want to create a custom look for your blog? If you’re comfortable hand-coding HTML, then you’ve come to the right place! If not, choose from hundreds of beautiful themes in the Theme Garden. Tumblr is built around seven key post types: text, photos, links, quotes, chat, audio, and video.

How to Future Proof Your Career with the Skills That Matter

The job market can be scary, but with skills that stand the test of time, you can increase your odds of staying employed. Here's how to find and develop future-proofed skills so you can keep that steady paycheck, no matter what happens.

Don’t Fuck Up the Culture

On Monday, October 21, 2013, I sent this letter to our entire team at Airbnb. I have decided to publish this in the event it is helpful to entrepreneurs building their cultures. Our next team meeting is dedicated to Core Values, which are essential to building our culture.

Fast-world values

More than 40 years ago, as a young woman in Melbourne, Australia, I had a pen friend in Papua New Guinea. She lived in a coastal village, an hour’s slow boat trip from the city of Lae. I went to visit her.

Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

When it comes to the Google search box, you already know the tricks: finding exact phrases matches using quotes like "so say we all" or searching a single site using site:lifehacker.com gmail.

How to Get Google to Index Your New Website & Blog Quickly

Whenever you create a new website or blog for your business, the first thing you probably want to happen is have people find it. And, of course, one of the ways you hope they will find it is through search.

The End of Food

In December of 2012, three young men were living in a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, working on a technology startup.

What Twitter Can Be.

Disclaimers: 1) This is a very long read. Thinking about a company and using its product obsessively for nine years straight will do that to you. 2) My funds and I own a lot of Twitter stock. 3) I do not speak for Twitter. 4) I have no inside information about Twitter.

The Beginner's Guide to SEO

New to SEO? Need to polish up your knowledge? The Beginner's Guide to SEO has been read over 3 million times and provides comprehensive information you need to get on the road to professional quality Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

How Tesla Will Change The World

This is Part 2 of a four-part series on Elon Musk’s companies. For an explanation of why this series is happening and how Musk is involved, start with Part 1.

Against the Grain

Just after Labor Day, the Gluten and Allergen Free Expo stopped for a weekend at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. Each year, the event wends its way across the country like a travelling medicine show, billing itself as the largest display of gluten-free products in the United States.

Notifications Are The Next Platform

As the world moves from web to mobile, we’ve been thinking deeply about how people will discover mobile products and services and how we will find and access all the things we need in our digital lives. Search (largely Google) has long been the access and discovery point for web services.

Google Minus: Google keeps backing all the wrong social products

The Great Google+ Purge is officially underway. The social network isn't dead, but the plan to make Google+ the "social backbone" of Google is.

Watching the World Rot at Europe's Largest Tech Conference

Web Summit is Europe’s largest tech conference, and a terrifying place in which to get lost. In this vast grazing-ground for investors and entrepreneurs, thousands stampede in what looks like panic through the three vast halls of Lisbon’s FIL exhibition center.

Turn Your Home Into a High-Tech Haven This Weekend

Unless you buy all your appliances from Sharper Image, chances are your home doesn't integrate seamlessly with all your fancy new technology. Turn your house into a futuristic tech haven this weekend with these projects.

How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is.

Let’s Stop Focusing on Shiny Gadgets and Start Using Tech to Empower People

Even though Red Burns was one of the most influential figures in the tech industry over the past 30 years — most famous for co-founding the groundbreaking Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU, and in a sense, the beginnings of interaction design — it’s not uncommon for technophi

How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View

Google can identify and transcribe all the views it has of street numbers in France in less than an hour, thanks to a neural network that’s just as good as human operators. Now its engineers reveal how they developed it.

These 13 Google Chrome hacks will change the way you use the internet

Since it debuted in 2008, Google Chrome has quickly risen to be the most popular web browser in the world, beating out Firefox and Internet Explorer. But that doesn't mean you can't make it better.

Andy Rubin Nears His Comeback, Complete With an ‘Essential’ Phone

Just over two years after leaving Google, Andy Rubin is preparing to take on the smartphone industry he helped create. Rubin, creator of the Android operating system, is planning to marry his background in software with artificial intelligence in a risky business: consumer hardware.

CSS Guidelines

is a document by me, Harry Roberts. I am a Consultant Front-end Architect from the UK, and I help companies all over the world write and manage better quality UIs for their products and teams. I am available for hire.

Technology

By Flipboard Newsdesk | A curated selection of Technology news. Developers are getting Bixby running on older Samsung phones That was fast. Bixby, Samsung’s new virtual assistant for the company’s new Galaxy S8 flagship smartphone, is now working on older Samsung phones running Android 7.

Burying the URL

Today, a Canary build of Google Chrome removed something kind of important from the browser: the URL. Of course it still supports them, but the time where users actually see URLs is ending. With Chrome’s “Enable origin chip in Omnibox” flag, Location becomes a write-only field.

10 Breakthrough Technologies That Are About to Change the World

Any fool on the street can tell you that technology is changing at a whiplash-inducing pace. What's much more difficult to predict is which technologies specifically are about to hit big.