Web design news

• Can Timnit Gebru’s new lab challenge big tech’s control over AI research?

  02-12-2021 21:18
  
  A year to the day after she was fired from Google, Timnit Gebru has unveiled plans to wrench AI research out of big tech’s grasp. Gebru, a former co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, on Thursday launched an independent lab: the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). Armed with an initial budget of $3.7 million raised from foundations, DAIR will focus on long-term and community-based research — which can be hard to do in Silicon Valley. “The incentive structures in ind
  
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• Astrocolonialism: Big tech is stealing the night sky from humans

  02-12-2021 19:57
  
  Everybody deserves to have internet access. It’s as crucial to our ability to thrive in modern society as running water and electricity. Getting that access to rural and/or impoverished areas is one of the great technology challenges of our time. Unfortunately, the people who’ve stepped up the most are those hoping to profit from humanity’s problems at any cost. To that end, companies such as SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb, and StarNet/GW have decided it’s in their financial bes
  
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• Jack Dorsey’s Twitter exit is a milestone in social media’s midlife crisis

  02-12-2021 17:44
  
  When Jack Dorsey made the sudden public announcement that he had quit as CEO of Twitter, it was only ever going to have happened in one place – Twitter itself. It reminded me very much of Elon Musk’s entertaining tweet adventures, as Dorsey tossed his resignation letter onto the social media platform that he co-founded. You could imagine him sitting back to soak up the theatre of reaction and speculation that unfolded. This isn’t Dorsey’s first resignation letter to Twit
  
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• Virgil Abloh’s Mercedes-Maybach EV encapsulates the late designer’s radical touch

  02-12-2021 17:27
  
  Mercedes-Benz unveiled a wild electric show car: Project Maybach. And apart from its striking appearance, the vehicle also has sentimental value. The car was co-designed by the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh. To honor his memory, it was put on display at the Rubell Museum in Miami between December 1 and 2.  Abloh worked together with the automaker’s chief design officer Gorden Wagener to develop a new design language for Mercedes-Maybach’s luxury identity.  Every eleme
  
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• Mozilla is investigating YouTube’s recommendation controls — and you can help

  02-12-2021 17:25
  
  Mozilla is investigating YouTube’s algorithmic controls — and wants you to help. The non-profit has revamped its RegretsReporter tool to examine unwanted YouTube recommendations. The updated browser extension will explore whether the platform truly allows users to reject recommendations. Mozilla’s RegretsReporter now targets YouTube’s algorithmic controls. YouTube’s algorithmic controls include buttons such as  “Not interested,” “Dislike,&rdq
  
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• Don’t blindly follow rules as an entrepreneur… and buy more flowers

  02-12-2021 16:31
  
  Boris is the wise ol’ founder of TNW who writes a weekly column on everything about being an entrepreneur in tech — from managing stress to embracing awkwardness. You can get his musings straight to your inbox by signing up for his newsletter! A few years ago, a flower delivery service polled their clients and found out that 88% of men have never received flowers. Unfortunately, that means that the first time most men receive flowers is… at their funeral. That’s a sober
  
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• A blockchain connected motorbike: what Web 3.0 means for mobility and why you should care

  02-12-2021 15:27
  
  We’ve been hearing about the potential of Web 3.0 for years – a decentralized web where information is distributed across nodes, making it more resistant to shutdowns and censorship. Specifically, its foundation lies in edge computing, artificial intelligence, and decentralized data networks.  But what we haven’t talked enough about, is the massive impact Web 3.0 will have on mobility. Web 3.0 aims to build a new scalable economy where t
  
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• Like it or not, TikTok is changing the music industry

  02-12-2021 15:24
  
  “Tik-a-Tok-a-Who?”, was Adele’s response to her management’s suggestion to promote her music to younger audiences on Tiktok, the video-sharing platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance. “If everyone’s making music for the TikTok, who’s making music for my generation?”, she asked. Adele might resist, but the platform has nonetheless been popularising and promoting her song Easy on me, with creators using it in almost one million videos in the fir
  
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• 3 easy ways to remove backgrounds from images

  02-12-2021 13:55
  
  Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. You might have noticed that we have some pretty bad ass header images on our articles at TNW. Take this one. Or this one. Or maybe even this one, for example. People seem to really like them. I have to say, the @thenextweb images accompanying their stories are always a highlight of my @Twitter feed 🤣 https://t.co/dSP6fMDqef — fiiv 🏴 (@mt
  
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• The curious case of the Ubiquiti employee-whistleblower-hacker

  02-12-2021 13:11
  
  I wish I was a crime podcast host right now — it’d be my favorite way to tell this tantalizing story about a tech worker hacking his own company, demanding a ransom, and later turning into a ‘whistleblower’ to cover his tracks. According to a document published by a New York district court, Nikolas Sharp, a former employee of network device maker Ubiquiti, hacked the company’s system and demanded a $2 million ransom. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the story
  
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• Big tech wants to compete with banks? Let them deal with AI ethics first

  02-12-2021 11:05
  
  With their competitive advantage in emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, big tech companies have been moving into and disrupting traditional industries, from Airbnb’s impact on the hospitality industry to Uber’s upending of taxi and other mobility services. Now big tech has its sights set on the world of finance with the launch of Google Pay, the Apple Card, Facebook’s Libra, and Amazon’s loans for SMEs.  But, while these technologies could help big t
  
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• Tesla quietly launches an electric ATV for kids — just in time for the holidays?

  02-12-2021 08:05
  
  We know that Tesla had plans to release an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), called Cyberquad. But before adults can ride one, the company decided to roll out a pint-sized version for kids. The $1,900 Cyberquad for kids was listed on the company’s website last night as a surprise..If you had any doubts about the design, you can take a look at the pictures and conclude it’s inspired by the Cybertruck. That front looks like a deadly robot rushing to attack you. Apart from its intimidating fa
  
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• Reddit’s new real-time features make me yearn for slower days

  02-12-2021 00:35
  
  Reddit is about to get more rapid — just as I was yearning for social media to slow down. The company has launched a range of real-time animations and notification features that sound unsettlingly energetic. Votes and comments will no longer be a static number on posts and feeds. Instead, users will see dynamic animations as the numbers change. Votes will animate in real-time as the counts go up or down. Credit: Reddit The flickering arrows are already making my retinas burn. Mercifully,
  
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• This amazing new physics theory made me believe time travel is possible

  02-12-2021 00:20
  
  There’s a lot of discussion about “time” in the world of quantum physics. At the micro level, where waves and particles can behave the same, time tends to be much more malleable than it is in our observable realm of classical physics. Think about the clock on the wall. You can push the hands backwards, but that doesn’t cause time itself to rewind. Time marches on. But things are much simpler in the quantum realm. If we can mathematically express particulate activity in o
  
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