Technology

Mind the hype cycle

I’ve been finding myself making the same hand gesture on a lot of Zoom calls recently. I flick my finger up, wiggle it up and down, and trail off to the right in a straight line.I draw this oscillating line when I talk about AI. Or crypto. Or the “metaverse.” Or even Taylor Swift tickets. It’s the hype cycle.

March 15, 2023

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Don’t name things “my-“ or “your-“

Log on to your utility company’s website. What’s the section for your account called? Probably something like “My Account” “Your Account.” Ever since MySpace launched in 2003, this naming convention has sneakily stuck around in digital products. Twenty years later, it’s probably time for it to go.

February 23, 2023

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Samuel Morse and the power of thinking smaller

For most of human history, the speed limit on long-distance communication wasn’t a matter of 5G bandwidth or even how fast an operator could connect your phone call. It was how fast a horse could gallop. Samuel Morse changed that by thinking small.

February 9, 2023

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The people want train travel

Our relationship with air travel is tenuous. But, on contrast: trains are great. Hopeful travelers, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, are noticing this. In Pinterest’s 2023 predictions, they called out train travel as gearing up for a “major comeback.”

January 3, 2023

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ChatGPT is blowing up everything

Just a week ago, OpenAI dropped the most revolutionary piece of tech of the year in an unassuming blog post: ChatGPT. It’s HAL 9000. It’s the USS Enterprise computer. It’s what Alexa and Siri wish they were. There’s now an argument to be made that 2022 is the historical inflection point where we can no longer trust anything we see, read, or hear – everything can be made by software.

December 8, 2022

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Ben Guttmann