ALEX CAMPBELL'S TUMBLELOG

In some sense when people come to Google, that’s exactly what they’re asking for — our editorial judgment. They’re expressed via algorithms. When someone comes to Google, the only way to be neutral is either to randomize the links or to do it alphabetically. If we don’t have the ability to change how we rank things to try to improve the search engine, that goes right to the crux of everything. Google engineer Matt Cutts, quoted in “The Panda That Hates Farms”, Wired

We are agitated when the Internet doesn’t work but lack the proper amazement when it does.

(Source: somethingchanged)

reblogged from somethingchanged

Rockets—at least, the kinds that are destined for orbit, which is what we are talking about here—don’t go straight up into the air. They mostly go horizontally, since their purpose is to generate horizontal velocities so high that centrifugal force counteracts gravity. The initial launch is vertical because the thing needs to get off the pad and out of the dense lower atmosphere, but shortly afterwards it bends its trajectory sharply downrange and begins to accelerate nearly horizontally. Consequently, all rockets destined for orbit will pass over large swathes of the earth’s surface during the 10 minutes or so that their engines are burning. This produces regulatory and legal complications that go deep into the realm of the absurd…

Moreover, the rocket industry’s status as a colossal government-funded program with seemingly eternal lifespan has led to a situation in which its myriad contractors and suppliers are distributed over the largest possible number of congressional districts. Anyone who has witnessed Congress in action can well imagine the consequences of giving it control over a difficult scientific and technological program.

“Space stasis: what the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation”

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem. From Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s “burning platform” memo. Gives you some insight into how tough it is to compete with Apple and Google.

Places like Netflix and Amazon have demonstrated the great irony that computer algorithms can provide a more personalized and engaging customer experience than many physical stores. Blockbuster, Netflix, and the future of rentals : The New Yorker (via kiel)

reblogged from kiel

jamesnord:

Norway prime minister Jens Stotlenberg, stranded in New York after volcanic ash closed airspace overseas, governs the country via iPad.

reblogged from jamesnord

If you consider what an economy consists of — organizations, laws, markets, banking systems, and so on — you realize that human beings have created an enormous system of means or arrangements to meet our needs. And then when you look closely at all of these arrangements, which have become enormously complicated, incredibly interlinked, hyper-communicative, and very much dependent on each other, you realize that they are made up of a huge panoply of technologies. I find this actually quite marvelous — that one of our primary accomplishments as human beings is to get ourselves organized to meet our needs, and we’ve done it in a brilliant way that’s evolved over centuries. From this fascinating Booz & co interview with economist W. Brian Arthur.

At its core, our vision is based on a very simple principle: that sometimes technology is so powerful that it changes people’s lives, and this creates opportunities to build agencies that tap the power of the relationship between technology and consumers. Barry Wacksman, Chief Growth Officer, R/GA

ALEX CAMPBELL'S TUMBLELOG

We are agitated when the Internet doesn’t work but lack the proper amazement when it does.

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