Taking the Measure of Tech in Policy — with Kamala Harris
By: a16z June 26, 2017 “Slow down, cowboys” — that’s what Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said when prosecutors in her office wanted to bring a case against companies that let apps download someone’s entire address book, because surely that’s a complete violation of privacy?! The issue was a perfect example of the perfect storm playing […]
Generation Wealth
By:The Economist June 22, 2017 Author and film director Lauren Greenfield’s latest project, “Generation Wealth”, represents three decades photographing and interviewing people about their relationship with money. She thinks we are living in a time of unprecedented obsession with wealth and status. But can consumerism also be a force for good? Anne McElvoy hosts. For […]
Rigged, Forced into Debt, Worked Past Exhaustion, Left with Nothing
By: Leer en español June 20, 2017 Los Angeles — Samuel Talavera Jr. did everything his bosses asked. Most days, the trucker would drive more than 16 hours straight hauling LG dishwashers and Kumho tires to warehouses around Los Angeles, on their way to retail stores nationwide. He rarely went home to his family. At […]
Report of Findings from the Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers and Technology
By: Shift Commission May 15, 2017 New America and Bloomberg’s publication, Report of Findings , from the Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers and Technology captures the viewpoints of 100 leaders and workers across all walks of American life as they imagine the future of work 10–20 years from now. Read Full Report
A Robot Revolution, This Time in China
By: Keith Bradsher May 12, 2017 Even a decade ago, car manufacturing in China was still a fairly low-tech, labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers in a factory, earning little more than $1 an hour, performed highly repetitive tasks, while just a handful of industrial robots dotted factory floors. No longer. At Ford’s newest car assembly […]
Drone home: Amazon to triple R&D staff at Cambridge base
By: Sarah Butler May 5, 2017 Amazon is to more than triple its research and development team in Cambridge working on tech innovations such as its Alexa digital assistant, delivery drones and Echo smart speaker. The US online retailer is opening a new building in the city with room for 400 experts in mathematical modelling, […]
May Day report by MPs damns growing UK gig economy
By: The Guardian may 01, 2017 Companies in Britain’s growing gig economy are forcing workers into bogus self-employment and free-riding on the welfare state, an influential committee of MPs has said. In a damning assessment of modern employment practices, the parliamentary work and pensions committee calls on the next government to bring laws up to […]
Good Gigs: A fairer future for the UK’s gig economy
By: Brhmie Balaram, Josie Warden & Fabian Wallace-Stephens April 27, 2017 The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) believes that everyone should have the freedom and power to turn their ideas into reality – we call this the Power to Create. Through our ideas, research and 28,000- strong Fellowship, we seek to […]
Driverless pods plot new course to overtake humans
By: Gwyn Topham April 25, 2017 In a little over two years, a fleet of driverless cars will make its way from Oxford to London, completing the entire journey from start to finish without human intervention, including on urban streets and motorways. Organisers of the government-backed project, announced on Monday, still expect to have a […]