If you’re like me, you probably barely notice the advertisements for skin care products, niche kitchen appliances, and the latest pumpkin-flavored treat that fill the margins of nearly every website you visit. While we’re all familiar with the omnipresent digital pop-up ads on everything from cooking blogs to news sites, many internet users don’t understand […]
Tag: Google
The Case for Breaking Up Big Tech
The Big, the Bad, the Un-American… In 2020, New York Times writer Kashmir Hill set out to answer a salient question: how dependent are we on Big Tech? Working with a technologist, Hill designed a virtual private network that blocked all internet addresses controlled by tech’s five largest companies: Amazon, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Meta, […]
Peaks and Valleys: The Resilient Nature of Silicon Valley
California dreaming is now looking more like California leaving, as recent data reveals an exodus of Californians is slowing the state’s rate of growth. IRS data revealed that between 2007 and 2016, 1.2 million more residents departed from the state than entered. This problem is particularly accentuated in the Bay Area. A survey taken in […]
Search Engine Politics: How Algorithms are Creating Political Controversy
With new and emerging technologies including social media platforms and search engines, old problems are being brought to the forefront once again. One of those issues is political bias and it is an issue that is now being discussed, investigated, and debated in the halls of Congress. Discussing political bias, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter […]
Whole Foods in the Rust Belt
“Bright” is the word that might best describe the United States’ economic powerhouse: Silicon Valley. Yet while San Jose and Palo Alto sparkle in the political spotlight, Midwestern towns of Detroit and Dayton have been left in the dark. For the last two decades, while manufacturing towns in the Rust Belt have declined, Silicon Valley […]
Bay Area Private Transportation
You might have seen them– sleek, white buses with tinted windows, cruising up and down Highway 101. Or perhaps you noticed one along Market Street, pulling over to accept a herd of young professionals juggling cups of fair-trade coffee and MacBook Pros. Or maybe, if you live further south, you’ve been able to see one […]
Mr. Xi Jinping, Tear Down This (Fire)Wall
In Beijing, signs throughout the city read: “Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusiveness, Virtue.” Like most political slogans, this particular one relies heavily on wishful thinking and an element of deception. China ranks 22 out of 50 OECD economies in innovation, a surprisingly low number given the prowess of the Chinese economy. Innovation itself is synonymous with taking […]
Suspicious Surveillance
Part 2 of a series on U.S. cybersecurity. Part 1. Part 3. Part 4. In June of last year, now-infamous National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began leaking classified documents to the media. Since then, the steady stream of revelatory documents has generated a firestorm of criticism against NSA practices. The NSA, which is at […]