S.A. Applin

The tech industry is inspired to create our world from linear, scripted science fiction stories.

Amazon (and hotels) now have the option to collect new forms of data from people.

Amazon has swallowed retail, and now has begun banning and threatening to ban what it deems to be problematic customers.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are charting humanity's future, and there's little the rest of us can do to influence them.

Algorithmic guessing misses what makes us human.

Google Assistant can now make phone calls, but the people answering the phones at small businesses can't yet form a relationship with an AI agent.

If robots are going to invade public spaces, they will be subject to vandalism and pranking.

San Francisco's electric scooters are disruptive to the communities where they are abandoned and, because they are constantly moving, the issues of abandonment and refuse cycle through neighborhoods.