We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed reading how DVDs are rotting away, the UK’s first permanent facial recognition camera installed and Meta has never heard of the Streisand effect?
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
You are seeing aspects of this watching Whittaker’s talk about privacy at SXSW 2025, Apple’s fighting for encryption and the notion of a eurostack is back.
Mozilla Festival global is back for 2025
Ian thinks: Mozfest has been a great festival and the house events have been good but the big global one is back. I have to also say I am involved again as a space wrangler and the theme of unlearning is perfectly timed.
Cybertrucks build for a planned future?
Ian thinks: You may have noticed the backlash against Tesla recently. 404’s podcast got me thinking. The Cybertruck is made for a future which is too dangerous to drive through, its almost like its planned for this future? Not great to think about.
ODI take over SOLID
Ian thinks: During Solid World in February, the ODI took over the Solid project. This video outlines reasons and whats planned for the future. If you want the text summary its also available here.
AMD’s Instella AI, sets a open benchmark?
Ian thinks: I am usually not interested in this type of thing but AMD seem to be releasing their AI LLM model with everything including the training material and its all under a pretty fair licence. Although mainly for research, could this be a benchmark for future open AI models?
The hard truth behind Adolescence
Ian thinks: Lets be honest, if you haven’t seen Adolescence by now, find some time to watch it. For many its cinematography and use of no cuts is great. But deeper down its a clear wake up call for parents, educators and all of us how young people are being manipulated to potentially society harming and lethal scales.
Are you also trimming your online profile?
Ian thinks: This is a on going trend, as people learn more about what personal data means in terms which directly effect them. This is a good thing and certainly highlights all the efforts by activists and organisations shouting about the importance of personal data for decades now.
Tech report SXSW 2025
Ian thinks: Amy Webb’s new insight company FTSG, follows on from Future Today Institute reports of previous years. This years report is a huge 1000 pages and covers so much of the emerging technology bounded around the tech industry. The exec summary is a good place to start a long weekend through this all.
Don’t believe the hype silly rabbit
Ian thinks: This interview of Professor Wajcman, is short but filled with so many good points about the endless lines being fed to us from mainly Silicon Valley. I challenge you to not shake your head in support of at least one point she makes.
The power of hashtags and unique ID’S
Ian thinks: In this interview with Chris Messina, the inventor of the hashtag. We are reminded of the hashtag for connecting communities and how they are still relevant in the next generation of federated social platforms.
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