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No, You Probably Don't Take Privacy and Security Seriously

Andrew Orr ·

Zach Whittaker is tired of the same old line companies use, like when they suffer a data breach: “We take your privacy and security seriously.”

The truth is, most companies don’t care about the privacy or security of your data. They care about having to explain to their customers that their data was stolen…About one-third of all 285 data breach notifications had some variation of the line. It doesn’t show that companies care about your data. It shows that they don’t know what to do next.

I’m betting there’s a template that public relations employees have that they copy and paste into official emails sent out in the wake of security stuff like this.

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Just 12% of U.S. Patent Inventors are Women

Charlotte Henry ·

Data released in February 2019 by the U.S. Patent and Trademarks office revealed that in 2016 just 12% of inventors with a U.S. patent were female. This is actually a fall from the 1980s when the number hit 21%. A report from MarketWatch outlined that the reasons for this fall mirror many of the reasons there is a lack of women in STEM fields more broadly. They include gender bias and societal expectations as well as difficult workplace environments.

The number of patents with at least one woman inventor grew from 7% in the 1980s to 21% in 2016, according to an analysis released this month by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But there’s a long way to go: Women made up just 12% of all patent inventors in 2016. “There’s untapped potential,” said Amanda Myers, the acting deputy chief economist at the USPTO. “There might be very intelligent and creative women who are not accessing the innovation system. That has real consequences for economic growth as well as our global competitive position.”

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Augmented Reality is the Mirrorworld

Andrew Orr ·

Kevin Kelly writes how augmented reality will become a mirrorworld; That is, an exact replica of the physical world we will interact with.

The mirrorworld—a term first popularized by Yale computer scientist David Gelernter—will reflect not just what something looks like but its context, meaning, and function. We will interact with it, manipulate it, and experience it like we do the real world.

I firmly believe that AR can be as revolutionary as the internet. We just need an AR device that will dominate peoples’ lives to the point where everyone will wear a headset all the time.

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Apple's Ecosystem Is Actually Your Body

Andrew Orr ·

Apple’s ecosystem is your body. It’s in our pockets, our ears, our wrists, and soon it will be over our eyes with augmented reality glasses. Lucas Rizzotto talks about Apple hardware can be thought of as a modular system, similar to what Bryan and I discussed on ACM. iPhone will provide processing power and networking, Apple Watch is for biometrics and input, AirPods give us contextual 3D audio, and Apple Glasses are our screen.

Ultimately, Apple’s final AR product offering won’t just be a set of glasses — but an interconnected ecosystem that can itself become a single, immersive computing platform. One that’s an extension of you and your body — whether you’re wearing glasses or not.