Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending May 31, 2014)
The Inside Story of Oculus Rift and How Virtual Reality Became Reality
How Oculus Rift revived the dream of virtual reality.
—Tom Simonite, senior editor, IT
It’s Official: Climate Change Is Now More Divisive Than Abortion
A survey of New Hampshire voters suggests that Democrats and Republicans now disagree more about whether humans are contributing to global climate change than about any other issue.
—Linda Lowenthal, copy chief
Police, Pedestrians, and the Social Ballet of Merging
John Leonard, a professor at MIT, shoots situations around Boston and Cambridge that could confound self-driving cars. Worryingly, I recognize several from my daily commute.
—Will Knight, news and analysis editor
Scalpers Inc.
A nice review of Michael Lewis’s book about high-frequency trading, which I also highly recommend.
—Will Knight
Q&A: Google Self-Driving Car Head Chris Urmson on Building a Car From Scratch
This Q&A gives good insight into the potential (and arguably inevitable) mass product appeal of one of Google’s “moonshot” spinoff businesses.
—Kyanna Sutton, senior Web producer
Who’s Behind That Tweet? Here’s How 7 News Orgs Manage Their Twitter and Facebook Accounts
Social media producers at various news outlets argue why promotional posts on social media platforms need to be crafted by a human, not a bot, to garner optimal click-throughs.
—Kyanna Sutton
The Story of One Whale Who Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Animals and Humans
Next time I go swimming, I would like to talk to whales.
—J. Juniper Friedman, editorial assistant
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Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build
“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”
ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it
The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.
Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives
The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.
Learning to code isn’t enough
Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.
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