Search bars are a technological marvel. Through them, we can search the limits of the world. We can see the seven wonders or learn of breaking news as it is happening. We can find more information in seconds than most people in human history had access to in their lifetimes. But search bars also expose some of our most personal and intimate moments, as you search for how to overcome infertility or even cancer. During the Super Bowl, Google ran one of the most powerful ads about the use of technology in a long time.
In the commercial, a man asks his Google Assistant to remember a number of details about his wife and their marriage as he begins to lose his memory due to Alzheimer’s. He searches for the places she loved to visit and even for anniversary photos of them from his photo library. Behind the emotion of this man’s story is the technology powering this tool. Google was using this commercial to show off the abilities of their Assistant platform, which is driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Google reminds us that we use AI each day to do many convenient tasks using our smartphones, tablets, smart speakers, and computers. Through this use of Google Assistant, we see how AI can be harnessed to remind us of what makes us human and the greater purpose of technology.
Interesting technology stories
Amazon is working to develop biometric scanners to link handprints to credit cards, allowing shoppers to buy with the swipe of their palm – Business Insider
Amazon has plans to create payment terminals that would allow shoppers to link a credit card with their own handprint, allowing them to pay at brick-and-mortar stores by simply waving their hand across a scanner, according to a report Saturday from The Wall Street Journal.
West Virginia plans to make smartphone voting available to disabled people for 2020 election – NBC News
West Virginia is moving to become the first state to allow people with disabilities to use technology that would allow them to vote with their smartphones in the 2020 election.
Twitter Releases Ban on Harmful Deepfakes – Morning Brew
Yesterday, Twitter released new rules for posting deepfakes on its platform: don’t. Remember, deepfakes are persuasive AI-generated media depicting a real person’s likeness.
‘They know us better than we know ourselves’: how Amazon tracked my last two years of reading – The Guardian
But tucked into the dozens of files were also two Excel spreadsheets, more than 20,000 lines each, with titles, time stamps and actions detailing my reading habits on the Kindle app on my iPhone.
The Government Uses ‘Near Perfect Surveillance’ Data on Americans – The New York Times
The data used by the government comes not from the phone companies but from a location data company, one of many that are quietly and relentlessly collecting the precise movements of all smartphone-owning Americans through their phone apps.