[MIT Technology Review]

“While using machine learning to infer your state of mind is tricky, doing so reliably via your smartphone could be powerful. For instance, if an app were able to predict that you’re bored, and also knew where you were, it could try to feed you content it thinks you’d like in that particular context. Already at least one startup is trying to do something similar to this […]”

“Apple is reimagining the QVC or Home Shopping Network experience of buying straight from a TV, but eliminating the need to call into the network and relay credit card information or using a computer or tablet. The broader strategy for Apple is to make Apple TV for more than just watching a movie.”

“‘It really kills me when I see people say that Spotify is just algorithms,’ [Doug Ford, Spotify’s director of music programming] says. ‘Well, what does that make us? We’re running a team of curation experts.'”

“[Pete Sinclair, chief of operations at the cybersecurity firm RedSeal], figured the company was either turning off or turning down these minorities, so he turned to another software startup called Unitive, which helps companies develop job postings that attract a range of candidates, and helps structure job interviews to focus on specific qualifications and mitigate the effect of the interviews’ biases.”

“There was a time when I clicked on Google’s sponsored links, above the search results, so I could help give money to Google. This is still my instinct, and I have to remind myself not to. Sometime around 2002, my friend Alice dressed as the Google logo for Halloween, complete with a button that said ‘I’m feeling lucky.’ (She claims not to remember this, but I’m confident that if Gmail had existed then, I could prove it.)”