Hi there! Hope you're having a splendid week thus far.
A simple question, can the CEO of the business that runs WordPress.com save the internet? Protocol's David Pierce tries to find out a thing or two about about Matt Mullenweg, his work as CEO of Automattic and the efforts he is putting into getting WiFi anywhere, for anyone - a generally dicey problem statement.
With that out of the way, let's get into the reads from this week.
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Plain vs simple in product design
When designing a product, simple isn’t necessarily synonymous with plain, so what exactly is the difference between plain and simple? Canvs Editorial breaks it down in this piece on UX Collective.
Does Personalized Advertising Work as Well as Tech Companies Claim?
Many Big Tech companies have created platforms that offer businesses tips and tools and services to better target their customers online. These can be helpful — but anybody relying on them needs to be very careful.
An army of deepfake talking heads is coming for your feed
Hour One lets people rent out their faces to help businesses make highly realistic videos.
Autonomous Weapons Are Here, but the World Isn’t Ready for Them
This may be remembered as the year when the world learned that lethal autonomous weapons had moved from a futuristic worry to a battlefield reality.
Metaverse requires a 1000x boost in computing power: Intel
While the chip company is bullish on the possibilities of the metaverse in abstract, Intel raises a key issue with realizing any metaverse ambitions: there’s not nearly enough processing power to go around.
2021 Was Bound to Be a Year of Pop Culture Disappointments
Despite high points like Dune and Squid Game, the year was full of letdowns. Perhaps we wanted too much.
Space farming, the next frontier
The Chile peppers NASA is growing thrived in a controlled microgravity environment. But to develop agriculture away from Earth, NASA will have to think outside the box.
Sweeping the human story into a cosmic tale is a thrill but we should be wary about what is overlooked in the grandeur.
Startups On IPO Fast Track: Indian Tech Cos To Go Public Twice As Faster By 2026
While Indian startups are turning unicorns faster than ever before, it takes approximately 13.8 years for an Indian startup to go public.
Honorary mentions
Material Design Award Winners 2021
A roundup of all the 2022 trends
And that's the lot! Thanks for checking out what we had to share with you this week, we shall catch up with you next Wednesday. Incase you aren't subscribed to the newsletter, you could subscribe to it here
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