Mojeek's Monthly Must Reads

Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report

Author: Rani Molla (@ranimolla) – Speaker: Mary Meeker - Recode

Summary: This article consists of Mary Meeker's speech about 2018's Internet trends as well as her slides and some important takeways. From details on smartphone sales, the US tech industry's connection to immigration and the "privacy paradox", this is a must read!

Why online privacy matters — and how to protect yours

Author: Will Potter - Interviewee: Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) – ideas.ted.com

Summary: A transcript of an interview back in 2016 featuring Christopher Soghoian, where he talks about the importance of privacy and security, and how we're all at risk of being violated by tools of surveillance.

The crooked timber of humanity

Author: Tom Standage (@tomstandage) - The 1843 Magazine

Summary: Not quite the same cyber-attacks of today, but this article draws comparison to an event which took place in 19th century France, claiming their techniques/inspiration go back further than you might think.

Sources: Google Is Planning A Game Platform That Could Take On Xbox And PlayStation

Author: Jason Schreier (@Jasonschreier) - Kotaku

Summary: Rumours have been circulated suggesting that Google could be developing a form of streaming platform to enter the gaming industry.

Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion

Author: Microsoft News Center

Summary: The world's leading software development platform GitHub, with a user base of 28 million innovative developers has been bought my Microsoft for $7.5 billion

Facebook patents system that can use your phone's mic to monitor TV habits

Author: Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) - The Guardian

Summary: A worrying patent has been filed by Facebook, which would allow a system to automatically activate microphones on peoples phones whilst watching television, in order to identify what the individual was watching.

How BuzzFeed Migrated from a Perl Monolith to Go and Python Microservices

Author: Charles Humble (@charleshumble) - Infoq

Summary: After issues of scale and finding engineers who knew and wanted to work with Perl, BuzzFeed have recently moved from a monolithic Perl application to a set of approximately 500 microservices written in a mixture of Python and Go.

The EU's New Privacy Rules Are Only a First Step

Author: Vera Franz (@vfranz73) – Open Society Foundations

Summary: Although GDPR was a vital step in weakening the abuse of power big data companies undertake in, unfortunately it was not enough. Especially not without complimentary ePrivacy regulations currently looking to be implemented.

Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

Author: Selina Wang (@Selina_y_wang) - Bloomberg

Summary: In response to foreign meddling of the US election, you will now be able to look at all advertisement information of ads ran by a twitter account in the past seven days.

Apple is rebuilding Maps from the ground up

Author: Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) – Tech Crunch

Summary: After four years in the making, Apple will be releasing a more detailed version of Apple maps, using it's own data for the first time.

Why Athletes Need a Quiet Eye

Author: David Robson (@d_a_robson) - BBC

Summary: Coined as the 'quiet eye', psychologists have identified some common mental processes that elite athletes use to enhance visual perception and focus, giving them the upper hand over their competitor.

Aral Balkan and Laura Kalbag: We're not sleepwalking into a dystopian future, we're there today

Author: Lily Fish – Interviewees Aral Balkan (@aral) and Laura Kalbag (@laurakalbag) - Nesta

Summary: Ind.ie founders Aral Balkan and Laura Kalbag are interviewed, offering enlightening and thought provoking answers surrounding issues of surveillance capitalism and human rights in the digital age.

Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp's Founders

Authors: Kirsten Grind (@kirstengrind) and Deepa Seetharaman (@dseetharaman) - Wall Street Journal

Summary: This article offers insight into the two What'sApp founders, Brian Acton and Jan Koum walking away from Facebook, following a long dispute on how to produce more revenue with ads and data with the messaging app.

A Lost Secret: How To Get Kids To Pay Attention

Author: Michaeleen Doucleff (@FoodieScience) – NPR

Summary: After the claim that kids are loosing their ability to pay attention, this article focuses on potential causes, experiments and perhaps the important factor of motivation.

How to read a privacy policy

Author: Ashley Carman (@ashleyrcarman) – The Verge

Summary: Lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology share some useful tips on how to wrapping your heads around the complicated nature of privacy policies.

Survey and evaluation of web search engine hit counts as research tools in computational linguistics

Authors: David Sánchez, Laura Martínez-Sanahuja and Montserrat Batet – Elsevier, Information Systems Volume 73, March 2018, Pages 50-60

Summary: A detailed survey of web search engines, evaluating hit counts from a research perspective featuring multiple search engines, including Mojeek.

Why do we care so much about privacy?

Summary: In response to @NewYorker Louis Menard's article 'Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?', in depth debates take place where people explain what privacy means to them personally and how exploiting it has the power to drastically shape our culture and history.

These tools can protect your online privacy

Speaker: Jake Kastrenakes (@Jake_K) – The Verge

Summary: An informative video helping you get a little more of your anonymity back and improve your privacy when on the web.

Shouting in the Datacenter

Summary: "Don't shout at your JBODs!" This classic video shows Brendan Gregg from the Sun's Fishworks team making an interesting discovery about inducing disk latency.

'Disastrous' copyright bill vote approved

Summary: In response to the @BBC's "'Disastrous' copyright bill vote approved" article about MEPs vote to change European copyright law, users on Hacker News discuss the negative effect this will have on the future of internet.