TechSequences

TechSequences


Latest Episodes

COVID Passports — a multinational perspective
September 22, 2021

Vaccination status – namely, who IS and who IS NOT vaccinated is hotly debated on every front. The Covid-19/vaccine passport purports to help.  These passports are digital or paper documents that show

A world in flux — our relationship with change
August 25, 2021

The pandemic and its massive impact on every aspect of our lives for the past 18 months has been a wakeup call on change, especially that which we cannot control.   For centuries, our human ingenuity

Better Communicating with Context
July 21, 2021

Does online interface design shape or influence how we behave online? For example, do we really behave worse than our true selves when given the option to mask our identity? When technologies that obf

Free Speech — It’s more than just the words
July 14, 2021

On Jan 11th, 2021, Parler, the alt right social media platform, found itself turned off and homeless, as Internet giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google, all booted it from their platforms in little

Rethinking Machine Learning
June 30, 2021

Machine Learning, or ML, is attributed as a natural outgrowth of the intersection of Computer Science and Statistics. Machine Learning builds on both and focuses on the question of how to get computer

Hacking the Pandemic: Taiwan’s Approach
June 16, 2021

When historians write the chapter on the COVID-19 pandemic, they will have plenty of cautionary examples, except maybe Taiwan.  Taiwan may well provide the lesson in not only battling a public health crisis but also in civic engagement, innovation and

Social Media, Influence, and Democracy: Reconcilable Differences?
May 26, 2021

Did you know that about one in five US adults say they get their news primarily through social media? However, in addition to news, social media platforms have become incredibly efficient tools for spreading propaganda and disinformation credited with ...

Keeping it Real in an Information Deluge
May 12, 2021

Did you know our brains can only process about 120 Kb per second and can only do so serially? Yet every day we are deluged with 34GB of information.  We also spend close to 8 hours every day interacting with

Decision Pitfalls in a Big Data World
April 28, 2021

Data growth is a direct consequence of advances in technology ranging from the smartphone to the Internet of Things devices. Today, the “datasphere”, or the volume of data in the world – is estimated to be over 60 Zettabytes. We

Machine-Made Decisions: Consequences of Consistency
April 21, 2021

Automated algorithm-driven decision-making systems are increasingly replacing humans in areas as varied as HR hiring, loan applications, insurance brokerage and even routine medical diagnostics.  In some contexts, such as employment,