TechSequences

Latest Episodes
COVID Passports — a multinational perspective
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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,