Business, Spoken

Earlier this month, I was on the phone with Ryan Fox, cofounder of New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm that tracks Russian-related influence operations online. The so-called Yellow Vest protests had spread across France, and we were talking about the role disinformation played in the galvanizing French hashtag for the protests, #giletsjaunes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At the beginning of 2018, it didn't seem like the open source movement could get any bigger. Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system; websites including Facebook and Wikipedia; and a growing number of gadgets have open source software under the hood---literally, in the case of cars. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Surveying the reactions to the latest revelation that Facebook played fast and loose with user data, it was hard not to harken back to what Scott McNally, the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, told a group of reporters, including one from WIRED, in 1999: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

2018 was the year that Big Tech’s mission statements came back to haunt it. When employees felt that their products were damaging the world and that management wouldn't listen, they went public with their protests. At Google and Amazon, they challenged contracts to sell artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology to the Pentagon and police. At Microsoft and Salesforce, workers argued against selling cloud computing services to agencies separating families at the border. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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Every January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces a personal challenge he will undertake in the year ahead. In 2016, he committed to running 365 miles before the year was up. In 2017, he milked cows and rode tractors as part of his resolution to meet more people outside the Silicon Valley bubble. Last January, he took a different tack. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Future Book was meant to be interactive, moving, alive. Its pages were supposed to be lush with whirling doodads, responsive, hands-on. The old paperback Zork choose-your-own-adventures were just the start. The Future Book would change depending on where you were, how you were feeling. It would incorporate your very environment into its story—the name of the coffee shop you were sitting at, your best friend’s birthday. It would be sly, maybe a little creepy. Definitely programmable. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Labor organizing is gaining renewed momentum among some Amazon employees in the United States. The retail giant—run by the richest man in the world—is now one of the largest employers in the country, with more than 125,000 full-time hourly associates working in its fulfillment and sortation centers alone. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It took about 30 minutes for Williamson County commissioners to unanimously approve a roughly $16 million incentive package for Apple Tuesday morning, bringing the total amount the tech giant is likely to receive in exchange for choosing Austin as the site for its newest campus to a cool $41 million. The new addition is set to be Apple’s second campus in the Austin, Texas area—located less than a mile from the company’s existing facility, established five years ago. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Anti-government protests have raged across France for four weeks now, effectively shutting down the nation’s capital at times as rioters sporting yellow vests (gilets jaunes) wage massive public demonstrations, loot stores, and clash with police. The gilets jaunes protest began in response to a planned gas tax hike, but it soon devolved into a more amorphous outpouring of rage. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices