Playing Dominion

The Cardboard Renaissance: Analog Games Take Off

In a digital world, analog games are having a surprising—and explosive—renaissance.

Google’s Smart Reply: Convenience Over Connection

Gmail offers users canned responses to emails, based on AI interpretations of the contents and the user’s typical writing style. This convenience, unknown to the recipient, comes at a social cost.

Podcast #8: Tim Wu On Attention and Communications Networks

Tim Wu is a renowned scholar on our communications networks, having coined the phrase “net neutrality” and written extensively on the subject both inside and outside of government and academia, including the White House and Columbia University. His latest book, The Attention Merchants, is a history of advertising, and it’s not pretty. He spoke with us about our declining private spheres, the current state of the Internet, and the effects of what he calls The Cycle, as new communications technologies inevitably move from open to closed.