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NewsCut

MPR News Reflections and observations on the news

Tag: Technology

Arts & Culture

Study: Social media has little effect on teens’ life satisfaction

Bob CollinsBob Collins May 7, 2019, 7:02 AM May 7, 2019
17

The BBC reports that the study found that 99.75% of a person’s life satisfaction has nothing to do with their use of social media. Read more →

This or That

Prediction: The keyboard will be gone in five years

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 18, 2019, 10:30 AM Apr 18, 2019
64

If you had a technical choice now to give up your keyboard, would you? Read more →

Economy

Gadgets, parents killed Creative Kidstuff toy store

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 3, 2019, 1:14 PM Apr 3, 2019
25

We’re guessing there aren’t a lot of well-raised adults in these parts who didn’t grow up with at least something from Creative Kidstuff, the Twin Cities toy stores whose philosophy was “play is joyful, educational, creative and inspiring.” That ethos couldn’t survive in our high-tech era.

But that was before smartphones and iPads. Read more →

Economy

Consumers hanging up on the smartphone economy

Bob CollinsBob Collins January 4, 2019, 7:02 AM Jan 4, 2019
48

The frightening part of what happened to Apple’s stock yesterday is how much the U.S. economy depends on the cultists of Apple, who religiously have bought products that are overpriced even though the updates are hardly so impressive that people should shell out ridiculous amounts of money for them.
Read more →

Health

Researcher: McDonald’s menus touchscreens are gross and dangerous

Bob CollinsBob Collins November 28, 2018, 1:48 PM Nov 28, 2018
22

As we’ve noted before, we are not big fans of the touch screens that have sprouted up at the renovated McDonald’s. We like human contact and, besides, it takes much longer to order through the technology than to simply walk to the counter.

But now some research in the UK has confirmed the wisdom of our disdain. Read more →

This or That

In memo’s aftermath, Google can’t talk diversity

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 11, 2017, 7:01 AM Aug 11, 2017
54

An all-staff meeting at Google in the wake of a fired-employee’s memo on women and diversity had to be canceled because of online harassment of employees. Read more →

Science

The quicker technology advances, the faster our history disappears

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 4, 2017, 10:32 AM Aug 4, 2017
18

Every now and again I am reminded that although the possibilities of new technology are endless, the advances can come at the expense of the documentation of our past. And that in our digital age, history evaporates quickly. Read more →

Self-driving cars: The solution people don’t want

Bob CollinsBob Collins May 26, 2017, 1:52 PM May 26, 2017
40

A lot of problems are going to be solved when self-driving cars become a thing. But first a big problem has to be solved: Consumers don’t want them. Read more →

This or That

The freedom to drive poorly

Bob CollinsBob Collins February 8, 2017, 3:24 PM Feb 8, 2017
41

Surely there can be little doubt by now that using a cellphone while driving isn’t safe no matter how much we try to convince ourselves we’re different.

The brain has a hard time doing two things at once and this was true even when cellphones were just phones. Read more →

Airbus joins the flying car club

Bob CollinsBob Collins January 17, 2017, 7:05 AM Jan 17, 2017
8

As we’ve noted many times in this space over the years, flying cars are a fairly impractical solution to a problem. Most every flying car project that’s underway continues to take investors’ money and delay the rollout. Read more →

Crime and Justice

Cybercriminals staging major attack on U.S. websites

Bob CollinsBob Collins October 21, 2016, 12:41 PM Oct 21, 2016
6

What’s happening to the nation’s big websites today is yet another reminder how vulnerable we are. Read more →

Duluth dodged Google’s fiber optic bullet

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 16, 2016, 11:55 AM Aug 16, 2016
43

Duluth still doesn’t have a fancy system for high-speed Internet. But there’s good news. There are no kids running around there named Google Fiber. Read more →

Sports

Can Pokemon Go make baseball fun again?

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 11, 2016, 11:15 AM Aug 11, 2016
29

In a few years from now, we’ll fondly recall the days when people who went to baseball games went there to watch baseball. Read more →

Politics

Is rural Internet a ‘public good’?

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 3, 2016, 8:43 AM Aug 3, 2016
27

I often wish that Star Tribune columnist Lee Schafer’s work could find its way off the business pages and closer to the paper’s front page because his work is too stimulating to be relegated to one of the most ignored parts of the newspaper.
Read more →

Thomson Reuters in ‘reply-all’ meltdown

Bob CollinsBob Collins August 26, 2015, 2:08 PM Aug 26, 2015
7

The poor folks at Thomson Reuters got ensnared in the reply-all loop today and it’s all Vince’s fault. Read more →

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