What if... that was the week that was? Sept 9th-16th 2023
100 words thought to start…
Speculating is good exercise. Like meditation, a few minutes a day is good for you. And that's all 100 words takes. Each morning I open up my RSS reader and sooner or later a story catches my eye and I begin to wonder.... What if..? I might wonder what would happen if the opposite was true, what would happen if that particular technological object bumped into a human object (I talk about object-oriented philosophy in my book). Then I open my Web App (http://speculation.studio) and just take the characters for a walk. Like meditation, it provides a moment of clarity.
Google hid evidence by training workers to avoid words monopolists use, DOJ says
Sep 15, 2023
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1968452
Here you go. They didn’t have oat milk, sorry. Yes the machine does, but I wanted to discuss this “off site”. Legal are worried. I asked why we couldn’t run the system after the fact and they gave me that look they’ve perfected… I wish I had a system to deal with that! They’re not even happy with just “tidying” for messages and minutes. They say they’re worried about what they call “water cooler discourse” and “social language”. They want to roll Real Time out across the site and for those working from home. Can you imagine the white noise?
How to Make In-Housing Work for Your Company
Sep 14, 2023
https://www.adweek.com/agencies/how-to-make-in-housing-work-for-your-company/
We completely understand the decision you’ve made. We know the trend. Having the expertise inside the business makes sense. Access to more data, faster response to wider business shifts and those intangible benefits: closer relationships, ties and the sense of the house that we’re all in! We get it. Remember when we tried creating a special dedicated team for you here. It was a step but not enough. And you know that we have the experience and the talent. You know you still need that. So we are delighted you’ve chosen our plug and play to help get you started.
Apple’s $60 iCloud Service Is the Future of Apple
Sep 13, 2023
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-60-dollar-icloud-storage-tier-is-the-future/
When you find out you’re expecting, you’re overwhelmed by worries big and small: how do you feed a baby? Change them? Bath them? What if he grows up to be a fascist or not stand their round in the pub? And then there are the logistical worries: decorating the house, reconfiguring the smart home network’s sensors. And then there’s getting their name onto the right waiting lists. School will be upon us before we know it. And of course their network kicks in well before that. As parents it’s our job to make sure their membership is ready to go.
Swedish Students Are Going Back to School and Getting Analog Books
Sep 12, 2023
https://gizmodo.com/swedish-students-head-back-to-school-with-analog-books-1850826621
I hate school. Actually it’s not just school, I hate everything. I hate being the odd one out. Not everyone says something but they all have that look in their eye. A toxic mixture of pity and puzzlement. They know what’s in my bag when I walk into class, when I get my chicken and chips on the way home. Why do I have to be the one who can’t have something cool on the desk? Everyone else has got them, why not me? Why am I stuck with a bag full of screens and leads. I want one.
Let the robot vacuum wars begin: the newest Roombas tackle the competition’s biggest issues
Sep 11, 2023
The news that she was “dropping by” tomorrow used to send them into a tailspin: insecurity-driven panic manifesting in a tidying spree and passive-aggressive blaming. She wasn’t a bad person and they did love her. It was just that she was very… particular and had a way of entering a room… She didn’t need to run her fingers over the surfaces. The judgement was there. They imagined the scene at home the instant the message came through: the dust drones delicately sweeping the mantelpiece, the eBook shelves reordering, the fridge changing its order. They could afford to stay for another.
Bolt’s AR Snapchat Lens Reimagines Cities With Fewer Cars
Sep 10, 2023
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/bolts-ar-snapchat-lens-reimagines-cities-with-fewer-cars/
They’d all hoped the glasses had taken off. It would have worked so much better then. The pub and restaurant owners in particular, but even the other shop-keepers had bought into the idea. It wasn’t surprising really. The lockdowns had shocked them to their core and those that had survived were easy prey when the salesmen came round. They tried to lure their regulars back but even those who returned were only in their offices part-time. The city had changed. The lenses brought the crowds back. With a bit of imagination, the culture – the city was sort of there.
5 steps for assembling AI-driven business teams
Sep 9, 2023
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/08/5-steps-for-assembling-ai-driven-business-teams/
While some of my friends idolised football stars and some wanted to be “influencers”, I read biographies of the tech bros and dreamt of being an entrepreneur. No, that word didn’t cover it. It’s too dry, old business. I wanted to be a founder, create a start-up. That phrase, “start-up” drove me at school. I had visions of my cool warehouse with fussball table and endless smoothies. And the team: pizza boxes, walls of post it notes, late nights. Just me and my mates, changing the world. And I got there. My start-up. I look around. My co-founders’ cursors blink.
Many more exactly 100 word speculative fictions at the new look www.speculation.studio where you can write your own Speculative Fiction and also find the free Book What if..? speculative fiction and imagining business which explores the power of speculative fiction in building creativity and innovation.
And finally…
100 words from The Book (free at www.speculation.studio):
“By speculating with technology - taking those changes as a characters in the stories we imagine - we can reconfigure our relationship to those changes and maybe even affecting those changes. Speculation empowers us to be active. Creativity is not a defence mechanism it is a strategy. The cascade of new technologies (hardware and software), launching, failing, morphing and pivoting - dancing across society and culture is not some background to our business (or speculative story) it is an active character, an actor.… a philosophical detour. I’d been a journalist and, as the magazines I worked for discovered “The Internet”...”