Articles of the week
- BitTorrent Creator’s New Software DissidentX Hides Secrets In Plain Sight – Forbes
Encryption tools help people keep secrets. Bram Cohen has a more subtle ambition: he wants to help people keep secret the act of keeping secrets. - A Chinese company is pioneering the technology to let parents pick their smartest embryo – Quartz
No one knows what genes make people smart. But the chance to figure that out is just kind of hanging there: 50-80% of what determines IQ is thought to be inherited. Shenzhen-based BGI is seizing that opportunity. Its cognitive genomics division is mapping the genes (pdf) of math geniuses. - Writing Is Thinking · An A List Apart Article
Hopefully, “Write more” is one of your resolutions for 2014. It certainly is for us. And this article gives some great pieces of advice to get going. - Your Favorite Futurist Is Wrong
“There’s a certain sense of betrayal seeping through the futurist water supply at the moment. From the Baby Boomers asking “where’s my flying car?” to the Millennials asking “where’s my standard of living?”, we have to look at history to see where these expectations came from. Only then can we figure out how to deliver on those futures.” - Want to Predict the Future of Surveillance? Ask Poor Communities.
Marginalized groups are often governments’ test subjects. Here are a few lessons we can learn from their experiences.