The Awesome and Alarming A.I. Visions of Anthropic’s C.E.O.; The New York Times, September 17, 2026

David Streitfeld , The New York Times; The Awesome and Alarming A.I. Visions of Anthropic’s C.E.O.

"If there’s any comfort to be had here, it may be this: Fear and hype rarely make for good forecasts. As always, the future is uncharted."

Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live; Forbes, April 20, 2026

Zak Doffman, Forbes; Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live

"Take a moment to think before you dive in. That’s the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation. That means Gemini seeing who you know and what you do. You likely have tens or hundreds of thousands of photos. They’re all exposed if you update.

We’re talking Personal Intelligence, Google’s latest AI upgrade path which lets users opt-in to connecting Google apps to Gemini...

This is the latest iteration in the ongoing battle between convenience and privacy playing out on our phones and computers."

Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88; The New York Times, August 14, 2025

 Michael S. Rosenwald , The New York Times; Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88

"As a philosopher of AI, Professor Boden was often asked if she thought that robots would, or could, take over society.

“The truth is that they certainly won’t want to,” she wrote in Aeon magazine in 2018.

Why? Because robots, unlike humans, don’t care.

“A computer’s ‘goals,’” she wrote, “are empty of feeling.”"

OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong; The Verge, April 16, 2018

Adi Robertson, The Verge; OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong

[Kip Currier: Very interesting April 2018 article in The Verge about the One Laptop Per Child initiative.]

"Thirteen years ago, OLPC told the world that every child should get a laptop. It never stopped to prove that they needed one."

Trump wants to search cellphones at the border. These lawmakers are trying to stop him.; Washington Post, April 4, 2017

Brian Fung, Washington Post; Trump wants to search cellphones at the border. These lawmakers are trying to stop him.

"“Just because you cross the border doesn’t mean the government has a right to everything on your computer,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), one of the bill's sponsors, said Tuesday. The bill's other sponsors are Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.)."

An Elegy for the Library; New York Times, February 17, 2017

Mahesh, Rao, New York Times; 

An Elegy for the Library

"“Do you think the library is in danger of closing down?” I asked.

“No chance.”

The library has 28 branches around the city, in addition to a few reading rooms at community organizations. Ms. Poornima tells me each branch regularly orders books at readers’ request from the state’s central library system.

Computers are much too costly for many families. Even books remain out of reach. The library’s website lists “uninterrupted lighting” as one of its services — a real draw in a city that suffers from frequent power cutoffs. This is a place of refuge. It offers a respite from the heat, from office life, from noisy households, from all the irritations that crowd in.

It also offers the intangible entanglements of a common space. One of my favorite descriptions of the public library comes from the journalist and academic Sophie Mayer, who has called it “the ideal model of society, the best possible shared space,” because there “each person is pursuing their own aim (education, entertainment, affect, rest) with respect to others, through the best possible medium of the transmission of ideas, feelings and knowledge — the book.”"

The New Digital Divide: Mobile-first design serves all virtual patrons; American Libraries, 1/4/16

Meredith Farkas, American Libraries; The New Digital Divide: Mobile-first design serves all virtual patrons:

"According to a recent Pew Research Center study of smartphone use, for approximately one in five Americans, their mobile device is their primary computing tool. Even for those who have personal computers, many people use their smartphones for progressively more purposes, including seeking health-related information, banking, looking for jobs, and completing coursework.

Until recently, mobile library websites were envisioned not as total online library experiences but as quick lookup tools. They often did not contain the full range of services as the regular website but a curated collection of commonly used items, such as a catalog search, hours and directions, an ask-a-librarian feature, and room booking. The assumption was that patrons would use a computer for anything more intensive, such as doing research.

If patrons are using mobile devices as their primary computing tools, a website designed for quick lookup will frequently be insufficient...

The ways that patrons are using available technologies continue to change rapidly, but focusing first on serving those with the least and most challenging access may help libraries design a better online user experience for all their patrons."