Iterations: Man Vs. (The Government) Machine
In 2013, we have seen a reincarnation of “man vs. machine,” except this time, the machines aren’t algorithms — the machine is government. Within a few months, various levels of government across the United States have made headlines with respect to new technologies, products, and services. Unmanned aerial drones, which have a touchy relationship with citizens worldwide already, present complicated scenarios. The Texas state government, for instance, recently banned drones for most private use; the state of North Carolina is considering a ban on direct sales of Tesla vehicles; Airbnb was deemed illegal in New York state by a judge; ride-sharing startups like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar face constant threats and hurdles as they expand outside of the Bay Area; and of course, there’s Bitcoin, where Mt. Gox suffered a recent Fed crackdown as the most active exchange for the popular crypto-currency. The ways things are going, 3-D printers will be banned because some fanatic will hack software that lets him print a 3-D gun.
It’s been a good week for old media. The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal have all done a superb job of reporting on the NSA/PRISM revelations. Unfortunately it has also been a terrible decade for them. Newspaper advertising revenue has fallen by 
Thought Yahoo’s acquisition spree would culminate with its 
Apple demonstrated that it will keep its iron grip on iOS 7, despite Tim Cook saying it’s time for Apple to start openng up. Rather than debut new opportunities for developers, Apple squelched them at WWDDC by building its own substitutes for widgets, phone modifications, and whole categories of existing apps.
Apple is no longer offering the “Genius” feature as a way to surface and discover new mobile applications in the iOS App Store in the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7. Instead, the spot that used to belong to “Genius” now goes to “Near Me,” 
Somewhere on the dance floor, she vanished. It would have a been no problem, except her smartphone was so large she left it at coat check. In the pursuit of a big, beautiful screen, she’d sacrificed why people carry phones in the first place. We had no way to find her in the massive nightclub, and we never saw her again.
Imagine that one day you came home to find a shiny little bubble of one-way glass in an upper corner of every single room, and a notice left on your kitchen table: “As required by the Safe Society Act, we have installed remotely controlled cameras throughout your home. (Also your office.) But don’t worry! They’ll probably only be activated if the government believes that a non-US citizen might have entered this building.” Would that give you warm fuzzy feelings of safety and security?
No automated system can identify what will offend people. What some humans find disgusting, others find controversial, and others still find funny. Computers just don’t understand. That caused trouble for Facebook this week when women’s activism groups got advertisers to boycott after the social network failed to suspend accounts accused of publishing hate speech.