Weāve got big news on the Cambre tech front this week! Weāre excited to let our #TechAways readers know weāre boosting our tech team with the hire of one of the women behind the success of Angry Birds, the dynamic Kaisu Karvala. Sheās joining as a senior adviser for all things tech.
Do you love getting #TechAways every Friday?Ā ShareĀ itĀ with your friends and colleagues.Ideas? Suggestions? Comments? Send them our way, they canĀ subscribeĀ here.
AĀ Finnish national, Kaisu has a ton of amazing experience in the tech space, including top roles with such leading brands as Angry Birds, Telia and Hatch entertainment.Ā Close to home for the Brussels audience, she previously chaired GSMA Europe and served as a board member of ETNO.
Kaisu is excited to get to know Cambreās tech clients and our #TechAways readers. Spoiler alert:Ā weāre putting together a fun event to do just that. š¾
Our team is thrilled to welcome a tech expert with Kaisuās experience, network and reputation!
Welcome onboard Kaisu š!
Fearing 5G [Wired]
Those of us that live in Brussels will have to wait for the rollout of 5G, as Brussels Regional Environment Minister CĆ©line Fremault has halted 5G pilot projects citing health concerns. Is that fear warranted? Susan Crawford thinks so. She worries that the Commission and FTC have both been too focused on ensuring their market players lead the way in advanced wireless services, rejecting calls to pause and consider the human health effects of 5G. Dive into the science of why 5G represents a new era of human-produced electromagnetic radiation and why current measures for public health affects might be missing the mark as Susan argues for new and more widely accepted safety standards.
Algorithms vs price setting [Wall Street Journal]
Algorithms can do amazing things like tracking climate change or finding tumors ā but they can also make you pay more for things like Uber rides or airplane tickets. Researchers have pitted algorithms against each other with the sole goal of making as much profit as possible. Without communicating directly ā each algorithm learned through trial and error to collude to maintain prices above normal open-market levels. To prove the collusion, researchers forced one algorithm to cut its prices ā leading to a price war before both eventually returned to the higher prices. The concern is that companies could use this ātacit collusionā via algorithm as a way to get around competition laws. So how do antitrust authorities tackle this new competition threat?
Fossil Free… data? [Wired]
Big tech companies foot an enormous monthly bill for the energy consumption of their data centres.Ā By 2028, the amount of power required to store and transmit the worldās data is expected to correspond to the energy needs of the third largest country in the world. We are all conscious of buying and eating green ā what if we could surf green too?Ā An ecolabel could help with this. Starting this week in Stockholm, Swedish data centre Node Pole is launching a āFossil Free Dataā label to certify that firms are running their data centres on 100% renewable energy. Are you ready to start second guessing your every click?
Are Instagram handles the new phone numbers? [The Atlantic]
Do you have your Instagram handle on your business card? If not, you might want to think about adding it. In personal settings, people preferring to connect over Instagram instead of trading phone numbers is trending. It makes sense: an Instagram handle is easier to remember and gives you immediate access to a long feed of visual conversation fodder about a new acquaintance. On the dating front Tindstagramming (where users on Tinder connect with potential dates on Instagram) is already a coined term. In the business community, people find it less stuffy than LinkedIn and less intrusive than a mobile number.
In case you havenāt had enoughā¦
Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcryĀ [Vox]
Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Letās start in these four areas. [Washington Post]
Miles lets you earn airplane-like miles for walking, biking, or scootering [FastCompany]
Google’s UK staff paid package of Ā£226,000 on average in 2018 [Guardian]
WeWork’s extreme growth model Is worrying European bankers [Bloomberg]
Data centers gobble energy. Could a āfossil-freeā label help? [Wired]
What AI can tell from listening to you [Wall Street Journal]
Madrid Bans Airbnb Apartments That Donāt Have Private Entrances [CityLab]
An AI-generated Ellen DeGeneres voice is the future of deepfakes [Axios]
How Franceās new digital minister plans to regulate tech [TechCrunch]