Many Americans are Distrusting Emerging Technologies
Find out how a new study discovers the distrust of many Americans on emerging technologies and much more in this week’s newsletter
This is the tenth edition of CrunchX and here are the stories and resources we thought were worth spending the time.
1. An engineer just made the world’s first Android phone with a working Lightning port
While announcements are treated as a satire on April 1, Ken Pillonel chose this day to unveil his latest experiment. Known for creating the first iPhone with a USB C port, the engineer has successfully made the first Android device with a functional Lightning port. Written by Rutherford on Engadget and editorial selection by Antony Terence. Read the article here:
2. Run Kubernetes Production Environment on EC2 Spot Instances With Zero Downtime: A Complete Guide
I’m a fairly recent convert to Kubernetes myself, but have a long history with AWS and am always interested in reading about interesting use cases and, of course, ways to cut costs. Kfir Schneider has a fascinating article on how to use AWS EC2 Spot instances in a Kubernetes deployment and all with zero downtime by the clever programmatic handling of node terminations. If you’re facing high AWS costs and fancy a new project, it’s well worth a read. Written by Kfir Schneider on Riskified Technology and editorial selection by Dr. Stuart Woolley. Read the article here:
3. How To Criticize Coworkers
Turek talks more about direct feedback and why it matters. I really liked the “be more on their side” advice, as that’s what most managers lack. Written by Alex Turek and editorial selection by Miloš Živković. Read the article here:
https://alexturek.com/2022-03-18-How-to-criticize-coworkers/
4. Fighting discrimination in mortgage lending
A new technique called “DualFair” helps create more fair machine-learning models within the field of mortgage loans. Sadly, minorities are still paying higher interests when it comes to credit loans in the housing market. The newly created approach removes attributes that create bias within a dataset such as an ethnicity or other characteristics that distinguish privileged groups from underprivileged groups. The researchers behind this technique are at the beginning of the creation process, nonetheless, they hope that it will make a great impact in the domain of loans in the housing market. Written by Adam Zewe on MIT News Office and editorial selection by Christianlauer. Read the article here:
https://news.mit.edu/2022/machine-learning-model-discrimination-lending-0330
5. Google Docs will start nudging some users to write less dumbly
Google Docs introduced a new feature that helps users to improve their tone and style in writing by underlining words or sentence passages with a purple squiggly line. The new feature will be rolled out in the next upcoming weeks. Written by Jon Porter on The Verge and editorial selection by Christianlauer. Read the article here:
6. Why AI democratization will bring more power to the enterprise
Companies are relying more and more on AI technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) or neural networking, hence giving more power to the employees within the company without a great involvement of the IT department. Besides advantages such as more independence, complications in the democratization process can arise, data confusion being one of them. However, according to this article, democratized AI will be the new way of interacting in the data universe. Written by Arthur Cole on Venture Beat and editorial selection by Christianlauer. Read the article here:
https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/28/why-ai-democratization-will-bring-more-power-to-the-enterprise/
7. Kubernetes Essential Tools: 2021
Staying with Kubernetes, as it seems to be literally everywhere and is fast becoming a ‘nice to have’ on many software engineering job specifications, Javier Ramos has an excellent article listing his choice of essential Kubernetes tools. It’s a comprehensive article and a great place to dip into for things to try or to look up a tool that you’ve come across yourself. Written by Javier Ramos on ITNEXT and editorial selection by Dr. Stuart Woolley. Read the article here:
https://itnext.io/kubernetes-essential-tools-2021-def12e84c572
8. Many Americans distrust emerging technology, a new study finds
As tech companies and startups continue to emphasize the future of tech and innovation, it appears that many people are not along for the ride. A survey of over 10K Americans on some emerging technologies has shown that many are hesitant to embrace the evolution of modern tech, which will be a disconnect that modern tech companies will need to grapple with sooner rather than later. Written by A. Tarantola on Engadget and editorial selection by Omar Zahran. Read the article here:
9. TSMC says demand for smartphones, PCs starting to slow
The term supply chain has been in the news ever since the pandemic halted chip manufacturing and the industry has been trying to catch up ever since. Those days appear to be near an end as TSMC, the world’s top chip manufacturer has said that demand has slowed and this could lead to an increase in device costs for consumers, a true lose-lose proposition to those interested in new tech this year. Written by Cheng Ting-Fan on Nikkei Asia and editorial selection by Omar Zahran. Read the article here:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Supply-Chain/TSMC-says-demand-for-smartphones-PCs-starting-to-slow
10. Samsung to support self-repair: Will help customers fix their own phones, tablets
Right to repair has been in the news a lot lately, and it seems that Samsung is getting onboard. The Korean tech giant is now committing to the self-repair of its devices by consumers. This is no doubt a chess move to a similar move that Apple made recently but nonetheless a welcome bit of news for those with Samsung devices. Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on ZDNet and editorial selection by Omar Zahran. Read the article here:
Closing Note
That’s our picks for this week. Hope you found something new, inspiring, astonishing, and crazy news going around the tech space. Thank you very much for taking your time to read this edition of CrunchX. Look out for the next edition the following week.
Regards,
CodeX Team