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Alternative for Who? Investigating Public Opinion on Alternative Platforms

Alternative for Who? Investigating Public Opinion on Alternative Platforms

By Tristan Bannerman, Amie Galbraith, and Natalie Kerby While monopoly power is growing in tech, so is the public consciousness of the inner workings of large platforms. A growing movement of alternative platforms could hold the potential answer to...
On the Possibility of Preserved Privacy: The Case of Google Photos

On the Possibility of Preserved Privacy: The Case of Google Photos

Today we live in a hyper-connected world with constant online activity. This lends itself to the accumulation of unprecedented data of and about people, dubbed “Big Data”. Google is a key part of this ecosystem and Google Photos is...
The Reproduction of Racialized Discriminatory Knowledge Search Engines Perpetuate

The Reproduction of Racialized Discriminatory Knowledge Search Engines Perpetuate

Miazia Schüler University of Amsterdam, 04.10.2021 In 2010, van Dijck published her essay “Search Engines and the Production of Academic Knowledge,” in which she elaborates on the increasingly growing influence search engines are gaining and argues that “digitized search”...
Covid-19 Vaccine Fake News: Google as Co-Producer to Knowledge Production

Covid-19 Vaccine Fake News: Google as Co-Producer to Knowledge Production

Abstract Fake news and misinformation regarding Covid-19 vaccines is able to be spread and believed through Google’s positive relevance feedback loops as the average user sees Google as a neutral source for information. Google therefore becomes a co-producer to...
How “Trump COVID-19” Provides Different Search Results on Google and Baidu?

How “Trump COVID-19” Provides Different Search Results on Google and Baidu?

If you search “Trump COVID-19" on Google and Baidu, what do you think the search results will look like? Are they almost the same or completely different? This blog post will show you the answer.
As Cookies Crumble, Publishers Come Out to Play

As Cookies Crumble, Publishers Come Out to Play

Introduction: In January 2020, Google announced that web browser Chrome would be dropping third-party cookies by 2022. According to Google, blocking third-party cookies is meant to “enhance privacy” for end-users and “to support publishers.”So, with the end of third-party...
Search Engine Comparison for Three Controversial People: Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson

Search Engine Comparison for Three Controversial People: Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson

Alicja Zak, Elise Olthof, Vânia Ferreira and Zdzisław Heydel Introduction This project, for which we have taken the perspective that “raw data is an oxymoron”, conveyed by Lisa Gitelman, examines the different query results between three search engines: Google,...
Framing AlphaZero: An infrastructural approach to A.I.

Framing AlphaZero: An infrastructural approach to A.I.

Man V.S. Machine It was in May 1997 when world champion chess player Garri Kasparov lost the now infamous chess match to IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. Deep Blue was considered the first artificial intelligence program to win a chess...
Google Stadia: A new player has joined the platform wars

Google Stadia: A new player has joined the platform wars

You either die an information utility, or live long enough to adopt the politics of platforms. Imagine video games no longer being tied to the hardware boxes they’re designed for, but instead being playable anywhere, on any device. We...
AI Fact Checking: Artificial? Yes. Intelligent?

AI Fact Checking: Artificial? Yes. Intelligent?

The phenomenon of ‘Fake news’ is now a household discussion, journalists and fact-checking platforms working solely to analyze and debunk these false pieces of information are now becoming increasingly visible. While it’s becoming harder than ever to tackle the...
Googley Eyes

Googley Eyes

Microsoft is doing it (Hololens), Apple is doing it (Apple AR), Facebook is doing it (Facebook AR Studio) and last but not least, Google is doing it. Augmented Reality is the future of computing and all the big companies want to be the leader on this new market (The...
Curing your smartphone addiction: There’s an app for that

Curing your smartphone addiction: There’s an app for that

Two hours forty-five minutes is the average time per day I spent on my Google Pixel 2 XL smartphone for the past 30 days. The question here is, do you know exactly how long have you spent on your...

Are we being mollycoddled by our phones; or are usage accountability measures a necessary intervention?

In June 2018, Apple announced that functions on their latest iOS update were intended  ‘to help customers understand and take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices’(Apple, 2018). In the same month, Google announced its...
Autonomous Cars Are The Future – But For Whom Are They The Future For?

Autonomous Cars Are The Future – But For Whom Are They The Future For?

  Autonomous cars have been hailed as the next leap for mankind in automotive transportation and infrastructure, offering not only advancements in private and public transport, but addressing difficulties in health infrastructure, emissions, road collisions, and government overheads on...
Wonder or Worry? Google has a new human-sounding Assistant!

Wonder or Worry? Google has a new human-sounding Assistant!

We can see AI at work everyday in the form of virtual personal assistants, which are embedded in almost any smartphone today. Whether its Alexa, Siri or Google Now, these virtual assistants have made our everyday lives simpler and...
The future of “rentism”

The future of “rentism”

This visualization is intended to give an overview of the concept of “Rentism” as it is discussed in the writings of 5 scholars: Joseph Stiglitz, Christian Marazzi, David Harvey, Thomas Piketty and Peter Frase. The visualization is a product...
Big tech goes to war over Augmented reality (AR) dominance

Big tech goes to war over Augmented reality (AR) dominance

In the year between June 2016 and June 2017, AR went from being a fun optional technology in a handful apps - like Pokémon GO – to becoming a vital part of the future strategy for every technology company...
New Google Feed: What about privacy?

New Google Feed: What about privacy?

In July of this year, Google Inc. delivered a new feature for its Google app called Feed.  This addition transforms the front page of the app into a news and information feed, where news articles and suggestions are presented...
Is Apple our Online-Privacy Vigilante?

Is Apple our Online-Privacy Vigilante?

Abstract: Apple purports that its new Intelligent Tracking Prevention Technology integrated in Safari browser prevents 3rd-party cookies from collecting users’ data, therefore, reducing online ads, and ultimately protecting users’ privacy. This paper challenges this by arguing that ITP’s functionality...
Can Google Search Solve the Most Topical Issue in Fashion Right Now?

Can Google Search Solve the Most Topical Issue in Fashion Right Now?

There’s one thing that most of us have in common: We all Google. So when the tech giant decides to break into the Fashion Industry, it seems to be providing an alluring set of qualities that deserve our attention....
Gboard: The Ultimate iPhone Keyboard?

Gboard: The Ultimate iPhone Keyboard?

Google recently released a new app for iOS called Gboard which expands the keyboard with a built in search engine. With Gboard Google makes it possible to search without a browser. Instead of leaving the app you’re currently using...
Want to join ISIS? Google it!

Want to join ISIS? Google it!

So, let’s say that you are interested in becoming an ISIS terrorist. What are you going to do? Probably Google it, like you would in any other situation.   The Redirect Method Over the last year Jigsaw, an Alphabet...
The CensorSensor – Revealing Localized Censorship through Interactive Maps: A Maptivist Approach to Corporate and Government Censorship

The CensorSensor – Revealing Localized Censorship through Interactive Maps: A Maptivist Approach to Corporate and Government Censorship

Almost all countries filter the Internet to varying degrees; anything from illegal downloading to child pornography and from human rights activities to government criticism. Filtering the Internet has a potential to reinforce the hegemonic power structures and to constrain...

“Buy buttons”: Is this the new shopping mecca?

If you just rewind back to the past, freeze your memory in the ‘90s and try to recall the retail websites of this era, it will be obvious how boring and indifferent purchases could be. But it was time...