At this point, most of us feel we couldn't live without our smartphones. With texting, email, and hundreds of apps available, smartphones rarely leave the palm of our hands. And this dependence is enabled by addictive apps and feedback mechanisms called intermittent variable rewards.
Cody Gough is an editor and podcast host at Curiosity.com. He explains how developers have engineered apps so that they give consumers rewards every time the app is visited. This increases engagement frequency and time. In the new age of advertising, consumer time is money.
Gough offers tips to kick cellphone addiction. He recommends charging your phone in a different room and avoiding mindless scrolling when possible. He also suggests keeping other tech and toys handy for downtime. Packing a book or Kindle for your commute will prevent mindless Twitter scrolling.
The trial of a Fugees rapper, who was convicted this year in multimillion-dollar political conspiracies, stretched across the worlds of politics and entertainment — and now the case is touching on the tech world with arguments that his defense attorney bungled the case, in part, by using an artificial intelligence program to write his closing arguments.
Amazon will soon make prescription drugs fall from the sky when the e-commerce giant becomes the latest company to test drone deliveries for medications.
The new Pixel 8 smartphone released this week by Google includes an AI photo editing software that will allow users to change the expression of a person in pictures.
