Linked List: March 13, 2017

Monday, 13 March 2017

Systems Smart Enough to Know When They’re Not Smart Enough ★

Good piece by Josh Clark on the problems with “one true answer” search responses:

Speed is a competitive advantage, and time is considered the enemy in most interfaces. That’s reflected in our industry’s fascination with download and rendering speeds, though those metrics are merely offshoots of the underlying user imperative, help me get this job done quickly. “Performance isn’t the speed of the page,” says Gerry McGovern. “It’s the speed of the answer.”

But it has to be the right answer. While this approach works a treat for simple facts like weather, dates, or addresses, it starts to get hairy in more ambitious topics — particularly when those topics are contentious.

I agree with Clark: this is a design problem. It’s a design mistake if you display the wrong answer in a way that makes it look like it’s certainly correct. It’s not a design mistake if you display that same wrong answer in a way that makes it clear that the answer isn’t certain.

How to Block Auto-Play Videos in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox ★

Kirk McElhearn:

Auto-play videos suck. They use bandwidth, and their annoying sounds get in the way when you’re listening to music and open a web page. I happen to write for a website that uses them, and it annoys me to no end. (My editors have no control over those auto-play videos, alas.)

But you can stop auto-play videos from playing on a Mac. If you use Chrome or Firefox, it’s pretty simple, and the plugins below work both on macOS and Windows; if you use Safari, it’s a bit more complex, but it’s not that hard.

Auto-play videos are so user-hostile that there ought to be a way to turn them off without needing an extension or hidden developer preference.

WSJ: ‘Intel in $15 Billion Deal for Self-Driving Tech Firm Mobileye’ ★

Austen Hufford, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

Intel Corp. on Monday said it struck a deal to buy Mobileye NV for about $15.3 billion, the latest investment by a technology company in the future of self-driving cars. […]

Mobileye makes chip-based camera systems that power semi-automated driving features that are already being used in cars, and is working to put that technology in the center of self-driving cars of the future.

Is there any major company in tech that is not investing heavily in self-driving cars?