Postcard from Geneva (or: Keeping up with the Americans) »

23 March 2025 | netopia

Earlier this year, I visited Geneva. More importantly, I visited CERN; the particle physics laboratory. It is a very impressive and welcoming place; go if you can. On the French border, there is a 27 ... »

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Facts – Who Needs Them? »

8 January 2025 | netopia

Is this the end of social media we witness? I hate to say “late capitalism," but does anyone have a better label? Having observed how Musk effectively killed Twitter/X by killing content moderation an... »

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Why No Amount of Public Money Will Buy a Euro-Amazon »

9 December 2024 | Netopia

It is a pain point for the European self-image of invention and progress that the internet skyscrapers are not from our continent. We invented the world wide web at CERN, no? How come we are behind in... »

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All Hail Our Robot Overlords »

21 October 2024 | netopia

Ray Kurzweil’s new book The Singularity Is Nearer brings back some familiar topics; review here by Ralf Grötker. One is the dualism of mind and body—in Christianity, our soul leaves the body and we ca... »

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TESCREAL or How to Tell if Your Broligarch Is after Your Soul (or just Your Data) »

2 September 2024 | netopia

What has gone wrong with the minds of Silicon Valley? In the 1970s the place was full of hippies who saw computers as a counter-culture. In the 1990s information wanted to be free. In the 2010s the in... »

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Regulation Begat Silicon Valley rather than “US Innovates, China Replicates, Europe Regulates” »

7 July 2024 | netopia

Is it only me or has the phrase US innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates become increasingly popular? In any case, it smells like a myth. Let’s dissect it. The narrative that only America c... »

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Vote AI? »

6 June 2024 | netopia

Netopia turned to artificial intelligence for guidance in this European election. We put the election manifestos of the main party groups into a large language model and asked it to analyse the dig... »

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Is Silicon Valley Running out of Hype? »

18 April 2024 | netopia

The digital economy runs on optimism and expectation. Tech startups don’t make money as long as the scale. Big tech shares are measured with a different yardstick than other businesses. Employees many... »

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What Dune Can Tell You about Copyright and Creative Work (bonus: Space Swim Suit) »

13 March 2024 | netopia

Everybody’s talking about Dune II, Netopia also wants to be in the club! We don’t review movies, but there is a copyright angle here – and not one you might expect. Here goes: I have done a fair sh... »

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Europe’s Digital Phantom Pains (or: How Start-up Programs Feed the Tech Beast) »

8 March 2024 | netopia

There is a particular flavour of European techno-nostalgia. It says something like: We used to be the leaders. We used to be inventors. We used to make the fastest trains, the fastest planes and the f... »

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