Last Week in Tech 4 (formerly Weekly Summary)

The cycle that used to be called “Weekly Summary” is now called “Last Week in Tech.” I will be only covering news from the entrepreneurship & tech from the last week.

Google’s Personal Incognito

At a hearing in San Jose, USA, District Judge Lucy Koh stated that she is ‘disturbed’ by Google’s data collection practices. Why?

It looks as if even if you are browsing the web in the incognito mode in Chrome, you are being tracked by websites using Google’s Analytics or Ads. What seems to be happening, is that your “private” browsing history is being tracked back to you anyway through the widespread use of “free” software of the company. How many websites that can enable tracking are there?

Out of 10 000 most popular ones, at least 7 200 of them use Google’s code, according to builtwith.com.

You can mitigate that by installing uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. You have to also allow them to work in the “incognito” mode. You can do this by clicking this link (assuming you are using desktop Chrome), clicking the “Details” button on the extension card, and then clicking “Allow in Incognito”.

Goldman Sachs wants to stick to the old ways

Goldman Sachs’s CEO David Solomon goes against the trend of allowing employees to work from homes (Spotify, Shopify, Coinbase, and Dropbox recently made the switch). He suggests that the move does not “suit the work culture.”

While working remotely can be seen as a cybersecurity threat(and a big one at that), the benefits are huge. For one, having to maintain costly office space is not a concern anymore. What’s more is that 67% of employers admit working remotely has not changed productivity, and 27% admitted, that it has helped to get done more(!), according to a recent survey by Mercer.

Modular laptop of the future

In the past, we have waited for Google’s Project Ara - the modular smartphone of the future, however, we never got to actually see it being available commercially. Sure, there was a lot of “hype” surrounding the concept, however all of it seems to have passed. I am yet to see a person using one of them, and if you have not heard of Fairphone, then you only prove my point.

Now, however, a truly modular laptop has been announced - the Framework Laptop. Its modular design stands in stark contrast to a lot of the laptops that are often quite literally impossible to repair on your own (looking at you Apple, and Microsoft).

With the modular laptop, you are able to swap everything on your own - including the motherboard. This makes for a laptop which you know you will be able to rely on, always, and on top of that, you will be able to upgrade it, multiple times.

I rate the idea 10/10, and would love to have one of the Framework Laptops.

Possible drawbacks are that customers might feel urged to upgrade its device often, and because of this, creating more electronic waste.

Please note, I am in no way associate with the company producing and/or selling the laptops.