December 30, 2014

2015 Shaping Up To Be an Annoying Year in Tech

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The Wall Street Journal is running a feature today called “The Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2015.” Sounds great. I’m ready to hear about my future. Sock it to me:

Virtual Assistants You Won’t Want to Fire

“You have an 8:30 a.m. meeting with your supervisor. Last time you met, your heart rate was high. Go to bed early tonight, don’t drink coffee before the meeting and leave home early—traffic will be heavy.”

That’s how much smarter predictive personal assistants like Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana will begin to get….

Seriously? This is what my smartphone will allegedly be doing in the new year? Just kill me now.

As for the rest of the list, call me underwhelmed. Apple watches, Windows 10, yet more fitness trackers, e-credit cards, and an endless procession of “Uber for ____” apps? What happened to my flying cars?

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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