Explorer: Juicy tech reads to catch you up on 2025 so far

What a year, huh? ("Lemon, it's May"). It's a fascinating "find out" time for a lot of tech juggernauts, and we're all caught up in the mess. I'm working hard to try and find some answers to the issues of AI, digital platforms and creative communities. But I want to feed your brains some tasty articles that have had me thinking over recent months. Enjoy.

Tech platforms

‘Side job, self-employed, high-paid’: behind the AI slop flooding TikTok and Facebook

In places like India, Vietnam and China, churning out weird AI videos is the latest side hustle for students and stay-at-home mothers.

The ConversationJiaru Tang

AI Search Has A Citation Problem

We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News.

Columbia Journalism ReviewKlaudia Jaźwińska and Aisvarya Chandrasekar

AI code suggestions sabotage software supply chain

: Hallucinated package names fuel ‘slopsquatting’

The RegisterThomas Claburn

There Is No AI Revolution

Soundtrack: Mack Glocky - Chasing Cars Last week, I spent a great deal of time and words framing the generative AI industry as a cynical con where OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have used a compliant media and braindead investors to frame unprofitable, unsustainable, environmentally-damaging and mediocre cloud

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed AtEdward Zitron

Culture questions

The Internet of Consent - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Anil DashAnil Dash

The Money Is In All The Wrong Places | Defector

You can always tell who in Hollywood has family money by their Instagrams. People like Dakota Johnson, who have a Hollywood lineage deeper than the Mariana Trench, post only rarely. They post about social justice causes they care about, or personal announcements. Even someone like actress and musician Maya Hawke mostly posts previews of upcoming […]

Defector homeKelsey McKinney

The hidden world beneath the shadows of YouTube’s algorithm

There’s a secret side of YouTube, just beyond the guiding hand of the algorithm – and it’s nothing like what you know.

BBCThomas Germain

The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians

A handful of gifted young tech people set out to save the world. For years, WIRED has been tracking each twist and turn of their alleged descent into mayhem and death.

WIREDEvan Ratliff

Nemesis | The Umami Theory of Value

Nemesis is a consultancy and creative studio with nodes in Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York.

The Umami Theory of Value

The Good Weird Web

900 People Are Collectively Driving an ‘Internet Roadtrip’ on Google Street View

The new site is a cozy and chaotic successor to ’Twitch plays Pokémon.

404 MediaMatthew Gault

Ghost hunting, pornography and interactive art: the weird afterlife of Xbox Kinect

Fifteen years since Microsoft’s motion-sensing gaming camera was released for the Xbox 360, artists, roboticists and more are still finding new ways to use it

The GuardianGeoffrey Bunting

Recently on Byteside

Which Way Up is full of fresh gravity bending mayhem

Australia’s own Turtle Flip has just released its Galaxy meets Party game and it’s a real treat.

BytesideSeamus Byrne

Can Sunderfolk thread the needle to make RPG strategy fun for the whole family?

It’s pretty, it’s friendly, and you play it with your phone – but not ‘on’ your phone. Sunderfolk is shooting for an interesting Goldilocks zone for couch co-op we haven’t really seen before.

BytesideSeamus Byrne

The 2025 Lego F1 kits give us something for every fan

Lego sets can be very expensive, but the F1 series this year offers options at prices every fan can afford.

BytesideSeamus Byrne

Sonos is upgrading its speech enhancement system

Sadly only on the Arc Ultra, but maybe this is just the start?

BytesideSeamus Byrne

How do you save good links?

My favourite way to save articles to read later, Pocket, is going away after 18 years of service. Mozilla has sadly decided it would rather invest in AI than keep a simple little bookmarking tool that is perfect this one useful task.

Anyone got good suggestions for other tools to do the task? I'm now using Zotero in my PhD research work, but I'm not sure it's right for broader article link management. I also still use Feedly, but I would send from Feedly to Pocket for a nice, simple reading experience.

If you have ideas, hit me a reply.