Protesters fill the streets outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
AP Photo
This year, The Conversation celebrated the 50th anniversary of 1968 with its first podcast, ‘Heat and Light.’ These are some of the most interesting stories we uncovered – ones that still resonate in 2018.
It's been 50 years since the first prototype for the mouse was demonstrated in San Francisco. This the story of how it changed Silicon Valley – and the world.
A gilets jaunes “yellow vest” protester on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris takes a photograph using his mobile phone (December 8, 2018).
Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP
There’s an orderly fashion to so-called disruptive “manifestations”, as they’re called in French. But the “gilets jaunes” didn’t follow the rules. So who exactly broke the rules?
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Long read: How nature is fighting our attempts to use biohacking to live forever.
Research shows that so-called angel investors who write cheques to startups have a much bigger and more positive impact than governments providing ‘founding’ help to entrepreneurs.
(Shutterstock)
New research shows supporting angel investors, rather than giving startups ‘founding’ help, fosters entrepreneurship.
EarnestTse / Shutterstock.com
Who would you rather work for: Apple or Domino’s Pizza?
Google employees protest outside the Google Corporate Campus Headquarters in Mountain View, California on November 1, 2018.
EPA / JOHN G. MABANGLO
Industrial action by Google workers shows collective representation is needed even in what is meant to be the best company in the world.
Google employees protest outside the Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, California.
EPA-EFE/John G. Mabanglo
At a time when discussions about tech companies revolve around algorithms making automated decisions, the walkout gives Google a thousand human faces.
‘Computer, compose tweet.’
Ironwool/Shutterstock
Our ‘Tony Stark’ image of tech moguls is obscuring the talent and toil of ordinary workers, and inflating the egos of the bosses.
Shutterstock
Google needs to stop relying on just advertising if it wants to be successful in the next 20 years – but that is proving difficult.
Elon Musk has spoken to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund about taking Tesla private.
NVIDIA / flickr
Talk of Saudi Arabia helping Elon Musk take Tesla private is the latest example of a long line of sovereign wealth fund investments.
Wikimedia Commons
We urgently need to contemplate the myths we tell about ourselves and technology as a way of evaluating the relationship between the two.
Once lauded for their vision and promise, Silicon Valley giants have made life so hard for locals that residents regularly protest the companies, including their amenities like charter buses to save workers from the region’s terrible traffic.
AP Photo/Richard Jacobsen
Big technology firms are becoming known for mistreating workers, customers and society as a whole. Is an economic powerhouse about to collapse like Detroit did years go?
Charities should not make amassing more and more money their top priority.
Shutterstock.com/Stokkete
When organizations dedicated to doing good make money their top priority, they get into trouble.
Many voices mean many viewpoints.
nito/Shutterstock.com
Large Silicon Valley firms are not particularly diverse in terms of gender or race, but there are some companies doing better than their peers.
Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
Fortune Global Forum
Elizabeth Holmes has been charged with ‘massive fraud’. She maintains her innocence but what lessons can boards take away from the whole affair?
There are considerable differences in pay, employment levels, and the types of activities that men and women perform in the workplace.
shutterstock
Automation could transform our working world. Here’s what we can do to ensure it is a more gender equal one.
artificial-intelligence-503593_1920/flickr
The dangers of AI solutionism need to be addressed.
Will they disrupt the tech sector?
Reuters/Eduardo Munoz
Americans’ widespread belief that they live in a meritocracy where anyone can get ahead actually makes inequality even worse, particularly in terms of gender.
Companies should listen to both male and female employees on this issue and pay attention to any backlash.
Research has found Silicon Valley engineers feared speaking up when they recognise poor behaviour among their male colleagues.