Top articles of the week | September 14

September 14, 2019

Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!

APIs are the next big SaaS Wave Techcrunch (reading time: 6 minutes)

Application programming interface is an interface or communication protocol between a client and a server intended to simplify the building of client-side software. It essentially lets different software components interact. In recent years, there’s been a rise in the use of large companies are essentially APIs; simple pieces of code that create value by connecting software and important new areas of innovation.

How China is Cashing in on Group Chats a16z (reading time: 9 minutes)

Conversational commerce also known as chatbots was supposed to be the future of commerce. While its promise is yet to be realized in the west, China’s WeChat is already capitalizing on it. This in depth article explores how consumers and businesses engage with each other in China. This reads like a cyberpunk novel staring into the future.

Artificial intelligence is changing every aspect of war The Economist (reading time: 15 minutes)

This is terrifyingly interesting read. Advances in predictive algorithms are being used more & more by the world’s militaries. We are not far away from a world that machines will be able to decide to kill without human intervention. Certain countries are much more aggressive in developing these technologies like the US and China.

The World’s First Ambassador to the Tech Industry NY Times (reading time: 9 minutes)

“Our values, our institutions, democracy, human rights, in my view, are being challenged right now because of the emergence of new technologies”.

Denmark recently named an ambassador to Silicon Valley to represent the country among the tech behemoths. It’s a fascinating move that has helped the country gain more attention with these monoliths.