In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.

The Internet can empower groups whose aims are in fact antithetical to democracy.

North Korea aside, most authoritarian governments have already accepted the growth of the Internet culture as inevitable; they have little choice but to find ways to shape it in accord with their own narratives - or risk having their narratives shaped by others.

Surveillance cameras might reduce crime - even though the evidence here is mixed - but no studies show that they result in greater happiness of everyone involved.

In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.

You know, anyone who wears glasses, in one sense or another, is a cyborg.

The decentralized nature of online conversations often makes it easier to manipulate public opinion, both domestically and globally. Regimes that once relied on centralized systems of media control can now deliver ideological messages more subtly, with the help of little-known intermediaries like anonymous commenters on websites.