Samuel L. Jackson and the Harsh Reality of Who Really Owns Your Tech

I never found Amazon's Alexa all that useful, but being able to ask Samuel L. Jackson to tell my kids to go to bed was a fun feature. Amazon quietly shared that they will be discontinuing these celebrity voices. Another tech site also reported that Google will stop supporting their original Chromecast streaming devices. And then there was the disturbing story of a woman with epilepsy who received an experimental brain implant that changed her life, only for a court to order that it be removed against her will after the company that manufactured it went out of business.

The theme among these stories is how the nature of ownership is continuing to change in the digital age. What belongs to us and what doesn't? Should it matter if it's literally inside your body? This topic is one that I explored in depth in a past episode of my Non-Obvious Book Review show when I interviewed the authors of a book titled Mine: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives. When do you really "own" something, and what rights do you really have over the tech that you use, pay for or allow to become a part of your life? These questions will continue to become more urgent over the next few years.