DLD loves New York!

"DLD is a travelling circus and I am very happy that you all found your way to our fifth conference here in New York City!" With these words DLD founder Steffi Czerny and DLD Chairman Yossi Vardi welcomed the more than 600 participants. Bright sunshine flooding the IAC building by architect Frank Gery provided the perfect set-up for an inspiring conference day in the Big Apple.

"Our DLD motto for this year is 'Reconquer'," said Czerny during her welcome address. "What exactly do we mean by that? Dissatisfaction with the consequences of technology is not only noticeable in Europe, but also in the USA. That is why we are here in New York City today to provide important food for thought at our conference and to spark discussions on how we can work together to address the key issues facing the world today. We are pleased to welcome 46 speakers in 22 sessions on our DLD stage".

How to fix the future

Burda CEO Paul-Bernhard Kallen discussed with Internet critic Andrew Keen and betawork CEO John Borthwick right at the beginning of the conference how to save the future. "I'm basically a big fan of the Internet, but we've lost control of our data right now," Kallen said urgently. "These are not only analysed and misused for economic purposes, but also stored indefinitely." His claim for the future: data would have to be deleted after 90 days. And he would like at least 200 million users of Burda's own browser Cliqz, which not only protects the data of each individual user, but also enables a simplified search without the unnecessary way via search engine pages such as Google.

Amazon on the way to world domination?!

The increasing power of the Internet giant Amazon has been a recurring theme at DLD New York, including a stirring and emotional lecture by Scott Galloway, professor of business administration at New York University and a regular DLD speaker. Galloway made the dominant supremacy of Amazon very clear mainly due to the fact that no other company has managed to gain access to almost every household. In the USA, for example, around three-quarters of households have an Amazon Prime account; with Alexa, the company dominates the "voice" sector and possesses countless, sensitive data on its customers worldwide.

Reconquer Voice!

Speaking of Alexa and the future of Voice: Amazon's Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels himself took a seat on the DLD stage for an interview with Rebecca Blumenstein of the New York Times. Vogels is convinced that with Alexa he can provide enormous relief not only in our private but also in our professional life. Using a single voice command, for example, meetings can be started, conference rooms booked and participation in video conferences made possible. "It's taken quite a long time, but now our technology is finally ready to change the way we work with Alexa."

Behind the scenes of Facebook

Wired editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein (Wired Tech editor) shared interesting insights and background information on the current discussions around Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg's hearing with the DLD participants. Moderated by former editor-in-chief Tanit Koch, they asked Facebook not only to focus its efforts on privacy issues, but above all to concentrate on a better control of their news feed. "It's important that Facebook finally finds a solution to regulate its content," said editor-in-chief Thompson. The categorization of content could be an important step here to ensure more trustworthy content on the platform. When Tanit Koch asked them how they felt about Zuckerberg's appearance in court, they both agreed: "He definitely got off very well," was the clear answer. Although the hearing had not produced any immediate results, it had been an important step in paving the way for further hearings and complaints of this kind.

Pictures of DLD New York can be found in the picture gallery and here on Flickr.