Algorithms are everywhere

An interesting TED talk on the increasing prevalence of algorithms in our lives, with examples mostly drawn from the financial markets.

Watching it, I noticed a couple of things he got wrong. For most TED talks, I know nothing about the subject. I assume the relevant experts have issues with most of the talks. Anyway, interesting and accessible stuff, regardless of my quibbles:

1. The Spread line was built to shave 3 milliseconds off the previous faster paths, not 3 microseconds. That is a difference of 2,997 microseconds.
2. The expensive real estate he describes in Frankfurt and NYC isn’t for getting close to the internet; it is to get closer to the matching engines. Speed sensitive finance traffic never touches the internet, it is all on dedicated lines such as Spread.