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Maria Gurova

Google on Its Own Transparency Report: This Is Not Good Enough - Rebecca J. Rosen - The... - 0 views

  • To promote transparency around this flow of information, we’ve built an interactive online Transparency Report with tools that allow people to see where governments are demanding that we remove content and where Google services are being blocked.
  • Though Google would often note that the report was not complete picture of how governments accessed user data online, it couched that admission in the context that the report was growing and improving with each release.
  • Since we began sharing these figures with you in 2010, requests from governments for user information have increased by more than 100 percent. This comes as usage of our services continues to grow, but also as more governments have made requests than ever before. And these numbers only include the requests we’re allowed to publish.
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  • Instead of highlighting the report's strengths, it is using this release to emphasize what it cannot say, but wants to.
Anton Vorykhalov

Kuwait Makes Registration Mandatory For DNA Database | Digital Trends - 0 views

  • Citizens of Kuwait must now register their DNA with the government or face hefty fines
  • In a bold and controversial move, Kuwait has just passed a new law that makes it mandatory to register your DNA with the government. Starting soon, the 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents of Kuwait will have to enter their individual DNA profiles into a government database.
  • Since the program is being mandated, the government of Kuwait will spend the equivalent of about $400 million to subsidize the DNA testing and management. Refusal to comply or DNA tampering could result in fines as high as $33,000, and even time in prison.
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  • The hope is that capitalizing on the availability of DNA technology in today’s market will help deter criminal acts in the future, as well as expedite arrests and investigations when incidents do occur.
Irina Marchenko

Child internet safety - Department of Education - 0 views

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    Children learn about internet safety in school, as it is taught as part of the National Curriculum, and Safer Internet Day is widely promoted in February each year. In addition, the Government has pressed for progress through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS). UKCCIS is a group of more than 200 organisations across the government, industry, law enforcement, academia and charity sectors, who work in partnership to help keep children safe online. The UKCCIS board is chaired by ministers. UKCCIS achievements include the creation of:
Irina Marchenko

Russia starts censoring internet suicide content after passing child protection law - 0 views

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    Last year Russia passed a law giving the government powers to control and blacklist certain websites that it deemed to be harmful to children Outgoing FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has said the legislation signals "a troubling and dangerous direction" for the internet in Russia, and speaking to the Times, journalist Anton Nosik called the laws "absurd, harmful, and absolutely unnecessary" - while playing down the likelihood of a broader enforcement across the web. The government, for its part, argues that the bill was designed to protect children from harm by blocking pages on drugs, suicide, or child pornography.
Maria Gurova

FuturePundit: Regulations For Offspring Genetic Engineering - 0 views

  • The prospect of genetically much altered future generations is no longer in the distant science fiction future but rather in the "some of the people reading this will live to see it on large scale" future.
  • Some more competitive governments might mandate genetic editing to put a floor on intelligence. Want a first class high tech economy? Allow no kid below 120 IQ. The first government to do that will have the highest per capita income economy in the world 50 years later if not much sooner.
  • My expectation is that differences in regulatory response to germ line genetic engineering technologies will cause the populations of the world's various countries to diverge in a variety of ways that will be immediately visibl
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    in the highly delicate mater of genetic engineering that might become a reality sooner that one might expect, how would the individual governments react? And is this an internal affair that is to be handled inside the country that might get the first access to the high-end bio engineering technology. 
Maria Gurova

Jennifer Pahlka at TED [Video] | Code for America - 0 views

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    please watch this great TED talk about how not to give up on government. And how not just to be heard and have the voice, but also to do something for your community with your own hands. What kind of citizens we want our kids do be?
alexbelov

UK government invests £60 million in Skylon 'super-plane' that could cut Lond... - 0 views

  • UK government invests £60 million in Skylon 'super-plane' that could cut London to Sydney flights to just four hours
  • Its 'Sabre' engine - a hybrid rocket and jet propulsion system which theoretically allows travel anywhere on Earth in four hours or less - could become a reality in a decade.
  • A full ground-based engine test is currently planned for 2020.
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  • The super-plane will rely on cooling an incoming airstream from 1,000 degrees C to minus 150 C almost instantly, at close to 1/100th of a second.
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    Aerospace flight research aiming to speed up long-distance flights. However investment volume seems inadequate for such a huge project.
Vladimir Antonov

Refugee camps are the "cities of tomorrow", says aid expert - 0 views

  • Governments should stop thinking about refugee camps as temporary places
  • "These are the cities of tomorrow,"
  • The average stay today in a camp is 17 years. That's a generation."
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  • lack of willingness to recognise that camps had become a permanent fixture around the world
  • "We're doing humanitarian aid as we did 70 years ago after the second world war. Nothing has changed."
  • He believes that migrants coming into Europe could help repopulate parts of Spain and Italy that have been abandoned as people gravitate increasingly towards major cities
  • "Many places in Europe are totally deserted because the people have moved to other places," he said. "You could put in a new population, set up opportunities to develop and trade and work. You could see them as special development zones which are actually used as a trigger for an otherwise impoverished neglected area."
  • "It creates tons of jobs, even for those who are coming in now. Germany will come out of this crisis."
  • that aid organisations and governments needed to accept that new technologies like 3D printing could enable refugees and migrants to become more self-sufficient.
  • With a Fab Lab people could produce anything they need – a house, a car, a bicycle, generating their own energy, whatever
  • my god, these are just refugees, so why should they be able to do 3D-printing
  • We have to get away from the concept that, because you have that status – migrant, refugee, martian, alien, whatever – you're not allowed to be like everybody else.
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    Refugee camps are the "cities of tomorrow", says humanitarian-aid expert. The main idea is those people could be relocated to the abandoned areas in Europe and start a better life with their communities, but governments should provide them with these opportunities and stop thinking about those cities as permanent relocation places.
Oleg Batluk

Khaled Naim on eSports governing body : CalvinAyre.com - 0 views

  • create “FIFA-like” body
  • establishing associations is key to professionalize the whole eSports industry
Maria Gurova

The Public Costs of Private Distribution Strategies: Content Release Windows as Negativ... - 0 views

  • “copyright extremism” – a term he used to describe extended delays in content distribution, which often result in content reaching foreign markets months after it is released in the United States.
  • Essentially, “extremism” is another way of saying that piracy is more a business model problem than a policy problem. 
  • The strategy of windowing has long been practiced because it is believed to maximize revenue opportunities for a given film.  By giving successive distribution channels exclusive rights to the work, a film distributor aims to extract maximum revenues from licensees in each channel.
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  • Even if film distributors were to reject the conventional wisdom of windowing, those windows are jealously guarded by their respective sectors.  The theatrical exhibition window is particularly so
  • announced in September 2014 that they would distribute a sequel to the 2000 hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon simultaneously via Netflix and IMAX theaters worldwide, movie theater chains swiftly circled the wagons and announced a boycott of the Weinsteins’ film.
  • “value of ownership for the consumer” is a euphemism for “consumer willingness-to-pay.”  The longer a consumer must wait before they can watch a movie on their Netflix subscription, the likelier that consumer is to pay for a DVD
  • numerous industries have attempted to insulate themselves from disruption by persuading lawmakers to prescribe their exclusive industrial role in public laws, including auto dealers and beer distributors
  • windowing has been widely criticized as contributing to piracy, and “leaving money on the table.”  Empirical evidence bears that out.  Content producers are not unaware of this data; their calculus is that the revenues attributable to aggressive windowing (and avoiding friction with their distributors) exceed losses associated with piracy.
  • Windowing alienates consumers and arguably undermines respect for copyright in countries that receive content late
  • In the content distribution example, compensation might involve repayment for government resources expended on attributable piracy, perhaps based on a user-fee model that various government agencies already have.  If the windowed release distribution model generated more revenue than the costs it incurs, it would continue, taxpayers would be made whole, and the externality would be “internalized.”
Maria Gurova

In The Future, The Whole World Will Be A Classroom | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and... - 1 views

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    please watch the video conversation, but here are my brief takeaways: - There is a shift form institutional structures (corporations, centralized governments, educational establishments) to social structuring - Social Structuring - creating value by aggregating micro contributors by large networks using social tools and technology Key patterns in future of learning are 1. Content comments 2. New Foundations 3. Global Learning arbitrage 4. Embedded and embodied learning 5. Human-software symbiosis 6. Socialstructured work Major shifts in learning: - from episodic to continuous learning - from content conveyors to content curators - from working at one scale to working at up&down the scale - from degrees to reputation metrics - from grades to continuous feedback
Maria Gurova

The future of local government - 0 views

  • We increasingly live in a world where we don’t have to leave our homes, and when we do, we travel in isolation
  • It is in public space that we encounter a wide variety of people different from ourselves. Public spaces are important because they provide room to negotiate how we will live together in a highly populated environment. Encountering people of different races, classes, ages and abilities on a daily basis has the potential to cultivate a citizenry that is more tolerant of diversit
  • Streets are declining as a form of public space because street life often is perceived – and sometime is – unsafe: thus we frequently retreat indoors, making the streets even less safe
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  • Harford argues that much can be done to make public space safe for children. “I would like to see pedestrian-friendly crossings more frequently on streets. I would like to see the streets be more kid-oriented with wider sidewalks, as well as a more coherent attitude amongst people on the street to be watching out for kids.”
  • in “real life, only from the ordinary adults of the city sidewalks do children learn – if they learn it at all – the first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.
  • Ronda Howard, a Vancouver senior city planner, notes that when there are greater incentives for people to walk in their neighbourhoods, there are more eyes on the street: thus the streets become safer.
  • Despite the challenges facing parents raising children in the city, different social networks can augment child involvement in public space. Harford says that strong social ties help increase her son’s autonomy in Vancouver
  • When we actively engage with others who are different from us, we have the opportunity to become more sophisticated and tolerant citizens. When we get to know the diverse members of our communities, we create social networks that make our cities safer and more enjoyable. Public spaces are integral to making this happen. These spaces are an antidote to the inward gaze of individualism. We need to reclaim public space and work to expand its boundaries. It’s time for us to leave the house of the self in the background, and go outside
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    how modern public spaces are interconnected with the health and social skills of the future generation. When kids spent less time indoors not only their health become vulnerable, but also their position as future citizens 
Irina Marchenko

G20's Young Entrepreneurs are Increasingly Interested in Digital Technologies but not H... - 0 views

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    The recommendations summarized in a final Summit communique primarily focus on the following: *Need to develop digital infrastructure. Young entrepreneurs are the most active group in terms of both starting up businesses and using the latest digital technology to help run the business and optimize business processes; *Importance of developing educational programs for entrepreneurs, advancing the entrepreneurial culture, and streamlining government funding for "green" technology studies; *Need to ease the tax burden in the fields of scientific-technical programs and social entrepreneurship, namely the taxes imposed on employers and employee income tax; *Access to funding for startups and emerging companies. Ensuring funding on easy terms, changing banking requirements, developing rules for new forms of funding, including cross border online platforms, investors' and entrepreneurs' networks.
alexbelov

Micromanufacturing the future | TechCrunch - 1 views

  • Micromanufacturing is the manufacturing of products in small quantities using small manufacturing facilities
  • In a perfect positive feedback loop that invariably forms around emerging technologies, SMT machines, reflow ovens and other necessary components of electronic board production will become smaller and cheaper, then cheaper still as they get even smaller.
  • Digikey is like Amazon and Wikipedia rolled into one
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  • Digikey is a vast store of virtually anything and everything that goes on printed circuit boards, from humble resistors to mighty CPUs
  • Digikey also provides technical data and marketing materials for everything they offer
  • most components can now be ordered in reels, even if the order quantity is very small
  • The idea is to allow manufacturers to create parts delivery schedules and thus achieve that coveted just-in-time production.
  • Extrapolating into the future, I see a world where compact SMT machines automatically order electronic parts from Digikey.
  • This budding movement to bring the manufacturing back home is not restricted to America alone. Across the globe in Russia, the government has started to eliminate tariffs on electronic components and simultaneously created significant barriers to using imported goods in government projects. The trend is clear, and countries big and small are beginning to follow suit.
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    On-demand component-based production becomes available to consumers. A trend of micro-factories is starting to take off. Just-in-time manufacturing will be a local and niche business. It should allow countries to return goods manufacturing back home from China and other off-shore locations.
Anton Vorykhalov

'Snooper's charter' bill becomes law, extending UK state surveillance | World news | Th... - 0 views

  • 'Snooper's charter' bill becomes law, extending UK state surveillance
  • The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.
  • “The government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement and security and intelligence services have the power they need to keep people safe. The internet presents new opportunities for terrorists and we must ensure we have the capabilities to confront this challenge. But it is also right that these powers are subject to strict safeguards and rigorous oversight.”
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  • He said the legislation was debated and passed while the public, media and politicians were preoccupied with Brexit: “Now that the bill has passed, there is renewed concern about the extent of the powers that will be given to the police and security agencies.
  • Home secretary hails ‘world-leading’ laws, which include forcing web and phone companies to collect browsing histories
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    British Yarovaya law
Maria Gurova

How do we tackle urban planning? - The Hindu - 0 views

  • Indian cities don’t have planning. It has led to anarchic growth — cities and town are growing, more people are coming, huge construction turnover, huge investments in healthcare and educational sectors that are exclusive and unaffordable for the majority
  • The failure is so severe the government has to come back and play a dominant role in city planning. Citizens have to play a primary role
  • We are shrinking our public spaces as cities expand
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  • You might own expensive cars, but your children are still playing cricket on the streets; there are no playgrounds. Clubs and atriums are becoming new ideas of public spaces where rich children go for recreation. These notions of public spaces are oppressive to children. We are all trapped in our high-density capsules that will lead to serious health and mental trauma
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    rapid urbanization in emerging markets is shrinking public spaces and kids playgrounds, which leads to the serious health problems 
Maria Gurova

Russia's War on Foreigners - By Anna Alekseyeva | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants living in the country vary widely, but fall somewhere in the range of three to six million people. It is likely that around 30 percent of Moscow's immigrant population is illegal.
  • According to Russia's Federal Migration Service director, Konstantin Romodanovsky, these middlemen have created a shadow economy that amounts to almost $1 billion. As with every lucrative industry in Russia, this shadow market inevitably has ties to the government.
  • The cruelty that has become an all-too-common refrain in today's Russia stems, at least in part, from the ingrained belief in Russian exceptionalism -- the idea that Russian morality is unique and therefore beyond reproach. Originating in ancient Kievan Rus, this idea was propagated by the Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages, and was prominently displayed in the communist revolutionary claims of the 20th century.
Maria Gurova

Meet the Robots That Will Help Run a Tokyo Airport - 0 views

  • Last week, Japan’s ominously named robotics company Cyberdyne announced new technologies it’ll start rolling out at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in September: Two robots, one exoskeleton. One robot shuttles unwieldy luggage, another cleans the facility, and the exo assists with heavy lifting.
  • Japan’s government actively funds robotics R&D, with aims to triple the nation’s robotics market to $22 billion in the next six years, and is keen on showing off some impressive technology at Tokyo’s Summer Olympics in 2020
Ekaterina Yanovskaya

China to launch home-grown OS in October as Windows replacement - Computerworld - 0 views

  • The operating system, which Xinhua did not name, will be initially offered on desktop PCs, with the plan to later extend it to smartphones
  • We hope to launch a Chinese-made desktop operating system by October supporting app stores
  • Earlier this year, China officials banned the use of Windows 8 on government computers
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    China to launch home-grown OS in October as Windows replacement
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