Group items tagged

The title explains. It's Russia instigating the attack like always! This time on Ukraine. So, instead of letting Russians freely figuring out the state of affairs of their own country and Ukraine by the internet -a widely used resource-, they decide to censor matters related to it. Particularly, Ukranian protest group websites. It's currently unknown why Russia is organizing this attack on Ukraine. Land? (greedy bastards) Rebuilding the USSR? Who knows. I wouldn't call this a crisis just yet, as the USA hasn't made any major moves except a warning to Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty. I am totally against internet censorship in all respects, to be honest, so to me Russia is acting ridiculous. A person's right to information is pretty much broken, and that is where the line is drawn for me. Although, I am sure Putin thinks hardly of his citizen's well being, so this is not surprising for Russia.

Social media is used in everyone's daily lives. Whether it be sending a tweet, posting something on Facebook, blogging on tumblr, or posting a picture on instagram, we are all involved in social media in someway. This article is about how the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has declared war on Ukraine and has sent thousands of Russian troops to invade parts of Ukraine. President Obama spoke with Vladimir Putin, and made in clear that what he is doing is violating Ukraine's sovereignty and that this would have a negative impact on Russia. . On the weekend, Russian troops surrounded the borders of Crimea because the President of Russia said that he wants to protect the Russian citizens that live there. I think that what Vladimir Putin is doing isn't good at all because it could lead to a second cold war. Social media has played a big role in this war crisis because all over the internet there are tweets about whats happening, pictures of people getting hurt, videos of the Russians surrounding Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, and different Facebook groups that support the Russians and the Ukrainians. I think that social media helps a lot in situations like this because it makes the world aware of whats happening and that something should be done to stop this.

This week, pro-russian hacking groups have said that they have took down many of NATO's websites. The group that claimed attack was Cyber Berkut a hactivist group. The type of attack was a DDOS attack (distributed-denial of service). The attacks came when Ukraine decided if its Crimea region was to join Russia. The Russian government has also ordered ISP's (internet service providers) to block certain anti-Putin websites. I believe this hacking is just a less violent form of Ukraine vs Russia. I still do not believe why Pro-Russian hackers would interfere with a referendum that would actually co-inside with their very own beliefs.

It's no secret that the countries such as North Korea (obviously), China, and Iran have filtered the internet via censorship to within a couple of breathes of its life. But now there is a new country passing censorship policies: Russia. According to the New York Times, the Russian government has

This is just crazy. These guys have just taken hacking to the extreme level. I mean there is totally no privacy anymore. People from the U.S. government go to China or Russia with few or no electronic devices due to the fear of getting hacked. There is this guy named Kenneth Lieberthal who is an expert in travelling, takes extraordinary precautions whenever he goes to China. When he is there, he disables his bluetooth and Wi-Fi, never lets his phone out of sight, and in meetings, not only does he turn off his phone, but also takes out the battery, for fear that hacker might snoop in to their discussions by turning on his microphone remotely. Personally, I would hate to see what would happen for the next ten years of technological advancement.

Many hardware development companies have been popping up all around the world even obscure places like Kazan Russia. This article is specific to Navigator Campus which will try to make itself into a larger company. Their focus currently is into consumer goods and products like robotics, 3D-printing, and wearable technologies. I think it's really good that many hardware producers are being formed because a lot more people will be given the chance to try out their ideas and develop new technologies. Also when you have more people working on the same things like 3D printers the technology will evolve that much faster. Finally, I like that smaller companies are trying to come into the market and try to grow and compete with the larger corporations.

In relation to my post on the 'Spectrum Crunch' two weeks ago, this article is about studies showing the economic benefits of mobile phone networks. Countries with higher levels of data usage per 3G connection, such as Russia, South Korea, and the UK have an seen increase in their GDP/capita growth.  Countries that have only recently adopted 3G, such as India, have shown no economic growth. Dr. Robert Pepper, vice president of global technology policy at Cisco, said, "The fact that increasing high-speed mobile broadband data usage leads to greater average per capita income underscores the need for increased investment in wireless networks as well as for government policies to foster that investment, including the allocation of additional spectrum." The high-speed sharing of information over various networks, not limited to cellphone networks, has high potential to increase economies of countries around the world. However, these benefits may not be obtained if we run out of much needed frequencies in which to share the information. Our generation has become increasingly entwined with technology and its development. Through the Internet and cellphones, we exchange extremely large amounts of information daily. This can be an important factor in the growth of countries and development of other technology in the near future.

This article is about how Google maps now allow you to go into street view over the peaks of mountains.Google's Dan Fredinburg, program manager and mountaineer, lead Google Mountain Enthusiast teams up Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Elbrus in Russia, and up to the Everest South Base Camp in Nepal. Unfortunately, the team showed up just a little bit too early in the season to make it all the way to the top of Everest, and had to settle for base camp citing their guides' literal warning of certain death on the way to the peak, Fredinburg told Wired. But summit of Everest or not, the sights are still amazing, and have never been quite this easy to see for yourself. So go on google maps to see how amazing these peaks really are.  In my opinion, I believe that this is incredible for everyone because not everyone is a mountaineer and some mountaineers themselves haven't been able to reach the peak of a mountain. So I believe that with this new feature, it will grab people's attention and give them a better idea of what the top of a mountain looks like.

This article is about meteors and how often they land on Earth. On Thursday Feb. 14/13 a meteorite fell to Earth in Russia overnight and so far 500 people have been injured. space rocks enter Earth's atmosphere all the time but most burn up before it can reach Earth's surface. A mineralogist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said that there are typically five to ten meteorite strikes around Earth per year but most we do not hear about or see because the Earth is about 70% water and most land there. This article relates to the Environment tag because even though it is very rare to see a meteorite hit Earth they can change the landscape and even the sometimes life. An example of this is with the dinosaurs or creating a crater hole which can later turn into a lake.

HP managers in Russia have allegedly bribed executives in the Russian Prosecutors General Office for about $9.7 million to land a deal to supply the office with HP computers, printers, etc for $45.3 million. German lawyers say that HP its self should be prosecuted and there should be a US investigation. HP is cooperating with the US and the court but say that they didn't that this was happening. The people who bribed those officials are not very smart because if you bribe someone you know that you will get caught sooner or later. Because of their actions this might cause a fall in HP sales of their software, computers and printers. Legally this ruins costumer trust for HP and could also cause fall of sales.       

Yota Devices is a smart phone phone company, based in Russia that is making waves in the cell phone community with their innovations in smart phone hardware. The yotaphone was released last year in asia and europe and quickly made a name for itself by offering not only staple specs we have come to expect, but also innovation for the screen. Its front screen operates as anyone would guess, so the real area the phone stands out in is shown when flipped over. The back screen is a low-power e-ink display that in the phones first incarnation was mainly used for display and lacked touchscreen capabilities. Now, however, in the yotaphones upcoming successor: the screen has made the jump to a full touch panel, allowing it be used to answer calls, receive and dismiss notifications and be used to play games that don't require the flashy capabilities of the front screen. This kind of innovation in cellphone technology is of paramount importance and the biggest step forward since the original iphone. The potential is amazing, allowing for new software to utilize the second screen, and making cellphones even more accessible and useful to the smartphone community.

In this article, it states that the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics were the most tweeted and most mentioned moments, athletes and sports up to date. The most mentioned sports on twitter in order were ice hockey, curling, and figure skating while the most mentioned sport on Facebook in order was ice hockey, figure skating and bobsleigh. In all, 40 million Olympic-related tweets were sent during the games and 45 million different Facebook users were responsible for a combined 120 million posts, comments and likes on Facebook. twitter did break down the top moments on Twitter of the games was USA's win over Russia in men's ice hockey shootout was 72, 630 TPM  while Facebook created a video that showed the most popular sports in each country each day. Canada was mainly talking about Ice hockey with a little figure skating 

Who is the internet run by? The answer to that would be 193 U.N. members. Surprisingly, countries are sort of blocked off when it deals with internet affairs. To gain more power, certain countries like China and Russia have lobbied an agency called the ITU (International Telecommunications Union). The ITU's goal right now is internet censorship. They feel they need to have more control, and are threatening it's open, 'free to do whatever you want', nature. Next week, the ITU holds a negotiating conference in Dubai. They have already a proposed a 200 page treaty which makes some internet users worrisome. The ITU is trying to propose a tax on visiting popular websites like google, facebook, etc.. Google is against the idea already, and putting up petitions that show the need for net neutrality. Online users are counting on their own countries governments that they will not control the internet at the users will

thoughts/opinions?