Group items tagged

Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany Internet giant investigates abuse claims by foreign workers in its German warehouses Tony Paterson Berlin

Amazon is at the centre of a deepening scandal in Germany as the online shopping giant faced claims that it employed security guards with neo-Nazi connections to intimidate its foreign workers. Germany’s ARD television channel made the allegations in a documentary about Amazon’s treatment of more than 5,000 temporary staff from across Europe to work at its German packing and distribution centres.The film showed omnipresent guards from a company named HESS Security wearing black uniforms, boots and with military haircuts. They were employed to keep order at hostels and budget hotels where foreign workers stayed. “Many of the workers are afraid,” the programme-makers said.The documentary provided photographic evidence showing that guards regularly searched the bedrooms and kitchens of foreign staff. “They tell us they are the police here,” a Spanish woman complained. Workers were  allegedly frisked to check they had not walked away with breakfast rolls.

Another worker called Maria said she was thrown out of the cramped chalet she shared with five others  because she had dried her wet clothes on a wall heater. She said she was confronted by a muscular, tattooed security man and told to leave. The guards then shone car headlights at her in her chalet while she packed in an apparent attempt to intimidate her.Several guards were shown wearing Thor Steinar clothing – a Berlin-based designer brand synonymous with the far-right in Germany. The Bundesliga football association and the federal parliament have both banned the label because of its neo-Nazi associations. Ironically, Amazon stopped selling the clothing for the same reasons in 2009.ARD suggested that the name “HESS Security” was an allusion to Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. It alleged that its director was a man, named only as Uwe L, who associated with football hooligans and convicted neo-Nazis who were known to police. The programme-makers, who booked in at one of the budget hotels where Amazon staff were housed, said they were arrested by HESS Security guards after being caught using cameras. They were ordered to hand over their film and, when they refused, were held for nearly an hour before police arrived and freed them. The film showed HESS guards scuffling with the camera crew and trying to cover their lenses.

wouldn't it be nice to have a phone that just does phone calls?

at the Buckeye Tool Expo in Dalton, Ohio there is unusual demand for devices that do less.

the exhibition is a draw for the Amish community, whose access to technology is restricted by their faith.

The New Westphalian Web The future of the Internet may lie in the past. And that's not a good thing. BY KATHERINE MAHER | FEBRUARY 25, 2013

But 30 years ago, humanity gave birth to one of the most disruptive forces of our time. On Jan. 1, 1983, the implementation of TCP/IP -- a standard protocol to allow computers to exchange data over a network -- turned discrete clusters of research computers into a distributed global phenomenon. It was essentially the work of three men: two engineers to write the protocol, and one to carry out the plan. It was a birth so quiet no one even has a photo of the day; a recent post by one of TCP/IP's authors, Vint Cerf, was able to turn up only a commemorative pin.

Google Buzz aims to crack the social web

Google Buzz

share messages, web links and photos with friends and colleagues directly within Gmail

A memo sent last week by the company’s head of human resources told Yahoo! staff that they had until the summer to migrate back to the company HQ in Sunnyvale, California, or forfeit their job amid mounting concern that workers were “hiding” from bosses who had lost track of who was supposed to be where and doing what.

Some analysts have suggested the back-to-work diktat could be a covert way of reducing staff numbers and restoring a competitive work ethic at the company which employs 11,500 people in 20 countries. However, the move was described by Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson as “perplexing” and a “backward step”.

Chief executive Ms Mayer, 37, who once ranked her priorities as God, family and Yahoo!, is charged with turning round the company which has been eclipsed by rivals such as Google. She is said to have become frustrated at the sight of the half-full company car park emptying rapidly at 5pm each day – not least after building her own nursery next to her office to allow her to put in longer hours.

Mailbox is a free iPhone app that aims to change the way you use email.

an overflowing inbox is deeply inefficient and it's important to scuttle the unimportant stuff away to stop it from distracting you from the crucial bits.

A quick swipe right and emails that you don't need but shouldn't be deleted are swept into an archive, symbolised by a green tick.

In the popular consciousness, the Internet was simultaneously a place of possibility and danger. In 1993, Time magazine warned, "People who use … the Net may be in for a shock.… Anybody can start a discussion on any topic and say anything." It was precisely this structural independence that transformed the Internet from a mere tool for information-sharing to the world's open forum.

The rise of self-publishing tools like Blogger transformed the "third space" of cyberspace into a modern speaker's corner, offering any motivated writer a platform for his or her political views. Initially, this online free expression was often marginalized or dismissed -- the term "blogosphere" was originally a joke. But bloggers kept plugging away. In liberal democracies their free expression was guaranteed, and in closed societies connectivity was often too limited to draw any real attention.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are working alongside Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki to create the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. The project's aim is to reward research aimed at extending human life.

Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner asked the group to create the award after deciding to model a prize on a physics award he set up in 2012. To top the line-up of internet greats behind the prize, Apple chairman Art Levinson is heading up the board.

A new breed of social media websites is leaving young people open to cyber bullying, with anonymous users able to bombard others with sexually explicit messages and demands.

Despite little mainstream media coverage, “question and answer” websites such as ask.fm, qooh.me and formspring.me have exploded in popularity

The anonymity provided by the sites has made them a hotbed for sexual pressure, bullying and abuse.

The European Union is seeking to increase the private sphere of its citizens by strengthening data protection laws for the web. Large Internet firms and lobbyists are fighting the plans.

Gmail and Facebook may be forced to abandon their ad-supported models and start charging their customers in Europe or stop providing them with these popular services altogether.

Take Facebook, for example, which has its European headquarters in Ireland. The Irish government's data protection commissioner would then be responsible for the concerns of all EU citizens relating to the company's privacy policies.

Nearly half of the internet users surveyed incorrectly said they thought it was legal to upload commercially produced media to a file-sharing website

Internet users unaware of illegal downloading

Internet users are unwittingly turning into online pirates over confusion about what constitutes illegal downloading.