Contents contributed and discussions participated by Jernej Prodnik
Google raises privacy fears as personal details are released to app developers | Techno... - 0 views
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Google raises privacy fears as personal details are released to app developers Campaigner says tech giant's policies don't make it clear that Google Play users who buy apps give over information
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Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 February 2013 14.39 GMT
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Google Play: the personal details of app buyers are released to developers Google could face a third privacy row in a two years, after a leading campaigner called for the US government to investigate the fact that the names, geographic region and email addresses of people who buy apps from its Play store are passed on to the app developers without users' explicit permission.
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The New Westphalian Web - By Katherine Maher | Foreign Policy - 0 views
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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.
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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.
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The New Westphalian Web - By Katherine Maher | Foreign Policy - 0 views
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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
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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.
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Why I'm quitting Facebook - CNN.com - 0 views
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Why I'm quitting Facebook By Douglas Rushkoff, CNN February 25, 2013 -- Updated 1502 GMT (2302 HKT)
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(CNN) -- I used to be able to justify using Facebook as a cost of doing business. As a writer and sometime activist who needs to promote my books and articles and occasionally rally people to one cause or another, I found Facebook fast and convenient. Though I never really used it to socialize, I figured it was OK to let other people do that, and I benefited from their behavior. I can no longer justify this arrangement.
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Today, I am surrendering my Facebook account, because my participation on the site is simply too inconsistent with the values I espouse in my work. In my upcoming book "Present Shock," I chronicle some of what happens when we can no longer manage our many online presences. I have always argued for engaging with technology as conscious human beings and dispensing with technologies that take that agency away.
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Predavanja zvenečih svetovnih znanstvenikov le 'klik' stran :: Prvi interakti... - 0 views
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Predavanja zvenečih svetovnih znanstvenikov le 'klik' stran Intervju z urednikom portala Davorjem Orličem 24. februar 2013 ob 07:00 Ljubljana - MMC RTV SLO "VideoLectures.Net so v resnici mala univerza, ki je vsem dostopna in na kateri lahko vsak kaj najde," Davor Orlič pojasnjuje idejo za inovativnim, uspešnim in nagrajenim projektom IJS-ja.
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Spletni portal, nekakšen znanstveni YouTube, ki ga ustvarja manjša ekipa sodelavcev na Inštitutu Jožef Stefan, poznajo vsi, ki se navdušujejo nad dodatnim znanjem, izobraževanjem in informacijami z najrazličnejših znanstvenih področij. Njegov izjemen prispevek k omogočanju kroženja znanja so prepoznali tudi v Združenih narodih in Unescu, saj so jih pred dnevi razglasili za najboljši produkt desetletja v kategoriji "e-znanost in tehnologija". Na portalu so namreč vsakomur dostopni videoposnetki predavanj odmevnih znanstvenikov, raziskovalcev in direktorjev, kar pomeni, da lahko kar v svoji sobi prisluhnemo, kaj je v zadnjem predavanju povedal Noam Chomsky ali Tim Berners-Lee, ki je zasnoval svetovni splet. Tako lahko vsak, ki ima dostop do spleta, prisluhne znanju s Harvarda, Oxforda, MIT-ja, pa tudi z ljubljanske univerze.
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O projektu in njihovem poslanstvu smo se pogovarjali z urednikom portala Videolectures.net Davorjem Orličem.
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Amazon unpacked - FT.com - 0 views
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February 8, 2013 12:30 pm Amazon unpacked By Sarah O’Connor The online giant is creating thousands of UK jobs, so why are some employees less than happy?
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Between a sooty power station and a brown canal on the edge of a small English town, there is a building that seems as if it should be somewhere else. An enormous long blue box, it looks like a smear of summer sky on the damp industrial landscape. Inside, hundreds of people in orange vests are pushing trolleys around a space the size of nine football pitches, glancing down at the screens of their handheld satnav computers for directions on where to walk next and what to pick up when they get there. They do not dawdle – the devices in their hands are also measuring their productivity in real time. They might each walk between seven and 15 miles today. It is almost Christmas and the people working in this building, together with those in seven others like it across the country, are dispatching a truck filled with parcels every three minutes or so. Before they can go home at the end of their eight-hour shift, or go to the canteen for their 30-minute break, they must walk through a set of airport-style security scanners to prove they are not stealing anything. They also walk past a life-sized cardboard image of a cheery blonde woman in an orange vest. “This is the best job I have ever had!” says a speech bubble near her head.
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If you could slice the world in half right here, you could read the history of this town called Rugeley in the layers. Below the ground are the shafts and tunnels of the coal mine that fed the power station and was once the local economy’s beating heart. Above the ground are the trolleys and computers of Amazon, the global online retailer that has taken its place. As online shopping explodes in Britain, helping to push traditional retailers such as HMV out of business, more and more jobs are moving from high-street shops into warehouses like this one. Under pressure from politicians and the public over its tax arrangements, Amazon has tried to stress how many jobs it is creating across the country at a time of economic malaise. The undisputed behemoth of the online retail world has invested more than £1bn in its UK operations and announced last year that it would open another three warehouses over the next two years and create 2,000 more permanent jobs. Amazon even had a quote from David Cameron, the prime minister, in its September press release. “This is great news, not only for those individuals who will find work, but for the UK economy,” he said.
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Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany - Eu... - 0 views
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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
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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.
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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.
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Facebook Now Allows Friends To Promote Posts, But Privacy Concerns Arise - Internationa... - 0 views
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Facebook Now Allows Friends To Promote Posts, But Privacy Concerns Arise
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By Ian Kar | February 16, 2013 8:27 AM EST On average, Facebook posts are seen by approximately 16 percent of your friends; with Facebook’s newest feature, however, more of your friends may start seeing your best moments on the social network more often, because users can now pay to promote their friend’s posts.
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Facebook hopes that with this new service, quality content supported by you and your friends will be featured at the top of your News Feed. Some users have already received the new feature, but the gradual rollout will continue with Facebook users with fewer than 5,000 total friends and subscribers.
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Official VideoLectures.NET Blog » United Nations and UNESCO to award VideoLec... - 0 views
Aaron Swartz files reveal how FBI tracked internet activist | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views
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Aaron Swartz files reveal how FBI tracked internet activist Firedoglake blogger Daniel Wright publishes once-classified FBI documents that show extent of agency's investigation into Swartz
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Amanda Holpuch guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 February 2013 22.42 GMT
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A blogger has published once-classified FBI files that show how the agency tracked and collected information on internet activist Aaron Swartz. Swartz, who killed himself in January aged 26, had previously requested his files and posted them on his blog, but some new documents and redactions are included in the files published by Firedoglake blogger Daniel Wright.Wright was given 21 of 23 declassified documents, thanks to a rule that declassifies FBI files on the deceased. Wright said that he was told the other two pages of documents were not provided because of freedom of information subsections concerning privacy, "sources and methods," and that can "put someone's life in danger."
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Spotify pushing labels to lower costs, open up free service to phones | The Verge - 0 views
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Spotify, the popular music subscription service, is due to meet in the coming weeks with its major counterparts in the record industry to renew their licensing agreements. The Verge has learned that managers at Spotify are expected to ask for substantial price breaks from the music labels as well as the rights to extend its free pricing tier to mobile devices.
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The Stockholm-based Spotify has already started negotiations with Warner Music and will begin talks with Sony and Universal in the coming weeks, according to several music industry sources. (A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment on this story.) These negotiations with music’s "big three" labels will likely go a long way to determining whether Spotify reaches profitability, a crucial threshold as it increasingly competes with Apple and other cash-rich players in the digital music market.
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