Group items tagged

"Now that we have finalized our systems for the acquisition and processing of Americans' location data (using data from cell phone and license plate readers as well as other sources), I wanted to give you a quick taste of our new system's capabilities in the domestic policing context."

"Upcoming cell phone chips from Qualcomm will use artificial intelligence to block malware before it infects your phone. The chip company said on Monday that the next-generation Snapdragon 820 processor used in a variety of Android smartphones will be the first chip that uses machine learning to detect threats and privacy issues thanks to an application called Snapdragon Smart Protect." Qualcomm is trying to use artificial intelligence in a chip for smart phones. The chip will learn to detect any privacy or security issues that would usually be hard to detect.

"Transistors use grooves etched in silicon to guide electrons around the chip. The channels do a similar job to that of wires, but on a much smaller scale. Making these grooves just 7nm wide means you can fit more transistors on the chips. For comparison a strand of human hair, at 100,000nm thick, is about 10,000 times wider than the channel. A red blood cell is a thousand times bigger, at 7,500nm in diameter. A strand of DNA is in the same order of magnitude, but slightly smaller at just 2.5nm wide."

"The robots, which are less than 1mm long, are designed by an "evolutionary algorithm" that runs on a supercomputer. "

"The bionic leaf is an outgrowth of Nocera's artificial leaf, which efficiently splits water into hydrogen and oxygen gas by pairing silicon - the material that makes up solar panels - with catalyst coatings. The hydrogen gas can be stored on site and used to drive fuel cells, providing a way to store and use power that originates from the sun."

"Data collection-as Parscale's comment suggested-is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump's reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters' cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset's Bluetooth function."

"But Leuthardt, for one, expects he will live to see it. "At the pace at which technology changes, it's not inconceivable to think that in a 20-year time frame everything in a cell phone could be put into a grain of rice," he says. "That could be put into your head in a minimally invasive way, and would be able to perform the computations necessary to be a really effective brain-computer interface.""

"WHEN 14-YEAR-OLD MOLLY Russell died in 2017, her cell phone contained graphic images of self-harm, an email roundup of "depression pins you might like," and advice on concealing mental illness from loved ones. Investigators initially ruled the British teen's death a suicide. But almost five years later, a British coroner's court has reversed the findings. Now, they claim that Russell died "from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content"-and the algorithms themselves are on notice."

"The main rationale for increasing state surveillance was to tackle the pandemic effectively to save people's lives. Yet, states are not enthusiastic about abandoning these digital tools, even though the pandemic is winding down. Instead, they are determined to preserve their surveillance capacities under the pretext of national security or preparation for future pandemics. In the face of increasing state surveillance, however, we should thoroughly discuss the risk of digital authoritarianism and the possible use of surveillance technologies to violate privacy, silence political opposition, and oppress minorities. For example, South Korea's sophisticated contact tracing technology that involves surveillance camera footage, cell-phone location data, and credit card purchases has disclosed patients' personal information, such as nationality. It raised privacy concerns, particularly for ethnic minorities, and underlined the risk of technology-enabled ethnic mapping and discrimination."

"Imagine having a digital twin that gets ill, and can be experimented on to identify the best possible treatment, without you having to go near a pill or a surgeon's knife. Scientists believe that within five to 10 years, "in silico" trials - in which hundreds of virtual organs are used to assess the safety and efficacy of drugs - could become routine, while patient-specific organ models could be used to personalise treatment and avoid medical complications. Digital twins are computational models of physical objects or processes, updated using data from their real-world counterparts. Within medicine, this means combining vast amounts of data about the workings of genes, proteins, cells and whole-body systems with patients' personal data to create virtual models of their organs - and eventually, potentially their entire body"

"As Redditor actual_hacker said in a thread, the big point of this article: "The US has built a SIM-card kill list. They're shooting missiles at cell phones without caring about who is holding the phone. That is why so many innocent people keep getting killed. That is what this story is about. The next time someone says "it's just metadata," remember this story. Innocent people die because of NSA's use of metadata: the story cites 14 women and 21 children killed in just one operation. All because of metadata.""

"But on the downside it has led to a loss of face-to-face contact, which can have negative consequences, particularly when it comes to education. What's more, there are also health impacts to consider. New scientific research indicates that spending large amounts of time in front of the computer, or other devices such as tablets and cell phones, can be harmful to our health. This is largely due to the blue light emitted by electronic devices, which expose us to light-emitting diodes (LEDs)."

"ns Work in Progress It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber Test scores have been falling for years-even before the pandemic. By Derek Thompson A student looking at their phone Darrell Eager / Gallery Stock December 19, 2023 Saved Stories This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America's biggest problems. Sign up here. For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers' phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it's systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn't quite believed that last argument-until now."