Group items tagged

"Sterio.me sends homework lessons and quizzes to basic phones that have limited access to data. Phones of this type have more than 86% penetration in Lesotho. The programme is undergoing trials in local schools, supported by the Vodacom Foundation, the ministry of education and the local teachers' union, before being rolled out across the country. "

"For now, however, Hammond tries to reassure journalists that he's not trying to kick them when they're down. He tells a story about a party he attended with his wife, who's the marketing director at Chicago's fabled Second City improv club. He found himself in conversation with a well-known local theater critic, who asked about Hammond's business. As Hammond explained what he did, the critic became agitated. Times are tough enough in journalism, he said, and now you're going to replace writers with robots? "I just looked at him," Hammond recalls, "and asked him: Have you ever seen a reporter at a Little League game? That's the most important thing about us. Nobody has lost a single job because of us.""

"The blackouts coincided with exams for secondary and high-school students and were implemented as the ultimate step in the country's battle to stop students cheating using smuggled mobile phones and internet-connected devices in exam halls. While attempting to ban mobile phones from exams or setting up local jamming equipment might be a less draconian measure, shutting off the internet is undoubtedly efficient. However, the outage impacted every person and business in the parts of the country controlled by the Iraqi government, causing human rights campaigners, including Access Now, to condemn the move."

"So over the weekend, when protesters were expected to rally for the third time, Facebook was inaccessible to locals, who had been using the platform to organise. People also had problems accessing Facebook's Instagram service. Israeli VPN service Hola posted a statement saying it saw a surge of about 200,000 users from Vietnam on its system over the weekend, using it to access Facebook."

"Turkey restricted access to Twitter hours after its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, threatened to "root out" the social media network where wiretapped recordings have been leaked, damaging the government's reputation ahead of local elections."

"A promo video from Pinkroccade, a prominent IT contractor to Dutch local governments, makes the case for spying on wearables (if your heart-rate rises because you're about to be mugged, the police could be alerted, and get GPS from your phone, find nearby phones belonging to people with criminal records, check the view from your Google Glass, and respond -- case closed). "

"Three months passed. Then, on Wednesday, anonymous government officials reportedly confirmed that a local company called Systems Engineering of Egypt (SEE or See Egypt) had won the bid to develop the system, which would allegedly allow the Egyptian government to sniff and analyze Internet and social media activity, as well as intercept Skype, WhatsApp and Viber conversations. "

"Ransomware is an especially odious type of malware. The way it works is simple. Your computer will be infected with some malicious software. That software then renders your computer entirely unusable, sometimes purporting to be from local law enforcement and accusing you of committing a computer crime or viewing explicit pictures of children. It then demands monetary payment, either in the form of a ransom or a 'fine' before access to your computer is returned."

"The researchers, led by Dr Mark Graham from the university's Oxford Internet Institute, argue that the study shows that "local voices rarely represent and define their own country". Instead, high-income countries have a disproportionately loud voice on the crowd-sourced encyclopedia, so countries that have many Wikipedia editors can "dominate the production of knowledge about smaller countries""

"A story on the site of the Japanese broadcaster NHK shows how this is playing out in the world of social networks. Online criticism of the behavior of the President of South Korea following the sinking of the ferry MV Sewol prompted the government to set up a team to monitor online activity. That, in its turn, has led people to seek what the NHK article calls "cyber-asylum" -- online safety through the use of foreign mobile messaging services, which aren't spied on so easily by the South Korean authorities. According to the NHK article: Many users have switched [from the hugely-popular home-grown product KakaoTalk] to a German chat app called Telegram. It had 50,000 users in early September. Now 2 million people have signed up."

"The Chinese government has curbed freedoms in the province for the local Muslim population, installing facial recognition cameras on streets and in mosques and reportedly forcing residents to download software that searches their phones."

"The system uses AI to predict situations before they occur - thus informing on how resources could be better allocated - and to provide insights for better decision-making."

"Facebook has detailed the steps it's taking to get help for people who need it. Which involves using artificial intelligence to "detect posts or live videos where someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide," identifying appropriate first responders, and then employing more people to "review reports of suicide or self harm". The social network has been testing this system in the U.S. for the last month, and "worked with first responders on over 100 wellness checks based on reports we received via our proactive detection efforts." In some cases the local authorities were notified in order to help."

"Through special TV boxes installed in their homes, local residents could watch live security footage and press a button to summon police if they saw anything amiss."

"Fear-mongering Citizen app apparently stepped up from crime pronouncement to vigilantism this weekend when they offered a $30k reward for information about a gentleman they believed to be an arsonist responsible for starting a large fire. It is pretty clear local law enforcement didn't ask for this assistance and that sharing of the photo could easily have endangered the "suspect," or in this case victim, especially as requested in the quote below."

"SINGAPORE: Personal information of about 129,000 Singtel customers was stolen after a recent data breach of a third-party file sharing system, the local telco said on Wednesday (Feb 17). Singtel has completed initial investigations into the breach and established which files on the Accellion file transfer appliance (FTA) were accessed illegally, the company said in a news release."

"Using the robot will reduce the need for staff to patrol the grounds, says NParks, and it "lowers the risk of exposure to the virus." According to local newspaper The Straits Times, the board is also considering deploying the robot elsewhere in the city. Signs posted in the park ask visitors not to "disrupt" the robot on its patrols."