Group items tagged

"No, really, it's possible that Microsoft's Excel is the most dangerous software on the planet. Yes, more dangerous than rogue code running a nuclear power plant, than the Stuxnet that was deliberately sent off to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, worse, even, than whatever rent in the fabric of space time led to the invention of Lolcats. Really, that serious."

"Turkey's brutal new Internet law grants the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate the power to arbitrarily censor Web-pages to the individual URL level, much like the Great Firewall of China -- meaning that specific articles that are critical of the state can be censored while leaving the remainder of the site intact."

"The handheld Zebedee scanner, developed by the CSIRO, uses a powerful laser to sweep an environment and create a 3D map accurate to the centimetre. The scanner had already been used and was saving police "many thousands of hours in investigation", Queensland police commissioner Ian Stewart said at the device's official launch on Friday."

"Such powerful software is still several years away from being fully developed, if at all, and raises all sorts of ethical questions. But the potential applications-such as masterfully translating foreign languages, identifying objects in photos and directing self-driving cars through busy intersections-are so compelling that technology giants like Facebook and Google Inc. are investing heavily in artificial intelligence"

Huge chunks of the Internet will be effectively unreachable, and which sites go into the censorship bucket will be decided upon in secret, by unelected employees of big corporations, like China's Huawei. Sure, you can untick the box if you want, but as David Cameron's advisors will tell you, defaults are powerful and most users never change them.

"There were staggering gaps in procedural and operational security, and the architecture of the system leaves it open to cyberattacks from foreign powers, such as Russia. "

"…in about ten years or so, we will see the collapse of Moore's Law. In fact, already, we see a slowing down of Moore's Law. Computer power simply cannot maintain its rapid exponential rise using standard silicon technology. - Dr. Michio Kaku - 2012"

"That's right, they're coming after us literally for a few splotches of ink. What companies like this do is broker works of art on behalf of actual photographers, but then engage in copyright trolling by threatening anyone who uses even a small piece of them. Increased computing power and more sophisticated algorithms allow them to do this with improved speed and "efficiency.""

"One of the biggest arguments against mandating backdoors in encryption is the fact that, even if you trust the United States government never to abuse that power (and who does?), other criminal hackers and foreign governments will be able to exploit the backdoor to use it themselves. A backdoor is an inherent vulnerability that other actors will attempt to find and try to use it for their own nefarious purposes as soon as they know it exists, putting all of our cybersecurity at risk. "

Recently at CES, Mr.Ballmer over-excitingly shows the Slate-PC which is a tablet with a screen on it which has the power to actually run their latest operating system, Windows 7. 

A bionic hand can now be powered by thought. Soon we will have true androids walking about us.

Hmm now that is a great way to show how powerful Twitter really is!

Clear rules are needed to govern what social networks can do with the massive amount of personal data they collect and how they inform their users about their practices, said Sen. Charles Schumer, who has asked the FTC to articulate a set of guidelines. Facebook claims it offers users "powerful" privacy tools, but Paul Stephens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse suggested consumers need a PhD to understand them.

Another interesting article - but is this Government and Politics as an Area of Impact?

How cool is this - great advertisement for the power of the net....

"(And, in fact, anonymity apps have brought positives along with the negatives. Not long ago, a post on Secret reported that Google had acquired the poster's five-person company and had hired everyone but her. Later posts revealed that she was the only female at the company and had been there since it was founded. The thread became the talk of Silicon Valley, generating a lively debate about suppressed sexism in the start-up community. The poster's ability to remain anonymous was key to this information coming out. She could stand up to power, speak without embarrassment, and avoid alienating potential employers who might take a dim view of her controversial statements. That's exactly why the First Amendment protects anonymous speech, and that's why the value of anonymity apps like Yik Yak shouldn't be summarily dismissed. "

"The judge also wants the app wiped from existing users' smartphones and tablets, though it's unclear which users that would apply to. It's also unknown at this point whether the judge has the power to enforce this ban and what the chances are of it going through. The report stated that three app store providers could be subject to a fine of 20,000 Brazilian real (about $9,000) for every day the app remains available for download after the 10-day period starting with Wednesday. The judge argues that the app violates Brazil's constitution The judge argues that the app violates Brazil's constitution, which states freedom of expression cannot be promoted if it's done anonymously."

"One of the most mind-bending far future predictions you'll hear from some futurists is this: Eventually, the technology will exist to copy your brain (every bit of data that makes you, you) onto a computer. Technical details and exact predictions aside (the concept is still firmly science fiction) mind uploading makes for a fascinating and disturbing thought experiment. If you had the power to upload yourself, would you?"

"Although we think we're doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT and one of the world experts on divided attention, says that our brains are "not wired to multitask well… When people think they're multitasking, they're actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. "

"It's clear that surveillance affects a broad group of people, with real painful consequences for their lives. We've seen journalists being monitored, lawyers having their client confidentiality broken, victims of police misconduct being spied on and environmental campaigns infiltrated. These people are not criminals, and yet when we have a system of mass surveillance, they become targets for increasingly intrusive powers. "