How valuable is data for advertising? From the article: If a company that sells online ads can know what their readers are reading on other sites, then they can target the users based on that information when the user returns to their own site. For example, say Michael visits CNBC’s website in the mornings and...
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What Western media got wrong about China’s social credit system | Public Radio International
A nuanced look on China’s social credit system. While some of the reports in western media were exaggerated, the overall outlook to acutally implement a centralized Orwellian-like surveillance system is nevertheless grim. Currently, the internet is highly censored, cell phone numbers and online activity are assigned a unique ID number which is tied to a...
The Great Hack review – searing exposé of the Cambridge Analytica scandal – The Guardian
The Guardian review of the new Nextflix documentary “The Great Hack“. Our recommendation? Watch it. It’s a must see. Source: The Great Hack review – searing exposé of the Cambridge Analytica scandal | Film | The Guardian Photo by Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels
Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings | The Guardian
Apple has positioned itself as company that respects the privacy of their users. However, as The Guardian reports, Apple’s contractors have access to a certain percentage of all Siri-recordings. They regularly listen to confidential conversations of users, like drug deals, discussions about medical details and to even people having sex. Source: Apple contractors ‘regularly hear...
Christopher Columbus Kraft, NASA’s legendary flight director, has died | Ars Technica
Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. has died at the age of 95. He was one of NASA’s founding engineers, its first flight director, and a key architect of the Apollo and space shuttle programs. ArsTechnica interviewed him in 2017 for a mini series on the Apollo program. Listing image by Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of...
How the biggest decentralized social network is dealing with its Nazi problem – The Verge
After the neo nazi network Gab migrated to Mastodon, the alternative social media network tries to deal with internet’s Nazi problem head-on. The distributed nature of the network (federation) makes it almost impossible to respond with a single strategy. Instead, individual instances as the nodes of the network are called, have taken different measures. For example....
Can “Indie” Social Media Save Us? | The New Yorker
Cal Newport on Indie alternatives to existing social media platforms: At the end of my TEDx talk, I note that people often ask me what life is like without social media. By way of an answer, I project a photograph of a bench overlooking a quiet pastoral landscape. As a technology enthusiast, I’m a believer...
Jony Ive’s Fragmented Legacy: Unreliable, Unrepairable, Beautiful Gadgets – iFixit
Starting with a Steven Jobs quote at at the 1983 International Design Conference on the design of computers If you’ve looked at computers, they look like garbage the article discusses the influence Dieter Rams had on Jony Ive and on the desgin of Apple products of the last two decades. Apple has brought us more...
The ambitious plan to reinvent how websites get their names – MIT Technology Review
Meet handshake, the ambitious plan to change the way Domain Name System works on the Internet. Using blockchain as underlying technology, the goal is to create a decentralized version of a naming system that doesn’t depend on a central authority. While not the first attempt to change the Domain Name Systen, it’s certainly an interesting...
Facebook moderators break their NDAs to expose desperate working conditions – The Verge
This disturbing article describes how Facebook content moderators work in extremely poor working conditions. The article focuses on Facebook’s content moderation site in Tampa FL run by Cognizant. Here are the key findings from the article: Run by services firm Cognizant, Facebook’s content moderation site in Tampa, FL, is its lowest-performing site in North America....
