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Tag: #Privacy

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

It was something of a travel week for us, and a good time to at long last look at articles in the ‘save for later’ pile, which we did: stopped to smell the absurdities.

Incandescent lightbulbs were outlawed recently in favor of the longer lasting and supposedly more climate friendly LED bulbs, but according to greenmatters, LED Bulbs May Not Be as Great as We Thought — Studies Show Health and Environmental Risks, reporting that “Per a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers from the University of Exeter have noted various health and environmental risks that come with LED lights. According to The Guardian, LED bulbs are becoming increasingly more common, and even though they are more energy efficient, they emit more blue light radiation”…which is harmful to human health and the environment.

What to speak of the fact that they arguably create more of an environmental hazard when it comes to their disposal. Read More...

Hanging by a Thread: A Double Entendre?

Hanging by a Thread: A Double Entendre?

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 Unless you’ve been under a rock – or unplugged due to an extended Independence Day holiday – you do know that Meta has released ‘Twitter killer’ Threads. Thirty million people signed on Day One, and it’s easy to join. No special invite required. No early adopter wait list. All you need is an Instagram account and click on the icon. You’re in!

Ah, but can you just as easily get out?

Long answer: no.  Not without deleting your Instagram account and even then, who knows what data capture threads Meta has left behind. Read More...

This Is Meta Frightening

This Is Meta Frightening

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Photo by James Yarema on Unsplash

If you’re wondering why Mark Zuckerberg has poured some $15B into his metaverse project despite seeing ‘no results,’ according to the tech press, we’re wondering why no one pays attention to the man behind the curtain. Following its developer conference, Meta was roundly slammed for not being further along, given the amount of money their Reality Labs received to develop it, to the point where Facebook’s ‘desperate’ metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company’s future, as Business Insider reported. The publication also asked “How many more warning signs does Mark Zuckerberg need to see before he pulls the plug on his metaverse?”

This just in: At least one big investor is calling for Mark Zuckerberg to throw in the towel on the metaverse, saying Meta ‘lost the confidence of investors’

Or does Zuckerberg see something we don’t? And where did all that money go?

Meta released a new metaverse-friendly headset, and the price tag aside, Meta’s New Headset Will Track Your Eyes for Targeted Ads, Gizmodo reported, coming yet one step closer to reading your mind. “Whether you’re resigned to targeted ads or not, this technology takes data collection to a place we’ve never seen. The Quest Pro isn’t just going to inform Meta about what you say you’re interested in, tracking your eyes and face will give the company unprecedented insight about your emotions.” Read More...

Health Tech and Big Tech: An Unhealthy Alliance

Health Tech and Big Tech: An Unhealthy Alliance

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Image by ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay

HealthIT funding is up right now,  despite the downturn in global digital health investment, with data collection being such a big part of the reason why investors are all in on the HealthIT sector.  Do note that Big Tech et al is paying close attention to the space and making acquisitions.

Dr. Amazon Will See You Now, said the Wall Street Journal, noting that “Amazon and other companies are trying to disrupt the giant, inefficient U.S. healthcare sector. They’ve made little headway but a crop of upstarts is offering industry giants a chance to buy their way in.

“Amazon.com’s repeated failure to disrupt the industry underscores just how hard it is to make meaningful change.. As hard as healthcare has proven to crack, it is also too big of an opportunity to ignore. That explains why Amazon is trying again: It agreed in July to pay $3.9 billion for One Medical, a concierge-type primary-care service with nearly 200 medical offices in 25 markets… and will give Amazon the foothold in healthcare it struggled to build organically. In a not-too-distant future, your Prime membership may include a free annual checkup.” Read More...

On Apples, Oranges and Mangos: An End of Summer Compote

On Apples, Oranges and Mangos: An End of Summer Compote

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This week is the last hurrah of summer, so something different this time: a look at what’s been happening in Big Tech at large, primarily with  a number of the FAANG companies – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, for those playing the home version – or more appropriately now MAANG, since Facebook is now Meta – and for our purposes here, MAANGO, as we’re including Oracle and some information that recently came to light. Plus, mangos are very much a summer fruit, after all.

Oracle

Speaking of just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water (not!):  Class-Action Lawsuit Accuses Oracle of Tracking 5 Billion People. “Oracle stands accused of collecting detailed dossiers on 5 billion people, with the information gathered including names, home addresses, emails, purchases online and in the real world, physical movements in the real world, income, interests and political views, and a detailed account of online activity,” PC Mag reported.

“This claim is backed up by a video on the ICCL website(Opens in a new window) of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison describing how the company’s real-time machine learning system collects this information and confirms the 5 billion profiles stored in the “Oracle Data Cloud.” The profiles are referred to as a “Consumers Identity Graph.”” Read More...

Tech’s Insatiable Appetite

Tech’s Insatiable Appetite

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While we’ve all had a lot of fun being distracted by Elon Musk and his Twitter takeover, which may or may not be on hold, at least for now, there are a few things that you might have missed. We may also be at the juncture of a new era in tech.

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Wee the People

Wee the People

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Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

We were half joking last week when we suggested that, in many cases in tech, so-called terms of service be renamed ‘terms of servitude.’ Given the amount of data scraping and surveillance we’ve seen because of the lockdowns (think the enormous spike in Amazon and Walmart online orders, while mom and pops were forced to close). It’ll be interesting to see what fresh hell comes next. The New Normal? Might want to think New Police State.

Or something like that.

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The New Apple, to the Core

The New Apple, to the Core

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Apple recently announced that they’re going to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, “drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens,” according to Yahoo News.  

Apple is all about protecting children, as we well know. After all, Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties, despite the company’s promises to hold itself to the ‘highest standards,’ report says. “Ten former members of Apple’s supplier responsibility team (said) the company has refused or has been slow to stop doing business with suppliers that repeatedly violate its labor policies when doing so would hurt its profits.”  

So, obviously Apple is not driven by protecting children, although claiming so does tend to pull at the heartstrings and move people to quickly surrender yet another aspect of their privacy/allow surveillance. As Matthew Green, a top cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, pointed out in the Yahoo piece, “abuses could include government surveillance of dissidents or protesters…”What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,’” Green asked. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”   Read More...

This Summer, Read the Tea Leaves

This Summer, Read the Tea Leaves

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Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay

The Memorial Day Weekend is fast approaching – the official kick off of summer, despite the fact that the official start of the season is still a few weeks away. Given all of the restrictions on our movements and impediments to travel, and since different rules apply in different places, we know that many of you can’t or aren’t traveling and perhaps haven’t been able to go see friends and loved ones for quite some time now, but not to worry: in the event that we’re ever in a lockdown situation again, Google is on the case.

 

As Futurism says, “they’re now debuting a new video chat system they’re calling “Project Starline,”… a dystopic 3D prison-style video chat… So basically, they’ve re-invented the virtual prison visitation phone booth.” Read More...