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Month: October 2020

The Thing that’s Truly Driving Tech

The Thing that’s Truly Driving Tech

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Silicon Valley is on the ballot this year – in its home state, no less.

California’s Proposition 22 is up for a vote November 3, where AB (Assembly Bill) 5, the state’s gig worker law that, among other things, forced Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees, passed in September of 2019. Prop 22 aims to exempt ridesharing and food-delivery firms from AB5.

Said The New York Times, “Prop 22 would exempt the companies from complying with (AB5), while offering limited benefits to drivers. The law is intended to force them to treat gig workers as employees, but Uber and its peers have resisted, fearing that the cost of benefits like unemployment insurance and health care could tip them into a downward financial spiral. Read More...

Net Non-Neutrality in the Age of Social

Net Non-Neutrality in the Age of Social

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Image by mpmd2009 from Pixabay

Esther Dyson used to hold a high level, invitation-only conference each year in Scottsdale, AZ called PC Forum. The dates were always carved in stone on our calendar. The conference was acquired, but one of the last ones under Dyson’s auspices was at the dawn of the Age of Social, and the theme was Users in Charge. That was over a decade ago, and truth be told, Dyson is and always has been something of an optimist.

This past week, both Twitter and Facebook came under fire for censoring a NY Post article that they (baselessly) claimed was based on ‘hacked material.’

Once again, Senate to Subpoena Twitter CEO Over Blocking of Disputed Biden Articles, the Wall Street Journal (et al) reported. Read More...

Buh-Bye Safe Spaces: On Sheltering in the Connected Home

Buh-Bye Safe Spaces: On Sheltering in the Connected Home

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Image by jeferrb from Pixabay

Since we’re all spending so much time at home as a result of offices having been slow to re-open in many places, or people have opted not to return, we felt that it’s a good time to check in on the progress of the Internet of Things (IoT). Good place to start: this TED 2018 presentation on What your smart devices know (and share) about you. We’ve come a long way since then, baby – or at least technology has. Many of us are more or less stuck in our homes – and time to look at the data they’re collecting.

“There are smart lights, smart locks, smart toilets, smart toys, smart sex toys. Being smart means the device can connect to the internet, it can gather data, and it can talk to its owner.

“But once your appliances can talk to you, who else are they going to be talking to? I wanted to find out, so I went all-in and turned my one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco into a smart home. I even connected our bed to the internet. As far as I know, it was just measuring our sleeping habits. I can now tell you that the only thing worse than getting a terrible night’s sleep is to have your smart bed tell you the next day that you “missed your goal and got a low sleep score,” said Kashmir Hill, one of the two presenters, and a journalist who covers privacy and security for Gizmodo. Read More...