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Category: Tech Cartel

What Hath Tech Wrought…This Time

What Hath Tech Wrought…This Time

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Photo by TheDigitalArtist @Pixabay

The world was up in arms when Russia says it’s blocking Facebook in alarming new censorship push. Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg then tweeted in response to the move, saying “Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information…and silenced from speaking out,” The Verge reported. Yet, how long has the tech cabal been censoring people and posts that are not in lockstep with what they deem appropriate, or do not conform to their agendas?

 

Meanwhile, we’re witnessing The creeping authoritarianism of facial recognition that’s being adopted more and more. “The same technology that Russia uses to keep its people in line has come to America,” Spectator World reported. Of course, it’s all in the name of  lowering crime rates, but note to self, More States Than Ever Passing Laws For No Cash Bail and Pretrial Detention, including New York, where the NYPD provide(d) hard proof that no-bail law is causing a crime spike. Said the New York Post, “Since Jan. 1, 482 suspects busted for serious felonies were released without bail only to commit another 846 new crimes. Over a third were arrested for one of the seven most serious crimes: murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto.” Read More...

Life, the Metaverse and Everything

Life, the Metaverse and Everything

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The reference is the third book in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, FYI.

It’s traditional at this time of the year to either look back at the best/worst ofs from the year before, or to prognosticate about the year ahead.

This point in the trajectory of tech feels different, as we venture across the threshold of Web 3.0. meaning that there have been two prior iterations: Read More...

The Platform Formerly Known as Facebook

The Platform Formerly Known as Facebook

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When recording artist Prince got into a contract dispute with his record label, Warner Brothers, he literally changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and was thereafter referred to as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.

Which brings us to The Platform Currently Known As Facebook, which will soon be a name to forget, with a nod to those readers among you for whom that ship sailed long ago, name change or not.

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EPIC!!!

EPIC!!!

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Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

The news of the week was that the closely-watched trial between Apple Computer and Epic Games concluded. It was not a win all around, but it did deal “a massive blow to the walled-garden business model of Apple’s App Store.”

According to CNBC, “Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers…issued an injunction that said Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing. Apple typically takes a 15% to 30% cut of gross sales.”

“Apple will now be required to allow developers to direct users to third-party payment processors, meaning developers can now collect revenue directly, and can no longer disallow developers from using account registration data to contact users outside the app,” Gizmodo reported. “…but it’s very far from a complete victory. Gonzalez Rogers ruled against the gaming company on every single other count, finding that while Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition law, the case did not establish Apple to be an illegal monopolist…It’s not clear, as of this moment, how wide the ramifications will be beyond the App Store specifically. Google, which also booted Fortnite from its Play Store in response to Epic’s moves, is facing a similar lawsuit that has yet to be resolved.” Read More...

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

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Image by Elchinator from Pixabay

We often get reader feedback/notes and have received several lately that brought various points to our attention which we feel are worth sharing.

One such reader is a so-called minority. We’ve met in person. We do not know his vax status, neither do we care, nor is it any of our business. He did note that with all the various programs that people, establishments and companies have put in place on both the private and professional fronts, whenever he is asked to show his proof of vax, qua ‘papers’ (unheard of since the Nazi era), what he feels is something not unfamiliar to him:

Discrimination. Read More...

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...

The Billionaire Boys of Summer

The Billionaire Boys of Summer

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Image by asderknaster from Pixabay

In early July – Independence Day Weekend – 1500 tech leaders and shakers and movers and government representatives met in Sun Valley at the Allen & Co Summit

/Billionaire’s Boys Camp ostensibly to “discuss and somewhat unofficially close on deals that go on to have a greater impact on the rest of the regular world.” Most arrived by private jet as, although lowering the carbon footprint is important to the climate change agenda that applies to the world at large, they’re just not the ‘rest of the world.’

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The Heat Is On…Big Tech

The Heat Is On…Big Tech

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It may be summer, but we well know that tech – and rust – never rest. Last week, “Former President Donald Trump, who has been banned from most major social media platforms, announced a class-action lawsuit against tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with their respective CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai,” Yahoo reported. “…In court documents, Mr. Trump’s legal team argued that the tech firms amounted to state actors and thus the First Amendment applied to them. Legal experts said similar arguments had repeatedly failed in the courts before,” said the New York Times.

But Palace Intrigue noted a while back that in April, 2012, “Barack Obama himself admitted that the government helped Google and Facebook get off the ground. The government was present at the beginning when both companies were created.”

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Audio-Only Platforms: Listen and Learn

Audio-Only Platforms: Listen and Learn

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The lockdowns have certainly had a huge impact on the online world. First, Zoom mushroomed from out of nowhere, and when Zoom fatigue seemed to be setting in, there was Clubhouse, taking over the zeitgeist and becoming, as the Daily Caller noted (in Here’s What We Know About Clubhouse, The New App That’s Dominating Social Media), the fifth most popular social media app on the Apple store, trailing behind only Facebook, Messenger, Discord, and WhatsApp.

 

Not to be outdone, Facebook is launching several new audio-only features, including “Soundbites…and an audio-only version of Rooms (called Audio Rooms – think Clubhouse).” as The Sun reports. Read More...