Datasets:

ee6405-23s2-d24

/

dataset-guardian-sameedhayat

like 1

Follow

EE6405-23S2-D24@NTU 1

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/31/russia-hacking-malware-vermont-electric-obama

A day after Barack Obama announced tough new sanctions over what intelligence agencies believe to be Russian attempts to influence the presidential election in favour of Donald Trump, US officials said computer code linked to Russian-sponsored hackers had been detected in a computer at a Vermont electric utility. The municipally run Burlington electric department confirmed on Friday that it had found, in a laptop not connected to grid systems, malware code used in Grizzly Steppe, the name the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI have applied to a Russian campaign linked to cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations. The Washington Post first reported the discovery. On Thursday, the day on which Obama announced the new sanctions, the DHS and the FBI published a report detailing what they called Russia’s “ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the US government and its citizens”. After the discovery in Vermont, however, officials said they did not know when the code was placed in the laptop computer or what the intentions behind it may have been. Russian malware is regularly found inside computers used by US utilities. Vermont Democrats reacted strongly. The state’s governor, Peter Shumlin, said in a statement: “Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality of life, economy, health, and safety.” Peter Welch, a US representative, said Russian hacking was “rampant… systemic, relentless, predatory” and added: “They will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country.” The FBI and DHS report appeared to confirm one aspect of the Russian hacking programme: the gaining of access to Democratic party emails through the use of fraudulent emails that tricked recipients into revealing passwords. Such emails were released by WikiLeaks during the election, to the perceived disadvantage of the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. ‘They fly under the radar’ The reports from Vermont came at the end of a tense week in US-Russian relations that also placed the Obama White House and the incoming Trump administration further at odds with each other. On Thursday, Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomatic personnel and the closure of country estates in Maryland and New York used by embassy staff. By midday on Friday, the New York compound Elmcroft in Upper Brookville, on Long Island’s Gold Coast, had been evacuated. The gates were chained shut and US state department personnel were posted outside, in a black SUV. The Obama administration claimed the compound had been “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes”. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, disagreed, accusing the White House of targeting children by closing compounds he said were used by families over the Christmas and New Year vacation. “It’s quite scandalous that they chose to go after our kids, you know?” Churkin told reporters. “They know full well that those two facilities ... they’re vacation facilities for our kids.” The Elmcroft compound is five miles from another cold war-era Russian compound, Killenworth, in Glen Cove, an area known for its Gatsby-esque estates and golf courses. There, the gates were closed and the intercom went unanswered. The last time diplomatic hostilities broke out in Glen Cove, mayor Reginald A Spinello told the Guardian, was more than 50 years ago, when Nikita Khrushchev visited and locals threw food at his limousine. “What happens behind those doors is anyone’s guess, but it’s our understanding it’s mostly caretakers there now,” said Spinello. “They fly under the radar. They pay their bills. The most we ever see is a diplomatic licence plate or two.” ‘All Americans should be alarmed’ With the Trump inauguration three weeks away, the latest US-Russian dispute could yet prove to be short-lived. Despite Obama’s assertion on Thursday that “all Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions”, Trump has repeatedly questioned claims of Russian responsibility for hacking. He has also lavished praise on Putin and called for better relations with Russia, putting himself at odds with the Republican congressional leadership, key members of which welcomed Obama’s sanctions and called for tougher measures to follow. The Arizona senator John McCain, the chair of the Senate armed forces committee, who has scheduled a hearing on Russian cyber-intrusions for next week, told Ukrainian TV on Friday he saw such activity as “an act of war”. On Thursday, however, Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said claims of Russian meddling in the election were part of an effort to undercut Trump’s mandate to govern. “You have a lot of folks on the left who continue to undermine the legitimacy of his win,” he said in a call with reporters. Trump defeated Clinton by 304 votes to 227 in the electoral college; Clinton won the popular vote by close to 3m ballots. After the announcement of the US sanctions, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, recommended a proportional response. Putin, however, declined to engage, signalling instead that he would wait to see how relations formed with the incoming administration. Trump, who said it was “time for our country to move on to bigger and better things”, did agree to meet intelligence officials next week. On Friday, he used Twitter to say Putin was “very smart”. The tweet was pinned to the top of his timeline, so anyone who visited his feed would see it. It seemed as much an attempt to shock the political establishment as a way to disparage Obama. Trump continues to ridicule the president in public, even as he admits to having “productive” and frequent phone conversations with him. The two men spoke by phone on Wednesday and the White House informed Trump of the sanctions before they were announced the next day, the Trump transition team told reporters. Later on Friday, Trump turned his attention to the US media, complimenting Fox News for its coverage of Russia but criticising that of NBC and CNN – and in doing so, once again implicitly praising Putin. On Long Island, meanwhile, the expulsions were being treated largely as a passing dispute. Many local residents said they were only dimly aware of the Russians’ presence. “They’re not unfriendly,” said one Locust Valley contractor, who declined to give his name. “The spying is no big deal. It’s no more than what we do to them. Obama’s just getting back at them.”

technology/2016/dec/31/russia-hacking-malware-vermont-electric-obama

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-31T16:34:02Z

US-Russia tensions rise as malware found at Vermont electric utility

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/31/russia-hacking-malware-vermont-electric-obama

['day', 'barack', 'obama', 'announced', 'tough', 'new', 'sanctions', 'intelligence', 'agencies', 'believe', 'russian', 'attempts', 'influence', 'presidential', 'election', 'favour', 'donald', 'trump', 'us', 'officials', 'said', 'computer', 'code', 'linked', 'russian-sponsored', 'hackers', 'detected', 'computer', 'vermont', 'electric', 'utility', 'municipally', 'run', 'burlington', 'electric', 'department', 'confirmed', 'friday', 'found', 'laptop', 'connected', 'grid', 'systems', 'malware', 'code', 'used', 'grizzly', 'steppe', 'name', 'department', 'homeland', 'security', 'dhs', 'fbi', 'applied', 'russian', 'campaign', 'linked', 'cyber-attacks', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'political', 'organizations', 'washington', 'post', 'first', 'reported', 'discovery', 'thursday', 'day', 'obama', 'announced', 'new', 'sanctions', 'dhs', 'fbi', 'published', 'report', 'detailing', 'called', 'russia', 'ongoing', 'campaign', 'cyber-enabled', 'operations', 'directed', 'us', 'government', 'citizens', 'discovery', 'vermont', 'however', 'officials', 'said', 'know', 'code', 'placed', 'laptop', 'computer', 'intentions', 'behind', 'may', 'russian', 'malware', 'regularly', 'found', 'inside', 'computers', 'used', 'us', 'utilities', 'vermont', 'democrats', 'reacted', 'strongly', 'state', 'governor', 'peter', 'shumlin', 'said', 'statement', 'vermonters', 'americans', 'alarmed', 'outraged', 'one', 'world', 'leading', 'thugs', 'vladimir', 'putin', 'attempting', 'hack', 'electric', 'grid', 'rely', 'upon', 'support', 'quality', 'life', 'economy', 'health', 'safety', 'peter', 'welch', 'us', 'representative', 'said', 'russian', 'hacking', 'rampant', 'systemic', 'relentless', 'predatory', 'added', 'hack', 'everywhere', 'even', 'vermont', 'pursuit', 'opportunities', 'disrupt', 'country', 'fbi', 'dhs', 'report', 'appeared', 'confirm', 'one', 'aspect', 'russian', 'hacking', 'programme', 'gaining', 'access', 'democratic', 'party', 'emails', 'use', 'fraudulent', 'emails', 'tricked', 'recipients', 'revealing', 'passwords', 'emails', 'released', 'wikileaks', 'election', 'perceived', 'disadvantage', 'democratic', 'candidate', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'fly', 'radar', 'reports', 'vermont', 'came', 'end', 'tense', 'week', 'us-russian', 'relations', 'also', 'placed', 'obama', 'white', 'house', 'incoming', 'trump', 'administration', 'odds', 'thursday', 'obama', 'ordered', 'expulsion', 'russian', 'diplomatic', 'personnel', 'closure', 'country', 'estates', 'maryland', 'new', 'york', 'used', 'embassy', 'staff', 'midday', 'friday', 'new', 'york', 'compound', 'elmcroft', 'upper', 'brookville', 'long', 'island', 'gold', 'coast', 'evacuated', 'gates', 'chained', 'shut', 'us', 'state', 'department', 'personnel', 'posted', 'outside', 'black', 'suv', 'obama', 'administration', 'claimed', 'compound', 'used', 'russian', 'personnel', 'intelligence-related', 'purposes', 'russia', 'ambassador', 'united', 'nations', 'vitaly', 'churkin', 'disagreed', 'accusing', 'white', 'house', 'targeting', 'children', 'closing', 'compounds', 'said', 'used', 'families', 'christmas', 'new', 'year', 'vacation', 'quite', 'scandalous', 'chose', 'go', 'kids', 'know', 'churkin', 'told', 'reporters', 'know', 'full', 'well', 'two', 'facilities', 'vacation', 'facilities', 'kids', 'elmcroft', 'compound', 'five', 'miles', 'another', 'cold', 'war-era', 'russian', 'compound', 'killenworth', 'glen', 'cove', 'area', 'known', 'gatsby-esque', 'estates', 'golf', 'courses', 'gates', 'closed', 'intercom', 'went', 'unanswered', 'last', 'time', 'diplomatic', 'hostilities', 'broke', 'glen', 'cove', 'mayor', 'reginald', 'spinello', 'told', 'guardian', 'years', 'ago', 'nikita', 'khrushchev', 'visited', 'locals', 'threw', 'food', 'limousine', 'happens', 'behind', 'doors', 'anyone', 'guess', 'understanding', 'mostly', 'caretakers', 'said', 'spinello', 'fly', 'radar', 'pay', 'bills', 'ever', 'see', 'diplomatic', 'licence', 'plate', 'two', 'americans', 'alarmed', 'trump', 'inauguration', 'three', 'weeks', 'away', 'latest', 'us-russian', 'dispute', 'could', 'yet', 'prove', 'short-lived', 'despite', 'obama', 'assertion', 'thursday', 'americans', 'alarmed', 'russia', 'actions', 'trump', 'repeatedly', 'questioned', 'claims', 'russian', 'responsibility', 'hacking', 'also', 'lavished', 'praise', 'putin', 'called', 'better', 'relations', 'russia', 'putting', 'odds', 'republican', 'congressional', 'leadership', 'key', 'members', 'welcomed', 'obama', 'sanctions', 'called', 'tougher', 'measures', 'follow', 'arizona', 'senator', 'john', 'mccain', 'chair', 'senate', 'armed', 'forces', 'committee', 'scheduled', 'hearing', 'russian', 'cyber-intrusions', 'next', 'week', 'told', 'ukrainian', 'tv', 'friday', 'saw', 'activity', 'act', 'war', 'thursday', 'however', 'trump', 'incoming', 'white', 'house', 'press', 'secretary', 'sean', 'spicer', 'said', 'claims', 'russian', 'meddling', 'election', 'part', 'effort', 'undercut', 'trump', 'mandate', 'govern', 'lot', 'folks', 'left', 'continue', 'undermine', 'legitimacy', 'win', 'said', 'call', 'reporters', 'trump', 'defeated', 'clinton', 'votes', 'electoral', 'college', 'clinton', 'popular', 'vote', 'close', '3m', 'ballots', 'announcement', 'us', 'sanctions', 'russian', 'foreign', 'minister', 'sergey', 'lavrov', 'recommended', 'proportional', 'response', 'putin', 'however', 'declined', 'engage', 'signalling', 'instead', 'would', 'wait', 'see', 'relations', 'formed', 'incoming', 'administration', 'trump', 'said', 'time', 'country', 'move', 'bigger', 'better', 'things', 'agree', 'meet', 'intelligence', 'officials', 'next', 'week', 'friday', 'used', 'twitter', 'say', 'putin', 'smart', 'tweet', 'pinned', 'top', 'timeline', 'anyone', 'visited', 'feed', 'would', 'see', 'seemed', 'much', 'attempt', 'shock', 'political', 'establishment', 'way', 'disparage', 'obama', 'trump', 'continues', 'ridicule', 'president', 'public', 'even', 'admits', 'productive', 'frequent', 'phone', 'conversations', 'two', 'men', 'spoke', 'phone', 'wednesday', 'white', 'house', 'informed', 'trump', 'sanctions', 'announced', 'next', 'day', 'trump', 'transition', 'team', 'told', 'reporters', 'later', 'friday', 'trump', 'turned', 'attention', 'us', 'media', 'complimenting', 'fox', 'news', 'coverage', 'russia', 'criticising', 'nbc', 'cnn', 'implicitly', 'praising', 'putin', 'long', 'island', 'meanwhile', 'expulsions', 'treated', 'largely', 'passing', 'dispute', 'many', 'local', 'residents', 'said', 'dimly', 'aware', 'russians', 'presence', 'unfriendly', 'said', 'one', 'locust', 'valley', 'contractor', 'declined', 'give', 'name', 'spying', 'big', 'deal', 'obama', 'getting', 'back']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/30/facebook-temporary-ban-kevin-sessums-trump-supporters

A journalist was temporarily banned from Facebook after a post in which he called Trump supporters “a nasty fascistic lot”, in the latest example of the social media platform’s censorship of journalists. Facebook “reviewed and restored” the post by Kevin Sessums after being contacted by the Guardian and dropped the posting ban. “We’re very sorry about this mistake,” a spokesman said. “The post was removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate. Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong.” Sessums, who is well known for his celebrity profiles for Vanity Fair and two best-selling memoirs, says that he shared a Facebook post from ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd that read: “In the last few hours I have been called by lovely ‘christian’ Trump fans: a jew, faggot, retard. To set record straight: divorced Catholic.” Sessums added his own commentary, writing: But as those who do hold Trump to the standards of any other person have found out on Twitter and other social media outlets these Trump followers are a nasty fascistic lot. Dowd is lucky he didn’t get death threats like Kurt Eichenwald. Or maybe he did and refuses to acknowledge them. If you voted for Trump and continue to support him and you think you are better than these bigoted virulent trolls, you’re not. Your silence enables them just as it did in the racist campaign that Trump and Bannon ran. In fact, hiding behind a civilized veneer in your support of fascism I consider more dangerous. We’re past describing you as collaborators at this point. That lets you off the hook. You’re Russo-American oligarchical theocratic fascists. Soon thereafter, Sessums received a notification from Facebook that the post violated the company’s “community standards” and that he was barred from posting for 24 hours. “It’s chilling. It’s arbitrary censorship,” Sessums said. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute, do I have to be careful about what I say about Trump now?’” The censorship of Sessums caps a year in which Facebook has increasingly struggled to navigate its role as the world’s largest media platform, with unprecedented influence over the global flow of news and information. In September, the company sparked controversy when it censored an iconic photograph of a naked child fleeing a Napalm attack during the Vietnam war. That incident also began with the company banning an individual journalist for 24 hours but soon ballooned into global outrage. The company went so far as to censor a post by the prime minister of Norway before backing down and acknowledging the historic significance of the photograph. In October, the company responded to the controversy by announcing that it would consider factors like newsworthiness and the public interest when deciding how to enforce its “community standards”. Policing the platform became particularly tricky during the heated US election. Facebook did not respond to questions about why Sessum’s post was mistakenly censored, but the incident highlights the company’s ham-handedness when it comes to political speech. The Wall Street Journal reported in October that one instance when the company relaxed its standards around hate speech came when it chose not to censor a post by then-candidate Donald Trump, despite the fact that the post violated the company’s rules barring hate speech. “Mr Zuckerberg acknowledged that Mr Trump’s call for a ban [of Muslims] did qualify as hate speech, but said the implications of removing them were too drastic,” the Wall Street Journal reported. For Sessums, the temporary banning was particularly significant because he uses his Facebook page as a “personal blog”. The author has about 20,000 friends and followers, and he considers his frequent posts a “meta-memoir”. Since Trump’s election, however, Sessums’ posts have been largely political, with frequent invocations of “fascism”. Sessums said that he was deeply disturbed by the fact that there was no appeals process for individuals facing bans. “What will the cyber world be like under a Trump administration?” he asked, referencing Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s support of the president-elect. “This is chilling to me.”

technology/2016/dec/30/facebook-temporary-ban-kevin-sessums-trump-supporters

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-30T21:22:06Z

Facebook temporarily bans author after he calls Trump fans 'nasty fascistic lot'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/30/facebook-temporary-ban-kevin-sessums-trump-supporters

['journalist', 'temporarily', 'banned', 'facebook', 'post', 'called', 'trump', 'supporters', 'nasty', 'fascistic', 'lot', 'latest', 'example', 'social', 'media', 'platform', 'censorship', 'journalists', 'facebook', 'reviewed', 'restored', 'post', 'kevin', 'sessums', 'contacted', 'guardian', 'dropped', 'posting', 'ban', 'sorry', 'mistake', 'spokesman', 'said', 'post', 'removed', 'error', 'restored', 'soon', 'able', 'investigate', 'team', 'processes', 'millions', 'reports', 'week', 'sometimes', 'get', 'things', 'wrong', 'sessums', 'well', 'known', 'celebrity', 'profiles', 'vanity', 'fair', 'two', 'best-selling', 'memoirs', 'says', 'shared', 'facebook', 'post', 'abc', 'political', 'analyst', 'matthew', 'dowd', 'read', 'last', 'hours', 'called', 'lovely', 'christian', 'trump', 'fans', 'jew', 'faggot', 'retard', 'set', 'record', 'straight', 'divorced', 'catholic', 'sessums', 'added', 'commentary', 'writing', 'hold', 'trump', 'standards', 'person', 'found', 'twitter', 'social', 'media', 'outlets', 'trump', 'followers', 'nasty', 'fascistic', 'lot', 'dowd', 'lucky', 'get', 'death', 'threats', 'like', 'kurt', 'eichenwald', 'maybe', 'refuses', 'acknowledge', 'voted', 'trump', 'continue', 'support', 'think', 'better', 'bigoted', 'virulent', 'trolls', 'silence', 'enables', 'racist', 'campaign', 'trump', 'bannon', 'ran', 'fact', 'hiding', 'behind', 'civilized', 'veneer', 'support', 'fascism', 'consider', 'dangerous', 'past', 'describing', 'collaborators', 'point', 'lets', 'hook', 'russo-american', 'oligarchical', 'theocratic', 'fascists', 'soon', 'thereafter', 'sessums', 'received', 'notification', 'facebook', 'post', 'violated', 'company', 'community', 'standards', 'barred', 'posting', 'hours', 'chilling', 'arbitrary', 'censorship', 'sessums', 'said', 'like', 'wait', 'minute', 'careful', 'say', 'trump', 'censorship', 'sessums', 'caps', 'year', 'facebook', 'increasingly', 'struggled', 'navigate', 'role', 'world', 'largest', 'media', 'platform', 'unprecedented', 'influence', 'global', 'flow', 'news', 'information', 'september', 'company', 'sparked', 'controversy', 'censored', 'iconic', 'photograph', 'naked', 'child', 'fleeing', 'napalm', 'attack', 'vietnam', 'war', 'incident', 'also', 'began', 'company', 'banning', 'individual', 'journalist', 'hours', 'soon', 'ballooned', 'global', 'outrage', 'company', 'went', 'far', 'censor', 'post', 'prime', 'minister', 'norway', 'backing', 'acknowledging', 'historic', 'significance', 'photograph', 'october', 'company', 'responded', 'controversy', 'announcing', 'would', 'consider', 'factors', 'like', 'newsworthiness', 'public', 'interest', 'deciding', 'enforce', 'community', 'standards', 'policing', 'platform', 'became', 'particularly', 'tricky', 'heated', 'us', 'election', 'facebook', 'respond', 'questions', 'sessum', 'post', 'mistakenly', 'censored', 'incident', 'highlights', 'company', 'ham-handedness', 'comes', 'political', 'speech', 'wall', 'street', 'journal', 'reported', 'october', 'one', 'instance', 'company', 'relaxed', 'standards', 'around', 'hate', 'speech', 'came', 'chose', 'censor', 'post', 'then-candidate', 'donald', 'trump', 'despite', 'fact', 'post', 'violated', 'company', 'rules', 'barring', 'hate', 'speech', 'mr', 'zuckerberg', 'acknowledged', 'mr', 'trump', 'call', 'ban', 'muslims', 'qualify', 'hate', 'speech', 'said', 'implications', 'removing', 'drastic', 'wall', 'street', 'journal', 'reported', 'sessums', 'temporary', 'banning', 'particularly', 'significant', 'uses', 'facebook', 'page', 'personal', 'blog', 'author', 'friends', 'followers', 'considers', 'frequent', 'posts', 'meta-memoir', 'since', 'trump', 'election', 'however', 'sessums', 'posts', 'largely', 'political', 'frequent', 'invocations', 'fascism', 'sessums', 'said', 'deeply', 'disturbed', 'fact', 'appeals', 'process', 'individuals', 'facing', 'bans', 'cyber', 'world', 'like', 'trump', 'administration', 'asked', 'referencing', 'facebook', 'board', 'member', 'peter', 'thiel', 'support', 'president-elect', 'chilling']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/30/donald-trump-technology-computers-cyber-hacks-surveillance

Technology? Bah humbug: “I think we ought to get on with our lives,” said Donald Trump on Wednesday, summing up his take on the complex problem of apparently Russian phishing attacks on multiple Democratic party groups during the 2016 election. As the White House’s current resident prepared to impose sanctions on Russia for hacking, Trump said: “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.” It’s not the first time the president-elect has been stumped by the digital world, like a technophobe who unwrapped a computer-operated nuclear arsenal on Christmas morning. And the trouble isn’t that nobody knows exactly what’s going on in the “age of computer” – it’s that technology poses some of the most complex problems in human history to the incoming administration. And its leader is a man who refers to “the cyber” and seems more concerned about the weight of the hacker, or possibly the bed – his syntax is mysterious – than about who broke into the Democratic National Committee. US authorities spent 2016 attempting to chart new territory even beyond the DNC, DCCC and Clinton campaign hacks: how can Americans protect their infrastructure from attacks on the foundations of the internet, such as the Mirai botnet siege in October that took down some of the biggest, and most sophisticated, tech companies in the world? How can the nation’s patchwork of electoral authorities repair voting systems prone to massive, potentially catastrophic error? How should the government treat open-source encryption? Trump remains silent on the details of digital policy as the leader-to-be of a government in desperate need of consistent guiding principles. Instead, Trump appears to regard technology as a contact point for the same obsessions that drove his campaign. He is blase about warrantless surveillance – he has said it “would be fine” to restore the NSA’s bulk data collection programs, a position his pick for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, also endorses, as does Trump’s attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions. He is far more actively concerned about appearing stronger than his predecessor, Barack Obama, and as always about Chinese activity in cyberspace: Especially when they start “cyber hacking us”: He also occasionally made time during the campaign to mock opponent Hillary Clinton for getting sick and getting hacked: Trump has been general, albeit chilling, on the topic of what exactly his administration will do: as an extension of Trump’s ideology, information gathering will serve to do the unthinkable – his own word. “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before,” he told Yahoo News. “And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” The apparent lack of interest in the minutiae of his own positions has left his administration’s tech strategy in the hands of Peter Thiel, the thin-skinned billionaire founder of PayPal who quietly bankrolled former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan’s annihilating lawsuit against news outlet Gawker, apparently in retaliation for an article about Thiel’s sexual orientation. Earlier this month, Thiel indulged Trump’s own grudge against Twitter during the president-elect’s “tech summit” at Trump Tower, shutting out the organization that provides Trump with his loudest megaphone reportedly because Twitter refused to add an emoji to the Trump campaign’s #CrookedHillary sponsored hashtag during the election. Another of Thiel’s companies, data-mining firm Palantir, already plays a powerful role: the company’s services are likely to be used in any effort to deport undocumented immigrants, according to multiple reports. But for the president-elect himself, technology appears to be yet another venue for increasingly dangerous hobbies including threats to cut programs that benefit US allies, brinksmanship with China and unraveling Obamacare. Trump calls net neutrality “a top-down power grab” that “will target conservative media”; he has often repeated his support for a registry of American Muslims, and generally demonstrates not merely a lack of proficiency in technology but a contempt for expertise. But like every rich guy who wants to stay that way, he keeps a couple of eggheads around, and between him and them, when it comes to tech policy they will make America … something. Possibly not great.

technology/2016/dec/30/donald-trump-technology-computers-cyber-hacks-surveillance

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-30T08:30:28Z

Donald Trump is technology's befuddled (but dangerous) grandfather

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/30/donald-trump-technology-computers-cyber-hacks-surveillance

['technology', 'bah', 'humbug', 'think', 'ought', 'get', 'lives', 'said', 'donald', 'trump', 'wednesday', 'summing', 'take', 'complex', 'problem', 'apparently', 'russian', 'phishing', 'attacks', 'multiple', 'democratic', 'party', 'groups', 'election', 'white', 'house', 'current', 'resident', 'prepared', 'impose', 'sanctions', 'russia', 'hacking', 'trump', 'said', 'think', 'computers', 'complicated', 'lives', 'greatly', 'whole', 'age', 'computer', 'made', 'nobody', 'knows', 'exactly', 'going', 'first', 'time', 'president-elect', 'stumped', 'digital', 'world', 'like', 'technophobe', 'unwrapped', 'computer-operated', 'nuclear', 'arsenal', 'christmas', 'morning', 'trouble', 'nobody', 'knows', 'exactly', 'going', 'age', 'computer', 'technology', 'poses', 'complex', 'problems', 'human', 'history', 'incoming', 'administration', 'leader', 'man', 'refers', 'cyber', 'seems', 'concerned', 'weight', 'hacker', 'possibly', 'bed', 'syntax', 'mysterious', 'broke', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'us', 'authorities', 'spent', 'attempting', 'chart', 'new', 'territory', 'even', 'beyond', 'dnc', 'dccc', 'clinton', 'campaign', 'hacks', 'americans', 'protect', 'infrastructure', 'attacks', 'foundations', 'internet', 'mirai', 'botnet', 'siege', 'october', 'took', 'biggest', 'sophisticated', 'tech', 'companies', 'world', 'nation', 'patchwork', 'electoral', 'authorities', 'repair', 'voting', 'systems', 'prone', 'massive', 'potentially', 'catastrophic', 'error', 'government', 'treat', 'open-source', 'encryption', 'trump', 'remains', 'silent', 'details', 'digital', 'policy', 'leader-to-be', 'government', 'desperate', 'need', 'consistent', 'guiding', 'principles', 'instead', 'trump', 'appears', 'regard', 'technology', 'contact', 'point', 'obsessions', 'drove', 'campaign', 'blase', 'warrantless', 'surveillance', 'said', 'would', 'fine', 'restore', 'nsa', 'bulk', 'data', 'collection', 'programs', 'position', 'pick', 'cia', 'director', 'mike', 'pompeo', 'also', 'endorses', 'trump', 'attorney', 'general', 'nominee', 'jeff', 'sessions', 'far', 'actively', 'concerned', 'appearing', 'stronger', 'predecessor', 'barack', 'obama', 'always', 'chinese', 'activity', 'cyberspace', 'especially', 'start', 'cyber', 'hacking', 'us', 'also', 'occasionally', 'made', 'time', 'campaign', 'mock', 'opponent', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'getting', 'sick', 'getting', 'hacked', 'trump', 'general', 'albeit', 'chilling', 'topic', 'exactly', 'administration', 'extension', 'trump', 'ideology', 'information', 'gathering', 'serve', 'unthinkable', 'word', 'going', 'things', 'never', 'told', 'yahoo', 'news', 'people', 'going', 'upset', 'think', 'everybody', 'feeling', 'security', 'going', 'rule', 'certain', 'things', 'done', 'never', 'thought', 'would', 'happen', 'country', 'terms', 'information', 'learning', 'enemy', 'going', 'certain', 'things', 'frankly', 'unthinkable', 'year', 'ago', 'apparent', 'lack', 'interest', 'minutiae', 'positions', 'left', 'administration', 'tech', 'strategy', 'hands', 'peter', 'thiel', 'thin-skinned', 'billionaire', 'founder', 'paypal', 'quietly', 'bankrolled', 'former', 'pro', 'wrestler', 'hulk', 'hogan', 'annihilating', 'lawsuit', 'news', 'outlet', 'gawker', 'apparently', 'retaliation', 'article', 'thiel', 'sexual', 'orientation', 'earlier', 'month', 'thiel', 'indulged', 'trump', 'grudge', 'twitter', 'president-elect', 'tech', 'summit', 'trump', 'tower', 'shutting', 'organization', 'provides', 'trump', 'loudest', 'megaphone', 'reportedly', 'twitter', 'refused', 'add', 'emoji', 'trump', 'campaign', 'crookedhillary', 'sponsored', 'hashtag', 'election', 'another', 'thiel', 'companies', 'data-mining', 'firm', 'palantir', 'already', 'plays', 'powerful', 'role', 'company', 'services', 'likely', 'used', 'effort', 'deport', 'undocumented', 'immigrants', 'according', 'multiple', 'reports', 'president-elect', 'technology', 'appears', 'yet', 'another', 'venue', 'increasingly', 'dangerous', 'hobbies', 'including', 'threats', 'cut', 'programs', 'benefit', 'us', 'allies', 'brinksmanship', 'china', 'unraveling', 'obamacare', 'trump', 'calls', 'net', 'neutrality', 'top-down', 'power', 'grab', 'target', 'conservative', 'media', 'often', 'repeated', 'support', 'registry', 'american', 'muslims', 'generally', 'demonstrates', 'merely', 'lack', 'proficiency', 'technology', 'contempt', 'expertise', 'like', 'every', 'rich', 'guy', 'wants', 'stay', 'way', 'keeps', 'couple', 'eggheads', 'around', 'comes', 'tech', 'policy', 'make', 'america', 'something', 'possibly', 'great']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/30/detonating-devices-and-damp-squibs-the-biggest-tech-letdowns-of-2016

While there were some good things in technology released this year, there were also quite a few let downs. From detonating devices to damp squibs, these are the biggest let downs of 2016. LG G5 and modular smartphones The LG G5 promised so much, but delivered little. As a smartphone, it is a decent if not spectacular entry, with dual cameras on the back and solid specifications. But it was the slot in the bottom of the smartphone that got the hype cycle churning. It was the first modular smartphone from a big-name brand. The G5’s chin and battery could be swapped for fresh cells, a set of speakers, a camera control and extended battery grip and a few other so-called Friends. The trouble was the “friends” were few and far between and those that actually arrived weren’t that great. On paper it was great, in practice it didn’t work. But the G5 wasn’t the only modular smartphone to fail last year, Google also pulled the plug on its Project Ara modular phone while Lenovo’s Motorola released the Moto Z with add-ons that slightly more elegantly magnetically attached to the back. Whether anyone bought the add-ons though remains to be seen. Apple MacBook Pro After four years of waiting for anything more meaningful than a specification bump, the new 2016 13in MacBook Pro arrived. It was thinner, lighter, had a better screen and was slightly more powerful than the last one released in 2015. It had a new-fangled “Touch Bar” instead of traditional F and control keys. It even had Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner, a headphones port and a starting £1,749 price tag. What it didn’t have were any data ports other than USB-C - no traditional USB, no ethernet, no Mini DisplayPort, no HDMI or even a MagSafe power connector. There were four USB-C ports ready to accept a plethora of dongles. Any of them could also be used for power, which is a good thing as the battery life was pretty poor. It’s certainly beautiful, but after four years in the making, style without substance didn’t cut it for even some die-hard Apple Mac fans. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Life for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 started so promisingly. It was a cutting-edge device, worked brilliantly, garnered praise from all sides and even had an iris scanner - one of the first smartphones to do so. It was predicted to sell in the millions, to propel Samsung to even higher heights and cement the South Korean brand’s lead in big-screened smartphones. That was until one exploded. Then another and another. A halt to sales was called for safety concerns around the battery. It was pulled from shelves and the UK launch was cancelled. A fix was applied and the offending batteries taken out before being relaunched. The problem was that the replacement Note 7s started catching fire too. The numbers were small, but the risk was great. Eventually Samsung pulled the plug and terminated the Note 7. Even still some users refused to give up the phone. Samsung was forced to hobble it before rendering it inoperative with a software update. There the sad tale of the Note 7 ended. Pushing boundaries in design and technology can win you plaudits and sales, but Samsung pushed too far this time. PlayStation VR It was heralded as the best VR for normal people. PlayStation VR promised to bring great virtual reality experiences only possible on a desktop-class system but without the need for a £1,000 PC to run it. The trouble was that it lacked the best-in-class controllers that really made VR in 2016. It was cheap and provided a cheap experience. And a cheap VR experience just didn’t cut it. Whether that will be enough to see it go mainstream in 2017 remains to be seen, but it certainly wasn’t the rip-roaring success many hoped it would be. Apple iPhone 7 The highly anticipated 2016 edition of Apple’s flagship smartphone, the iPhone 7, was meant to set the world alight. It was waterproof, had a much better camera and its Plus edition even had two cameras on the back. The physical home button was gone, instead using force touch and so was the headphone socket. But what the iPhone 7 will be remembered for will be its terrible battery life. Less is certainly not more when it comes to how long it lasts in a day, and constantly having to hunt for a charger gets old really quickly. Especially when you can’t even listen to a wired set of headphones and charge it at the same time. Facebook Snapchat clones Snapchat. It’s an app. You share pictures with it, draw stupid things and can even discover news on it. It’s biggest asset is a younger audience than most other services, the untapped market so many are after, including Facebook, which keeps trying to clone it after failing in its attempt to buy it. Facebook has tried to clone Snapchat, copying features and launching apps not once, not twice, not even three times. 2016 saw Facebook try to clone Snapchat for the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth time. It’s getting old. Maybe Facebook should direct some of that engineering talent to working on more pressing matters. Dyson Supersonic The Dyson Supersonic took the humble hairdryer and infused it with the vacuum-firms technology. A high speed fan in the handle for weight distribution, it’s trademark air multiplier head to blast air in your face, magnetically attaching nozzles and a round of digital buttons for controlling temperature and air speed. It looked like the hairdryer finally dragged kicking and screaming into the gadget age. Sadly in group tests up against hairdryers half the Supersonic’s price it was found to be a lot of hot air. Attach a nozzle and all that fancy airflow dropped to a level “akin to blowing through a drinking straw”.

technology/2016/dec/30/detonating-devices-and-damp-squibs-the-biggest-tech-letdowns-of-2016

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-30T07:00:26Z

Exploding phones and Snapchat clones: the biggest tech letdowns of 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/30/detonating-devices-and-damp-squibs-the-biggest-tech-letdowns-of-2016

['good', 'things', 'technology', 'released', 'year', 'also', 'quite', 'let', 'downs', 'detonating', 'devices', 'damp', 'squibs', 'biggest', 'let', 'downs', 'lg', 'g5', 'modular', 'smartphones', 'lg', 'g5', 'promised', 'much', 'delivered', 'little', 'smartphone', 'decent', 'spectacular', 'entry', 'dual', 'cameras', 'back', 'solid', 'specifications', 'slot', 'bottom', 'smartphone', 'got', 'hype', 'cycle', 'churning', 'first', 'modular', 'smartphone', 'big-name', 'brand', 'g5', 'chin', 'battery', 'could', 'swapped', 'fresh', 'cells', 'set', 'speakers', 'camera', 'control', 'extended', 'battery', 'grip', 'so-called', 'friends', 'trouble', 'friends', 'far', 'actually', 'arrived', 'great', 'paper', 'great', 'practice', 'work', 'g5', 'modular', 'smartphone', 'fail', 'last', 'year', 'google', 'also', 'pulled', 'plug', 'project', 'ara', 'modular', 'phone', 'lenovo', 'motorola', 'released', 'moto', 'z', 'add-ons', 'slightly', 'elegantly', 'magnetically', 'attached', 'back', 'whether', 'anyone', 'bought', 'add-ons', 'though', 'remains', 'seen', 'apple', 'macbook', 'pro', 'four', 'years', 'waiting', 'anything', 'meaningful', 'specification', 'bump', 'new', '13in', 'macbook', 'pro', 'arrived', 'thinner', 'lighter', 'better', 'screen', 'slightly', 'powerful', 'last', 'one', 'released', 'new-fangled', 'touch', 'bar', 'instead', 'traditional', 'f', 'control', 'keys', 'even', 'apple', 'touch', 'id', 'fingerprint', 'scanner', 'headphones', 'port', 'starting', 'price', 'tag', 'data', 'ports', 'usb-c', '-', 'traditional', 'usb', 'ethernet', 'mini', 'displayport', 'hdmi', 'even', 'magsafe', 'power', 'connector', 'four', 'usb-c', 'ports', 'ready', 'accept', 'plethora', 'dongles', 'could', 'also', 'used', 'power', 'good', 'thing', 'battery', 'life', 'pretty', 'poor', 'certainly', 'beautiful', 'four', 'years', 'making', 'style', 'without', 'substance', 'cut', 'even', 'die-hard', 'apple', 'mac', 'fans', 'samsung', 'galaxy', 'note', 'life', 'samsung', 'galaxy', 'note', 'started', 'promisingly', 'cutting-edge', 'device', 'worked', 'brilliantly', 'garnered', 'praise', 'sides', 'even', 'iris', 'scanner', '-', 'one', 'first', 'smartphones', 'predicted', 'sell', 'millions', 'propel', 'samsung', 'even', 'higher', 'heights', 'cement', 'south', 'korean', 'brand', 'lead', 'big-screened', 'smartphones', 'one', 'exploded', 'another', 'another', 'halt', 'sales', 'called', 'safety', 'concerns', 'around', 'battery', 'pulled', 'shelves', 'uk', 'launch', 'cancelled', 'fix', 'applied', 'offending', 'batteries', 'taken', 'relaunched', 'problem', 'replacement', 'note', '7s', 'started', 'catching', 'fire', 'numbers', 'small', 'risk', 'great', 'eventually', 'samsung', 'pulled', 'plug', 'terminated', 'note', 'even', 'still', 'users', 'refused', 'give', 'phone', 'samsung', 'forced', 'hobble', 'rendering', 'inoperative', 'software', 'update', 'sad', 'tale', 'note', 'ended', 'pushing', 'boundaries', 'design', 'technology', 'win', 'plaudits', 'sales', 'samsung', 'pushed', 'far', 'time', 'playstation', 'vr', 'heralded', 'best', 'vr', 'normal', 'people', 'playstation', 'vr', 'promised', 'bring', 'great', 'virtual', 'reality', 'experiences', 'possible', 'desktop-class', 'system', 'without', 'need', 'pc', 'run', 'trouble', 'lacked', 'best-in-class', 'controllers', 'really', 'made', 'vr', 'cheap', 'provided', 'cheap', 'experience', 'cheap', 'vr', 'experience', 'cut', 'whether', 'enough', 'see', 'go', 'mainstream', 'remains', 'seen', 'certainly', 'rip-roaring', 'success', 'many', 'hoped', 'would', 'apple', 'iphone', 'highly', 'anticipated', 'edition', 'apple', 'flagship', 'smartphone', 'iphone', 'meant', 'set', 'world', 'alight', 'waterproof', 'much', 'better', 'camera', 'plus', 'edition', 'even', 'two', 'cameras', 'back', 'physical', 'home', 'button', 'gone', 'instead', 'using', 'force', 'touch', 'headphone', 'socket', 'iphone', 'remembered', 'terrible', 'battery', 'life', 'less', 'certainly', 'comes', 'long', 'lasts', 'day', 'constantly', 'hunt', 'charger', 'gets', 'old', 'really', 'quickly', 'especially', 'even', 'listen', 'wired', 'set', 'headphones', 'charge', 'time', 'facebook', 'snapchat', 'clones', 'snapchat', 'app', 'share', 'pictures', 'draw', 'stupid', 'things', 'even', 'discover', 'news', 'biggest', 'asset', 'younger', 'audience', 'services', 'untapped', 'market', 'many', 'including', 'facebook', 'keeps', 'trying', 'clone', 'failing', 'attempt', 'buy', 'facebook', 'tried', 'clone', 'snapchat', 'copying', 'features', 'launching', 'apps', 'twice', 'even', 'three', 'times', 'saw', 'facebook', 'try', 'clone', 'snapchat', 'seventh', 'eighth', 'ninth', 'tenth', 'eleventh', 'twelfth', 'thirteenth', 'fourteenth', 'fifteenth', 'time', 'getting', 'old', 'maybe', 'facebook', 'direct', 'engineering', 'talent', 'working', 'pressing', 'matters', 'dyson', 'supersonic', 'dyson', 'supersonic', 'took', 'humble', 'hairdryer', 'infused', 'vacuum-firms', 'technology', 'high', 'speed', 'fan', 'handle', 'weight', 'distribution', 'trademark', 'air', 'multiplier', 'head', 'blast', 'air', 'face', 'magnetically', 'attaching', 'nozzles', 'round', 'digital', 'buttons', 'controlling', 'temperature', 'air', 'speed', 'looked', 'like', 'hairdryer', 'finally', 'dragged', 'kicking', 'screaming', 'gadget', 'age', 'sadly', 'group', 'tests', 'hairdryers', 'half', 'supersonic', 'price', 'found', 'lot', 'hot', 'air', 'attach', 'nozzle', 'fancy', 'airflow', 'dropped', 'level', 'akin', 'blowing', 'drinking', 'straw']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/29/fbi-dhs-russian-hacking-report

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI have released an analysis of the allegedly Russian government-sponsored hacking groups blamed for breaching several different parts of the Democratic party during the 2016 elections. The 13-page document, released on Thursday and meant for information technology professionals, came as Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2016 elections. The report was criticized by security experts, who said it lacked depth and came too late. “The activity by [Russian intelligence services] is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the US government and its citizens,” wrote the authors of the government report. “This [joint analysis report] provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the US government.” The government report follows several from the private sector, notably a lengthy section in a Microsoft report from 2015 on a hacking team referred to as “advanced persistent threat 28” (APT 28), which the company’s internal nomenclature calls Strontium and others have called Fancy Bear. Also mentioned in the government document is another group called APT 29 or Cozy Bear. Before the government report, other security researchers tracked “the bears” to breaches including the summer 2016 attack on the World Anti-Doping Agency, apparently an act of revenge against whistleblowing Russian athlete Yuliya Stepanova. Other attacks attributed to the same set of apparently Russian actors include an attack on Georgian elections in 2008, the hack of French news channel TV5Monde, and a Twitter account and blog supposedly operated by a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 but more likely an instrument of Fancy Bear. The Microsoft report contains a history of the groups’ operation; a report by security analysts ThreatConnect describes the team’s modus operandi; and competing firm CrowdStrike detailed the attack on the Democratic National Committee shortly before subsequent breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were discovered. Security experts on Twitter criticized the government report as too basic. Jonathan Zdziarski, a highly regarded security researcher, compared the joint action report to a child’s activity center. Tom Killalea, former vice-president of security at Amazon and a Capital One board member, wrote: “Russian attack on DNC similar to so many other attacks in past 15yrs. Big question: Why such poor incident response?”

technology/2016/dec/29/fbi-dhs-russian-hacking-report

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T22:19:53Z

FBI and Homeland Security detail Russian hacking campaign in new report

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/fbi-dhs-russian-hacking-report

['us', 'department', 'homeland', 'security', 'dhs', 'fbi', 'released', 'analysis', 'allegedly', 'russian', 'government-sponsored', 'hacking', 'groups', 'blamed', 'breaching', 'several', 'different', 'parts', 'democratic', 'party', 'elections', '13-page', 'document', 'released', 'thursday', 'meant', 'information', 'technology', 'professionals', 'came', 'barack', 'obama', 'announced', 'sanctions', 'russia', 'interfering', 'elections', 'report', 'criticized', 'security', 'experts', 'said', 'lacked', 'depth', 'came', 'late', 'activity', 'russian', 'intelligence', 'services', 'part', 'ongoing', 'campaign', 'cyber-enabled', 'operations', 'directed', 'us', 'government', 'citizens', 'wrote', 'authors', 'government', 'report', 'joint', 'analysis', 'report', 'provides', 'technical', 'indicators', 'related', 'many', 'operations', 'recommended', 'mitigations', 'suggested', 'actions', 'take', 'response', 'indicators', 'provided', 'information', 'report', 'incidents', 'us', 'government', 'government', 'report', 'follows', 'several', 'private', 'sector', 'notably', 'lengthy', 'section', 'microsoft', 'report', 'hacking', 'team', 'referred', 'advanced', 'persistent', 'threat', 'apt', 'company', 'internal', 'nomenclature', 'calls', 'strontium', 'others', 'called', 'fancy', 'bear', 'also', 'mentioned', 'government', 'document', 'another', 'group', 'called', 'apt', 'cozy', 'bear', 'government', 'report', 'security', 'researchers', 'tracked', 'bears', 'breaches', 'including', 'summer', 'attack', 'world', 'anti-doping', 'agency', 'apparently', 'act', 'revenge', 'whistleblowing', 'russian', 'athlete', 'yuliya', 'stepanova', 'attacks', 'attributed', 'set', 'apparently', 'russian', 'actors', 'include', 'attack', 'georgian', 'elections', 'hack', 'french', 'news', 'channel', 'tv5monde', 'twitter', 'account', 'blog', 'supposedly', 'operated', 'hacker', 'calling', 'guccifer', 'likely', 'instrument', 'fancy', 'bear', 'microsoft', 'report', 'contains', 'history', 'groups', 'operation', 'report', 'security', 'analysts', 'threatconnect', 'describes', 'team', 'modus', 'operandi', 'competing', 'firm', 'crowdstrike', 'detailed', 'attack', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'shortly', 'subsequent', 'breaches', 'democratic', 'congressional', 'campaign', 'committee', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'campaign', 'discovered', 'security', 'experts', 'twitter', 'criticized', 'government', 'report', 'basic', 'jonathan', 'zdziarski', 'highly', 'regarded', 'security', 'researcher', 'compared', 'joint', 'action', 'report', 'child', 'activity', 'center', 'tom', 'killalea', 'former', 'vice-president', 'security', 'amazon', 'capital', 'one', 'board', 'member', 'wrote', 'russian', 'attack', 'dnc', 'similar', 'many', 'attacks', 'past', '15yrs', 'big', 'question', 'poor', 'incident', 'response']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/29/how-to-avoid-siris-blood-curdling-scream

Samuel Gibbs’ piece about the internet of things (How I turned my home into a sci-fi dream, theguardian.com, 24 December) omits an important warning: Alexa and Siri must never be left alone in the same room. The Bluetooth/Wi-Fi version of scratching each other’s eyes out is not pretty, but only Siri has that blood-curdling scream. Tony Waters Eugene, Oregon, USA • Can I ask you to review the use of “to sleep with” when you mean to have sex with (Report, 27 December). It is 2016 and I think your readers can deal with an accurate description rather than this 1950s euphemism for sexual activity. Caroline Pinder Todmorden, West Yorkshire • The rich pay £23m for the privilege of rubbing snow into their skins (Perks snowball as luxury flat market cools, 29 December). Homeless people do it for nothing. Wake up, world. Feel ashamed. Laura Cunningham London • Neither Jem Whiteley (Letters, 28 December) nor Judith Flanders (Letters, 29 December) makes an original point. The Monster Raving Loony Party, many years ago, posed the question: “How come there’s only one Monopolies Commission?” At the same time in its election manifesto it indicated that the way to reduce classroom sizes was to push the desks closer together. Gordon Atkinson Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex • Maybe, having explained (Letters, 29 December) the singularity of “thesaurus”, Judith Flanders could tell us why, stepping off the boat at Ostend, you can’t book a quick tour of just the one Flander? Chris Sladen Woodstock, Oxfordshire • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

technology/2016/dec/29/how-to-avoid-siris-blood-curdling-scream

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T18:12:48Z

How to avoid Siri’s blood-curdling scream | Brief letters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/how-to-avoid-siris-blood-curdling-scream

['samuel', 'gibbs', 'piece', 'internet', 'things', 'turned', 'home', 'sci-fi', 'dream', 'theguardiancom', 'december', 'omits', 'important', 'warning', 'alexa', 'siri', 'must', 'never', 'left', 'alone', 'room', 'bluetoothwi-fi', 'version', 'scratching', 'eyes', 'pretty', 'siri', 'blood-curdling', 'scream', 'tony', 'waters', 'eugene', 'oregon', 'usa', 'ask', 'review', 'use', 'sleep', 'mean', 'sex', 'report', 'december', 'think', 'readers', 'deal', 'accurate', 'description', 'rather', '1950s', 'euphemism', 'sexual', 'activity', 'caroline', 'pinder', 'todmorden', 'west', 'yorkshire', 'rich', 'pay', '23m', 'privilege', 'rubbing', 'snow', 'skins', 'perks', 'snowball', 'luxury', 'flat', 'market', 'cools', 'december', 'homeless', 'people', 'nothing', 'wake', 'world', 'feel', 'ashamed', 'laura', 'cunningham', 'london', 'neither', 'jem', 'whiteley', 'letters', 'december', 'judith', 'flanders', 'letters', 'december', 'makes', 'original', 'point', 'monster', 'raving', 'loony', 'party', 'many', 'years', 'ago', 'posed', 'question', 'come', 'one', 'monopolies', 'commission', 'time', 'election', 'manifesto', 'indicated', 'way', 'reduce', 'classroom', 'sizes', 'push', 'desks', 'closer', 'together', 'gordon', 'atkinson', 'shoreham-by-sea', 'west', 'sussex', 'maybe', 'explained', 'letters', 'december', 'singularity', 'thesaurus', 'judith', 'flanders', 'could', 'tell', 'us', 'stepping', 'boat', 'ostend', 'book', 'quick', 'tour', 'one', 'flander', 'chris', 'sladen', 'woodstock', 'oxfordshire', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/29/smart-electricity-meters-dangerously-insecure-hackers

Smart electricity meters, of which there are more than 100m installed around the world, are frequently “dangerously insecure”, a security expert has said. The lack of security in the smart utilities raises the prospect of a single line of malicious code cutting power to a home or even causing a catastrophic overload leading to exploding meters or house fires, according to Netanel Rubin, co-founder of the security firm Vaultra. “Reclaim your home,” Rubin told a conference of hackers and security experts, “or someone else will.” If a hacker took control of a smart meter they would be able to know “exactly when and how much electricity you’re using”, Rubin told the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg. An attacker could also see whether a home had any expensive electronics. “He can do billing fraud, setting your bill to whatever he likes … The scary thing is if you think about the power they have over your electricity. He will have power over all of your smart devices connected to the electricity. This will have more severe consequences: imagine you woke up to find you’d been robbed by a burglar who didn’t have to break in. “But even if you don’t have smart devices, you are still at risk. An attacker who controls the meter also controls the meter’s software, allowing him to cause it to literally explode.” Rubin said many of the warnings were not hypothetical. In 2009 Puerto Rican smart meters were hacked en masse, leading to widespread billing fraud, and in 2015 a house fire in Ontario was traced back to a faulty smart meter, although hacking was not implicated in that. The problems at the heart of the insecurity stem from outdated protocols, half-hearted implementations and weak design principles. While the physical security of smart meters is strong – “trust me, I tried” to hack in that way, Rubin said – the wireless protocols many of them use are problematic. To communicate with the utility company, most smart meters use GSM, the 2G mobile standard. That has a fairly well-known weakness whereby an attacker with a fake mobile tower can cause devices to “hand over” to the fake version from the real tower, simply by providing a strong signal. In GSM, devices have to authenticate with towers, but not the other way round, allowing the fake mast to send its own commands to the meter. Worse still, said Rubin, all the meters from one utility used the same hardcoded credentials. “If an attacker gains access to one meter, it gains access to them all. It is the one key to rule them all.” Inside the home, too, the communications are rendered insecure by outdated standards and bad implementation. Almost all smart meters use the Zigbee standard to speak to other smart devices in the home. Zigbee, which dates from 2003, is a popular home automation standard, used for controlling everything from lightbulbs to air conditioners. But it is so convoluted, due to the vast array of devices supported, that it is almost better to think of it as 15 different standards, each of which vendors can choose to implement as they see fit. “This unique situation is so difficult to implement, venders actually choose what they want to implement. And when they choose what to support, they more often than not skip security,” Rubin said. Other weak security decisions made by vendors include: Encryption keys derived from short (often just six-character) device names. Pairing standards with no authentication required, allowing an attacker to simply ask the smart meter to join the network and receive keys in return. Hardcoded credentials, allowing administrator access with passwords as simple and guessable as the vendor’s name. Code simplified to work on low-power devices skipping important checks, allowing nothing more than a long communication to crash the device. “These security problems are not going to just go away,” Rubin said. “On the contrary, we are going to see a sharp increase in hacking attempts. Yet most utilities are not even monitoring their network, let alone the smart meters. Utilities have to understand that with great power comes great responsibility.” Smart meters come with benefits, allowing utilities to more efficiently allocate energy production, and enabling micro-generation that can boost the uptake of renewable energy. For those reasons and more, the European Union has a goal of replacing 80% of meters with smart meters by 2020. A spokesperson for the UK government’s department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “Robust security controls are in place across the end to end smart metering system and all devices must be independently assessed by an expert security organisation, irrespective of their country of origin.”

technology/2016/dec/29/smart-electricity-meters-dangerously-insecure-hackers

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T14:51:06Z

Smart electricity meters can be dangerously insecure, warns expert

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/smart-electricity-meters-dangerously-insecure-hackers

['smart', 'electricity', 'meters', '100m', 'installed', 'around', 'world', 'frequently', 'dangerously', 'insecure', 'security', 'expert', 'said', 'lack', 'security', 'smart', 'utilities', 'raises', 'prospect', 'single', 'line', 'malicious', 'code', 'cutting', 'power', 'home', 'even', 'causing', 'catastrophic', 'overload', 'leading', 'exploding', 'meters', 'house', 'fires', 'according', 'netanel', 'rubin', 'co-founder', 'security', 'firm', 'vaultra', 'reclaim', 'home', 'rubin', 'told', 'conference', 'hackers', 'security', 'experts', 'someone', 'else', 'hacker', 'took', 'control', 'smart', 'meter', 'would', 'able', 'know', 'exactly', 'much', 'electricity', 'using', 'rubin', 'told', '33rd', 'chaos', 'communications', 'congress', 'hamburg', 'attacker', 'could', 'also', 'see', 'whether', 'home', 'expensive', 'electronics', 'billing', 'fraud', 'setting', 'bill', 'whatever', 'likes', 'scary', 'thing', 'think', 'power', 'electricity', 'power', 'smart', 'devices', 'connected', 'electricity', 'severe', 'consequences', 'imagine', 'woke', 'find', 'would', 'robbed', 'burglar', 'break', 'even', 'smart', 'devices', 'still', 'risk', 'attacker', 'controls', 'meter', 'also', 'controls', 'meter', 'software', 'allowing', 'cause', 'literally', 'explode', 'rubin', 'said', 'many', 'warnings', 'hypothetical', 'puerto', 'rican', 'smart', 'meters', 'hacked', 'en', 'masse', 'leading', 'widespread', 'billing', 'fraud', 'house', 'fire', 'ontario', 'traced', 'back', 'faulty', 'smart', 'meter', 'although', 'hacking', 'implicated', 'problems', 'heart', 'insecurity', 'stem', 'outdated', 'protocols', 'half-hearted', 'implementations', 'weak', 'design', 'principles', 'physical', 'security', 'smart', 'meters', 'strong', 'trust', 'tried', 'hack', 'way', 'rubin', 'said', 'wireless', 'protocols', 'many', 'use', 'problematic', 'communicate', 'utility', 'company', 'smart', 'meters', 'use', 'gsm', '2g', 'mobile', 'standard', 'fairly', 'well-known', 'weakness', 'whereby', 'attacker', 'fake', 'mobile', 'tower', 'cause', 'devices', 'hand', 'fake', 'version', 'real', 'tower', 'simply', 'providing', 'strong', 'signal', 'gsm', 'devices', 'authenticate', 'towers', 'way', 'round', 'allowing', 'fake', 'mast', 'send', 'commands', 'meter', 'worse', 'still', 'said', 'rubin', 'meters', 'one', 'utility', 'used', 'hardcoded', 'credentials', 'attacker', 'gains', 'access', 'one', 'meter', 'gains', 'access', 'one', 'key', 'rule', 'inside', 'home', 'communications', 'rendered', 'insecure', 'outdated', 'standards', 'bad', 'implementation', 'almost', 'smart', 'meters', 'use', 'zigbee', 'standard', 'speak', 'smart', 'devices', 'home', 'zigbee', 'dates', 'popular', 'home', 'automation', 'standard', 'used', 'controlling', 'everything', 'lightbulbs', 'air', 'conditioners', 'convoluted', 'due', 'vast', 'array', 'devices', 'supported', 'almost', 'better', 'think', 'different', 'standards', 'vendors', 'choose', 'implement', 'see', 'fit', 'unique', 'situation', 'difficult', 'implement', 'venders', 'actually', 'choose', 'want', 'implement', 'choose', 'support', 'often', 'skip', 'security', 'rubin', 'said', 'weak', 'security', 'decisions', 'made', 'vendors', 'include', 'encryption', 'keys', 'derived', 'short', 'often', 'six-character', 'device', 'names', 'pairing', 'standards', 'authentication', 'required', 'allowing', 'attacker', 'simply', 'ask', 'smart', 'meter', 'join', 'network', 'receive', 'keys', 'return', 'hardcoded', 'credentials', 'allowing', 'administrator', 'access', 'passwords', 'simple', 'guessable', 'vendor', 'name', 'code', 'simplified', 'work', 'low-power', 'devices', 'skipping', 'important', 'checks', 'allowing', 'nothing', 'long', 'communication', 'crash', 'device', 'security', 'problems', 'going', 'go', 'away', 'rubin', 'said', 'contrary', 'going', 'see', 'sharp', 'increase', 'hacking', 'attempts', 'yet', 'utilities', 'even', 'monitoring', 'network', 'let', 'alone', 'smart', 'meters', 'utilities', 'understand', 'great', 'power', 'comes', 'great', 'responsibility', 'smart', 'meters', 'come', 'benefits', 'allowing', 'utilities', 'efficiently', 'allocate', 'energy', 'production', 'enabling', 'micro-generation', 'boost', 'uptake', 'renewable', 'energy', 'reasons', 'european', 'union', 'goal', 'replacing', 'meters', 'smart', 'meters', 'spokesperson', 'uk', 'government', 'department', 'business', 'energy', 'industrial', 'strategy', 'said', 'robust', 'security', 'controls', 'place', 'across', 'end', 'end', 'smart', 'metering', 'system', 'devices', 'must', 'independently', 'assessed', 'expert', 'security', 'organisation', 'irrespective', 'country', 'origin']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/29/music-streaming-industry-saviour-labels-spotify-apple-music

Five years ago, the demise of the music industry seemed almost inevitable. Recession, rampant piracy, falling CD sales and a fear that “kids just don’t buy music any more” had giant record labels, once oozing wealth, counting the pennies. Yet 2016 has seen a reversal of fortune – and the industry’s saviour is not what many predicted. Profits from music streaming, first championed by Spotify and now offered by Apple and Amazon, have given some labels their largest surge in revenue in more than a decade. At the beginning of December, one of the world’s biggest labels, Warner Music, announced revenues of $3.25bn (£2.66bn) this year – its highest in eight years. More significantly, $1bn of that was from streaming, more than double its download revenue and more than $100m more than its physical revenue. The surge in profits is being seen across all the major labels. In the first half of 2016, streaming revenue in the US grew by 57% to $1.6bn, and worldwide digital revenues overtook those from physical sales for the first time in music industry history, mainly because of streaming. This year’s most-streamed artist was Drake, with 4.2bn streams. There are 90 million people signed up to streaming services worldwide and the shift, and the aggressive speed at which it has taken place, is having the greatest impact on music since digital downloads were introduced. It makes boycotts by artists such as Taylor Swift, who condemned Spotify for only paying between $0.006 and $0.0084 each time someone listens to a song, seem redundant. Paul Smernicki, who was head of digital at Universal Records for 17 years before leaving this year to start his own venture, Restless Natives, said: “I thought the days of the music industry talking about anything in terms of millions were gone, but now we are looking at billions of streams on an almost daily basis. If you look at the the raw numbers of people who are streaming, I think you could now argue that music has never been more popular.” Smernecki said streaming had democratised access to music by making it easy and cheap, even for those who were previously unwilling to buy it. “The value of reliability, convenience and accessibility to an enormous catalogue of songs for a small cost now trumps illegally downloading a song free,” he said. “Spotify and Apple Music are now simply better than any hassle of an illegal download service and come without the risk, so people are willing to invest. “You don’t even have to be a hardcore music fan for it to seem like good value. People who previously thought they weren’t that into music, or didn’t like artists enough to buy entire albums, are now discovering they are far more interested in music than they thought. I think streaming has woken people up to how music can really find its place in your life.” The format is so popular that less than a year after the Official Charts Company decided to count streams, as well as physical sales and downloads, it has had to change the formula. Currently, 100 streams count as one “sale” of a song, but from January, the ratio will become 150:1 to avoid certain songs, such as Drake’s One Dance, remaining unmoved at the top of the chart for weeks based almost entirely on their popularity on Spotify. The figures now generated by a select few artists also make Sony’s decision to poach Adele from indie label XL for a mammoth £90m this year, the biggest record deal with a British musician, seem like savvy business sense; her hit single Hello has been streamed 632m times and counting. But it is not just the three major labels, Universal, Warner and Sony, that are benefiting. With album purchases and single downloads, it made no difference if they were ever played, but streaming rewards consumption – the more times a song is played, the more money it makes. That shift has rewarded many independent labels, particularly those with big-hitting artists on their roster. Jamie Oborne, manager of Mercury-nominated band the 1975, said that streaming was responsible for a music industry “renaissance”, financially rewarding not just labels but also musicians. ““We’ve seen this cultural shift where people are willing to pay for music again, not just illegally download it from LimeWire, so of course my artists have benefitted from that. Sales used to be decimated by a leak, whereas now it just doesn’t matter. Digital downloads are shrinking so rapidly that I’d say they will almost certainly be gone in a couple of years” Jane Third, senior vice-president of Because Music, whose artists include Metronomy, Christine and the Queens, Major Lazer and Django Django, said revenue from streaming had ensured profits more than doubled on last year. Third attributed it almost entirely to the success of Christine and the Queens, the French singer who became one of this year’s most talked about musicians, and Major Lazer, whose track Lean On was the most-streamed song of 2015. “Streaming is a positive thing, 100%,” Third said. “We have seen an upswing this year for the first time in more than 10 years and it’s going to continue to grow. Our company has grown exponentially, and as soon as we started having hits in the streaming world, our revenues doubled. Overall, streaming is going to save the industry.” Third said playlists on streaming services, particularly Spotify, were becoming as essential as radio in generating interest in a track. Indies and major labels see streaming playlists as a major part of the marketing strategy around a song, trying to “put your music into people’s consumption habits, whether it’s a playlist they listen to on the way to work, at the gym or just as part of their streaming library”. Streaming playlists are increasingly the way many people find their music. Creating interesting playlists is also a major focus for Spotify, which recently hired the former head of music at Radio 1 George Ergatoudis to head up its playlisting team and seek out new music to champion. Streaming playlists have become so important that the major labels now have “streaming pluggers”, just as they have radio pluggers who push for songs to be played on major stations. Third was adamant that this shift towards play count, or consumption, would not have an impact on the sort of artist signed and championed by the indie sector. However, Darius Van Arman, the co-owner of the Secretly group, whose artists include Bon Iver, Angel Olsen and The War on Drugs, predicted there would be some impact on more experimental artists who in the past might have sold well due to credibility, but were unlikely to generate numerous repeated plays on streaming services. Van Arman said independent labels were definitely “keeping up with the majors” in terms of benefiting from streaming, but added: “I think it’s probably inevitable that the market is going to invest more in music that is accessible and caters to repeat listening. For labels and artists who are more experimental, the new streaming economy is going to make it harder for them to earn money on their recordings. “It has some impact on our A&R philosophy. We do think it’s very important that experimental music and challenging music is released. There are important artists that need to be supported because they are culturally exciting and push the boundaries of what is mainstream, so we will always have one foot in that world. “But we have to be realistic and have another foot in the world where we are working with artists to make recordings that people want to listen to over and over again.” The focus of labels and artists has shifted even more towards generating a hit single, but Van Arman emphasised that streaming had not completely eliminated the album format. Albums tend to perform less well on streaming – currently it accounts for 30% of most album revenues, with the rest from downloads and physical purchases. However, Van Arman pointed to Bon Iver’s recent release, 22, A Million, which data from Spotify showed most people were listening to the whole way through. The flipside is that labels are encouraging artists to make longer albums to monetise the format as much as possible for streaming. The domination of streaming has not benefited the entire industry. Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade records, said: “Our sales figures seem to me shockingly low given the acclaimed quality of the releases. [But] other people seem optimistic and we are still in the game, so maybe there is a future.”

technology/2016/dec/29/music-streaming-industry-saviour-labels-spotify-apple-music

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T14:09:43Z

Music streaming hailed as industry's saviour as labels enjoy profit surge

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/music-streaming-industry-saviour-labels-spotify-apple-music

['five', 'years', 'ago', 'demise', 'music', 'industry', 'seemed', 'almost', 'inevitable', 'recession', 'rampant', 'piracy', 'falling', 'cd', 'sales', 'fear', 'kids', 'buy', 'music', 'giant', 'record', 'labels', 'oozing', 'wealth', 'counting', 'pennies', 'yet', 'seen', 'reversal', 'fortune', 'industry', 'saviour', 'many', 'predicted', 'profits', 'music', 'streaming', 'first', 'championed', 'spotify', 'offered', 'apple', 'amazon', 'given', 'labels', 'largest', 'surge', 'revenue', 'decade', 'beginning', 'december', 'one', 'world', 'biggest', 'labels', 'warner', 'music', 'announced', 'revenues', '325bn', '266bn', 'year', 'highest', 'eight', 'years', 'significantly', '1bn', 'streaming', 'double', 'download', 'revenue', '100m', 'physical', 'revenue', 'surge', 'profits', 'seen', 'across', 'major', 'labels', 'first', 'half', 'streaming', 'revenue', 'us', 'grew', '16bn', 'worldwide', 'digital', 'revenues', 'overtook', 'physical', 'sales', 'first', 'time', 'music', 'industry', 'history', 'mainly', 'streaming', 'year', 'most-streamed', 'artist', 'drake', '42bn', 'streams', 'million', 'people', 'signed', 'streaming', 'services', 'worldwide', 'shift', 'aggressive', 'speed', 'taken', 'place', 'greatest', 'impact', 'music', 'since', 'digital', 'downloads', 'introduced', 'makes', 'boycotts', 'artists', 'taylor', 'swift', 'condemned', 'spotify', 'paying', 'time', 'someone', 'listens', 'song', 'seem', 'redundant', 'paul', 'smernicki', 'head', 'digital', 'universal', 'records', 'years', 'leaving', 'year', 'start', 'venture', 'restless', 'natives', 'said', 'thought', 'days', 'music', 'industry', 'talking', 'anything', 'terms', 'millions', 'gone', 'looking', 'billions', 'streams', 'almost', 'daily', 'basis', 'look', 'raw', 'numbers', 'people', 'streaming', 'think', 'could', 'argue', 'music', 'never', 'popular', 'smernecki', 'said', 'streaming', 'democratised', 'access', 'music', 'making', 'easy', 'cheap', 'even', 'previously', 'unwilling', 'buy', 'value', 'reliability', 'convenience', 'accessibility', 'enormous', 'catalogue', 'songs', 'small', 'cost', 'trumps', 'illegally', 'downloading', 'song', 'free', 'said', 'spotify', 'apple', 'music', 'simply', 'better', 'hassle', 'illegal', 'download', 'service', 'come', 'without', 'risk', 'people', 'willing', 'invest', 'even', 'hardcore', 'music', 'fan', 'seem', 'like', 'good', 'value', 'people', 'previously', 'thought', 'music', 'like', 'artists', 'enough', 'buy', 'entire', 'albums', 'discovering', 'far', 'interested', 'music', 'thought', 'think', 'streaming', 'woken', 'people', 'music', 'really', 'find', 'place', 'life', 'format', 'popular', 'less', 'year', 'official', 'charts', 'company', 'decided', 'count', 'streams', 'well', 'physical', 'sales', 'downloads', 'change', 'formula', 'currently', 'streams', 'count', 'one', 'sale', 'song', 'january', 'ratio', 'become', 'avoid', 'certain', 'songs', 'drake', 'one', 'dance', 'remaining', 'unmoved', 'top', 'chart', 'weeks', 'based', 'almost', 'entirely', 'popularity', 'spotify', 'figures', 'generated', 'select', 'artists', 'also', 'make', 'sony', 'decision', 'poach', 'adele', 'indie', 'label', 'xl', 'mammoth', '90m', 'year', 'biggest', 'record', 'deal', 'british', 'musician', 'seem', 'like', 'savvy', 'business', 'sense', 'hit', 'single', 'hello', 'streamed', '632m', 'times', 'counting', 'three', 'major', 'labels', 'universal', 'warner', 'sony', 'benefiting', 'album', 'purchases', 'single', 'downloads', 'made', 'difference', 'ever', 'played', 'streaming', 'rewards', 'consumption', 'times', 'song', 'played', 'money', 'makes', 'shift', 'rewarded', 'many', 'independent', 'labels', 'particularly', 'big-hitting', 'artists', 'roster', 'jamie', 'oborne', 'manager', 'mercury-nominated', 'band', 'said', 'streaming', 'responsible', 'music', 'industry', 'renaissance', 'financially', 'rewarding', 'labels', 'also', 'musicians', 'seen', 'cultural', 'shift', 'people', 'willing', 'pay', 'music', 'illegally', 'download', 'limewire', 'course', 'artists', 'benefitted', 'sales', 'used', 'decimated', 'leak', 'whereas', 'matter', 'digital', 'downloads', 'shrinking', 'rapidly', 'would', 'say', 'almost', 'certainly', 'gone', 'couple', 'years', 'jane', 'third', 'senior', 'vice-president', 'music', 'whose', 'artists', 'include', 'metronomy', 'christine', 'queens', 'major', 'lazer', 'django', 'django', 'said', 'revenue', 'streaming', 'ensured', 'profits', 'doubled', 'last', 'year', 'third', 'attributed', 'almost', 'entirely', 'success', 'christine', 'queens', 'french', 'singer', 'became', 'one', 'year', 'talked', 'musicians', 'major', 'lazer', 'whose', 'track', 'lean', 'most-streamed', 'song', 'streaming', 'positive', 'thing', 'third', 'said', 'seen', 'upswing', 'year', 'first', 'time', 'years', 'going', 'continue', 'grow', 'company', 'grown', 'exponentially', 'soon', 'started', 'hits', 'streaming', 'world', 'revenues', 'doubled', 'overall', 'streaming', 'going', 'save', 'industry', 'third', 'said', 'playlists', 'streaming', 'services', 'particularly', 'spotify', 'becoming', 'essential', 'radio', 'generating', 'interest', 'track', 'indies', 'major', 'labels', 'see', 'streaming', 'playlists', 'major', 'part', 'marketing', 'strategy', 'around', 'song', 'trying', 'put', 'music', 'people', 'consumption', 'habits', 'whether', 'playlist', 'listen', 'way', 'work', 'gym', 'part', 'streaming', 'library', 'streaming', 'playlists', 'increasingly', 'way', 'many', 'people', 'find', 'music', 'creating', 'interesting', 'playlists', 'also', 'major', 'focus', 'spotify', 'recently', 'hired', 'former', 'head', 'music', 'radio', 'george', 'ergatoudis', 'head', 'playlisting', 'team', 'seek', 'new', 'music', 'champion', 'streaming', 'playlists', 'become', 'important', 'major', 'labels', 'streaming', 'pluggers', 'radio', 'pluggers', 'push', 'songs', 'played', 'major', 'stations', 'third', 'adamant', 'shift', 'towards', 'play', 'count', 'consumption', 'would', 'impact', 'sort', 'artist', 'signed', 'championed', 'indie', 'sector', 'however', 'darius', 'van', 'arman', 'co-owner', 'secretly', 'group', 'whose', 'artists', 'include', 'bon', 'iver', 'angel', 'olsen', 'war', 'drugs', 'predicted', 'would', 'impact', 'experimental', 'artists', 'past', 'might', 'sold', 'well', 'due', 'credibility', 'unlikely', 'generate', 'numerous', 'repeated', 'plays', 'streaming', 'services', 'van', 'arman', 'said', 'independent', 'labels', 'definitely', 'keeping', 'majors', 'terms', 'benefiting', 'streaming', 'added', 'think', 'probably', 'inevitable', 'market', 'going', 'invest', 'music', 'accessible', 'caters', 'repeat', 'listening', 'labels', 'artists', 'experimental', 'new', 'streaming', 'economy', 'going', 'make', 'harder', 'earn', 'money', 'recordings', 'impact', 'aampr', 'philosophy', 'think', 'important', 'experimental', 'music', 'challenging', 'music', 'released', 'important', 'artists', 'need', 'supported', 'culturally', 'exciting', 'push', 'boundaries', 'mainstream', 'always', 'one', 'foot', 'world', 'realistic', 'another', 'foot', 'world', 'working', 'artists', 'make', 'recordings', 'people', 'want', 'listen', 'focus', 'labels', 'artists', 'shifted', 'even', 'towards', 'generating', 'hit', 'single', 'van', 'arman', 'emphasised', 'streaming', 'completely', 'eliminated', 'album', 'format', 'albums', 'tend', 'perform', 'less', 'well', 'streaming', 'currently', 'accounts', 'album', 'revenues', 'rest', 'downloads', 'physical', 'purchases', 'however', 'van', 'arman', 'pointed', 'bon', 'iver', 'recent', 'release', 'million', 'data', 'spotify', 'showed', 'people', 'listening', 'whole', 'way', 'flipside', 'labels', 'encouraging', 'artists', 'make', 'longer', 'albums', 'monetise', 'format', 'much', 'possible', 'streaming', 'domination', 'streaming', 'benefited', 'entire', 'industry', 'geoff', 'travis', 'founder', 'rough', 'trade', 'records', 'said', 'sales', 'figures', 'seem', 'shockingly', 'low', 'given', 'acclaimed', 'quality', 'releases', 'people', 'seem', 'optimistic', 'still', 'game', 'maybe', 'future']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/29/which-is-the-best-cheap-windows-laptop-for-my-mum

My mum is looking to buy a new laptop after Christmas. Her budget is tight: around £200. She uses it for Microsoft Office, browsing the internet (reading the Guardian) and watching TV. I suggested a 32GB SSD drive – which would be really quick – as she will use USB sticks, SD cards and the cloud for storage. I saw one for £160, but if she bought that, she would need to buy an external DVD drive for burning music to CD etc. Would it just be easier to stay safe and get a standard laptop with a hard drive? Charlie There are two kinds of laptop at the low end of the PC market. First, there are traditional laptops, where the base system has a 15.6in screen, 4GB of memory, a 500GB or 1TB hard drive, and (usually) a read/write DVD drive. These machines are not very portable and don’t have long battery life, but they do the job. Current prices range from around £250 to £500. The second type is much like a netbook, albeit one that doesn’t meet all the netbook’s now-obsolete specifications (such as a 1024 x 600-pixel screen). They are designed to be thinner, lighter and cheaper than traditional laptops, and they usually have much better battery life. The base system typically has a 10in or 11.6in screen, 2GB of memory, and 32GB of Flash storage. The touch-screen models often double as tablets: their screens are detachable or have 360-degree hinges that make them into 2-in-1s. Current prices range from about £150 to £300. The hardware specifications of new-style netbooks are very similar to Chromebooks and they sell at much the same prices. Like Chromebooks, they are designed for web-based computing, though they can do much more. They can still run traditional Windows programs, such as Microsoft Office and Apple iTunes, and they can easily use external DVD and Blu-ray drives and other peripherals. Traditional laptops are usually bought as desktop PC replacements. New-style netbooks and Chromebooks are better seen as companion devices that supplement either a desktop PC or laptop – though they could be seen as upgrades for people who only have smartphones or tablets. New-style netbooks are great for casual computing, and for carrying around in handbags, but they compromise on screen size, CPU power, and storage. Beware of 32GB “SSDs” Contrary to what you think, netbooks do not have SSDs (solid state drives) – or at least, not the kind of SSD that can replace a standard hard drive. PC manufacturers often describe them, accurately, as eMMC (Embedded Multi Media Card) drives. They are more like SD storage cards soldered to the motherboard. They are used in smartphones, tablets and low-end laptops because they are very small and very cheap, but they don’t perform anything like real SSDs. Indeed, while eMMC chips load data faster than traditional hard drives, they won’t always write data faster. Apart from that, I think 32GB Flash memory drives are too small for traditional laptop uses. Microsoft has reduced the size of Windows 10, partly by compressing the Windows files, but it’s going to get bigger with use. There will be numerous upgrades, growing log files, swap files, and large caches of temporary internet files. (When I removed Google Chrome, it had about 1.3GB of temp files.) Windows 10 is getting in-place upgrades twice a year – the Creators Update is coming soon – and these are installed as new operating systems. So, you need space for the current version of Windows 10, space for the new version, and space for a backup copy of the old version, which is preserved so you can roll back the upgrade if something goes wrong. August’s Anniversary Update needed 10-20GB of free space to install, and it wouldn’t install on my 32GB 2-in-1. which had 9GB free. I had to plug in an external hard drive. Looking three years or six upgrades ahead, I can’t see a 32GB drive coping without some massive clean-ups. Significant upgrades may have to be downloaded separately and installed from a USB thumb drive. Since eMMC drives can’t be upgraded, I recommend buying PC’s with 64GB instead of 32GB. Stick with tradition Your mother sounds like a traditional laptop user, and if she wants to install Microsoft Office and assemble tracks to burn audio CDs, she’d be better off with a traditional laptop. This is a different scenario from someone who wants a very light PC to carry around, whose data is online, and who streams everything instead of saving and owning it. Of course, traditional laptops are more expensive than new-style netbooks, but if you include the cost of an external DVD, there’s not much in it. Although no PC manufacturer now makes traditional laptops to sell for £250, you can still buy them for less than that. You can get bargains in the sales, refurbished laptops (which come with a guarantee), and second hand machines. Some companies, including HP, do their own refurbishing and sell Grade A laptops that are almost “as new”, except for coming in plain boxes. Some companies, such as Tier1Online, sell ex-corporate systems that may have been heavily used but can still be good value. You will have to shop around. Argos often has sale bargains, especially on Lenovo equipment. Currys PC World sometimes has special deals. Laptop Outlet, on the Tottenham Court Road in London, has deals and refurbished machines. It’s also worth checking online suppliers such as Laptops Direct, eBuyer.com, Morgan Computers and so on. Possible laptops At the moment, mum’s best bet could be the 15.6in Acer Aspire ES with a quad core Intel Pentium N4200 processor, 4GB of memory, 1TB hard drive and read/write DVD, which Argos is selling for £199.99 (was £299.99). The exact model is not specified, and the Pentium N4200 runs at 1.1GHz to 2.5GHz, not the 2.6GHz in Argos’s blurb. However, it’s a decent processor and makes the machine good value for money. An alternative is the Lenovo IdeaPad 110 with the same specification, except for its much slower dual core Intel Celeron N3060 processor. PC World is selling this model online for £249.99, or for £269.99 in store. Laptop Outlet has a refurbished 14in HP 14-AM012NA with the same slow Celeron N3060 and a 500GB hard drive for £219.99. However, refurbished ThinkPads tend to be better value. For example, you could get a Lenovo ThinkPad T420 – a business workhorse – with a 2.50GHz Intel Core i5-2520M, 320GB hard drive and Windows 10 Pro from Eflex on Amazon.co.uk for £229.99, which undercuts Tier1online. It may have a second-generation Core i5 but it’s still faster than a seventh-gen Core i3-7100U. (It runs at 35W instead of 15W, but your mother won’t care.) In passing, it’s hard to find real SSDs at this price level, but Laptop Outlet is selling new 11.6in Lenovo ThinkPad 11e laptops with 128GB SSDs for £249.99. This is a tough, military-spec system designed for use in schools, and current models start at £549.99. The LO version has no DVD and is still running Windows 8.1, but it might suit someone with a child who needs assistive technologies. Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to [email protected]

technology/askjack/2016/dec/29/which-is-the-best-cheap-windows-laptop-for-my-mum

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T09:00:01Z

Which is the best cheap Windows laptop for my mum?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/29/which-is-the-best-cheap-windows-laptop-for-my-mum

['mum', 'looking', 'buy', 'new', 'laptop', 'christmas', 'budget', 'tight', 'around', 'uses', 'microsoft', 'office', 'browsing', 'internet', 'reading', 'guardian', 'watching', 'tv', 'suggested', '32gb', 'ssd', 'drive', 'would', 'really', 'quick', 'use', 'usb', 'sticks', 'sd', 'cards', 'cloud', 'storage', 'saw', 'one', 'bought', 'would', 'need', 'buy', 'external', 'dvd', 'drive', 'burning', 'music', 'cd', 'etc', 'would', 'easier', 'stay', 'safe', 'get', 'standard', 'laptop', 'hard', 'drive', 'charlie', 'two', 'kinds', 'laptop', 'low', 'end', 'pc', 'market', 'first', 'traditional', 'laptops', 'base', 'system', '156in', 'screen', '4gb', 'memory', '500gb', '1tb', 'hard', 'drive', 'usually', 'readwrite', 'dvd', 'drive', 'machines', 'portable', 'long', 'battery', 'life', 'job', 'current', 'prices', 'range', 'around', 'second', 'type', 'much', 'like', 'netbook', 'albeit', 'one', 'meet', 'netbook', 'now-obsolete', 'specifications', 'x', '600-pixel', 'screen', 'designed', 'thinner', 'lighter', 'cheaper', 'traditional', 'laptops', 'usually', 'much', 'better', 'battery', 'life', 'base', 'system', 'typically', '10in', '116in', 'screen', '2gb', 'memory', '32gb', 'flash', 'storage', 'touch-screen', 'models', 'often', 'double', 'tablets', 'screens', 'detachable', '360-degree', 'hinges', 'make', '2-in-1s', 'current', 'prices', 'range', 'hardware', 'specifications', 'new-style', 'netbooks', 'similar', 'chromebooks', 'sell', 'much', 'prices', 'like', 'chromebooks', 'designed', 'web-based', 'computing', 'though', 'much', 'still', 'run', 'traditional', 'windows', 'programs', 'microsoft', 'office', 'apple', 'itunes', 'easily', 'use', 'external', 'dvd', 'blu-ray', 'drives', 'peripherals', 'traditional', 'laptops', 'usually', 'bought', 'desktop', 'pc', 'replacements', 'new-style', 'netbooks', 'chromebooks', 'better', 'seen', 'companion', 'devices', 'supplement', 'either', 'desktop', 'pc', 'laptop', 'though', 'could', 'seen', 'upgrades', 'people', 'smartphones', 'tablets', 'new-style', 'netbooks', 'great', 'casual', 'computing', 'carrying', 'around', 'handbags', 'compromise', 'screen', 'size', 'cpu', 'power', 'storage', 'beware', '32gb', 'ssds', 'contrary', 'think', 'netbooks', 'ssds', 'solid', 'state', 'drives', 'least', 'kind', 'ssd', 'replace', 'standard', 'hard', 'drive', 'pc', 'manufacturers', 'often', 'describe', 'accurately', 'emmc', 'embedded', 'multi', 'media', 'card', 'drives', 'like', 'sd', 'storage', 'cards', 'soldered', 'motherboard', 'used', 'smartphones', 'tablets', 'low-end', 'laptops', 'small', 'cheap', 'perform', 'anything', 'like', 'real', 'ssds', 'indeed', 'emmc', 'chips', 'load', 'data', 'faster', 'traditional', 'hard', 'drives', 'always', 'write', 'data', 'faster', 'apart', 'think', '32gb', 'flash', 'memory', 'drives', 'small', 'traditional', 'laptop', 'uses', 'microsoft', 'reduced', 'size', 'windows', 'partly', 'compressing', 'windows', 'files', 'going', 'get', 'bigger', 'use', 'numerous', 'upgrades', 'growing', 'log', 'files', 'swap', 'files', 'large', 'caches', 'temporary', 'internet', 'files', 'removed', 'google', 'chrome', '13gb', 'temp', 'files', 'windows', 'getting', 'in-place', 'upgrades', 'twice', 'year', 'creators', 'update', 'coming', 'soon', 'installed', 'new', 'operating', 'systems', 'need', 'space', 'current', 'version', 'windows', 'space', 'new', 'version', 'space', 'backup', 'copy', 'old', 'version', 'preserved', 'roll', 'back', 'upgrade', 'something', 'goes', 'wrong', 'august', 'anniversary', 'update', 'needed', '10-20gb', 'free', 'space', 'install', 'would', 'install', '32gb', '2-in-1', '9gb', 'free', 'plug', 'external', 'hard', 'drive', 'looking', 'three', 'years', 'six', 'upgrades', 'ahead', 'see', '32gb', 'drive', 'coping', 'without', 'massive', 'clean-ups', 'significant', 'upgrades', 'may', 'downloaded', 'separately', 'installed', 'usb', 'thumb', 'drive', 'since', 'emmc', 'drives', 'upgraded', 'recommend', 'buying', 'pc', '64gb', 'instead', '32gb', 'stick', 'tradition', 'mother', 'sounds', 'like', 'traditional', 'laptop', 'user', 'wants', 'install', 'microsoft', 'office', 'assemble', 'tracks', 'burn', 'audio', 'cds', 'would', 'better', 'traditional', 'laptop', 'different', 'scenario', 'someone', 'wants', 'light', 'pc', 'carry', 'around', 'whose', 'data', 'online', 'streams', 'everything', 'instead', 'saving', 'owning', 'course', 'traditional', 'laptops', 'expensive', 'new-style', 'netbooks', 'include', 'cost', 'external', 'dvd', 'much', 'although', 'pc', 'manufacturer', 'makes', 'traditional', 'laptops', 'sell', 'still', 'buy', 'less', 'get', 'bargains', 'sales', 'refurbished', 'laptops', 'come', 'guarantee', 'second', 'hand', 'machines', 'companies', 'including', 'hp', 'refurbishing', 'sell', 'grade', 'laptops', 'almost', 'new', 'except', 'coming', 'plain', 'boxes', 'companies', 'tier1online', 'sell', 'ex-corporate', 'systems', 'may', 'heavily', 'used', 'still', 'good', 'value', 'shop', 'around', 'argos', 'often', 'sale', 'bargains', 'especially', 'lenovo', 'equipment', 'currys', 'pc', 'world', 'sometimes', 'special', 'deals', 'laptop', 'outlet', 'tottenham', 'court', 'road', 'london', 'deals', 'refurbished', 'machines', 'also', 'worth', 'checking', 'online', 'suppliers', 'laptops', 'direct', 'ebuyercom', 'morgan', 'computers', 'possible', 'laptops', 'moment', 'mum', 'best', 'bet', 'could', '156in', 'acer', 'aspire', 'es', 'quad', 'core', 'intel', 'pentium', 'n4200', 'processor', '4gb', 'memory', '1tb', 'hard', 'drive', 'readwrite', 'dvd', 'argos', 'selling', 'exact', 'model', 'specified', 'pentium', 'n4200', 'runs', '11ghz', '25ghz', '26ghz', 'argos', 'blurb', 'however', 'decent', 'processor', 'makes', 'machine', 'good', 'value', 'money', 'alternative', 'lenovo', 'ideapad', 'specification', 'except', 'much', 'slower', 'dual', 'core', 'intel', 'celeron', 'n3060', 'processor', 'pc', 'world', 'selling', 'model', 'online', 'store', 'laptop', 'outlet', 'refurbished', '14in', 'hp', '14-am012na', 'slow', 'celeron', 'n3060', '500gb', 'hard', 'drive', 'however', 'refurbished', 'thinkpads', 'tend', 'better', 'value', 'example', 'could', 'get', 'lenovo', 'thinkpad', 't420', 'business', 'workhorse', '250ghz', 'intel', 'core', 'i5-2520m', '320gb', 'hard', 'drive', 'windows', 'pro', 'eflex', 'amazoncouk', 'undercuts', 'tier1online', 'may', 'second-generation', 'core', 'i5', 'still', 'faster', 'seventh-gen', 'core', 'i3-7100u', 'runs', '35w', 'instead', '15w', 'mother', 'care', 'passing', 'hard', 'find', 'real', 'ssds', 'price', 'level', 'laptop', 'outlet', 'selling', 'new', '116in', 'lenovo', 'thinkpad', '11e', 'laptops', '128gb', 'ssds', 'tough', 'military-spec', 'system', 'designed', 'use', 'schools', 'current', 'models', 'start', 'lo', 'version', 'dvd', 'still', 'running', 'windows', 'might', 'suit', 'someone', 'child', 'needs', 'assistive', 'technologies', 'got', 'another', 'question', 'jack', 'email', 'askjacktheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/29/oculus-touch-control-future-vr

In 2016, 21st-century virtual reality really arrived. From cheap mobile experiences to exuberant desktop machines, if you wanted to dive into a virtual world, there was a way. But while the headsets opened up possibilities, the new breed of touch controllers are the virtual hands drawing you in. When you first don a VR headset you’re transported to another world, but suspending disbelief is required to keep you there. With the simple wand-like controllers or joypads, that’s pretty hard – you know you’re using a controller on the outside rather than your hands on the inside, which drags you out of the moment. Once that happens, you then start noticing the pixels of the display, the pressure of the headset on your face, the growing motion sickness and the chance to lose yourself in virtual reality disappears. Now Oculus, the high-powered Facebook-owned VR maker, has brought out dedicated Touch controllers. They have buttons joysticks and triggers, but they also track movement in a 3D space – rotational, positional, depth and height – as you might expect. Then they go one stage further, detecting the very presence of your individual fingers around the controller. When you point, so do your virtual hands. When you lift your thumb, they give you a thumbs up. You can tighten or loosen your grip, and do so individually with your index finger, all while having almost as many degrees of freedom as your flesh and blood hands. It is so natural, so intuitive, that very soon you forget there are controllers, it’s just whatever you happen to have picked up in your virtual world, be that a broom, a bottle, a can, a disk or, almost inevitably, a gun. This is transformative. While the view around you tracking the motions of your head tells your brain that you’re no longer in Kansas, it is the almost tactile nature of doing things rather than simply witnessing them that makes you believe. When you’re moving through a puzzle-based shooting world in Super Hot, where every twitch of your hands, face, body or head makes a difference, when you’re picking out bullets from the air like a virtual Neo in the Matrix, or climbing up a rock face where every handhold is key, you’re transported to another realm. The pixels of the display, the cable attaching you to a computer and the awkward feeling of looking like a prat fades away – until you hit something in the earthly plane, which is easier than you might think. And that’s what VR needs to tackle next, the ability to move freely in space. For the holy grail of virtual reality – Star Trek’s Holodeck – you’re going to need something as good for your feet as the Oculus Touch controllers are for your hands. As attempts so far from giant balls to rolling floors show, when it comes to VR, feet are harder to cater for than hands – so sadly don’t expect to be roaming the digital plains any time soon.

technology/2016/dec/29/oculus-touch-control-future-vr

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-29T07:00:57Z

Why the future of VR is all down to touch control

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/oculus-touch-control-future-vr

['21st-century', 'virtual', 'reality', 'really', 'arrived', 'cheap', 'mobile', 'experiences', 'exuberant', 'desktop', 'machines', 'wanted', 'dive', 'virtual', 'world', 'way', 'headsets', 'opened', 'possibilities', 'new', 'breed', 'touch', 'controllers', 'virtual', 'hands', 'drawing', 'first', 'vr', 'headset', 'transported', 'another', 'world', 'suspending', 'disbelief', 'required', 'keep', 'simple', 'wand-like', 'controllers', 'joypads', 'pretty', 'hard', 'know', 'using', 'controller', 'outside', 'rather', 'hands', 'inside', 'drags', 'moment', 'happens', 'start', 'noticing', 'pixels', 'display', 'pressure', 'headset', 'face', 'growing', 'motion', 'sickness', 'chance', 'lose', 'virtual', 'reality', 'disappears', 'oculus', 'high-powered', 'facebook-owned', 'vr', 'maker', 'brought', 'dedicated', 'touch', 'controllers', 'buttons', 'joysticks', 'triggers', 'also', 'track', 'movement', '3d', 'space', 'rotational', 'positional', 'depth', 'height', 'might', 'expect', 'go', 'one', 'stage', 'detecting', 'presence', 'individual', 'fingers', 'around', 'controller', 'point', 'virtual', 'hands', 'lift', 'thumb', 'give', 'thumbs', 'tighten', 'loosen', 'grip', 'individually', 'index', 'finger', 'almost', 'many', 'degrees', 'freedom', 'flesh', 'blood', 'hands', 'natural', 'intuitive', 'soon', 'forget', 'controllers', 'whatever', 'happen', 'picked', 'virtual', 'world', 'broom', 'bottle', 'disk', 'almost', 'inevitably', 'gun', 'transformative', 'view', 'around', 'tracking', 'motions', 'head', 'tells', 'brain', 'longer', 'kansas', 'almost', 'tactile', 'nature', 'things', 'rather', 'simply', 'witnessing', 'makes', 'believe', 'moving', 'puzzle-based', 'shooting', 'world', 'super', 'hot', 'every', 'twitch', 'hands', 'face', 'body', 'head', 'makes', 'difference', 'picking', 'bullets', 'air', 'like', 'virtual', 'neo', 'matrix', 'climbing', 'rock', 'face', 'every', 'handhold', 'key', 'transported', 'another', 'realm', 'pixels', 'display', 'cable', 'attaching', 'computer', 'awkward', 'feeling', 'looking', 'like', 'prat', 'fades', 'away', 'hit', 'something', 'earthly', 'plane', 'easier', 'might', 'think', 'vr', 'needs', 'tackle', 'next', 'ability', 'move', 'freely', 'space', 'holy', 'grail', 'virtual', 'reality', 'star', 'trek', 'holodeck', 'going', 'need', 'something', 'good', 'feet', 'oculus', 'touch', 'controllers', 'hands', 'attempts', 'far', 'giant', 'balls', 'rolling', 'floors', 'show', 'comes', 'vr', 'feet', 'harder', 'cater', 'hands', 'sadly', 'expect', 'roaming', 'digital', 'plains', 'time', 'soon']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/28/nuance-needed-in-debate-about-technologys-role-in-childrens-development

The signatories to the letter on children’s lifestyles (Screen-based lifestyle harms children’s health, 26 December) make the usual error – compounded by your selective headline – of lumping an enormous variety of cultural experience into one category: “screen-based”, which is then labelled as merely “technology”. This makes about as much sense as lumping all printed matter together under the heading of “paper-based technology”. We know that’s a silly idea because we know that printed matter includes a vast range of cultural products, from novels to cereal packets. Screen-based content is just as diverse. Instead of wringing our hands over the long-established fact that children start to access this content during their first year of life, could we start to give some informed attention to how children begin to “learn about the culture they are born into” (to quote one of the signatories to the letter) and consider the possibility that some screen-based material may be enjoyed and valued by both parents and children, and may make a serious contribution to children’s social and emotional development? Cary Bazalgette Researcher on children and moving-image media, UCL Institute of Education • The harmful nature of the screen was revealed in an experiment by neuroscientist Patricia Kuhl quoted in the National Geographic in January 2015. She taught Mandarin sounds to two groups of babies, with one group through personal interaction and with the other through video, and was astonished to find that while the first group learned extremely well, the second learned nothing whatsoever. The reason is that there was a subtle energetic exchange in the interaction between children and carer, whereas machines cannot register or transmit energy other than their own mechanical signals. This is detectable only by the new “quantum” science. Grethe Hooper Hansen Retired teacher, Bath • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

technology/2016/dec/28/nuance-needed-in-debate-about-technologys-role-in-childrens-development

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-28T18:34:04Z

Nuance needed in debate about technology’s role in children’s development | Letters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/nuance-needed-in-debate-about-technologys-role-in-childrens-development

['signatories', 'letter', 'children', 'lifestyles', 'screen-based', 'lifestyle', 'harms', 'children', 'health', 'december', 'make', 'usual', 'error', 'compounded', 'selective', 'headline', 'lumping', 'enormous', 'variety', 'cultural', 'experience', 'one', 'category', 'screen-based', 'labelled', 'merely', 'technology', 'makes', 'much', 'sense', 'lumping', 'printed', 'matter', 'together', 'heading', 'paper-based', 'technology', 'know', 'silly', 'idea', 'know', 'printed', 'matter', 'includes', 'vast', 'range', 'cultural', 'products', 'novels', 'cereal', 'packets', 'screen-based', 'content', 'diverse', 'instead', 'wringing', 'hands', 'long-established', 'fact', 'children', 'start', 'access', 'content', 'first', 'year', 'life', 'could', 'start', 'give', 'informed', 'attention', 'children', 'begin', 'learn', 'culture', 'born', 'quote', 'one', 'signatories', 'letter', 'consider', 'possibility', 'screen-based', 'material', 'may', 'enjoyed', 'valued', 'parents', 'children', 'may', 'make', 'serious', 'contribution', 'children', 'social', 'emotional', 'development', 'cary', 'bazalgette', 'researcher', 'children', 'moving-image', 'media', 'ucl', 'institute', 'education', 'harmful', 'nature', 'screen', 'revealed', 'experiment', 'neuroscientist', 'patricia', 'kuhl', 'quoted', 'national', 'geographic', 'january', 'taught', 'mandarin', 'sounds', 'two', 'groups', 'babies', 'one', 'group', 'personal', 'interaction', 'video', 'astonished', 'find', 'first', 'group', 'learned', 'extremely', 'well', 'second', 'learned', 'nothing', 'whatsoever', 'reason', 'subtle', 'energetic', 'exchange', 'interaction', 'children', 'carer', 'whereas', 'machines', 'cannot', 'register', 'transmit', 'energy', 'mechanical', 'signals', 'detectable', 'new', 'quantum', 'science', 'grethe', 'hooper', 'hansen', 'retired', 'teacher', 'bath', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/28/airline-passenger-details-online-bookings-easy-prey-hackers-say-researchers

The worldwide system used to coordinate travel bookings between airlines, travel agents, and price comparison websites is hopelessly insecure, according to researchers. The lack of modern security features, both in the design of the system itself and of the many sites and services that control access to it, makes it easy for an attacker to harvest personal information from bookings, steal flights by altering ticketing details, or earn millions of air miles by attaching new frequent-flyer numbers to pre-booked flights, according to German security firm SR Labs. Known as Global Distribution Systems (GDS), the technology dates back to the 1960s, when one of the first companies in the field, Sabre, was founded. To most travellers, the technology is most obviously associated with the six-character Passenger Name Record (PNR) frequently used to enable online check-in and ticket retrieval. The PNR system was also the route for many of the weaknesses demonstrated by Karsten Nohl and Nemanja Nikodijevic, the researchers who revealed the flaws at this year’s Chaos Communication Congress hacker convention in Hamburg. While it was presented at a hacker convention, “much less hacking was actually needed to exploit” the booking system, Nohl said. At the core of many of the weaknesses was the standard use of just two pieces of information to authenticate a booking: the six-character PNR, combined with the user’s last name. “If the PNR is supposed to be a secure password, then it should be treated like one,” Nohl said. “But they don’t keep it secret: it is printed on every piece of luggage. It used to be printed on boarding passes, until it disappeared and they replaced it with a barcode.” However, the barcode is also easy to read using a number of apps, meaning many of the 80,000 travellers who have posted pictures on the #boardingpass tag on Instagram are at risk of information theft, as Nikodijevic demonstrated. “This is supposed to be the only way of authenticating users,” Nohl said, “and it’s printed on pieces of paper you just throw away at the end of the journey.” A bigger problem for most users, though, is that the six-character code is easy to guess. Each GDS provider (there are several, but the biggest two are Sabre, founded in 1960, and Amadeus, founded in 1987) uses a different system for generating them, but all have multiple problems that make them weaker than a simple six-character password. For instance, some providers iterate the first two characters sequentially, meaning all the PNRs generated in one day will have the same opening characters. Others reserve some codes for specific airlines, again narrowing the range of guesses an attacker has to make. Many of the portals into the GDS system also have minimal security features – or at least had minimal security features until Kohl and Nikodijevic notified them. Some websites that have access to the system and allow you to use your PNR and last name to check the status of your flight offer no defences at all against an attacker guessing thousands of combinations a minute. The researchers were able to access multiple records. Looking for bookings under the name “Smith”, for example, and using a thousand randomly generated booking codes, five came back with active bookings. Attackers could use that access to cancel a flight in exchange for airline credit and then use that to book new tickets. Or they could add your frequent flyer number to hundreds of flights and chalk up the air miles. Even more damage could be done with the information contained in the booking. There is enough personal and flight data in them to craft convincing phishing emails purporting to report problems with the flights or bookings. The PNR weaknesses are just scratching the surface of the problems with the GDS in general, the researchers said: there appears to be no good logging for who has accessed data and why, and access controls in general are almost non-existent, allowing anyone from any company involved in your booking to see the whole thing. One saving grace, they said, was that the whole system might end up being rewritten anyway. As the “Smith” example shows, the namespace for booking codes is slowly filling up. Simply running out of characters for new bookings could force a rewrite of the system long before security fears do. If not, Nohl suggested that a rise in cybercrime could do the same job. “Airlines sometimes notice this, but only when it becomes excessive,” he said. “I just hope it becomes so excessive that it can’t be ignored so that it gets fixed, because then the privacy issues get fixed as well. Privacy is never enough on its own.”

technology/2016/dec/28/airline-passenger-details-online-bookings-easy-prey-hackers-say-researchers

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-28T12:47:03Z

Airline passenger details easy prey for hackers, say researchers

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/airline-passenger-details-online-bookings-easy-prey-hackers-say-researchers

['worldwide', 'system', 'used', 'coordinate', 'travel', 'bookings', 'airlines', 'travel', 'agents', 'price', 'comparison', 'websites', 'hopelessly', 'insecure', 'according', 'researchers', 'lack', 'modern', 'security', 'features', 'design', 'system', 'many', 'sites', 'services', 'control', 'access', 'makes', 'easy', 'attacker', 'harvest', 'personal', 'information', 'bookings', 'steal', 'flights', 'altering', 'ticketing', 'details', 'earn', 'millions', 'air', 'miles', 'attaching', 'new', 'frequent-flyer', 'numbers', 'pre-booked', 'flights', 'according', 'german', 'security', 'firm', 'sr', 'labs', 'known', 'global', 'distribution', 'systems', 'gds', 'technology', 'dates', 'back', '1960s', 'one', 'first', 'companies', 'field', 'sabre', 'founded', 'travellers', 'technology', 'obviously', 'associated', 'six-character', 'passenger', 'name', 'record', 'pnr', 'frequently', 'used', 'enable', 'online', 'check-in', 'ticket', 'retrieval', 'pnr', 'system', 'also', 'route', 'many', 'weaknesses', 'demonstrated', 'karsten', 'nohl', 'nemanja', 'nikodijevic', 'researchers', 'revealed', 'flaws', 'year', 'chaos', 'communication', 'congress', 'hacker', 'convention', 'hamburg', 'presented', 'hacker', 'convention', 'much', 'less', 'hacking', 'actually', 'needed', 'exploit', 'booking', 'system', 'nohl', 'said', 'core', 'many', 'weaknesses', 'standard', 'use', 'two', 'pieces', 'information', 'authenticate', 'booking', 'six-character', 'pnr', 'combined', 'user', 'last', 'name', 'pnr', 'supposed', 'secure', 'password', 'treated', 'like', 'one', 'nohl', 'said', 'keep', 'secret', 'printed', 'every', 'piece', 'luggage', 'used', 'printed', 'boarding', 'passes', 'disappeared', 'replaced', 'barcode', 'however', 'barcode', 'also', 'easy', 'read', 'using', 'number', 'apps', 'meaning', 'many', 'travellers', 'posted', 'pictures', 'boardingpass', 'tag', 'instagram', 'risk', 'information', 'theft', 'nikodijevic', 'demonstrated', 'supposed', 'way', 'authenticating', 'users', 'nohl', 'said', 'printed', 'pieces', 'paper', 'throw', 'away', 'end', 'journey', 'bigger', 'problem', 'users', 'though', 'six-character', 'code', 'easy', 'guess', 'gds', 'provider', 'several', 'biggest', 'two', 'sabre', 'founded', 'amadeus', 'founded', 'uses', 'different', 'system', 'generating', 'multiple', 'problems', 'make', 'weaker', 'simple', 'six-character', 'password', 'instance', 'providers', 'iterate', 'first', 'two', 'characters', 'sequentially', 'meaning', 'pnrs', 'generated', 'one', 'day', 'opening', 'characters', 'others', 'reserve', 'codes', 'specific', 'airlines', 'narrowing', 'range', 'guesses', 'attacker', 'make', 'many', 'portals', 'gds', 'system', 'also', 'minimal', 'security', 'features', 'least', 'minimal', 'security', 'features', 'kohl', 'nikodijevic', 'notified', 'websites', 'access', 'system', 'allow', 'use', 'pnr', 'last', 'name', 'check', 'status', 'flight', 'offer', 'defences', 'attacker', 'guessing', 'thousands', 'combinations', 'minute', 'researchers', 'able', 'access', 'multiple', 'records', 'looking', 'bookings', 'name', 'smith', 'example', 'using', 'thousand', 'randomly', 'generated', 'booking', 'codes', 'five', 'came', 'back', 'active', 'bookings', 'attackers', 'could', 'use', 'access', 'cancel', 'flight', 'exchange', 'airline', 'credit', 'use', 'book', 'new', 'tickets', 'could', 'add', 'frequent', 'flyer', 'number', 'hundreds', 'flights', 'chalk', 'air', 'miles', 'even', 'damage', 'could', 'done', 'information', 'contained', 'booking', 'enough', 'personal', 'flight', 'data', 'craft', 'convincing', 'phishing', 'emails', 'purporting', 'report', 'problems', 'flights', 'bookings', 'pnr', 'weaknesses', 'scratching', 'surface', 'problems', 'gds', 'general', 'researchers', 'said', 'appears', 'good', 'logging', 'accessed', 'data', 'access', 'controls', 'general', 'almost', 'non-existent', 'allowing', 'anyone', 'company', 'involved', 'booking', 'see', 'whole', 'thing', 'one', 'saving', 'grace', 'said', 'whole', 'system', 'might', 'end', 'rewritten', 'anyway', 'smith', 'example', 'shows', 'namespace', 'booking', 'codes', 'slowly', 'filling', 'simply', 'running', 'characters', 'new', 'bookings', 'could', 'force', 'rewrite', 'system', 'long', 'security', 'fears', 'nohl', 'suggested', 'rise', 'cybercrime', 'could', 'job', 'airlines', 'sometimes', 'notice', 'becomes', 'excessive', 'said', 'hope', 'becomes', 'excessive', 'ignored', 'gets', 'fixed', 'privacy', 'issues', 'get', 'fixed', 'well', 'privacy', 'never', 'enough']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings

Amazon has refused to hand over data from an Echo smart speaker to US police, who want to access it as part of an investigation into a murder in Arkansas, according to court records seen by tech industry news site The Information. Arkansas police issued a warrant to Amazon to turn over recordings and other information associated with the device owned by James Andrew Bates. Bates has been charged with the murder of a man found dead in his hot tub in November 2015. The Seattle-based tech company twice declined to provide the police with the information they requested from the device, although it did provide Bates’s account information and purchase history, the report said court records show. Although the Echo is known for having “always-on” microphones to enable its voice-controlled features, the vast majority of the recordings it makes are not saved for longer than the few seconds it takes to determine if a pre-set “wake word” (usually “Alexa”) has been said. Only if that wake word has been heard does the device’s full complement of microphones come on and begin transmitting audio to Amazon. While that would seem to limit the use of the Echo data in the investigation, the device is also occasionally accidentally activated, through similar sounds. Those snippets of audio could potentially be useful to police investigating a crime, as could the timing information of when they were recorded. According to the report, the court records show police took the Echo and extracted some data from it. US prosecutors and defence attorneys have both found new uses for “smart” device data in the courtroom in recent years, especially information collected by wristwatch-style Fitbit activity trackers. In 2014, a Canadian woman sued her former employer over a debilitating injury she claimed to have sustained during her work as a personal trainer; she submitted data from her Fitbit to prove that “her activity levels are still lower than the baseline for someone of her age and profession,” according to reports. Conversely, when a Florida woman claimed an intruder had assaulted her, police used information from a Fitbit she had been wearing during the alleged assault that suggested she had in fact been asleep at time. She was subsequently charged with filing a false report. Amazon’s reluctance to part with user information fits a familiar pattern. Tech companies often see law enforcement requests for data as invasive and damaging to an industry that considers privacy a prime selling point. Last year, Apple went to court with the FBI over the bureau’s demand that that company break its own encryption on an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino spree killing. But firms often retain a “back door” for their own use – to automatically scan emails for key terms used to target advertising, for example – and that can complicate claims that law enforcement access would uniquely invade a user’s privacy. Amazon’s internal approach to user data will likely prove integral to its ability to resist the warrant. In the Echo case, police also extracted data from a different smart home device, a water meter. Bates’ smart water meter recorded a flow of 140 gallons between 1am and 3am, the report said. Prosecutors claim this is an unfeasibly large amount of water use, and allege it was the result of the garden hose being used to spray the patio clean of blood. Bates’s defence team disputes the accuracy of the readings. Bates pleaded not guilty in April 2016 and is on bail awaiting trial early next year.

technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-28T10:36:26Z

Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings

['amazon', 'refused', 'hand', 'data', 'echo', 'smart', 'speaker', 'us', 'police', 'want', 'access', 'part', 'investigation', 'murder', 'arkansas', 'according', 'court', 'records', 'seen', 'tech', 'industry', 'news', 'site', 'information', 'arkansas', 'police', 'issued', 'warrant', 'amazon', 'turn', 'recordings', 'information', 'associated', 'device', 'owned', 'james', 'andrew', 'bates', 'bates', 'charged', 'murder', 'man', 'found', 'dead', 'hot', 'tub', 'november', 'seattle-based', 'tech', 'company', 'twice', 'declined', 'provide', 'police', 'information', 'requested', 'device', 'although', 'provide', 'bates', 'account', 'information', 'purchase', 'history', 'report', 'said', 'court', 'records', 'show', 'although', 'echo', 'known', 'always-on', 'microphones', 'enable', 'voice-controlled', 'features', 'vast', 'majority', 'recordings', 'makes', 'saved', 'longer', 'seconds', 'takes', 'determine', 'pre-set', 'wake', 'word', 'usually', 'alexa', 'said', 'wake', 'word', 'heard', 'device', 'full', 'complement', 'microphones', 'come', 'begin', 'transmitting', 'audio', 'amazon', 'would', 'seem', 'limit', 'use', 'echo', 'data', 'investigation', 'device', 'also', 'occasionally', 'accidentally', 'activated', 'similar', 'sounds', 'snippets', 'audio', 'could', 'potentially', 'useful', 'police', 'investigating', 'crime', 'could', 'timing', 'information', 'recorded', 'according', 'report', 'court', 'records', 'show', 'police', 'took', 'echo', 'extracted', 'data', 'us', 'prosecutors', 'defence', 'attorneys', 'found', 'new', 'uses', 'smart', 'device', 'data', 'courtroom', 'recent', 'years', 'especially', 'information', 'collected', 'wristwatch-style', 'fitbit', 'activity', 'trackers', 'canadian', 'woman', 'sued', 'former', 'employer', 'debilitating', 'injury', 'claimed', 'sustained', 'work', 'personal', 'trainer', 'submitted', 'data', 'fitbit', 'prove', 'activity', 'levels', 'still', 'lower', 'baseline', 'someone', 'age', 'profession', 'according', 'reports', 'conversely', 'florida', 'woman', 'claimed', 'intruder', 'assaulted', 'police', 'used', 'information', 'fitbit', 'wearing', 'alleged', 'assault', 'suggested', 'fact', 'asleep', 'time', 'subsequently', 'charged', 'filing', 'false', 'report', 'amazon', 'reluctance', 'part', 'user', 'information', 'fits', 'familiar', 'pattern', 'tech', 'companies', 'often', 'see', 'law', 'enforcement', 'requests', 'data', 'invasive', 'damaging', 'industry', 'considers', 'privacy', 'prime', 'selling', 'point', 'last', 'year', 'apple', 'went', 'court', 'fbi', 'bureau', 'demand', 'company', 'break', 'encryption', 'iphone', 'belonging', 'one', 'shooters', 'san', 'bernardino', 'spree', 'killing', 'firms', 'often', 'retain', 'back', 'door', 'use', 'automatically', 'scan', 'emails', 'key', 'terms', 'used', 'target', 'advertising', 'example', 'complicate', 'claims', 'law', 'enforcement', 'access', 'would', 'uniquely', 'invade', 'user', 'privacy', 'amazon', 'internal', 'approach', 'user', 'data', 'likely', 'prove', 'integral', 'ability', 'resist', 'warrant', 'echo', 'case', 'police', 'also', 'extracted', 'data', 'different', 'smart', 'home', 'device', 'water', 'meter', 'bates', 'smart', 'water', 'meter', 'recorded', 'flow', 'gallons', '1am', '3am', 'report', 'said', 'prosecutors', 'claim', 'unfeasibly', 'large', 'amount', 'water', 'use', 'allege', 'result', 'garden', 'hose', 'used', 'spray', 'patio', 'clean', 'blood', 'bates', 'defence', 'team', 'disputes', 'accuracy', 'readings', 'bates', 'pleaded', 'guilty', 'april', 'bail', 'awaiting', 'trial', 'early', 'next', 'year']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/28/2016-the-year-ai-came-of-age

Over the course of 2016, artificial intelligence made the leap from “science fiction concept” to “almost meaningless buzzword” with alarmingspeed. Everything has AI now. Period-tracking app Flo “uses a neural network approach” to deliver “high period forecast accuracy”; food delivery app Just Eat launched a chatbot that “sees AI integrated into the ordering experience to ensure that customers receive the best, round the clock support and service”; restaurant guide Borsch “uses artificial intelligence to help people discover the yummiest dishes around”. But unlike many buzzwords before it, from “big data” to “blockchain”, artificial intelligence’s transformation into venture capitalist-catnip doesn’t signify the end of anyone serious using the term themselves. In fact, 2017 looks like it could be the most important year yet for the technology: AI will butt up against not only what is possible, but also what is desirable for the first time. Like many futures, the AI revolution feels interminably slow to live through, and will feel like it happened in an instant in hindsight. The first pivotal year was 2011. That was when Apple’s Siri hit iPhones, introducing the world to the first major “virtual assistant”. It was also the year the Google Brain project was instituted: the search engine’s blue-sky research team aimed to address as many tasks as possible through neural network-based learning, the computational technique that has come to define what we mean by artificial intelligence. Five years on, and neural networks have already begun to enable tech which seemed impossible back then. Google and Apple have applied them to their photo apps to let users search through their pictures for images of “dogs”, “cars” or, in Google’s case, “Christmas”, based on what the algorithms see in the images. That machine vision technology is also the basis of the self-driving car efforts from Google’s sister firm Waymo. Oh, and an entirely different neural network is probably the world’s best player at the ancient boardgame Go. That victory, from Google subsidiary DeepMind, was one of the last remaining milestones for a machine to reach. Go is so complex that, as recently as 2014, many thought it would be another decade until an AI could approach the skill of a human player. That was what made it so appealing for DeepMind to tackle. There’s one remaining milestone that the London-based research lab is interested in chasing, according to co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, and it’s a big one: instant voice-to-voice translation. The company has slowly been assembling the pieces for a while, with Google already rebuilding its translation service around a neural network-based approach, and DeepMind creating a whole new way of synthesising speech it calls WaveNet, but there are still a host of other problems to be overcome before the babel fish becomes a reality. Which is not to say that 2017 won’t be a groundbreaking year for AI. The biggest effect will be the step change in the amount of data which companies such as Google and Amazon have access to. When Google released its voice-controlled, AI-powered smart home device, Google Home, in 2016, it already impressed some with its abilities. But, says Fernando Pereira, who leads Google’s natural language understanding projects, that’s only the start. Now that millions of people have Google Home in their living room, the company can analyse every natural language query it starts getting from all of them, giving it far more data to crunch than it could ever get from its testers. “You can start doing machine learning on that,” Pereira told tech site Backchannel. “You can move much faster; you can accelerate the process of getting deeper and broader in understanding. This 2016-to-2017 transition is going to move us from systems that are explicitly taught to ones that implicitly learn.” This is the story Google wants to tell of machine learning: an acceleration, turning the coming year into an inflection point, the instant that machine learning became good enough to start trusting. It’s certainly one possible outcome of the next year, although it’s not yet clear whether Google will be the one to deliver on it; Amazon has been keeping pace with its own Alexa assistant, for instance, while others including Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Baidu have been trumpeting their own machine-learning successes. But the other possibility is that, as machine learning steps out of the shadows and companies ask for ever more data to train their algorithms, the backlash begins. Already, Google faces competition from other companies over how much of your life it wants to manage. That happens implicitly, in the difference between Google Home and Amazon’s Echo: the former integrates tightly with your Google account, reading emails, notes and calendar events to keep up to date with your life, while the latter takes a more hands-off approach, only linking with what it’s told and generally attempting to be responsive, rather than proactive. It also happens more explicitly in the way Apple has decided to weigh in against its rival. The company, freed from the need to data mine everything by its old-fashioned “sell things for money” business model, has been proudly demonstrating approaches to AI which don’t need a central repository of harvested data to learn or work. That includes its machine vision approach, which scans users’ photo libraries on device, rather than on the cloud, and its research into “differential privacy”, a technological approach to machine learning which allows the company to learn from data in aggregate while never having access to the information of specific users. Of course, there is a third option: that neural network-based machine learning will instead prove to be a technology like any other, useful in some areas, useless in others, and eventually doomed to be rendered obsolete in turn by a future innovation. We’re already seeing some of the downsides, in the eternal craving for more data, in the processing power required to actually learn, and in the opacity of the models that result. One day, those downsides will outweigh the up, and the world will move on. But for now, there’s still a world of possibility.

technology/2016/dec/28/2016-the-year-ai-came-of-age

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-28T10:00:32Z

2016: the year AI came of age

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/2016-the-year-ai-came-of-age

['course', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'made', 'leap', 'science', 'fiction', 'concept', 'almost', 'meaningless', 'buzzword', 'alarmingspeed', 'everything', 'ai', 'period-tracking', 'app', 'flo', 'uses', 'neural', 'network', 'approach', 'deliver', 'high', 'period', 'forecast', 'accuracy', 'food', 'delivery', 'app', 'eat', 'launched', 'chatbot', 'sees', 'ai', 'integrated', 'ordering', 'experience', 'ensure', 'customers', 'receive', 'best', 'round', 'clock', 'support', 'service', 'restaurant', 'guide', 'borsch', 'uses', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'help', 'people', 'discover', 'yummiest', 'dishes', 'around', 'unlike', 'many', 'buzzwords', 'big', 'data', 'blockchain', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'transformation', 'venture', 'capitalist-catnip', 'signify', 'end', 'anyone', 'serious', 'using', 'term', 'fact', 'looks', 'like', 'could', 'important', 'year', 'yet', 'technology', 'ai', 'butt', 'possible', 'also', 'desirable', 'first', 'time', 'like', 'many', 'futures', 'ai', 'revolution', 'feels', 'interminably', 'slow', 'live', 'feel', 'like', 'happened', 'instant', 'hindsight', 'first', 'pivotal', 'year', 'apple', 'siri', 'hit', 'iphones', 'introducing', 'world', 'first', 'major', 'virtual', 'assistant', 'also', 'year', 'google', 'brain', 'project', 'instituted', 'search', 'engine', 'blue-sky', 'research', 'team', 'aimed', 'address', 'many', 'tasks', 'possible', 'neural', 'network-based', 'learning', 'computational', 'technique', 'come', 'define', 'mean', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'five', 'years', 'neural', 'networks', 'already', 'begun', 'enable', 'tech', 'seemed', 'impossible', 'back', 'google', 'apple', 'applied', 'photo', 'apps', 'let', 'users', 'search', 'pictures', 'images', 'dogs', 'cars', 'google', 'case', 'christmas', 'based', 'algorithms', 'see', 'images', 'machine', 'vision', 'technology', 'also', 'basis', 'self-driving', 'car', 'efforts', 'google', 'sister', 'firm', 'waymo', 'oh', 'entirely', 'different', 'neural', 'network', 'probably', 'world', 'best', 'player', 'ancient', 'boardgame', 'go', 'victory', 'google', 'subsidiary', 'deepmind', 'one', 'last', 'remaining', 'milestones', 'machine', 'reach', 'go', 'complex', 'recently', 'many', 'thought', 'would', 'another', 'decade', 'ai', 'could', 'approach', 'skill', 'human', 'player', 'made', 'appealing', 'deepmind', 'tackle', 'one', 'remaining', 'milestone', 'london-based', 'research', 'lab', 'interested', 'chasing', 'according', 'co-founder', 'mustafa', 'suleyman', 'big', 'one', 'instant', 'voice-to-voice', 'translation', 'company', 'slowly', 'assembling', 'pieces', 'google', 'already', 'rebuilding', 'translation', 'service', 'around', 'neural', 'network-based', 'approach', 'deepmind', 'creating', 'whole', 'new', 'way', 'synthesising', 'speech', 'calls', 'wavenet', 'still', 'host', 'problems', 'overcome', 'babel', 'fish', 'becomes', 'reality', 'say', 'groundbreaking', 'year', 'ai', 'biggest', 'effect', 'step', 'change', 'amount', 'data', 'companies', 'google', 'amazon', 'access', 'google', 'released', 'voice-controlled', 'ai-powered', 'smart', 'home', 'device', 'google', 'home', 'already', 'impressed', 'abilities', 'says', 'fernando', 'pereira', 'leads', 'google', 'natural', 'language', 'understanding', 'projects', 'start', 'millions', 'people', 'google', 'home', 'living', 'room', 'company', 'analyse', 'every', 'natural', 'language', 'query', 'starts', 'getting', 'giving', 'far', 'data', 'crunch', 'could', 'ever', 'get', 'testers', 'start', 'machine', 'learning', 'pereira', 'told', 'tech', 'site', 'backchannel', 'move', 'much', 'faster', 'accelerate', 'process', 'getting', 'deeper', 'broader', 'understanding', '2016-to-2017', 'transition', 'going', 'move', 'us', 'systems', 'explicitly', 'taught', 'ones', 'implicitly', 'learn', 'story', 'google', 'wants', 'tell', 'machine', 'learning', 'acceleration', 'turning', 'coming', 'year', 'inflection', 'point', 'instant', 'machine', 'learning', 'became', 'good', 'enough', 'start', 'trusting', 'certainly', 'one', 'possible', 'outcome', 'next', 'year', 'although', 'yet', 'clear', 'whether', 'google', 'one', 'deliver', 'amazon', 'keeping', 'pace', 'alexa', 'assistant', 'instance', 'others', 'including', 'facebook', 'microsoft', 'ibm', 'baidu', 'trumpeting', 'machine-learning', 'successes', 'possibility', 'machine', 'learning', 'steps', 'shadows', 'companies', 'ask', 'ever', 'data', 'train', 'algorithms', 'backlash', 'begins', 'already', 'google', 'faces', 'competition', 'companies', 'much', 'life', 'wants', 'manage', 'happens', 'implicitly', 'difference', 'google', 'home', 'amazon', 'echo', 'former', 'integrates', 'tightly', 'google', 'account', 'reading', 'emails', 'notes', 'calendar', 'events', 'keep', 'date', 'life', 'latter', 'takes', 'hands-off', 'approach', 'linking', 'told', 'generally', 'attempting', 'responsive', 'rather', 'proactive', 'also', 'happens', 'explicitly', 'way', 'apple', 'decided', 'weigh', 'rival', 'company', 'freed', 'need', 'data', 'mine', 'everything', 'old-fashioned', 'sell', 'things', 'money', 'business', 'model', 'proudly', 'demonstrating', 'approaches', 'ai', 'need', 'central', 'repository', 'harvested', 'data', 'learn', 'work', 'includes', 'machine', 'vision', 'approach', 'scans', 'users', 'photo', 'libraries', 'device', 'rather', 'cloud', 'research', 'differential', 'privacy', 'technological', 'approach', 'machine', 'learning', 'allows', 'company', 'learn', 'data', 'aggregate', 'never', 'access', 'information', 'specific', 'users', 'course', 'third', 'option', 'neural', 'network-based', 'machine', 'learning', 'instead', 'prove', 'technology', 'like', 'useful', 'areas', 'useless', 'others', 'eventually', 'doomed', 'rendered', 'obsolete', 'turn', 'future', 'innovation', 'already', 'seeing', 'downsides', 'eternal', 'craving', 'data', 'processing', 'power', 'required', 'actually', 'learn', 'opacity', 'models', 'result', 'one', 'day', 'downsides', 'outweigh', 'world', 'move', 'still', 'world', 'possibility']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/27/facebook-safety-check-fake-news-explosion-thailand

A Facebook safety check for Bangkok, which the company claimed was prompted by a one-man protest near the prime minister’s office, helped spread a fake news report of an explosion in the city. The incident is the latest example of the social media platform’s algorithms failing to distinguish between reliable and faulty news sources. Facebook’s safety check tool, which allows users to mark themselves safe in the event of a disaster or crisis, was activated in Bangkok on 26 December, citing “media sources” as confirmation of an explosion. A Facebook spokesperson subsequently shared local media reports of a man protesting on a roof, throwing “ping pong bombs” or “giant firecrackers” in the direction of Government House, where the prime minister works. No one was injured, according to the Bangkok Post. Facebook’s activation of the feature sowed confusion, however, because the platform also promoted a link to a false news report of a major “explosion”. A screenshot of the feature shared by Saksith Saiyasombut, a local journalist, shows that Facebook promoted a 26 December article by BangkokInformer.com in conjunction with the safety check. That article consisted of a link to 17 August 2015 BBC video about the bombing of the Erawan Shrine, according to a copy of the article preserved by the Internet Archive. “No, there was not a massive explosion Bangkok on Tuesday night,” wrote the local English-language newspaper Khaosod English in an article attempting to clarify the situation. BangkokInformer.com is part of a network of local “news” websites that appear to simply repost articles from other sources. The company did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. Facebook defended its activation of the safety check feature. “As with all safety check activations, Facebook relies on a trusted third party to first confirm the incident and then on the community to use the tool and share with friends and family,” a spokesperson said in a statement. When the safety check tool was launched in October 2014, it was only used for natural disasters. It was first used for a terrorist attack during the November 2015 Paris attacks. The company faced criticism, however, for its decision to activate the feature in some cases and not in others. In November, the company announced that it would no longer directly control the feature, instead relying on alerts of incidents from a “third-party source”. The company’s explanation of the changes suggest that the feature is now controlled by algorithms detecting whether “people in the area are talking about the incident”. The company declined to name its third-party source for incident reports. Facebook has faced considerable criticism over its role in the dissemination of false information, especially following the US presidential election, in which news hoaxes and partisan propaganda ran rampant on the site. On 15 December, the company announced that it would begin working with third-party fact checkers to flag viral fake news stories. Five fact-checking organizations are participating in a pilot program to combat fake news on the platform, but the pilot is limited by the staff capability of the independent organizations. The pilot also requires the fact-checkers to address each false story individually – a challenge given that fake news stories can rapidly multiply across numerous websites. The BangkokInformer.com article, for example, was subsequently copied on to msn.com, creating another misleading headline featured on the safety check tool. A Facebook spokeswoman, Anna White, pushed back against the idea that the tool was connected to the company’s fake news problem. “Safety Check the product is in no way connected with any news articles – real or fake,” White told the Guardian by email. “People seeing that [the BangkokInformer.com article] at the end of the product flow may have gotten old information but that information did not trigger the activation in the first place like some outlets are reporting.” The false BangkokInformer.com article remains the top search result for Facebook users searching for “Thailand explosion”. It has not been flagged as a fake news story by the independent fact checkers.

technology/2016/dec/27/facebook-safety-check-fake-news-explosion-thailand

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-28T00:49:02Z

Facebook safety check helped spread false reports of Thailand explosion

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/27/facebook-safety-check-fake-news-explosion-thailand

['facebook', 'safety', 'check', 'bangkok', 'company', 'claimed', 'prompted', 'one-man', 'protest', 'near', 'prime', 'minister', 'office', 'helped', 'spread', 'fake', 'news', 'report', 'explosion', 'city', 'incident', 'latest', 'example', 'social', 'media', 'platform', 'algorithms', 'failing', 'distinguish', 'reliable', 'faulty', 'news', 'sources', 'facebook', 'safety', 'check', 'tool', 'allows', 'users', 'mark', 'safe', 'event', 'disaster', 'crisis', 'activated', 'bangkok', 'december', 'citing', 'media', 'sources', 'confirmation', 'explosion', 'facebook', 'spokesperson', 'subsequently', 'shared', 'local', 'media', 'reports', 'man', 'protesting', 'roof', 'throwing', 'ping', 'pong', 'bombs', 'giant', 'firecrackers', 'direction', 'government', 'house', 'prime', 'minister', 'works', 'one', 'injured', 'according', 'bangkok', 'post', 'facebook', 'activation', 'feature', 'sowed', 'confusion', 'however', 'platform', 'also', 'promoted', 'link', 'false', 'news', 'report', 'major', 'explosion', 'screenshot', 'feature', 'shared', 'saksith', 'saiyasombut', 'local', 'journalist', 'shows', 'facebook', 'promoted', 'december', 'article', 'bangkokinformercom', 'conjunction', 'safety', 'check', 'article', 'consisted', 'link', 'august', 'bbc', 'video', 'bombing', 'erawan', 'shrine', 'according', 'copy', 'article', 'preserved', 'internet', 'archive', 'massive', 'explosion', 'bangkok', 'tuesday', 'night', 'wrote', 'local', 'english-language', 'newspaper', 'khaosod', 'english', 'article', 'attempting', 'clarify', 'situation', 'bangkokinformercom', 'part', 'network', 'local', 'news', 'websites', 'appear', 'simply', 'repost', 'articles', 'sources', 'company', 'respond', 'request', 'comment', 'guardian', 'facebook', 'defended', 'activation', 'safety', 'check', 'feature', 'safety', 'check', 'activations', 'facebook', 'relies', 'trusted', 'third', 'party', 'first', 'confirm', 'incident', 'community', 'use', 'tool', 'share', 'friends', 'family', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'statement', 'safety', 'check', 'tool', 'launched', 'october', 'used', 'natural', 'disasters', 'first', 'used', 'terrorist', 'attack', 'november', 'paris', 'attacks', 'company', 'faced', 'criticism', 'however', 'decision', 'activate', 'feature', 'cases', 'others', 'november', 'company', 'announced', 'would', 'longer', 'directly', 'control', 'feature', 'instead', 'relying', 'alerts', 'incidents', 'third-party', 'source', 'company', 'explanation', 'changes', 'suggest', 'feature', 'controlled', 'algorithms', 'detecting', 'whether', 'people', 'area', 'talking', 'incident', 'company', 'declined', 'name', 'third-party', 'source', 'incident', 'reports', 'facebook', 'faced', 'considerable', 'criticism', 'role', 'dissemination', 'false', 'information', 'especially', 'following', 'us', 'presidential', 'election', 'news', 'hoaxes', 'partisan', 'propaganda', 'ran', 'rampant', 'site', 'december', 'company', 'announced', 'would', 'begin', 'working', 'third-party', 'fact', 'checkers', 'flag', 'viral', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'five', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'participating', 'pilot', 'program', 'combat', 'fake', 'news', 'platform', 'pilot', 'limited', 'staff', 'capability', 'independent', 'organizations', 'pilot', 'also', 'requires', 'fact-checkers', 'address', 'false', 'story', 'individually', 'challenge', 'given', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'rapidly', 'multiply', 'across', 'numerous', 'websites', 'bangkokinformercom', 'article', 'example', 'subsequently', 'copied', 'msncom', 'creating', 'another', 'misleading', 'headline', 'featured', 'safety', 'check', 'tool', 'facebook', 'spokeswoman', 'anna', 'white', 'pushed', 'back', 'idea', 'tool', 'connected', 'company', 'fake', 'news', 'problem', 'safety', 'check', 'product', 'way', 'connected', 'news', 'articles', 'real', 'fake', 'white', 'told', 'guardian', 'email', 'people', 'seeing', 'bangkokinformercom', 'article', 'end', 'product', 'flow', 'may', 'gotten', 'old', 'information', 'information', 'trigger', 'activation', 'first', 'place', 'like', 'outlets', 'reporting', 'false', 'bangkokinformercom', 'article', 'remains', 'top', 'search', 'result', 'facebook', 'users', 'searching', 'thailand', 'explosion', 'flagged', 'fake', 'news', 'story', 'independent', 'fact', 'checkers']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/27/will-2017-be-the-year-virtual-reality-gets-real

Virtual Reality is ... well, real. The last year has seen the launch of every major VR platform, from high-quality tethered systems like HTC’s Vive and Facebook’s Oculus Rift, through to cheap-and-cheerful smartphone-based platforms like Google’s Daydream and Samsung’s Gear VR. The early adopters have bought in, the launch games have been launched, and now that the initial flurry of excitement has died down, the more pressing questions are left: how will the platforms evolve? What will you actually be able to do with them? And is VR just a stepping stone anyway, to the even more science-fiction future of augmented reality tech? At its inception, VR is unquestionably a gaming technology first and foremost. The most expensive and technologically advanced systems have an almost total focus on serving the hardcore gamer market. Even the simpler systems, which lack the pixel-pushing power necessary to satisfy modern players, still end up with a preponderance of games and game-like projects, because that’s what’s easiest to build with the tools available. So the number one priority for the titans of VR is to carry on winning round game developers and players to prevent the juggernaut from stalling. But if the experiences of the first wave of early adopters is anything to go by, that could prove trickier than it seems. Right now, the pressures of AAA games seem inimical to those of VR. Games for the hardcore niche of the market are often designed and sold around having durations in the hundreds of hours, with an individual gaming session often lasting three to four hours. In VR, as the devices work today, such heavy use becomes physically punishing: painful for the eyes, face, head and neck, as well as emphatically warned against by the manufacturers. So instead, many of the highest profile games at launch are designed for quick, powerful experiences. CCP’s Eve Valkyrie and Guerrilla’s RIGS both pack intense multiplayer battles into matches lasting at most five minutes, Rebellion’s Battlezone does the same with single-player tank battles, and even more story focused games like Gunfire’s Chronos and Insomniac’s Edge of Nowhere make it fairly easy to jump in and out of the game. In the absence of the life-consuming behemoths which constitute gaming for a large number of fans, VR development has instead been colonised by quirkier games, often made by smaller studios with lower budgets who can survive by selling games at a cut price to the comparatively small install base of VR devices. Even those studios are betting on VR growing, though. Dean Hall, the chief executive of indie studio RocketWerkz, wrote that his company’s game, Out of Ammo, “has exceeded our sales predictions and achieved our internal objectives”. “However, it has been very unprofitable. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be profitable. We are comfortable with this, and approached it as such. We expected to lose money and we had the funding internally to handle this. Consider then that Out of Ammo has sold unusually well compared to many other VR games.” Currently, platform owners are subsidising much of the development for VR, in exchange for making those games platform exclusives. But those owners will also need to make money at some point; they’re just capable of playing a longer game than an independent developer. In that long term, VR needs to be more than an accessory for better games. Back in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg targeted an install base of 50m to 100m Oculus headsets in the device’s first decade. At the top end, that’s equal to the total sales of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One combined, for a device which currently needs a PC to run it that costs more than a PS4 and Xbox One combined. Of course, Zuckerberg isn’t interested in owning a gaming company, even a successful one. He bought Oculus with the stated intention of offering far more than just better video games. “Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on goggles in your home,” he wrote in the post announcing the company’s acquisition. Perhaps tellingly, in the years since, Zuckerberg has spent far more time focusing on Oculus’ smaller, more accessible product, the Gear VR, than on the weighty, tethered Rift headset. At the Mobile World Congress conference in February, attendees were handed one to try, causing them to miss the smiling executive strolling past them on his way to the stage. Last week, Facebook announced it would split Oculus into two divisions, one focusing on PC-based VR, and the other on mobile. It’s clear on which Zuckerberg is staking the future of computing, and it’s not the tethered division which current Oculus CEO Brendan Irbe will be heading up. If VR is going to become the next major computing platform, pushing mobile phones aside the way they left desktop PCs lagging in their wake, 2017 will be the crunch point: platforms like Google’s Daydream, and whatever Oculus offers as the follow-up to Gear VR, need to arrive with the same pop that tethered VR entered in the past year. More, they need a compelling reason for those who don’t care about gaming to buy in, be that experiences like 360-degree video, or social platforms like those Facebook wants to build. If they don’t, they could find themselves obsolete before they even hit the mainstream, thanks to the new technologies peeking over the horizon. If VR doesn’t charm, could AR succeed where it failed? AR devices, like Microsoft’s Hololens and vaporware start-up Magic Leap’s prototypes, allows virtual images to be imprinted over the real world. It’s not cheap – the developer preview of the Hololens retails for almost £3,000 – but it fixes a number of issues which hold VR back when it comes to everyday practicality. Hololens users can still interact with the real world, with their colleagues and companions, rather than locking themselves away in a virtual space. That interaction makes it much more appealing to imagine using Hololens as a general-purpose computing system, fitting in alongside your current life. Or maybe neither will actually take off in the foreseeable future. For the first time in well over a decade, technology companies worldwide are looking at the end of one hyperbolic growth curve – that of smartphones – with nothing obvious to pick up where it died off. They may have a lot of interest in convincing their shareholders that something is the next big thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe them. After all, we live in reality. If the future of video games is VR, it needs to stop making us feel sick

technology/2016/dec/27/will-2017-be-the-year-virtual-reality-gets-real

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-27T07:00:05Z

Will 2017 be the year virtual reality gets real?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/27/will-2017-be-the-year-virtual-reality-gets-real

['virtual', 'reality', 'well', 'real', 'last', 'year', 'seen', 'launch', 'every', 'major', 'vr', 'platform', 'high-quality', 'tethered', 'systems', 'like', 'htc', 'vive', 'facebook', 'oculus', 'rift', 'cheap-and-cheerful', 'smartphone-based', 'platforms', 'like', 'google', 'daydream', 'samsung', 'gear', 'vr', 'early', 'adopters', 'bought', 'launch', 'games', 'launched', 'initial', 'flurry', 'excitement', 'died', 'pressing', 'questions', 'left', 'platforms', 'evolve', 'actually', 'able', 'vr', 'stepping', 'stone', 'anyway', 'even', 'science-fiction', 'future', 'augmented', 'reality', 'tech', 'inception', 'vr', 'unquestionably', 'gaming', 'technology', 'first', 'foremost', 'expensive', 'technologically', 'advanced', 'systems', 'almost', 'total', 'focus', 'serving', 'hardcore', 'gamer', 'market', 'even', 'simpler', 'systems', 'lack', 'pixel-pushing', 'power', 'necessary', 'satisfy', 'modern', 'players', 'still', 'end', 'preponderance', 'games', 'game-like', 'projects', 'easiest', 'build', 'tools', 'available', 'number', 'one', 'priority', 'titans', 'vr', 'carry', 'winning', 'round', 'game', 'developers', 'players', 'prevent', 'juggernaut', 'stalling', 'experiences', 'first', 'wave', 'early', 'adopters', 'anything', 'go', 'could', 'prove', 'trickier', 'seems', 'right', 'pressures', 'aaa', 'games', 'seem', 'inimical', 'vr', 'games', 'hardcore', 'niche', 'market', 'often', 'designed', 'sold', 'around', 'durations', 'hundreds', 'hours', 'individual', 'gaming', 'session', 'often', 'lasting', 'three', 'four', 'hours', 'vr', 'devices', 'work', 'today', 'heavy', 'use', 'becomes', 'physically', 'punishing', 'painful', 'eyes', 'face', 'head', 'neck', 'well', 'emphatically', 'warned', 'manufacturers', 'instead', 'many', 'highest', 'profile', 'games', 'launch', 'designed', 'quick', 'powerful', 'experiences', 'ccp', 'eve', 'valkyrie', 'guerrilla', 'rigs', 'pack', 'intense', 'multiplayer', 'battles', 'matches', 'lasting', 'five', 'minutes', 'rebellion', 'battlezone', 'single-player', 'tank', 'battles', 'even', 'story', 'focused', 'games', 'like', 'gunfire', 'chronos', 'insomniac', 'edge', 'nowhere', 'make', 'fairly', 'easy', 'jump', 'game', 'absence', 'life-consuming', 'behemoths', 'constitute', 'gaming', 'large', 'number', 'fans', 'vr', 'development', 'instead', 'colonised', 'quirkier', 'games', 'often', 'made', 'smaller', 'studios', 'lower', 'budgets', 'survive', 'selling', 'games', 'cut', 'price', 'comparatively', 'small', 'install', 'base', 'vr', 'devices', 'even', 'studios', 'betting', 'vr', 'growing', 'though', 'dean', 'hall', 'chief', 'executive', 'indie', 'studio', 'rocketwerkz', 'wrote', 'company', 'game', 'ammo', 'exceeded', 'sales', 'predictions', 'achieved', 'internal', 'objectives', 'however', 'unprofitable', 'extremely', 'unlikely', 'ever', 'profitable', 'comfortable', 'approached', 'expected', 'lose', 'money', 'funding', 'internally', 'handle', 'consider', 'ammo', 'sold', 'unusually', 'well', 'compared', 'many', 'vr', 'games', 'currently', 'platform', 'owners', 'subsidising', 'much', 'development', 'vr', 'exchange', 'making', 'games', 'platform', 'exclusives', 'owners', 'also', 'need', 'make', 'money', 'point', 'capable', 'playing', 'longer', 'game', 'independent', 'developer', 'long', 'term', 'vr', 'needs', 'accessory', 'better', 'games', 'back', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'targeted', 'install', 'base', '50m', '100m', 'oculus', 'headsets', 'device', 'first', 'decade', 'top', 'end', 'equal', 'total', 'sales', 'playstation', 'xbox', 'one', 'combined', 'device', 'currently', 'needs', 'pc', 'run', 'costs', 'ps4', 'xbox', 'one', 'combined', 'course', 'zuckerberg', 'interested', 'owning', 'gaming', 'company', 'even', 'successful', 'one', 'bought', 'oculus', 'stated', 'intention', 'offering', 'far', 'better', 'video', 'games', 'imagine', 'enjoying', 'court', 'side', 'seat', 'game', 'studying', 'classroom', 'students', 'teachers', 'world', 'consulting', 'doctor', 'face-to-face', 'putting', 'goggles', 'home', 'wrote', 'post', 'announcing', 'company', 'acquisition', 'perhaps', 'tellingly', 'years', 'since', 'zuckerberg', 'spent', 'far', 'time', 'focusing', 'oculus', 'smaller', 'accessible', 'product', 'gear', 'vr', 'weighty', 'tethered', 'rift', 'headset', 'mobile', 'world', 'congress', 'conference', 'february', 'attendees', 'handed', 'one', 'try', 'causing', 'miss', 'smiling', 'executive', 'strolling', 'past', 'way', 'stage', 'last', 'week', 'facebook', 'announced', 'would', 'split', 'oculus', 'two', 'divisions', 'one', 'focusing', 'pc-based', 'vr', 'mobile', 'clear', 'zuckerberg', 'staking', 'future', 'computing', 'tethered', 'division', 'current', 'oculus', 'ceo', 'brendan', 'irbe', 'heading', 'vr', 'going', 'become', 'next', 'major', 'computing', 'platform', 'pushing', 'mobile', 'phones', 'aside', 'way', 'left', 'desktop', 'pcs', 'lagging', 'wake', 'crunch', 'point', 'platforms', 'like', 'google', 'daydream', 'whatever', 'oculus', 'offers', 'follow-up', 'gear', 'vr', 'need', 'arrive', 'pop', 'tethered', 'vr', 'entered', 'past', 'year', 'need', 'compelling', 'reason', 'care', 'gaming', 'buy', 'experiences', 'like', '360-degree', 'video', 'social', 'platforms', 'like', 'facebook', 'wants', 'build', 'could', 'find', 'obsolete', 'even', 'hit', 'mainstream', 'thanks', 'new', 'technologies', 'peeking', 'horizon', 'vr', 'charm', 'could', 'ar', 'succeed', 'failed', 'ar', 'devices', 'like', 'microsoft', 'hololens', 'vaporware', 'start-up', 'magic', 'leap', 'prototypes', 'allows', 'virtual', 'images', 'imprinted', 'real', 'world', 'cheap', 'developer', 'preview', 'hololens', 'retails', 'almost', 'fixes', 'number', 'issues', 'hold', 'vr', 'back', 'comes', 'everyday', 'practicality', 'hololens', 'users', 'still', 'interact', 'real', 'world', 'colleagues', 'companions', 'rather', 'locking', 'away', 'virtual', 'space', 'interaction', 'makes', 'much', 'appealing', 'imagine', 'using', 'hololens', 'general-purpose', 'computing', 'system', 'fitting', 'alongside', 'current', 'life', 'maybe', 'neither', 'actually', 'take', 'foreseeable', 'future', 'first', 'time', 'well', 'decade', 'technology', 'companies', 'worldwide', 'looking', 'end', 'one', 'hyperbolic', 'growth', 'curve', 'smartphones', 'nothing', 'obvious', 'pick', 'died', 'may', 'lot', 'interest', 'convincing', 'shareholders', 'something', 'next', 'big', 'thing', 'mean', 'believe', 'live', 'reality', 'future', 'video', 'games', 'vr', 'needs', 'stop', 'making', 'us', 'feel', 'sick']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/twitter-abu-qatada-al-qaida-jihadi-syria-islamic-state

Twitter has suspended the account of Jordanian preacher and al-Qaida spiritual leader Abu Qatada, along with two other influential scholars aligned with the extremist group. The three accounts, which between them had tens of thousands of followers and were used several times a day, were at the heart of an online network of al-Qaida supporters, said Cole Bunzel, scholar of jihadism at Princeton University. Bunzel tweeted: The accounts focused mostly on the war in Syria, frequently attacking Islamic State, but also commented on other issues, from law to religious judgments. “Attacking the west is not a priority in their messaging,” Bunzel told the Guardian. He added that Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s commentary had mostly been limited to the war in Syria. Twitter has cracked down heavily on Isis supporters, leading them to shift towards alternative messaging services including Telegram, but al-Qaida supporters have not been so heavily targeted. “Twitter has been a permissive forum for supporters of al-Qaida as compared to supporters of the Islamic State who have been pushed off,” Bunzel said. “The focus of these crackdowns has been on the Islamic State.” It was not clear what had prompted the shutdown, or whether the move would cause al-Qaida supporters to embrace other social networks. So far only major figures appear to have been targeted by Twitter, not their supporters, he said. “The people who were retweeting and interacting with these ‘big three’ online: they are still online, still communicating.” Qatada was deported from the UK to Jordan to face terror charges after a court battle lasting nearly 10 years with a series of British home secretaries. Last summer he was released from custody after being acquitted of all charges. Since his release, he has become an increasingly vocal critic of Isis. Maqdisi, regarded as the most influential jihadi scholar alive, is counted as a close friend by al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Twitter said it could not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons, but a spokesperson said: “We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism and the Twitter rules make it clear that this type of behaviour, or any violent threat, is not permitted on our service. Since the middle of 2015 alone, we’ve suspended more than 360,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts, primarily related to Isis.”

technology/2016/dec/26/twitter-abu-qatada-al-qaida-jihadi-syria-islamic-state

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T18:55:18Z

Twitter accounts of Abu Qatada and other key al-Qaida figures suspended

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/twitter-abu-qatada-al-qaida-jihadi-syria-islamic-state

['twitter', 'suspended', 'account', 'jordanian', 'preacher', 'al-qaida', 'spiritual', 'leader', 'abu', 'qatada', 'along', 'two', 'influential', 'scholars', 'aligned', 'extremist', 'group', 'three', 'accounts', 'tens', 'thousands', 'followers', 'used', 'several', 'times', 'day', 'heart', 'online', 'network', 'al-qaida', 'supporters', 'said', 'cole', 'bunzel', 'scholar', 'jihadism', 'princeton', 'university', 'bunzel', 'tweeted', 'accounts', 'focused', 'mostly', 'war', 'syria', 'frequently', 'attacking', 'islamic', 'state', 'also', 'commented', 'issues', 'law', 'religious', 'judgments', 'attacking', 'west', 'priority', 'messaging', 'bunzel', 'told', 'guardian', 'added', 'abu', 'qatada', 'abu', 'muhammad', 'al-maqdisi', 'commentary', 'mostly', 'limited', 'war', 'syria', 'twitter', 'cracked', 'heavily', 'isis', 'supporters', 'leading', 'shift', 'towards', 'alternative', 'messaging', 'services', 'including', 'telegram', 'al-qaida', 'supporters', 'heavily', 'targeted', 'twitter', 'permissive', 'forum', 'supporters', 'al-qaida', 'compared', 'supporters', 'islamic', 'state', 'pushed', 'bunzel', 'said', 'focus', 'crackdowns', 'islamic', 'state', 'clear', 'prompted', 'shutdown', 'whether', 'move', 'would', 'cause', 'al-qaida', 'supporters', 'embrace', 'social', 'networks', 'far', 'major', 'figures', 'appear', 'targeted', 'twitter', 'supporters', 'said', 'people', 'retweeting', 'interacting', 'big', 'three', 'online', 'still', 'online', 'still', 'communicating', 'qatada', 'deported', 'uk', 'jordan', 'face', 'terror', 'charges', 'court', 'battle', 'lasting', 'nearly', 'years', 'series', 'british', 'home', 'secretaries', 'last', 'summer', 'released', 'custody', 'acquitted', 'charges', 'since', 'release', 'become', 'increasingly', 'vocal', 'critic', 'isis', 'maqdisi', 'regarded', 'influential', 'jihadi', 'scholar', 'alive', 'counted', 'close', 'friend', 'al-qaida', 'leader', 'ayman', 'al-zawahiri', 'twitter', 'said', 'could', 'comment', 'individual', 'accounts', 'privacy', 'security', 'reasons', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'condemn', 'use', 'twitter', 'promote', 'terrorism', 'twitter', 'rules', 'make', 'clear', 'type', 'behaviour', 'violent', 'threat', 'permitted', 'service', 'since', 'middle', 'alone', 'suspended', 'accounts', 'threatening', 'promoting', 'terrorist', 'acts', 'primarily', 'related', 'isis']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/uk-needs-a-more-joined-up-approach-to-broadband-provision

Last week’s government announcement of investment into superfast broadband under the Broadband Delivery UK programme (theguardian.com, 22 December) is welcome news for the UK economy, as there is plenty of evidence to suggest that lack of broadband coverage is preventing many businesses from operating to their full potential, particularly in rural areas. But beyond the investment headlines, we also need to see evidence of a joined-up approach to finding a long-term solution to providing universal superfast broadband, which, as well as improving 4G and 5G, will mean converging fibre broadband and local wireless infrastructure, rather than still relying in many areas on the old copper systems we have today. Ultimately, the government should invest in a gold-standard solution using fibre and wireless technology to create a future-proof broadband infrastructure that will enable the UK to become a global leader in communications networks. Professor Will Stewart Vice-president, Institution of Engineering and Technology

technology/2016/dec/26/uk-needs-a-more-joined-up-approach-to-broadband-provision

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T16:55:54Z

UK needs a more joined-up approach to broadband provision

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/uk-needs-a-more-joined-up-approach-to-broadband-provision

['last', 'week', 'government', 'announcement', 'investment', 'superfast', 'broadband', 'broadband', 'delivery', 'uk', 'programme', 'theguardiancom', 'december', 'welcome', 'news', 'uk', 'economy', 'plenty', 'evidence', 'suggest', 'lack', 'broadband', 'coverage', 'preventing', 'many', 'businesses', 'operating', 'full', 'potential', 'particularly', 'rural', 'areas', 'beyond', 'investment', 'headlines', 'also', 'need', 'see', 'evidence', 'joined-up', 'approach', 'finding', 'long-term', 'solution', 'providing', 'universal', 'superfast', 'broadband', 'well', 'improving', '4g', '5g', 'mean', 'converging', 'fibre', 'broadband', 'local', 'wireless', 'infrastructure', 'rather', 'still', 'relying', 'many', 'areas', 'old', 'copper', 'systems', 'today', 'ultimately', 'government', 'invest', 'gold-standard', 'solution', 'using', 'fibre', 'wireless', 'technology', 'create', 'future-proof', 'broadband', 'infrastructure', 'enable', 'uk', 'become', 'global', 'leader', 'communications', 'networks', 'professor', 'stewart', 'vice-president', 'institution', 'engineering', 'technology']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/engineerings-stark-racial-inequalities-revealed-by-report

Black engineering graduates are less likely to find jobs than white students with lower second or third class degrees, according to a report that reveals stark inequalities within the profession. The review, by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), found that being black or minority ethnic was a bigger obstacle to employment than any other factor considered, including degree classification, attending a less prestigious university or gender. Bola Fatimilehin, the academy’s head of diversity, said an old boys’ network approach to recruitment and unconscious biases were contributing to the challenges faced by non-white students. “There is a certain amount of stereotyping of who can be an engineer and what talent looks like,” she said. “A lot of people fall into the mode of thinking that there aren’t a lot of black engineers because [black people] are not interested in it.” The analysis found that 71% of white engineering graduates were in full-time jobs within six months of leaving university, compared with just 52% of Asian students and 46% of black students. When gender, age, class of degree and type of institution were taken into account, black and Asian graduates were more than twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts. The figures highlight an apparent paradox in which government and industry leaders have consistently pointed to a national shortage of engineers, while a high proportion of black and ethnic minority graduates are failing to find jobs. Indeed, the science minister, Jo Johnson, noted “the chronic shortages of engineers that have long held our economy back” in a comment article last month. The shortage of engineers is often cited as an incentive to attract more women into the profession – just 12-15% of engineering undergraduates are female. “That’s true, but what about the missed opportunity with all these graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds?” said Fatimilehin. “It feels like a low hanging fruit.” Gender has dominated the diversity agenda in engineering for the past decade, but the report found that it only has a minor influence on immediate employment prospects for graduates. Women were slightly less likely to enter engineering occupations after university, but more likely to pursue further study. The focus on “getting girls into engineering” has led to the lack of progress on racial diversity being overlooked, according to Fatimilehin. “People come back to gender because it feels safer,” she said, adding that male engineers tended to get behind the idea that women face additional barriers because most would have a wife, daughter or female friend. “They’re less likely to have a friend who is black,” she said. The RAEng report puts forward several possible explanations for the findings, which were based annual destination surveys of around 250,000 students by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Engineering firms often recruit from Russell Group universities, which on average have lower proportions of ethnic minority students. However, even when institution type is taken into account there is a gulf between the employment prospects of white students and black and Asian ones. “This suggests statistically that ethnicity itself is correlated with an unemployment outcome, and is a stronger effect than any of the other factors studied,” the report concluded. According to Fatimilehin, unconscious bias, preconceptions about who will “fit in” with company culture and people “recruiting in their own image” also play a role. “The chief execs say ‘there’s nobody out there’,” she said. “There are people out there. As a society we need to get better at looking for people, rather than just accepting that a certain type of black person doesn’t exist.” Anita Bernie, director of spacecraft platforms at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), said she was “amazed” by the gulf in career prospects between white and ethnic minority students. Bernie, who is black, said that SSTL has a diverse mix of ethnicities and that most of her current team are female. “When I go to other companies, the mix in terms of gender and ethnicity is very different,” she said. Bernie agreed that employer recruitment bias is likely to be a problem. “It’s partly human nature that you tend to want to recruit people like you,” she said. “It’s really easy to see a young white lad come in and think ‘I used to be like that’. I do think that exists in other companies.” Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “It is shocking that black and minority ethnic people with degrees are still not getting the same job opportunities as others. This suggests we have a long way to go to create the equal society the prime minister talked about on the steps of Downing Street.” An EHRC report published earlier this year found that the life prospects for young black and minority ethnic people have got much worse over the past five years and are at their most challenging for generations. On average, black, Asian and ethnic minority workers with degrees are two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed than white workers with degrees, the report found. Belinda Phipps, CEO of the Science Council, welcomed the RAEng review, saying it was important to highlight inequalities in the profession. “From the moment a baby is born its life is shaped by the enforcement of stereotypes: girl children are taught they must be clean and quiet; those of certain ethnic origin are expected not to succeed,” she said.

technology/2016/dec/26/engineerings-stark-racial-inequalities-revealed-by-report

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T15:43:26Z

Engineering's stark racial inequalities revealed by report

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/engineerings-stark-racial-inequalities-revealed-by-report

['black', 'engineering', 'graduates', 'less', 'likely', 'find', 'jobs', 'white', 'students', 'lower', 'second', 'third', 'class', 'degrees', 'according', 'report', 'reveals', 'stark', 'inequalities', 'within', 'profession', 'review', 'royal', 'academy', 'engineering', 'raeng', 'found', 'black', 'minority', 'ethnic', 'bigger', 'obstacle', 'employment', 'factor', 'considered', 'including', 'degree', 'classification', 'attending', 'less', 'prestigious', 'university', 'gender', 'bola', 'fatimilehin', 'academy', 'head', 'diversity', 'said', 'old', 'boys', 'network', 'approach', 'recruitment', 'unconscious', 'biases', 'contributing', 'challenges', 'faced', 'non-white', 'students', 'certain', 'amount', 'stereotyping', 'engineer', 'talent', 'looks', 'like', 'said', 'lot', 'people', 'fall', 'mode', 'thinking', 'lot', 'black', 'engineers', 'black', 'people', 'interested', 'analysis', 'found', 'white', 'engineering', 'graduates', 'full-time', 'jobs', 'within', 'six', 'months', 'leaving', 'university', 'compared', 'asian', 'students', 'black', 'students', 'gender', 'age', 'class', 'degree', 'type', 'institution', 'taken', 'account', 'black', 'asian', 'graduates', 'twice', 'likely', 'unemployed', 'white', 'counterparts', 'figures', 'highlight', 'apparent', 'paradox', 'government', 'industry', 'leaders', 'consistently', 'pointed', 'national', 'shortage', 'engineers', 'high', 'proportion', 'black', 'ethnic', 'minority', 'graduates', 'failing', 'find', 'jobs', 'indeed', 'science', 'minister', 'jo', 'johnson', 'noted', 'chronic', 'shortages', 'engineers', 'long', 'held', 'economy', 'back', 'comment', 'article', 'last', 'month', 'shortage', 'engineers', 'often', 'cited', 'incentive', 'attract', 'women', 'profession', '12-15', 'engineering', 'undergraduates', 'female', 'true', 'missed', 'opportunity', 'graduates', 'ethnic', 'minority', 'backgrounds', 'said', 'fatimilehin', 'feels', 'like', 'low', 'hanging', 'fruit', 'gender', 'dominated', 'diversity', 'agenda', 'engineering', 'past', 'decade', 'report', 'found', 'minor', 'influence', 'immediate', 'employment', 'prospects', 'graduates', 'women', 'slightly', 'less', 'likely', 'enter', 'engineering', 'occupations', 'university', 'likely', 'pursue', 'study', 'focus', 'getting', 'girls', 'engineering', 'led', 'lack', 'progress', 'racial', 'diversity', 'overlooked', 'according', 'fatimilehin', 'people', 'come', 'back', 'gender', 'feels', 'safer', 'said', 'adding', 'male', 'engineers', 'tended', 'get', 'behind', 'idea', 'women', 'face', 'additional', 'barriers', 'would', 'wife', 'daughter', 'female', 'friend', 'less', 'likely', 'friend', 'black', 'said', 'raeng', 'report', 'puts', 'forward', 'several', 'possible', 'explanations', 'findings', 'based', 'annual', 'destination', 'surveys', 'around', 'students', 'higher', 'education', 'statistics', 'agency', 'hesa', 'engineering', 'firms', 'often', 'recruit', 'russell', 'group', 'universities', 'average', 'lower', 'proportions', 'ethnic', 'minority', 'students', 'however', 'even', 'institution', 'type', 'taken', 'account', 'gulf', 'employment', 'prospects', 'white', 'students', 'black', 'asian', 'ones', 'suggests', 'statistically', 'ethnicity', 'correlated', 'unemployment', 'outcome', 'stronger', 'effect', 'factors', 'studied', 'report', 'concluded', 'according', 'fatimilehin', 'unconscious', 'bias', 'preconceptions', 'fit', 'company', 'culture', 'people', 'recruiting', 'image', 'also', 'play', 'role', 'chief', 'execs', 'say', 'nobody', 'said', 'people', 'society', 'need', 'get', 'better', 'looking', 'people', 'rather', 'accepting', 'certain', 'type', 'black', 'person', 'exist', 'anita', 'bernie', 'director', 'spacecraft', 'platforms', 'surrey', 'satellite', 'technology', 'ltd', 'sstl', 'said', 'amazed', 'gulf', 'career', 'prospects', 'white', 'ethnic', 'minority', 'students', 'bernie', 'black', 'said', 'sstl', 'diverse', 'mix', 'ethnicities', 'current', 'team', 'female', 'go', 'companies', 'mix', 'terms', 'gender', 'ethnicity', 'different', 'said', 'bernie', 'agreed', 'employer', 'recruitment', 'bias', 'likely', 'problem', 'partly', 'human', 'nature', 'tend', 'want', 'recruit', 'people', 'like', 'said', 'really', 'easy', 'see', 'young', 'white', 'lad', 'come', 'think', 'used', 'like', 'think', 'exists', 'companies', 'rebecca', 'hilsenrath', 'chief', 'executive', 'equality', 'human', 'rights', 'commission', 'said', 'shocking', 'black', 'minority', 'ethnic', 'people', 'degrees', 'still', 'getting', 'job', 'opportunities', 'others', 'suggests', 'long', 'way', 'go', 'create', 'equal', 'society', 'prime', 'minister', 'talked', 'steps', 'downing', 'street', 'ehrc', 'report', 'published', 'earlier', 'year', 'found', 'life', 'prospects', 'young', 'black', 'minority', 'ethnic', 'people', 'got', 'much', 'worse', 'past', 'five', 'years', 'challenging', 'generations', 'average', 'black', 'asian', 'ethnic', 'minority', 'workers', 'degrees', 'two-and-a-half', 'times', 'likely', 'unemployed', 'white', 'workers', 'degrees', 'report', 'found', 'belinda', 'phipps', 'ceo', 'science', 'council', 'welcomed', 'raeng', 'review', 'saying', 'important', 'highlight', 'inequalities', 'profession', 'moment', 'baby', 'born', 'life', 'shaped', 'enforcement', 'stereotypes', 'girl', 'children', 'taught', 'must', 'clean', 'quiet', 'certain', 'ethnic', 'origin', 'expected', 'succeed', 'said']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/2016-memes-internet-harambe-biden-obama

Levity may not be the first thing people think of when they consider the year 2016. But there was diversion from this year’s most popular internet memes. Not all were positive. Or amusing. But here we go! The mannequin challenge Finally, a challenge that didn’t involve an obscure Facebook acquaintance ordering you to do something you don’t want to do. (See: ice-bucket challenge, push-up challenge.) The Mannequin Challenge was a big viral hit in the latter half of 2016. It involves a load of people standing very still – almost as if they were mannequins – while another person films them. Hilarity ensues. A group of high school students in Jacksonville, Florida, reportedly started the trend. Some of the most popular include the Pittsburgh Steelers standing still in their dressing room and Mississippi hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurd performing the mannequin challenge mid-show. No one was safe from the mannequin challenge. Not even those in prison – a group of inmates undertook the challenge in an Alabama jail. In hindsight the worst mannequin challenge, or at least the most ill-judged, may have been the one Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff performed on election day. She lost the election a few hours later. Harambe Who can forget Harambe, the lovable gorilla shot to death by staff at Cincinnati zoo after a three-year-old boy fell into his enclosure. The 450lb silverback, blessed with a noble bearing and a regal-sounding name (Harambe is Swahili for “togetherness”) was given a fond send-off by seemingly millions of memes. “Bush did Harambe” was a popular one. There was Harambe driving next to Vin Diesel in Furious 7. Harambe was imagined as Private Ryan. There were also songs, although many weren’t very good. Public Policy Polling included Harambe as a presidential candidate on some of their surveys, with the deceased silverback winning 5% support in July and 2% in August. On election day some people reportedly wrote in Harambe’s name on their presidential ballots, but ultimately the gorilla did not win enough votes to serve as commander-in-chief. Michael Phelps and his angry face Phelps, a previously unheralded swimmer from the United States, sprang to fame when he was captured looking extremely angry as his South African rival, Chad Le Clos, pranced about in front of him ahead of their 200m butterfly Olympic semi-final. It was an apparent attempt to psych Phelps out. It didn’t work. Phelps finished ahead of Le Clos in the semi-final then won gold in the final. Le Clos came fourth. The memes – showing an image of Phelps’ angry face – came thick and fast. “tfw u wanted gryffindor but were sorted into hufflepuff,” wrote Twitter user @taylortrudon. “When you found out that Vanilla Ice’s real name is Robert Van Winkle,” said @records and radio – a reference to the singer of the 1990 hit, Ice Ice Baby. Some were more succinct. “Cargo shorts,” chimed @shirklesxp. The Obama-Biden bromance In hindsight the special relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden may have been the main highlight for Democrats in 2016. The pair’s close friendship was well known before 2016 – the number of photographs showing them sharing intimate moments is a testament to that – but it was after Trump was elected that the Obama-Biden memes really took off. Most portray Biden in his long-established role as the president’s fun-loving, prankster sidekick. Frequently at the expense of Trump-Pence’s impending takeover of the White House. Pepe the frog Much less heartwarming was the rise of Pepe the frog. Pepe first appeared in a comic called Boy’s Club, the LA Times reported – but the frog began to be appropriated by certain 4chan and Reddit users as a racist icon around 2015. The Anti-Defamation League labelled Pepe a hate symbol in September 2016 after use of the frog alongside racist messaging proliferated among the “alt-right”. Pepe has been portrayed wearing a yarmulke and smirking in front of an image of the burning Twin Towers. He has been seen sporting a Hitler-esque moustache. And much more. During the presidential campaign Pepe caught the attention of Donald Trump Jr, who posted an Instagram photograph showing prominent Trump supporters. Pepe was among them. Trump Jr later insisted he had “never even heard of Pepe the frog”. Pokémon Go You had to/in some cases still do have to catch them all. It depends on your attention span. Whether you liked Pokémon Go or not – and many people did not – it was certainly a big deal in 2016. It was Google’s top trending search for the year – apparently the app is the only thing capable of beating Donald Trump. Pokémon Go meme highlights include people pairing the app with nature-slaying hard man Bear Grylls. The resulting images involved Grylls travelling long distances to capture a Pokemon, often drinking his own urine in the process. Other memes saw Forest Gump sprinting upon learning the location of a Pokémon – specifically, a Charizard – and Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg ordering someone away from his Pokémon-hunting patch.

technology/2016/dec/26/2016-memes-internet-harambe-biden-obama

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T13:00:43Z

Harambe homages and Biden's antics: memes that made 2016 more bearable

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/2016-memes-internet-harambe-biden-obama

['levity', 'may', 'first', 'thing', 'people', 'think', 'consider', 'year', 'diversion', 'year', 'popular', 'internet', 'memes', 'positive', 'amusing', 'go', 'mannequin', 'challenge', 'finally', 'challenge', 'involve', 'obscure', 'facebook', 'acquaintance', 'ordering', 'something', 'want', 'see', 'ice-bucket', 'challenge', 'push-up', 'challenge', 'mannequin', 'challenge', 'big', 'viral', 'hit', 'latter', 'half', 'involves', 'load', 'people', 'standing', 'still', 'almost', 'mannequins', 'another', 'person', 'films', 'hilarity', 'ensues', 'group', 'high', 'school', 'students', 'jacksonville', 'florida', 'reportedly', 'started', 'trend', 'popular', 'include', 'pittsburgh', 'steelers', 'standing', 'still', 'dressing', 'room', 'mississippi', 'hip-hop', 'duo', 'rae', 'sremmurd', 'performing', 'mannequin', 'challenge', 'mid-show', 'one', 'safe', 'mannequin', 'challenge', 'even', 'prison', 'group', 'inmates', 'undertook', 'challenge', 'alabama', 'jail', 'hindsight', 'worst', 'mannequin', 'challenge', 'least', 'ill-judged', 'may', 'one', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'campaign', 'staff', 'performed', 'election', 'day', 'lost', 'election', 'hours', 'later', 'harambe', 'forget', 'harambe', 'lovable', 'gorilla', 'shot', 'death', 'staff', 'cincinnati', 'zoo', 'three-year-old', 'boy', 'fell', 'enclosure', '450lb', 'silverback', 'blessed', 'noble', 'bearing', 'regal-sounding', 'name', 'harambe', 'swahili', 'togetherness', 'given', 'fond', 'send-off', 'seemingly', 'millions', 'memes', 'bush', 'harambe', 'popular', 'one', 'harambe', 'driving', 'next', 'vin', 'diesel', 'furious', 'harambe', 'imagined', 'private', 'ryan', 'also', 'songs', 'although', 'many', 'good', 'public', 'policy', 'polling', 'included', 'harambe', 'presidential', 'candidate', 'surveys', 'deceased', 'silverback', 'winning', 'support', 'july', 'august', 'election', 'day', 'people', 'reportedly', 'wrote', 'harambe', 'name', 'presidential', 'ballots', 'ultimately', 'gorilla', 'win', 'enough', 'votes', 'serve', 'commander-in-chief', 'michael', 'phelps', 'angry', 'face', 'phelps', 'previously', 'unheralded', 'swimmer', 'united', 'states', 'sprang', 'fame', 'captured', 'looking', 'extremely', 'angry', 'south', 'african', 'rival', 'chad', 'le', 'clos', 'pranced', 'front', 'ahead', '200m', 'butterfly', 'olympic', 'semi-final', 'apparent', 'attempt', 'psych', 'phelps', 'work', 'phelps', 'finished', 'ahead', 'le', 'clos', 'semi-final', 'gold', 'final', 'le', 'clos', 'came', 'fourth', 'memes', 'showing', 'image', 'phelps', 'angry', 'face', 'came', 'thick', 'fast', 'tfw', 'u', 'wanted', 'gryffindor', 'sorted', 'hufflepuff', 'wrote', 'twitter', 'user', 'taylortrudon', 'found', 'vanilla', 'ice', 'real', 'name', 'robert', 'van', 'winkle', 'said', 'records', 'radio', 'reference', 'singer', 'hit', 'ice', 'ice', 'baby', 'succinct', 'cargo', 'shorts', 'chimed', 'shirklesxp', 'obama-biden', 'bromance', 'hindsight', 'special', 'relationship', 'barack', 'obama', 'joe', 'biden', 'may', 'main', 'highlight', 'democrats', 'pair', 'close', 'friendship', 'well', 'known', 'number', 'photographs', 'showing', 'sharing', 'intimate', 'moments', 'testament', 'trump', 'elected', 'obama-biden', 'memes', 'really', 'took', 'portray', 'biden', 'long-established', 'role', 'president', 'fun-loving', 'prankster', 'sidekick', 'frequently', 'expense', 'trump-pence', 'impending', 'takeover', 'white', 'house', 'pepe', 'frog', 'much', 'less', 'heartwarming', 'rise', 'pepe', 'frog', 'pepe', 'first', 'appeared', 'comic', 'called', 'boy', 'club', 'la', 'times', 'reported', 'frog', 'began', 'appropriated', 'certain', '4chan', 'reddit', 'users', 'racist', 'icon', 'around', 'anti-defamation', 'league', 'labelled', 'pepe', 'hate', 'symbol', 'september', 'use', 'frog', 'alongside', 'racist', 'messaging', 'proliferated', 'among', 'alt-right', 'pepe', 'portrayed', 'wearing', 'yarmulke', 'smirking', 'front', 'image', 'burning', 'twin', 'towers', 'seen', 'sporting', 'hitler-esque', 'moustache', 'much', 'presidential', 'campaign', 'pepe', 'caught', 'attention', 'donald', 'trump', 'jr', 'posted', 'instagram', 'photograph', 'showing', 'prominent', 'trump', 'supporters', 'pepe', 'among', 'trump', 'jr', 'later', 'insisted', 'never', 'even', 'heard', 'pepe', 'frog', 'pokemon', 'go', 'toin', 'cases', 'still', 'catch', 'depends', 'attention', 'span', 'whether', 'liked', 'pokemon', 'go', 'many', 'people', 'certainly', 'big', 'deal', 'google', 'top', 'trending', 'search', 'year', 'apparently', 'app', 'thing', 'capable', 'beating', 'donald', 'trump', 'pokemon', 'go', 'meme', 'highlights', 'include', 'people', 'pairing', 'app', 'nature-slaying', 'hard', 'man', 'bear', 'grylls', 'resulting', 'images', 'involved', 'grylls', 'travelling', 'long', 'distances', 'capture', 'pokemon', 'often', 'drinking', 'urine', 'process', 'memes', 'saw', 'forest', 'gump', 'sprinting', 'upon', 'learning', 'location', 'pokemon', 'specifically', 'charizard', 'breaking', 'bad', 'heisenberg', 'ordering', 'someone', 'away', 'pokemon-hunting', 'patch']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/could-online-tutors-and-artificial-intelligence-be-the-future-of-teaching

Ambar presses her hand to her forehead, nose crinkled in concentration as she considers the question on her screen: how many sevens in 91? The ten-year-old has been grappling with it for about a minute when she smiles: “13!”. Her tutor responds by posting a large smiley cat picture on her screen – the virtual equivalent of a pat on the back. He is sitting on the other side of the world in an online tutoring centre in India. Ambar, who attends Pakeman primary school in north London, is one of nearly 4,000 primary school children in Britain signed up for weekly one-to-one maths sessions with tutors based in India and Sri Lanka. The lessons, provided by a company called Third Space Learning, are targeted at pupils struggling with maths – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. From next year, the platform will become one of the first examples of artificial intelligence (AI) software being used to monitor, and ideally improve, teaching. Together with scientists at University College London (UCL), the company has analysed around 100,000 hours of audio and written data from its tutorials, with the goal of identifying what makes a good teacher and a successful lesson. Tom Hooper, the company’s CEO, said: “We’re looking to optimise lessons based on the knowledge we gain. We’ve recorded every lesson that we’ve ever done. By using the data, we’ve been trying to introduce AI to augment the teaching”. Initially, the company’s 300 tutors will receive real-time, automated interventions from the teaching software when it detects that a lesson may be veering off-course. Pupils on the programme have a 45-minute session with the same tutor each week. They communicate through a headset and a shared “whiteboard” (they can’t see each other). The lessons at Pakeman school are tailored to the individual, including visual rewards linked to the child’s interests. Premier League strikers for nearby Arsenal, cute animals and pink, iced doughnuts flash up on the screens of Ambar’s classmates. In addition to the raw audio data, each lesson has various success metrics attached: how many problems completed, how useful the pupil found the session, how the tutor rated it. Using machine learning algorithms to sift through the dataset, the UCL team has started to look for patterns. An early analysis found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that when tutors speak too quickly, the pupil is more likely to lose interest. Leaving sufficient time for the child to respond or pose their own questions was also found to be a factor in the lesson’s success, according to Hooper. These observations are likely to form the basis of the initial prompts that the tutors will receive, probably in the form of messages flashing up on their screen. “We’re going to be drip-feeding it in in relatively simple ways to start with,” said Hooper. As the technology evolves, the interventions could become more sophisticated and the software might play a more active role in teaching, raising questions about the extent to which intelligent software could replace human teachers. Rose Luckin, a professor of learner centred design at University College London, who is collaborating with Third Space Learning on the project, said: “What we are very interested in is the right blend of human and artificial intelligence in the classroom – identifying that sweet spot.” According to Luckin, AI provides a unique opportunity to assess which teaching strategies are working and to individualise teaching. “It would be able to say, for this child at the moment, Jolly Phonics is working well,” she said. “You would be able to look back over their reading process and see which interventions worked. The potential for the use of AI to make education tractable and visible is huge.” However, she predicts that the insights gleaned from AI will often be applied by human teachers. “What I’m really concerned about is that people don’t run away with the idea that kids have to be plugged into the computer,” she said. “It’s about so much more than that.” Hooper agreed that the aim is not to replace teachers with robots. “There’s a slightly dubious conversation about how AI will make humans irrelevant, but it’s not at all about replacing humans,” he said. “Our whole belief is that for children disengaged with the subject, who are lacking in confidence, people is what matter. An algorithm can’t provide that.” He said he does not expect his tutors, most of whom are science graduates, will be concerned about the automated feedback. “We’ll need to be considerate about it,” he said, adding that it would not be “a bossy algorithm barking orders at people”. Shazli Mahroof, 27, a tutor team leader based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said he was not worried about being replaced by a teaching robot in the near future. “It’s not the computer who is going to teach,” he said. The tutors already have one lesson each week assessed by supervisors, and it is fairly obvious, subjectively, when things are progressing well, according to Hooper. “We’re asking ‘how do we promote those teaching events at scale?’” he said. Companies entering this sphere also need to convince parents and teachers that the data being collected is both secure and will ultimately benefit pupils. A previous data analytics project in New York state schools, run by the company InBloom, collapsed in 2014 after becoming embroiled in privacy concerns. “The whole thing became toxic,” said Luckin. “It’s really important that we do it right.” At Pakeman primary, it is the last maths session before the Christmas holidays. An infant class in the school hall is rehearsing a performance and the school has an end-of-term feeling in the air, but the atmosphere in the online learning session is one of hushed focus. After finishing the lesson, Ambar said that maths used to make her anxious, but since starting the weekly tutorials in Year 5, she has started enjoying it. “When they give you horrible sums, they help you,” she said. “I was scared to do it, but it was actually fun.”

technology/2016/dec/26/could-online-tutors-and-artificial-intelligence-be-the-future-of-teaching

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T07:00:36Z

Could online tutors and artificial intelligence be the future of teaching?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/could-online-tutors-and-artificial-intelligence-be-the-future-of-teaching

['ambar', 'presses', 'hand', 'forehead', 'nose', 'crinkled', 'concentration', 'considers', 'question', 'screen', 'many', 'sevens', 'ten-year-old', 'grappling', 'minute', 'smiles', 'tutor', 'responds', 'posting', 'large', 'smiley', 'cat', 'picture', 'screen', 'virtual', 'equivalent', 'pat', 'back', 'sitting', 'side', 'world', 'online', 'tutoring', 'centre', 'india', 'ambar', 'attends', 'pakeman', 'primary', 'school', 'north', 'london', 'one', 'nearly', 'primary', 'school', 'children', 'britain', 'signed', 'weekly', 'one-to-one', 'maths', 'sessions', 'tutors', 'based', 'india', 'sri', 'lanka', 'lessons', 'provided', 'company', 'called', 'third', 'space', 'learning', 'targeted', 'pupils', 'struggling', 'maths', 'particularly', 'disadvantaged', 'backgrounds', 'next', 'year', 'platform', 'become', 'one', 'first', 'examples', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'ai', 'software', 'used', 'monitor', 'ideally', 'improve', 'teaching', 'together', 'scientists', 'university', 'college', 'london', 'ucl', 'company', 'analysed', 'around', 'hours', 'audio', 'written', 'data', 'tutorials', 'goal', 'identifying', 'makes', 'good', 'teacher', 'successful', 'lesson', 'tom', 'hooper', 'company', 'ceo', 'said', 'looking', 'optimise', 'lessons', 'based', 'knowledge', 'gain', 'recorded', 'every', 'lesson', 'ever', 'done', 'using', 'data', 'trying', 'introduce', 'ai', 'augment', 'teaching', 'initially', 'company', 'tutors', 'receive', 'real-time', 'automated', 'interventions', 'teaching', 'software', 'detects', 'lesson', 'may', 'veering', 'off-course', 'pupils', 'programme', '45-minute', 'session', 'tutor', 'week', 'communicate', 'headset', 'shared', 'whiteboard', 'see', 'lessons', 'pakeman', 'school', 'tailored', 'individual', 'including', 'visual', 'rewards', 'linked', 'child', 'interests', 'premier', 'league', 'strikers', 'nearby', 'arsenal', 'cute', 'animals', 'pink', 'iced', 'doughnuts', 'flash', 'screens', 'ambar', 'classmates', 'addition', 'raw', 'audio', 'data', 'lesson', 'various', 'success', 'metrics', 'attached', 'many', 'problems', 'completed', 'useful', 'pupil', 'found', 'session', 'tutor', 'rated', 'using', 'machine', 'learning', 'algorithms', 'sift', 'dataset', 'ucl', 'team', 'started', 'look', 'patterns', 'early', 'analysis', 'found', 'perhaps', 'unsurprisingly', 'tutors', 'speak', 'quickly', 'pupil', 'likely', 'lose', 'interest', 'leaving', 'sufficient', 'time', 'child', 'respond', 'pose', 'questions', 'also', 'found', 'factor', 'lesson', 'success', 'according', 'hooper', 'observations', 'likely', 'form', 'basis', 'initial', 'prompts', 'tutors', 'receive', 'probably', 'form', 'messages', 'flashing', 'screen', 'going', 'drip-feeding', 'relatively', 'simple', 'ways', 'start', 'said', 'hooper', 'technology', 'evolves', 'interventions', 'could', 'become', 'sophisticated', 'software', 'might', 'play', 'active', 'role', 'teaching', 'raising', 'questions', 'extent', 'intelligent', 'software', 'could', 'replace', 'human', 'teachers', 'rose', 'luckin', 'professor', 'learner', 'centred', 'design', 'university', 'college', 'london', 'collaborating', 'third', 'space', 'learning', 'project', 'said', 'interested', 'right', 'blend', 'human', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'classroom', 'identifying', 'sweet', 'spot', 'according', 'luckin', 'ai', 'provides', 'unique', 'opportunity', 'assess', 'teaching', 'strategies', 'working', 'individualise', 'teaching', 'would', 'able', 'say', 'child', 'moment', 'jolly', 'phonics', 'working', 'well', 'said', 'would', 'able', 'look', 'back', 'reading', 'process', 'see', 'interventions', 'worked', 'potential', 'use', 'ai', 'make', 'education', 'tractable', 'visible', 'huge', 'however', 'predicts', 'insights', 'gleaned', 'ai', 'often', 'applied', 'human', 'teachers', 'really', 'concerned', 'people', 'run', 'away', 'idea', 'kids', 'plugged', 'computer', 'said', 'much', 'hooper', 'agreed', 'aim', 'replace', 'teachers', 'robots', 'slightly', 'dubious', 'conversation', 'ai', 'make', 'humans', 'irrelevant', 'replacing', 'humans', 'said', 'whole', 'belief', 'children', 'disengaged', 'subject', 'lacking', 'confidence', 'people', 'matter', 'algorithm', 'provide', 'said', 'expect', 'tutors', 'science', 'graduates', 'concerned', 'automated', 'feedback', 'need', 'considerate', 'said', 'adding', 'would', 'bossy', 'algorithm', 'barking', 'orders', 'people', 'shazli', 'mahroof', 'tutor', 'team', 'leader', 'based', 'colombo', 'sri', 'lanka', 'said', 'worried', 'replaced', 'teaching', 'robot', 'near', 'future', 'computer', 'going', 'teach', 'said', 'tutors', 'already', 'one', 'lesson', 'week', 'assessed', 'supervisors', 'fairly', 'obvious', 'subjectively', 'things', 'progressing', 'well', 'according', 'hooper', 'asking', 'promote', 'teaching', 'events', 'scale', 'said', 'companies', 'entering', 'sphere', 'also', 'need', 'convince', 'parents', 'teachers', 'data', 'collected', 'secure', 'ultimately', 'benefit', 'pupils', 'previous', 'data', 'analytics', 'project', 'new', 'york', 'state', 'schools', 'run', 'company', 'inbloom', 'collapsed', 'becoming', 'embroiled', 'privacy', 'concerns', 'whole', 'thing', 'became', 'toxic', 'said', 'luckin', 'really', 'important', 'right', 'pakeman', 'primary', 'last', 'maths', 'session', 'christmas', 'holidays', 'infant', 'class', 'school', 'hall', 'rehearsing', 'performance', 'school', 'end-of-term', 'feeling', 'air', 'atmosphere', 'online', 'learning', 'session', 'one', 'hushed', 'focus', 'finishing', 'lesson', 'ambar', 'said', 'maths', 'used', 'make', 'anxious', 'since', 'starting', 'weekly', 'tutorials', 'year', 'started', 'enjoying', 'give', 'horrible', 'sums', 'help', 'said', 'scared', 'actually', 'fun']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/26/amazon-echo-oculus-touch-best-tech-2016

2016 may have been a bad year for most things, but it was actually a pretty good year for technology, with plenty of new products and services released that were worth the digital ink used to describe them. Sky Q Price: from £20 per month Traditional broadcast TV services have stagnated over the past couple of years, while over-the-top services such as Amazon Video, Netflix and the BBC’s iPlayer led the way. Sky’s Q dragged broadcast TV kicking and screaming into the 21st century with a modern interface, fast box and service that put time and place shifting at the heart of it. It records, it downloads, it supports 4K and can spit video around your house via Q Mini boxes or the Q app on smartphones and tablets using your home network. Sky Q was pretty expensive at launch, but now is available from £20 per month. Wireless earbuds Price: from £125 Bluetooth headphones are almost mainstream. From Beats and Bose to old school brands such as Sennheiser and Marshall, almost every manufacturer has a set. But 2016 was the year that truly wireless earbuds – no wires connecting them at all – became a thing. Many tried and failed to produce wireless earbuds, but they weren’t capable of maintaining a stable connection between your ears because pushing the low-energy Bluetooth signal through your head when there’s any interference in the air is difficult. Apple had to delay its AirPods, but at the end of 2016 Jabra’s Elite Sport and Bragi’s the Headphone proved it could be done. You’ll still have to pay early adopter prices, but they do what they say on the tin. Oculus Touch controllers Price: £189 2016 was the year of virtual reality. From HTC’s Vive to Google’s Daydream, there was a headset to suit almost any budget. But it was the release of Oculus’ Touch controllers that really made VR an experience worth having. The revolutionary hand controllers did more than just track the motions of your hands and give you buttons to squeeze. They actually tracked the position of your fingers on the controllers – you can point, grab, squeeze, give the thumbs up and pull a trigger with ease. The natural import of your hands into the virtual world is simply brilliant, even if you still need a £1,000 PC to run it. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Price: £520 We’d had curved screened smartphones before, but the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge showed just why they were good. With a stunning 5.5in curved-edge screen, Samsung made a phablet in the body of a standard smartphone. It made a large-screen experience in a non-hand-stretching size with an excellent camera, waterproofing, expandable storage and all-day battery life to boot. Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Alexa Price: £150/£50 Voice assistants have been around in the form of Apple’s Siri and Google’s voice search since 2011. But it was Amazon’s Echo speaker and Echo Dot that brought voice control into the British home. For answering questions, reading the news, playing music and being an everyday assistant with timers, alarms, alerts and even being a calculator when you’re elbow deep in a DIY project, Alexa can do it all and amazingly can hear you above the racket of daily life. But it was Alexa’s smarthome integration that really made the Internet of Things a reality, connecting and controlling disparate devices using voice commands. Want the lights on? Just ask. Maybe set the heating to a few degrees warmer? Yep. With the right equipment, it can even turn your TV over to the right channel and turn it all off when you head to bed. Bose QC 35 Price: £280 Commuting sucks, but noise-cancelling headphones that block out the drone of your train, bus or aeroplane can make it a little more bearable. After years of avoiding wireless, Bose finally brought its world-leading noise-cancelling technology to Bluetooth headphones in the QC35s. With an unrivalled ability to block out the world in a comfortable and sophisticated-looking frame, the QC35s are simply marvellous. Dyson 360 Eye Price: £800 Robot vacuums have been around for years, with many relying on simply bumping into things to make their way around your home. Dyson’s 360 Eye brought a vision system that maps out your home and added a proper vacuum cleaning bar to create one of the best around. It costs a pretty penny, but it’ll get on with the chores cleaning your home more effectively than any other robot while you’re out living rather than home vacuuming. Amazon Kindle Oasis Price: £270 E-readers are a commodity item now, available for under £50 and able to carry millions of books. Amazon’s Kindle Oasis bucked the trend for the race to the bottom: an ultra premium ebook reader that costs as much as a tablet, but does just one thing exceptionally well. With a real leather battery case that detaches to leave a svelte screen with buttons, which gets out of the way to let the book shine on the front-lit screen, the Oasis is the e-reader to top all e-readers. A luxury in the digital book era. Samsung SmartThings Hub Price: £100 The Internet of Things is a mess of different smart devices that refuse to talk to each other. Samsung’s SmartThings Hub acts as the bridge between brands, connecting your Z-Wave, Zigbee and Wi-Fi devices into one big happy family. Some devices are supported natively, but it is the large developer community working tirelessly to hack together ways to connect stubborn devices that really makes SmartThings. If you’re comfortable getting your hands a little dirty on the backend - with some pretty extensive instructions - then the Hub can join everything up and bring your house under control.

technology/2016/dec/26/amazon-echo-oculus-touch-best-tech-2016

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-26T07:00:36Z

From Amazon Echo to Oculus Touch: the best tech of 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/amazon-echo-oculus-touch-best-tech-2016

['may', 'bad', 'year', 'things', 'actually', 'pretty', 'good', 'year', 'technology', 'plenty', 'new', 'products', 'services', 'released', 'worth', 'digital', 'ink', 'used', 'describe', 'sky', 'q', 'price', 'per', 'month', 'traditional', 'broadcast', 'tv', 'services', 'stagnated', 'past', 'couple', 'years', 'over-the-top', 'services', 'amazon', 'video', 'netflix', 'bbc', 'iplayer', 'led', 'way', 'sky', 'q', 'dragged', 'broadcast', 'tv', 'kicking', 'screaming', '21st', 'century', 'modern', 'interface', 'fast', 'box', 'service', 'put', 'time', 'place', 'shifting', 'heart', 'records', 'downloads', 'supports', '4k', 'spit', 'video', 'around', 'house', 'via', 'q', 'mini', 'boxes', 'q', 'app', 'smartphones', 'tablets', 'using', 'home', 'network', 'sky', 'q', 'pretty', 'expensive', 'launch', 'available', 'per', 'month', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'price', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'almost', 'mainstream', 'beats', 'bose', 'old', 'school', 'brands', 'sennheiser', 'marshall', 'almost', 'every', 'manufacturer', 'set', 'year', 'truly', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'wires', 'connecting', 'became', 'thing', 'many', 'tried', 'failed', 'produce', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'capable', 'maintaining', 'stable', 'connection', 'ears', 'pushing', 'low-energy', 'bluetooth', 'signal', 'head', 'interference', 'air', 'difficult', 'apple', 'delay', 'airpods', 'end', 'jabra', 'elite', 'sport', 'bragi', 'headphone', 'proved', 'could', 'done', 'still', 'pay', 'early', 'adopter', 'prices', 'say', 'tin', 'oculus', 'touch', 'controllers', 'price', 'year', 'virtual', 'reality', 'htc', 'vive', 'google', 'daydream', 'headset', 'suit', 'almost', 'budget', 'release', 'oculus', 'touch', 'controllers', 'really', 'made', 'vr', 'experience', 'worth', 'revolutionary', 'hand', 'controllers', 'track', 'motions', 'hands', 'give', 'buttons', 'squeeze', 'actually', 'tracked', 'position', 'fingers', 'controllers', 'point', 'grab', 'squeeze', 'give', 'thumbs', 'pull', 'trigger', 'ease', 'natural', 'import', 'hands', 'virtual', 'world', 'simply', 'brilliant', 'even', 'still', 'need', 'pc', 'run', 'samsung', 'galaxy', 's7', 'edge', 'price', 'would', 'curved', 'screened', 'smartphones', 'samsung', 'galaxy', 's7', 'edge', 'showed', 'good', 'stunning', '55in', 'curved-edge', 'screen', 'samsung', 'made', 'phablet', 'body', 'standard', 'smartphone', 'made', 'large-screen', 'experience', 'non-hand-stretching', 'size', 'excellent', 'camera', 'waterproofing', 'expandable', 'storage', 'all-day', 'battery', 'life', 'boot', 'amazon', 'echo', 'echo', 'dot', 'alexa', 'price', 'voice', 'assistants', 'around', 'form', 'apple', 'siri', 'google', 'voice', 'search', 'since', 'amazon', 'echo', 'speaker', 'echo', 'dot', 'brought', 'voice', 'control', 'british', 'home', 'answering', 'questions', 'reading', 'news', 'playing', 'music', 'everyday', 'assistant', 'timers', 'alarms', 'alerts', 'even', 'calculator', 'elbow', 'deep', 'diy', 'project', 'alexa', 'amazingly', 'hear', 'racket', 'daily', 'life', 'alexa', 'smarthome', 'integration', 'really', 'made', 'internet', 'things', 'reality', 'connecting', 'controlling', 'disparate', 'devices', 'using', 'voice', 'commands', 'want', 'lights', 'ask', 'maybe', 'set', 'heating', 'degrees', 'warmer', 'yep', 'right', 'equipment', 'even', 'turn', 'tv', 'right', 'channel', 'turn', 'head', 'bed', 'bose', 'qc', 'price', 'commuting', 'sucks', 'noise-cancelling', 'headphones', 'block', 'drone', 'train', 'bus', 'aeroplane', 'make', 'little', 'bearable', 'years', 'avoiding', 'wireless', 'bose', 'finally', 'brought', 'world-leading', 'noise-cancelling', 'technology', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'qc35s', 'unrivalled', 'ability', 'block', 'world', 'comfortable', 'sophisticated-looking', 'frame', 'qc35s', 'simply', 'marvellous', 'dyson', 'eye', 'price', 'robot', 'vacuums', 'around', 'years', 'many', 'relying', 'simply', 'bumping', 'things', 'make', 'way', 'around', 'home', 'dyson', 'eye', 'brought', 'vision', 'system', 'maps', 'home', 'added', 'proper', 'vacuum', 'cleaning', 'bar', 'create', 'one', 'best', 'around', 'costs', 'pretty', 'penny', 'get', 'chores', 'cleaning', 'home', 'effectively', 'robot', 'living', 'rather', 'home', 'vacuuming', 'amazon', 'kindle', 'oasis', 'price', 'e-readers', 'commodity', 'item', 'available', 'able', 'carry', 'millions', 'books', 'amazon', 'kindle', 'oasis', 'bucked', 'trend', 'race', 'bottom', 'ultra', 'premium', 'ebook', 'reader', 'costs', 'much', 'tablet', 'one', 'thing', 'exceptionally', 'well', 'real', 'leather', 'battery', 'case', 'detaches', 'leave', 'svelte', 'screen', 'buttons', 'gets', 'way', 'let', 'book', 'shine', 'front-lit', 'screen', 'oasis', 'e-reader', 'top', 'e-readers', 'luxury', 'digital', 'book', 'era', 'samsung', 'smartthings', 'hub', 'price', 'internet', 'things', 'mess', 'different', 'smart', 'devices', 'refuse', 'talk', 'samsung', 'smartthings', 'hub', 'acts', 'bridge', 'brands', 'connecting', 'z-wave', 'zigbee', 'wi-fi', 'devices', 'one', 'big', 'happy', 'family', 'devices', 'supported', 'natively', 'large', 'developer', 'community', 'working', 'tirelessly', 'hack', 'together', 'ways', 'connect', 'stubborn', 'devices', 'really', 'makes', 'smartthings', 'comfortable', 'getting', 'hands', 'little', 'dirty', 'backend', '-', 'pretty', 'extensive', 'instructions', '-', 'hub', 'join', 'everything', 'bring', 'house', 'control']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/25/ai-self-driving-cars-and-cyberwar-the-tech-trends-to-watch-for-in-2017

In some ways, tech in 2017 will be a steady progression from what came before it. Time marches on, and so too does the advance of technology. In other ways, though, it will be just as upended as the rest of the world by the unprecedented disruption that 2016 has left in its wake. Here are the trends to watch out for in the coming year: More AI, less data The artificial intelligence revolution is well and truly upon us, but so far, the biggest players are venerable Silicon Valley titans such as Google, Amazon and Apple. That’s partially because they have the money to hire teams full of PhDs at seven-figure salaries, but it’s also because they have the data. That could change. One of the key areas of research for 2017 is data efficiency: the problem of trying to teach machine-learning systems how to do more, with less. Think about how many times your average three-year-old needs to see a particular animal before they can correctly identify it, compared with the thousands of images a neural network needs to ingest to perform the same basic task. Solving the problem of data efficiency could dramatically open up the industry, letting new startups compete on a level playing field with those who have access to petabytes of customer data. And it could also change what an AI can do for you, letting an assistant become far more sensitive to your personal quirks and foibles, or a photo-tagging service recognise specific locations, objects, or situations. Mostly-self-driving cars Self-driving cars exist on a scale. At one end, you’ll find technologies that are barely more than fancy cruise control: lane-assist features ensure your car doesn’t drift out of lane, while adaptive cruise control will maintain a steady distance from the car in front. At the other end is full automation: a car that can drive from a parking space outside your house to a parking space outside your office with no-one touching the steering wheel, or even sitting in the car at all. The story of 2017 will be car companies racing almost all the way to that final hurdle, but just stopping short. Not only the tech companies, either (although expect Tesla’s own models to lead the way, closely followed by Google’s sister company Waymo’s alliance with Fiat Chrysler). Conventional manufacturers the likes of Nissan and BMW are jumping into the field with both feet, and their systems will only get smarter. And who knows what Apple’s plans are? But don’t expect anyone to make the difficult jump to full self-driving capability any time soon. Not only are the regulatory and liability hurdles immense, but the tech just isn’t there for the vast majority of journeys. There’s a reason Google tested its first ever fully automatic trip in Texas, land of wide lanes, huge highways, and car-centric development. Drop that car in the middle of a busy London backstreet and it won’t do so well. The big question is whether all this automation will actually make things safer. On the one hand, cars don’t get distracted, drunk, or tired, all of which lie at the root of most fatalities on the road. On the other hand, if people are told to supervise a car which mostly drives itself, they tend not to be prepared to take over if it actually does need assistance – a problem that lay behind the first self-driving fatality in May. Cyberwar Let’s not mince words: cyberwar has already begun. If it didn’t start in 2008, when (probably) the Israeli and US intelligence services used the Stuxnet virus to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges, and it didn’t start in 2015, when the US Office of Personnel Management was hacked by (probably) China, stealing the personal details of millions of government employees, then it certainly started in 2016, when (probably) Russia hacked in to the Democratic National Congress, exflitrating emails which were released with the intention of altering the outcome of an election. Those “probably”s expose part of the appeal of cyberwar for nation states: attribution is hard, and rock-solid attribution to not just a nation but a chain of command is almost impossible. The incoming US administration is already making aggressive overtures about its desire to get on the attack, which will inevitably also make it a bigger target, according to security expert Hitesh Sheth, head of cybersecurity firm Vectra. “US businesses and the US government should expect an increase in the number and severity of cyber-attacks, led by select nation states and organised political and criminal entities,” he says. The ghost of Christmas data breaches past It feels like data breaches are everywhere. But that’s often not the case; while companies are indeed compromised on a regular basis, modern security practices usually ensure that not much is stolen, and what does get taken isn’t easy to exploit. Instead, the more dangerous trend is old breaches surfacing, like an unexploded second-world-war bomb, to wreak havoc on the present. That’s what happened to Yahoo, twice in one year, when data breaches from 2013 and 2014 resurfaced. The breaches were huge, containing a billion and half a billion accounts respectively, and the information within them was barely secured. Passwords were obfuscated with a standard which has been known to be insecure since 2005, while other info, including security questions, was in plain text. Because data breaches can happen undetected, fixing your cybersecurity in 2016 isn’t just locking the stable door after the horse has bolted; it’s locking the stable door without even realising the horse made its escape years ago. The information in historical breaches has often been traded on the darknet for some time before their existence surfaces, meaning the damage comes in two waves: first, slowly, and then all at once. Meet eSports, the new sports Competitive video gaming is a huge business. In 2016, investment bank GP Bullhound estimated it hit a global audience of over 250 million people, and amassed a total annual revenue of $493m – and in 2017, that’s predicted to more than double, making eSports a billion-dollar sector. The scale of the eSports industry is down to a number of factors, from increased broadband penetration making online multiplayer gaming accessible to most of the world to online streaming allowing budding eSports stars to skip conventional media and go straight to their fans. But it’s now big enough to warp the very industry that spawned it, with major games publishers courting the eSports community from the inception of their latest releases. Blizzard, a Californian company best-known for its online game World of Warcraft, has been one of the leaders in the field, with games including Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch and Hearthstone all having online viewerships in the millions, but the standout success is Riot Games, whose sole title League of Legends had more viewers in its 2015 world championship than the final game of 2016’s NBA Finals. GP Bullhound says the next big wave is going to come from mobile, with games like Clash Royale and Vainglory representing the fastest growing segment of the global $37bn games market. Of course, this might all pass you by: over half of eSports fans are millennials, by far the youngest skew of any group of sports supporters. The great privacy divide The world’s most advanced surveillance operation will shortly be under the direct control of a far-right demagogue who routinely attacks critics on social media and uses the office of US president-elect to bolster his commercial interests. That has left some people worried. As a result, many are re-examining their online privacy, switching to encrypted messaging services, locking down social media accounts, and limiting the amount of information they put online. Signal, an encrypted messaging app recommended by Edward Snowden, saw a huge spike in downloads following Donald Trump’s election, while hundreds of tech workers signed a pledge to never implement the president-elect’s proposed registry of Muslims. At the same time, though, trends in AI and online monetisation have pushed other tech firms to slowly chip away at the amount of privacy their users have, data-mining ever more aspects of their online lives in an effort to offer better services and create smarter software. Google, for instance, will now train a machine-learning system on your photos, read your emails to find useful information to add to your calendar, and save everything you say to it to improve its voice recognition. Over 2017, this divide will only increase: companies like Apple and Signal on the one side, and Facebook and Google on the other. In the end, the market will decide. Are people willing to give up the latest and greatest fruits of machine-learning to limit their exposure to surveillance, or do they not really care about online privacy and want everything as soon as it’s technologically possible? Chinese tech goes west The likes of Foxconn may build the world’s most premium tech, but in the west, Chinese brands are still largely associated with cheap electronics: no-name flat panels and cheap smartphones that spy on you. As for software, the entire country can feel as if it’s seen through analogues to Silicon Valley, from “China’s Google” (Baidu) to “China’s Twitter” (Sina Weibo). But an increasing number of Chinese companies have their eyes set on the richer markets of Europe and America, without giving up on the customer base in their own country. Shenzhen-based OnePlus, for instance, has slowly carved out a niche for itself with its high-quality, low-price range of smartphones, which aim to match the flagships from Apple and Samsung while offering price-sensitive users savings of hundreds of pounds. Huawei, already a fairly well-known brand in the west, is pushing its Honor brand as a way to drop the budget image for a new demographic. And software firms are getting in the game too. Tencent, makers of WeChat (that’s “China’s WhatsApp”, for those playing along at home), is pushing hard into the west, taking on Facebook at its own game. The service is currently most popular with Chinese expats, but it’s clear that Facebook is watching closely: a number of features in Messenger are ripped wholesale from the hugely influential service.

technology/2016/dec/25/ai-self-driving-cars-and-cyberwar-the-tech-trends-to-watch-for-in-2017

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-25T12:00:13Z

AI, self-driving cars and cyberwar – the tech trends to watch for in 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/25/ai-self-driving-cars-and-cyberwar-the-tech-trends-to-watch-for-in-2017

['ways', 'tech', 'steady', 'progression', 'came', 'time', 'marches', 'advance', 'technology', 'ways', 'though', 'upended', 'rest', 'world', 'unprecedented', 'disruption', 'left', 'wake', 'trends', 'watch', 'coming', 'year', 'ai', 'less', 'data', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'revolution', 'well', 'truly', 'upon', 'us', 'far', 'biggest', 'players', 'venerable', 'silicon', 'valley', 'titans', 'google', 'amazon', 'apple', 'partially', 'money', 'hire', 'teams', 'full', 'phds', 'seven-figure', 'salaries', 'also', 'data', 'could', 'change', 'one', 'key', 'areas', 'research', 'data', 'efficiency', 'problem', 'trying', 'teach', 'machine-learning', 'systems', 'less', 'think', 'many', 'times', 'average', 'three-year-old', 'needs', 'see', 'particular', 'animal', 'correctly', 'identify', 'compared', 'thousands', 'images', 'neural', 'network', 'needs', 'ingest', 'perform', 'basic', 'task', 'solving', 'problem', 'data', 'efficiency', 'could', 'dramatically', 'open', 'industry', 'letting', 'new', 'startups', 'compete', 'level', 'playing', 'field', 'access', 'petabytes', 'customer', 'data', 'could', 'also', 'change', 'ai', 'letting', 'assistant', 'become', 'far', 'sensitive', 'personal', 'quirks', 'foibles', 'photo-tagging', 'service', 'recognise', 'specific', 'locations', 'objects', 'situations', 'mostly-self-driving', 'cars', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'exist', 'scale', 'one', 'end', 'find', 'technologies', 'barely', 'fancy', 'cruise', 'control', 'lane-assist', 'features', 'ensure', 'car', 'drift', 'lane', 'adaptive', 'cruise', 'control', 'maintain', 'steady', 'distance', 'car', 'front', 'end', 'full', 'automation', 'car', 'drive', 'parking', 'space', 'outside', 'house', 'parking', 'space', 'outside', 'office', 'no-one', 'touching', 'steering', 'wheel', 'even', 'sitting', 'car', 'story', 'car', 'companies', 'racing', 'almost', 'way', 'final', 'hurdle', 'stopping', 'short', 'tech', 'companies', 'either', 'although', 'expect', 'tesla', 'models', 'lead', 'way', 'closely', 'followed', 'google', 'sister', 'company', 'waymo', 'alliance', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'conventional', 'manufacturers', 'likes', 'nissan', 'bmw', 'jumping', 'field', 'feet', 'systems', 'get', 'smarter', 'knows', 'apple', 'plans', 'expect', 'anyone', 'make', 'difficult', 'jump', 'full', 'self-driving', 'capability', 'time', 'soon', 'regulatory', 'liability', 'hurdles', 'immense', 'tech', 'vast', 'majority', 'journeys', 'reason', 'google', 'tested', 'first', 'ever', 'fully', 'automatic', 'trip', 'texas', 'land', 'wide', 'lanes', 'huge', 'highways', 'car-centric', 'development', 'drop', 'car', 'middle', 'busy', 'london', 'backstreet', 'well', 'big', 'question', 'whether', 'automation', 'actually', 'make', 'things', 'safer', 'one', 'hand', 'cars', 'get', 'distracted', 'drunk', 'tired', 'lie', 'root', 'fatalities', 'road', 'hand', 'people', 'told', 'supervise', 'car', 'mostly', 'drives', 'tend', 'prepared', 'take', 'actually', 'need', 'assistance', 'problem', 'lay', 'behind', 'first', 'self-driving', 'fatality', 'may', 'cyberwar', 'let', 'mince', 'words', 'cyberwar', 'already', 'begun', 'start', 'probably', 'israeli', 'us', 'intelligence', 'services', 'used', 'stuxnet', 'virus', 'destroy', 'iranian', 'nuclear', 'centrifuges', 'start', 'us', 'office', 'personnel', 'management', 'hacked', 'probably', 'china', 'stealing', 'personal', 'details', 'millions', 'government', 'employees', 'certainly', 'started', 'probably', 'russia', 'hacked', 'democratic', 'national', 'congress', 'exflitrating', 'emails', 'released', 'intention', 'altering', 'outcome', 'election', 'probablys', 'expose', 'part', 'appeal', 'cyberwar', 'nation', 'states', 'attribution', 'hard', 'rock-solid', 'attribution', 'nation', 'chain', 'command', 'almost', 'impossible', 'incoming', 'us', 'administration', 'already', 'making', 'aggressive', 'overtures', 'desire', 'get', 'attack', 'inevitably', 'also', 'make', 'bigger', 'target', 'according', 'security', 'expert', 'hitesh', 'sheth', 'head', 'cybersecurity', 'firm', 'vectra', 'us', 'businesses', 'us', 'government', 'expect', 'increase', 'number', 'severity', 'cyber-attacks', 'led', 'select', 'nation', 'states', 'organised', 'political', 'criminal', 'entities', 'says', 'ghost', 'christmas', 'data', 'breaches', 'past', 'feels', 'like', 'data', 'breaches', 'everywhere', 'often', 'case', 'companies', 'indeed', 'compromised', 'regular', 'basis', 'modern', 'security', 'practices', 'usually', 'ensure', 'much', 'stolen', 'get', 'taken', 'easy', 'exploit', 'instead', 'dangerous', 'trend', 'old', 'breaches', 'surfacing', 'like', 'unexploded', 'second-world-war', 'bomb', 'wreak', 'havoc', 'present', 'happened', 'yahoo', 'twice', 'one', 'year', 'data', 'breaches', 'resurfaced', 'breaches', 'huge', 'containing', 'billion', 'half', 'billion', 'accounts', 'respectively', 'information', 'within', 'barely', 'secured', 'passwords', 'obfuscated', 'standard', 'known', 'insecure', 'since', 'info', 'including', 'security', 'questions', 'plain', 'text', 'data', 'breaches', 'happen', 'undetected', 'fixing', 'cybersecurity', 'locking', 'stable', 'door', 'horse', 'bolted', 'locking', 'stable', 'door', 'without', 'even', 'realising', 'horse', 'made', 'escape', 'years', 'ago', 'information', 'historical', 'breaches', 'often', 'traded', 'darknet', 'time', 'existence', 'surfaces', 'meaning', 'damage', 'comes', 'two', 'waves', 'first', 'slowly', 'meet', 'esports', 'new', 'sports', 'competitive', 'video', 'gaming', 'huge', 'business', 'investment', 'bank', 'gp', 'bullhound', 'estimated', 'hit', 'global', 'audience', 'million', 'people', 'amassed', 'total', 'annual', 'revenue', '493m', 'predicted', 'double', 'making', 'esports', 'billion-dollar', 'sector', 'scale', 'esports', 'industry', 'number', 'factors', 'increased', 'broadband', 'penetration', 'making', 'online', 'multiplayer', 'gaming', 'accessible', 'world', 'online', 'streaming', 'allowing', 'budding', 'esports', 'stars', 'skip', 'conventional', 'media', 'go', 'straight', 'fans', 'big', 'enough', 'warp', 'industry', 'spawned', 'major', 'games', 'publishers', 'courting', 'esports', 'community', 'inception', 'latest', 'releases', 'blizzard', 'californian', 'company', 'best-known', 'online', 'game', 'world', 'warcraft', 'one', 'leaders', 'field', 'games', 'including', 'heroes', 'storm', 'overwatch', 'hearthstone', 'online', 'viewerships', 'millions', 'standout', 'success', 'riot', 'games', 'whose', 'sole', 'title', 'league', 'legends', 'viewers', 'world', 'championship', 'final', 'game', 'nba', 'finals', 'gp', 'bullhound', 'says', 'next', 'big', 'wave', 'going', 'come', 'mobile', 'games', 'like', 'clash', 'royale', 'vainglory', 'representing', 'fastest', 'growing', 'segment', 'global', '37bn', 'games', 'market', 'course', 'might', 'pass', 'half', 'esports', 'fans', 'millennials', 'far', 'youngest', 'skew', 'group', 'sports', 'supporters', 'great', 'privacy', 'divide', 'world', 'advanced', 'surveillance', 'operation', 'shortly', 'direct', 'control', 'far-right', 'demagogue', 'routinely', 'attacks', 'critics', 'social', 'media', 'uses', 'office', 'us', 'president-elect', 'bolster', 'commercial', 'interests', 'left', 'people', 'worried', 'result', 'many', 're-examining', 'online', 'privacy', 'switching', 'encrypted', 'messaging', 'services', 'locking', 'social', 'media', 'accounts', 'limiting', 'amount', 'information', 'put', 'online', 'signal', 'encrypted', 'messaging', 'app', 'recommended', 'edward', 'snowden', 'saw', 'huge', 'spike', 'downloads', 'following', 'donald', 'trump', 'election', 'hundreds', 'tech', 'workers', 'signed', 'pledge', 'never', 'implement', 'president-elect', 'proposed', 'registry', 'muslims', 'time', 'though', 'trends', 'ai', 'online', 'monetisation', 'pushed', 'tech', 'firms', 'slowly', 'chip', 'away', 'amount', 'privacy', 'users', 'data-mining', 'ever', 'aspects', 'online', 'lives', 'effort', 'offer', 'better', 'services', 'create', 'smarter', 'software', 'google', 'instance', 'train', 'machine-learning', 'system', 'photos', 'read', 'emails', 'find', 'useful', 'information', 'add', 'calendar', 'save', 'everything', 'say', 'improve', 'voice', 'recognition', 'divide', 'increase', 'companies', 'like', 'apple', 'signal', 'one', 'side', 'facebook', 'google', 'end', 'market', 'decide', 'people', 'willing', 'give', 'latest', 'greatest', 'fruits', 'machine-learning', 'limit', 'exposure', 'surveillance', 'really', 'care', 'online', 'privacy', 'want', 'everything', 'soon', 'technologically', 'possible', 'chinese', 'tech', 'goes', 'west', 'likes', 'foxconn', 'may', 'build', 'world', 'premium', 'tech', 'west', 'chinese', 'brands', 'still', 'largely', 'associated', 'cheap', 'electronics', 'no-name', 'flat', 'panels', 'cheap', 'smartphones', 'spy', 'software', 'entire', 'country', 'feel', 'seen', 'analogues', 'silicon', 'valley', 'china', 'google', 'baidu', 'china', 'twitter', 'sina', 'weibo', 'increasing', 'number', 'chinese', 'companies', 'eyes', 'set', 'richer', 'markets', 'europe', 'america', 'without', 'giving', 'customer', 'base', 'country', 'shenzhen-based', 'oneplus', 'instance', 'slowly', 'carved', 'niche', 'high-quality', 'low-price', 'range', 'smartphones', 'aim', 'match', 'flagships', 'apple', 'samsung', 'offering', 'price-sensitive', 'users', 'savings', 'hundreds', 'pounds', 'huawei', 'already', 'fairly', 'well-known', 'brand', 'west', 'pushing', 'honor', 'brand', 'way', 'drop', 'budget', 'image', 'new', 'demographic', 'software', 'firms', 'getting', 'game', 'tencent', 'makers', 'wechat', 'china', 'whatsapp', 'playing', 'along', 'home', 'pushing', 'hard', 'west', 'taking', 'facebook', 'game', 'service', 'currently', 'popular', 'chinese', 'expats', 'clear', 'facebook', 'watching', 'closely', 'number', 'features', 'messenger', 'ripped', 'wholesale', 'hugely', 'influential', 'service']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/25/facebook-bullying-parenting-advice-safety

It is widely held that people are meaner on the internet than in person. Now Facebook is attempting to teach its users how to play nice. Its newly updated safety centre, including its “bullying prevention hub” are central to its strategy to improve the quality of discourse on the platform – for the sake of its future as much as for its users’ experience. “If people don’t have a positive experience, they’re not going to keep using Facebook, so safety is actually integral to everything we do,” says Mia Garlick, director of policy and communications for the platform in the Australia-Pacific region. Asked if she has statistics that show whether disillusioned users are closing their accounts, Garlick says no – somewhat surprisingly, given the volume of data that Facebook collects. It certainly records growth: in its third quarter report for 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users, an increase of 16% year-on-year. There are now 15 million Australians active on Facebook, 62.5% of the total population. At that size, it’s an unwieldy community, encompassing a wide range of investment: for example, it has about 600,000 fewer daily active users than those who log in monthly. Facebook’s hope is that its new resources will equip them with the knowledge and resources they need to be a somewhat self-policing community. Developed in tandem with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in 2013, the bullying prevention Hub is a website, linked to but separate from Facebook’s homepage. Newly updated to put greater focus on video, it delivers support for teenagers, parents and educators on how to prevent and respond to online abuse. Much of the advice seems obvious. The hub advises teenagers to remember “that bullying is never your fault, and it can happen to anyone”. If your child is being bullied, “try to stay calm”. And if you are unsure, you can download a document that explains “What is bullying?” The separate safety centre is geared towards explaining Facebook-specific tools, resources and policies, as well as advice as to how to apply them: “Before you share, ask yourself: could somebody use this to hurt me?” Garlick says there is a generation gap that Facebook must help its users bridge. Parents, in particular, need to be confident about using the platform to educate their children about the risks. “Young people are very sophisticated about how they use technology, but sometimes they haven’t actually gone through all of the thought processes that they should.” But the usefulness of the resources depend on people knowing they exist and how to find them, which Garlick says is a “challenge”. She says instructional videos are posted to Facebook’s regional branded pages, and it has “reached out” to educational partners in the hope that they will share it within their networks. If Facebook wanted all 1.8 billion monthly users to be aware of the hub, it could simply push it out to them top of their news feeds – where the network on occasion posts messages as anodyne as the hope that users have a “fun and happy” summer. And it does – occasionally. “The thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of conversations and interactions on our platform are really, really positive,” Garlick says. She says Facebook’s tools and resources are about empowering users to look after themselves, and to encourage them to exercise control over their interactions on the platform. One relatively recent addition is the security checkup, which explains who can see your posts and how to restrict their access, step by step. It’s straightforward for irregular Facebook users to grasp but in-depth enough to bring value to the confident ones. Garlick says 4,000 privacy checkups are carried out on the site each day. Even she benefited from the tool, using it to do “a bit of spring cleaning” of the apps she had used since 2007. Self-sufficiency is a cornerstone of Facebook’s reporting process, which asks that users flag objectionable material for review against its community standards – still the best tool the platform has for ruling what is and is not acceptable. Automation is used to prevent malware and crack down on fake accounts, and some software is used for child exploitation images and, soon, extremist content. But Garlick says calls about individual posts that “go through the flow” are made on a case-by-case basis, by human moderators. “It’s very hard to understand nuance if you’re a machine.” Managing those 1.8 billion users, three-quarters from outside the US, is not easy for a human. The community standards are deliberately broad, but there are nonetheless some lines in the sand that users keep coming up against. Nipples – sometimes sexual, often not – are one of the recurring sticking points. “Don’t even get me started,” says Garlick, somewhat ruefully. “Some of the conversations I have around nipples ... ” In July Facebook removed a video posted by the Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, that showed abuse in juvenile detention facilities, because it included child nudity. The ABC posted a new version with blurring. There is a “pretty tough line” drawn around children in particular, Garlick says. “We get the majority of reports right.” Allowing users control over their Facebook presence through the news tools helps them to “create and curate a positive experience”, she says. It also helps foster a sense of ownership, maybe even of community. This seems to be top of mind for the platform. It has has started asking users: “How much does this post help you feel like you are part of a larger community on Facebook?” The possible answers range from “Not at all” to “Completely”. But an integral part of community is support. If people feel equipped to have positive experiences on Facebook, maybe they will be more inclined to look out for it. “You take care of your house,” Garlick says. “If somebody graffitied your front yard, you’d clean it up. It’s the same if people are saying stuff in your space on Facebook.”

technology/2016/dec/25/facebook-bullying-parenting-advice-safety

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-24T22:05:35Z

Stay and be safe: Facebook tidies up advice on preventing online bullying

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/25/facebook-bullying-parenting-advice-safety

['widely', 'held', 'people', 'meaner', 'internet', 'person', 'facebook', 'attempting', 'teach', 'users', 'play', 'nice', 'newly', 'updated', 'safety', 'centre', 'including', 'bullying', 'prevention', 'hub', 'central', 'strategy', 'improve', 'quality', 'discourse', 'platform', 'sake', 'future', 'much', 'users', 'experience', 'people', 'positive', 'experience', 'going', 'keep', 'using', 'facebook', 'safety', 'actually', 'integral', 'everything', 'says', 'mia', 'garlick', 'director', 'policy', 'communications', 'platform', 'australia-pacific', 'region', 'asked', 'statistics', 'show', 'whether', 'disillusioned', 'users', 'closing', 'accounts', 'garlick', 'says', 'somewhat', 'surprisingly', 'given', 'volume', 'data', 'facebook', 'collects', 'certainly', 'records', 'growth', 'third', 'quarter', 'report', 'facebook', 'billion', 'monthly', 'active', 'users', 'increase', 'year-on-year', 'million', 'australians', 'active', 'facebook', 'total', 'population', 'size', 'unwieldy', 'community', 'encompassing', 'wide', 'range', 'investment', 'example', 'fewer', 'daily', 'active', 'users', 'log', 'monthly', 'facebook', 'hope', 'new', 'resources', 'equip', 'knowledge', 'resources', 'need', 'somewhat', 'self-policing', 'community', 'developed', 'tandem', 'yale', 'center', 'emotional', 'intelligence', 'bullying', 'prevention', 'hub', 'website', 'linked', 'separate', 'facebook', 'homepage', 'newly', 'updated', 'put', 'greater', 'focus', 'video', 'delivers', 'support', 'teenagers', 'parents', 'educators', 'prevent', 'respond', 'online', 'abuse', 'much', 'advice', 'seems', 'obvious', 'hub', 'advises', 'teenagers', 'remember', 'bullying', 'never', 'fault', 'happen', 'anyone', 'child', 'bullied', 'try', 'stay', 'calm', 'unsure', 'download', 'document', 'explains', 'bullying', 'separate', 'safety', 'centre', 'geared', 'towards', 'explaining', 'facebook-specific', 'tools', 'resources', 'policies', 'well', 'advice', 'apply', 'share', 'ask', 'could', 'somebody', 'use', 'hurt', 'garlick', 'says', 'generation', 'gap', 'facebook', 'must', 'help', 'users', 'bridge', 'parents', 'particular', 'need', 'confident', 'using', 'platform', 'educate', 'children', 'risks', 'young', 'people', 'sophisticated', 'use', 'technology', 'sometimes', 'actually', 'gone', 'thought', 'processes', 'usefulness', 'resources', 'depend', 'people', 'knowing', 'exist', 'find', 'garlick', 'says', 'challenge', 'says', 'instructional', 'videos', 'posted', 'facebook', 'regional', 'branded', 'pages', 'reached', 'educational', 'partners', 'hope', 'share', 'within', 'networks', 'facebook', 'wanted', 'billion', 'monthly', 'users', 'aware', 'hub', 'could', 'simply', 'push', 'top', 'news', 'feeds', 'network', 'occasion', 'posts', 'messages', 'anodyne', 'hope', 'users', 'fun', 'happy', 'summer', 'occasionally', 'thing', 'keep', 'mind', 'vast', 'majority', 'conversations', 'interactions', 'platform', 'really', 'really', 'positive', 'garlick', 'says', 'says', 'facebook', 'tools', 'resources', 'empowering', 'users', 'look', 'encourage', 'exercise', 'control', 'interactions', 'platform', 'one', 'relatively', 'recent', 'addition', 'security', 'checkup', 'explains', 'see', 'posts', 'restrict', 'access', 'step', 'step', 'straightforward', 'irregular', 'facebook', 'users', 'grasp', 'in-depth', 'enough', 'bring', 'value', 'confident', 'ones', 'garlick', 'says', 'privacy', 'checkups', 'carried', 'site', 'day', 'even', 'benefited', 'tool', 'using', 'bit', 'spring', 'cleaning', 'apps', 'used', 'since', 'self-sufficiency', 'cornerstone', 'facebook', 'reporting', 'process', 'asks', 'users', 'flag', 'objectionable', 'material', 'review', 'community', 'standards', 'still', 'best', 'tool', 'platform', 'ruling', 'acceptable', 'automation', 'used', 'prevent', 'malware', 'crack', 'fake', 'accounts', 'software', 'used', 'child', 'exploitation', 'images', 'soon', 'extremist', 'content', 'garlick', 'says', 'calls', 'individual', 'posts', 'go', 'flow', 'made', 'case-by-case', 'basis', 'human', 'moderators', 'hard', 'understand', 'nuance', 'machine', 'managing', 'billion', 'users', 'three-quarters', 'outside', 'us', 'easy', 'human', 'community', 'standards', 'deliberately', 'broad', 'nonetheless', 'lines', 'sand', 'users', 'keep', 'coming', 'nipples', 'sometimes', 'sexual', 'often', 'one', 'recurring', 'sticking', 'points', 'even', 'get', 'started', 'says', 'garlick', 'somewhat', 'ruefully', 'conversations', 'around', 'nipples', 'july', 'facebook', 'removed', 'video', 'posted', 'australian', 'public', 'broadcaster', 'abc', 'showed', 'abuse', 'juvenile', 'detention', 'facilities', 'included', 'child', 'nudity', 'abc', 'posted', 'new', 'version', 'blurring', 'pretty', 'tough', 'line', 'drawn', 'around', 'children', 'particular', 'garlick', 'says', 'get', 'majority', 'reports', 'right', 'allowing', 'users', 'control', 'facebook', 'presence', 'news', 'tools', 'helps', 'create', 'curate', 'positive', 'experience', 'says', 'also', 'helps', 'foster', 'sense', 'ownership', 'maybe', 'even', 'community', 'seems', 'top', 'mind', 'platform', 'started', 'asking', 'users', 'much', 'post', 'help', 'feel', 'like', 'part', 'larger', 'community', 'facebook', 'possible', 'answers', 'range', 'completely', 'integral', 'part', 'community', 'support', 'people', 'feel', 'equipped', 'positive', 'experiences', 'facebook', 'maybe', 'inclined', 'look', 'take', 'care', 'house', 'garlick', 'says', 'somebody', 'graffitied', 'front', 'yard', 'would', 'clean', 'people', 'saying', 'stuff', 'space', 'facebook']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/24/wireless-network-router-name-say-about-you

What you choose to call your wireless network can say a lot about you. If you’re the attendee of an “alt-right” event at Texas A&M University who decided to promote genocide in the form of a network ID, it can say you are violently racist. While it is perhaps not surprising to see the USA’s new far-right white supremacist movement engaging with the language of Nazism, there seems something particularly insidious in using such hateful language in something as benign as a Wi-Fi connection. What turns a simple technical feature into a personalised billboard? Amber Burton, a senior lecturer in digital media and communications currently researching digital identities, likens the naming of our networks to a “digital T-shirt”. “Remember as teens, your mates wearing those T-shirts that were designed to provoke? Always validated with a ‘it’s just a joke’, or ‘just my freedom of speech’? It’s making public something they know will provoke a reaction.” While some router names are picked to deliberately offend, others cover everything from the deliberately arcane through to crowd-pleasing puns. Why do we pick particular names and what do these names tell us about ourselves? Burton argues that the names we then choose for ourselves serve to telegraph our identities on our own terms. “It’s all woven into the fabric of how we choose to present and represent ourselves.” If we choose a particularly humorous name or an interesting play on language, we are broadcasting something about who we are. But there’s a twist when it comes to network names: not only are we communicating something about ourselves via a named router, we are insisting others comply with it. “Unusual names further extend the owner’s agenda and insists that the receiver must deal with it, by virtue of having to click on or accept a device with that handle,” Burton argues. The racist network ID in Texas isn’t just an attempt to shock, then: they’s also an attempt to normalise the attitudes through implied compliance and active collaboration. In a bid to shed light on the tapestry of messages that invisibly permeate our world, digital marketer Federico Prandi set up The Berlin Wi-Fi Project: a map of Berlin overlayed with different network names. The idea came to him while trying to source a Wi-Fi connection from his phone on the train. “I watched the names change as the train sped through the city; some funny, some personal, some mysterious. I liked the idea of the streets being lined with a series of secret messages addressed to the universe.” Meals’s own Wi-Fi is named EasyBox-876524. What that says about him, he suggests, is “I’m too lazy to change the name”. But his project has revealed a world of router-based innovation and wordplay. “My favourites,” Meals admits, “are the ones that broadcast something to the neighbours: ‘Please play the violin at a lower volume’, ‘It’s too loud by the convenient store” and ‘Your children are shit’.” Meals’s investigations have also revealed some strange, wordless interactions. “In one area ’Dennis is an asshole’ is countered by ‘Dennis is no asshole’; while in my own neighbourhood “NutellaMann” and “NutellaFrau” co-exist within metres from each other. I want to believe there’s a platonic, wireless flirting going on there.” Meals and his readers work to decode the meanings of the names. A network named “Prinzessin Anabell” was discovered to be a character from an animated Czechoslovakia children’s show. A network named “Reichts Nach Genf” turned out to be a reference to a controversial graphic novel; the “genff” in the name denoting the smell of dimensional hiatus within the book’s universe. While router names can be used to transmit something funny or personal, in the hands of hackers, things get a little dicey. Aaron Singer, a Service Delivery Manager at Pulsar Online, an internet security firm, advises on thinking twice before clicking on what appears to be a seemingly open access Wi-Fi. “Hackers might put up a bogus Wi-Fi hotspot, named ‘BT Openreach’ for example. You then click on it and load up your internet banking or social media, all the while using a hacker’s router which is stealing your data. “Hackers could even impersonate your personal router. These things happen.” An inquiry into some of the more unusual Wi-Fi names within my own area indeed returned some instances of trickery (“TV License Detection Unit”) alongside “Tell My Wi-Fi I Love Her” and “I Believe I Can Wi-Fi”. There’s one other reason for the experimentation in network names: Though there is a very modern tradition of collating funny and passive aggressive Wi-Fi network names, a network name is ultimately transient. A slogan which we once found funny we soon find tedious or trite. We continually reevaluate the ways in which we want to present ourselves to the wider world. Even the racist sitting in a lecture hall in a Texas university might, one day, realise the error of their ways. And when they do, change is just a click away. • This article was amended on 10 January 2017 to correct the name of Federico Prandi.

technology/2016/dec/24/wireless-network-router-name-say-about-you

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-24T08:00:39Z

What does your router name say about you?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/24/wireless-network-router-name-say-about-you

['choose', 'call', 'wireless', 'network', 'say', 'lot', 'attendee', 'alt-right', 'event', 'texas', 'aampm', 'university', 'decided', 'promote', 'genocide', 'form', 'network', 'id', 'say', 'violently', 'racist', 'perhaps', 'surprising', 'see', 'usa', 'new', 'far-right', 'white', 'supremacist', 'movement', 'engaging', 'language', 'nazism', 'seems', 'something', 'particularly', 'insidious', 'using', 'hateful', 'language', 'something', 'benign', 'wi-fi', 'connection', 'turns', 'simple', 'technical', 'feature', 'personalised', 'billboard', 'amber', 'burton', 'senior', 'lecturer', 'digital', 'media', 'communications', 'currently', 'researching', 'digital', 'identities', 'likens', 'naming', 'networks', 'digital', 't-shirt', 'remember', 'teens', 'mates', 'wearing', 't-shirts', 'designed', 'provoke', 'always', 'validated', 'joke', 'freedom', 'speech', 'making', 'public', 'something', 'know', 'provoke', 'reaction', 'router', 'names', 'picked', 'deliberately', 'offend', 'others', 'cover', 'everything', 'deliberately', 'arcane', 'crowd-pleasing', 'puns', 'pick', 'particular', 'names', 'names', 'tell', 'us', 'burton', 'argues', 'names', 'choose', 'serve', 'telegraph', 'identities', 'terms', 'woven', 'fabric', 'choose', 'present', 'represent', 'choose', 'particularly', 'humorous', 'name', 'interesting', 'play', 'language', 'broadcasting', 'something', 'twist', 'comes', 'network', 'names', 'communicating', 'something', 'via', 'named', 'router', 'insisting', 'others', 'comply', 'unusual', 'names', 'extend', 'owner', 'agenda', 'insists', 'receiver', 'must', 'deal', 'virtue', 'click', 'accept', 'device', 'handle', 'burton', 'argues', 'racist', 'network', 'id', 'texas', 'attempt', 'shock', 'also', 'attempt', 'normalise', 'attitudes', 'implied', 'compliance', 'active', 'collaboration', 'bid', 'shed', 'light', 'tapestry', 'messages', 'invisibly', 'permeate', 'world', 'digital', 'marketer', 'federico', 'prandi', 'set', 'berlin', 'wi-fi', 'project', 'map', 'berlin', 'overlayed', 'different', 'network', 'names', 'idea', 'came', 'trying', 'source', 'wi-fi', 'connection', 'phone', 'train', 'watched', 'names', 'change', 'train', 'sped', 'city', 'funny', 'personal', 'mysterious', 'liked', 'idea', 'streets', 'lined', 'series', 'secret', 'messages', 'addressed', 'universe', 'meals', 'wi-fi', 'named', 'easybox-876524', 'says', 'suggests', 'lazy', 'change', 'name', 'project', 'revealed', 'world', 'router-based', 'innovation', 'wordplay', 'favourites', 'meals', 'admits', 'ones', 'broadcast', 'something', 'neighbours', 'please', 'play', 'violin', 'lower', 'volume', 'loud', 'convenient', 'store', 'children', 'shit', 'meals', 'investigations', 'also', 'revealed', 'strange', 'wordless', 'interactions', 'one', 'area', 'dennis', 'asshole', 'countered', 'dennis', 'asshole', 'neighbourhood', 'nutellamann', 'nutellafrau', 'co-exist', 'within', 'metres', 'want', 'believe', 'platonic', 'wireless', 'flirting', 'going', 'meals', 'readers', 'work', 'decode', 'meanings', 'names', 'network', 'named', 'prinzessin', 'anabell', 'discovered', 'character', 'animated', 'czechoslovakia', 'children', 'show', 'network', 'named', 'reichts', 'nach', 'genf', 'turned', 'reference', 'controversial', 'graphic', 'novel', 'genff', 'name', 'denoting', 'smell', 'dimensional', 'hiatus', 'within', 'book', 'universe', 'router', 'names', 'used', 'transmit', 'something', 'funny', 'personal', 'hands', 'hackers', 'things', 'get', 'little', 'dicey', 'aaron', 'singer', 'service', 'delivery', 'manager', 'pulsar', 'online', 'internet', 'security', 'firm', 'advises', 'thinking', 'twice', 'clicking', 'appears', 'seemingly', 'open', 'access', 'wi-fi', 'hackers', 'might', 'put', 'bogus', 'wi-fi', 'hotspot', 'named', 'bt', 'openreach', 'example', 'click', 'load', 'internet', 'banking', 'social', 'media', 'using', 'hacker', 'router', 'stealing', 'data', 'hackers', 'could', 'even', 'impersonate', 'personal', 'router', 'things', 'happen', 'inquiry', 'unusual', 'wi-fi', 'names', 'within', 'area', 'indeed', 'returned', 'instances', 'trickery', 'tv', 'license', 'detection', 'unit', 'alongside', 'tell', 'wi-fi', 'love', 'believe', 'wi-fi', 'one', 'reason', 'experimentation', 'network', 'names', 'though', 'modern', 'tradition', 'collating', 'funny', 'passive', 'aggressive', 'wi-fi', 'network', 'names', 'network', 'name', 'ultimately', 'transient', 'slogan', 'found', 'funny', 'soon', 'find', 'tedious', 'trite', 'continually', 'reevaluate', 'ways', 'want', 'present', 'wider', 'world', 'even', 'racist', 'sitting', 'lecture', 'hall', 'texas', 'university', 'might', 'one', 'day', 'realise', 'error', 'ways', 'change', 'click', 'away', 'article', 'amended', 'january', 'correct', 'name', 'federico', 'prandi']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/23/amazon-black-lives-matter-police-union-t-shirt

The biggest US police union is pressing Amazon to follow Walmart and remove from third-party sale a shirt that seeks profit in relation to the Black Lives Matter protest movement. The shirt, which carries the words “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter”, was removed from online sale by Walmart on Thursday, after the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) said it was “offensive”. In an open letter, FOP president Chuck Canterbury appealed to Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos to support the FOP in “increasing the bonds of trust between the men and women of law enforcement and the communities they serve”. The shirt was still available for sale via Amazon.com on Friday. Amazon declined to comment. Speaking to the Guardian, Canterbury said he was not surprised, describing Amazon “as a pretty liberal marketer”. The issue was relevant, he said, because of the “amount of violence demonstrated at Black Lives Matter marches and the fact that eight police officers had been assassinated while protecting Black Lives Matter protests”. Canterbury said he was referring to officers who were shot in separate incidents in Dallas and Baton Rouge last summer. The gunmen in those shootings were not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. In Dallas, a gunman shot dead five officers during an anti-violence protest. In Baton Rouge, three officers were killed in an ambush. Canterbury told the Guardian he believed nonetheless that anti-police rhetoric in the name of the protest group “had inspired people of feeble minds to strike out at police officers”. “It happened as a result of the rhetoric of different BLM groups,” he said. Messages seeking comment from prominent Black Lives Matter activists were not immediately returned. In his open letter to Walmart, Canterbury accused it of allowing third-party sellers to profit from racial division. “Commercialising our differences will not help our local police and communities to build greater trust and respect for one another,” he wrote. “Turning a buck on strained relationships will not contribute to the healing process.” He added: “I wanted to let you know that my members are are very upset that you and Amazon are complicit in the sale of this offensive merchandise.” Walmart said in a statement that after “hearing concerns from customers” it had dropped the third-party sale of the “bulletproof” merchandise. Like other online retailers, it said, it would continue to offer third-party merchandise that carried protest and counter-protest slogans such as Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. The third-party vendor selling the “bulletproof” shirts was Connecticut-based Old Glory Merchandise. Calls to the company were not answered on Friday. Owner Glenn Morelli told CNN, however, that he had already decided to remove the shirt from his site. “It wasn’t a big seller at all,” he said. “The Blue Lives Matter sells more than the Black Lives Matter or bulletproof shirts combined. We don’t like to offend anybody.” He added: “You have to sell all different kinds of shirts. It’s hard to make everybody happy.” On Friday, Amazon customer reviews for “bulletproof” merchandise offered by one-third party merchant mirrored the divisive national debate over the Black Lives Matter movement. One reviewer, PhantomOfAmazon, wrote: “The slogan is divisive & misleading. Black Americans must come together to solve their issues in areas like Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, LA, etc.” Another, Vincent Alexander, commented: “Great shirt, unless you hate freedom of speech.” According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 64 US law enforcement officers have been shot and killed in 2016, the most in five years. The Counted, a Guardian project to record the number of people killed by law enforcement in the US, has recorded 1,045 such deaths in 2016. Last year, the total was 1,134. The Black Lives Matter movement has grown around such deaths, in high-profile cases often of unarmed African American men. Canterbury said “over 95%” of fatal shootings by law enforcement came during engagements with armed suspects. “There’s a big differences between shooting someone assassination-style while they’re enforcing the law and being shot while breaking the law and not complying with a lawful arrest,” he said. Guardian analysis of the 2015 figures showed young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers. A US government pilot program to count killings by police has recorded a sharply higher number of deaths than previous official efforts. Department of Justice officials have said their new method for counting “arrest-related deaths” should improve the “reliability, validity and comprehensiveness” of such information. Canterbury said FOP members would continue to apply pressure on retailers to drop such merchandise, “until Black Lives Matter makes statements that they do not approve of violence”.

technology/2016/dec/23/amazon-black-lives-matter-police-union-t-shirt

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-23T19:03:21Z

Largest US police union asks Amazon to pull 'offensive' Black Lives Matter shirt

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/23/amazon-black-lives-matter-police-union-t-shirt

['biggest', 'us', 'police', 'union', 'pressing', 'amazon', 'follow', 'walmart', 'remove', 'third-party', 'sale', 'shirt', 'seeks', 'profit', 'relation', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'protest', 'movement', 'shirt', 'carries', 'words', 'bulletproof', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'removed', 'online', 'sale', 'walmart', 'thursday', 'fraternal', 'order', 'police', 'fop', 'said', 'offensive', 'open', 'letter', 'fop', 'president', 'chuck', 'canterbury', 'appealed', 'amazon', 'chief', 'executive', 'jeff', 'bezos', 'support', 'fop', 'increasing', 'bonds', 'trust', 'men', 'women', 'law', 'enforcement', 'communities', 'serve', 'shirt', 'still', 'available', 'sale', 'via', 'amazoncom', 'friday', 'amazon', 'declined', 'comment', 'speaking', 'guardian', 'canterbury', 'said', 'surprised', 'describing', 'amazon', 'pretty', 'liberal', 'marketer', 'issue', 'relevant', 'said', 'amount', 'violence', 'demonstrated', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'marches', 'fact', 'eight', 'police', 'officers', 'assassinated', 'protecting', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'protests', 'canterbury', 'said', 'referring', 'officers', 'shot', 'separate', 'incidents', 'dallas', 'baton', 'rouge', 'last', 'summer', 'gunmen', 'shootings', 'affiliated', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'movement', 'dallas', 'gunman', 'shot', 'dead', 'five', 'officers', 'anti-violence', 'protest', 'baton', 'rouge', 'three', 'officers', 'killed', 'ambush', 'canterbury', 'told', 'guardian', 'believed', 'nonetheless', 'anti-police', 'rhetoric', 'name', 'protest', 'group', 'inspired', 'people', 'feeble', 'minds', 'strike', 'police', 'officers', 'happened', 'result', 'rhetoric', 'different', 'blm', 'groups', 'said', 'messages', 'seeking', 'comment', 'prominent', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'activists', 'immediately', 'returned', 'open', 'letter', 'walmart', 'canterbury', 'accused', 'allowing', 'third-party', 'sellers', 'profit', 'racial', 'division', 'commercialising', 'differences', 'help', 'local', 'police', 'communities', 'build', 'greater', 'trust', 'respect', 'one', 'another', 'wrote', 'turning', 'buck', 'strained', 'relationships', 'contribute', 'healing', 'process', 'added', 'wanted', 'let', 'know', 'members', 'upset', 'amazon', 'complicit', 'sale', 'offensive', 'merchandise', 'walmart', 'said', 'statement', 'hearing', 'concerns', 'customers', 'dropped', 'third-party', 'sale', 'bulletproof', 'merchandise', 'like', 'online', 'retailers', 'said', 'would', 'continue', 'offer', 'third-party', 'merchandise', 'carried', 'protest', 'counter-protest', 'slogans', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'blue', 'lives', 'matter', 'lives', 'matter', 'third-party', 'vendor', 'selling', 'bulletproof', 'shirts', 'connecticut-based', 'old', 'glory', 'merchandise', 'calls', 'company', 'answered', 'friday', 'owner', 'glenn', 'morelli', 'told', 'cnn', 'however', 'already', 'decided', 'remove', 'shirt', 'site', 'big', 'seller', 'said', 'blue', 'lives', 'matter', 'sells', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'bulletproof', 'shirts', 'combined', 'like', 'offend', 'anybody', 'added', 'sell', 'different', 'kinds', 'shirts', 'hard', 'make', 'everybody', 'happy', 'friday', 'amazon', 'customer', 'reviews', 'bulletproof', 'merchandise', 'offered', 'one-third', 'party', 'merchant', 'mirrored', 'divisive', 'national', 'debate', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'movement', 'one', 'reviewer', 'phantomofamazon', 'wrote', 'slogan', 'divisive', 'amp', 'misleading', 'black', 'americans', 'must', 'come', 'together', 'solve', 'issues', 'areas', 'like', 'chicago', 'detroit', 'oakland', 'la', 'etc', 'another', 'vincent', 'alexander', 'commented', 'great', 'shirt', 'unless', 'hate', 'freedom', 'speech', 'according', 'national', 'law', 'enforcement', 'officers', 'memorial', 'fund', 'us', 'law', 'enforcement', 'officers', 'shot', 'killed', 'five', 'years', 'counted', 'guardian', 'project', 'record', 'number', 'people', 'killed', 'law', 'enforcement', 'us', 'recorded', 'deaths', 'last', 'year', 'total', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'movement', 'grown', 'around', 'deaths', 'high-profile', 'cases', 'often', 'unarmed', 'african', 'american', 'men', 'canterbury', 'said', 'fatal', 'shootings', 'law', 'enforcement', 'came', 'engagements', 'armed', 'suspects', 'big', 'differences', 'shooting', 'someone', 'assassination-style', 'enforcing', 'law', 'shot', 'breaking', 'law', 'complying', 'lawful', 'arrest', 'said', 'guardian', 'analysis', 'figures', 'showed', 'young', 'black', 'men', 'nine', 'times', 'likely', 'americans', 'killed', 'police', 'officers', 'us', 'government', 'pilot', 'program', 'count', 'killings', 'police', 'recorded', 'sharply', 'higher', 'number', 'deaths', 'previous', 'official', 'efforts', 'department', 'justice', 'officials', 'said', 'new', 'method', 'counting', 'arrest-related', 'deaths', 'improve', 'reliability', 'validity', 'comprehensiveness', 'information', 'canterbury', 'said', 'fop', 'members', 'would', 'continue', 'apply', 'pressure', 'retailers', 'drop', 'merchandise', 'black', 'lives', 'matter', 'makes', 'statements', 'approve', 'violence']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/23/cyber-security-breach-brian-krebs-crime

Brian Krebs does not use heroin, but sometimes people send it to him anyway. The 43-year-old Alabama native writes Krebs on Security, a one-man operation focused on digital crime. His encyclopedic knowledge of the subject and his network of contacts has made his blog essential reading for anyone interested in cybercrime and a coveted lecturer at some of the biggest companies in the world. It has also made him some dangerous enemies – hence the heroin, meant as a sinister, silencing message. Looking back on a year in which Russian cyber-spies have been accused of meddling in the US election, Yahoo announced that 1bn email accounts were compromised and hackers used internet-connected devices including baby monitors, webcams and thermostats, to take down some of the world’s biggest websites, what surprises Krebs the most is that people are surprised at all. The problem is cybercrime is easy, Krebs says. Too many individuals and organizations buy cheap hardware because they can’t imagine the damage millions of slightly-too-stupid routers can do; most owners of the hijacked devices that participated in the attack that took down websites, including Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, CNN and PayPal, as well as the entire country of Liberia earlier this year never knew their property had been used to pull millions of computers offline. “It’s cheap to make hardware that works,” Krebs says. It’s much more expensive to make sure it works only for you. “There are companies that have zero interest in designing a secure device; they just cobble together software libraries.” When laypeople write to him, Krebs says, it’s often to beg for help. “People get so frustrated and they’re scared and the clock is ticking and they don’t know what to do,” he says. “They ask where do I go? Who do I turn to?” Soon, he says, something will have to give. Krebs was writing about a similar bug to the one Yahoo claims compromised 1bn user accounts as far back as 2012; for years he’d warned readers about “botnets” like the one that took down the web across the eastern seaboard in October. What shocked him, he said, was that people kept using Yahoo, and that the political establishment was “somehow surprised that Russian hackers might want to see if they could impact the direction of our election”. Of course they tried, Krebs says – it’s cheap and you don’t lose much by trying. Krebs earns a living dragging the perpetrators of obscure and horrifying crimes into the light: before the Washington Post laid him off, his column Security Fix exposed Estonian cybercriminal Vladimir Tšaštšin, whose domain-hosting business turned out to be a berth for child abusers and credit card thieves. Writing on his unshowy blog two years later, Krebs broke news of the notorious Stuxnet worm, a tool of corporate espionage capable of intruding on anyone who used Windows. His subjects don’t enjoy seeing their crimes written about, and sometimes they want to send him a message. In 2013, that message took the form of a gram of pure heroin taped to the back of a magazine. That year, Krebs had earned the unwanted attention of a man calling himself The Fly, or Flycracker, later revealed to be a 26-year-old career thief named Sergey Vovnenko. Krebs tracked Vovnenko to a forum where he brokered the sale of credit card information, and found that Vovnenko was holding forth on a plan to damage Krebs’s reputation, maybe even land him in jail. The plan was to have heroin delivered to Krebs, then to call the police. Krebs called the police first. The heroin came a few days after he gave his statement to law enforcement; he turned it over to the cops, and went to work finding who sent it. Vovnenko fits a profile Krebs says applies to many in the world of information crime: young, arrogant and frankly sadistic, with a chip on his shoulder. Investigators are prone to boil credit card stealing operations and mass identity thefts to simple greed but often it’s more than that. “These guys have such huge egos,” he said. “What are they after? How much is enough? You make 100 grand a month, is that not enough? Or do you really just enjoy fucking things up and attacking people or having power over people.” After Vovnenko failed to frame him, Krebs wrote about the experience in a blogpost, which the Guardian republished. He says he thinks the post embarrassed Vovnenko, who then sent Krebs’s wife a funereal flower arrangement. “He had it delivered to our house with a note to her, just to her, saying, ‘Dear Jennifer, you married the wrong guy, but we’ll always take care of you. Rest in peace, Brian.’ And at this point I want to know who this fucker is.” He found out: Vovnenko – just like the people he stole from – shared passwords between the administrator account on his identity theft forum, and the Gmail address he used to do his dirty work. Krebs learned that Vovnenko didn’t trust his fiancee and had her every keystroke logged and secretly sent to the Gmail account; in those messages was every possible personal detail about Vovnenko’s life. Vovnenko lived in Naples, Italy. He had a son. He married his fiancee. He bought stolen Italian credit card information, printed and embossed credit cards on machines he owned himself, and cashed the cards out through high-end Italian retailers in the fashionable city, Krebs found. Krebs decided to get in touch with Vovnenko. Running organized crime was one thing; a Ukrainian running an identity theft ring and printing stolen credit cards in the Camorra’s backyard was another. “I just reached out to him and said, ‘Hey, how’s Italy? How’s your son Max?’” Krebs recalls. “And he said ‘Ahahaha, I wait for FBI.’ “I said: ‘It’s not the FBI you have to worry about.’” Vovnenko fell afoul of Italian authorities and spent “a while” in what he called “Naples’ worst prison” in a letter of apology he wrote to Krebs. Krebs thinks Vovnenko was in a 12-step program; he also told his victim he “forgave” him for posting a picture and Vovnenko’s address on Krebs on Security when Vovnenko was arrested. Criminal enterprise, especially with an eye to dominating or inflicting humiliation, tends to be the work of young men. Cybercrime is often very humiliating – Krebs recalls the Ashley Madison hack, in which thieves used the data from the cheating spouses website to write extortion letters filled with details culled from social media – another story Krebs first brought to light. “Here’s the number of the last guy who thought I was bluffing,” they said. “Call him and see if he’s happy with how it turned out.” Like many security researchers, Krebs says the keys to avoiding cybercrime aren’t complicated. Identity theft has largely ceased to be a matter of targeting a specific person; the responsibility for preventing it lies with irresponsible hardware manufacturers who refuse to secure their devices with basic encryption. Hardware companies are struggling to reconcile the higher cost of securing devices with the danger to billions of users that comes with cheaping out on crucial parts. Meanwhile, it’s up to users to keep track of the basics. Five things you can do to avoid digital criminals Like most theft, cybercrime tends to follow the path of least resistance. Here are five online hygiene tips anyone can follow, for free, to make life harder for people looking for an easy way to steal your personal or financial information. Use multifactor authentication, a password plus a code or a question known to you. Google’s authenticator app is a quick download and works easily with many services, including Amazon and Gmail. It’s worth checking to see if there’s a multifactor option every time a website asks you to fill out bank account or credit card information. Don’t share passwords across websites. Almost everyone shares at least a couple of passwords. Don’t. There are plenty of inexpensive password manager phone apps that can help you with this, notably the open-source Password Safe. Refuse to give up information whenever you can. Best Buy doesn’t need your phone number. The more information you part with, the more can be used against you if the retailer is hacked. Check your bank balance regularly. Thieves often try for a small purchase to see if the card works before they go shopping; in particular, look for easy-to-resell items like gift cards and credits on online marketplaces. Close down services you don’t use any more. Do you still have a Steam account from that one time you bought a PC game all your friends were talking about? Are you sure? Is it linked to a credit card you still use? These are the easiest ways for hackers to steal in bulk, and the one-off purchase you make on impulse is probably the one you’ll unthinkingly reuse your old password on, too.

technology/2016/dec/23/cyber-security-breach-brian-krebs-crime

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-23T12:00:15Z

Wave of cybersecurity breaches is no surprise to expert exposing online crime

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/23/cyber-security-breach-brian-krebs-crime

['brian', 'krebs', 'use', 'heroin', 'sometimes', 'people', 'send', 'anyway', '43-year-old', 'alabama', 'native', 'writes', 'krebs', 'security', 'one-man', 'operation', 'focused', 'digital', 'crime', 'encyclopedic', 'knowledge', 'subject', 'network', 'contacts', 'made', 'blog', 'essential', 'reading', 'anyone', 'interested', 'cybercrime', 'coveted', 'lecturer', 'biggest', 'companies', 'world', 'also', 'made', 'dangerous', 'enemies', 'hence', 'heroin', 'meant', 'sinister', 'silencing', 'message', 'looking', 'back', 'year', 'russian', 'cyber-spies', 'accused', 'meddling', 'us', 'election', 'yahoo', 'announced', '1bn', 'email', 'accounts', 'compromised', 'hackers', 'used', 'internet-connected', 'devices', 'including', 'baby', 'monitors', 'webcams', 'thermostats', 'take', 'world', 'biggest', 'websites', 'surprises', 'krebs', 'people', 'surprised', 'problem', 'cybercrime', 'easy', 'krebs', 'says', 'many', 'individuals', 'organizations', 'buy', 'cheap', 'hardware', 'imagine', 'damage', 'millions', 'slightly-too-stupid', 'routers', 'owners', 'hijacked', 'devices', 'participated', 'attack', 'took', 'websites', 'including', 'netflix', 'twitter', 'reddit', 'cnn', 'paypal', 'well', 'entire', 'country', 'liberia', 'earlier', 'year', 'never', 'knew', 'property', 'used', 'pull', 'millions', 'computers', 'offline', 'cheap', 'make', 'hardware', 'works', 'krebs', 'says', 'much', 'expensive', 'make', 'sure', 'works', 'companies', 'zero', 'interest', 'designing', 'secure', 'device', 'cobble', 'together', 'software', 'libraries', 'laypeople', 'write', 'krebs', 'says', 'often', 'beg', 'help', 'people', 'get', 'frustrated', 'scared', 'clock', 'ticking', 'know', 'says', 'ask', 'go', 'turn', 'soon', 'says', 'something', 'give', 'krebs', 'writing', 'similar', 'bug', 'one', 'yahoo', 'claims', 'compromised', '1bn', 'user', 'accounts', 'far', 'back', 'years', 'would', 'warned', 'readers', 'botnets', 'like', 'one', 'took', 'web', 'across', 'eastern', 'seaboard', 'october', 'shocked', 'said', 'people', 'kept', 'using', 'yahoo', 'political', 'establishment', 'somehow', 'surprised', 'russian', 'hackers', 'might', 'want', 'see', 'could', 'impact', 'direction', 'election', 'course', 'tried', 'krebs', 'says', 'cheap', 'lose', 'much', 'trying', 'krebs', 'earns', 'living', 'dragging', 'perpetrators', 'obscure', 'horrifying', 'crimes', 'light', 'washington', 'post', 'laid', 'column', 'security', 'fix', 'exposed', 'estonian', 'cybercriminal', 'vladimir', 'tsastsin', 'whose', 'domain-hosting', 'business', 'turned', 'berth', 'child', 'abusers', 'credit', 'card', 'thieves', 'writing', 'unshowy', 'blog', 'two', 'years', 'later', 'krebs', 'broke', 'news', 'notorious', 'stuxnet', 'worm', 'tool', 'corporate', 'espionage', 'capable', 'intruding', 'anyone', 'used', 'windows', 'subjects', 'enjoy', 'seeing', 'crimes', 'written', 'sometimes', 'want', 'send', 'message', 'message', 'took', 'form', 'gram', 'pure', 'heroin', 'taped', 'back', 'magazine', 'year', 'krebs', 'earned', 'unwanted', 'attention', 'man', 'calling', 'fly', 'flycracker', 'later', 'revealed', '26-year-old', 'career', 'thief', 'named', 'sergey', 'vovnenko', 'krebs', 'tracked', 'vovnenko', 'forum', 'brokered', 'sale', 'credit', 'card', 'information', 'found', 'vovnenko', 'holding', 'forth', 'plan', 'damage', 'krebs', 'reputation', 'maybe', 'even', 'land', 'jail', 'plan', 'heroin', 'delivered', 'krebs', 'call', 'police', 'krebs', 'called', 'police', 'first', 'heroin', 'came', 'days', 'gave', 'statement', 'law', 'enforcement', 'turned', 'cops', 'went', 'work', 'finding', 'sent', 'vovnenko', 'fits', 'profile', 'krebs', 'says', 'applies', 'many', 'world', 'information', 'crime', 'young', 'arrogant', 'frankly', 'sadistic', 'chip', 'shoulder', 'investigators', 'prone', 'boil', 'credit', 'card', 'stealing', 'operations', 'mass', 'identity', 'thefts', 'simple', 'greed', 'often', 'guys', 'huge', 'egos', 'said', 'much', 'enough', 'make', 'grand', 'month', 'enough', 'really', 'enjoy', 'fucking', 'things', 'attacking', 'people', 'power', 'people', 'vovnenko', 'failed', 'frame', 'krebs', 'wrote', 'experience', 'blogpost', 'guardian', 'republished', 'says', 'thinks', 'post', 'embarrassed', 'vovnenko', 'sent', 'krebs', 'wife', 'funereal', 'flower', 'arrangement', 'delivered', 'house', 'note', 'saying', 'dear', 'jennifer', 'married', 'wrong', 'guy', 'always', 'take', 'care', 'rest', 'peace', 'brian', 'point', 'want', 'know', 'fucker', 'found', 'vovnenko', 'like', 'people', 'stole', 'shared', 'passwords', 'administrator', 'account', 'identity', 'theft', 'forum', 'gmail', 'address', 'used', 'dirty', 'work', 'krebs', 'learned', 'vovnenko', 'trust', 'fiancee', 'every', 'keystroke', 'logged', 'secretly', 'sent', 'gmail', 'account', 'messages', 'every', 'possible', 'personal', 'detail', 'vovnenko', 'life', 'vovnenko', 'lived', 'naples', 'italy', 'son', 'married', 'fiancee', 'bought', 'stolen', 'italian', 'credit', 'card', 'information', 'printed', 'embossed', 'credit', 'cards', 'machines', 'owned', 'cashed', 'cards', 'high-end', 'italian', 'retailers', 'fashionable', 'city', 'krebs', 'found', 'krebs', 'decided', 'get', 'touch', 'vovnenko', 'running', 'organized', 'crime', 'one', 'thing', 'ukrainian', 'running', 'identity', 'theft', 'ring', 'printing', 'stolen', 'credit', 'cards', 'camorra', 'backyard', 'another', 'reached', 'said', 'hey', 'italy', 'son', 'max', 'krebs', 'recalls', 'said', 'ahahaha', 'wait', 'fbi', 'said', 'fbi', 'worry', 'vovnenko', 'fell', 'afoul', 'italian', 'authorities', 'spent', 'called', 'naples', 'worst', 'prison', 'letter', 'apology', 'wrote', 'krebs', 'krebs', 'thinks', 'vovnenko', '12-step', 'program', 'also', 'told', 'victim', 'forgave', 'posting', 'picture', 'vovnenko', 'address', 'krebs', 'security', 'vovnenko', 'arrested', 'criminal', 'enterprise', 'especially', 'eye', 'dominating', 'inflicting', 'humiliation', 'tends', 'work', 'young', 'men', 'cybercrime', 'often', 'humiliating', 'krebs', 'recalls', 'ashley', 'madison', 'hack', 'thieves', 'used', 'data', 'cheating', 'spouses', 'website', 'write', 'extortion', 'letters', 'filled', 'details', 'culled', 'social', 'media', 'another', 'story', 'krebs', 'first', 'brought', 'light', 'number', 'last', 'guy', 'thought', 'bluffing', 'said', 'call', 'see', 'happy', 'turned', 'like', 'many', 'security', 'researchers', 'krebs', 'says', 'keys', 'avoiding', 'cybercrime', 'complicated', 'identity', 'theft', 'largely', 'ceased', 'matter', 'targeting', 'specific', 'person', 'responsibility', 'preventing', 'lies', 'irresponsible', 'hardware', 'manufacturers', 'refuse', 'secure', 'devices', 'basic', 'encryption', 'hardware', 'companies', 'struggling', 'reconcile', 'higher', 'cost', 'securing', 'devices', 'danger', 'billions', 'users', 'comes', 'cheaping', 'crucial', 'parts', 'meanwhile', 'users', 'keep', 'track', 'basics', 'five', 'things', 'avoid', 'digital', 'criminals', 'like', 'theft', 'cybercrime', 'tends', 'follow', 'path', 'least', 'resistance', 'five', 'online', 'hygiene', 'tips', 'anyone', 'follow', 'free', 'make', 'life', 'harder', 'people', 'looking', 'easy', 'way', 'steal', 'personal', 'financial', 'information', 'use', 'multifactor', 'authentication', 'password', 'plus', 'code', 'question', 'known', 'google', 'authenticator', 'app', 'quick', 'download', 'works', 'easily', 'many', 'services', 'including', 'amazon', 'gmail', 'worth', 'checking', 'see', 'multifactor', 'option', 'every', 'time', 'website', 'asks', 'fill', 'bank', 'account', 'credit', 'card', 'information', 'share', 'passwords', 'across', 'websites', 'almost', 'everyone', 'shares', 'least', 'couple', 'passwords', 'plenty', 'inexpensive', 'password', 'manager', 'phone', 'apps', 'help', 'notably', 'open-source', 'password', 'safe', 'refuse', 'give', 'information', 'whenever', 'best', 'buy', 'need', 'phone', 'number', 'information', 'part', 'used', 'retailer', 'hacked', 'check', 'bank', 'balance', 'regularly', 'thieves', 'often', 'try', 'small', 'purchase', 'see', 'card', 'works', 'go', 'shopping', 'particular', 'look', 'easy-to-resell', 'items', 'like', 'gift', 'cards', 'credits', 'online', 'marketplaces', 'close', 'services', 'use', 'still', 'steam', 'account', 'one', 'time', 'bought', 'pc', 'game', 'friends', 'talking', 'sure', 'linked', 'credit', 'card', 'still', 'use', 'easiest', 'ways', 'hackers', 'steal', 'bulk', 'one-off', 'purchase', 'make', 'impulse', 'probably', 'one', 'unthinkingly', 'reuse', 'old', 'password']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/23/alexa-lights-how-i-turned-my-home-into-a-sci-fi-dream

The Internet of Things is here, they cried. Great, but do I really have to pull out my smartphone to do everything? Pushing a button was so much easier. Can’t I just talk to my house now? Can I scream “red alert” and have my lights flash red? The Star Trek dream. For decades we’ve been shown that voice is the future. From Star Trek’s computer to Iron Man’s Jarvis, science fiction has put voice control at the forefront of man-machine interaction. But until recently the best we could do was shout at a smartphone and hope for the best. Now there’s a new breed of AI butler available: the in-home, always-listening speakers – of which, the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are currently the pinnacle in the UK. So what is it really like to turn your house into the starship Enterprise and be able to make like Captain Jean Luc Picard and simply shout “Computer, lights!”? I installed five Echo Dots and one Echo speaker in my house to find out. The first step to inviting my new sultry-voiced AI partner into my home was to decide where to put her receptacles and what I actually wanted her to do. What you don’t realise when you start an Echo up for the first time is that you’re genuinely giving life to your house. It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it Alexa sounds like a person, or a house pretending to be a person, and the more you use it the more you start to think about her being built into the walls. But she isn’t. So the first job was to start dotting the Dots about the place so she practically is. Rooms are easy, hallways not so much. Wall-mounting was the only option. After a trip to the local DIY shop for the largest drill bit I could find, I had a hole in the wall, an Echo Dot stuck to it about chest height and the microUSB cable hooked up. A ring of lights lit up and she breathed her first words. “Hello.” My house was alive. Out of the box, Alexa has got the basics. Weather, news, timers, and facts are all covered. Asking for news gives you a Sky News flash briefing: that was the first thing that had to be changed – what would my editor think? Adding skills to Alexa is easy. Fire up the Alexa app, wait a bit, tap a few buttons and Bob’s your uncle. In my mind it happens a bit like in the Matrix: plug in, stick in a disc, get the operator to hit a button and hey presto “I know kung fu!” Skills added, it was time to weave Alexa’s tendrils into the various devices about my home. Lights are the obvious thing. With a bunch of Philips Hue bulbs and strip lights dotted about the home turning on the lights was a breeze. That was until you realise that the rest of your family doesn’t speak the same dork language as you. Each device has to have a unique name, and one you can remember without looking at an app or list. “Alexa, turn on the living room light” “I’ve found multiple lights called living room, which one did you want” “Err, that one” That’s not going to work. The problem is that what’s a logical name to you might not be to your significant other. Even the brains behind Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, struggled with that one. You might call it the living room, someone else the lounge, maybe even the “TV room”. When you ask for a room that doesn’t exist in Alexa’s log of groups you get, “I cannot find a device or group called lounge” and blood starts to boil. To save mine and my family’s sanity I ended up creating as many different group names as I could think of. Lounge, living room, TV room and front room all contain the living room lights. Say any of them and Alexa knows what you mean. But there’s nothing quite as satisfying as creating a group called “bloody” for those odd occasions when you can’t figure out quite the right word combo. “Turn on the bloody lights!” And then what about the different lights in each room? Alexa struggles with numbers, so my colleague Alex Hern suggested using the Nato phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, etc. Best to skip Echo, but the rest work. Bedroom light one, two and three became bedroom light alpha, bravo and charlie. It works, but admittedly it sounds like I’m in the middle of one of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six games: “Alexa, turn on bedroom light charlie delta one-niner. Op bedtime is now in operation. I repeat, bedtime is a go.” Of course, nothing beats the awkwardness of trying to whisper commands to your house. In the dead of night you need the landing light on to see where you’re going, so you use your inside voice to try and turn on the lights, forgetting that even if you do manage it, Alexa will confirm your action at whatever volume level was set last time you used it. “Alexa, turn on the landing light” “OK!” she screams, or better yet shouts the equivalent to “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” when your softest tones simply don’t cut it. Do that a couple of times and you’ll end up getting snuffed out in the middle of the night as your family seeks revenge. A button is certainly the way forward here, and the Logitech Pop switches, which like Alexa can basically control everything, are the answer, although Philips has its own switches too. Shields up, red alert! Alexa can command the lights to control brightness, colour and set scenes, but you quickly realise that simplicity is the key. I still can’t for the life of me remember what I called that “I’m trying to relax in the evening, but also not kill my eyes as the night draws in” mode. Perhaps my new intelligent home’s best trick came with the combination of IFTTT (If this then that), Alexa and some coloured Hue bulbs. If you’ve ever wanted to truly live the Star Trek dream, now you can. “Alexa, trigger red alert.” And the whole house is turned into what looks like a brothel, or a starship under attack. I haven’t hooked up a siren yet, so more brothel. OK, so you’ve got the lights down pat, what else can you do with your voice? Logitech’s Harmony Hub can be plugged into Alexa to turn on your TV, change the channel and that kind of thing. It works too, in a similar manner to control of an Echo speaker, that is until you “ask Harmony to turn up the volume” and you inadvertently jump 15dB from a comfortable level to ear-splittingly loud. Then there’s the heating. If you happen to have a Nest or similar smart thermostat you can set the heat via voice, if you can remember what it’s called (hint: it’s the place you put it rather than the thing if you’re using a Nest). So this is Christmas It gets better if you happen to have a SmartThings Hub lying around. Anything you attach to it, which is basically anything “smart”, can be hooked up to Alexa for a bit of voice action. When is a Christmas tree not just a Christmas tree? When it can be controlled with the power of voice thanks to a smartplug. Add a Sonos system into the mix and with a bit of hacking with the Harmony hub and SmartThings you can even start Merry Christmas by Slade to really round off the Christmas cheer, and drive the neighbours potty. For the most part Alexa is good enough to know when she’s not required, but occasionally you’re having a conversation about something entirely unrelated and she’ll start up. The ring of lights pulsates, either shutting off when she realises that it’s not all about her, or interrupting with a seemingly random action or quizzing you about precisely what it was you wanted. “Shut up, Alexa!” and she gets the hint. You end up scolding her like you might an unruly child. And when you’re trying to talk about her, unless you’ve hit the mute button you end up going further. “She who should not be named” is what Alexa goes by in my house, but I’ve seen some spell her out like you would a sensitive subject around a child. In this case though, Alexa can’t spell, or at least can’t work out that you’re talking about her. Inviting an AI assistant to run my home has been one of the most rewarding tech experiments I’ve done to date, unifying the cluttered landscape of disparate devices and bringing my home to life. But it’s also caused the most grief in my family, not because it doesn’t work, or because it’s not useful, but because when you set it up, you know how to use it. The rest of your family doesn’t want to know until it becomes useful for them, and it only becomes useful when they start experimenting with it, which they won’t if it doesn’t do what they expect the first time round. Alexa is a massive leap forward, and is clearly the future of smart homes, just make sure you hook everything up in as many ways as you can, or you might find a couple of Echo Dots ripped from the wall and an axe through your smart speaker. How to use technology to sleep better Amazon Echo review: the best combined speaker and voice assistant in the UK Samsung SmartThings Hub review: an Internet of Things to rule them all? Amazon Echo Dot review: as good as the Echo for one-third of the price Nest Learning Thermostat third-gen: the simple, effective heating gadget Logitech Harmony Elite review: easy to use remote that takes charge of your home

technology/2016/dec/23/alexa-lights-how-i-turned-my-home-into-a-sci-fi-dream

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-23T08:00:10Z

Alexa, lights! How I turned my home into a sci-fi dream

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/23/alexa-lights-how-i-turned-my-home-into-a-sci-fi-dream

['internet', 'things', 'cried', 'great', 'really', 'pull', 'smartphone', 'everything', 'pushing', 'button', 'much', 'easier', 'ca', 'talk', 'house', 'scream', 'red', 'alert', 'lights', 'flash', 'red', 'star', 'trek', 'dream', 'decades', 'shown', 'voice', 'future', 'star', 'trek', 'computer', 'iron', 'man', 'jarvis', 'science', 'fiction', 'put', 'voice', 'control', 'forefront', 'man-machine', 'interaction', 'recently', 'best', 'could', 'shout', 'smartphone', 'hope', 'best', 'new', 'breed', 'ai', 'butler', 'available', 'in-home', 'always-listening', 'speakers', 'amazon', 'echo', 'echo', 'dot', 'currently', 'pinnacle', 'uk', 'really', 'like', 'turn', 'house', 'starship', 'enterprise', 'able', 'make', 'like', 'captain', 'jean', 'luc', 'picard', 'simply', 'shout', 'computer', 'lights', 'installed', 'five', 'echo', 'dots', 'one', 'echo', 'speaker', 'house', 'find', 'first', 'step', 'inviting', 'new', 'sultry-voiced', 'ai', 'partner', 'home', 'decide', 'put', 'receptacles', 'actually', 'wanted', 'realise', 'start', 'echo', 'first', 'time', 'genuinely', 'giving', 'life', 'house', 'life', 'jim', 'know', 'alexa', 'sounds', 'like', 'person', 'house', 'pretending', 'person', 'use', 'start', 'think', 'built', 'walls', 'first', 'job', 'start', 'dotting', 'dots', 'place', 'practically', 'rooms', 'easy', 'hallways', 'much', 'wall-mounting', 'option', 'trip', 'local', 'diy', 'shop', 'largest', 'drill', 'bit', 'could', 'find', 'hole', 'wall', 'echo', 'dot', 'stuck', 'chest', 'height', 'microusb', 'cable', 'hooked', 'ring', 'lights', 'lit', 'breathed', 'first', 'words', 'hello', 'house', 'alive', 'box', 'alexa', 'got', 'basics', 'weather', 'news', 'timers', 'facts', 'covered', 'asking', 'news', 'gives', 'sky', 'news', 'flash', 'briefing', 'first', 'thing', 'changed', 'would', 'editor', 'think', 'adding', 'skills', 'alexa', 'easy', 'fire', 'alexa', 'app', 'wait', 'bit', 'tap', 'buttons', 'bob', 'uncle', 'mind', 'happens', 'bit', 'like', 'matrix', 'plug', 'stick', 'disc', 'get', 'operator', 'hit', 'button', 'hey', 'presto', 'know', 'kung', 'fu', 'skills', 'added', 'time', 'weave', 'alexa', 'tendrils', 'various', 'devices', 'home', 'lights', 'obvious', 'thing', 'bunch', 'philips', 'hue', 'bulbs', 'strip', 'lights', 'dotted', 'home', 'turning', 'lights', 'breeze', 'realise', 'rest', 'family', 'speak', 'dork', 'language', 'device', 'unique', 'name', 'one', 'remember', 'without', 'looking', 'app', 'list', 'alexa', 'turn', 'living', 'room', 'light', 'found', 'multiple', 'lights', 'called', 'living', 'room', 'one', 'want', 'err', 'one', 'going', 'work', 'problem', 'logical', 'name', 'might', 'significant', 'even', 'brains', 'behind', 'facebook', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'struggled', 'one', 'might', 'call', 'living', 'room', 'someone', 'else', 'lounge', 'maybe', 'even', 'tv', 'room', 'ask', 'room', 'exist', 'alexa', 'log', 'groups', 'get', 'cannot', 'find', 'device', 'group', 'called', 'lounge', 'blood', 'starts', 'boil', 'save', 'mine', 'family', 'sanity', 'ended', 'creating', 'many', 'different', 'group', 'names', 'could', 'think', 'lounge', 'living', 'room', 'tv', 'room', 'front', 'room', 'contain', 'living', 'room', 'lights', 'say', 'alexa', 'knows', 'mean', 'nothing', 'quite', 'satisfying', 'creating', 'group', 'called', 'bloody', 'odd', 'occasions', 'figure', 'quite', 'right', 'word', 'combo', 'turn', 'bloody', 'lights', 'different', 'lights', 'room', 'alexa', 'struggles', 'numbers', 'colleague', 'alex', 'hern', 'suggested', 'using', 'nato', 'phonetic', 'alphabet', 'alpha', 'bravo', 'charlie', 'delta', 'etc', 'best', 'skip', 'echo', 'rest', 'work', 'bedroom', 'light', 'one', 'two', 'three', 'became', 'bedroom', 'light', 'alpha', 'bravo', 'charlie', 'works', 'admittedly', 'sounds', 'like', 'middle', 'one', 'tom', 'clancy', 'rainbow', 'six', 'games', 'alexa', 'turn', 'bedroom', 'light', 'charlie', 'delta', 'one-niner', 'op', 'bedtime', 'operation', 'repeat', 'bedtime', 'go', 'course', 'nothing', 'beats', 'awkwardness', 'trying', 'whisper', 'commands', 'house', 'dead', 'night', 'need', 'landing', 'light', 'see', 'going', 'use', 'inside', 'voice', 'try', 'turn', 'lights', 'forgetting', 'even', 'manage', 'alexa', 'confirm', 'action', 'whatever', 'volume', 'level', 'set', 'last', 'time', 'used', 'alexa', 'turn', 'landing', 'light', 'ok', 'screams', 'better', 'yet', 'shouts', 'equivalent', 'cant', 'hear', 'softest', 'tones', 'simply', 'cut', 'couple', 'times', 'end', 'getting', 'snuffed', 'middle', 'night', 'family', 'seeks', 'revenge', 'button', 'certainly', 'way', 'forward', 'logitech', 'pop', 'switches', 'like', 'alexa', 'basically', 'control', 'everything', 'answer', 'although', 'philips', 'switches', 'shields', 'red', 'alert', 'alexa', 'command', 'lights', 'control', 'brightness', 'colour', 'set', 'scenes', 'quickly', 'realise', 'simplicity', 'key', 'still', 'life', 'remember', 'called', 'trying', 'relax', 'evening', 'also', 'kill', 'eyes', 'night', 'draws', 'mode', 'perhaps', 'new', 'intelligent', 'home', 'best', 'trick', 'came', 'combination', 'ifttt', 'alexa', 'coloured', 'hue', 'bulbs', 'ever', 'wanted', 'truly', 'live', 'star', 'trek', 'dream', 'alexa', 'trigger', 'red', 'alert', 'whole', 'house', 'turned', 'looks', 'like', 'brothel', 'starship', 'attack', 'hooked', 'siren', 'yet', 'brothel', 'ok', 'got', 'lights', 'pat', 'else', 'voice', 'logitech', 'harmony', 'hub', 'plugged', 'alexa', 'turn', 'tv', 'change', 'channel', 'kind', 'thing', 'works', 'similar', 'manner', 'control', 'echo', 'speaker', 'ask', 'harmony', 'turn', 'volume', 'inadvertently', 'jump', '15db', 'comfortable', 'level', 'ear-splittingly', 'loud', 'heating', 'happen', 'nest', 'similar', 'smart', 'thermostat', 'set', 'heat', 'via', 'voice', 'remember', 'called', 'hint', 'place', 'put', 'rather', 'thing', 'using', 'nest', 'christmas', 'gets', 'better', 'happen', 'smartthings', 'hub', 'lying', 'around', 'anything', 'attach', 'basically', 'anything', 'smart', 'hooked', 'alexa', 'bit', 'voice', 'action', 'christmas', 'tree', 'christmas', 'tree', 'controlled', 'power', 'voice', 'thanks', 'smartplug', 'add', 'sonos', 'system', 'mix', 'bit', 'hacking', 'harmony', 'hub', 'smartthings', 'even', 'start', 'merry', 'christmas', 'slade', 'really', 'round', 'christmas', 'cheer', 'drive', 'neighbours', 'potty', 'part', 'alexa', 'good', 'enough', 'know', 'required', 'occasionally', 'conversation', 'something', 'entirely', 'unrelated', 'start', 'ring', 'lights', 'pulsates', 'either', 'shutting', 'realises', 'interrupting', 'seemingly', 'random', 'action', 'quizzing', 'precisely', 'wanted', 'shut', 'alexa', 'gets', 'hint', 'end', 'scolding', 'like', 'might', 'unruly', 'child', 'trying', 'talk', 'unless', 'hit', 'mute', 'button', 'end', 'going', 'named', 'alexa', 'goes', 'house', 'seen', 'spell', 'like', 'would', 'sensitive', 'subject', 'around', 'child', 'case', 'though', 'alexa', 'spell', 'least', 'work', 'talking', 'inviting', 'ai', 'assistant', 'run', 'home', 'one', 'rewarding', 'tech', 'experiments', 'done', 'date', 'unifying', 'cluttered', 'landscape', 'disparate', 'devices', 'bringing', 'home', 'life', 'also', 'caused', 'grief', 'family', 'work', 'useful', 'set', 'know', 'use', 'rest', 'family', 'want', 'know', 'becomes', 'useful', 'becomes', 'useful', 'start', 'experimenting', 'expect', 'first', 'time', 'round', 'alexa', 'massive', 'leap', 'forward', 'clearly', 'future', 'smart', 'homes', 'make', 'sure', 'hook', 'everything', 'many', 'ways', 'might', 'find', 'couple', 'echo', 'dots', 'ripped', 'wall', 'axe', 'smart', 'speaker', 'use', 'technology', 'sleep', 'better', 'amazon', 'echo', 'review', 'best', 'combined', 'speaker', 'voice', 'assistant', 'uk', 'samsung', 'smartthings', 'hub', 'review', 'internet', 'things', 'rule', 'amazon', 'echo', 'dot', 'review', 'good', 'echo', 'one-third', 'price', 'nest', 'learning', 'thermostat', 'third-gen', 'simple', 'effective', 'heating', 'gadget', 'logitech', 'harmony', 'elite', 'review', 'easy', 'use', 'remote', 'takes', 'charge', 'home']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewater-associates-ai-artificial-intelligence-management

The world’s largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making. Bridgewater Associates has a team of software engineers working on the project at the request of billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to ensure the company can run according to his vision even when he’s not there, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn’t working,” wrote the Journal, which spoke to five former and current employees. The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s development of Watson, the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011. The company is already highly data-driven, with meetings recorded and staff asked to grade each other throughout the day using a ratings system called “dots”. The Systematized Intelligence Lab has built a tool that incorporates these ratings into “Baseball Cards” that show employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Another app, dubbed The Contract, gets staff to set goals they want to achieve and then tracks how effectively they follow through. These tools are early applications of PriOS, the over-arching management software that Dalio wants to make three-quarters of all management decisions within five years. The kinds of decisions PriOS could make include finding the right staff for particular job openings and ranking opposing perspectives from multiple team members when there’s a disagreement about how to proceed. The machine will make the decisions, according to a set of principles laid out by Dalio about the company vision. “It’s ambitious, but it’s not unreasonable,” said Devin Fidler, research director at the Institute For The Future, who has built a prototype management system called iCEO. “A lot of management is basically information work, the sort of thing that software can get very good at.” Automated decision-making is appealing to businesses as it can save time and eliminate human emotional volatility. “People have a bad day and it then colors their perception of the world and they make different decisions. In a hedge fund that’s a big deal,” he added. Will people happily accept orders from a robotic manager? Fidler isn’t so sure. “People tend not to accept a message delivered by a machine,” he said, pointing to the need for a human interface. “In companies that are really good at data analytics very often the decision is made by a statistical algorithm but the decision is conveyed by somebody who can put it in an emotional context,” he explained. Futurist Zoltan Istvan, founder of the Transhumanist party, disagrees. “People will follow the will and statistical might of machines,” he said, pointing out that people already outsource way-finding to GPS or the flying of planes to autopilot. However, the period in which people will need to interact with a robot manager will be brief. “Soon there just won’t be any reason to keep us around,” Istvan said. “Sure, humans can fix problems, but machines in a few years time will be able to fix those problems even better. “Bankers will become dinosaurs.” It’s not just the banking sector that will be affected. According to a report by Accenture, artificial intelligence will free people from the drudgery of administrative tasks in many industries. The company surveyed 1,770 managers across 14 countries to find out how artificial intelligence would impact their jobs. “AI will ultimately prove to be cheaper, more efficient, and potentially more impartial in its actions than human beings,” said the authors writing up the results of the survey in Harvard Business Review. However, they didn’t think there was too much cause for concern. “It just means that their jobs will change to focus on things only humans can do.” The authors say that machines would be better at administrative tasks like writing earnings reports and tracking schedules and resources while humans would be better at developing messages to inspire the workforce and drafting strategy. Fidler disagrees. “There’s no reason to believe that a lot of what we think of as strategic work or even creative work can’t be substantially overtaken by software.” However, he said, that software will need some direction. “It needs human decision making to set objectives.” Bridgewater Associates did not respond to a request for comment.

technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewater-associates-ai-artificial-intelligence-management

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T21:44:36Z

World’s largest hedge fund to replace managers with artificial intelligence

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewater-associates-ai-artificial-intelligence-management

['world', 'largest', 'hedge', 'fund', 'building', 'piece', 'software', 'automate', 'day-to-day', 'management', 'firm', 'including', 'hiring', 'firing', 'strategic', 'decision-making', 'bridgewater', 'associates', 'team', 'software', 'engineers', 'working', 'project', 'request', 'billionaire', 'founder', 'ray', 'dalio', 'wants', 'ensure', 'company', 'run', 'according', 'vision', 'even', 'wall', 'street', 'journal', 'reported', 'role', 'many', 'remaining', 'humans', 'firm', 'would', 'make', 'individual', 'choices', 'design', 'criteria', 'system', 'makes', 'decisions', 'intervening', 'something', 'working', 'wrote', 'journal', 'spoke', 'five', 'former', 'current', 'employees', 'firm', 'manages', '160bn', 'created', 'team', 'programmers', 'specializing', 'analytics', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'dubbed', 'systematized', 'intelligence', 'lab', 'early', 'unit', 'headed', 'david', 'ferrucci', 'previously', 'led', 'ibm', 'development', 'watson', 'supercomputer', 'beat', 'humans', 'jeopardy', 'company', 'already', 'highly', 'data-driven', 'meetings', 'recorded', 'staff', 'asked', 'grade', 'throughout', 'day', 'using', 'ratings', 'system', 'called', 'dots', 'systematized', 'intelligence', 'lab', 'built', 'tool', 'incorporates', 'ratings', 'baseball', 'cards', 'show', 'employees', 'strengths', 'weaknesses', 'another', 'app', 'dubbed', 'contract', 'gets', 'staff', 'set', 'goals', 'want', 'achieve', 'tracks', 'effectively', 'follow', 'tools', 'early', 'applications', 'prios', 'over-arching', 'management', 'software', 'dalio', 'wants', 'make', 'three-quarters', 'management', 'decisions', 'within', 'five', 'years', 'kinds', 'decisions', 'prios', 'could', 'make', 'include', 'finding', 'right', 'staff', 'particular', 'job', 'openings', 'ranking', 'opposing', 'perspectives', 'multiple', 'team', 'members', 'disagreement', 'proceed', 'machine', 'make', 'decisions', 'according', 'set', 'principles', 'laid', 'dalio', 'company', 'vision', 'ambitious', 'unreasonable', 'said', 'devin', 'fidler', 'research', 'director', 'institute', 'future', 'built', 'prototype', 'management', 'system', 'called', 'iceo', 'lot', 'management', 'basically', 'information', 'work', 'sort', 'thing', 'software', 'get', 'good', 'automated', 'decision-making', 'appealing', 'businesses', 'save', 'time', 'eliminate', 'human', 'emotional', 'volatility', 'people', 'bad', 'day', 'colors', 'perception', 'world', 'make', 'different', 'decisions', 'hedge', 'fund', 'big', 'deal', 'added', 'people', 'happily', 'accept', 'orders', 'robotic', 'manager', 'fidler', 'sure', 'people', 'tend', 'accept', 'message', 'delivered', 'machine', 'said', 'pointing', 'need', 'human', 'interface', 'companies', 'really', 'good', 'data', 'analytics', 'often', 'decision', 'made', 'statistical', 'algorithm', 'decision', 'conveyed', 'somebody', 'put', 'emotional', 'context', 'explained', 'futurist', 'zoltan', 'istvan', 'founder', 'transhumanist', 'party', 'disagrees', 'people', 'follow', 'statistical', 'might', 'machines', 'said', 'pointing', 'people', 'already', 'outsource', 'way-finding', 'gps', 'flying', 'planes', 'autopilot', 'however', 'period', 'people', 'need', 'interact', 'robot', 'manager', 'brief', 'soon', 'reason', 'keep', 'us', 'around', 'istvan', 'said', 'sure', 'humans', 'fix', 'problems', 'machines', 'years', 'time', 'able', 'fix', 'problems', 'even', 'better', 'bankers', 'become', 'dinosaurs', 'banking', 'sector', 'affected', 'according', 'report', 'accenture', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'free', 'people', 'drudgery', 'administrative', 'tasks', 'many', 'industries', 'company', 'surveyed', 'managers', 'across', 'countries', 'find', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'would', 'impact', 'jobs', 'ai', 'ultimately', 'prove', 'cheaper', 'efficient', 'potentially', 'impartial', 'actions', 'human', 'beings', 'said', 'authors', 'writing', 'results', 'survey', 'harvard', 'business', 'review', 'however', 'think', 'much', 'cause', 'concern', 'means', 'jobs', 'change', 'focus', 'things', 'humans', 'authors', 'say', 'machines', 'would', 'better', 'administrative', 'tasks', 'like', 'writing', 'earnings', 'reports', 'tracking', 'schedules', 'resources', 'humans', 'would', 'better', 'developing', 'messages', 'inspire', 'workforce', 'drafting', 'strategy', 'fidler', 'disagrees', 'reason', 'believe', 'lot', 'think', 'strategic', 'work', 'even', 'creative', 'work', 'substantially', 'overtaken', 'software', 'however', 'said', 'software', 'need', 'direction', 'needs', 'human', 'decision', 'making', 'set', 'objectives', 'bridgewater', 'associates', 'respond', 'request', 'comment']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/uber-self-driving-car-san-francisco-arizona

One week after launching its self-driving pilot program in its home town of San Francisco, Uber is packing up its failed trial and taking its fleet of autonomous vehicles to Phoenix, Arizona. “Our cars departed for Arizona this morning by truck,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. “We’ll be expanding our self-driving pilot there in the next few weeks, and we’re excited to have the support of Governor Ducey.” Within hours of the program’s launch, multiple cars were caught running red lights – which Uber blamed on “human error” – and the department of motor vehicles ordered the vehicles off the road until the company obtained a permit. Uber refused to apply for the permit, saying its intransigence was “an important issue of principle”. On Wednesday, the California department of motor vehicles announced that it was revoking the registration of the 16 cars, and Uber finally agreed to halt the program. “Arizona welcomes Uber self-driving cars with open arms and wide open roads,” said Arizona governor Doug Ducey in a statement. “While California puts the brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses.” Ducey, a technology enthusiast who went for a ride in a self-driving Waymo car on Monday, tweeted several invitations for Uber to move to his state in advance of Thursday’s announcement, using the hashtag #ditchcalifornia. Uber will not have to violate its principles in testing self-driving vehicles in Arizona. “Part of what makes Arizona an ideal place for Uber and other companies to test autonomous vehicle technology is that there are no special permits or licensing required,” the state department of transportation said in a statement. “In Arizona, autonomous vehicles have the same registration requirements as any other vehicle, and nothing in state law prevents testing autonomous vehicles.” In August 2015, Ducey signed an executive order supporting the development and testing of autonomous vehicles in the state. The order established a committee to advise state agencies on the development of necessary rules or statutes relating to self-driving cars. Uber already has a significant footprint in Arizona. In June 2015, the company opened a customer service office in Phoenix. Uber also announced a partnership with the University of Arizona for research on self-driving and mapping technology in August 2015. Arizona has one of the highest rates of poverty in the country. The state has aggressively courted technology companies looking for cheaper outposts from Silicon Valley in order to boost its economy.

technology/2016/dec/22/uber-self-driving-car-san-francisco-arizona

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T21:33:35Z

Uber packs up failed self-driving car trial in California and moves to Arizona

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/uber-self-driving-car-san-francisco-arizona

['one', 'week', 'launching', 'self-driving', 'pilot', 'program', 'home', 'town', 'san', 'francisco', 'uber', 'packing', 'failed', 'trial', 'taking', 'fleet', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'phoenix', 'arizona', 'cars', 'departed', 'arizona', 'morning', 'truck', 'uber', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'statement', 'expanding', 'self-driving', 'pilot', 'next', 'weeks', 'excited', 'support', 'governor', 'ducey', 'within', 'hours', 'program', 'launch', 'multiple', 'cars', 'caught', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'uber', 'blamed', 'human', 'error', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'ordered', 'vehicles', 'road', 'company', 'obtained', 'permit', 'uber', 'refused', 'apply', 'permit', 'saying', 'intransigence', 'important', 'issue', 'principle', 'wednesday', 'california', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'announced', 'revoking', 'registration', 'cars', 'uber', 'finally', 'agreed', 'halt', 'program', 'arizona', 'welcomes', 'uber', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'open', 'arms', 'wide', 'open', 'roads', 'said', 'arizona', 'governor', 'doug', 'ducey', 'statement', 'california', 'puts', 'brakes', 'innovation', 'change', 'bureaucracy', 'regulation', 'arizona', 'paving', 'way', 'new', 'technology', 'new', 'businesses', 'ducey', 'technology', 'enthusiast', 'went', 'ride', 'self-driving', 'waymo', 'car', 'monday', 'tweeted', 'several', 'invitations', 'uber', 'move', 'state', 'advance', 'thursday', 'announcement', 'using', 'hashtag', 'ditchcalifornia', 'uber', 'violate', 'principles', 'testing', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'arizona', 'part', 'makes', 'arizona', 'ideal', 'place', 'uber', 'companies', 'test', 'autonomous', 'vehicle', 'technology', 'special', 'permits', 'licensing', 'required', 'state', 'department', 'transportation', 'said', 'statement', 'arizona', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'registration', 'requirements', 'vehicle', 'nothing', 'state', 'law', 'prevents', 'testing', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'august', 'ducey', 'signed', 'executive', 'order', 'supporting', 'development', 'testing', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'state', 'order', 'established', 'committee', 'advise', 'state', 'agencies', 'development', 'necessary', 'rules', 'statutes', 'relating', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'uber', 'already', 'significant', 'footprint', 'arizona', 'june', 'company', 'opened', 'customer', 'service', 'office', 'phoenix', 'uber', 'also', 'announced', 'partnership', 'university', 'arizona', 'research', 'self-driving', 'mapping', 'technology', 'august', 'arizona', 'one', 'highest', 'rates', 'poverty', 'country', 'state', 'aggressively', 'courted', 'technology', 'companies', 'looking', 'cheaper', 'outposts', 'silicon', 'valley', 'order', 'boost', 'economy']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/google-profiting-holocaust-denial-jewish-breman-museum

Google grants are relied upon to pay for adverts that counter search results that appear to deny that the Holocaust happened, a Jewish heritage museum said on Wednesday. The marketing director of the Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia said it was “nauseating” that Google algorithms directed users to a neo-Nazi site as the top result for the phrase “did the Holocaust happen?” He explained it cost the museum up to $2 (£1.60) a click to direct searchers to its own site via Google’s AdWords programme. The museum later made clear that the Breman is not a paid advertiser of Google, but in fact it receives a grant for free advertising from Google via its ad grants programme, which enables charitable and educational organisations like museums to apply to Google for free advertising to drive awareness and promote educational messages, up to a limit of $10,000 a month. The programme has been running for several years. The director of the Breman Museum, Aaron Berger, said that according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Georgia was one of the worst states in the US for active hate groups and using AdWords was an “incredibly important part of our approach in getting our site up the search results”. A Google spokesman said last week: “We never want to make money from searches for Holocaust denial and we don’t allow regular advertising on those terms.” It comes after an intense three weeks of pressure on the company regarding its search results. It has consistently refused to take responsibility for directing Google users to hate content including a neo-Nazi site, Stormfront, for a search for “did the Holocaust happen”. Leading academics said it was probably holding firm because to “edit” content on one subject would lead to calls to take action over other controversial topics. Frank Pasquale, professor of law at the University of Maryland, said it would be a tacit admission that it was a publishing company and not a “neutral” platform, as it maintains. On Tuesday, however, Google told a search industry website it had decided to make a algorithmic change to combat the problem. In a story, headlined Official: Google makes change, results are no longer in denial over ‘Did the Holocaust happen?’ a Google spokesman said the company had recently made “improvements to our algorithm that will help surface more high quality, credible content on the web”. But Barry Schwartz, the founder of Search Engine Roundtable, a long-standing industry site, said: “There is no evidence of any change to the algorithm. We track these things very carefully and there’s nothing to suggest they have done anything.” When asked why he thought Google had made the announcement at this time, he said: “It just seems like it must be a PR thing. That’s the only explanation I can see.” Google confirmed that an algorithm change was under way. They said it was an ongoing process and would take some time to apply throughout the system. The said: “When non-authoritative information ranks too high in our search results, we develop scalable, automated approaches to fix the problems, rather than manually removing these one-by-one. “We constantly make improvements to our algorithm that help surface more high quality, credible content on the web, and will continue developing those efforts over time.” Schendowich of the Berman Museum said Google was critical in getting the museum’s message about the Holocaust out: “Search is everything. It’s so powerful. People don’t respond to print. If you don’t show in search you are invisible.” Its website does not show up on the first page of Google’s “natural” – ie not-paid for – search results for “Did the Holocaust happen”. Schendowich said the museum used very aggressive SEO techniques but it was hard because “Google is a big mystery. It’s a black box. Nobody knows how it works. Only Google.” The museum’s director, Aron Berger, confirmed that the museum used the grant it received from Google to help it come higher up the search results than sites such as Stormfront via AdWords by targeting certain search terms. Schendowich said: “We can’t afford to advertise that much because this is a very expensive search. It’s expensive because it’s popular. That’s how it works. You pay more to advertise Nike shoes than some other brand. This is the same. It’s a very hot topic and what bothers me is that a denier site is right at the top. It’s nauseating. Absolutely nauseating. I talk to so many people who survived it … it did happen. We have all the evidence. That’s what we’re doing. That’s why it’s so important.” A Google spokesman said: “We have no interest in profiting from sites or organisations that promote hate, which is why we ban them from using our ads systems. Under some circumstances we allow advertising against offensive terms, typically by organisations whose mission involves educating people about the issues. Those organisations can and do apply for Ad Grants – free advertising to drive awareness and promote educational messages. We give hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free advertising to non-profit organisations through our Ad Grants programme.” This article was amended on 24 December 2016. An earlier version was the subject of a complaint from Google. It stated that the museum claimed the search engine profited directly from displaying search results that denied the Holocaust through paid-for advertising.

technology/2016/dec/22/google-profiting-holocaust-denial-jewish-breman-museum

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T19:04:12Z

Jewish museum relies on Google grant to counter Holocaust denial search results

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/google-profiting-holocaust-denial-jewish-breman-museum

['google', 'grants', 'relied', 'upon', 'pay', 'adverts', 'counter', 'search', 'results', 'appear', 'deny', 'holocaust', 'happened', 'jewish', 'heritage', 'museum', 'said', 'wednesday', 'marketing', 'director', 'breman', 'museum', 'atlanta', 'georgia', 'said', 'nauseating', 'google', 'algorithms', 'directed', 'users', 'neo-nazi', 'site', 'top', 'result', 'phrase', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'explained', 'cost', 'museum', 'click', 'direct', 'searchers', 'site', 'via', 'google', 'adwords', 'programme', 'museum', 'later', 'made', 'clear', 'breman', 'paid', 'advertiser', 'google', 'fact', 'receives', 'grant', 'free', 'advertising', 'google', 'via', 'ad', 'grants', 'programme', 'enables', 'charitable', 'educational', 'organisations', 'like', 'museums', 'apply', 'google', 'free', 'advertising', 'drive', 'awareness', 'promote', 'educational', 'messages', 'limit', 'month', 'programme', 'running', 'several', 'years', 'director', 'breman', 'museum', 'aaron', 'berger', 'said', 'according', 'southern', 'poverty', 'law', 'center', 'georgia', 'one', 'worst', 'states', 'us', 'active', 'hate', 'groups', 'using', 'adwords', 'incredibly', 'important', 'part', 'approach', 'getting', 'site', 'search', 'results', 'google', 'spokesman', 'said', 'last', 'week', 'never', 'want', 'make', 'money', 'searches', 'holocaust', 'denial', 'allow', 'regular', 'advertising', 'terms', 'comes', 'intense', 'three', 'weeks', 'pressure', 'company', 'regarding', 'search', 'results', 'consistently', 'refused', 'take', 'responsibility', 'directing', 'google', 'users', 'hate', 'content', 'including', 'neo-nazi', 'site', 'stormfront', 'search', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'leading', 'academics', 'said', 'probably', 'holding', 'firm', 'edit', 'content', 'one', 'subject', 'would', 'lead', 'calls', 'take', 'action', 'controversial', 'topics', 'frank', 'pasquale', 'professor', 'law', 'university', 'maryland', 'said', 'would', 'tacit', 'admission', 'publishing', 'company', 'neutral', 'platform', 'maintains', 'tuesday', 'however', 'google', 'told', 'search', 'industry', 'website', 'decided', 'make', 'algorithmic', 'change', 'combat', 'problem', 'story', 'headlined', 'official', 'google', 'makes', 'change', 'results', 'longer', 'denial', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'google', 'spokesman', 'said', 'company', 'recently', 'made', 'improvements', 'algorithm', 'help', 'surface', 'high', 'quality', 'credible', 'content', 'web', 'barry', 'schwartz', 'founder', 'search', 'engine', 'roundtable', 'long-standing', 'industry', 'site', 'said', 'evidence', 'change', 'algorithm', 'track', 'things', 'carefully', 'nothing', 'suggest', 'done', 'anything', 'asked', 'thought', 'google', 'made', 'announcement', 'time', 'said', 'seems', 'like', 'must', 'pr', 'thing', 'explanation', 'see', 'google', 'confirmed', 'algorithm', 'change', 'way', 'said', 'ongoing', 'process', 'would', 'take', 'time', 'apply', 'throughout', 'system', 'said', 'non-authoritative', 'information', 'ranks', 'high', 'search', 'results', 'develop', 'scalable', 'automated', 'approaches', 'fix', 'problems', 'rather', 'manually', 'removing', 'one-by-one', 'constantly', 'make', 'improvements', 'algorithm', 'help', 'surface', 'high', 'quality', 'credible', 'content', 'web', 'continue', 'developing', 'efforts', 'time', 'schendowich', 'berman', 'museum', 'said', 'google', 'critical', 'getting', 'museum', 'message', 'holocaust', 'search', 'everything', 'powerful', 'people', 'respond', 'print', 'show', 'search', 'invisible', 'website', 'show', 'first', 'page', 'google', 'natural', 'ie', 'not-paid', 'search', 'results', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'schendowich', 'said', 'museum', 'used', 'aggressive', 'seo', 'techniques', 'hard', 'google', 'big', 'mystery', 'black', 'box', 'nobody', 'knows', 'works', 'google', 'museum', 'director', 'aron', 'berger', 'confirmed', 'museum', 'used', 'grant', 'received', 'google', 'help', 'come', 'higher', 'search', 'results', 'sites', 'stormfront', 'via', 'adwords', 'targeting', 'certain', 'search', 'terms', 'schendowich', 'said', 'afford', 'advertise', 'much', 'expensive', 'search', 'expensive', 'popular', 'works', 'pay', 'advertise', 'nike', 'shoes', 'brand', 'hot', 'topic', 'bothers', 'denier', 'site', 'right', 'top', 'nauseating', 'absolutely', 'nauseating', 'talk', 'many', 'people', 'survived', 'happen', 'evidence', 'important', 'google', 'spokesman', 'said', 'interest', 'profiting', 'sites', 'organisations', 'promote', 'hate', 'ban', 'using', 'ads', 'systems', 'circumstances', 'allow', 'advertising', 'offensive', 'terms', 'typically', 'organisations', 'whose', 'mission', 'involves', 'educating', 'people', 'issues', 'organisations', 'apply', 'ad', 'grants', 'free', 'advertising', 'drive', 'awareness', 'promote', 'educational', 'messages', 'give', 'hundreds', 'millions', 'dollars', 'worth', 'free', 'advertising', 'non-profit', 'organisations', 'ad', 'grants', 'programme', 'article', 'amended', 'december', 'earlier', 'version', 'subject', 'complaint', 'google', 'stated', 'museum', 'claimed', 'search', 'engine', 'profited', 'directly', 'displaying', 'search', 'results', 'denied', 'holocaust', 'paid-for', 'advertising']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/dnc-hack-crowdstrike-ukraine-malware-russia

A new report suggests the same hacking group believed to have hacked the Democrats during the recent presidential election also targeted Ukrainian artillery units over a two-year period, that if confirmed would add to suspicions they are Russian state operatives. The report, issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said a malware implant on Android devices was used to track the movements of Ukrainian artillery units and then target them. The hackers were able to access communications and geolocations of the devices, which meant the artillery could then be fired on and destroyed. The report will further fuel concerns that Russia is deploying hacking and cyber-attacks as a tool of both war and foreign policy. The hack “extends Russian cyber-capabilities to the frontlines of the battlefield”, the report said. Russia gave military and logistical backing to separatists fighting against Ukrainian forces in east Ukraine, in a war that broke out in spring 2014. The application was designed for use with the D-30 122mm towed howitzer, a Soviet-made artillery weapon still in use today. The app reduced firing times from minutes to seconds, according to the Ukrainian officer who designed it. However, it appears that the Android app was infected with a Trojan. CrowdStrike said open-source research suggested that during the two years of conflict, Ukrainian artillery forces lost 50% of all weaponry but over 80% of their D-30 howitzers. The higher than average loss suggests data gained from the hack was then used to target the artillery. Research has shown that Russia shelled Ukraine from inside its own territory, as well as sending weapons and troops over the border. Officially, Russia denied any major role in the conflict. The malware was a version of the type used in the hack of the Democratic National Committee, CrowdStrike believes, making it highly likely that Fancy Bear, a hacking group believed to be based in Russia, was the culprit. “The source code to this malware has not been observed in the public domain and appears to have been developed uniquely by Fancy Bear,” CrowdStrike said. US intelligence officials believe Fancy Bear works on behalf of the GRU, the intelligence agency of Russia’s army. Before the attack on the DNC, the same group is believed to have interfered on behalf of Russian interests in Georgia (pdf) and other countries bordering Russia. “This cannot be a hands-off group or a bunch of criminals. They need to be in close communication with the Russian military,” CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch told Reuters. US officials believe Fancy Bear and other Russian hackers intervened in the election, with the aim of giving an advantage to Donald Trump. Both Fancy Bear and another supposedly Russian hacking group named Cozy Bear had hacked the DNC servers, according to analysts, without knowing about each other. Vladimir Putin has dismissed the allegations as “hysteria”, while Trump himself has also rubbished the US intelligence assessment in recent days. But the new allegations, if proved, would make it harder to distance the activities of the hackers from the Russian state. “CrowdStrike have been pretty reliable in the past, and their reports about the bears were independently verified,” said Andrei Soldatov, co-author of the Red Web, a recent book about the Russian internet. He said: “This doesn’t mean Fancy Bear is GRU: it could be, but not necessarily. But I think this new information means Fancy Bear is more incorporated into the Russian state than I might have thought before, and works with the military.” However, Yaroslav Sherstyuk, the Ukrainian military officer who developed the app, wrote on Facebook that the report was “total nonsense”. He said he was personally in control of downloads of the app and that they were not compromised, suggesting the report itself might be a way to spread panic among Ukrainian military units.

technology/2016/dec/22/dnc-hack-crowdstrike-ukraine-malware-russia

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T18:49:09Z

Group allegedly behind DNC hack targeted Ukraine, report finds

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/dnc-hack-crowdstrike-ukraine-malware-russia

['new', 'report', 'suggests', 'hacking', 'group', 'believed', 'hacked', 'democrats', 'recent', 'presidential', 'election', 'also', 'targeted', 'ukrainian', 'artillery', 'units', 'two-year', 'period', 'confirmed', 'would', 'add', 'suspicions', 'russian', 'state', 'operatives', 'report', 'issued', 'cybersecurity', 'firm', 'crowdstrike', 'said', 'malware', 'implant', 'android', 'devices', 'used', 'track', 'movements', 'ukrainian', 'artillery', 'units', 'target', 'hackers', 'able', 'access', 'communications', 'geolocations', 'devices', 'meant', 'artillery', 'could', 'fired', 'destroyed', 'report', 'fuel', 'concerns', 'russia', 'deploying', 'hacking', 'cyber-attacks', 'tool', 'war', 'foreign', 'policy', 'hack', 'extends', 'russian', 'cyber-capabilities', 'frontlines', 'battlefield', 'report', 'said', 'russia', 'gave', 'military', 'logistical', 'backing', 'separatists', 'fighting', 'ukrainian', 'forces', 'east', 'ukraine', 'war', 'broke', 'spring', 'application', 'designed', 'use', 'd-30', '122mm', 'towed', 'howitzer', 'soviet-made', 'artillery', 'weapon', 'still', 'use', 'today', 'app', 'reduced', 'firing', 'times', 'minutes', 'seconds', 'according', 'ukrainian', 'officer', 'designed', 'however', 'appears', 'android', 'app', 'infected', 'trojan', 'crowdstrike', 'said', 'open-source', 'research', 'suggested', 'two', 'years', 'conflict', 'ukrainian', 'artillery', 'forces', 'lost', 'weaponry', 'd-30', 'howitzers', 'higher', 'average', 'loss', 'suggests', 'data', 'gained', 'hack', 'used', 'target', 'artillery', 'research', 'shown', 'russia', 'shelled', 'ukraine', 'inside', 'territory', 'well', 'sending', 'weapons', 'troops', 'border', 'officially', 'russia', 'denied', 'major', 'role', 'conflict', 'malware', 'version', 'type', 'used', 'hack', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'crowdstrike', 'believes', 'making', 'highly', 'likely', 'fancy', 'bear', 'hacking', 'group', 'believed', 'based', 'russia', 'culprit', 'source', 'code', 'malware', 'observed', 'public', 'domain', 'appears', 'developed', 'uniquely', 'fancy', 'bear', 'crowdstrike', 'said', 'us', 'intelligence', 'officials', 'believe', 'fancy', 'bear', 'works', 'behalf', 'gru', 'intelligence', 'agency', 'russia', 'army', 'attack', 'dnc', 'group', 'believed', 'interfered', 'behalf', 'russian', 'interests', 'georgia', 'pdf', 'countries', 'bordering', 'russia', 'cannot', 'hands-off', 'group', 'bunch', 'criminals', 'need', 'close', 'communication', 'russian', 'military', 'crowdstrike', 'co-founder', 'dmitri', 'alperovitch', 'told', 'reuters', 'us', 'officials', 'believe', 'fancy', 'bear', 'russian', 'hackers', 'intervened', 'election', 'aim', 'giving', 'advantage', 'donald', 'trump', 'fancy', 'bear', 'another', 'supposedly', 'russian', 'hacking', 'group', 'named', 'cozy', 'bear', 'hacked', 'dnc', 'servers', 'according', 'analysts', 'without', 'knowing', 'vladimir', 'putin', 'dismissed', 'allegations', 'hysteria', 'trump', 'also', 'rubbished', 'us', 'intelligence', 'assessment', 'recent', 'days', 'new', 'allegations', 'proved', 'would', 'make', 'harder', 'distance', 'activities', 'hackers', 'russian', 'state', 'crowdstrike', 'pretty', 'reliable', 'past', 'reports', 'bears', 'independently', 'verified', 'said', 'andrei', 'soldatov', 'co-author', 'red', 'web', 'recent', 'book', 'russian', 'internet', 'said', 'mean', 'fancy', 'bear', 'gru', 'could', 'necessarily', 'think', 'new', 'information', 'means', 'fancy', 'bear', 'incorporated', 'russian', 'state', 'might', 'thought', 'works', 'military', 'however', 'yaroslav', 'sherstyuk', 'ukrainian', 'military', 'officer', 'developed', 'app', 'wrote', 'facebook', 'report', 'total', 'nonsense', 'said', 'personally', 'control', 'downloads', 'app', 'compromised', 'suggesting', 'report', 'might', 'way', 'spread', 'panic', 'among', 'ukrainian', 'military', 'units']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/facebook-break-can-boost-wellbeing-study-suggests

Taking a break from Facebook can boost emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction, with the effects particularly pronounced among people who “lurk” on the social network without actively engaging with others, a study suggests. The research by the University of Copenhagen showed the effects of quitting for a week were also strong among heavy users and those who envied their Facebook friends, suggesting that people who pore irritably over the posts of others may benefit the most. The report’s author, Morten Tromholt, from the university’s sociology department, said the findings suggested that changes in behaviour – for example, heavy users reducing their time spent on Facebook, or lurkers actively engaging – could yield positive results. But he indicated that people could find it difficult to change their behaviour – 13% of the study’s participants who were supposed to be taking a break admitted to using the social network – so quitting may be necessary. The study, published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, involved 1,095 people, 86% of whom were women. They were randomly assigned to two groups: one that continued using Facebook as normal and one that stopped using the social network for a week. On average, the participants were aged 34, had 350 Facebook friends and spent just over an hour a day on the social network, which had 1.79 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of this year. Questionnaires conducted at the beginning and end of the week indicated that taking a break from the site increased life satisfaction and positive emotions. The effects of quitting were found to be greater among heavy users, passive users and those who envied others on the social network. There was no positive effect of taking a break for light users. Tromholt wrote: “To make things clear, if one is a heavy Facebook user, one should use Facebook less to increase one’s wellbeing. “And if one tends to feel envy when on Facebook, one should avoid browsing the sections (or specific friends) on Facebook causing this envy. And if one uses Facebook passively, one should reduce this kind of behaviour. “Due to habits, practicalities … it may be difficult to change one’s way of using Facebook. If this is the case, one should consider quitting Facebook for good.” Previous studies have had mixed results on the link between Facebook use and wellbeing. Some garnered similar findings, but others found no link and some found that time spent on the social network can boost wellbeing. Brenda Wiederhold, the editor-in-chief of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, said: “This study found that ‘lurking’ on Facebook may cause negative emotions. However, on the bright side … previous studies have shown actively connecting with close friends, whether in real life or on Facebook, may actually increase one’s sense of wellbeing.” Tromholt suggested that future studies should investigate the effect of quitting Facebook for a greater length of time and look at other social networks, including Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

technology/2016/dec/22/facebook-break-can-boost-wellbeing-study-suggests

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T10:55:14Z

Facebook break can boost wellbeing, study suggests

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/facebook-break-can-boost-wellbeing-study-suggests

['taking', 'break', 'facebook', 'boost', 'emotional', 'wellbeing', 'life', 'satisfaction', 'effects', 'particularly', 'pronounced', 'among', 'people', 'lurk', 'social', 'network', 'without', 'actively', 'engaging', 'others', 'study', 'suggests', 'research', 'university', 'copenhagen', 'showed', 'effects', 'quitting', 'week', 'also', 'strong', 'among', 'heavy', 'users', 'envied', 'facebook', 'friends', 'suggesting', 'people', 'pore', 'irritably', 'posts', 'others', 'may', 'benefit', 'report', 'author', 'morten', 'tromholt', 'university', 'sociology', 'department', 'said', 'findings', 'suggested', 'changes', 'behaviour', 'example', 'heavy', 'users', 'reducing', 'time', 'spent', 'facebook', 'lurkers', 'actively', 'engaging', 'could', 'yield', 'positive', 'results', 'indicated', 'people', 'could', 'find', 'difficult', 'change', 'behaviour', 'study', 'participants', 'supposed', 'taking', 'break', 'admitted', 'using', 'social', 'network', 'quitting', 'may', 'necessary', 'study', 'published', 'journal', 'cyberpsychology', 'behavior', 'social', 'networking', 'involved', 'people', 'women', 'randomly', 'assigned', 'two', 'groups', 'one', 'continued', 'using', 'facebook', 'normal', 'one', 'stopped', 'using', 'social', 'network', 'week', 'average', 'participants', 'aged', 'facebook', 'friends', 'spent', 'hour', 'day', 'social', 'network', 'billion', 'monthly', 'active', 'users', 'third', 'quarter', 'year', 'questionnaires', 'conducted', 'beginning', 'end', 'week', 'indicated', 'taking', 'break', 'site', 'increased', 'life', 'satisfaction', 'positive', 'emotions', 'effects', 'quitting', 'found', 'greater', 'among', 'heavy', 'users', 'passive', 'users', 'envied', 'others', 'social', 'network', 'positive', 'effect', 'taking', 'break', 'light', 'users', 'tromholt', 'wrote', 'make', 'things', 'clear', 'one', 'heavy', 'facebook', 'user', 'one', 'use', 'facebook', 'less', 'increase', 'one', 'wellbeing', 'one', 'tends', 'feel', 'envy', 'facebook', 'one', 'avoid', 'browsing', 'sections', 'specific', 'friends', 'facebook', 'causing', 'envy', 'one', 'uses', 'facebook', 'passively', 'one', 'reduce', 'kind', 'behaviour', 'due', 'habits', 'practicalities', 'may', 'difficult', 'change', 'one', 'way', 'using', 'facebook', 'case', 'one', 'consider', 'quitting', 'facebook', 'good', 'previous', 'studies', 'mixed', 'results', 'link', 'facebook', 'use', 'wellbeing', 'garnered', 'similar', 'findings', 'others', 'found', 'link', 'found', 'time', 'spent', 'social', 'network', 'boost', 'wellbeing', 'brenda', 'wiederhold', 'editor-in-chief', 'cyberpsychology', 'behavior', 'social', 'networking', 'said', 'study', 'found', 'lurking', 'facebook', 'may', 'cause', 'negative', 'emotions', 'however', 'bright', 'side', 'previous', 'studies', 'shown', 'actively', 'connecting', 'close', 'friends', 'whether', 'real', 'life', 'facebook', 'may', 'actually', 'increase', 'one', 'sense', 'wellbeing', 'tromholt', 'suggested', 'future', 'studies', 'investigate', 'effect', 'quitting', 'facebook', 'greater', 'length', 'time', 'look', 'social', 'networks', 'including', 'instagram', 'snapchat', 'twitter']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/mark-zuckerberg-appears-to-finally-admit-facebook-is-a-media-company

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, appears to have finally conceded that the social network is a media company, just not a “traditional media company”. In a video chat with Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg said: “Facebook is a new kind of platform. It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used. “We don’t write the news that people read on the platform. But at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute news, and we’re an important part of the public discourse.” While commentators have long suggested Facebook is a media company, disseminating news and exercising editorial judgement, Zuckerberg has previously steadfastly stuck to a line calling Facebook a technology company. Concerns over Facebook’s influence have come into focus recently due to fake news appearing on the site and the suggestion that this had an impact on the US presidential election. Other incidents, such as the removal of a famous Vietnam war image have seen its decisions questioned. Facebook recently employed editors to curate its trending news feed – a small box that contains headlines and a small summary of current affairs being discussed across the platform. Those editors, which numbered around 30, were unceremoniously cut in August and replaced with an algorithm after accusations of rightwing news censorship. The algorithm failed to discern real news from fake, amplifying false reporting to an audience of 1.79 billion monthly users. Around two thirds of Americans say they get news from social media. Facebook is currently attempting to deal with the fallout. It is now working with fact-checking companies in an attempt to inhibit the flow of fake news. Zuckerberg said: “When we think about what Facebook is doing in trying to give people a voice, one of the things that we are spending a lot of time reflecting on this year, and I think going forward, is that we have a big responsibility to make sure that these tools are used to create the most benefit for people around the world.” EU charges Facebook with giving ‘misleading’ information over WhatsApp

technology/2016/dec/22/mark-zuckerberg-appears-to-finally-admit-facebook-is-a-media-company

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T10:08:59Z

Mark Zuckerberg appears to finally admit Facebook is a media company

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/mark-zuckerberg-appears-to-finally-admit-facebook-is-a-media-company

['facebook', 'chief', 'executive', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'appears', 'finally', 'conceded', 'social', 'network', 'media', 'company', 'traditional', 'media', 'company', 'video', 'chat', 'facebook', 'coo', 'sheryl', 'sandberg', 'zuckerberg', 'said', 'facebook', 'new', 'kind', 'platform', 'traditional', 'technology', 'company', 'traditional', 'media', 'company', 'know', 'build', 'technology', 'feel', 'responsible', 'used', 'write', 'news', 'people', 'read', 'platform', 'time', 'also', 'know', 'lot', 'distribute', 'news', 'important', 'part', 'public', 'discourse', 'commentators', 'long', 'suggested', 'facebook', 'media', 'company', 'disseminating', 'news', 'exercising', 'editorial', 'judgement', 'zuckerberg', 'previously', 'steadfastly', 'stuck', 'line', 'calling', 'facebook', 'technology', 'company', 'concerns', 'facebook', 'influence', 'come', 'focus', 'recently', 'due', 'fake', 'news', 'appearing', 'site', 'suggestion', 'impact', 'us', 'presidential', 'election', 'incidents', 'removal', 'famous', 'vietnam', 'war', 'image', 'seen', 'decisions', 'questioned', 'facebook', 'recently', 'employed', 'editors', 'curate', 'trending', 'news', 'feed', 'small', 'box', 'contains', 'headlines', 'small', 'summary', 'current', 'affairs', 'discussed', 'across', 'platform', 'editors', 'numbered', 'around', 'unceremoniously', 'cut', 'august', 'replaced', 'algorithm', 'accusations', 'rightwing', 'news', 'censorship', 'algorithm', 'failed', 'discern', 'real', 'news', 'fake', 'amplifying', 'false', 'reporting', 'audience', 'billion', 'monthly', 'users', 'around', 'two', 'thirds', 'americans', 'say', 'get', 'news', 'social', 'media', 'facebook', 'currently', 'attempting', 'deal', 'fallout', 'working', 'fact-checking', 'companies', 'attempt', 'inhibit', 'flow', 'fake', 'news', 'zuckerberg', 'said', 'think', 'facebook', 'trying', 'give', 'people', 'voice', 'one', 'things', 'spending', 'lot', 'time', 'reflecting', 'year', 'think', 'going', 'forward', 'big', 'responsibility', 'make', 'sure', 'tools', 'used', 'create', 'benefit', 'people', 'around', 'world', 'eu', 'charges', 'facebook', 'giving', 'misleading', 'information', 'whatsapp']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/22/which-programs-should-i-install-when-setting-up-windows-10

My daughter has asked for a Windows laptop for Christmas, for schoolwork and games. I used to follow the same procedure when setting up a PC for the first time: I’d install AVG anti-virus, Zone Alarm, CCleaner, Spybot Search and Destroy etc. I’m a Mac user and haven’t set up a Windows machine for many years so I’d appreciate any advice … except “get her a Mac/Linux” from below the line! Stuart Windows 10 already includes almost everything the average PC user needs, with three different types of software. First, there are traditional Windows programs such as WordPad. Second, there are new-style apps such as Mail and Sticky Notes. Third, there are in-browser programs that work with your log-on email address, which is your Microsoft Account. Traditional programs are usually the most powerful but also the most dangerous. They should only be downloaded from the original source (the software company) or a trusted alternative, such as Major Geeks or Ninite. New-style apps are downloaded and maintained from a trusted source, the Windows Store, and they run in sandboxes that prevent them from doing bad things. There are apps for Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Netflix, Shazam, Deezer, Pinterest, Twitter, TuneIn Radio etc (but not Snapchat), plus loads of games. Online apps are useful if you have a good internet connection. Windows 10 includes online versions of OneNote, Word, Excel and PowerPoint from Microsoft Office. The online programs often have their own apps as well, including apps for Android and Apple smartphones and tablets. In general, it’s only worth installing things that are better than the bundled programs, but it depends on personal preferences and circumstances. For example, I used to recommend Evernote and Dropbox, and now I don’t. Today, OneNote is better than Evernote, and OneNote is widely used in schools. Dropbox is better than OneDrive, but OneDrive offers more free storage (5GB vs 2GB) and is good enough. Of course, many people already have data in Evernote and Dropbox, but for the rest of us, they’re optional. Windows 10 security Security has been a major concern because some earlier versions of Windows – especially XP – were very insecure. That has changed. Windows 10’s security has improved so much that the US Defense Department is moving to it as quickly as possible. Windows 10 is safe enough to use without any extra security software, if you keep the latest default settings. These include SmartScreen filter, which checks web addresses for known malware, and a cloud-based service, which was turned on by default in the Anniversary Update edition. If Defender sees a suspicious file that it does not recognise, it refers it to the cloud service, which uses heuristics, automated file analysis and machine learning to decide whether or not to block it. This is important with things like ransomware attacks. People who block Windows 10’s background security and telemetry communications – perhaps in a misguided attempt to protect their privacy – risk compromising their security. If so, they should install an alternative anti-virus program that makes exactly the same checks, and uses its own cloud services for exactly the same purposes. The combination of Defender, SmartScreen and cloud-based heuristics should be OK for users who don’t have dangerous surfing habits, especially if they use secure browsers, such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. My wife is in this category. I’m paranoid so I supplement Defender with MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and occasional scans with Adware Cleaner, Hitman Pro and GMER. (They’ve not found anything yet.) There are, of course, better anti-virus products than Defender, both free and paid-for. I usually install Avast on other people’s PCs after removing a virus, but Avira, Bitdefender and Kaspersky are good alternatives. (Avast now owns AVG.) Kaspersky and Bitdefender seem to be the best paid-for AV suites. I also install Flexera’s free Personal Software Inspector. This monitors your PC’s software and tells you which programs are insecure and need updating. In some cases, it will even update them for you. PSI is important because most vulnerabilities are now in third-party programs such as Adobe Reader, Flash, Oracle Java and so on, not in Windows. A PC may have dozens of programs from dozens of suppliers, and even if you knew which ones needed security patches, it would be tedious to update them. PSI solves that problem nicely. Browser choice Windows 10 includes two browsers: the new Edge and the old Internet Explorer 11. Edge is a good browser: it’s secure, fast and light. However, it still has some weird omissions (can’t save pages!) and very few extensions (about 20). IE11 is best avoided, unless a website only works in IE. So, you probably need another browser.... The main alternatives are Google Chrome and Firefox. Chrome is more secure but it guzzles memory, resources and battery power, so I generally use Firefox with the Ghostery and uBlock Origin extensions. Instead of Chrome, I use Vivaldi, which is slow to load, a bit geeky – sorry, aimed at “power users” – and still being developed. Vivaldi is, like Chrome, based on the open source Chromium browser, and it runs most Chrome extensions. There are lots of Chromium-based browsers, including Opera. Useful utilities There are a few free programs that I install on most PCs because they’re generally useful. These are: Unchecky, Search Everything, Paint.net, PIXresizer, FreeFileSync, and the K-Lite codec pack. Windows 10’s much improved Task Manager (WinKey-X, T) means there’s less need for Process Explorer. To those, I might add CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller or SlimCleaner, but I usually don’t. Unchecky is a simple program that unchecks tick-boxes. When you download a free Windows program, the supplier will often try to foist some unwanted software on you, such as Google Chrome. It’s how they make money. Unchecky unchecks all the boxes in case you miss them. Search Everything is a fast way to find and open files if you can’t quite remember their names or where you put them. It doesn’t search inside files, so it doesn’t spend a lot of time and resources on indexing. Paint.net is a replacement for Microsoft Paint, and it’s good for editing photos and images. It can, of course, resize images too, but Bluefive’s PIXresizer is super-efficient at reducing file sizes. It also does batch conversions so you can process whole folders of photos before uploading them to Facebook, or whatever. FreeFileSync is a fast way to synchronise two sets of files: one on your PC and the other on an external hard drive or other target. It doesn’t replace full backups, but it’s a really useful way to keep uncompressed, instantly accessible copies of important photos and documents. The K-Lite codec pack is a bundle of decoders that will play most of the video and audio files you can find on the net. The standard version includes a lightweight media player – Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) – that looks like an old Microsoft product but isn’t. The main alternative is VLC, which also runs on MacOS and Linux. CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller and SlimCleaner all include clean-up routines and utilities to uninstall programs and manage hard drives. Such programs were popular with Windows XP users, but they’re not as useful with Windows 10, unless you need to recover some disk space in a hurry. If so, they’ll delete old logs, cookies, temporary internet files and so on. Just make sure you have backups, that you know all your log-on IDs and passwords, and that you’ve saved your browser tabs with, for example, Session Manager. Of the three, I’d pick Revo Uninstaller, but they all need to be used with care. There’s a long and honourable tradition of messing about with Windows, and some versions have needed it. But the days of Windows 95 and XP have long gone. Windows 10 generally works perfectly well if left to do its thing, and the less tinkering, the better. If it goes badly wrong, you can simply re-set it. Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to [email protected]

technology/askjack/2016/dec/22/which-programs-should-i-install-when-setting-up-windows-10

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T09:42:13Z

Which programs should I install when setting up Windows 10?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/22/which-programs-should-i-install-when-setting-up-windows-10

['daughter', 'asked', 'windows', 'laptop', 'christmas', 'schoolwork', 'games', 'used', 'follow', 'procedure', 'setting', 'pc', 'first', 'time', 'would', 'install', 'avg', 'anti-virus', 'zone', 'alarm', 'ccleaner', 'spybot', 'search', 'destroy', 'etc', 'mac', 'user', 'set', 'windows', 'machine', 'many', 'years', 'would', 'appreciate', 'advice', 'except', 'get', 'maclinux', 'line', 'stuart', 'windows', 'already', 'includes', 'almost', 'everything', 'average', 'pc', 'user', 'needs', 'three', 'different', 'types', 'software', 'first', 'traditional', 'windows', 'programs', 'wordpad', 'second', 'new-style', 'apps', 'mail', 'sticky', 'notes', 'third', 'in-browser', 'programs', 'work', 'log-on', 'email', 'address', 'microsoft', 'account', 'traditional', 'programs', 'usually', 'powerful', 'also', 'dangerous', 'downloaded', 'original', 'source', 'software', 'company', 'trusted', 'alternative', 'major', 'geeks', 'ninite', 'new-style', 'apps', 'downloaded', 'maintained', 'trusted', 'source', 'windows', 'store', 'run', 'sandboxes', 'prevent', 'bad', 'things', 'apps', 'facebook', 'messenger', 'instagram', 'netflix', 'shazam', 'deezer', 'pinterest', 'twitter', 'tunein', 'radio', 'etc', 'snapchat', 'plus', 'loads', 'games', 'online', 'apps', 'useful', 'good', 'internet', 'connection', 'windows', 'includes', 'online', 'versions', 'onenote', 'word', 'excel', 'powerpoint', 'microsoft', 'office', 'online', 'programs', 'often', 'apps', 'well', 'including', 'apps', 'android', 'apple', 'smartphones', 'tablets', 'general', 'worth', 'installing', 'things', 'better', 'bundled', 'programs', 'depends', 'personal', 'preferences', 'circumstances', 'example', 'used', 'recommend', 'evernote', 'dropbox', 'today', 'onenote', 'better', 'evernote', 'onenote', 'widely', 'used', 'schools', 'dropbox', 'better', 'onedrive', 'onedrive', 'offers', 'free', 'storage', '5gb', 'vs', '2gb', 'good', 'enough', 'course', 'many', 'people', 'already', 'data', 'evernote', 'dropbox', 'rest', 'us', 'optional', 'windows', 'security', 'security', 'major', 'concern', 'earlier', 'versions', 'windows', 'especially', 'xp', 'insecure', 'changed', 'windows', 'security', 'improved', 'much', 'us', 'defense', 'department', 'moving', 'quickly', 'possible', 'windows', 'safe', 'enough', 'use', 'without', 'extra', 'security', 'software', 'keep', 'latest', 'default', 'settings', 'include', 'smartscreen', 'filter', 'checks', 'web', 'addresses', 'known', 'malware', 'cloud-based', 'service', 'turned', 'default', 'anniversary', 'update', 'edition', 'defender', 'sees', 'suspicious', 'file', 'recognise', 'refers', 'cloud', 'service', 'uses', 'heuristics', 'automated', 'file', 'analysis', 'machine', 'learning', 'decide', 'whether', 'block', 'important', 'things', 'like', 'ransomware', 'attacks', 'people', 'block', 'windows', 'background', 'security', 'telemetry', 'communications', 'perhaps', 'misguided', 'attempt', 'protect', 'privacy', 'risk', 'compromising', 'security', 'install', 'alternative', 'anti-virus', 'program', 'makes', 'exactly', 'checks', 'uses', 'cloud', 'services', 'exactly', 'purposes', 'combination', 'defender', 'smartscreen', 'cloud-based', 'heuristics', 'ok', 'users', 'dangerous', 'surfing', 'habits', 'especially', 'use', 'secure', 'browsers', 'microsoft', 'edge', 'google', 'chrome', 'wife', 'category', 'paranoid', 'supplement', 'defender', 'malwarebytes', 'anti-malware', 'occasional', 'scans', 'adware', 'cleaner', 'hitman', 'pro', 'gmer', 'found', 'anything', 'yet', 'course', 'better', 'anti-virus', 'products', 'defender', 'free', 'paid-for', 'usually', 'install', 'avast', 'people', 'pcs', 'removing', 'virus', 'avira', 'bitdefender', 'kaspersky', 'good', 'alternatives', 'avast', 'owns', 'avg', 'kaspersky', 'bitdefender', 'seem', 'best', 'paid-for', 'av', 'suites', 'also', 'install', 'flexera', 'free', 'personal', 'software', 'inspector', 'monitors', 'pc', 'software', 'tells', 'programs', 'insecure', 'need', 'updating', 'cases', 'even', 'update', 'psi', 'important', 'vulnerabilities', 'third-party', 'programs', 'adobe', 'reader', 'flash', 'oracle', 'java', 'windows', 'pc', 'may', 'dozens', 'programs', 'dozens', 'suppliers', 'even', 'knew', 'ones', 'needed', 'security', 'patches', 'would', 'tedious', 'update', 'psi', 'solves', 'problem', 'nicely', 'browser', 'choice', 'windows', 'includes', 'two', 'browsers', 'new', 'edge', 'old', 'internet', 'explorer', 'edge', 'good', 'browser', 'secure', 'fast', 'light', 'however', 'still', 'weird', 'omissions', 'save', 'pages', 'extensions', 'ie11', 'best', 'avoided', 'unless', 'website', 'works', 'ie', 'probably', 'need', 'another', 'browser', 'main', 'alternatives', 'google', 'chrome', 'firefox', 'chrome', 'secure', 'guzzles', 'memory', 'resources', 'battery', 'power', 'generally', 'use', 'firefox', 'ghostery', 'ublock', 'origin', 'extensions', 'instead', 'chrome', 'use', 'vivaldi', 'slow', 'load', 'bit', 'geeky', 'sorry', 'aimed', 'power', 'users', 'still', 'developed', 'vivaldi', 'like', 'chrome', 'based', 'open', 'source', 'chromium', 'browser', 'runs', 'chrome', 'extensions', 'lots', 'chromium-based', 'browsers', 'including', 'opera', 'useful', 'utilities', 'free', 'programs', 'install', 'pcs', 'generally', 'useful', 'unchecky', 'search', 'everything', 'paintnet', 'pixresizer', 'freefilesync', 'k-lite', 'codec', 'pack', 'windows', 'much', 'improved', 'task', 'manager', 'winkey-x', 'means', 'less', 'need', 'process', 'explorer', 'might', 'add', 'ccleaner', 'revo', 'uninstaller', 'slimcleaner', 'usually', 'unchecky', 'simple', 'program', 'unchecks', 'tick-boxes', 'download', 'free', 'windows', 'program', 'supplier', 'often', 'try', 'foist', 'unwanted', 'software', 'google', 'chrome', 'make', 'money', 'unchecky', 'unchecks', 'boxes', 'case', 'miss', 'search', 'everything', 'fast', 'way', 'find', 'open', 'files', 'quite', 'remember', 'names', 'put', 'search', 'inside', 'files', 'spend', 'lot', 'time', 'resources', 'indexing', 'paintnet', 'replacement', 'microsoft', 'paint', 'good', 'editing', 'photos', 'images', 'course', 'resize', 'images', 'bluefive', 'pixresizer', 'super-efficient', 'reducing', 'file', 'sizes', 'also', 'batch', 'conversions', 'process', 'whole', 'folders', 'photos', 'uploading', 'facebook', 'whatever', 'freefilesync', 'fast', 'way', 'synchronise', 'two', 'sets', 'files', 'one', 'pc', 'external', 'hard', 'drive', 'target', 'replace', 'full', 'backups', 'really', 'useful', 'way', 'keep', 'uncompressed', 'instantly', 'accessible', 'copies', 'important', 'photos', 'documents', 'k-lite', 'codec', 'pack', 'bundle', 'decoders', 'play', 'video', 'audio', 'files', 'find', 'net', 'standard', 'version', 'includes', 'lightweight', 'media', 'player', 'media', 'player', 'classic', 'home', 'cinema', 'mpc-hc', 'looks', 'like', 'old', 'microsoft', 'product', 'main', 'alternative', 'vlc', 'also', 'runs', 'macos', 'linux', 'ccleaner', 'revo', 'uninstaller', 'slimcleaner', 'include', 'clean-up', 'routines', 'utilities', 'uninstall', 'programs', 'manage', 'hard', 'drives', 'programs', 'popular', 'windows', 'xp', 'users', 'useful', 'windows', 'unless', 'need', 'recover', 'disk', 'space', 'hurry', 'delete', 'old', 'logs', 'cookies', 'temporary', 'internet', 'files', 'make', 'sure', 'backups', 'know', 'log-on', 'ids', 'passwords', 'saved', 'browser', 'tabs', 'example', 'session', 'manager', 'three', 'would', 'pick', 'revo', 'uninstaller', 'need', 'used', 'care', 'long', 'honourable', 'tradition', 'messing', 'windows', 'versions', 'needed', 'days', 'windows', 'xp', 'long', 'gone', 'windows', 'generally', 'works', 'perfectly', 'well', 'left', 'thing', 'less', 'tinkering', 'better', 'goes', 'badly', 'wrong', 'simply', 're-set', 'got', 'another', 'question', 'jack', 'email', 'askjacktheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/honda-in-talks-over-self-driving-cars-with-alphabets-waymo

Honda and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, are in formal talks to develop self-driving vehicles, the Japanese carmaker said on Thursday, months after the US firm signed a deal to use its technology in Fiat Chrysler minivans. The prospect of a deal between Honda and Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo, which was spun off from Google earlier this month, is part of attempts by some car manufacturers to address the high cost of developing reliable automation software by teaming up with technology firms rather than going it alone. Honda, however, said any collaboration with Waymo did not mean it was abandoning efforts to develop its own autonomous driving system. While its driverless project has not garnered as much attention as similar plans by bigger firms such as Toyota, Honda unveiled a prototype driverless car in June and has said it hopes to see the fully autonomous vehicle appear on motorways in four years’ time. “In addition to these on-going (in-house) efforts, this technical collaboration with Waymo could allow Honda research and development to explore a different technological approach to bring fully self-driving technology to market,” Honda said in a statement. If a deal is reached, Honda engineers in Japan and Silicon Valley would work with their Waymo counterparts to marry their vehicles with Waymo’s software, in the same way as Fiat Chrysler has done with its Pacifica minivans. The vehicles would then join road tests of Waymo cars already being conducted in four US cities, according to Kyodo news. Waymo said it was “looking forward to exploring opportunities to collaborate with Honda to advance fully self-driving technology and make our roads safer”. The potential deal with Honda, Japan’s third-biggest carmaker, would help shore up Google’s position at the forefront of self-driving technology. The tech firm has been developing software and sensors since 2009 and testing its autonomous cars on public roads for several years. Robot Taxi, a Japanese collaboration between a developer of automated vehicle technology and a mobile internet firm, began testing driverless taxis in the town of Fujisawa earlier this year. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has said he wants to see fleets of self-driving cars on Tokyo’s roads by the time the city hosts the 2020 Olympics. Google spins off self-driving car division, signalling new direction

technology/2016/dec/22/honda-in-talks-over-self-driving-cars-with-alphabets-waymo

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T09:29:09Z

Honda in talks over self-driving cars with Alphabet's Waymo

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/honda-in-talks-over-self-driving-cars-with-alphabets-waymo

['honda', 'google', 'parent', 'company', 'alphabet', 'formal', 'talks', 'develop', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'japanese', 'carmaker', 'said', 'thursday', 'months', 'us', 'firm', 'signed', 'deal', 'use', 'technology', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'minivans', 'prospect', 'deal', 'honda', 'alphabet', 'self-driving', 'unit', 'waymo', 'spun', 'google', 'earlier', 'month', 'part', 'attempts', 'car', 'manufacturers', 'address', 'high', 'cost', 'developing', 'reliable', 'automation', 'software', 'teaming', 'technology', 'firms', 'rather', 'going', 'alone', 'honda', 'however', 'said', 'collaboration', 'waymo', 'mean', 'abandoning', 'efforts', 'develop', 'autonomous', 'driving', 'system', 'driverless', 'project', 'garnered', 'much', 'attention', 'similar', 'plans', 'bigger', 'firms', 'toyota', 'honda', 'unveiled', 'prototype', 'driverless', 'car', 'june', 'said', 'hopes', 'see', 'fully', 'autonomous', 'vehicle', 'appear', 'motorways', 'four', 'years', 'time', 'addition', 'on-going', 'in-house', 'efforts', 'technical', 'collaboration', 'waymo', 'could', 'allow', 'honda', 'research', 'development', 'explore', 'different', 'technological', 'approach', 'bring', 'fully', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'market', 'honda', 'said', 'statement', 'deal', 'reached', 'honda', 'engineers', 'japan', 'silicon', 'valley', 'would', 'work', 'waymo', 'counterparts', 'marry', 'vehicles', 'waymo', 'software', 'way', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'done', 'pacifica', 'minivans', 'vehicles', 'would', 'join', 'road', 'tests', 'waymo', 'cars', 'already', 'conducted', 'four', 'us', 'cities', 'according', 'kyodo', 'news', 'waymo', 'said', 'looking', 'forward', 'exploring', 'opportunities', 'collaborate', 'honda', 'advance', 'fully', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'make', 'roads', 'safer', 'potential', 'deal', 'honda', 'japan', 'third-biggest', 'carmaker', 'would', 'help', 'shore', 'google', 'position', 'forefront', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'tech', 'firm', 'developing', 'software', 'sensors', 'since', 'testing', 'autonomous', 'cars', 'public', 'roads', 'several', 'years', 'robot', 'taxi', 'japanese', 'collaboration', 'developer', 'automated', 'vehicle', 'technology', 'mobile', 'internet', 'firm', 'began', 'testing', 'driverless', 'taxis', 'town', 'fujisawa', 'earlier', 'year', 'japan', 'prime', 'minister', 'shinzo', 'abe', 'said', 'wants', 'see', 'fleets', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'tokyo', 'roads', 'time', 'city', 'hosts', 'olympics', 'google', 'spins', 'self-driving', 'car', 'division', 'signalling', 'new', 'direction']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/quadcopters-to-alzheimers-solutions-readers-best-raspberry-pi-projects

Solutions for a relative’s Alzheimer’s disease, a time lapse camera and a gingerbread robot which dances when it detects a human face – these are just some of the projects you’ve been telling us about after we asked you to show off your inventiveness with Raspberry Pi and other electronics platforms such as Arduino. If you’re a regular reader this idea may be familiar to you – we also asked you to show us the Raspberry Pi projects you’d been working on towards the end of 2015. Many of you responded to that by telling us how you’d adapted and incorporated Arduino into your hardware projects – so we widened the scope. As well as the highlights below, you can see all of the projects you’ve shared so far – and tell us about yours – at this GuardianWitness page, or, discuss the ideas in the comments. First up, one of many musical ideas you’ve been sharing. This piece of kit, explained in some detail below, could provide the soundtrack to the rest of this roundup … We also liked Ernest Warzocha’s “Musi”, an experimental instrument he hooks up to an Ableton Push. This reader has created and modified an impressive-looking drone Simone Dassi told us about another type of camera made with a Raspberry Pi – one she says can take a multispectral photo that monitors the health of plant life. The next idea that caught our eyes was from a reader looking for solutions to make life easier for a relative with Alzheimer’s disease David also shared another of his projects here. Now, time for a coffee break If coffee’s your drink, you might also want to check out “Alexabot” – which uses Amazon Alexa software combined with a Raspberry Pi robot to fetch this reader a cup on command. Next, a game of virtual chess brought to life. Again, explained below the video Gaming possibilities don’t stop at chess, of course. Paul Bilan told us about his cute-looking mini arcade machine, and Claire Pollard shared the Formula Pi project, a racing series she commentates on. Phew, time flies, eh – we’re almost there … Can’t figure out how to tell the time? Hint: count those birds … As for whether it’s morning or afternoon, well, Kim Booth, who shared the project, says in a blogpost explaining the technicalities: “You can look out of the window for that.” Finally (almost) could this retro-looking notification centre challenge the Amazon Echo? You can read more about Martin’s project and see a video at his instructables page, here. Another notification system we liked was from James Dawson, who told us how he’s using Raspberry Pi to modify an Amazon Dash button to text him when someone’s at the door. As ever, thank you for your contributions. Other highlights include an “off-grid eco campsite control system”, a robot that helps teach robotics to those on a tight budget and a colour-tracking model owl. You can read about these and more at the dedicated GuardianWitness page.

technology/2016/dec/22/quadcopters-to-alzheimers-solutions-readers-best-raspberry-pi-projects

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T07:00:40Z

Quadcopters to Alzheimer's solutions: readers' best Raspberry Pi projects

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/quadcopters-to-alzheimers-solutions-readers-best-raspberry-pi-projects

['solutions', 'relative', 'alzheimer', 'disease', 'time', 'lapse', 'camera', 'gingerbread', 'robot', 'dances', 'detects', 'human', 'face', 'projects', 'telling', 'us', 'asked', 'show', 'inventiveness', 'raspberry', 'pi', 'electronics', 'platforms', 'arduino', 'regular', 'reader', 'idea', 'may', 'familiar', 'also', 'asked', 'show', 'us', 'raspberry', 'pi', 'projects', 'would', 'working', 'towards', 'end', 'many', 'responded', 'telling', 'us', 'would', 'adapted', 'incorporated', 'arduino', 'hardware', 'projects', 'widened', 'scope', 'well', 'highlights', 'see', 'projects', 'shared', 'far', 'tell', 'us', 'guardianwitness', 'page', 'discuss', 'ideas', 'comments', 'first', 'one', 'many', 'musical', 'ideas', 'sharing', 'piece', 'kit', 'explained', 'detail', 'could', 'provide', 'soundtrack', 'rest', 'roundup', 'also', 'liked', 'ernest', 'warzocha', 'musi', 'experimental', 'instrument', 'hooks', 'ableton', 'push', 'reader', 'created', 'modified', 'impressive-looking', 'drone', 'simone', 'dassi', 'told', 'us', 'another', 'type', 'camera', 'made', 'raspberry', 'pi', 'one', 'says', 'take', 'multispectral', 'photo', 'monitors', 'health', 'plant', 'life', 'next', 'idea', 'caught', 'eyes', 'reader', 'looking', 'solutions', 'make', 'life', 'easier', 'relative', 'alzheimer', 'disease', 'david', 'also', 'shared', 'another', 'projects', 'time', 'coffee', 'break', 'coffee', 'drink', 'might', 'also', 'want', 'check', 'alexabot', 'uses', 'amazon', 'alexa', 'software', 'combined', 'raspberry', 'pi', 'robot', 'fetch', 'reader', 'cup', 'command', 'next', 'game', 'virtual', 'chess', 'brought', 'life', 'explained', 'video', 'gaming', 'possibilities', 'stop', 'chess', 'course', 'paul', 'bilan', 'told', 'us', 'cute-looking', 'mini', 'arcade', 'machine', 'claire', 'pollard', 'shared', 'formula', 'pi', 'project', 'racing', 'series', 'commentates', 'phew', 'time', 'flies', 'eh', 'almost', 'ca', 'figure', 'tell', 'time', 'hint', 'count', 'birds', 'whether', 'morning', 'afternoon', 'well', 'kim', 'booth', 'shared', 'project', 'says', 'blogpost', 'explaining', 'technicalities', 'look', 'window', 'finally', 'almost', 'could', 'retro-looking', 'notification', 'centre', 'challenge', 'amazon', 'echo', 'read', 'martin', 'project', 'see', 'video', 'instructables', 'page', 'another', 'notification', 'system', 'liked', 'james', 'dawson', 'told', 'us', 'using', 'raspberry', 'pi', 'modify', 'amazon', 'dash', 'button', 'text', 'someone', 'door', 'ever', 'thank', 'contributions', 'highlights', 'include', 'off-grid', 'eco', 'campsite', 'control', 'system', 'robot', 'helps', 'teach', 'robotics', 'tight', 'budget', 'colour-tracking', 'model', 'owl', 'read', 'dedicated', 'guardianwitness', 'page']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

The eternal human struggle to live meaningfully in the face of inevitable death entered its newest phase one Monday in the summer of 2007, when employees of Google gathered to hear a talk by a writer and self-avowed geek named Merlin Mann. Their biggest professional problem was email, the digital blight that was colonising more and more of their hours, squeezing out time for more important work, or for having a life. And Mann, a rising star of the “personal productivity” movement, seemed like he might have found the answer. He called his system “Inbox Zero”, and the basic idea was simple enough. Most of us get into bad habits with email: we check our messages every few minutes, read them and feel vaguely stressed about them, but take little or no action, so they pile up into an even more stress-inducing heap. Instead, Mann advised his audience that day at Google’s Silicon Valley campus, every time you visit your inbox, you should systematically “process to zero”. Clarify the action each message requires – a reply, an entry on your to-do list, or just filing it away. Perform that action. Repeat until no emails remain. Then close your inbox, and get on with living. “It was really just a way of saying, ‘I suck at email, and here’s stuff that makes me suck less at it – you may find it useful,’” Mann recalled later. But he had stumbled on a rich seam of societal anxiety. Hundreds of thousands of people watched his talk online, and Inbox Zero spawned countless blog posts, along with books and apps. It was the Atkins diet for nerds: if you weren’t doing it yourself, you almost certainly knew someone who was. Mann’s followers triumphantly posted screenshots of their empty inboxes; the New Yorker, discerning his increasingly cult-like following, described his system as “halfway between Scientology and Zen”. (The New York Post called it bullshit.) If all this fervour seems extreme – Inbox Zero was just a set of technical instructions for handling email, after all – this was because email had become far more than a technical problem. It functioned as a kind of infinite to-do list, to which anyone on the planet could add anything at will. For the “knowledge workers” of the digital economy, it was both metaphor and delivery mechanism for the feeling that the pressure of trying to complete an ever-increasing number of tasks, in a finite quantity of time, was becoming impossible to bear. Most of us have experienced this creeping sense of being overwhelmed: the feeling not merely that our lives are full of activity – that can be exhilarating – but that time is slipping out of our control. And today, the personal productivity movement that Mann helped launch – which promises to ease the pain with time-management advice tailored to the era of smartphones and the internet – is flourishing as never before. There are now thousands of apps in the “productivity” category of the Apple app store, including software to simulate the ambient noise of working in a coffee shop (this has been shown, in psychology experiments, to help people focus on work), and a text editor that deletes the words you have written if you don’t keep typing fast enough. The quest for increased personal productivity – for making the best possible use of your limited time – is a dominant motif of our age. Two books on the topic by the New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg have spent more than 60 weeks on the US bestseller lists between them, and the improbable titular promise of another book, The Four Hour Work Week, has seduced a reported 1.35m readers worldwide. There are blogs offering tips on productive dating, and on the potential result of productive dating, productive parenting; signs have been spotted in American hotels wishing visitors a “productive stay”. The archetypal Silicon Valley startup, in the last few years, has been one that promises to free up time and mental capacity by eliminating some irritating “friction” of daily life – shopping or laundry, or even eating, in the case of the sludgy, beige meal replacement Soylent – almost always for the purpose of doing more work. And yet the truth is that more often than not, techniques designed to enhance one’s personal productivity seem to exacerbate the very anxieties they were meant to allay. The better you get at managing time, the less of it you feel that you have. Even when people did successfully implement Inbox Zero, it didn’t reliably bring calm. Some interpreted it to mean that every email deserved a reply, which only shackled them more firmly to their inboxes. (“That drives me crazy,” Mann says.) Others grew jumpy at the thought of any messages cluttering an inbox that was supposed to stay pristine, and so ended up checking more frequently. My own dismaying experience with Inbox Zero was that becoming hyper-efficient at processing email meant I ended up getting more email: after all, it’s often the case that replying to a message generates a reply to that reply, and so on. (By contrast, negligent emailers often discover that forgetting to reply brings certain advantages: people find alternative solutions to the problems they were nagging you to solve, or the looming crisis they were emailing about never occurs.) The allure of the doctrine of time management is that, one day, everything might finally be under control. Yet work in the modern economy is notable for its limitlessness. And if the stream of incoming emails is endless, Inbox Zero can never bring liberation: you’re still Sisyphus, rolling his boulder up that hill for all eternity – you’re just rolling it slightly faster. Two years after his Google talk, Mann released a rambling and slightly manic online video in which he announced that he had signed a contract for an Inbox Zero book. But his career as a productivity guru had begun to stir an inner conflict. “I started making pretty good money from it” – from speaking and consulting – “but I also started to feel terrible,” he told me earlier this year. “This topic of productivity induces the worst kind of procrastination, because it feels like you’re doing work, but I was producing stuff that had the express purpose of saying to people, ‘Look, come and see how to do your work, rather than doing your work!’” The book missed its publication date. Fans started asking questions. Then, after two more years, Mann published a self-lacerating essay in which he abruptly announced that he was jettisoning the project. It was the 3,000-word howl of a man who had suddenly grasped the irony of missing morning after morning with his three-year-old daughter because he was “typing bullshit that I hoped would please my book editor” about how to use time well. He was guilty, he declared, of “abandoning [my] priorities to write about priorities … I’ve unintentionally ignored my own counsel to never let your hard work fuck up the good things.” He hinted that he might write a different kind of book instead – a book about stuff that really mattered – but it never appeared. “I’m mostly out of the productivity racket these days,” Mann told me. “If you’re just using efficiency to jam more and more stuff into your day … well, how would you ever know that that’s working?” It’s understandable that we respond to the ratcheting demands of modern life by trying to make ourselves more efficient. But what if all this efficiency just makes things worse? * * * Given that the average lifespan consists of only about 4,000 weeks, a certain amount of anxiety about using them well is presumably inevitable: we’ve been granted the mental capacities to make infinitely ambitious plans, yet almost no time at all to put them into practice. The problem of how to manage time, accordingly, goes back at least to the first century AD, when the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote On The Shortness of Life. “This space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily, and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live,” he said, chiding his fellow citizens for wasting their days on pointless busyness, and “baking their bodies in the sun”. Clearly, then, the challenge of how to live our lives well is not a new one. Still, it is safe to say that the citizens of first-century Rome didn’t experience the equivalent of today’s productivity panic. (Seneca’s answer to the question of how to live had nothing to do with becoming more productive: it was to give up the pursuit of wealth or high office, and spend your days philosophising instead.) What is uniquely modern about our fate is that we feel obliged to respond to the pressure of time by making ourselves as efficient as possible – even when doing so fails to bring the promised relief from stress. The time-pressure problem was always supposed to get better as society advanced, not worse. In 1930, John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that within a century, economic growth would mean that we would be working no more than 15 hours per week – whereupon humanity would face its greatest challenge: that of figuring out how to use all those empty hours. Economists still argue about exactly why things turned out so differently, but the simplest answer is “capitalism”. Keynes seems to have assumed that we would naturally throttle down on work once our essential needs, plus a few extra desires, were satisfied. Instead, we just keep finding new things to need. Depending on your rung of the economic ladder, it’s either impossible, or at least usually feels impossible, to cut down on work in exchange for more time. Arguably the first time management guru – the progenitor of the notion that personal productivity might be the answer to the problem of time pressure – was Frederick Winslow Taylor, an engineer hired in 1898 by the Bethlehem Steel Works, in Pennsylvania, with a mandate to improve the firm’s efficiency. “Staring out over an industrial yard that covered several square miles of the Pennsylvania landscape, he watched as labourers loaded 92lb [iron bars] on to rail cars,” writes Matthew Stewart, in his book The Management Myth. “There were 80,000 tons’ worth of iron bars, which were to be carted off as fast as possible to meet new demand sparked by the Spanish-American war. Taylor narrowed his eyes: there was waste here, he was certain.” The Bethlehem workers, Taylor calculated, were shifting about 12.5 tons of iron per man per day – but predictably, when he offered a group of “large, powerful Hungarians” some extra cash to work as fast as they could for an hour, he found that they performed much better. Extrapolating to a full work day, and guesstimating time for breaks, Taylor concluded, with his trademark blend of self-confidence and woolly maths, that every man ought to be shifting 50 tons per day – four times their usual amount. Workers were naturally unhappy at this transparent attempt to pay them the same money for more work, but Taylor was not especially concerned with their happiness; their job was to implement, not understand, his new philosophy of “scientific management”. “One of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron,” wrote Taylor, is “that he shall be so stupid and phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental makeup the ox than any other type … he is so stupid that the word ‘percentage’ has no meaning for him.” The idea of efficiency that Taylor sought to impose on Bethlehem Steel was borrowed from the mechanical engineers of the industrial revolution. It was a way of thinking about improving the functioning of machines, now transferred to humans. And it caught on: Taylor enjoyed a high-profile career as a lecturer on the topic, and by 1915, according to the historian Jennifer Alexander, “the word ‘efficiency’ was plastered everywhere – in headlines, advertisements, editorials, business manuals, and church bulletins.” In the first decades of the 20th century, in a Britain panicked by the rise of German power, the National Efficiency movement united politicians on left and right. (“At the present time,” the Spectator noted in 1902, “there is a universal outcry for efficiency in all the departments of society, in all aspects of life.”) It is not hard to grasp the appeal: efficiency was the promise of doing what you already did, only better, more cheaply, and in less time. What could be wrong with that? Unless you happened to be on the sharp end of attempts to treat humans like machines – like the workers of Bethlehem Steel – there wasn’t an obvious downside. * * * But as the century progressed, something important changed: we all became Frederick Winslow Taylors, presiding ruthlessly over our own lives. As the doctrine of efficiency grew entrenched – as the ethos of the market spread to more and more aspects of society, and life became more individualistic – we internalised it. In Taylor’s day, efficiency had been primarily a way to persuade (or bully) other people to do more work in the same amount of time; now it is a regimen that we impose on ourselves. According to legend, Taylorism first crossed the threshold into personal productivity when Charles Schwab, the president of Bethlehem Steel, asked another consultant, a businessman named Ivy Lee, to improve his executives’ efficiency as well. Lee advised those white-collar workers to make nightly to-do lists, arranging tomorrow’s six most important tasks by priority, then to start at the top of the list next morning, working down. It’s a stretch to imagine that nobody had thought of this before. But the story goes that when Lee told Schwab to test it for three months, then pay him what he thought it was worth, the steel magnate wrote him a cheque worth more than $400,000 in today’s money – and the time management industry was up and running. Other gurus were to follow, writing bestsellers that modified Lee’s basic technique to incorporate the setting of long-term goals (the 1973 book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, by Alan Lakein, who boasted of having advised both IBM and Gloria Steinem, and who inspired a young Bill Clinton) and spiritual values (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, published in 1989 by the Mormon efficiency expert Stephen Covey). Time management promised a sense of control in a world in which individuals – decreasingly supported by the social bonds of religion or community – seemed to lack it. In an era of insecure employment, we must constantly demonstrate our usefulness through frenetic doing, and time management can give you a valuable edge. Indeed, if you are among the growing ranks of the self-employed, as a freelancer or a worker in the so-called gig economy, increased personal efficiency may be essential to your survival. The only person who suffers financially if you indulge in “loafing” – a workplace vice that Taylor saw as theft – is you. Above all, time management promises that a meaningful life might still be possible in this profit-driven environment, as Melissa Gregg explains in Counterproductive, a forthcoming history of the field. With the right techniques, the prophets of time management all implied, you could fashion a fulfilling life while simultaneously attending to the ever-increasing demands of your employer. This promise “comes back and back, in force, whenever there’s an economic downturn”, Gregg told me. Especially at the higher-paid end of the employment spectrum, time management whispers of the possibility of something even more desirable: true peace of mind. “It is possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control,” the contemporary king of the productivity gurus, David Allen, declared in his 2001 bestseller, Getting Things Done. “You can experience what the martial artists call a ‘mind like water’, and top athletes refer to as ‘the zone’.” As Gregg points out, it is significant that “personal productivity” puts the burden of reconciling these demands squarely on our shoulders as individuals. Time management gurus rarely stop to ask whether the task of merely staying afloat in the modern economy – holding down a job, paying the mortgage, being a good-enough parent – really ought to require rendering ourselves inhumanly efficient in the first place. Besides, on closer inspection, even the lesser promises of time management were not all they appeared to be. An awkward truth about Taylor’s celebrated efficiency drives is that they were not very successful: Bethlehem Steel fired him in 1901, having paid him vast sums without any clearly detectable impact on its own profits. (One persistent consequence of his schemes was that they seemed promising at first, but left workers too exhausted to function consistently over the long term.) Likewise, it remains the frequent experience of those who try to follow the advice of personal productivity gurus – I’m speaking from years of experience here – that a “mind like water” is far from the guaranteed result. As with Inbox Zero, so with work in general: the more efficient you get at ploughing through your tasks, the faster new tasks seem to arrive. (“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion,” as the British historian C Northcote Parkinson realised way back in 1955, when he coined what would come to be known as Parkinson’s law.) Then there’s the matter of self-consciousness: virtually every time management expert’s first piece of advice is to keep a detailed log of your time use, but doing so just heightens your awareness of the minutes ticking by, then lost for ever. As for focusing on your long-term goals: the more you do that, the more of your daily life you spend feeling vaguely despondent that you have not yet achieved them. Should you manage to achieve one, the satisfaction is strikingly brief – then it’s time to set a new long-term goal. The supposed cure just makes the problem worse. There is a historical parallel for all this: it’s exactly what happened when the spread of “labour-saving” devices transformed the lives of housewives and domestic servants across Europe and north America from the end of the 19th century. Technology now meant that washing clothes no longer entailed a day bent over a mangle; a vacuum-cleaner could render a carpet spotless in minutes. Yet as the historian Ruth Cowan demonstrates in her 1983 book More Work for Mother, the result, for much of the 20th century, was not an increase in leisure time among those charged with doing the housework. Instead, as the efficiency of housework increased, so did the standards of cleanliness and domestic order that society came to expect. Now that the living-room carpet could be kept perfectly clean, it had to be; now that clothes never needed to be grubby, grubbiness was all the more taboo. These days, you can answer work emails in bed at midnight. So should that message you got at 5.30pm really wait till morning for a reply? * * * One boiling weekend last summer, the impassioned members of a campaign group named Take Back Your Time gathered in a university lecture hall in Seattle, to further their longstanding mission of “eliminating the epidemic of overwork” – and, in so doing, to explore what it might mean to live a life that is not so focused on personal productivity. The 2016 Time Matters conference was a sparsely attended affair, in part because, as the organisers conceded, it was August, and lots of people were on holiday, and America’s most enthusiastically pro-relaxation organisation was hardly going to complain about that. But it was also because, these days, being even modestly anti-productivity – especially in the US – counts as a subversive stance. It is not the kind of platform that lends itself to glitzy mega-events with generous corporate sponsorship and effective marketing campaigns. The conference-goers discussed schemes for a four-day working week, for abolishing daylight savings time, for holding elections at the weekend, and generally for making America more like countries such as Italy and Denmark. (To be a critic of America’s work culture is to constantly gaze longingly across the Atlantic, at semi-mythical versions of Scandinavia and southern Europe.) But the members of Take Back Your Time were calling for something more radical than merely more time off. They sought to question our whole instrumental attitude towards time – the very idea that “getting more done” ought to be our focus in the first place. “You keep hearing people arguing that more time off might be good for the economy,” said John de Graaf, the not-even-slightly-relaxed 70-year-old filmmaker who is the organisation’s driving force. “But why should we have to justify life in terms of the economy? It makes no sense!” One of the sneakier pitfalls of an efficiency-based attitude to time is that we start to feel pressured to use our leisure time “productively”, too – an attitude which implies that enjoying leisure for its own sake, which you might have assumed was the whole point of leisure, is somehow not quite enough. And so we find ourselves, for example, travelling to unfamiliar places not for the sheer experience of travel, but in order to add to our mental storehouse of experiences, or to our Instagram feeds. We go walking or running to improve our health, not for the pleasure of movement; we approach the tasks of parenthood with a fixation on the successful future adults we hope to create. In his 1962 book The Decline of Pleasure, the critic Walter Kerr noticed this shift in our experience of time: “We are all of us compelled to read for profit, party for contracts, lunch for contacts … and stay home for the weekend to rebuild the house.” Even rest and recreation, in a culture preoccupied with efficiency, can only be understood as valuable insofar as they are useful for some other purpose – usually, recuperation, so as to enable more work. (Several conference guests mentioned Arianna Huffington’s current crusade to encourage people to get more sleep; for her, it seems, the main point of rest is to excel at the office.) If all this increased efficiency brings none of the benefits it was supposed to bring, what should we be doing instead? At Take Back Your Time, the consensus was that personal lifestyle changes would never suffice: reform would have to start with policies on vacation, maternity leave and overtime. But in the meantime, we might try to get more comfortable with not being as efficient as possible – with declining certain opportunities, disappointing certain people, and letting certain tasks go undone. Plenty of unpleasant chores are essential to survival. But others are not – we have just been conditioned to assume that they are. It isn’t compulsory to earn more money, achieve more goals, realise our potential on every dimension, or fit more in. In a quiet moment in Seattle, Robert Levine, a social psychologist from California, quoted the environmentalist Edward Abbey: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” * * * Yet if the ethos of efficiency and productivity risks prioritising the health of the economy over the happiness of humans, it is also true that the sense of pressure it fosters is not much good for business, either. This, it turns out, is a lesson business is not especially keen to learn. “After years of consulting with Microsoft, I was suddenly persona non grata,” Tom DeMarco told me, with a note of amusement in his voice. DeMarco is a minor legend in the world of software engineering. He began his career at Bell Telephone Labs, birthplace of the laser and transistor, and later became an expert in managing complex software projects, a field notorious for spiralling costs, missed deadlines, and clashing egos. But then, in the 1980s, he committed heresy: he started arguing that ramping up the time pressure on your employees was a terrible way to drive such projects forward. What was needed, he had come to realise, was not an increased focus on using time efficiently. It was the opposite: more slack. “The best companies I visited, all through the years, were never very hurried,” DeMarco said. “Maybe they used pressure from time to time, as a sort of amusing side-effect. But it was never a constant. Because you don’t get creativity for free. You need people to be able to sit back, put their feet up, and think.” Manual work can be speeded up, at least to a certain extent, by increasing the time pressure on workers. But good ideas do not emerge more rapidly when people feel under the gun – if anything, the good ideas dry up. Part of the problem is simply that thinking about time encourages clockwatching, which has been repeatedly shown in studies to undermine the quality of work. In one representative experiment from 2008, US researchers asked people to complete the Iowa gambling task, a venerable decision-making test that involves selecting playing cards in order to win a modest amount of cash. All participants were given the same time in which to complete the task – but some were told that time would probably be sufficient, while others were warned it would be tight. Contrary to an intuition cherished especially among journalists – that the pressure of deadlines is what forces them to produce high-quality work – the second group performed far less well. The mere awareness of their limited time triggered anxious emotions that got in the way of performance. But worse perils await. DeMarco points out that any increase in efficiency, in an organisation or an individual life, necessitates a trade-off: you get rid of unused expanses of time, but you also get rid of the benefits of that extra time. A visit to your family doctor provides an obvious example. The more efficiently they manage their time, the fuller their schedule will be – and the more likely it is that you will be kept sitting in the waiting room when an earlier appointment overruns. (That’s all a queue is, after all: the cost of someone else’s efficiency, being shouldered by you.) In the accident and emergency department, by contrast, remaining “inefficient” in this sense is a matter of life and death. If there is an exclusive focus on using the staff’s time as efficiently as possible, the result will be a department too busy to accommodate unpredictable arrivals, which are the whole reason it exists. A similar problem afflicts any corporate cost-cutting exercise that focuses on maximising employees’ efficiency: the more of their hours that are put to productive use, the less available they will be to respond, on the spur of the moment, to critical new demands. For that kind of responsiveness, idle time must be built into the system. “An organisation that can accelerate but not change direction is like a car that can speed up but not steer,” DeMarco writes. “In the short run, it makes lots of progress in whatever direction it happened to be going. In the long run, it’s just another road wreck.” He often uses the analogy of those sliding number puzzles, in which you move eight tiles around a nine-tile grid, until all the digits are in order. To use the available space more efficiently, you could always add a ninth tile to the empty square. You just wouldn’t be able to solve the puzzle any more. If that jammed and unsolvable puzzle feels like an appropriate metaphor for your life, it’s hard to see how improving your personal efficiency – trying to force yet more tiles on to the grid – is going to be much help. * * * At the very bottom of our anxious urge to manage time better – the urge driving Frederick Winslow Taylor, Merlin Mann, me and perhaps you – it’s not hard to discern a familiar motive: the fear of death. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel has put it, on any meaningful timescale other than human life itself – that of the planet, say, or the cosmos – “we will all be dead any minute”. No wonder we are so drawn to the problem of how to make better use of our days: if we could solve it, we could avoid the feeling, in Seneca’s words, of finding life at an end just when we were getting ready to live. To die with the sense of nothing left undone: it’s nothing less than the promise of immortality by other means. But the modern zeal for personal productivity, rooted in Taylor’s philosophy of efficiency, takes things several significant steps further. If only we could find the right techniques and apply enough self-discipline, it suggests, we could know that we were fitting everything important in, and could feel happy at last. It is up to us – indeed, it is our obligation – to maximise our productivity. This is a convenient ideology from the point of view of those who stand to profit from our working harder, and our increased capacity for consumer spending. But it also functions as a form of psychological avoidance. The more you can convince yourself that you need never make difficult choices – because there will be enough time for everything – the less you will feel obliged to ask yourself whether the life you are choosing is the right one. Personal productivity presents itself as an antidote to busyness when it might better be understood as yet another form of busyness. And as such, it serves the same psychological role that busyness has always served: to keep us sufficiently distracted that we don’t have to ask ourselves potentially terrifying questions about how we are spending our days. “How we labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, in what reads like a foreshadowing of our present circumstances. “Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.” You can seek to impose order on your inbox all you like – but eventually you’ll need to confront the fact that the deluge of messages, and the urge you feel to get them all dealt with, aren’t really about technology. They’re manifestations of larger, more personal dilemmas. Which paths will you pursue, and which will you abandon? Which relationships will you prioritise, during your shockingly limited lifespan, and who will you resign yourself to disappointing? What matters? For Merlin Mann, consciously confronting these questions was a matter of realising that people would always be making more claims on his time – worthy claims, too, for the most part – than it would be possible for him to meet. And that even the best, most efficient system for managing the emails they sent him was never going to provide a solution to that. “Eventually, I realised something,” he told me. “Email is not a technical problem. It’s a people problem. And you can’t fix people.” • Main illustration: Pete Gamlen • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.

technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T06:00:39Z

Why time management is ruining our lives | Oliver Burkeman

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

['eternal', 'human', 'struggle', 'live', 'meaningfully', 'face', 'inevitable', 'death', 'entered', 'newest', 'phase', 'one', 'monday', 'summer', 'employees', 'google', 'gathered', 'hear', 'talk', 'writer', 'self-avowed', 'geek', 'named', 'merlin', 'mann', 'biggest', 'professional', 'problem', 'email', 'digital', 'blight', 'colonising', 'hours', 'squeezing', 'time', 'important', 'work', 'life', 'mann', 'rising', 'star', 'personal', 'productivity', 'movement', 'seemed', 'like', 'might', 'found', 'answer', 'called', 'system', 'inbox', 'zero', 'basic', 'idea', 'simple', 'enough', 'us', 'get', 'bad', 'habits', 'email', 'check', 'messages', 'every', 'minutes', 'read', 'feel', 'vaguely', 'stressed', 'take', 'little', 'action', 'pile', 'even', 'stress-inducing', 'heap', 'instead', 'mann', 'advised', 'audience', 'day', 'google', 'silicon', 'valley', 'campus', 'every', 'time', 'visit', 'inbox', 'systematically', 'process', 'zero', 'clarify', 'action', 'message', 'requires', 'reply', 'entry', 'to-do', 'list', 'filing', 'away', 'perform', 'action', 'repeat', 'emails', 'remain', 'close', 'inbox', 'get', 'living', 'really', 'way', 'saying', 'suck', 'email', 'stuff', 'makes', 'suck', 'less', 'may', 'find', 'useful', 'mann', 'recalled', 'later', 'stumbled', 'rich', 'seam', 'societal', 'anxiety', 'hundreds', 'thousands', 'people', 'watched', 'talk', 'online', 'inbox', 'zero', 'spawned', 'countless', 'blog', 'posts', 'along', 'books', 'apps', 'atkins', 'diet', 'nerds', 'almost', 'certainly', 'knew', 'someone', 'mann', 'followers', 'triumphantly', 'posted', 'screenshots', 'empty', 'inboxes', 'new', 'yorker', 'discerning', 'increasingly', 'cult-like', 'following', 'described', 'system', 'halfway', 'scientology', 'zen', 'new', 'york', 'post', 'called', 'bullshit', 'fervour', 'seems', 'extreme', 'inbox', 'zero', 'set', 'technical', 'instructions', 'handling', 'email', 'email', 'become', 'far', 'technical', 'problem', 'functioned', 'kind', 'infinite', 'to-do', 'list', 'anyone', 'planet', 'could', 'add', 'anything', 'knowledge', 'workers', 'digital', 'economy', 'metaphor', 'delivery', 'mechanism', 'feeling', 'pressure', 'trying', 'complete', 'ever-increasing', 'number', 'tasks', 'finite', 'quantity', 'time', 'becoming', 'impossible', 'bear', 'us', 'experienced', 'creeping', 'sense', 'overwhelmed', 'feeling', 'merely', 'lives', 'full', 'activity', 'exhilarating', 'time', 'slipping', 'control', 'today', 'personal', 'productivity', 'movement', 'mann', 'helped', 'launch', 'promises', 'ease', 'pain', 'time-management', 'advice', 'tailored', 'era', 'smartphones', 'internet', 'flourishing', 'never', 'thousands', 'apps', 'productivity', 'category', 'apple', 'app', 'store', 'including', 'software', 'simulate', 'ambient', 'noise', 'working', 'coffee', 'shop', 'shown', 'psychology', 'experiments', 'help', 'people', 'focus', 'work', 'text', 'editor', 'deletes', 'words', 'written', 'keep', 'typing', 'fast', 'enough', 'quest', 'increased', 'personal', 'productivity', 'making', 'best', 'possible', 'use', 'limited', 'time', 'dominant', 'motif', 'age', 'two', 'books', 'topic', 'new', 'york', 'times', 'journalist', 'charles', 'duhigg', 'spent', 'weeks', 'us', 'bestseller', 'lists', 'improbable', 'titular', 'promise', 'another', 'book', 'four', 'hour', 'work', 'week', 'seduced', 'reported', '135m', 'readers', 'worldwide', 'blogs', 'offering', 'tips', 'productive', 'dating', 'potential', 'result', 'productive', 'dating', 'productive', 'parenting', 'signs', 'spotted', 'american', 'hotels', 'wishing', 'visitors', 'productive', 'stay', 'archetypal', 'silicon', 'valley', 'startup', 'last', 'years', 'one', 'promises', 'free', 'time', 'mental', 'capacity', 'eliminating', 'irritating', 'friction', 'daily', 'life', 'shopping', 'laundry', 'even', 'eating', 'case', 'sludgy', 'beige', 'meal', 'replacement', 'soylent', 'almost', 'always', 'purpose', 'work', 'yet', 'truth', 'often', 'techniques', 'designed', 'enhance', 'one', 'personal', 'productivity', 'seem', 'exacerbate', 'anxieties', 'meant', 'allay', 'better', 'get', 'managing', 'time', 'less', 'feel', 'even', 'people', 'successfully', 'implement', 'inbox', 'zero', 'reliably', 'bring', 'calm', 'interpreted', 'mean', 'every', 'email', 'deserved', 'reply', 'shackled', 'firmly', 'inboxes', 'drives', 'crazy', 'mann', 'says', 'others', 'grew', 'jumpy', 'thought', 'messages', 'cluttering', 'inbox', 'supposed', 'stay', 'pristine', 'ended', 'checking', 'frequently', 'dismaying', 'experience', 'inbox', 'zero', 'becoming', 'hyper-efficient', 'processing', 'email', 'meant', 'ended', 'getting', 'email', 'often', 'case', 'replying', 'message', 'generates', 'reply', 'reply', 'contrast', 'negligent', 'emailers', 'often', 'discover', 'forgetting', 'reply', 'brings', 'certain', 'advantages', 'people', 'find', 'alternative', 'solutions', 'problems', 'nagging', 'solve', 'looming', 'crisis', 'emailing', 'never', 'occurs', 'allure', 'doctrine', 'time', 'management', 'one', 'day', 'everything', 'might', 'finally', 'control', 'yet', 'work', 'modern', 'economy', 'notable', 'limitlessness', 'stream', 'incoming', 'emails', 'endless', 'inbox', 'zero', 'never', 'bring', 'liberation', 'still', 'sisyphus', 'rolling', 'boulder', 'hill', 'eternity', 'rolling', 'slightly', 'faster', 'two', 'years', 'google', 'talk', 'mann', 'released', 'rambling', 'slightly', 'manic', 'online', 'video', 'announced', 'signed', 'contract', 'inbox', 'zero', 'book', 'career', 'productivity', 'guru', 'begun', 'stir', 'inner', 'conflict', 'started', 'making', 'pretty', 'good', 'money', 'speaking', 'consulting', 'also', 'started', 'feel', 'terrible', 'told', 'earlier', 'year', 'topic', 'productivity', 'induces', 'worst', 'kind', 'procrastination', 'feels', 'like', 'work', 'producing', 'stuff', 'express', 'purpose', 'saying', 'people', 'look', 'come', 'see', 'work', 'rather', 'work', 'book', 'missed', 'publication', 'date', 'fans', 'started', 'asking', 'questions', 'two', 'years', 'mann', 'published', 'self-lacerating', 'essay', 'abruptly', 'announced', 'jettisoning', 'project', '3000-word', 'howl', 'man', 'suddenly', 'grasped', 'irony', 'missing', 'morning', 'morning', 'three-year-old', 'daughter', 'typing', 'bullshit', 'hoped', 'would', 'please', 'book', 'editor', 'use', 'time', 'well', 'guilty', 'declared', 'abandoning', 'priorities', 'write', 'priorities', 'unintentionally', 'ignored', 'counsel', 'never', 'let', 'hard', 'work', 'fuck', 'good', 'things', 'hinted', 'might', 'write', 'different', 'kind', 'book', 'instead', 'book', 'stuff', 'really', 'mattered', 'never', 'appeared', 'mostly', 'productivity', 'racket', 'days', 'mann', 'told', 'using', 'efficiency', 'jam', 'stuff', 'day', 'well', 'would', 'ever', 'know', 'working', 'understandable', 'respond', 'ratcheting', 'demands', 'modern', 'life', 'trying', 'make', 'efficient', 'efficiency', 'makes', 'things', 'worse', 'given', 'average', 'lifespan', 'consists', 'weeks', 'certain', 'amount', 'anxiety', 'using', 'well', 'presumably', 'inevitable', 'granted', 'mental', 'capacities', 'make', 'infinitely', 'ambitious', 'plans', 'yet', 'almost', 'time', 'put', 'practice', 'problem', 'manage', 'time', 'accordingly', 'goes', 'back', 'least', 'first', 'century', 'ad', 'roman', 'philosopher', 'seneca', 'wrote', 'shortness', 'life', 'space', 'granted', 'us', 'rushes', 'speedily', 'swiftly', 'save', 'find', 'life', 'end', 'getting', 'ready', 'live', 'said', 'chiding', 'fellow', 'citizens', 'wasting', 'days', 'pointless', 'busyness', 'baking', 'bodies', 'sun', 'clearly', 'challenge', 'live', 'lives', 'well', 'new', 'one', 'still', 'safe', 'say', 'citizens', 'first-century', 'rome', 'experience', 'equivalent', 'today', 'productivity', 'panic', 'seneca', 'answer', 'question', 'live', 'nothing', 'becoming', 'productive', 'give', 'pursuit', 'wealth', 'high', 'office', 'spend', 'days', 'philosophising', 'instead', 'uniquely', 'modern', 'fate', 'feel', 'obliged', 'respond', 'pressure', 'time', 'making', 'efficient', 'possible', 'even', 'fails', 'bring', 'promised', 'relief', 'stress', 'time-pressure', 'problem', 'always', 'supposed', 'get', 'better', 'society', 'advanced', 'worse', 'john', 'maynard', 'keynes', 'famously', 'predicted', 'within', 'century', 'economic', 'growth', 'would', 'mean', 'would', 'working', 'hours', 'per', 'week', 'whereupon', 'humanity', 'would', 'face', 'greatest', 'challenge', 'figuring', 'use', 'empty', 'hours', 'economists', 'still', 'argue', 'exactly', 'things', 'turned', 'differently', 'simplest', 'answer', 'capitalism', 'keynes', 'seems', 'assumed', 'would', 'naturally', 'throttle', 'work', 'essential', 'needs', 'plus', 'extra', 'desires', 'satisfied', 'instead', 'keep', 'finding', 'new', 'things', 'need', 'depending', 'rung', 'economic', 'ladder', 'either', 'impossible', 'least', 'usually', 'feels', 'impossible', 'cut', 'work', 'exchange', 'time', 'arguably', 'first', 'time', 'management', 'guru', 'progenitor', 'notion', 'personal', 'productivity', 'might', 'answer', 'problem', 'time', 'pressure', 'frederick', 'winslow', 'taylor', 'engineer', 'hired', 'bethlehem', 'steel', 'works', 'pennsylvania', 'mandate', 'improve', 'firm', 'efficiency', 'staring', 'industrial', 'yard', 'covered', 'several', 'square', 'miles', 'pennsylvania', 'landscape', 'watched', 'labourers', 'loaded', '92lb', 'iron', 'bars', 'rail', 'cars', 'writes', 'matthew', 'stewart', 'book', 'management', 'myth', 'tons', 'worth', 'iron', 'bars', 'carted', 'fast', 'possible', 'meet', 'new', 'demand', 'sparked', 'spanish-american', 'war', 'taylor', 'narrowed', 'eyes', 'waste', 'certain', 'bethlehem', 'workers', 'taylor', 'calculated', 'shifting', 'tons', 'iron', 'per', 'man', 'per', 'day', 'predictably', 'offered', 'group', 'large', 'powerful', 'hungarians', 'extra', 'cash', 'work', 'fast', 'could', 'hour', 'found', 'performed', 'much', 'better', 'extrapolating', 'full', 'work', 'day', 'guesstimating', 'time', 'breaks', 'taylor', 'concluded', 'trademark', 'blend', 'self-confidence', 'woolly', 'maths', 'every', 'man', 'ought', 'shifting', 'tons', 'per', 'day', 'four', 'times', 'usual', 'amount', 'workers', 'naturally', 'unhappy', 'transparent', 'attempt', 'pay', 'money', 'work', 'taylor', 'especially', 'concerned', 'happiness', 'job', 'implement', 'understand', 'new', 'philosophy', 'scientific', 'management', 'one', 'first', 'requirements', 'man', 'fit', 'handle', 'pig', 'iron', 'wrote', 'taylor', 'shall', 'stupid', 'phlegmatic', 'nearly', 'resembles', 'mental', 'makeup', 'ox', 'type', 'stupid', 'word', 'percentage', 'meaning', 'idea', 'efficiency', 'taylor', 'sought', 'impose', 'bethlehem', 'steel', 'borrowed', 'mechanical', 'engineers', 'industrial', 'revolution', 'way', 'thinking', 'improving', 'functioning', 'machines', 'transferred', 'humans', 'caught', 'taylor', 'enjoyed', 'high-profile', 'career', 'lecturer', 'topic', 'according', 'historian', 'jennifer', 'alexander', 'word', 'efficiency', 'plastered', 'everywhere', 'headlines', 'advertisements', 'editorials', 'business', 'manuals', 'church', 'bulletins', 'first', 'decades', '20th', 'century', 'britain', 'panicked', 'rise', 'german', 'power', 'national', 'efficiency', 'movement', 'united', 'politicians', 'left', 'right', 'present', 'time', 'spectator', 'noted', 'universal', 'outcry', 'efficiency', 'departments', 'society', 'aspects', 'life', 'hard', 'grasp', 'appeal', 'efficiency', 'promise', 'already', 'better', 'cheaply', 'less', 'time', 'could', 'wrong', 'unless', 'happened', 'sharp', 'end', 'attempts', 'treat', 'humans', 'like', 'machines', 'like', 'workers', 'bethlehem', 'steel', 'obvious', 'downside', 'century', 'progressed', 'something', 'important', 'changed', 'became', 'frederick', 'winslow', 'taylors', 'presiding', 'ruthlessly', 'lives', 'doctrine', 'efficiency', 'grew', 'entrenched', 'ethos', 'market', 'spread', 'aspects', 'society', 'life', 'became', 'individualistic', 'internalised', 'taylor', 'day', 'efficiency', 'primarily', 'way', 'persuade', 'bully', 'people', 'work', 'amount', 'time', 'regimen', 'impose', 'according', 'legend', 'taylorism', 'first', 'crossed', 'threshold', 'personal', 'productivity', 'charles', 'schwab', 'president', 'bethlehem', 'steel', 'asked', 'another', 'consultant', 'businessman', 'named', 'ivy', 'lee', 'improve', 'executives', 'efficiency', 'well', 'lee', 'advised', 'white-collar', 'workers', 'make', 'nightly', 'to-do', 'lists', 'arranging', 'tomorrow', 'six', 'important', 'tasks', 'priority', 'start', 'top', 'list', 'next', 'morning', 'working', 'stretch', 'imagine', 'nobody', 'thought', 'story', 'goes', 'lee', 'told', 'schwab', 'test', 'three', 'months', 'pay', 'thought', 'worth', 'steel', 'magnate', 'wrote', 'cheque', 'worth', 'today', 'money', 'time', 'management', 'industry', 'running', 'gurus', 'follow', 'writing', 'bestsellers', 'modified', 'lee', 'basic', 'technique', 'incorporate', 'setting', 'long-term', 'goals', 'book', 'get', 'control', 'time', 'life', 'alan', 'lakein', 'boasted', 'advised', 'ibm', 'gloria', 'steinem', 'inspired', 'young', 'bill', 'clinton', 'spiritual', 'values', 'seven', 'habits', 'highly', 'effective', 'people', 'published', 'mormon', 'efficiency', 'expert', 'stephen', 'covey', 'time', 'management', 'promised', 'sense', 'control', 'world', 'individuals', 'decreasingly', 'supported', 'social', 'bonds', 'religion', 'community', 'seemed', 'lack', 'era', 'insecure', 'employment', 'must', 'constantly', 'demonstrate', 'usefulness', 'frenetic', 'time', 'management', 'give', 'valuable', 'edge', 'indeed', 'among', 'growing', 'ranks', 'self-employed', 'freelancer', 'worker', 'so-called', 'gig', 'economy', 'increased', 'personal', 'efficiency', 'may', 'essential', 'survival', 'person', 'suffers', 'financially', 'indulge', 'loafing', 'workplace', 'vice', 'taylor', 'saw', 'theft', 'time', 'management', 'promises', 'meaningful', 'life', 'might', 'still', 'possible', 'profit-driven', 'environment', 'melissa', 'gregg', 'explains', 'counterproductive', 'forthcoming', 'history', 'field', 'right', 'techniques', 'prophets', 'time', 'management', 'implied', 'could', 'fashion', 'fulfilling', 'life', 'simultaneously', 'attending', 'ever-increasing', 'demands', 'employer', 'promise', 'comes', 'back', 'back', 'force', 'whenever', 'economic', 'downturn', 'gregg', 'told', 'especially', 'higher-paid', 'end', 'employment', 'spectrum', 'time', 'management', 'whispers', 'possibility', 'something', 'even', 'desirable', 'true', 'peace', 'mind', 'possible', 'person', 'overwhelming', 'number', 'things', 'still', 'function', 'productively', 'clear', 'head', 'positive', 'sense', 'relaxed', 'control', 'contemporary', 'king', 'productivity', 'gurus', 'david', 'allen', 'declared', 'bestseller', 'getting', 'things', 'done', 'experience', 'martial', 'artists', 'call', 'mind', 'like', 'water', 'top', 'athletes', 'refer', 'zone', 'gregg', 'points', 'significant', 'personal', 'productivity', 'puts', 'burden', 'reconciling', 'demands', 'squarely', 'shoulders', 'individuals', 'time', 'management', 'gurus', 'rarely', 'stop', 'ask', 'whether', 'task', 'merely', 'staying', 'afloat', 'modern', 'economy', 'holding', 'job', 'paying', 'mortgage', 'good-enough', 'parent', 'really', 'ought', 'require', 'rendering', 'inhumanly', 'efficient', 'first', 'place', 'besides', 'closer', 'inspection', 'even', 'lesser', 'promises', 'time', 'management', 'appeared', 'awkward', 'truth', 'taylor', 'celebrated', 'efficiency', 'drives', 'successful', 'bethlehem', 'steel', 'fired', 'paid', 'vast', 'sums', 'without', 'clearly', 'detectable', 'impact', 'profits', 'one', 'persistent', 'consequence', 'schemes', 'seemed', 'promising', 'first', 'left', 'workers', 'exhausted', 'function', 'consistently', 'long', 'term', 'likewise', 'remains', 'frequent', 'experience', 'try', 'follow', 'advice', 'personal', 'productivity', 'gurus', 'speaking', 'years', 'experience', 'mind', 'like', 'water', 'far', 'guaranteed', 'result', 'inbox', 'zero', 'work', 'general', 'efficient', 'get', 'ploughing', 'tasks', 'faster', 'new', 'tasks', 'seem', 'arrive', 'work', 'expands', 'fill', 'time', 'available', 'completion', 'british', 'historian', 'c', 'northcote', 'parkinson', 'realised', 'way', 'back', 'coined', 'would', 'come', 'known', 'parkinson', 'law', 'matter', 'self-consciousness', 'virtually', 'every', 'time', 'management', 'expert', 'first', 'piece', 'advice', 'keep', 'detailed', 'log', 'time', 'use', 'heightens', 'awareness', 'minutes', 'ticking', 'lost', 'ever', 'focusing', 'long-term', 'goals', 'daily', 'life', 'spend', 'feeling', 'vaguely', 'despondent', 'yet', 'achieved', 'manage', 'achieve', 'one', 'satisfaction', 'strikingly', 'brief', 'time', 'set', 'new', 'long-term', 'goal', 'supposed', 'cure', 'makes', 'problem', 'worse', 'historical', 'parallel', 'exactly', 'happened', 'spread', 'labour-saving', 'devices', 'transformed', 'lives', 'housewives', 'domestic', 'servants', 'across', 'europe', 'north', 'america', 'end', '19th', 'century', 'technology', 'meant', 'washing', 'clothes', 'longer', 'entailed', 'day', 'bent', 'mangle', 'vacuum-cleaner', 'could', 'render', 'carpet', 'spotless', 'minutes', 'yet', 'historian', 'ruth', 'cowan', 'demonstrates', 'book', 'work', 'mother', 'result', 'much', '20th', 'century', 'increase', 'leisure', 'time', 'among', 'charged', 'housework', 'instead', 'efficiency', 'housework', 'increased', 'standards', 'cleanliness', 'domestic', 'order', 'society', 'came', 'expect', 'living-room', 'carpet', 'could', 'kept', 'perfectly', 'clean', 'clothes', 'never', 'needed', 'grubby', 'grubbiness', 'taboo', 'days', 'answer', 'work', 'emails', 'bed', 'midnight', 'message', 'got', '530pm', 'really', 'wait', 'till', 'morning', 'reply', 'one', 'boiling', 'weekend', 'last', 'summer', 'impassioned', 'members', 'campaign', 'group', 'named', 'take', 'back', 'time', 'gathered', 'university', 'lecture', 'hall', 'seattle', 'longstanding', 'mission', 'eliminating', 'epidemic', 'overwork', 'explore', 'might', 'mean', 'live', 'life', 'focused', 'personal', 'productivity', 'time', 'matters', 'conference', 'sparsely', 'attended', 'affair', 'part', 'organisers', 'conceded', 'august', 'lots', 'people', 'holiday', 'america', 'enthusiastically', 'pro-relaxation', 'organisation', 'hardly', 'going', 'complain', 'also', 'days', 'even', 'modestly', 'anti-productivity', 'especially', 'us', 'counts', 'subversive', 'stance', 'kind', 'platform', 'lends', 'glitzy', 'mega-events', 'generous', 'corporate', 'sponsorship', 'effective', 'marketing', 'campaigns', 'conference-goers', 'discussed', 'schemes', 'four-day', 'working', 'week', 'abolishing', 'daylight', 'savings', 'time', 'holding', 'elections', 'weekend', 'generally', 'making', 'america', 'like', 'countries', 'italy', 'denmark', 'critic', 'america', 'work', 'culture', 'constantly', 'gaze', 'longingly', 'across', 'atlantic', 'semi-mythical', 'versions', 'scandinavia', 'southern', 'europe', 'members', 'take', 'back', 'time', 'calling', 'something', 'radical', 'merely', 'time', 'sought', 'question', 'whole', 'instrumental', 'attitude', 'towards', 'time', 'idea', 'getting', 'done', 'ought', 'focus', 'first', 'place', 'keep', 'hearing', 'people', 'arguing', 'time', 'might', 'good', 'economy', 'said', 'john', 'de', 'graaf', 'not-even-slightly-relaxed', '70-year-old', 'filmmaker', 'organisation', 'driving', 'force', 'justify', 'life', 'terms', 'economy', 'makes', 'sense', 'one', 'sneakier', 'pitfalls', 'efficiency-based', 'attitude', 'time', 'start', 'feel', 'pressured', 'use', 'leisure', 'time', 'productively', 'attitude', 'implies', 'enjoying', 'leisure', 'sake', 'might', 'assumed', 'whole', 'point', 'leisure', 'somehow', 'quite', 'enough', 'find', 'example', 'travelling', 'unfamiliar', 'places', 'sheer', 'experience', 'travel', 'order', 'add', 'mental', 'storehouse', 'experiences', 'instagram', 'feeds', 'go', 'walking', 'running', 'improve', 'health', 'pleasure', 'movement', 'approach', 'tasks', 'parenthood', 'fixation', 'successful', 'future', 'adults', 'hope', 'create', 'book', 'decline', 'pleasure', 'critic', 'walter', 'kerr', 'noticed', 'shift', 'experience', 'time', 'us', 'compelled', 'read', 'profit', 'party', 'contracts', 'lunch', 'contacts', 'stay', 'home', 'weekend', 'rebuild', 'house', 'even', 'rest', 'recreation', 'culture', 'preoccupied', 'efficiency', 'understood', 'valuable', 'insofar', 'useful', 'purpose', 'usually', 'recuperation', 'enable', 'work', 'several', 'conference', 'guests', 'mentioned', 'arianna', 'huffington', 'current', 'crusade', 'encourage', 'people', 'get', 'sleep', 'seems', 'main', 'point', 'rest', 'excel', 'office', 'increased', 'efficiency', 'brings', 'none', 'benefits', 'supposed', 'bring', 'instead', 'take', 'back', 'time', 'consensus', 'personal', 'lifestyle', 'changes', 'would', 'never', 'suffice', 'reform', 'would', 'start', 'policies', 'vacation', 'maternity', 'leave', 'overtime', 'meantime', 'might', 'try', 'get', 'comfortable', 'efficient', 'possible', 'declining', 'certain', 'opportunities', 'disappointing', 'certain', 'people', 'letting', 'certain', 'tasks', 'go', 'undone', 'plenty', 'unpleasant', 'chores', 'essential', 'survival', 'others', 'conditioned', 'assume', 'compulsory', 'earn', 'money', 'achieve', 'goals', 'realise', 'potential', 'every', 'dimension', 'fit', 'quiet', 'moment', 'seattle', 'robert', 'levine', 'social', 'psychologist', 'california', 'quoted', 'environmentalist', 'edward', 'abbey', 'growth', 'sake', 'growth', 'ideology', 'cancer', 'cell', 'yet', 'ethos', 'efficiency', 'productivity', 'risks', 'prioritising', 'health', 'economy', 'happiness', 'humans', 'also', 'true', 'sense', 'pressure', 'fosters', 'much', 'good', 'business', 'either', 'turns', 'lesson', 'business', 'especially', 'keen', 'learn', 'years', 'consulting', 'microsoft', 'suddenly', 'persona', 'non', 'grata', 'tom', 'demarco', 'told', 'note', 'amusement', 'voice', 'demarco', 'minor', 'legend', 'world', 'software', 'engineering', 'began', 'career', 'bell', 'telephone', 'labs', 'birthplace', 'laser', 'transistor', 'later', 'became', 'expert', 'managing', 'complex', 'software', 'projects', 'field', 'notorious', 'spiralling', 'costs', 'missed', 'deadlines', 'clashing', 'egos', '1980s', 'committed', 'heresy', 'started', 'arguing', 'ramping', 'time', 'pressure', 'employees', 'terrible', 'way', 'drive', 'projects', 'forward', 'needed', 'come', 'realise', 'increased', 'focus', 'using', 'time', 'efficiently', 'opposite', 'slack', 'best', 'companies', 'visited', 'years', 'never', 'hurried', 'demarco', 'said', 'maybe', 'used', 'pressure', 'time', 'time', 'sort', 'amusing', 'side-effect', 'never', 'constant', 'get', 'creativity', 'free', 'need', 'people', 'able', 'sit', 'back', 'put', 'feet', 'think', 'manual', 'work', 'speeded', 'least', 'certain', 'extent', 'increasing', 'time', 'pressure', 'workers', 'good', 'ideas', 'emerge', 'rapidly', 'people', 'feel', 'gun', 'anything', 'good', 'ideas', 'dry', 'part', 'problem', 'simply', 'thinking', 'time', 'encourages', 'clockwatching', 'repeatedly', 'shown', 'studies', 'undermine', 'quality', 'work', 'one', 'representative', 'experiment', 'us', 'researchers', 'asked', 'people', 'complete', 'iowa', 'gambling', 'task', 'venerable', 'decision-making', 'test', 'involves', 'selecting', 'playing', 'cards', 'order', 'win', 'modest', 'amount', 'cash', 'participants', 'given', 'time', 'complete', 'task', 'told', 'time', 'would', 'probably', 'sufficient', 'others', 'warned', 'would', 'tight', 'contrary', 'intuition', 'cherished', 'especially', 'among', 'journalists', 'pressure', 'deadlines', 'forces', 'produce', 'high-quality', 'work', 'second', 'group', 'performed', 'far', 'less', 'well', 'mere', 'awareness', 'limited', 'time', 'triggered', 'anxious', 'emotions', 'got', 'way', 'performance', 'worse', 'perils', 'await', 'demarco', 'points', 'increase', 'efficiency', 'organisation', 'individual', 'life', 'necessitates', 'trade-off', 'get', 'rid', 'unused', 'expanses', 'time', 'also', 'get', 'rid', 'benefits', 'extra', 'time', 'visit', 'family', 'doctor', 'provides', 'obvious', 'example', 'efficiently', 'manage', 'time', 'fuller', 'schedule', 'likely', 'kept', 'sitting', 'waiting', 'room', 'earlier', 'appointment', 'overruns', 'queue', 'cost', 'someone', 'else', 'efficiency', 'shouldered', 'accident', 'emergency', 'department', 'contrast', 'remaining', 'inefficient', 'sense', 'matter', 'life', 'death', 'exclusive', 'focus', 'using', 'staff', 'time', 'efficiently', 'possible', 'result', 'department', 'busy', 'accommodate', 'unpredictable', 'arrivals', 'whole', 'reason', 'exists', 'similar', 'problem', 'afflicts', 'corporate', 'cost-cutting', 'exercise', 'focuses', 'maximising', 'employees', 'efficiency', 'hours', 'put', 'productive', 'use', 'less', 'available', 'respond', 'spur', 'moment', 'critical', 'new', 'demands', 'kind', 'responsiveness', 'idle', 'time', 'must', 'built', 'system', 'organisation', 'accelerate', 'change', 'direction', 'like', 'car', 'speed', 'steer', 'demarco', 'writes', 'short', 'run', 'makes', 'lots', 'progress', 'whatever', 'direction', 'happened', 'going', 'long', 'run', 'another', 'road', 'wreck', 'often', 'uses', 'analogy', 'sliding', 'number', 'puzzles', 'move', 'eight', 'tiles', 'around', 'nine-tile', 'grid', 'digits', 'order', 'use', 'available', 'space', 'efficiently', 'could', 'always', 'add', 'ninth', 'tile', 'empty', 'square', 'would', 'able', 'solve', 'puzzle', 'jammed', 'unsolvable', 'puzzle', 'feels', 'like', 'appropriate', 'metaphor', 'life', 'hard', 'see', 'improving', 'personal', 'efficiency', 'trying', 'force', 'yet', 'tiles', 'grid', 'going', 'much', 'help', 'bottom', 'anxious', 'urge', 'manage', 'time', 'better', 'urge', 'driving', 'frederick', 'winslow', 'taylor', 'merlin', 'mann', 'perhaps', 'hard', 'discern', 'familiar', 'motive', 'fear', 'death', 'philosopher', 'thomas', 'nagel', 'put', 'meaningful', 'timescale', 'human', 'life', 'planet', 'say', 'cosmos', 'dead', 'minute', 'wonder', 'drawn', 'problem', 'make', 'better', 'use', 'days', 'could', 'solve', 'could', 'avoid', 'feeling', 'seneca', 'words', 'finding', 'life', 'end', 'getting', 'ready', 'live', 'die', 'sense', 'nothing', 'left', 'undone', 'nothing', 'less', 'promise', 'immortality', 'means', 'modern', 'zeal', 'personal', 'productivity', 'rooted', 'taylor', 'philosophy', 'efficiency', 'takes', 'things', 'several', 'significant', 'steps', 'could', 'find', 'right', 'techniques', 'apply', 'enough', 'self-discipline', 'suggests', 'could', 'know', 'fitting', 'everything', 'important', 'could', 'feel', 'happy', 'last', 'us', 'indeed', 'obligation', 'maximise', 'productivity', 'convenient', 'ideology', 'point', 'view', 'stand', 'profit', 'working', 'harder', 'increased', 'capacity', 'consumer', 'spending', 'also', 'functions', 'form', 'psychological', 'avoidance', 'convince', 'need', 'never', 'make', 'difficult', 'choices', 'enough', 'time', 'everything', 'less', 'feel', 'obliged', 'ask', 'whether', 'life', 'choosing', 'right', 'one', 'personal', 'productivity', 'presents', 'antidote', 'busyness', 'might', 'better', 'understood', 'yet', 'another', 'form', 'busyness', 'serves', 'psychological', 'role', 'busyness', 'always', 'served', 'keep', 'us', 'sufficiently', 'distracted', 'ask', 'potentially', 'terrifying', 'questions', 'spending', 'days', 'labour', 'daily', 'work', 'ardently', 'thoughtlessly', 'necessary', 'sustain', 'life', 'even', 'necessary', 'leisure', 'stop', 'think', 'wrote', 'friedrich', 'nietzsche', 'reads', 'like', 'foreshadowing', 'present', 'circumstances', 'haste', 'universal', 'everyone', 'flight', 'seek', 'impose', 'order', 'inbox', 'like', 'eventually', 'need', 'confront', 'fact', 'deluge', 'messages', 'urge', 'feel', 'get', 'dealt', 'really', 'technology', 'manifestations', 'larger', 'personal', 'dilemmas', 'paths', 'pursue', 'abandon', 'relationships', 'prioritise', 'shockingly', 'limited', 'lifespan', 'resign', 'disappointing', 'matters', 'merlin', 'mann', 'consciously', 'confronting', 'questions', 'matter', 'realising', 'people', 'would', 'always', 'making', 'claims', 'time', 'worthy', 'claims', 'part', 'would', 'possible', 'meet', 'even', 'best', 'efficient', 'system', 'managing', 'emails', 'sent', 'never', 'going', 'provide', 'solution', 'eventually', 'realised', 'something', 'told', 'email', 'technical', 'problem', 'people', 'problem', 'fix', 'people', 'main', 'illustration', 'pete', 'gamlen', 'follow', 'long', 'read', 'twitter', 'gdnlongread', 'sign', 'long', 'read', 'weekly', 'email']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/uber-cancels-self-driving-car-trial-san-francisco-california

California has forced Uber to remove its self-driving vehicles from the road, canceling the company’s controversial pilot program in San Francisco after a week of embarrassing reports of traffic violations and repeated legal threats from state officials. The department of motor vehicles (DMV) announced late on Wednesday that it had revoked the registration of 16 autonomous Uber cars, which the corporation deployed without proper permits last week and which were caught on numerous occasions running red lights. Uber, which had previously declared that its rejection of government regulations was an “important issue of principle”, confirmed that it has stopped its pilot in a statement, adding: “We’re now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain 100 percent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules.” DMV officials and the state attorney attorney general, Kamala Harris, have noted that Uber must get a testing permit for its Volvo XC90s, which are navigated by a computer system but have a driver in the front seat who can intervene when needed. “It was determined that the registrations were improperly issued for these vehicles because they were not properly marked as test vehicles,” the DMV said in a statement. “Concurrently, the department invited Uber to seek a permit so their vehicles can operate legally in California.” The removal of the cars is a major blow to Uber in its home town and a sign that California will not allow the company to skirt regulations – a tactic that has been a central component of the corporation’s rapid growth. The car-sharing company’s autonomous cars were first unveiled in Pittsburgh in the fall, and Uber quietly started testing the technology on the roads of San Francisco in September. The company officially launched a pilot program accessible to riders last week, claiming that it did not need self-driving permits since the cars have humans inside monitoring. Anthony Levandowski, head of Uber’s advanced technology group, also justified the company’s unpermitted vehicles by claiming that they have “state-of-the-art” technology and “core safety capabilities”. But within hours of the formal pilot program’s start, a video emerged of one of the vehicles running a red light in downtown San Francisco as a pedestrian began to cross the street. Reports of similar errors quickly spread on social media, and Uber blamed the mistakes on “human error”, saying the self-driving technology was not at fault and that they would be suspending drivers. That defense earned widespread criticism from transportation experts and safety advocates, who argued that Uber should take responsibility for the actions of its cars and should collaborate with regulators instead of brazenly defying them. One witness said he saw a self-driving Uber run a red light and nearly cause a collision while the vehicle was in self-driving mode. Uber also admitted to the Guardian this week that the self-driving technology had a “problem” with bike lanes, raising concerns about serious safety risks in a city where there are an estimated 82,000 bike trips each day. The DMV has repeatedly pointed out that 20 manufacturers have gone through proper protocols and obtained permits for self-driving technology. “California’s testing regulations for autonomous vehicles strike a balance between protecting public safety and embracing innovation,” the statement said. “Uber is welcome to test its autonomous technology in California like everybody else.” The DMV statement also said it could take less than 72 hours for Uber to get its permits after completing an application: “The department stands ready to assist Uber in obtaining a permit as expeditiously as possible.” Some have suggested that Uber has aggressively tried to avoid permits so that it does not have to face the public scrutiny of a regulatory process. Companies with permits are required to disclose crashes to the government and submit annual “disengagement reports”, which outline situations when a human operator intervened, sometimes due to technology failures. San Francisco’s mayor, Ed Lee, said he supported the removal of the cars in a statement: “I have always been a strong supporter of innovation and autonomous vehicle development and testing, but only under conditions that put human, bicyclist and pedestrian safety first.” John M Simpson, privacy project director for Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group that has staunchly opposed the pilot program, praised the “DMV’s decisive action”, but said he still had doubts about Uber’s cars and practices. “Given Uber’s safety record over the last two days,” he said, “where they’ve been blasting through red lights and threatening cyclists’ safety, we have fundamental questions about whether the robot cars are even ready to be tested on public highways.”

technology/2016/dec/21/uber-cancels-self-driving-car-trial-san-francisco-california

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-22T01:52:47Z

Uber cancels self-driving car trial in San Francisco after state forces it off road

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/uber-cancels-self-driving-car-trial-san-francisco-california

['california', 'forced', 'uber', 'remove', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'road', 'canceling', 'company', 'controversial', 'pilot', 'program', 'san', 'francisco', 'week', 'embarrassing', 'reports', 'traffic', 'violations', 'repeated', 'legal', 'threats', 'state', 'officials', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'announced', 'late', 'wednesday', 'revoked', 'registration', 'autonomous', 'uber', 'cars', 'corporation', 'deployed', 'without', 'proper', 'permits', 'last', 'week', 'caught', 'numerous', 'occasions', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'uber', 'previously', 'declared', 'rejection', 'government', 'regulations', 'important', 'issue', 'principle', 'confirmed', 'stopped', 'pilot', 'statement', 'adding', 'looking', 'redeploy', 'cars', 'remain', 'percent', 'committed', 'california', 'redoubling', 'efforts', 'develop', 'workable', 'statewide', 'rules', 'dmv', 'officials', 'state', 'attorney', 'attorney', 'general', 'kamala', 'harris', 'noted', 'uber', 'must', 'get', 'testing', 'permit', 'volvo', 'xc90s', 'navigated', 'computer', 'system', 'driver', 'front', 'seat', 'intervene', 'needed', 'determined', 'registrations', 'improperly', 'issued', 'vehicles', 'properly', 'marked', 'test', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'said', 'statement', 'concurrently', 'department', 'invited', 'uber', 'seek', 'permit', 'vehicles', 'operate', 'legally', 'california', 'removal', 'cars', 'major', 'blow', 'uber', 'home', 'town', 'sign', 'california', 'allow', 'company', 'skirt', 'regulations', 'tactic', 'central', 'component', 'corporation', 'rapid', 'growth', 'car-sharing', 'company', 'autonomous', 'cars', 'first', 'unveiled', 'pittsburgh', 'fall', 'uber', 'quietly', 'started', 'testing', 'technology', 'roads', 'san', 'francisco', 'september', 'company', 'officially', 'launched', 'pilot', 'program', 'accessible', 'riders', 'last', 'week', 'claiming', 'need', 'self-driving', 'permits', 'since', 'cars', 'humans', 'inside', 'monitoring', 'anthony', 'levandowski', 'head', 'uber', 'advanced', 'technology', 'group', 'also', 'justified', 'company', 'unpermitted', 'vehicles', 'claiming', 'state-of-the-art', 'technology', 'core', 'safety', 'capabilities', 'within', 'hours', 'formal', 'pilot', 'program', 'start', 'video', 'emerged', 'one', 'vehicles', 'running', 'red', 'light', 'downtown', 'san', 'francisco', 'pedestrian', 'began', 'cross', 'street', 'reports', 'similar', 'errors', 'quickly', 'spread', 'social', 'media', 'uber', 'blamed', 'mistakes', 'human', 'error', 'saying', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'fault', 'would', 'suspending', 'drivers', 'defense', 'earned', 'widespread', 'criticism', 'transportation', 'experts', 'safety', 'advocates', 'argued', 'uber', 'take', 'responsibility', 'actions', 'cars', 'collaborate', 'regulators', 'instead', 'brazenly', 'defying', 'one', 'witness', 'said', 'saw', 'self-driving', 'uber', 'run', 'red', 'light', 'nearly', 'cause', 'collision', 'vehicle', 'self-driving', 'mode', 'uber', 'also', 'admitted', 'guardian', 'week', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'problem', 'bike', 'lanes', 'raising', 'concerns', 'serious', 'safety', 'risks', 'city', 'estimated', 'bike', 'trips', 'day', 'dmv', 'repeatedly', 'pointed', 'manufacturers', 'gone', 'proper', 'protocols', 'obtained', 'permits', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'california', 'testing', 'regulations', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'strike', 'balance', 'protecting', 'public', 'safety', 'embracing', 'innovation', 'statement', 'said', 'uber', 'welcome', 'test', 'autonomous', 'technology', 'california', 'like', 'everybody', 'else', 'dmv', 'statement', 'also', 'said', 'could', 'take', 'less', 'hours', 'uber', 'get', 'permits', 'completing', 'application', 'department', 'stands', 'ready', 'assist', 'uber', 'obtaining', 'permit', 'expeditiously', 'possible', 'suggested', 'uber', 'aggressively', 'tried', 'avoid', 'permits', 'face', 'public', 'scrutiny', 'regulatory', 'process', 'companies', 'permits', 'required', 'disclose', 'crashes', 'government', 'submit', 'annual', 'disengagement', 'reports', 'outline', 'situations', 'human', 'operator', 'intervened', 'sometimes', 'due', 'technology', 'failures', 'san', 'francisco', 'mayor', 'ed', 'lee', 'said', 'supported', 'removal', 'cars', 'statement', 'always', 'strong', 'supporter', 'innovation', 'autonomous', 'vehicle', 'development', 'testing', 'conditions', 'put', 'human', 'bicyclist', 'pedestrian', 'safety', 'first', 'john', 'simpson', 'privacy', 'project', 'director', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'advocacy', 'group', 'staunchly', 'opposed', 'pilot', 'program', 'praised', 'dmv', 'decisive', 'action', 'said', 'still', 'doubts', 'uber', 'cars', 'practices', 'given', 'uber', 'safety', 'record', 'last', 'two', 'days', 'said', 'blasting', 'red', 'lights', 'threatening', 'cyclists', 'safety', 'fundamental', 'questions', 'whether', 'robot', 'cars', 'even', 'ready', 'tested', 'public', 'highways']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/oracle-executive-resigns-ceo-safra-catz-donald-trump

A senior executive at Oracle has publicly resigned after the technology company’s co-CEO Safra Catz joined the Trump transition team and expressed support for the president-elect. Catz had attended last week’s meeting of tech leaders at Trump Tower in New York before accepting the position. Prior to the meeting, Catz said: “I plan to tell the president-elect that we are with him and will help in any way we can. If he can reform the tax code, reduce regulation and negotiate better trade deals, the US technology industry will be stronger and more competitive than ever.” George Polisner, 57, who had worked at Oracle on and off since 1993, posted his resignation letter to LinkedIn, outlining concerns over Trump’s choice of cabinet, tax and environmental policies as well as the stoking of fear and hatred towards minorities. “I am not with President-elect Trump and I am not here to help him in any way,” he said in the post, which has been read more than 150,000 times. “In fact when his policies border on the unconstitutional, the criminal and the morally unjust I am here to oppose him in every possible and legal way. Therefore I must resign from this once great company.” Speaking to the Guardian on Wednesday, Polisner – a progressive political activist and chair of the Democratic central committee in his home county in Oregon – said that he was at a point in his career where he felt he could “make a statement”. “It’s a demonstration, a credible action as opposed to an expression of frustration,” he said. “Although from a personal economic perspective I’ve probably made better decisions!” “I thought I could either be a role model in terms of a path forward or a cautionary tale,” he joked. Polisner would not have resigned so publicly had Catz taken a leave of absence from Oracle to pursue the role with the Trump administration as a private citizen. “I would have been disappointed in her personally, but I would have respected her decision.” he said. “The Trump administration has been on record talking about creating a Muslim registry and doing a number of things that will cause profound societal damage to the most vulnerable and I wanted no part of that.” Once he made his mind up to resign, he told his manager before sending the letter to Catz and simultaneously publishing to LinkedIn. “I decided it was too important to die as a private letter.” Polisner said that it’s important for technology companies to have dialogue with the Trump administration, as happened at last week’s roundtable attended by execs from companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM and Oracle. “There’s incredible intellectual capacity in the technology space that can be used for good, so the meeting was appropriate for expressing how technology companies see the way forward. It’s better to have a seat at the table.” This appears to be the view of Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, according to his response to the staff who questioned how important it was for the company to engage with the president-elect in a private Q&A. “It’s very important,” Cook said. “Governments can affect our ability to do what we do. They can affect it in positive ways and they can affect in not so positive ways. What we do is focus on the policies.” “We very much stand up for what we believe in. We think that’s a key part of what Apple is about. And we’ll continue to do so,” he added. However, Polisner remains concerned about how the president-elect could use technology as a tool to concentrate wealth and power and oppress vulnerable parts of society. “In my mind the table has already been set and they are not going to listen to a tech person who says ‘this may not work out so well’ because they’ve already calculated the impact to the balance sheet.” In the last 24 hours he’s received around 500 messages (around 90% of which are supportive, he said) both from colleagues at Oracle and other people in the technology industry unhappy about how executives are cosying up to Trump. He’s been in touch with some staffers at IBM who have signed a petition urging their CEO Ginni Rometty to stand up to Trump. What’s Polisner planning to do with his newfound spare time? “Take a zen breath from all of this,” he said. The next challenge is to build tools to unite disparate groups of progressives to take political action that goes beyond “resisting bad policy”. “I would love to figure out how we can build a loosely coupled network for progressives, so people can have autonomy and freedom of thought but work together in a crisis.”

technology/2016/dec/21/oracle-executive-resigns-ceo-safra-catz-donald-trump

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-21T20:27:31Z

Oracle executive publicly resigns after CEO joins Trump's transition team

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/oracle-executive-resigns-ceo-safra-catz-donald-trump

['senior', 'executive', 'oracle', 'publicly', 'resigned', 'technology', 'company', 'co-ceo', 'safra', 'catz', 'joined', 'trump', 'transition', 'team', 'expressed', 'support', 'president-elect', 'catz', 'attended', 'last', 'week', 'meeting', 'tech', 'leaders', 'trump', 'tower', 'new', 'york', 'accepting', 'position', 'prior', 'meeting', 'catz', 'said', 'plan', 'tell', 'president-elect', 'help', 'way', 'reform', 'tax', 'code', 'reduce', 'regulation', 'negotiate', 'better', 'trade', 'deals', 'us', 'technology', 'industry', 'stronger', 'competitive', 'ever', 'george', 'polisner', 'worked', 'oracle', 'since', 'posted', 'resignation', 'letter', 'linkedin', 'outlining', 'concerns', 'trump', 'choice', 'cabinet', 'tax', 'environmental', 'policies', 'well', 'stoking', 'fear', 'hatred', 'towards', 'minorities', 'president-elect', 'trump', 'help', 'way', 'said', 'post', 'read', 'times', 'fact', 'policies', 'border', 'unconstitutional', 'criminal', 'morally', 'unjust', 'oppose', 'every', 'possible', 'legal', 'way', 'therefore', 'must', 'resign', 'great', 'company', 'speaking', 'guardian', 'wednesday', 'polisner', 'progressive', 'political', 'activist', 'chair', 'democratic', 'central', 'committee', 'home', 'county', 'oregon', 'said', 'point', 'career', 'felt', 'could', 'make', 'statement', 'demonstration', 'credible', 'action', 'opposed', 'expression', 'frustration', 'said', 'although', 'personal', 'economic', 'perspective', 'probably', 'made', 'better', 'decisions', 'thought', 'could', 'either', 'role', 'model', 'terms', 'path', 'forward', 'cautionary', 'tale', 'joked', 'polisner', 'would', 'resigned', 'publicly', 'catz', 'taken', 'leave', 'absence', 'oracle', 'pursue', 'role', 'trump', 'administration', 'private', 'citizen', 'would', 'disappointed', 'personally', 'would', 'respected', 'decision', 'said', 'trump', 'administration', 'record', 'talking', 'creating', 'muslim', 'registry', 'number', 'things', 'cause', 'profound', 'societal', 'damage', 'vulnerable', 'wanted', 'part', 'made', 'mind', 'resign', 'told', 'manager', 'sending', 'letter', 'catz', 'simultaneously', 'publishing', 'linkedin', 'decided', 'important', 'die', 'private', 'letter', 'polisner', 'said', 'important', 'technology', 'companies', 'dialogue', 'trump', 'administration', 'happened', 'last', 'week', 'roundtable', 'attended', 'execs', 'companies', 'including', 'apple', 'google', 'facebook', 'ibm', 'oracle', 'incredible', 'intellectual', 'capacity', 'technology', 'space', 'used', 'good', 'meeting', 'appropriate', 'expressing', 'technology', 'companies', 'see', 'way', 'forward', 'better', 'seat', 'table', 'appears', 'view', 'apple', 'ceo', 'tim', 'cook', 'according', 'response', 'staff', 'questioned', 'important', 'company', 'engage', 'president-elect', 'private', 'qampa', 'important', 'cook', 'said', 'governments', 'affect', 'ability', 'affect', 'positive', 'ways', 'affect', 'positive', 'ways', 'focus', 'policies', 'much', 'stand', 'believe', 'think', 'key', 'part', 'apple', 'continue', 'added', 'however', 'polisner', 'remains', 'concerned', 'president-elect', 'could', 'use', 'technology', 'tool', 'concentrate', 'wealth', 'power', 'oppress', 'vulnerable', 'parts', 'society', 'mind', 'table', 'already', 'set', 'going', 'listen', 'tech', 'person', 'says', 'may', 'work', 'well', 'already', 'calculated', 'impact', 'balance', 'sheet', 'last', 'hours', 'received', 'around', 'messages', 'around', 'supportive', 'said', 'colleagues', 'oracle', 'people', 'technology', 'industry', 'unhappy', 'executives', 'cosying', 'trump', 'touch', 'staffers', 'ibm', 'signed', 'petition', 'urging', 'ceo', 'ginni', 'rometty', 'stand', 'trump', 'polisner', 'planning', 'newfound', 'spare', 'time', 'take', 'zen', 'breath', 'said', 'next', 'challenge', 'build', 'tools', 'unite', 'disparate', 'groups', 'progressives', 'take', 'political', 'action', 'goes', 'beyond', 'resisting', 'bad', 'policy', 'would', 'love', 'figure', 'build', 'loosely', 'coupled', 'network', 'progressives', 'people', 'autonomy', 'freedom', 'thought', 'work', 'together', 'crisis']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/google-sued-policies-barring-employees-writing-novels

Google is being sued over its internal confidentiality policies which bar employees from putting in writing concerns over “illegal” activity, posting opinions about the company, and even writing novels “about someone working at a tech company in Silicon Valley” without first giving their employer sign-off on the final draft. The lawsuit, revealed by industry news site The Information, accuses Google of breaching California labour laws through its confidentiality provisions, by preventing employees from exercising their legal rights to discuss workplace conditions, wages, and potential violations inside the company. It has been brought by an individual employee under a Californian act that allows employees to sue on behalf of co-workers; if the employee wins, the state gets 75% of the penalty, while the remaining payout would be split among Google’s employees. The maximum fine in Google’s case is almost $4bn. The lawsuit opens with a strong claim: “Google’s motto is ‘don’t be evil.’ Google’s illegal confidentiality agreements and policies fail this test,” it says. The core of the complaint is that Google’s confidentiality policies prevent employees from exercising speech rights which are protected, both constitutionally and in federal and state law. In a statement given to the Guardian, Google described the suit as “baseless”. “We’re very committed to an open internal culture, which means we frequently share with employees details of product launches and confidential business information”, the company added. “Transparency is a huge part of our culture. Our employee confidentiality requirements are designed to protect proprietary business information, while not preventing employees from disclosing information about terms and conditions of employment, or workplace concerns.” The policies, the lawsuit claims, restrict Googlers from effectively seeking new work, because they cannot use all the skills they gain at the company in future jobs; they unlawfully limit what employees can do out of work, by preventing employees from speaking to the press “or otherwise exercising their speech rights”; and they prevent employees from disclosing information to government or regulators, even if the employee believes that Google is breaking the law. One such policy, cited in the lawsuit, instructs Googlers to “avoid communications that conclude, or appear to conclude, that Google or Googlers are acting ‘illegally’ or ‘negligently,’ have ‘violated the law,’ should or would be ‘liable’ for anything, or otherwise convey legal meaning.” Another training program warns them: “Don’t send an email that says ‘I think we broke the law’ or ‘I think we violated this contract.’” The filing also claims “the training program also advises employees that they should not be candid when speaking with Google’s attorneys about dangerous products or violations of the law.” The suit says that Google’s confidentiality policies go so far that they also “prohibit employees from writing creative fiction. Among other things, Google’s Employee Communication Policy prohibits employees from writing ‘a novel about someone working at a tech company in Silicon Valley’ unless Google gives prior approval to both the book idea and the final draft.” While confidentiality policies are common in Silicon Valley, the suit argues that Google has a responsibility to include in its employee training the fact that staffers are allowed to speak about Google with non-Googlers, even press and regulators, in certain circumstances.

technology/2016/dec/21/google-sued-policies-barring-employees-writing-novels

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-21T14:31:17Z

Google sued over policies 'barring employees from writing novels'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/google-sued-policies-barring-employees-writing-novels

['google', 'sued', 'internal', 'confidentiality', 'policies', 'bar', 'employees', 'putting', 'writing', 'concerns', 'illegal', 'activity', 'posting', 'opinions', 'company', 'even', 'writing', 'novels', 'someone', 'working', 'tech', 'company', 'silicon', 'valley', 'without', 'first', 'giving', 'employer', 'sign-off', 'final', 'draft', 'lawsuit', 'revealed', 'industry', 'news', 'site', 'information', 'accuses', 'google', 'breaching', 'california', 'labour', 'laws', 'confidentiality', 'provisions', 'preventing', 'employees', 'exercising', 'legal', 'rights', 'discuss', 'workplace', 'conditions', 'wages', 'potential', 'violations', 'inside', 'company', 'brought', 'individual', 'employee', 'californian', 'act', 'allows', 'employees', 'sue', 'behalf', 'co-workers', 'employee', 'wins', 'state', 'gets', 'penalty', 'remaining', 'payout', 'would', 'split', 'among', 'google', 'employees', 'maximum', 'fine', 'google', 'case', 'almost', '4bn', 'lawsuit', 'opens', 'strong', 'claim', 'google', 'motto', 'evil', 'google', 'illegal', 'confidentiality', 'agreements', 'policies', 'fail', 'test', 'says', 'core', 'complaint', 'google', 'confidentiality', 'policies', 'prevent', 'employees', 'exercising', 'speech', 'rights', 'protected', 'constitutionally', 'federal', 'state', 'law', 'statement', 'given', 'guardian', 'google', 'described', 'suit', 'baseless', 'committed', 'open', 'internal', 'culture', 'means', 'frequently', 'share', 'employees', 'details', 'product', 'launches', 'confidential', 'business', 'information', 'company', 'added', 'transparency', 'huge', 'part', 'culture', 'employee', 'confidentiality', 'requirements', 'designed', 'protect', 'proprietary', 'business', 'information', 'preventing', 'employees', 'disclosing', 'information', 'terms', 'conditions', 'employment', 'workplace', 'concerns', 'policies', 'lawsuit', 'claims', 'restrict', 'googlers', 'effectively', 'seeking', 'new', 'work', 'cannot', 'use', 'skills', 'gain', 'company', 'future', 'jobs', 'unlawfully', 'limit', 'employees', 'work', 'preventing', 'employees', 'speaking', 'press', 'otherwise', 'exercising', 'speech', 'rights', 'prevent', 'employees', 'disclosing', 'information', 'government', 'regulators', 'even', 'employee', 'believes', 'google', 'breaking', 'law', 'one', 'policy', 'cited', 'lawsuit', 'instructs', 'googlers', 'avoid', 'communications', 'conclude', 'appear', 'conclude', 'google', 'googlers', 'acting', 'illegally', 'negligently', 'violated', 'law', 'would', 'liable', 'anything', 'otherwise', 'convey', 'legal', 'meaning', 'another', 'training', 'program', 'warns', 'send', 'email', 'says', 'think', 'broke', 'law', 'think', 'violated', 'contract', 'filing', 'also', 'claims', 'training', 'program', 'also', 'advises', 'employees', 'candid', 'speaking', 'google', 'attorneys', 'dangerous', 'products', 'violations', 'law', 'suit', 'says', 'google', 'confidentiality', 'policies', 'go', 'far', 'also', 'prohibit', 'employees', 'writing', 'creative', 'fiction', 'among', 'things', 'google', 'employee', 'communication', 'policy', 'prohibits', 'employees', 'writing', 'novel', 'someone', 'working', 'tech', 'company', 'silicon', 'valley', 'unless', 'google', 'gives', 'prior', 'approval', 'book', 'idea', 'final', 'draft', 'confidentiality', 'policies', 'common', 'silicon', 'valley', 'suit', 'argues', 'google', 'responsibility', 'include', 'employee', 'training', 'fact', 'staffers', 'allowed', 'speak', 'google', 'non-googlers', 'even', 'press', 'regulators', 'certain', 'circumstances']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/witness-says-self-driving-uber-ran-red-light-on-its-own-disputing-ubers-claims

An autonomous Uber malfunctioned while in “self-driving mode” and caused a near collision in San Francisco, according to a business owner whose account raises new safety concerns about the unregulated technology launch. The self-driving car – which Uber introduced without permits, as part of a testing program that California has deemed illegal – accelerated into an intersection while the light was still red and while the automation technology was clearly controlling the car, said Christopher Koff, owner of local cafe AK Subs. “It looked like the car ran the red light on its own,” Koff, 49, said of the self-driving Uber Volvo, which has a driver in the front seat who can take control when needed. Another car that had the green light had to “slam the brakes” to avoid a crash, he said. Koff’s story, which advocacy group Consumer Watchdog shared with state officials on Tuesday, directly contradicts Uber’s public claims that red-light violations have been the result of “human error” and that the drivers, not the technology, have failed to follow traffic laws. The new allegations – which Uber denied and which cover an incident three weeks ago – have come to light days after the corporation openly refused to adhere to California regulations, claiming that its defiance of government was an “issue of principle”. Uber’s autonomous cars were first spotted on San Francisco streets in September, but the company formally launched a pilot program to riders last week. California officials have repeatedly said the ride-sharing corporation, which is headquartered in San Francisco, needs testing permits, noting that 20 other companies have followed protocols. But Uber has ignored attorney general Kamala Harris’s threat of legal action, claiming it does not need permits since the vehicles have drivers monitoring and citing the cars’ “state-of-the-art” technology and “core safety capabilities”. Koff’s account, however, suggests that the products may not be ready for the road and that safety mechanisms are insufficient. It was around 5am local time, and Koff said he was standing 10ft away from the vehicle when he saw it stopped at a light. While the driver was talking to a passenger, who had a laptop out, the car suddenly drove forward into the red, according to Koff. The driver’s hands were not on the wheel, he added. “He was not driving. It was in self-driving mode,” said Koff. He noted that it was foggy at the time and that there were construction trucks nearby shining yellow lights that could have possibly interfered with the technology. It would not be the first time the computer in a self-driving vehicle made a basic error with potentially life-threatening consequences. In May, the “autopilot sensors” on a Tesla Motors car failed to distinguish a white tractor-trailer crossing the highway against a bright sky, leading to the first known death caused by a self-driving car. Uber also admitted to the Guardian on Monday that its San Francisco cars have a “problem” with the way they cross bike lanes, and the company’s self-driving cars in Pittsburgh have reportedly collided with other cars and driven the wrong way on a street. Spokeswoman Chelsea Kohler declined to provide details about Koff’s claims and sent the Guardian a statement identical to the one she provided last week, citing “human error”, adding: “This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers.” Kohler did not respond to questions about how the company knows the driver was at fault and whether he faced consequences. Last week, she said two drivers had been suspended after the self-driving vehicles had been recorded running red lights. Critics have argued that regardless of whether violations occur in self-driving mode or while a human is in control, Uber needs to be responsible for dangers posed by its cars – and should be embracing regulators, not shunning them. “Someone could be hurt or maimed or paralyzed for the rest of their life because we’re trying to rush something out there,” said Koff, noting that he also recently saw a driver in an autonomous Uber scramble to take control when it was trying to navigate around a nearby bus and an approaching ambulance. John M Simpson, privacy project director for Consumer Watchdog, who filed a report based on Koff’s incident, said he suspects Uber does not want to follow regulations that would require it to disclose details about errors to the government. “Being able to understand the traffic signal and respond appropriately is a key requirement of any so-called self-driving technology,” said Simpson, who has called for criminal charges against Uber. “It obviously failed that test.”

technology/2016/dec/21/witness-says-self-driving-uber-ran-red-light-on-its-own-disputing-ubers-claims

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-21T14:00:19Z

Witness says self-driving Uber ran red light on its own, disputing Uber's claims

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/witness-says-self-driving-uber-ran-red-light-on-its-own-disputing-ubers-claims

['autonomous', 'uber', 'malfunctioned', 'self-driving', 'mode', 'caused', 'near', 'collision', 'san', 'francisco', 'according', 'business', 'owner', 'whose', 'account', 'raises', 'new', 'safety', 'concerns', 'unregulated', 'technology', 'launch', 'self-driving', 'car', 'uber', 'introduced', 'without', 'permits', 'part', 'testing', 'program', 'california', 'deemed', 'illegal', 'accelerated', 'intersection', 'light', 'still', 'red', 'automation', 'technology', 'clearly', 'controlling', 'car', 'said', 'christopher', 'koff', 'owner', 'local', 'cafe', 'ak', 'subs', 'looked', 'like', 'car', 'ran', 'red', 'light', 'koff', 'said', 'self-driving', 'uber', 'volvo', 'driver', 'front', 'seat', 'take', 'control', 'needed', 'another', 'car', 'green', 'light', 'slam', 'brakes', 'avoid', 'crash', 'said', 'koff', 'story', 'advocacy', 'group', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'shared', 'state', 'officials', 'tuesday', 'directly', 'contradicts', 'uber', 'public', 'claims', 'red-light', 'violations', 'result', 'human', 'error', 'drivers', 'technology', 'failed', 'follow', 'traffic', 'laws', 'new', 'allegations', 'uber', 'denied', 'cover', 'incident', 'three', 'weeks', 'ago', 'come', 'light', 'days', 'corporation', 'openly', 'refused', 'adhere', 'california', 'regulations', 'claiming', 'defiance', 'government', 'issue', 'principle', 'uber', 'autonomous', 'cars', 'first', 'spotted', 'san', 'francisco', 'streets', 'september', 'company', 'formally', 'launched', 'pilot', 'program', 'riders', 'last', 'week', 'california', 'officials', 'repeatedly', 'said', 'ride-sharing', 'corporation', 'headquartered', 'san', 'francisco', 'needs', 'testing', 'permits', 'noting', 'companies', 'followed', 'protocols', 'uber', 'ignored', 'attorney', 'general', 'kamala', 'harris', 'threat', 'legal', 'action', 'claiming', 'need', 'permits', 'since', 'vehicles', 'drivers', 'monitoring', 'citing', 'cars', 'state-of-the-art', 'technology', 'core', 'safety', 'capabilities', 'koff', 'account', 'however', 'suggests', 'products', 'may', 'ready', 'road', 'safety', 'mechanisms', 'insufficient', 'around', '5am', 'local', 'time', 'koff', 'said', 'standing', '10ft', 'away', 'vehicle', 'saw', 'stopped', 'light', 'driver', 'talking', 'passenger', 'laptop', 'car', 'suddenly', 'drove', 'forward', 'red', 'according', 'koff', 'driver', 'hands', 'wheel', 'added', 'driving', 'self-driving', 'mode', 'said', 'koff', 'noted', 'foggy', 'time', 'construction', 'trucks', 'nearby', 'shining', 'yellow', 'lights', 'could', 'possibly', 'interfered', 'technology', 'would', 'first', 'time', 'computer', 'self-driving', 'vehicle', 'made', 'basic', 'error', 'potentially', 'life-threatening', 'consequences', 'may', 'autopilot', 'sensors', 'tesla', 'motors', 'car', 'failed', 'distinguish', 'white', 'tractor-trailer', 'crossing', 'highway', 'bright', 'sky', 'leading', 'first', 'known', 'death', 'caused', 'self-driving', 'car', 'uber', 'also', 'admitted', 'guardian', 'monday', 'san', 'francisco', 'cars', 'problem', 'way', 'cross', 'bike', 'lanes', 'company', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'pittsburgh', 'reportedly', 'collided', 'cars', 'driven', 'wrong', 'way', 'street', 'spokeswoman', 'chelsea', 'kohler', 'declined', 'provide', 'details', 'koff', 'claims', 'sent', 'guardian', 'statement', 'identical', 'one', 'provided', 'last', 'week', 'citing', 'human', 'error', 'adding', 'believe', 'much', 'making', 'roads', 'safer', 'building', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'kohler', 'respond', 'questions', 'company', 'knows', 'driver', 'fault', 'whether', 'faced', 'consequences', 'last', 'week', 'said', 'two', 'drivers', 'suspended', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'recorded', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'critics', 'argued', 'regardless', 'whether', 'violations', 'occur', 'self-driving', 'mode', 'human', 'control', 'uber', 'needs', 'responsible', 'dangers', 'posed', 'cars', 'embracing', 'regulators', 'shunning', 'someone', 'could', 'hurt', 'maimed', 'paralyzed', 'rest', 'life', 'trying', 'rush', 'something', 'said', 'koff', 'noting', 'also', 'recently', 'saw', 'driver', 'autonomous', 'uber', 'scramble', 'take', 'control', 'trying', 'navigate', 'around', 'nearby', 'bus', 'approaching', 'ambulance', 'john', 'simpson', 'privacy', 'project', 'director', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'filed', 'report', 'based', 'koff', 'incident', 'said', 'suspects', 'uber', 'want', 'follow', 'regulations', 'would', 'require', 'disclose', 'details', 'errors', 'government', 'able', 'understand', 'traffic', 'signal', 'respond', 'appropriately', 'key', 'requirement', 'so-called', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'said', 'simpson', 'called', 'criminal', 'charges', 'uber', 'obviously', 'failed', 'test']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/drone-users-face-safety-test-new-uk-regulations

Anyone who buys a drone in the UK may have to register it and take a safety test under new measures to prevent potential collisions with passenger jets. Measures proposed by ministers also include criminal liability for anyone who flies a drone in “no-fly zones” surrounding airports and prisons, and an increase in fines, which currently cannot exceed £2,500. Ministers also want to make drones electronically identifiable on the ground, in order to make it easier for police to track devices to their owners. The government wants the drone industry – estimated to be worth £102bn by 2025 – to grow safely and with public consent. While there are already strict rules for drone users, the unmanned aerial vehicles, which can operate under remote control or autonomously by onboard computers, have become increasingly widespread, and are cheaply available in high street shops and online. Their popularity has led to a spike in the number of near-misses with passenger jets, with aviation chiefs receiving reports of 56 near-miss incidents in the 10 months to October – up from 29 in all of the previous year and six in 2014. Fears that drones could cause a major air accident were reignited after two near-misses this month. In the first incident, investigators said a drone about 2ft (60cm) wide had just missed the right wing of a Boeing 767 coming in to land at Manchester airport. In the second, a drone the size of a football came within 20 metres of an Airbus A320 as it circled above London on its way to Heathrow. The aviation minister, Lord Ahmad, said drones had enormous economic potential and were already being used by emergency services, transport and energy providers and conservation groups to improve services, respond to incidents and save lives. He added, however, that while the vast majority of drone users were law-abiding and had good intentions, “some operators are not aware of the rules or choose to break them, putting public safety, privacy and security at risk”. Current regulations by the Civil Aviation Authority require drones to be kept in line of sight and flown no higher than 120 metres. They also forbid any drone with a camera from flying within 50 metres of buildings, vehicles, people or over large crowds, and anyone using a drone for commercial purposes has to register it with the CAA. But the new plans would mean casual users would also have to register their drones – if they weigh over 250g – and take a test similar to the driving theory test. Tim Johnson, the policy director at the CAA, said: “Our priority is the safe operation of drones and we cannot underestimate the importance of understanding how to use drones safely and responsibly. Drones have significant potential to drive benefits across a range of sectors from farming to emergency response, healthcare to logistics. We encourage anyone with an interest in this area to respond to the government’s consultation.” Steve Landells, flight safety specialist at the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), said: “We need to understand more about the threat drones pose, and Balpa is working with the government and regulators to ensure this is an issue that’s being taken seriously in the corridors of power. “Drones are here to stay and, as this technology develops and becomes more important in the aviation world, it is vital they are integrated into the airspace in a safe and sensible manner. “Pilots are concerned about the growing number of near-misses and the potential for catastrophe should a collision occur. “At the same time, Balpa believes drone operators, especially hobbyists, need to be made aware of the potential dangers of irresponsible flying. We support the Department for Transport in pressing for better education, compulsory registration and high-profile prosecution for careless operators.”

technology/2016/dec/21/drone-users-face-safety-test-new-uk-regulations

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-21T09:17:06Z

Drone users face safety test under new UK regulations

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/drone-users-face-safety-test-new-uk-regulations

['anyone', 'buys', 'drone', 'uk', 'may', 'register', 'take', 'safety', 'test', 'new', 'measures', 'prevent', 'potential', 'collisions', 'passenger', 'jets', 'measures', 'proposed', 'ministers', 'also', 'include', 'criminal', 'liability', 'anyone', 'flies', 'drone', 'no-fly', 'zones', 'surrounding', 'airports', 'prisons', 'increase', 'fines', 'currently', 'cannot', 'exceed', 'ministers', 'also', 'want', 'make', 'drones', 'electronically', 'identifiable', 'ground', 'order', 'make', 'easier', 'police', 'track', 'devices', 'owners', 'government', 'wants', 'drone', 'industry', 'estimated', 'worth', '102bn', 'grow', 'safely', 'public', 'consent', 'already', 'strict', 'rules', 'drone', 'users', 'unmanned', 'aerial', 'vehicles', 'operate', 'remote', 'control', 'autonomously', 'onboard', 'computers', 'become', 'increasingly', 'widespread', 'cheaply', 'available', 'high', 'street', 'shops', 'online', 'popularity', 'led', 'spike', 'number', 'near-misses', 'passenger', 'jets', 'aviation', 'chiefs', 'receiving', 'reports', 'near-miss', 'incidents', 'months', 'october', 'previous', 'year', 'six', 'fears', 'drones', 'could', 'cause', 'major', 'air', 'accident', 'reignited', 'two', 'near-misses', 'month', 'first', 'incident', 'investigators', 'said', 'drone', '2ft', '60cm', 'wide', 'missed', 'right', 'wing', 'boeing', 'coming', 'land', 'manchester', 'airport', 'second', 'drone', 'size', 'football', 'came', 'within', 'metres', 'airbus', 'a320', 'circled', 'london', 'way', 'heathrow', 'aviation', 'minister', 'lord', 'ahmad', 'said', 'drones', 'enormous', 'economic', 'potential', 'already', 'used', 'emergency', 'services', 'transport', 'energy', 'providers', 'conservation', 'groups', 'improve', 'services', 'respond', 'incidents', 'save', 'lives', 'added', 'however', 'vast', 'majority', 'drone', 'users', 'law-abiding', 'good', 'intentions', 'operators', 'aware', 'rules', 'choose', 'break', 'putting', 'public', 'safety', 'privacy', 'security', 'risk', 'current', 'regulations', 'civil', 'aviation', 'authority', 'require', 'drones', 'kept', 'line', 'sight', 'flown', 'higher', 'metres', 'also', 'forbid', 'drone', 'camera', 'flying', 'within', 'metres', 'buildings', 'vehicles', 'people', 'large', 'crowds', 'anyone', 'using', 'drone', 'commercial', 'purposes', 'register', 'caa', 'new', 'plans', 'would', 'mean', 'casual', 'users', 'would', 'also', 'register', 'drones', 'weigh', '250g', 'take', 'test', 'similar', 'driving', 'theory', 'test', 'tim', 'johnson', 'policy', 'director', 'caa', 'said', 'priority', 'safe', 'operation', 'drones', 'cannot', 'underestimate', 'importance', 'understanding', 'use', 'drones', 'safely', 'responsibly', 'drones', 'significant', 'potential', 'drive', 'benefits', 'across', 'range', 'sectors', 'farming', 'emergency', 'response', 'healthcare', 'logistics', 'encourage', 'anyone', 'interest', 'area', 'respond', 'government', 'consultation', 'steve', 'landells', 'flight', 'safety', 'specialist', 'british', 'airline', 'pilots', 'association', 'balpa', 'said', 'need', 'understand', 'threat', 'drones', 'pose', 'balpa', 'working', 'government', 'regulators', 'ensure', 'issue', 'taken', 'seriously', 'corridors', 'power', 'drones', 'stay', 'technology', 'develops', 'becomes', 'important', 'aviation', 'world', 'vital', 'integrated', 'airspace', 'safe', 'sensible', 'manner', 'pilots', 'concerned', 'growing', 'number', 'near-misses', 'potential', 'catastrophe', 'collision', 'occur', 'time', 'balpa', 'believes', 'drone', 'operators', 'especially', 'hobbyists', 'need', 'made', 'aware', 'potential', 'dangers', 'irresponsible', 'flying', 'support', 'department', 'transport', 'pressing', 'better', 'education', 'compulsory', 'registration', 'high-profile', 'prosecution', 'careless', 'operators']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/21/how-2016-became-the-year-of-the-hack-and-what-it-means-for-the-future

While new revelations about Russian hacking during the US election continue to make headlines, they were by no means the only big cyber-attacks of the last year. In fact, there were so many that you could dub 2016 as “the year of the hack”. A hallmark of 2016 cyber-attacks has been just how public they have become. On 21 October, an attack on internet infrastructure provider Dyn with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack took down access to Netflix, Facebook, Twitter plus the Guardian, CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and others. In addition to the high-profile nature of the hack, it was noteworthy because of its cause: exploitation of internet-connected everyday devices such as webcams and digital recorders. Last month, the bank operated by UK supermarket chain Tesco was hit, resulting in £2.5m being stolen from the accounts of some 9,000 customers. And then there was the massive Yahoo hack. It technically took place in 20013, but the revelation came this month that data from more than 1bn user accounts was compromised, with some dubbing it the largest such hack in history. This news followed a September revelation of a 2014 incident that allowed hackers to steal the personal data associated with at least 500m Yahoo accounts. Russia was not the only country involved in a hacking controversy in 2016. For the first four months of the year, Apple was in a well-publicized tussle with the FBI over whether the company would help hack into the iPhone of San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook. “2016 was most notable for the evolution of nation state attacks,” said Richard Stiennon, author of There Will Be Cyberwar. “Cyber espionage has been an important tool for hackers and intelligence agencies since at least 2004 and Titan Rain. But releasing the emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta was new and scary.” He also suggested that the lessons for 2017 could begin with looking at who is doing the attacking and then at how much work organizations will have to do in improving data protection. Stiennon said the level of data protection an organization needs to prevent similar breaches and embarrassing “doxing” (wherein stolen documents are released to the public) is daunting to contemplate, but necessary. Craig Fagan, policy director at the World Wide Web Foundation, agrees. “Every citizen has the right to know that their personal data is being stored securely and privately online,” he said. “Yet the scale and breadth of the hacks we’ve seen in 2016 show that governments and companies must do more to safeguard these essential digital rights. 2017 must be the year to change this.” It also looks like the growing scale of attacks will affect how they tackle the threat of hacking in 2017. In the September announcement of its 2016 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), the European Police Office (Europol) highlighted the growing range of cyber threats. The past year “has seen the further evolution of established cybercrime trends”, according to Steven Wilson, head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. “The threat from ransomware has continued to grow and has now expanded into sectors such as healthcare. Europol has also seen the development of malware targeting the ATM network, impacting cash services worldwide.” Rob Guidry, CEO of social media analytics company Sc2 and a former special adviser to US central command, suggested that money was still a big motive behind many attacks and played a major role in Russian hacking. “Russian hackers, specifically, tend to be motivated by the value of the data that they take. They have also been known to [for compensation] back Russian national strategic pursuits with DDoS and other means, to drive a political aim,” he said. “The Russian government has had a cozy relationship with professional private hackers for years, and it has been highly useful to them.” In addition to being active players in the encouragement of hacking, some governments, the World Wide Web Foundation’s Craig Fagan also warns, are “unravelling the security of the internet for everyone” through new legislation. “For instance, the UK’s new Investigatory Powers Act forces ISPs [internet service providers] to store everyone’s browsing history for 12 months, creating an ideal target for scammers and blackmailers,” he said. “The act is likely to embolden other countries to follow the UK’s bad example, with grave consequences for all of our privacy.” Andrew Crocker, an attorney on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties team, echoed this sentiment and warned against fear of cyber-attacks and hacking being used by lawmakers to pass sweeping anti-hacking legislation that could have unintended consequences. “The prevalence of these data breaches, botnets, and other attacks highlight the importance of data security best practices and the need to reject government proposals to weaken security, such as mandating encryption backdoors,” he said. Sc2’s Rob Guidry suggests that by the time we get to the end of 2017, we may look back on the major hacks of 2016 as being not so bad. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he says. “Hacking is going to become a price that people pay for doing business over the internet much in the same way that piracy was once a cost of doing business through shipping.”

technology/2016/dec/21/how-2016-became-the-year-of-the-hack-and-what-it-means-for-the-future

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-21T08:00:12Z

How 2016 became the year of the hack – and what it means for the future

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/21/how-2016-became-the-year-of-the-hack-and-what-it-means-for-the-future

['new', 'revelations', 'russian', 'hacking', 'us', 'election', 'continue', 'make', 'headlines', 'means', 'big', 'cyber-attacks', 'last', 'year', 'fact', 'many', 'could', 'dub', 'year', 'hack', 'hallmark', 'cyber-attacks', 'public', 'become', 'october', 'attack', 'internet', 'infrastructure', 'provider', 'dyn', 'distributed', 'denial', 'service', 'ddos', 'attack', 'took', 'access', 'netflix', 'facebook', 'twitter', 'plus', 'guardian', 'cnn', 'new', 'york', 'times', 'wall', 'street', 'journal', 'others', 'addition', 'high-profile', 'nature', 'hack', 'noteworthy', 'cause', 'exploitation', 'internet-connected', 'everyday', 'devices', 'webcams', 'digital', 'recorders', 'last', 'month', 'bank', 'operated', 'uk', 'supermarket', 'chain', 'tesco', 'hit', 'resulting', '25m', 'stolen', 'accounts', 'customers', 'massive', 'yahoo', 'hack', 'technically', 'took', 'place', 'revelation', 'came', 'month', 'data', '1bn', 'user', 'accounts', 'compromised', 'dubbing', 'largest', 'hack', 'history', 'news', 'followed', 'september', 'revelation', 'incident', 'allowed', 'hackers', 'steal', 'personal', 'data', 'associated', 'least', '500m', 'yahoo', 'accounts', 'russia', 'country', 'involved', 'hacking', 'controversy', 'first', 'four', 'months', 'year', 'apple', 'well-publicized', 'tussle', 'fbi', 'whether', 'company', 'would', 'help', 'hack', 'iphone', 'san', 'bernardino', 'gunman', 'syed', 'farook', 'notable', 'evolution', 'nation', 'state', 'attacks', 'said', 'richard', 'stiennon', 'author', 'cyberwar', 'cyber', 'espionage', 'important', 'tool', 'hackers', 'intelligence', 'agencies', 'since', 'least', 'titan', 'rain', 'releasing', 'emails', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'john', 'podesta', 'new', 'scary', 'also', 'suggested', 'lessons', 'could', 'begin', 'looking', 'attacking', 'much', 'work', 'organizations', 'improving', 'data', 'protection', 'stiennon', 'said', 'level', 'data', 'protection', 'organization', 'needs', 'prevent', 'similar', 'breaches', 'embarrassing', 'doxing', 'wherein', 'stolen', 'documents', 'released', 'public', 'daunting', 'contemplate', 'necessary', 'craig', 'fagan', 'policy', 'director', 'world', 'wide', 'web', 'foundation', 'agrees', 'every', 'citizen', 'right', 'know', 'personal', 'data', 'stored', 'securely', 'privately', 'online', 'said', 'yet', 'scale', 'breadth', 'hacks', 'seen', 'show', 'governments', 'companies', 'must', 'safeguard', 'essential', 'digital', 'rights', 'must', 'year', 'change', 'also', 'looks', 'like', 'growing', 'scale', 'attacks', 'affect', 'tackle', 'threat', 'hacking', 'september', 'announcement', 'internet', 'organised', 'crime', 'threat', 'assessment', 'iocta', 'european', 'police', 'office', 'europol', 'highlighted', 'growing', 'range', 'cyber', 'threats', 'past', 'year', 'seen', 'evolution', 'established', 'cybercrime', 'trends', 'according', 'steven', 'wilson', 'head', 'europol', 'european', 'cybercrime', 'centre', 'threat', 'ransomware', 'continued', 'grow', 'expanded', 'sectors', 'healthcare', 'europol', 'also', 'seen', 'development', 'malware', 'targeting', 'atm', 'network', 'impacting', 'cash', 'services', 'worldwide', 'rob', 'guidry', 'ceo', 'social', 'media', 'analytics', 'company', 'sc2', 'former', 'special', 'adviser', 'us', 'central', 'command', 'suggested', 'money', 'still', 'big', 'motive', 'behind', 'many', 'attacks', 'played', 'major', 'role', 'russian', 'hacking', 'russian', 'hackers', 'specifically', 'tend', 'motivated', 'value', 'data', 'take', 'also', 'known', 'compensation', 'back', 'russian', 'national', 'strategic', 'pursuits', 'ddos', 'means', 'drive', 'political', 'aim', 'said', 'russian', 'government', 'cozy', 'relationship', 'professional', 'private', 'hackers', 'years', 'highly', 'useful', 'addition', 'active', 'players', 'encouragement', 'hacking', 'governments', 'world', 'wide', 'web', 'foundation', 'craig', 'fagan', 'also', 'warns', 'unravelling', 'security', 'internet', 'everyone', 'new', 'legislation', 'instance', 'uk', 'new', 'investigatory', 'powers', 'act', 'forces', 'isps', 'internet', 'service', 'providers', 'store', 'everyone', 'browsing', 'history', 'months', 'creating', 'ideal', 'target', 'scammers', 'blackmailers', 'said', 'act', 'likely', 'embolden', 'countries', 'follow', 'uk', 'bad', 'example', 'grave', 'consequences', 'privacy', 'andrew', 'crocker', 'attorney', 'electronic', 'frontier', 'foundation', 'civil', 'liberties', 'team', 'echoed', 'sentiment', 'warned', 'fear', 'cyber-attacks', 'hacking', 'used', 'lawmakers', 'pass', 'sweeping', 'anti-hacking', 'legislation', 'could', 'unintended', 'consequences', 'prevalence', 'data', 'breaches', 'botnets', 'attacks', 'highlight', 'importance', 'data', 'security', 'best', 'practices', 'need', 'reject', 'government', 'proposals', 'weaken', 'security', 'mandating', 'encryption', 'backdoors', 'said', 'sc2', 'rob', 'guidry', 'suggests', 'time', 'get', 'end', 'may', 'look', 'back', 'major', 'hacks', 'bad', 'going', 'get', 'worse', 'gets', 'better', 'says', 'hacking', 'going', 'become', 'price', 'people', 'pay', 'business', 'internet', 'much', 'way', 'piracy', 'cost', 'business', 'shipping']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-jarvis-artificial-intelligence-video

It’s been a horrible year for Facebook and the world, but that hasn’t stopped Mark Zuckerberg from sending a saccharine digital Christmas (sorry, non-denominational holiday season) card, in the form of a two-minute video, showcasing his perfect life. Soundtracked by plinky-plonky music, Zuck presents a simple AI called “Jarvis” (named after Iron Man’s butler) that he’s spent about 100 hours this year programming. Jarvis, who is voiced in the video by Morgan Freeman, is the virtual assistant the Facebook CEO set out to build as a personal challenge that would help him understand the state of artificial intelligence. As we sweep through Zuckerberg’s enormous, minimalist home, we witness Jarvis provide calendar briefings, entertain Zuck’s daughter Max in Mandarin, identify and let people into his home, control the lights and play music. There are smiles and tickles and popcorn interspersed with on-brand messaging about Messenger bots, internet drones and conference calls. It’s a two-minute, unsolicited humblebrag with a hammy script and a stilted, dead-eyed delivery that makes you question whether Mark or Jarvis is the robot. (At one point he eats an unbuttered piece of toast straight from the toaster. What kind of human does this?) In releasing this video, Mark Zuckerberg has become Jenny from high school who sends professionally shot holiday cards featuring her husband Chip and their two adorable children all wearing Santa hats and holding large carved oak letters that spell out “blessed”. Inside, there’s a round-robin newsletter: “Chloe is showing a real affinity for ballet (more good toes than naughty toes!) while Tucker is reading well above grade level – who knew eight-year-olds would enjoy Dostoevsky?!” By meticulously choreographing a pastiche of domestic bliss and quirky invention, Zuck’s “people” appear to be trying to shift the attention away from 2016’s tribulations. This is Zuckerberg the tinkerer and family man, not the guy accused of building algorithms that played a role in the US presidential election. Unfortunately, the performance is as wooden as Jenny’s letters. Then there are the jokes, which we should probably call “fake jokes”. They look like jokes and are delivered like jokes, but they are devoid of real joke content. The Guardian understands that some of these so-called “jokes” were produced by entrepreneurial Macedonian teenagers. At one point Mark asks Jarvis to “play us some good Nickelback songs” and Jarvis responds: “I’m sorry, Mark, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Ooh, we think, a 2001: A Space Odyssey reference. Perhaps Jarvis has turned evil? But no, Jarvis waits a beat before telling Mark that their are no good Nickelback songs – a punchline that’s about as edgy as a satsuma. “In case it’s not clear, this is meant to be a fun summary and not a live demo,” said Zuckerberg in a comment immediately after posting the video – a clarification that was simultaneously helpful for those who failed to spot the “fun” while siphoning off any remaining dregs of fun for those who did. If we were to suggest a personal challenge for 2017, it would be to refrain from making any more “fun” videos.

technology/2016/dec/20/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-jarvis-artificial-intelligence-video

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T21:48:35Z

Mark Zuckerberg out-robots his AI robot in saccharine holiday video

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-jarvis-artificial-intelligence-video

['horrible', 'year', 'facebook', 'world', 'stopped', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'sending', 'saccharine', 'digital', 'christmas', 'sorry', 'non-denominational', 'holiday', 'season', 'card', 'form', 'two-minute', 'video', 'showcasing', 'perfect', 'life', 'soundtracked', 'plinky-plonky', 'music', 'zuck', 'presents', 'simple', 'ai', 'called', 'jarvis', 'named', 'iron', 'man', 'butler', 'spent', 'hours', 'year', 'programming', 'jarvis', 'voiced', 'video', 'morgan', 'freeman', 'virtual', 'assistant', 'facebook', 'ceo', 'set', 'build', 'personal', 'challenge', 'would', 'help', 'understand', 'state', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'sweep', 'zuckerberg', 'enormous', 'minimalist', 'home', 'witness', 'jarvis', 'provide', 'calendar', 'briefings', 'entertain', 'zuck', 'daughter', 'max', 'mandarin', 'identify', 'let', 'people', 'home', 'control', 'lights', 'play', 'music', 'smiles', 'tickles', 'popcorn', 'interspersed', 'on-brand', 'messaging', 'messenger', 'bots', 'internet', 'drones', 'conference', 'calls', 'two-minute', 'unsolicited', 'humblebrag', 'hammy', 'script', 'stilted', 'dead-eyed', 'delivery', 'makes', 'question', 'whether', 'mark', 'jarvis', 'robot', 'one', 'point', 'eats', 'unbuttered', 'piece', 'toast', 'straight', 'toaster', 'kind', 'human', 'releasing', 'video', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'become', 'jenny', 'high', 'school', 'sends', 'professionally', 'shot', 'holiday', 'cards', 'featuring', 'husband', 'chip', 'two', 'adorable', 'children', 'wearing', 'santa', 'hats', 'holding', 'large', 'carved', 'oak', 'letters', 'spell', 'blessed', 'inside', 'round-robin', 'newsletter', 'chloe', 'showing', 'real', 'affinity', 'ballet', 'good', 'toes', 'naughty', 'toes', 'tucker', 'reading', 'well', 'grade', 'level', 'knew', 'eight-year-olds', 'would', 'enjoy', 'dostoevsky', 'meticulously', 'choreographing', 'pastiche', 'domestic', 'bliss', 'quirky', 'invention', 'zuck', 'people', 'appear', 'trying', 'shift', 'attention', 'away', 'tribulations', 'zuckerberg', 'tinkerer', 'family', 'man', 'guy', 'accused', 'building', 'algorithms', 'played', 'role', 'us', 'presidential', 'election', 'unfortunately', 'performance', 'wooden', 'jenny', 'letters', 'jokes', 'probably', 'call', 'fake', 'jokes', 'look', 'like', 'jokes', 'delivered', 'like', 'jokes', 'devoid', 'real', 'joke', 'content', 'guardian', 'understands', 'so-called', 'jokes', 'produced', 'entrepreneurial', 'macedonian', 'teenagers', 'one', 'point', 'mark', 'asks', 'jarvis', 'play', 'us', 'good', 'nickelback', 'songs', 'jarvis', 'responds', 'sorry', 'mark', 'afraid', 'ooh', 'think', 'space', 'odyssey', 'reference', 'perhaps', 'jarvis', 'turned', 'evil', 'jarvis', 'waits', 'beat', 'telling', 'mark', 'good', 'nickelback', 'songs', 'punchline', 'edgy', 'satsuma', 'case', 'clear', 'meant', 'fun', 'summary', 'live', 'demo', 'said', 'zuckerberg', 'comment', 'immediately', 'posting', 'video', 'clarification', 'simultaneously', 'helpful', 'failed', 'spot', 'fun', 'siphoning', 'remaining', 'dregs', 'fun', 'suggest', 'personal', 'challenge', 'would', 'refrain', 'making', 'fun', 'videos']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/eu-facebook-misleading-information-whatsapp

The European commission (EC) has filed charges against Facebook for providing “misleading” information in the run-up to the social network’s acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp after its data-sharing change in August. The charges will not have an affect on the approval of the $22bn merger and is being treated completely separately to other European cases against Facebook, but could lead to Facebook being fined up to 1% of its global turnover in 2014 when the merger was approved, which was greater than $10bn for the first time. The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said: “Companies are obliged to give the commission accurate information during merger investigations. They must take this obligation seriously. “Our timely and effective review of mergers depends on the accuracy of the information provided by the companies involved. In this specific case, the commission’s preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond.” The commission said that Facebook informed regulators that it would not be able to perform automated matching between user-held Facebook accounts and WhatsApp accounts. However, Facebook’s privacy policy change for WhatsApp in August, for which the EC was notified in January, specifically enabled automated matching and data sharing after technical changes, including one for Apple and its iOS, allowed the matching of the majority of accounts not using a phone number with Facebook. The commission’s review of the merger in 2014 revolved around whether Facebook would or could merge the two messaging services, making them cross-compatible; a technically difficult feat that was made harder in 2016 with the roll out of WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption for messages by default. Facebook has until 31 January 2017 to respond to the charges. A Facebook spokesperson said the company was pleased that the EC stands by its clearance of the company’s WhatsApp acquisition and would continue to co-operate with regulators to resolve their complaints. It said: “We respect the commission’s process and are confident that a full review of the facts will confirm Facebook has acted in good faith. “We’ve consistently provided accurate information about our technical capabilities and plans, including in submissions about the WhatsApp acquisition and in voluntary briefings before WhatsApp’s privacy policy update this year.” Facebook halted the use of user data shared between WhatsApp and Facebook for advertising purposes in November after pressure from the pan-European data protection agency group Article 29 Working Party in October. Why we should worry about WhatsApp accessing our personal information - Elizabeth Denham EU proposals will force multinationals to disclose tax arrangements Facebook wins appeal against Belgian privacy watchdog over tracking

technology/2016/dec/20/eu-facebook-misleading-information-whatsapp

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T14:39:07Z

EU charges Facebook with giving 'misleading' information over WhatsApp

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/eu-facebook-misleading-information-whatsapp

['european', 'commission', 'ec', 'filed', 'charges', 'facebook', 'providing', 'misleading', 'information', 'run-up', 'social', 'network', 'acquisition', 'messaging', 'service', 'whatsapp', 'data-sharing', 'change', 'august', 'charges', 'affect', 'approval', '22bn', 'merger', 'treated', 'completely', 'separately', 'european', 'cases', 'facebook', 'could', 'lead', 'facebook', 'fined', 'global', 'turnover', 'merger', 'approved', 'greater', '10bn', 'first', 'time', 'european', 'competition', 'commissioner', 'margrethe', 'vestager', 'said', 'companies', 'obliged', 'give', 'commission', 'accurate', 'information', 'merger', 'investigations', 'must', 'take', 'obligation', 'seriously', 'timely', 'effective', 'review', 'mergers', 'depends', 'accuracy', 'information', 'provided', 'companies', 'involved', 'specific', 'case', 'commission', 'preliminary', 'view', 'facebook', 'gave', 'us', 'incorrect', 'misleading', 'information', 'investigation', 'acquisition', 'whatsapp', 'facebook', 'opportunity', 'respond', 'commission', 'said', 'facebook', 'informed', 'regulators', 'would', 'able', 'perform', 'automated', 'matching', 'user-held', 'facebook', 'accounts', 'whatsapp', 'accounts', 'however', 'facebook', 'privacy', 'policy', 'change', 'whatsapp', 'august', 'ec', 'notified', 'january', 'specifically', 'enabled', 'automated', 'matching', 'data', 'sharing', 'technical', 'changes', 'including', 'one', 'apple', 'ios', 'allowed', 'matching', 'majority', 'accounts', 'using', 'phone', 'number', 'facebook', 'commission', 'review', 'merger', 'revolved', 'around', 'whether', 'facebook', 'would', 'could', 'merge', 'two', 'messaging', 'services', 'making', 'cross-compatible', 'technically', 'difficult', 'feat', 'made', 'harder', 'roll', 'whatsapp', 'end-to-end', 'encryption', 'messages', 'default', 'facebook', 'january', 'respond', 'charges', 'facebook', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'company', 'pleased', 'ec', 'stands', 'clearance', 'company', 'whatsapp', 'acquisition', 'would', 'continue', 'co-operate', 'regulators', 'resolve', 'complaints', 'said', 'respect', 'commission', 'process', 'confident', 'full', 'review', 'facts', 'confirm', 'facebook', 'acted', 'good', 'faith', 'consistently', 'provided', 'accurate', 'information', 'technical', 'capabilities', 'plans', 'including', 'submissions', 'whatsapp', 'acquisition', 'voluntary', 'briefings', 'whatsapp', 'privacy', 'policy', 'update', 'year', 'facebook', 'halted', 'use', 'user', 'data', 'shared', 'whatsapp', 'facebook', 'advertising', 'purposes', 'november', 'pressure', 'pan-european', 'data', 'protection', 'agency', 'group', 'article', 'working', 'party', 'october', 'worry', 'whatsapp', 'accessing', 'personal', 'information', '-', 'elizabeth', 'denham', 'eu', 'proposals', 'force', 'multinationals', 'disclose', 'tax', 'arrangements', 'facebook', 'wins', 'appeal', 'belgian', 'privacy', 'watchdog', 'tracking']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/tim-cook-meeting-donald-trump-desktop-macs-apple

Tim Cook has spoken to Apple employees in a closed Q&A about his decision to meet with US president-elect Donald Trump, arguing that it’s more important to engage than stand on the sidelines “yelling”. Cook also answered employee questions about the perception that Apple has abandoned its Mac line of desktop computers, and about what he thinks most differentiates the company from its competitors. Although unsurprisingly deferential in tone, the questions nonetheless provide the clearest insight yet into Cook’s thinking about the election of Trump, who openly and repeatedly railed against Apple in his campaign for the company’s lack of US manufacturing jobs, offshoring of capital, and refusal to aid the FBI in hacking into an iPhone once used by a dead terrorist. “Last week you joined other tech leaders to meet President-elect Donald Trump,” the questioner said. “How important is it for Apple to engage with governments?” Cook replied: “It’s very important. Governments can affect our ability to do what we do. They can affect it in positive ways and they can affect in not so positive ways. What we do is focus on the policies. Some of our key areas of focus are on privacy and security, education. They’re on advocating for human rights for everyone, and expanding the definition of human rights. They’re on the environment and really combating climate change, something we do by running our business on 100 percent renewable energy.” He added: “There’s a large number of those issues, and the way that you advance them is to engage. Personally, I’ve never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way that you influence these issues is to be in the arena. So whether it’s in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we engage. And we engage when we agree and we engage when we disagree. I think it’s very important to do that because you don’t change things by just yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your way is the best. In many ways, it’s a debate of ideas. “We very much stand up for what we believe in. We think that’s a key part of what Apple is about. And we’ll continue to do so.” The question and answer, which TechCrunch verified as legitimate, were followed by a less politically-charged query about Apple’s dedication to desktop computers. “We had a big MacBook Pro launch in October and a powerful upgrade to the MacBook back in the spring. Are Mac desktops strategic for us?”, Cook was asked. His response was that to confirm that yes, “the desktop is very strategic for us. It’s unique compared to the notebook because you can pack a lot more performance in a desktop — the largest screens, the most memory and storage, a greater variety of I/O, and fastest performance. “Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops. If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.” Cook was also asked what he considered Apple’s “biggest differentiator, and what can employees do to foster and advance those efforts?” He argued that the company’s commitment to projects with no clear return on investment was hugely important. “With so many things that we’ve done, we don’t do it because there’s an return on investment. We don’t do it because we know exactly how we’re going to use it. We do it because it’s clear it’s interesting and it might lead somewhere. A lot of the time it doesn’t, but many times it leads us somewhere where we had no idea in the beginning.” Apple declined to comment for this story.

technology/2016/dec/20/tim-cook-meeting-donald-trump-desktop-macs-apple

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T10:42:52Z

Tim Cook on why he met Donald Trump and the future of desktop Macs

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/tim-cook-meeting-donald-trump-desktop-macs-apple

['tim', 'cook', 'spoken', 'apple', 'employees', 'closed', 'qampa', 'decision', 'meet', 'us', 'president-elect', 'donald', 'trump', 'arguing', 'important', 'engage', 'stand', 'sidelines', 'yelling', 'cook', 'also', 'answered', 'employee', 'questions', 'perception', 'apple', 'abandoned', 'mac', 'line', 'desktop', 'computers', 'thinks', 'differentiates', 'company', 'competitors', 'although', 'unsurprisingly', 'deferential', 'tone', 'questions', 'nonetheless', 'provide', 'clearest', 'insight', 'yet', 'cook', 'thinking', 'election', 'trump', 'openly', 'repeatedly', 'railed', 'apple', 'campaign', 'company', 'lack', 'us', 'manufacturing', 'jobs', 'offshoring', 'capital', 'refusal', 'aid', 'fbi', 'hacking', 'iphone', 'used', 'dead', 'terrorist', 'last', 'week', 'joined', 'tech', 'leaders', 'meet', 'president-elect', 'donald', 'trump', 'questioner', 'said', 'important', 'apple', 'engage', 'governments', 'cook', 'replied', 'important', 'governments', 'affect', 'ability', 'affect', 'positive', 'ways', 'affect', 'positive', 'ways', 'focus', 'policies', 'key', 'areas', 'focus', 'privacy', 'security', 'education', 'advocating', 'human', 'rights', 'everyone', 'expanding', 'definition', 'human', 'rights', 'environment', 'really', 'combating', 'climate', 'change', 'something', 'running', 'business', 'percent', 'renewable', 'energy', 'added', 'large', 'number', 'issues', 'way', 'advance', 'engage', 'personally', 'never', 'found', 'sideline', 'successful', 'place', 'way', 'influence', 'issues', 'arena', 'whether', 'country', 'european', 'union', 'china', 'south', 'america', 'engage', 'engage', 'agree', 'engage', 'disagree', 'think', 'important', 'change', 'things', 'yelling', 'change', 'things', 'showing', 'everyone', 'way', 'best', 'many', 'ways', 'debate', 'ideas', 'much', 'stand', 'believe', 'think', 'key', 'part', 'apple', 'continue', 'question', 'answer', 'techcrunch', 'verified', 'legitimate', 'followed', 'less', 'politically-charged', 'query', 'apple', 'dedication', 'desktop', 'computers', 'big', 'macbook', 'pro', 'launch', 'october', 'powerful', 'upgrade', 'macbook', 'back', 'spring', 'mac', 'desktops', 'strategic', 'us', 'cook', 'asked', 'response', 'confirm', 'yes', 'desktop', 'strategic', 'us', 'unique', 'compared', 'notebook', 'pack', 'lot', 'performance', 'desktop', 'largest', 'screens', 'memory', 'storage', 'greater', 'variety', 'io', 'fastest', 'performance', 'folks', 'media', 'raised', 'question', 'whether', 'committed', 'desktops', 'doubt', 'teams', 'let', 'clear', 'great', 'desktops', 'roadmap', 'nobody', 'worry', 'cook', 'also', 'asked', 'considered', 'apple', 'biggest', 'differentiator', 'employees', 'foster', 'advance', 'efforts', 'argued', 'company', 'commitment', 'projects', 'clear', 'return', 'investment', 'hugely', 'important', 'many', 'things', 'done', 'return', 'investment', 'know', 'exactly', 'going', 'use', 'clear', 'interesting', 'might', 'lead', 'somewhere', 'lot', 'time', 'many', 'times', 'leads', 'us', 'somewhere', 'idea', 'beginning', 'apple', 'declined', 'comment', 'story']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/government-says-new-efficiency-standards-says-could-cut-fuel-spending-by-28bn

The Turnbull government has opened discussions on new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles which it says could cut consumer fuel spending by up to $28bn by 2040. Fresh after being forced into a hasty retreat by conservatives over a potential emissions intensity trading scheme which experts argue would allow Australia’s electricity sector to reduce emissions at least cost to consumers – the government has regrouped and opened a new policy conversation about regulations that would force car manufacturers to supply cars with more fuel-efficient engines. The ministers for energy and the environment, Josh Frydenberg, and urban infrastructure, Paul Fletcher, issued a joint statement on Tuesday that said new standards could reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 65m tonnes by 2030, “with these reductions helping meet Australia’s emissions reduction targets”. They flagged three potential proposals – new fuel efficiency standards; upgrading the existing air pollution standards for cars, trucks and buses, “in line with higher standards which already apply in Europe, the US and many other countries”; and a discussion paper exploring options to “improve the quality of our road transport fuels to reduce noxious emissions”. The ministers said new emissions standards would make fuel consumption more efficient, and as a consequence motorists would save money. “This translates into annual fuel savings for the average owner of a passenger car and light commercial vehicle of up to $519 and $666 respectively.” The government will likely face resistance from car manufacturers who argue the compliance burden associated with onerous fuel efficiency standards pushes up the price of vehicles. But the government’s recent decision to rule out any form of carbon trading for the electricity sector increases the urgency of achieving emissions reductions in other parts of the economy if Australia is to have any hope of complying with its Paris target. The Turnbull government has ratified the Paris international climate agreement which requires Australia to reduce emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Paris target builds on Australia’s 2020 target of reducing emissions by 5% below 2000 levels. A range of experts have made it clear that the Coalition’s Direct Action policy does not deliver a viable mechanism to ensure compliance with the Paris target. “Current fuel standards expire in 2019 and we need to be ready with new standards to ensure Australians can have access to the right fuel for the latest vehicle technology,” the ministers said in the joint statement issued on Tuesday. “The right standards will deliver further health and environmental benefits. The government will continue to explore other ways to reduce vehicle running costs and emissions, such as the type of information provided to consumers when buying a car, and support for emerging technologies.”

technology/2016/dec/20/government-says-new-efficiency-standards-says-could-cut-fuel-spending-by-28bn

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T08:48:13Z

Government says new efficiency standards could cut fuel spending by $28bn

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/government-says-new-efficiency-standards-says-could-cut-fuel-spending-by-28bn

['turnbull', 'government', 'opened', 'discussions', 'new', 'fuel', 'efficiency', 'standards', 'vehicles', 'says', 'could', 'cut', 'consumer', 'fuel', 'spending', '28bn', 'fresh', 'forced', 'hasty', 'retreat', 'conservatives', 'potential', 'emissions', 'intensity', 'trading', 'scheme', 'experts', 'argue', 'would', 'allow', 'australia', 'electricity', 'sector', 'reduce', 'emissions', 'least', 'cost', 'consumers', 'government', 'regrouped', 'opened', 'new', 'policy', 'conversation', 'regulations', 'would', 'force', 'car', 'manufacturers', 'supply', 'cars', 'fuel-efficient', 'engines', 'ministers', 'energy', 'environment', 'josh', 'frydenberg', 'urban', 'infrastructure', 'paul', 'fletcher', 'issued', 'joint', 'statement', 'tuesday', 'said', 'new', 'standards', 'could', 'reduce', 'australia', 'greenhouse', 'gas', 'emissions', '65m', 'tonnes', 'reductions', 'helping', 'meet', 'australia', 'emissions', 'reduction', 'targets', 'flagged', 'three', 'potential', 'proposals', 'new', 'fuel', 'efficiency', 'standards', 'upgrading', 'existing', 'air', 'pollution', 'standards', 'cars', 'trucks', 'buses', 'line', 'higher', 'standards', 'already', 'apply', 'europe', 'us', 'many', 'countries', 'discussion', 'paper', 'exploring', 'options', 'improve', 'quality', 'road', 'transport', 'fuels', 'reduce', 'noxious', 'emissions', 'ministers', 'said', 'new', 'emissions', 'standards', 'would', 'make', 'fuel', 'consumption', 'efficient', 'consequence', 'motorists', 'would', 'save', 'money', 'translates', 'annual', 'fuel', 'savings', 'average', 'owner', 'passenger', 'car', 'light', 'commercial', 'vehicle', 'respectively', 'government', 'likely', 'face', 'resistance', 'car', 'manufacturers', 'argue', 'compliance', 'burden', 'associated', 'onerous', 'fuel', 'efficiency', 'standards', 'pushes', 'price', 'vehicles', 'government', 'recent', 'decision', 'rule', 'form', 'carbon', 'trading', 'electricity', 'sector', 'increases', 'urgency', 'achieving', 'emissions', 'reductions', 'parts', 'economy', 'australia', 'hope', 'complying', 'paris', 'target', 'turnbull', 'government', 'ratified', 'paris', 'international', 'climate', 'agreement', 'requires', 'australia', 'reduce', 'emissions', '26-28', 'levels', 'paris', 'target', 'builds', 'australia', 'target', 'reducing', 'emissions', 'levels', 'range', 'experts', 'made', 'clear', 'coalition', 'direct', 'action', 'policy', 'deliver', 'viable', 'mechanism', 'ensure', 'compliance', 'paris', 'target', 'current', 'fuel', 'standards', 'expire', 'need', 'ready', 'new', 'standards', 'ensure', 'australians', 'access', 'right', 'fuel', 'latest', 'vehicle', 'technology', 'ministers', 'said', 'joint', 'statement', 'issued', 'tuesday', 'right', 'standards', 'deliver', 'health', 'environmental', 'benefits', 'government', 'continue', 'explore', 'ways', 'reduce', 'vehicle', 'running', 'costs', 'emissions', 'type', 'information', 'provided', 'consumers', 'buying', 'car', 'support', 'emerging', 'technologies']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/2016-tech-winners-losers-facebook-peter-thiel

The year 2016 was supposed to be when the tech bubble finally burst. Instead the world blew up. Amid Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the increasingly catastrophic consequences of climate change, the dominance of a handful of technology companies over society became increasingly obvious – from Facebook’s troubling impact on democracy to Elon Musk’s plan to colonize a new planet before we destroy this one. Still, if there’s one thing we can learn from this year in technology, it’s that no matter how bad things get, someone in Silicon Valley will make money off it. Here’s our list of tech’s biggest winners and losers of 2016: Winners Facebook There’s no arguing with world domination. The social network continued its relentless campaign to swallow the internet whole, racking up almost $6bn in profit in the first three quarters of the year and soaring to 1.79 billion monthly active users. With its “walled garden” approach and obscure algorithms, Facebook has control over the information reaching a quarter of the world’s population. The company that claims not to be a media company has become the most powerful media company in the history of the world. Surely nothing will go wrong. Peter Thiel Remember when the most notable things about Peter Thiel were his extreme wealth, eccentric views on women’s suffrage and desire to start floating colonies in the ocean? We wish we did too. Thiel began 2016 by revealing himself as the secret funder of a lawsuit against the publication (Gawker) that outed him as gay. He ended the year on the verge of translating his long-shot bet on Donald Trump’s election campaign into serious power. Thiel represents the unvarnished right-wing libertarianism that undergirds the industry, from his disdain for “diversity” and the press to his enthusiasm for government contracts coupled with government deregulation. Now he’s in a position to handpick the favored companies and CEOs of the next four years. Elon Musk Not everything went perfectly this year for the engineer with a near messianic cult of admirers. There was Tesla’s disclosure of the first known fatality caused by a self-driving car, plus concerns about his corporate maneuvers and the little matter of blowing up Mark Zuckerberg’s satellite. But with global temperatures continuing to rise, Musk deserves credit for applying his resources and intellect to the greatest challenge facing humanity: how to power our society without killing our planet. Plus, the rockets are pretty cool. Hackers Whether it was baby monitors or hospitals, tech CEOs or the Democratic National Committee, this year, everybody just got hacked. The only bright spot in this dark, dark reality is the increasing user-friendliness of encryption through apps like Signal and WhatsApp. Trolls It’s one thing to ignore the trolls when they lurk in comments sections and 4chan. It’s another thing when they help send someone to the White House. LOLsob. Honorable Mentions: Pokémon Go, Microsoft Surface, Amazon Echo, Artificial Intelligence Losers Facebook There’s no denying its financial success (we did just name it our No 1 Winner, after all). But as Facebook tightened its grip on the world’s information, the social network lost control over its own narrative. This was the year Facebook became a villain, and not just your run-of-the-mill, money-grubbing corporate bad guy, but an honest-to-God threat to democracy and civil society. Facebook is finally being called to account for the algorithms that cater to our worst instincts, trap us in ideological bubbles, and feed us misinformation. After a year of floundering from one PR crisis to another with little indication that it was taking legitimate concerns seriously, let’s hope Facebook begins to grapple with its power and responsibility in 2017. Samsung (and Apple, but mostly Samsung) Apple’s lackluster sales and inexplicable decision to kill off the headphone jack provided Samsung with a perfect opportunity to strike a blow in the ongoing war between the two leading smartphone companies. Instead, Samsung made a well-reviewed phablet with one tiny little problem: it kept catching fire. Oops. Twitter Did anyone really expect that the return of co-founder Jack Dorsey as chief executive of Twitter would right the ship for the struggling social network? Maybe, but after a full year with Dorsey at the helm, Twitter is still flailing. Users have plateaued, a buyout fell through, and hundreds have been laid off. The company still hasn’t gotten a handle on abuse, has been blamed for helping to elevate the “alt-right” movement of white nationalist internet trolls, and killed off one tiny beacon of creative brilliance in the internet’s morass of vitriol: Vine. With its unerring instinct for fixing things that aren’t broken and breaking things that work, we can only assume that 2017 will see Twitter reach new heights of innovation in alienating its loyal users. Theranos It took 13 years for Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes to build her blood-testing startup into a $9bn unicorn with outrageously glowing press. It took less than a year for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down. In October 2015, the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou reported the first in a series of remarkable articles that revealed the company’s much-vaunted finger-prick blood tests did not really work. Since then, Theranos has voided two years worth of tests, lost its partnership with Walgreens, and come under investigation by federal prosecutors and the Security Exchanges Commission. Holmes has been banned from running a medical laboratory for two years, her net worth has been revised by Forbes down to $0, and lawsuits are flying. In October, Theranos announced that it would close its labs and blood-testing centers. Holmes claims that the company will now focus on developing a new device dubbed the “miniLab”. Don’t hold your breath. People who drive for a living Self-driving cars have been tootling around Google’s neighborhood in Mountain View for several years, but dreams of an autonomous vehicle future turned into a very real present when self-driving Ubers started picking up passengers in Pittsburgh this year. It’s all good news for the self-driving evangelists who foresee fewer fatalities from collisions, but what about all the millions of people who drive professionally? There are 3.5m truck drivers in the US, according to the American Trucking Association. Add in the hundreds of thousands of people who drive taxis, Ubers, limousines, buses, and ambulances, and we’re looking at mass displacement of working-class jobs that could dwarf the post-Nafta loss of manufacturing jobs. Universal basic income, anyone? Honorable Mentions: Yahoo, tax collectors, people who enjoy privacy.

technology/2016/dec/20/2016-tech-winners-losers-facebook-peter-thiel

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T08:00:43Z

The tech winners and losers of 2016 (hint: Facebook – and Facebook)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/2016-tech-winners-losers-facebook-peter-thiel

['year', 'supposed', 'tech', 'bubble', 'finally', 'burst', 'instead', 'world', 'blew', 'amid', 'brexit', 'election', 'donald', 'trump', 'increasingly', 'catastrophic', 'consequences', 'climate', 'change', 'dominance', 'handful', 'technology', 'companies', 'society', 'became', 'increasingly', 'obvious', 'facebook', 'troubling', 'impact', 'democracy', 'elon', 'musk', 'plan', 'colonize', 'new', 'planet', 'destroy', 'one', 'still', 'one', 'thing', 'learn', 'year', 'technology', 'matter', 'bad', 'things', 'get', 'someone', 'silicon', 'valley', 'make', 'money', 'list', 'tech', 'biggest', 'winners', 'losers', 'winners', 'facebook', 'arguing', 'world', 'domination', 'social', 'network', 'continued', 'relentless', 'campaign', 'swallow', 'internet', 'whole', 'racking', 'almost', '6bn', 'profit', 'first', 'three', 'quarters', 'year', 'soaring', 'billion', 'monthly', 'active', 'users', 'walled', 'garden', 'approach', 'obscure', 'algorithms', 'facebook', 'control', 'information', 'reaching', 'quarter', 'world', 'population', 'company', 'claims', 'media', 'company', 'become', 'powerful', 'media', 'company', 'history', 'world', 'surely', 'nothing', 'go', 'wrong', 'peter', 'thiel', 'remember', 'notable', 'things', 'peter', 'thiel', 'extreme', 'wealth', 'eccentric', 'views', 'women', 'suffrage', 'desire', 'start', 'floating', 'colonies', 'ocean', 'wish', 'thiel', 'began', 'revealing', 'secret', 'funder', 'lawsuit', 'publication', 'gawker', 'outed', 'gay', 'ended', 'year', 'verge', 'translating', 'long-shot', 'bet', 'donald', 'trump', 'election', 'campaign', 'serious', 'power', 'thiel', 'represents', 'unvarnished', 'right-wing', 'libertarianism', 'undergirds', 'industry', 'disdain', 'diversity', 'press', 'enthusiasm', 'government', 'contracts', 'coupled', 'government', 'deregulation', 'position', 'handpick', 'favored', 'companies', 'ceos', 'next', 'four', 'years', 'elon', 'musk', 'everything', 'went', 'perfectly', 'year', 'engineer', 'near', 'messianic', 'cult', 'admirers', 'tesla', 'disclosure', 'first', 'known', 'fatality', 'caused', 'self-driving', 'car', 'plus', 'concerns', 'corporate', 'maneuvers', 'little', 'matter', 'blowing', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'satellite', 'global', 'temperatures', 'continuing', 'rise', 'musk', 'deserves', 'credit', 'applying', 'resources', 'intellect', 'greatest', 'challenge', 'facing', 'humanity', 'power', 'society', 'without', 'killing', 'planet', 'plus', 'rockets', 'pretty', 'cool', 'hackers', 'whether', 'baby', 'monitors', 'hospitals', 'tech', 'ceos', 'democratic', 'national', 'committee', 'year', 'everybody', 'got', 'hacked', 'bright', 'spot', 'dark', 'dark', 'reality', 'increasing', 'user-friendliness', 'encryption', 'apps', 'like', 'signal', 'whatsapp', 'trolls', 'one', 'thing', 'ignore', 'trolls', 'lurk', 'comments', 'sections', '4chan', 'another', 'thing', 'help', 'send', 'someone', 'white', 'house', 'lolsob', 'honorable', 'mentions', 'pokemon', 'go', 'microsoft', 'surface', 'amazon', 'echo', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'losers', 'facebook', 'denying', 'financial', 'success', 'name', 'winner', 'facebook', 'tightened', 'grip', 'world', 'information', 'social', 'network', 'lost', 'control', 'narrative', 'year', 'facebook', 'became', 'villain', 'run-of-the-mill', 'money-grubbing', 'corporate', 'bad', 'guy', 'honest-to-god', 'threat', 'democracy', 'civil', 'society', 'facebook', 'finally', 'called', 'account', 'algorithms', 'cater', 'worst', 'instincts', 'trap', 'us', 'ideological', 'bubbles', 'feed', 'us', 'misinformation', 'year', 'floundering', 'one', 'pr', 'crisis', 'another', 'little', 'indication', 'taking', 'legitimate', 'concerns', 'seriously', 'let', 'hope', 'facebook', 'begins', 'grapple', 'power', 'responsibility', 'samsung', 'apple', 'mostly', 'samsung', 'apple', 'lackluster', 'sales', 'inexplicable', 'decision', 'kill', 'headphone', 'jack', 'provided', 'samsung', 'perfect', 'opportunity', 'strike', 'blow', 'ongoing', 'war', 'two', 'leading', 'smartphone', 'companies', 'instead', 'samsung', 'made', 'well-reviewed', 'phablet', 'one', 'tiny', 'little', 'problem', 'kept', 'catching', 'fire', 'oops', 'twitter', 'anyone', 'really', 'expect', 'return', 'co-founder', 'jack', 'dorsey', 'chief', 'executive', 'twitter', 'would', 'right', 'ship', 'struggling', 'social', 'network', 'maybe', 'full', 'year', 'dorsey', 'helm', 'twitter', 'still', 'flailing', 'users', 'plateaued', 'buyout', 'fell', 'hundreds', 'laid', 'company', 'still', 'gotten', 'handle', 'abuse', 'blamed', 'helping', 'elevate', 'alt-right', 'movement', 'white', 'nationalist', 'internet', 'trolls', 'killed', 'one', 'tiny', 'beacon', 'creative', 'brilliance', 'internet', 'morass', 'vitriol', 'vine', 'unerring', 'instinct', 'fixing', 'things', 'broken', 'breaking', 'things', 'work', 'assume', 'see', 'twitter', 'reach', 'new', 'heights', 'innovation', 'alienating', 'loyal', 'users', 'theranos', 'took', 'years', 'stanford', 'dropout', 'elizabeth', 'holmes', 'build', 'blood-testing', 'startup', '9bn', 'unicorn', 'outrageously', 'glowing', 'press', 'took', 'less', 'year', 'whole', 'house', 'cards', 'come', 'tumbling', 'october', 'wall', 'street', 'journal', 'john', 'carreyrou', 'reported', 'first', 'series', 'remarkable', 'articles', 'revealed', 'company', 'much-vaunted', 'finger-prick', 'blood', 'tests', 'really', 'work', 'since', 'theranos', 'voided', 'two', 'years', 'worth', 'tests', 'lost', 'partnership', 'walgreens', 'come', 'investigation', 'federal', 'prosecutors', 'security', 'exchanges', 'commission', 'holmes', 'banned', 'running', 'medical', 'laboratory', 'two', 'years', 'net', 'worth', 'revised', 'forbes', 'lawsuits', 'flying', 'october', 'theranos', 'announced', 'would', 'close', 'labs', 'blood-testing', 'centers', 'holmes', 'claims', 'company', 'focus', 'developing', 'new', 'device', 'dubbed', 'minilab', 'hold', 'breath', 'people', 'drive', 'living', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'tootling', 'around', 'google', 'neighborhood', 'mountain', 'view', 'several', 'years', 'dreams', 'autonomous', 'vehicle', 'future', 'turned', 'real', 'present', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'started', 'picking', 'passengers', 'pittsburgh', 'year', 'good', 'news', 'self-driving', 'evangelists', 'foresee', 'fewer', 'fatalities', 'collisions', 'millions', 'people', 'drive', 'professionally', '35m', 'truck', 'drivers', 'us', 'according', 'american', 'trucking', 'association', 'add', 'hundreds', 'thousands', 'people', 'drive', 'taxis', 'ubers', 'limousines', 'buses', 'ambulances', 'looking', 'mass', 'displacement', 'working-class', 'jobs', 'could', 'dwarf', 'post-nafta', 'loss', 'manufacturing', 'jobs', 'universal', 'basic', 'income', 'anyone', 'honorable', 'mentions', 'yahoo', 'tax', 'collectors', 'people', 'enjoy', 'privacy']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/20/top-hairdryers-reviewed-dyson-supersonic

Can a hairdryer really be worth £300? That’s the price of Dyson’s Supersonic. It’s the most expensive consumer option on the market, and by more than a hair’s breadth. We wanted to know if the extra money is worth it, so tested it and four other top-end rivals. Our team of testers – with various different hair types, from dense, tight curls of afro-textured hair to pencil-straight east-Asian hair (type makes a big difference when it comes choosing a good dryer) – put the top brands through their paces, judging how fast they worked, how heavy they felt and most importantly how they made hair feel. Has the Dyson done for hairdryers what it did for vacuums, or was it blown away by the competition? Here’s how they stack up. Babyliss 3Q Dryer Price: £120 (buy here) Attachments: 1x styling nozzle Hand weight: 488g Noise: 89-93dB – the loudest in our test The Babyliss 3Q promises a lot on the box: faster drying, lighter weight, smooth finish and low noise. While some of the claims seem a little far-fetched – given it was the loudest in the test, one of the heaviest and one of the most difficult to handle because of its long snout – it got good results for most. One tester with straight hair said: “It actually did what it said on the box”. Another tester said it left hair soft, shiny and with volume at the roots, which was a theme with most testers. It only comes with one nozzle, no diffuser and wasn’t anything special for thick curls, leaving them ill-defined and frizzy. And it won’t be much good for those wishing to pack it up and take it to the gym, and cleaning collected fluff out of the back will be a bit of a faff. But if shine and volume past the first couple of hours is what you’re after, the Babyliss delivered for most. Verdict: best for straight shine, but difficult to handle Four stars Parlux Advance ceramic ionic dryer Price: £110 (buy here) Attachments: 2 x nozzles Hand weight: 420g (380g quoted) - lightest in the test Noise: 85-89.5dB The Parlux Advance ceramic ionic dryer is powerful and compact. It’s the lightest in the bunch and doesn’t sacrifice power despite being the second smallest, after the Dyson. Our testers found it had good temperature control, was easy to handle with a short snout, long cord and ergonomic handle, and dried hair fast. The switches felt solid, if a little old-school compared to some others. The grill at the back twists off easily for cleaning. It was neither the quietest or nor the loudest in our test – still loud enough to block out dialogue from a TV in the room like all the rest. Lack of a diffuser in the box holds it back for curly hair (it’s a £10 extra), while some straight hair testers found it caused their locks to be a bit dry and coarse, but others said it made their hair shiny and soft with no need for straighteners. Its compact form and sturdy build made it a good candidate for those that travel the odd time, but don’t want a full-time travel dryer. Verdict: powerful, compact and easy to handle Four stars Panasonic Nanoe (EH-NA65) Price: £110 (buy here) Attachments: 1 styling nozzle, 1 quick-dry nozzle, diffuser Hand weight: 510g (584g quoted) Noise: 77-89.5dB – quietest at low power The Panasonic EH-NA65 – horrible name, better performance – split opinion. It promises to reduce the damage caused by brushing using so-callled nanoe to trap moisture in the hair. It’s the biggest and heaviest in the group, but also one of the cheapest, and it comes with two nozzles and a diffuser in the box. Its average-length snout made it more difficult to wield than the Dyson or Parlux, but not quite on the same level as the GHD or Babyliss. Its retro styling in black and pink appealed to some, but it was the power and effectiveness that won it plaudits. It dried curly hair in about half the time of the others, while preventing frizz leading one tester to say she would “buy this dryer in a heartbeat”. The results for people with straight hair were less impressive, with one complaining it gave no lift with average drying. Another said it was just fine, but nothing special. The Panasonic was the quietest at its lowest setting but one of the noisiest at full blast. The filter unclips from the back for easy cleaning. Verdict: brilliant for curly hair Three stars GHD Aura Professional Price: £145 (buy here) Attachments: 1 styling nozzle Hand weight: 476g (without power adapter) Noise: 82-88.5dB The GHD Aura Professional promises “ultimate volume and stunning shine”, and is unusual here because it features an external power adapter, shifting the weight out of the handheld. It had a greater difference between the temperature settings than most others, being almost too hot for some at its highest setting. It was also quieter than some others, sounding almost like a jet engine spooling up and down, and it looks the part, but that’s where the plaudits end. The testers found it was at least 25% slower to dry hair than competitors, with one with straight hair saying it left hair damp, with no lift in the roots at all, thus labelling it “useless”. The lack of a diffuser, or even one available that would fit, meant it struggled with curly hair, too. Testers also found it a lot harder than expected to attach and detach the one supplied nozzle, fearing they would break it with amount of force required. The filter unscrews from the back for easy cleaning. Most described the external power supply as an annoyance rather than a benefit, getting in the way and heavy when travelling. Verdict: one to avoid Two stars Dyson Supersonic Price: £300 (buy here) Attachments: 2x styling nozzles, diffuser Hand weight: 440g (659g quoted) Noise: 80-85dB – the quietest at full power in our test The Dyson is the new kid on the block and comes in at double the price of everything else, and with very high expectations. It looks different, hiding the fan in the handle and having the best weight balance of them all. The attachments are held on magnetically, the buttons are digital, it’s very easy to handle and it looks like a piece of technology rather than the same old hairdryer you’ve had for decades. The filter is easy to twist off and clean, as are the attachments, and without burning yourself if it’s still hot from use. Without the nozzles on it was powerful enough, relatively quiet and with a more pleasing tone than most, but it still made hearing the TV difficult. When an attachment was added, the Dyson came undone, with the nozzles significantly reducing the power and airflow. One tester described it as the “Lamborghini of hairdryers” because it was all show . One straight-haired tester said it left hair shiny, with fewer fly away hairs, but flat and overly dry. Another said it made hair feel like “like duckling’s feathers: flat and fluffy rather than sleek and voluminous”. With the included diffuser one tester said it reduced to a power level “akin to blowing through a drinking straw” making it next to useless. It looks good on the shelf, cleaning the filter is as easy as unscrewing it from the handle, and works just fine without an attachment, but is that really enough for £300? Verdict: fancy tech doesn’t make for a good hairdryer One star This article contains affiliate links to products. Our journalism is independent and is never written to promote these products although we may earn a small commission if a reader makes a purchase.

technology/2016/dec/20/top-hairdryers-reviewed-dyson-supersonic

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-20T07:00:42Z

Top hairdryers reviewed: is the £300 Dyson Supersonic really the king?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/20/top-hairdryers-reviewed-dyson-supersonic

['hairdryer', 'really', 'worth', 'price', 'dyson', 'supersonic', 'expensive', 'consumer', 'option', 'market', 'hair', 'breadth', 'wanted', 'know', 'extra', 'money', 'worth', 'tested', 'four', 'top-end', 'rivals', 'team', 'testers', 'various', 'different', 'hair', 'types', 'dense', 'tight', 'curls', 'afro-textured', 'hair', 'pencil-straight', 'east-asian', 'hair', 'type', 'makes', 'big', 'difference', 'comes', 'choosing', 'good', 'dryer', 'put', 'top', 'brands', 'paces', 'judging', 'fast', 'worked', 'heavy', 'felt', 'importantly', 'made', 'hair', 'feel', 'dyson', 'done', 'hairdryers', 'vacuums', 'blown', 'away', 'competition', 'stack', 'babyliss', '3q', 'dryer', 'price', 'buy', 'attachments', '1x', 'styling', 'nozzle', 'hand', 'weight', '488g', 'noise', '89-93db', 'loudest', 'test', 'babyliss', '3q', 'promises', 'lot', 'box', 'faster', 'drying', 'lighter', 'weight', 'smooth', 'finish', 'low', 'noise', 'claims', 'seem', 'little', 'far-fetched', 'given', 'loudest', 'test', 'one', 'heaviest', 'one', 'difficult', 'handle', 'long', 'snout', 'got', 'good', 'results', 'one', 'tester', 'straight', 'hair', 'said', 'actually', 'said', 'box', 'another', 'tester', 'said', 'left', 'hair', 'soft', 'shiny', 'volume', 'roots', 'theme', 'testers', 'comes', 'one', 'nozzle', 'diffuser', 'anything', 'special', 'thick', 'curls', 'leaving', 'ill-defined', 'frizzy', 'much', 'good', 'wishing', 'pack', 'take', 'gym', 'cleaning', 'collected', 'fluff', 'back', 'bit', 'faff', 'shine', 'volume', 'past', 'first', 'couple', 'hours', 'babyliss', 'delivered', 'verdict', 'best', 'straight', 'shine', 'difficult', 'handle', 'four', 'stars', 'parlux', 'advance', 'ceramic', 'ionic', 'dryer', 'price', 'buy', 'attachments', 'x', 'nozzles', 'hand', 'weight', '420g', '380g', 'quoted', '-', 'lightest', 'test', 'noise', '85-895db', 'parlux', 'advance', 'ceramic', 'ionic', 'dryer', 'powerful', 'compact', 'lightest', 'bunch', 'sacrifice', 'power', 'despite', 'second', 'smallest', 'dyson', 'testers', 'found', 'good', 'temperature', 'control', 'easy', 'handle', 'short', 'snout', 'long', 'cord', 'ergonomic', 'handle', 'dried', 'hair', 'fast', 'switches', 'felt', 'solid', 'little', 'old-school', 'compared', 'others', 'grill', 'back', 'twists', 'easily', 'cleaning', 'neither', 'quietest', 'loudest', 'test', 'still', 'loud', 'enough', 'block', 'dialogue', 'tv', 'room', 'like', 'rest', 'lack', 'diffuser', 'box', 'holds', 'back', 'curly', 'hair', 'extra', 'straight', 'hair', 'testers', 'found', 'caused', 'locks', 'bit', 'dry', 'coarse', 'others', 'said', 'made', 'hair', 'shiny', 'soft', 'need', 'straighteners', 'compact', 'form', 'sturdy', 'build', 'made', 'good', 'candidate', 'travel', 'odd', 'time', 'want', 'full-time', 'travel', 'dryer', 'verdict', 'powerful', 'compact', 'easy', 'handle', 'four', 'stars', 'panasonic', 'nanoe', 'eh-na65', 'price', 'buy', 'attachments', 'styling', 'nozzle', 'quick-dry', 'nozzle', 'diffuser', 'hand', 'weight', '510g', '584g', 'quoted', 'noise', '77-895db', 'quietest', 'low', 'power', 'panasonic', 'eh-na65', 'horrible', 'name', 'better', 'performance', 'split', 'opinion', 'promises', 'reduce', 'damage', 'caused', 'brushing', 'using', 'so-callled', 'nanoe', 'trap', 'moisture', 'hair', 'biggest', 'heaviest', 'group', 'also', 'one', 'cheapest', 'comes', 'two', 'nozzles', 'diffuser', 'box', 'average-length', 'snout', 'made', 'difficult', 'wield', 'dyson', 'parlux', 'quite', 'level', 'ghd', 'babyliss', 'retro', 'styling', 'black', 'pink', 'appealed', 'power', 'effectiveness', 'plaudits', 'dried', 'curly', 'hair', 'half', 'time', 'others', 'preventing', 'frizz', 'leading', 'one', 'tester', 'say', 'would', 'buy', 'dryer', 'heartbeat', 'results', 'people', 'straight', 'hair', 'less', 'impressive', 'one', 'complaining', 'gave', 'lift', 'average', 'drying', 'another', 'said', 'fine', 'nothing', 'special', 'panasonic', 'quietest', 'lowest', 'setting', 'one', 'noisiest', 'full', 'blast', 'filter', 'unclips', 'back', 'easy', 'cleaning', 'verdict', 'brilliant', 'curly', 'hair', 'three', 'stars', 'ghd', 'aura', 'professional', 'price', 'buy', 'attachments', 'styling', 'nozzle', 'hand', 'weight', '476g', 'without', 'power', 'adapter', 'noise', '82-885db', 'ghd', 'aura', 'professional', 'promises', 'ultimate', 'volume', 'stunning', 'shine', 'unusual', 'features', 'external', 'power', 'adapter', 'shifting', 'weight', 'handheld', 'greater', 'difference', 'temperature', 'settings', 'others', 'almost', 'hot', 'highest', 'setting', 'also', 'quieter', 'others', 'sounding', 'almost', 'like', 'jet', 'engine', 'spooling', 'looks', 'part', 'plaudits', 'end', 'testers', 'found', 'least', 'slower', 'dry', 'hair', 'competitors', 'one', 'straight', 'hair', 'saying', 'left', 'hair', 'damp', 'lift', 'roots', 'thus', 'labelling', 'useless', 'lack', 'diffuser', 'even', 'one', 'available', 'would', 'fit', 'meant', 'struggled', 'curly', 'hair', 'testers', 'also', 'found', 'lot', 'harder', 'expected', 'attach', 'detach', 'one', 'supplied', 'nozzle', 'fearing', 'would', 'break', 'amount', 'force', 'required', 'filter', 'unscrews', 'back', 'easy', 'cleaning', 'described', 'external', 'power', 'supply', 'annoyance', 'rather', 'benefit', 'getting', 'way', 'heavy', 'travelling', 'verdict', 'one', 'avoid', 'two', 'stars', 'dyson', 'supersonic', 'price', 'buy', 'attachments', '2x', 'styling', 'nozzles', 'diffuser', 'hand', 'weight', '440g', '659g', 'quoted', 'noise', '80-85db', 'quietest', 'full', 'power', 'test', 'dyson', 'new', 'kid', 'block', 'comes', 'double', 'price', 'everything', 'else', 'high', 'expectations', 'looks', 'different', 'hiding', 'fan', 'handle', 'best', 'weight', 'balance', 'attachments', 'held', 'magnetically', 'buttons', 'digital', 'easy', 'handle', 'looks', 'like', 'piece', 'technology', 'rather', 'old', 'hairdryer', 'decades', 'filter', 'easy', 'twist', 'clean', 'attachments', 'without', 'burning', 'still', 'hot', 'use', 'without', 'nozzles', 'powerful', 'enough', 'relatively', 'quiet', 'pleasing', 'tone', 'still', 'made', 'hearing', 'tv', 'difficult', 'attachment', 'added', 'dyson', 'came', 'undone', 'nozzles', 'significantly', 'reducing', 'power', 'airflow', 'one', 'tester', 'described', 'lamborghini', 'hairdryers', 'show', 'one', 'straight-haired', 'tester', 'said', 'left', 'hair', 'shiny', 'fewer', 'fly', 'away', 'hairs', 'flat', 'overly', 'dry', 'another', 'said', 'made', 'hair', 'feel', 'like', 'like', 'duckling', 'feathers', 'flat', 'fluffy', 'rather', 'sleek', 'voluminous', 'included', 'diffuser', 'one', 'tester', 'said', 'reduced', 'power', 'level', 'akin', 'blowing', 'drinking', 'straw', 'making', 'next', 'useless', 'looks', 'good', 'shelf', 'cleaning', 'filter', 'easy', 'unscrewing', 'handle', 'works', 'fine', 'without', 'attachment', 'really', 'enough', 'verdict', 'fancy', 'tech', 'make', 'good', 'hairdryer', 'one', 'star', 'article', 'contains', 'affiliate', 'links', 'products', 'journalism', 'independent', 'never', 'written', 'promote', 'products', 'although', 'may', 'earn', 'small', 'commission', 'reader', 'makes', 'purchase']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco

Uber has admitted that there is a “problem” with the way autonomous vehicles cross bike lanes, raising serious questions about the safety of cyclists days after the company announced it would openly defy California regulators over self-driving vehicles. An Uber spokeswoman said on Monday that engineers were working to fix a flaw in the programming that advocates feared could have deadly consequences for cyclists. Uber began piloting its self-driving vehicles in its home town of San Francisco last week, despite state officials’ declaration that the ride-share company needed special permits to test its technology. On day one, numerous autonomous vehicles – which have a driver in the front seat who can take control – were caught running red lights and committing a range of traffic violations. Despite threats of legal action from the department of motor vehicles (DMV) and California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, Uber refused to back down on Friday, claiming its rejection of government authority was “an important issue of principle”. Concerns are mounting about how the cars behave in dense urban environments, particularly in San Francisco, where there are an estimated 82,000 bike trips each day across more than 200 miles of cycling lanes. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has released a warning about Uber’s cars based on staff members’ first-hand experiences in the vehicles. When the car was in “self-driving” mode, the coalition’s executive director, who tested the car two days before the launch, observed it twice making an “unsafe right-hook-style turn through a bike lane”. That means the car crossed the bike path at the last minute in a manner that posed a direct threat to cyclists. The maneuver also appears to violate state law, which mandates that a right-turning car merge into the bike lane before making the turn to avoid a crash with a cyclist who is continuing forward. “It’s one of the biggest causes of collisions,” said coalition spokesman Chris Cassidy, noting that the group warned Uber of the problem. Company officials told the coalition that Uber was working on the issue but failed to mention that the self-driving program would begin two days later without permits, he said. “The fact that they know there’s a dangerous flaw in the technology and persisted in a surprise launch,” he said, “shows a reckless disregard for the safety of people in our streets.” Uber spokeswoman Chelsea Kohler told the Guardian in an email that “engineers are continuing to work on the problem”, and said that the company has instructed drivers to take control when approaching right turns on a street with a bike lane. She did not respond to questions about how the cars, Volvo XC90s, detect cyclists and what kind of training and testing the firm conducted before implementation. Linda Bailey, executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, which has raised formal objections to partially automated vehicles, said research raises serious alarms about the ability of drivers to properly intervene in semi-autonomous cars. “It’s very clear that people are not good at paying attention,” she said, adding, “We’re waiting for enough people to die for something to happen. It’s not a great way to make policy.” Local advocates noted that the Uber cars have been caught doing four out of the top five causes of collisions or injuries in the city – running red lights, going through stop signs, unsafe turns and failing to yield to pedestrians. “These behaviors we’re seeing,” said Nicole Ferrara, executive director of advocacy group Walk San Francisco, “are some of the most dangerous behaviors in San Francisco that lead to traffic deaths and severe injuries.” Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of the Senseable City Lab, noted that the only way to expand self-driving technology is to start testing cars in the real world. But he said the programs must be done in cooperation with regulators, especially considering that the vehicles have to make complex ethical and moral decisions. “It’s important that government has a say into how the car is programmed,” he said. Imperfect self-driving vehicles could still be significantly safer than traditional cars, said Jeffrey Tumlin, director of Oakland’s department of transportation. But he also noted that “bike lanes present a unique challenge for driverless technology”, because cyclists are agile and can travel at high speeds. “It can be more difficult to predict their behavior,” he said, explaining that engineers are already struggling to navigate vehicle responses to pedestrians, which tend to be simpler. Tumlin said the technology could help improve safety in the long run, but added, “I get uncomfortable with private industry doing their experimentation in the public right of way without first collaborating with the public.” Contact the author: [email protected]

technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T22:52:31Z

Uber admits to self-driving car 'problem' in bike lanes as safety concerns mount

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco

['uber', 'admitted', 'problem', 'way', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'cross', 'bike', 'lanes', 'raising', 'serious', 'questions', 'safety', 'cyclists', 'days', 'company', 'announced', 'would', 'openly', 'defy', 'california', 'regulators', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'uber', 'spokeswoman', 'said', 'monday', 'engineers', 'working', 'fix', 'flaw', 'programming', 'advocates', 'feared', 'could', 'deadly', 'consequences', 'cyclists', 'uber', 'began', 'piloting', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'home', 'town', 'san', 'francisco', 'last', 'week', 'despite', 'state', 'officials', 'declaration', 'ride-share', 'company', 'needed', 'special', 'permits', 'test', 'technology', 'day', 'one', 'numerous', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'driver', 'front', 'seat', 'take', 'control', 'caught', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'committing', 'range', 'traffic', 'violations', 'despite', 'threats', 'legal', 'action', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'california', 'attorney', 'general', 'kamala', 'harris', 'uber', 'refused', 'back', 'friday', 'claiming', 'rejection', 'government', 'authority', 'important', 'issue', 'principle', 'concerns', 'mounting', 'cars', 'behave', 'dense', 'urban', 'environments', 'particularly', 'san', 'francisco', 'estimated', 'bike', 'trips', 'day', 'across', 'miles', 'cycling', 'lanes', 'san', 'francisco', 'bicycle', 'coalition', 'released', 'warning', 'uber', 'cars', 'based', 'staff', 'members', 'first-hand', 'experiences', 'vehicles', 'car', 'self-driving', 'mode', 'coalition', 'executive', 'director', 'tested', 'car', 'two', 'days', 'launch', 'observed', 'twice', 'making', 'unsafe', 'right-hook-style', 'turn', 'bike', 'lane', 'means', 'car', 'crossed', 'bike', 'path', 'last', 'minute', 'manner', 'posed', 'direct', 'threat', 'cyclists', 'maneuver', 'also', 'appears', 'violate', 'state', 'law', 'mandates', 'right-turning', 'car', 'merge', 'bike', 'lane', 'making', 'turn', 'avoid', 'crash', 'cyclist', 'continuing', 'forward', 'one', 'biggest', 'causes', 'collisions', 'said', 'coalition', 'spokesman', 'chris', 'cassidy', 'noting', 'group', 'warned', 'uber', 'problem', 'company', 'officials', 'told', 'coalition', 'uber', 'working', 'issue', 'failed', 'mention', 'self-driving', 'program', 'would', 'begin', 'two', 'days', 'later', 'without', 'permits', 'said', 'fact', 'know', 'dangerous', 'flaw', 'technology', 'persisted', 'surprise', 'launch', 'said', 'shows', 'reckless', 'disregard', 'safety', 'people', 'streets', 'uber', 'spokeswoman', 'chelsea', 'kohler', 'told', 'guardian', 'email', 'engineers', 'continuing', 'work', 'problem', 'said', 'company', 'instructed', 'drivers', 'take', 'control', 'approaching', 'right', 'turns', 'street', 'bike', 'lane', 'respond', 'questions', 'cars', 'volvo', 'xc90s', 'detect', 'cyclists', 'kind', 'training', 'testing', 'firm', 'conducted', 'implementation', 'linda', 'bailey', 'executive', 'director', 'national', 'association', 'city', 'transportation', 'officials', 'raised', 'formal', 'objections', 'partially', 'automated', 'vehicles', 'said', 'research', 'raises', 'serious', 'alarms', 'ability', 'drivers', 'properly', 'intervene', 'semi-autonomous', 'cars', 'clear', 'people', 'good', 'paying', 'attention', 'said', 'adding', 'waiting', 'enough', 'people', 'die', 'something', 'happen', 'great', 'way', 'make', 'policy', 'local', 'advocates', 'noted', 'uber', 'cars', 'caught', 'four', 'top', 'five', 'causes', 'collisions', 'injuries', 'city', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'going', 'stop', 'signs', 'unsafe', 'turns', 'failing', 'yield', 'pedestrians', 'behaviors', 'seeing', 'said', 'nicole', 'ferrara', 'executive', 'director', 'advocacy', 'group', 'walk', 'san', 'francisco', 'dangerous', 'behaviors', 'san', 'francisco', 'lead', 'traffic', 'deaths', 'severe', 'injuries', 'carlo', 'ratti', 'massachusetts', 'institute', 'technology', 'professor', 'director', 'senseable', 'city', 'lab', 'noted', 'way', 'expand', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'start', 'testing', 'cars', 'real', 'world', 'said', 'programs', 'must', 'done', 'cooperation', 'regulators', 'especially', 'considering', 'vehicles', 'make', 'complex', 'ethical', 'moral', 'decisions', 'important', 'government', 'say', 'car', 'programmed', 'said', 'imperfect', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'could', 'still', 'significantly', 'safer', 'traditional', 'cars', 'said', 'jeffrey', 'tumlin', 'director', 'oakland', 'department', 'transportation', 'also', 'noted', 'bike', 'lanes', 'present', 'unique', 'challenge', 'driverless', 'technology', 'cyclists', 'agile', 'travel', 'high', 'speeds', 'difficult', 'predict', 'behavior', 'said', 'explaining', 'engineers', 'already', 'struggling', 'navigate', 'vehicle', 'responses', 'pedestrians', 'tend', 'simpler', 'tumlin', 'said', 'technology', 'could', 'help', 'improve', 'safety', 'long', 'run', 'added', 'get', 'uncomfortable', 'private', 'industry', 'experimentation', 'public', 'right', 'way', 'without', 'first', 'collaborating', 'public', 'contact', 'author', 'samlevintheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/19/balls-buckfast-and-bothersome-gadgets

Suzanne Moore is not alone (Gadgets are supposed to streamline life, G2, 15 December). I always ask myself two questions: is it just because we are in the midst, rather than the end, of a technological revolution that so-called labour-saving gadgets and their bits often pose problems or go wrong? And, will technology and algorithms ever find a way to give us the chance delights found in the diversity of nature or in a bookshop? Rowan Roenisch Leicester • Regarding the speculation on WH Auden’s scrotum, it wasn’t David Hockney who used the phrase (Letters, 19 December). It came about after he and Jim Dine had been drawing Auden’s portrait. As they left, Dine turned to Hockney and said: “I wonder what his balls are like?” Alan Bennett made the same misattribution, and when I wrote to him about it he sent a reply which began: “Thank you for your letter about Auden’s balls”. Alan Byrne London • Ian Jack’s excellent article (Christmas, the season of goodwill…, 17 December) was marred only by his denigration of nut roasts. We have been enjoying them at Christmas for years and can send him the recipe if he’d like it. Jeremy and Rosemary Goring St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex • Trump’s spelling error is Freudian (Trump has no idea how to run a superpower, say Chinese media, theguardian.com, 19 December). It is the US that is about to become “unpresidented”. David Butler London • Gus Pennington suggests Buckfast Abbey should review its business model in relation to its charitable status (Letters, 17 December). While they’re at it, how about changing its name to the more appropriate Fastbuck Abbey? Roger Wilkinson Leasgill, Cumbria • I have a Brexit New Year’s resolution: in 2017 the referendum result will only be described as an underwhelming majority. Nigel Reynolds Mirfield, West Yorkshire • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

technology/2016/dec/19/balls-buckfast-and-bothersome-gadgets

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T17:50:07Z

Balls, Buckfast and bothersome gadgets | Brief letters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/balls-buckfast-and-bothersome-gadgets

['suzanne', 'moore', 'alone', 'gadgets', 'supposed', 'streamline', 'life', 'g2', 'december', 'always', 'ask', 'two', 'questions', 'midst', 'rather', 'end', 'technological', 'revolution', 'so-called', 'labour-saving', 'gadgets', 'bits', 'often', 'pose', 'problems', 'go', 'wrong', 'technology', 'algorithms', 'ever', 'find', 'way', 'give', 'us', 'chance', 'delights', 'found', 'diversity', 'nature', 'bookshop', 'rowan', 'roenisch', 'leicester', 'regarding', 'speculation', 'wh', 'auden', 'scrotum', 'david', 'hockney', 'used', 'phrase', 'letters', 'december', 'came', 'jim', 'dine', 'drawing', 'auden', 'portrait', 'left', 'dine', 'turned', 'hockney', 'said', 'wonder', 'balls', 'like', 'alan', 'bennett', 'made', 'misattribution', 'wrote', 'sent', 'reply', 'began', 'thank', 'letter', 'auden', 'balls', 'alan', 'byrne', 'london', 'ian', 'jack', 'excellent', 'article', 'christmas', 'season', 'goodwill', 'december', 'marred', 'denigration', 'nut', 'roasts', 'enjoying', 'christmas', 'years', 'send', 'recipe', 'would', 'like', 'jeremy', 'rosemary', 'goring', 'st', 'leonards-on-sea', 'east', 'sussex', 'trump', 'spelling', 'error', 'freudian', 'trump', 'idea', 'run', 'superpower', 'say', 'chinese', 'media', 'theguardiancom', 'december', 'us', 'become', 'unpresidented', 'david', 'butler', 'london', 'gus', 'pennington', 'suggests', 'buckfast', 'abbey', 'review', 'business', 'model', 'relation', 'charitable', 'status', 'letters', 'december', 'changing', 'name', 'appropriate', 'fastbuck', 'abbey', 'roger', 'wilkinson', 'leasgill', 'cumbria', 'brexit', 'new', 'year', 'resolution', 'referendum', 'result', 'described', 'underwhelming', 'majority', 'nigel', 'reynolds', 'mirfield', 'west', 'yorkshire', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/dec/19/boring-is-elon-musk-digging-his-own-hole

Name: Boring. Age: John Wilkinson invented the first boring machine tool 241 years ago. Relevance: Elon Musk is getting heavily into it. This sounds like big news. Doesn’t it? Elon Musk achieves anything he sets his heart on. Paypal. Tesla. SpaceX. Maybe Hyperloop one day. Right! This is definitely about Hyperloop, isn’t it? Um ... It must be! Musk is going to bore a load of tunnels underneath the ground, and he’s going to fill it with Hyperloop pods and soon we’ll all be able to commute to work at 700mph. Right? Well, no. Then what? OK, prepare to be disappointed. On Saturday, Musk found himself stuck in traffic, so he tweeted the following: “Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging ...” Is he? It’s hard to say. He followed that tweet up with two more. One read: “It shall be called the Boring Company”, and the other read: “Boring, it’s what we do”. Oh. Now we’re elevating Things That People Tweeted Because They Had Nothing Better To Do to news, are we? Well, no. Because then he tweeted: “I am actually going to do this”. So, he’s really going to do it? Nobody knows. He has updated his Twitter bio to include: “Tunnels (yes, tunnels)”, if that counts for anything. Oh, come on. This is like that time Katie Hopkins tweeted that she was going to put a sausage up her backside. She didn’t do that. No, but this is Elon Musk, the real-life Tony Stark, we’re talking about. He has vast amounts of money and a pioneering intellect. If anyone can transform a seemingly absent-minded half-joke into a world-changing technology, it’s him. What will the Boring Company do? Who knows? He might create a brand new infrastructure specifically for driverless cars. He might begin to manufacture machines capable of drilling the first Hyperloop routes. He might, I don’t know, drill a tunnel to Mars. My stupid human brain isn’t powerful enough to keep up with Elon Musk. I wish Elon Musk would invent a machine that allowed him to tweet with greater clarity. But then this would just be an empty page, and there’s no fun in that. Do say: “Only bored people are boring.” Don’t say: “It probably was just a joke, though.”

technology/shortcuts/2016/dec/19/boring-is-elon-musk-digging-his-own-hole

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T10:51:17Z

Boring! Is Elon Musk digging his own hole?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/dec/19/boring-is-elon-musk-digging-his-own-hole

['name', 'boring', 'age', 'john', 'wilkinson', 'invented', 'first', 'boring', 'machine', 'tool', 'years', 'ago', 'relevance', 'elon', 'musk', 'getting', 'heavily', 'sounds', 'like', 'big', 'news', 'elon', 'musk', 'achieves', 'anything', 'sets', 'heart', 'paypal', 'tesla', 'spacex', 'maybe', 'hyperloop', 'one', 'day', 'right', 'definitely', 'hyperloop', 'um', 'must', 'musk', 'going', 'bore', 'load', 'tunnels', 'underneath', 'ground', 'going', 'fill', 'hyperloop', 'pods', 'soon', 'able', 'commute', 'work', '700mph', 'right', 'well', 'ok', 'prepare', 'disappointed', 'saturday', 'musk', 'found', 'stuck', 'traffic', 'tweeted', 'following', 'traffic', 'driving', 'nuts', 'going', 'build', 'tunnel', 'boring', 'machine', 'start', 'digging', 'hard', 'say', 'followed', 'tweet', 'two', 'one', 'read', 'shall', 'called', 'boring', 'company', 'read', 'boring', 'oh', 'elevating', 'things', 'people', 'tweeted', 'nothing', 'better', 'news', 'well', 'tweeted', 'actually', 'going', 'really', 'going', 'nobody', 'knows', 'updated', 'twitter', 'bio', 'include', 'tunnels', 'yes', 'tunnels', 'counts', 'anything', 'oh', 'come', 'like', 'time', 'katie', 'hopkins', 'tweeted', 'going', 'put', 'sausage', 'backside', 'elon', 'musk', 'real-life', 'tony', 'stark', 'talking', 'vast', 'amounts', 'money', 'pioneering', 'intellect', 'anyone', 'transform', 'seemingly', 'absent-minded', 'half-joke', 'world-changing', 'technology', 'boring', 'company', 'knows', 'might', 'create', 'brand', 'new', 'infrastructure', 'specifically', 'driverless', 'cars', 'might', 'begin', 'manufacture', 'machines', 'capable', 'drilling', 'first', 'hyperloop', 'routes', 'might', 'know', 'drill', 'tunnel', 'mars', 'stupid', 'human', 'brain', 'powerful', 'enough', 'keep', 'elon', 'musk', 'wish', 'elon', 'musk', 'would', 'invent', 'machine', 'allowed', 'tweet', 'greater', 'clarity', 'would', 'empty', 'page', 'fun', 'say', 'bored', 'people', 'boring', 'say', 'probably', 'joke', 'though']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/19/france-plans-internet-ombudsman-to-safeguard-free-speech

France is considering appointing an official internet ombudsman to regulate complaints about online material in order to prevent excessive censorship and preserve free speech. A bill establishing a “content qualification assessment procedure” has been tabled in the French senate and the initiative was debated last week at a high level meeting attended by senators and judges as well as policy officers from Google and Twitter. The aim is to provide a simple procedure that will support firms operating online who are uncertain of their legal liabilities and to prevent over-zealous removal or censorship of material merely because it is the subject of a complaint. It could be copied by other European jurisdictions. Dan Shefets, a Danish lawyer who works in Paris has developed the proposal with the French senator Nathalie Goulet, said: “The problem which an internet ombudsman addresses applies to all countries in Europe [because] member states have to work with the e-commerce directive. “According to the directive, internet service providers (ISPs) face both penal and civil liability as soon as they are made aware of allegedly illicit content. One consequence of such liability is that smaller companies take down such content for fear of later sanctions. “The risk to freedom of speech is real and significant as a consequence not only of the directive, but also of growing pressure on ISPs all over Europe and the world for that matter”. The idea is that a rapid response from the internet ombudsman, whose office would need to be appropriately staffed, would either order the material to be taken down or allow it to remain. As long as ISPs complied with the rulings, they would not face any fine or punishment. David Wright, of the UK Safer Internet Centre, said the closest existing model was Australia’s e-safety commissioner which provides a complaints service for children experiencing cyber-bullying. Shefets, who founded the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID) in 2014, is also working with Unesco to develop the project particularly to deal with material deemed to be encouraging radicalisation. He is also planning to present his scheme to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. Shefets became interested in regulating online complaints after taking a case against Google in 2014 which resulted in the US firm being fined €1,000 a day until an online defamatory article was removed. He believes an internet ombudsman will help smaller companies that cannot afford large legal departments to assess the risks of material they host online. “It would help them compete against the big players, who already have massive legal departments and access to lawyers without any financial difficulties,” he explained. “If we don’t put in place some sort of mechanism which will protect freedom of speech while at the same time increasing accountability, it will be too easy to justify repressive [legislative] regimes.”

technology/2016/dec/19/france-plans-internet-ombudsman-to-safeguard-free-speech

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T09:39:50Z

France plans internet ombudsman to safeguard free speech

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/france-plans-internet-ombudsman-to-safeguard-free-speech

['france', 'considering', 'appointing', 'official', 'internet', 'ombudsman', 'regulate', 'complaints', 'online', 'material', 'order', 'prevent', 'excessive', 'censorship', 'preserve', 'free', 'speech', 'bill', 'establishing', 'content', 'qualification', 'assessment', 'procedure', 'tabled', 'french', 'senate', 'initiative', 'debated', 'last', 'week', 'high', 'level', 'meeting', 'attended', 'senators', 'judges', 'well', 'policy', 'officers', 'google', 'twitter', 'aim', 'provide', 'simple', 'procedure', 'support', 'firms', 'operating', 'online', 'uncertain', 'legal', 'liabilities', 'prevent', 'over-zealous', 'removal', 'censorship', 'material', 'merely', 'subject', 'complaint', 'could', 'copied', 'european', 'jurisdictions', 'dan', 'shefets', 'danish', 'lawyer', 'works', 'paris', 'developed', 'proposal', 'french', 'senator', 'nathalie', 'goulet', 'said', 'problem', 'internet', 'ombudsman', 'addresses', 'applies', 'countries', 'europe', 'member', 'states', 'work', 'e-commerce', 'directive', 'according', 'directive', 'internet', 'service', 'providers', 'isps', 'face', 'penal', 'civil', 'liability', 'soon', 'made', 'aware', 'allegedly', 'illicit', 'content', 'one', 'consequence', 'liability', 'smaller', 'companies', 'take', 'content', 'fear', 'later', 'sanctions', 'risk', 'freedom', 'speech', 'real', 'significant', 'consequence', 'directive', 'also', 'growing', 'pressure', 'isps', 'europe', 'world', 'matter', 'idea', 'rapid', 'response', 'internet', 'ombudsman', 'whose', 'office', 'would', 'need', 'appropriately', 'staffed', 'would', 'either', 'order', 'material', 'taken', 'allow', 'remain', 'long', 'isps', 'complied', 'rulings', 'would', 'face', 'fine', 'punishment', 'david', 'wright', 'uk', 'safer', 'internet', 'centre', 'said', 'closest', 'existing', 'model', 'australia', 'e-safety', 'commissioner', 'provides', 'complaints', 'service', 'children', 'experiencing', 'cyber-bullying', 'shefets', 'founded', 'association', 'accountability', 'internet', 'democracy', 'aaid', 'also', 'working', 'unesco', 'develop', 'project', 'particularly', 'deal', 'material', 'deemed', 'encouraging', 'radicalisation', 'also', 'planning', 'present', 'scheme', 'parliamentary', 'assembly', 'council', 'europe', 'shefets', 'became', 'interested', 'regulating', 'online', 'complaints', 'taking', 'case', 'google', 'resulted', 'us', 'firm', 'fined', 'day', 'online', 'defamatory', 'article', 'removed', 'believes', 'internet', 'ombudsman', 'help', 'smaller', 'companies', 'cannot', 'afford', 'large', 'legal', 'departments', 'assess', 'risks', 'material', 'host', 'online', 'would', 'help', 'compete', 'big', 'players', 'already', 'massive', 'legal', 'departments', 'access', 'lawyers', 'without', 'financial', 'difficulties', 'explained', 'put', 'place', 'sort', 'mechanism', 'protect', 'freedom', 'speech', 'time', 'increasing', 'accountability', 'easy', 'justify', 'repressive', 'legislative', 'regimes']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/19/discrimination-by-algorithm-scientists-devise-test-to-detect-ai-bias

There was the voice recognition software that struggled to understand women, the crime prediction algorithm that targeted black neighbourhoods and the online ad platform which was more likely to show men highly paid executive jobs. Concerns have been growing about AI’s so-called “white guy problem” and now scientists have devised a way to test whether an algorithm is introducing gender or racial biases into decision-making. Moritz Hardt, a senior research scientist at Google and a co-author of the paper, said: “Decisions based on machine learning can be both incredibly useful and have a profound impact on our lives ... Despite the need, a vetted methodology in machine learning for preventing this kind of discrimination based on sensitive attributes has been lacking.” The paper was one of several on detecting discrimination by algorithms to be presented at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Barcelona this month, indicating a growing recognition of the problem. Nathan Srebro, a computer scientist at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago and co-author, said: “We are trying to enforce that you will not have inappropriate bias in the statistical prediction.” The test is aimed at machine learning programs, which learn to make predictions about the future by crunching through vast quantities of existing data. Since the decision-making criteria are essentially learnt by the computer, rather than being pre-programmed by humans, the exact logic behind decisions is often opaque, even to the scientists who wrote the software. “Even if we do have access to the innards of the algorithm, they are getting so complicated it’s almost futile to get inside them,” said Srebro. “The whole point of machine learning is to build magical black boxes.” To get around this, Srebro and colleagues devised a way to test for discrimination simply by analysing the data going into a programme and the decisions coming out the other end. “Our criteria does not look at the innards of the learning algorithm,” said Srebro. “It just looks at the predictions it makes.” Their approach, called Equality of Opportunity in Supervised Learning, works on the basic principle that when an algorithm makes a decision about an individual - be it to show them an online ad or award them parole - the decision should not reveal anything about the individual’s race or gender beyond what might be gleaned from the data itself. For instance, if men were on average twice as likely to default on bank loans than women, and if you knew that a particular individual in a dataset had defaulted on a loan, you could reasonably conclude they were more likely (but not certain) to be male. However, if an algorithm calculated that the most profitable strategy for a lender was to reject all loan applications from men and accept all female applications, the decision would precisely confirm a person’s gender. “This can be interpreted as inappropriate discrimination,” said Srebro. The US financial regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has already expressed an interest in using the method to assess banks. However, others have raised concerns that the approach appears to side-step any requirement for transparency about how decisions made by algorithms are actually reached. Alan Winfield, professor of robot ethics at the University of the West of England, said: “Imagine there’s a court case for one of these decisions. A court would have to hear from an expert witness explaining why the program made the decision it did.” Winfield acknowledged that an absolute requirement for transparency is likely to prompt “howls of protest” from the deep learning community. “It’s too bad,” he said. Noel Sharkey, emeritus professor of robotics and AI at the University of Sheffield, agreed. “Machine learning is great if you’re using it to work out the best way to route an oil pipeline,” he said. “Until we know more about how biases work in them, I’d be very concerned about them making predictions that affect people’s lives.”

technology/2016/dec/19/discrimination-by-algorithm-scientists-devise-test-to-detect-ai-bias

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T07:30:14Z

Discrimination by algorithm: scientists devise test to detect AI bias

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/discrimination-by-algorithm-scientists-devise-test-to-detect-ai-bias

['voice', 'recognition', 'software', 'struggled', 'understand', 'women', 'crime', 'prediction', 'algorithm', 'targeted', 'black', 'neighbourhoods', 'online', 'ad', 'platform', 'likely', 'show', 'men', 'highly', 'paid', 'executive', 'jobs', 'concerns', 'growing', 'ai', 'so-called', 'white', 'guy', 'problem', 'scientists', 'devised', 'way', 'test', 'whether', 'algorithm', 'introducing', 'gender', 'racial', 'biases', 'decision-making', 'moritz', 'hardt', 'senior', 'research', 'scientist', 'google', 'co-author', 'paper', 'said', 'decisions', 'based', 'machine', 'learning', 'incredibly', 'useful', 'profound', 'impact', 'lives', 'despite', 'need', 'vetted', 'methodology', 'machine', 'learning', 'preventing', 'kind', 'discrimination', 'based', 'sensitive', 'attributes', 'lacking', 'paper', 'one', 'several', 'detecting', 'discrimination', 'algorithms', 'presented', 'neural', 'information', 'processing', 'systems', 'nips', 'conference', 'barcelona', 'month', 'indicating', 'growing', 'recognition', 'problem', 'nathan', 'srebro', 'computer', 'scientist', 'toyota', 'technological', 'institute', 'chicago', 'co-author', 'said', 'trying', 'enforce', 'inappropriate', 'bias', 'statistical', 'prediction', 'test', 'aimed', 'machine', 'learning', 'programs', 'learn', 'make', 'predictions', 'future', 'crunching', 'vast', 'quantities', 'existing', 'data', 'since', 'decision-making', 'criteria', 'essentially', 'learnt', 'computer', 'rather', 'pre-programmed', 'humans', 'exact', 'logic', 'behind', 'decisions', 'often', 'opaque', 'even', 'scientists', 'wrote', 'software', 'even', 'access', 'innards', 'algorithm', 'getting', 'complicated', 'almost', 'futile', 'get', 'inside', 'said', 'srebro', 'whole', 'point', 'machine', 'learning', 'build', 'magical', 'black', 'boxes', 'get', 'around', 'srebro', 'colleagues', 'devised', 'way', 'test', 'discrimination', 'simply', 'analysing', 'data', 'going', 'programme', 'decisions', 'coming', 'end', 'criteria', 'look', 'innards', 'learning', 'algorithm', 'said', 'srebro', 'looks', 'predictions', 'makes', 'approach', 'called', 'equality', 'opportunity', 'supervised', 'learning', 'works', 'basic', 'principle', 'algorithm', 'makes', 'decision', 'individual', '-', 'show', 'online', 'ad', 'award', 'parole', '-', 'decision', 'reveal', 'anything', 'individual', 'race', 'gender', 'beyond', 'might', 'gleaned', 'data', 'instance', 'men', 'average', 'twice', 'likely', 'default', 'bank', 'loans', 'women', 'knew', 'particular', 'individual', 'dataset', 'defaulted', 'loan', 'could', 'reasonably', 'conclude', 'likely', 'certain', 'male', 'however', 'algorithm', 'calculated', 'profitable', 'strategy', 'lender', 'reject', 'loan', 'applications', 'men', 'accept', 'female', 'applications', 'decision', 'would', 'precisely', 'confirm', 'person', 'gender', 'interpreted', 'inappropriate', 'discrimination', 'said', 'srebro', 'us', 'financial', 'regulator', 'consumer', 'financial', 'protection', 'bureau', 'already', 'expressed', 'interest', 'using', 'method', 'assess', 'banks', 'however', 'others', 'raised', 'concerns', 'approach', 'appears', 'side-step', 'requirement', 'transparency', 'decisions', 'made', 'algorithms', 'actually', 'reached', 'alan', 'winfield', 'professor', 'robot', 'ethics', 'university', 'west', 'england', 'said', 'imagine', 'court', 'case', 'one', 'decisions', 'court', 'would', 'hear', 'expert', 'witness', 'explaining', 'program', 'made', 'decision', 'winfield', 'acknowledged', 'absolute', 'requirement', 'transparency', 'likely', 'prompt', 'howls', 'protest', 'deep', 'learning', 'community', 'bad', 'said', 'noel', 'sharkey', 'emeritus', 'professor', 'robotics', 'ai', 'university', 'sheffield', 'agreed', 'machine', 'learning', 'great', 'using', 'work', 'best', 'way', 'route', 'oil', 'pipeline', 'said', 'know', 'biases', 'work', 'would', 'concerned', 'making', 'predictions', 'affect', 'people', 'lives']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/19/airbnb-uk-tax-history-questioned-as-income-passes-through-ireland

Airbnb paid UK tax of £317,000 last year after its London company handled hundreds of millions of pounds in global rent payments which generated commissions for its Irish HQ. The UK arms of the booming home sharing website paid tax on a £1.4m profit for the 11 months ending in December 2015, their first full UK accounts reveal. One of the companies handled such a large amount of rental cash that at one point it held £430m on account. Airbnb Payments UK Ltd handles the full rental payments between guests staying everywhere in the world except the USA, China and India and their hosts. London is Airbnb’s third biggest city worldwide behind Paris and New York, with approximately 40,000 properties to rent. Airbnb generates the bulk of its income from commissions worth up to 15.5% of rents but these are accounted for by its company in Ireland, where it benefits from a favourable corporate tax regime. The San Francisco based business has been valued at £23bn and tax campaigners have questioned its financial arrangements, although Airbnb denies the set up allows it to avoid paying its fair share of UK tax. Tax barrister, Jolyon Maugham QC, said: “This is the same story as Google and Facebook which is that profits generated from the UK are not taxed in the UK. By using a company in a lower tax country, in this case Ireland, Airbnb looks to have arranged its affairs to avoid tax throughout Europe including the UK.” A spokesman for Airbnb said: “We don’t make important, long-term business decisions on the basis of taxation”. “We follow the rules and pay all the tax we owe in the places we do business,” he said. “Corporation tax is a tax on profit, and Airbnb is a young company investing heavily in our future. Airbnb hosts keep 97% of the price they charge to rent their space and the overwhelming amount of money generated by the Airbnb platform stays with hosts and their communities.” Airbnb was established in 2008 and is now backed by multiple venture capital firms including Google Capital. It claims to have more than two million properties available to rent in 191 countries. Airbnb’s UK tax payments were detailed in annual reports filed last month by its two British subsidiaries and provide a rare snapshot of the scale of its booming business. Airbnb has two UK firms to handle payments from around the world and conduct marketing in the UK. While hundreds of millions of pounds in rental payments pass through the companies, earning commission from both the guest and the host, Airbnb’s UK arms recorded £145m as turnover in the UK, of which just £1.4m was taxable profit. The biggest cost recorded was a £100m foreign exchange loss caused by Airbnb receiving cash for rentals in multiple currencies and delays, sometimes of several months, between receiving payment from a guest and paying it out to a host. Airbnb said the UK company processes payments from customers around the world on behalf of its Irish HQ. The “significant costs” of that process – such as any foreign exchanges losses – are reimbursed by Ireland at a profit which is then taxed in the UK, it said. Airbnb said that its international HQ was based in Ireland to “capitalise on Ireland’s global reputation for technology and utilise the vast tech-savvy and bilingual workforce that Ireland has built.” But Richard Murphy, a chartered account and director of Tax Research UK, said he thought Airbnb was “dumping its foreign exchange losses in this country to get tax relief on them but the income to which these foreign exchange losses relate never comes near the UK”. “We get none of the upside on tax from Airbnb’s real income, which is taxed in Ireland, but are giving away tax relief on their costs,” he said. “The net result is to significantly increase the overall level of profits Airbnb can enjoy at low tax rates.” Murphy said cost reimbursement “is not the basis on which international tax rules are meant to work”. “They are meant to ensure businesses are taxed on a commercial basis. It is not clear that the UK is ensuring that is happening and in the process Airbnb may be winning from our failure.” Airbnb said this was untrue and its UK arm is taxed on a commercial basis and that cost reimbursement is a common way of doing business. The accounts also reveal that Airbnb believes “future legislation may negatively impact Airbnb’s ability to operate as it currently does”. It states: “The sharing economy in which Airbnb operates is a relatively new economic sector and currently the status of legislation governing it can be vague at best.” • This article was amended on 19 December 2016 to clarify a description of Airbnb Payments UK Ltd’s costs and revenue.

technology/2016/dec/19/airbnb-uk-tax-history-questioned-as-income-passes-through-ireland

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-19T07:01:13Z

Airbnb UK tax history questioned as income passes through Ireland

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/airbnb-uk-tax-history-questioned-as-income-passes-through-ireland

['airbnb', 'paid', 'uk', 'tax', 'last', 'year', 'london', 'company', 'handled', 'hundreds', 'millions', 'pounds', 'global', 'rent', 'payments', 'generated', 'commissions', 'irish', 'hq', 'uk', 'arms', 'booming', 'home', 'sharing', 'website', 'paid', 'tax', '14m', 'profit', 'months', 'ending', 'december', 'first', 'full', 'uk', 'accounts', 'reveal', 'one', 'companies', 'handled', 'large', 'amount', 'rental', 'cash', 'one', 'point', 'held', '430m', 'account', 'airbnb', 'payments', 'uk', 'ltd', 'handles', 'full', 'rental', 'payments', 'guests', 'staying', 'everywhere', 'world', 'except', 'usa', 'china', 'india', 'hosts', 'london', 'airbnb', 'third', 'biggest', 'city', 'worldwide', 'behind', 'paris', 'new', 'york', 'approximately', 'properties', 'rent', 'airbnb', 'generates', 'bulk', 'income', 'commissions', 'worth', 'rents', 'accounted', 'company', 'ireland', 'benefits', 'favourable', 'corporate', 'tax', 'regime', 'san', 'francisco', 'based', 'business', 'valued', '23bn', 'tax', 'campaigners', 'questioned', 'financial', 'arrangements', 'although', 'airbnb', 'denies', 'set', 'allows', 'avoid', 'paying', 'fair', 'share', 'uk', 'tax', 'tax', 'barrister', 'jolyon', 'maugham', 'qc', 'said', 'story', 'google', 'facebook', 'profits', 'generated', 'uk', 'taxed', 'uk', 'using', 'company', 'lower', 'tax', 'country', 'case', 'ireland', 'airbnb', 'looks', 'arranged', 'affairs', 'avoid', 'tax', 'throughout', 'europe', 'including', 'uk', 'spokesman', 'airbnb', 'said', 'make', 'important', 'long-term', 'business', 'decisions', 'basis', 'taxation', 'follow', 'rules', 'pay', 'tax', 'owe', 'places', 'business', 'said', 'corporation', 'tax', 'tax', 'profit', 'airbnb', 'young', 'company', 'investing', 'heavily', 'future', 'airbnb', 'hosts', 'keep', 'price', 'charge', 'rent', 'space', 'overwhelming', 'amount', 'money', 'generated', 'airbnb', 'platform', 'stays', 'hosts', 'communities', 'airbnb', 'established', 'backed', 'multiple', 'venture', 'capital', 'firms', 'including', 'google', 'capital', 'claims', 'two', 'million', 'properties', 'available', 'rent', 'countries', 'airbnb', 'uk', 'tax', 'payments', 'detailed', 'annual', 'reports', 'filed', 'last', 'month', 'two', 'british', 'subsidiaries', 'provide', 'rare', 'snapshot', 'scale', 'booming', 'business', 'airbnb', 'two', 'uk', 'firms', 'handle', 'payments', 'around', 'world', 'conduct', 'marketing', 'uk', 'hundreds', 'millions', 'pounds', 'rental', 'payments', 'pass', 'companies', 'earning', 'commission', 'guest', 'host', 'airbnb', 'uk', 'arms', 'recorded', '145m', 'turnover', 'uk', '14m', 'taxable', 'profit', 'biggest', 'cost', 'recorded', '100m', 'foreign', 'exchange', 'loss', 'caused', 'airbnb', 'receiving', 'cash', 'rentals', 'multiple', 'currencies', 'delays', 'sometimes', 'several', 'months', 'receiving', 'payment', 'guest', 'paying', 'host', 'airbnb', 'said', 'uk', 'company', 'processes', 'payments', 'customers', 'around', 'world', 'behalf', 'irish', 'hq', 'significant', 'costs', 'process', 'foreign', 'exchanges', 'losses', 'reimbursed', 'ireland', 'profit', 'taxed', 'uk', 'said', 'airbnb', 'said', 'international', 'hq', 'based', 'ireland', 'capitalise', 'ireland', 'global', 'reputation', 'technology', 'utilise', 'vast', 'tech-savvy', 'bilingual', 'workforce', 'ireland', 'built', 'richard', 'murphy', 'chartered', 'account', 'director', 'tax', 'research', 'uk', 'said', 'thought', 'airbnb', 'dumping', 'foreign', 'exchange', 'losses', 'country', 'get', 'tax', 'relief', 'income', 'foreign', 'exchange', 'losses', 'relate', 'never', 'comes', 'near', 'uk', 'get', 'none', 'upside', 'tax', 'airbnb', 'real', 'income', 'taxed', 'ireland', 'giving', 'away', 'tax', 'relief', 'costs', 'said', 'net', 'result', 'significantly', 'increase', 'overall', 'level', 'profits', 'airbnb', 'enjoy', 'low', 'tax', 'rates', 'murphy', 'said', 'cost', 'reimbursement', 'basis', 'international', 'tax', 'rules', 'meant', 'work', 'meant', 'ensure', 'businesses', 'taxed', 'commercial', 'basis', 'clear', 'uk', 'ensuring', 'happening', 'process', 'airbnb', 'may', 'winning', 'failure', 'airbnb', 'said', 'untrue', 'uk', 'arm', 'taxed', 'commercial', 'basis', 'cost', 'reimbursement', 'common', 'way', 'business', 'accounts', 'also', 'reveal', 'airbnb', 'believes', 'future', 'legislation', 'may', 'negatively', 'impact', 'airbnb', 'ability', 'operate', 'currently', 'states', 'sharing', 'economy', 'airbnb', 'operates', 'relatively', 'new', 'economic', 'sector', 'currently', 'status', 'legislation', 'governing', 'vague', 'best', 'article', 'amended', 'december', 'clarify', 'description', 'airbnb', 'payments', 'uk', 'ltd', 'costs', 'revenue']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/18/apply-the-brakes-and-rethink-driverless-cars

The problems with introducing driverless cars are greater than you identify in your editorial (Intelligent cars raise questions that only society can answer, 16 December) and yet almost certain to be ignored. No amount of testing can prove them as safe as human drivers unless the software is frozen and never updated. Verifying the behaviour of machine-learning systems is an unsolved research challenge. There are major problems of cybersecurity – many of the sensors and communications have already been hacked. Who would risk being a passenger alone, when anyone can easily force the car to stop? But politicians are probably powerless to prevent the sale and use of these cars when multinational companies are investing billions of dollars and countries are competing for a share of the investment, tax revenues and other benefits. When one region has driverless vehicles on the street, how will others resist the pressures to follow suit? Yet the real dangers may only arise after there are fleets of driverless cars on the roads, when a cyberattack allows a criminal or terrorist to control hundreds or thousands of vehicles, gridlock a city, deliver bombs, or distract and obstruct emergency and security services while some other crime is being committed. These scenarios should be considered and researched, and countermeasures should be devised with urgency, so that the necessary constraints on the software and hardware of driverless cars can be imposed internationally before fleets of such vehicles present a threat that cannot easily be overcome. Professor Martyn Thomas Gresham College, London • Part of the driverless futuristic nightmare – and job losses – could come from platoons of lorries linked and controlled electronically by the first HGV and driver with the rear lorries driverless (Why the driverless future could turn into a nightmare, 16 December). The reality is that the government plans to trial processions of lorries, which could be vulnerable to cybercrime, even though our motorway network is congested, with frequent exits close together. Instead, why not use a freight train which is much safer, far less polluting, and can individually remove up to 136 HGVs? Philippa Edmunds Freight on Rail manager, Campaign for Better Transport • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

technology/2016/dec/18/apply-the-brakes-and-rethink-driverless-cars

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-18T18:22:04Z

Apply the brakes and rethink driverless cars | Letters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/18/apply-the-brakes-and-rethink-driverless-cars

['problems', 'introducing', 'driverless', 'cars', 'greater', 'identify', 'editorial', 'intelligent', 'cars', 'raise', 'questions', 'society', 'answer', 'december', 'yet', 'almost', 'certain', 'ignored', 'amount', 'testing', 'prove', 'safe', 'human', 'drivers', 'unless', 'software', 'frozen', 'never', 'updated', 'verifying', 'behaviour', 'machine-learning', 'systems', 'unsolved', 'research', 'challenge', 'major', 'problems', 'cybersecurity', 'many', 'sensors', 'communications', 'already', 'hacked', 'would', 'risk', 'passenger', 'alone', 'anyone', 'easily', 'force', 'car', 'stop', 'politicians', 'probably', 'powerless', 'prevent', 'sale', 'use', 'cars', 'multinational', 'companies', 'investing', 'billions', 'dollars', 'countries', 'competing', 'share', 'investment', 'tax', 'revenues', 'benefits', 'one', 'region', 'driverless', 'vehicles', 'street', 'others', 'resist', 'pressures', 'follow', 'suit', 'yet', 'real', 'dangers', 'may', 'arise', 'fleets', 'driverless', 'cars', 'roads', 'cyberattack', 'allows', 'criminal', 'terrorist', 'control', 'hundreds', 'thousands', 'vehicles', 'gridlock', 'city', 'deliver', 'bombs', 'distract', 'obstruct', 'emergency', 'security', 'services', 'crime', 'committed', 'scenarios', 'considered', 'researched', 'countermeasures', 'devised', 'urgency', 'necessary', 'constraints', 'software', 'hardware', 'driverless', 'cars', 'imposed', 'internationally', 'fleets', 'vehicles', 'present', 'threat', 'cannot', 'easily', 'overcome', 'professor', 'martyn', 'thomas', 'gresham', 'college', 'london', 'part', 'driverless', 'futuristic', 'nightmare', 'job', 'losses', 'could', 'come', 'platoons', 'lorries', 'linked', 'controlled', 'electronically', 'first', 'hgv', 'driver', 'rear', 'lorries', 'driverless', 'driverless', 'future', 'could', 'turn', 'nightmare', 'december', 'reality', 'government', 'plans', 'trial', 'processions', 'lorries', 'could', 'vulnerable', 'cybercrime', 'even', 'though', 'motorway', 'network', 'congested', 'frequent', 'exits', 'close', 'together', 'instead', 'use', 'freight', 'train', 'much', 'safer', 'far', 'less', 'polluting', 'individually', 'remove', 'hgvs', 'philippa', 'edmunds', 'freight', 'rail', 'manager', 'campaign', 'better', 'transport', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/18/five-best-projectors-tried-tested-home-movie-theatre

The big screen at home has become commonplace of late. TVs the size of small aquariums can be bought for such paltry sums that everyone, it seems, now owns a domestic cinema of sorts. A projector takes that to the next level, creating the illusion of living room as auditorium for a fraction of the cost of the equivalent television. You don’t even need to splash out on a dedicated projector screen; any patch of white or lightly coloured wall will suffice. Which one to choose, though? Tiny pocket projectors can be tucked away in a drawer or a bag, but need darker rooms. Short-throw projectors perform miracles with light, bending photons from impossible positions right below your screen, but you’ll pay for the privilege. Others add powerful speakers, software voodoo to magically improve picture quality… the choices are many and confusing. Here’s a roundup of five of the most interesting and effective around, to help you find a projector to light up your domestic life. RIF6 Cube £270, 50 lumens, 854 X 480 resolution If hobbits were home-cinema enthusiasts they’d probably be tempted by the RIF6, a diminutive, cube-shaped projector suitable for the tiniest of hands – and budgets. Finished in glittering silver and obsidian black, like some rare Elvish artefact, the RIF6 is a surprisingly utilitarian device. It can play back video from phones, laptops and tablets directly through its MHL-compatible HDMI input and also plays files from memory cards. In the box is a tripod of equally compact dimensions, lending the projector Ent-like stability on most surfaces, plus a remote control and a full set of cables. It even has its very own rechargeable internal battery. This is a portable projector, and it has a lower resolution than its more lumpen relations, so the image isn’t as sharp or bright. But draw the curtains, snuff the candles and big screens of up to 2.5 metres across are surprisingly watchable. Verdict: Don’t go on any quest without one. Philips Screeneo 2.0 £1,400, 2,000 lumens, 1,920 X 1,080 resolution Reminiscent more of a chicken bucket than a means of recreating the cinema experience in the living room, the Philips Screeneo 2.0 offers a unique blend of features. Unlike most projectors, which must be placed metres away from the surface on to which it projects, the Philips can nestle in much closer proximity. Positioned 10cm away from a wall, a 127cm display can be created; from 42cm, that inflates to a vision-filling 2.5 metres, and with high brightness and contrast its 1080p image is watchable with and without the curtains drawn. The Screeneo’s credit list of talents doesn’t end there, though: in the base of the bucket sits a bank of speakers capable of delivering full-bodied sound to embarrass the output of many a shrill LCD TV. Not many projectors are this good and this flexible, but the price matches its list of capabilities. Verdict: Flexible but expensive. Optoma HD28DSE £700, 3,000 lumens, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution Those seeking the finest image quality and biggest screen can spend thousands on a TV, but the Optoma can deliver acres more for far less. The ace up this machine’s sleeve is its Darbee image processing. Nothing to do with horse racing or contests between teams that happen to be cartographically close, this is instead a clever piece of imaging wizardry that amplifies textures and details to an inconceivable extent. Projected images take on near physical presence, skin pores are displayed with medical detail and hair looks so palpable one feels almost able to pluck it. It’s the next best thing to going to the cinema itself, and its long lamp life of up to 8,000 hours means you won’t have to pay the ticket price for a replacement for years. Verdict: A box-office smash. BenQ W2000 £799, 2,000 lumens, 1,920 X 1,080 resolution The Lumière brothers would have gaped, slack-jawed at the cinematic capabilities of the BenQ W2000. Squeezed into a unit the size of a gentleman’s valise is a celluloid-beating, movie theatre in a box, able to recreate wall-filling moving images brimful with dazzling detail. The key to the W2000’s appeal is the adaptability of its lens, which can be shifted up, down, in and out, as if it were on a camera boom, for fine-tuning the position of the image without the anguish of quality degradation. It’s whisper-quiet compared with its colleagues, overflowing with connections and effortless to operate. Your only problem may be dragging yourself away from the screen. Verdict: Picture perfect but pricey. ViewSonic Lightstream PJD7720HD £479, 3,200 lumens, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution The ViewSonic is our least expensive “proper projector” and yet its cast of specifications is a laundry list of high-tech, home-cinema buzzwords. It has a six-segment colour wheel, a maximum brightness rating of 3,200 lumens, a maximum contrast of 22,000:1 and a Blu-ray-ready resolution of 1,080p. In isolation no one would lament the quality of its image. In juxtaposition with its rivals, however, it can’t match the intensity of the Optoma or the immaculate refinement of the BenQ. It lacks some essentials, too, with a measly selection of inputs and a non-backlit remote control, while its fan is a touch obstreperous. But the price is more palatable, you may find yourself making excuses for it instead. Verdict: Basic but beautiful.

technology/2016/dec/18/five-best-projectors-tried-tested-home-movie-theatre

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-18T12:00:00Z

Sit back and enjoy the show: five of the best projectors

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/18/five-best-projectors-tried-tested-home-movie-theatre

['big', 'screen', 'home', 'become', 'commonplace', 'late', 'tvs', 'size', 'small', 'aquariums', 'bought', 'paltry', 'sums', 'everyone', 'seems', 'owns', 'domestic', 'cinema', 'sorts', 'projector', 'takes', 'next', 'level', 'creating', 'illusion', 'living', 'room', 'auditorium', 'fraction', 'cost', 'equivalent', 'television', 'even', 'need', 'splash', 'dedicated', 'projector', 'screen', 'patch', 'white', 'lightly', 'coloured', 'wall', 'suffice', 'one', 'choose', 'though', 'tiny', 'pocket', 'projectors', 'tucked', 'away', 'drawer', 'bag', 'need', 'darker', 'rooms', 'short-throw', 'projectors', 'perform', 'miracles', 'light', 'bending', 'photons', 'impossible', 'positions', 'right', 'screen', 'pay', 'privilege', 'others', 'add', 'powerful', 'speakers', 'software', 'voodoo', 'magically', 'improve', 'picture', 'quality', 'choices', 'many', 'confusing', 'roundup', 'five', 'interesting', 'effective', 'around', 'help', 'find', 'projector', 'light', 'domestic', 'life', 'rif6', 'cube', 'lumens', 'x', 'resolution', 'hobbits', 'home-cinema', 'enthusiasts', 'would', 'probably', 'tempted', 'rif6', 'diminutive', 'cube-shaped', 'projector', 'suitable', 'tiniest', 'hands', 'budgets', 'finished', 'glittering', 'silver', 'obsidian', 'black', 'like', 'rare', 'elvish', 'artefact', 'rif6', 'surprisingly', 'utilitarian', 'device', 'play', 'back', 'video', 'phones', 'laptops', 'tablets', 'directly', 'mhl-compatible', 'hdmi', 'input', 'also', 'plays', 'files', 'memory', 'cards', 'box', 'tripod', 'equally', 'compact', 'dimensions', 'lending', 'projector', 'ent-like', 'stability', 'surfaces', 'plus', 'remote', 'control', 'full', 'set', 'cables', 'even', 'rechargeable', 'internal', 'battery', 'portable', 'projector', 'lower', 'resolution', 'lumpen', 'relations', 'image', 'sharp', 'bright', 'draw', 'curtains', 'snuff', 'candles', 'big', 'screens', 'metres', 'across', 'surprisingly', 'watchable', 'verdict', 'go', 'quest', 'without', 'one', 'philips', 'screeneo', 'lumens', 'x', 'resolution', 'reminiscent', 'chicken', 'bucket', 'means', 'recreating', 'cinema', 'experience', 'living', 'room', 'philips', 'screeneo', 'offers', 'unique', 'blend', 'features', 'unlike', 'projectors', 'must', 'placed', 'metres', 'away', 'surface', 'projects', 'philips', 'nestle', 'much', 'closer', 'proximity', 'positioned', '10cm', 'away', 'wall', '127cm', 'display', 'created', '42cm', 'inflates', 'vision-filling', 'metres', 'high', 'brightness', 'contrast', '1080p', 'image', 'watchable', 'without', 'curtains', 'drawn', 'screeneo', 'credit', 'list', 'talents', 'end', 'though', 'base', 'bucket', 'sits', 'bank', 'speakers', 'capable', 'delivering', 'full-bodied', 'sound', 'embarrass', 'output', 'many', 'shrill', 'lcd', 'tv', 'many', 'projectors', 'good', 'flexible', 'price', 'matches', 'list', 'capabilities', 'verdict', 'flexible', 'expensive', 'optoma', 'hd28dse', 'lumens', 'x', 'resolution', 'seeking', 'finest', 'image', 'quality', 'biggest', 'screen', 'spend', 'thousands', 'tv', 'optoma', 'deliver', 'acres', 'far', 'less', 'ace', 'machine', 'sleeve', 'darbee', 'image', 'processing', 'nothing', 'horse', 'racing', 'contests', 'teams', 'happen', 'cartographically', 'close', 'instead', 'clever', 'piece', 'imaging', 'wizardry', 'amplifies', 'textures', 'details', 'inconceivable', 'extent', 'projected', 'images', 'take', 'near', 'physical', 'presence', 'skin', 'pores', 'displayed', 'medical', 'detail', 'hair', 'looks', 'palpable', 'one', 'feels', 'almost', 'able', 'pluck', 'next', 'best', 'thing', 'going', 'cinema', 'long', 'lamp', 'life', 'hours', 'means', 'pay', 'ticket', 'price', 'replacement', 'years', 'verdict', 'box-office', 'smash', 'benq', 'w2000', 'lumens', 'x', 'resolution', 'lumiere', 'brothers', 'would', 'gaped', 'slack-jawed', 'cinematic', 'capabilities', 'benq', 'w2000', 'squeezed', 'unit', 'size', 'gentleman', 'valise', 'celluloid-beating', 'movie', 'theatre', 'box', 'able', 'recreate', 'wall-filling', 'moving', 'images', 'brimful', 'dazzling', 'detail', 'key', 'w2000', 'appeal', 'adaptability', 'lens', 'shifted', 'camera', 'boom', 'fine-tuning', 'position', 'image', 'without', 'anguish', 'quality', 'degradation', 'whisper-quiet', 'compared', 'colleagues', 'overflowing', 'connections', 'effortless', 'operate', 'problem', 'may', 'dragging', 'away', 'screen', 'verdict', 'picture', 'perfect', 'pricey', 'viewsonic', 'lightstream', 'pjd7720hd', 'lumens', 'x', 'resolution', 'viewsonic', 'least', 'expensive', 'proper', 'projector', 'yet', 'cast', 'specifications', 'laundry', 'list', 'high-tech', 'home-cinema', 'buzzwords', 'six-segment', 'colour', 'wheel', 'maximum', 'brightness', 'rating', 'lumens', 'maximum', 'contrast', 'blu-ray-ready', 'resolution', '1080p', 'isolation', 'one', 'would', 'lament', 'quality', 'image', 'juxtaposition', 'rivals', 'however', 'match', 'intensity', 'optoma', 'immaculate', 'refinement', 'benq', 'lacks', 'essentials', 'measly', 'selection', 'inputs', 'non-backlit', 'remote', 'control', 'fan', 'touch', 'obstreperous', 'price', 'palatable', 'may', 'find', 'making', 'excuses', 'instead', 'verdict', 'basic', 'beautiful']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/18/rolls-royce-dawn-convertible-car-review

Price: £265,155 Engine: 6.6-litre V12 twin-turbo Power: 563bhp Transmission: eight-speed auto, rear-wheel drive 0-62mph: 4.9 seconds Top speed: 155mph MPG: 19.9 CO2: 330g/km Last Saturday, just after dark, a white van pulled alongside us at the lights. The driver glanced over, then his eyes swivelled and he gawped. What he saw in the gloom was a turquoise convertible Rolls-Royce, its hood dropped to reveal a pristine leather interior. The imposing car, its chrome glinting like star dust, is a sumptuous vision on any road, let alone a boring junction in south London. But what made the moment more surreal was that sitting in the car were David Bowie and Sid Vicious… Well, actually, it was me and a friend going to a 50th birthday party. Theme: Dead Rockers. I was the punk so why was I worried about getting black hair dye on the white headrest? Before the Roller was delivered, friends asked if I was ready to spend the weekend being hated. I’d be wafting around in a smog of smugness, while pedestrians and road users scowled at me. In fact, the exact opposite happened. Everywhere I went, people smiled and waved. One person punched the air in delight. Dozens approached and congratulated me on the car, gazing at it in wonder. Other super cars elicit a much more hostile reaction. Sit in a Porsche, a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and you feel the disdain heavy upon you. Is it a British thing? Do we all nurture a lingering reverence for this most historic of marques? Or maybe it’s just that Rolls-Royce makes the best cars the world has ever seen, and for more than a century has been the ne plus ultra of engineering as art as performance. On top of that the new Dawn (which sounds like a morning prayer group) is undeniably striking. Although the Dawn is a fresh start for Rolls, it doesn’t deviate much from the template laid down by BMW when it took over the helm of the great British marque in 1999. Up front there is a gargantuan 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12, and behind that there is all the deep-muscle cosseting that four adults can endure while being propped up in lounge chairs surrounded by chrome, leather, wood and little shiny buttons. Despite its size the Dawn is comparatively drivable. It’s usable, in a daily (if preposterous) way. I took it to Sainsbury’s, twice – one has to eat. The fact that Kate Moss bought one over the summer also tells you that the Dawn brings street kudos that may have eluded Rolls before. Would Sid Vicious buy one? Nah, but the designers at Rolls-Royce would have been only too happy to create a punk-themed bespoke ride for him, complete with shredded leather and safety pins… Email Martin at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@MartinLove166

technology/2016/dec/18/rolls-royce-dawn-convertible-car-review

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-18T06:00:43Z

Rolls Royce Dawn: car review | Martin Love

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/18/rolls-royce-dawn-convertible-car-review

['price', 'engine', '66-litre', 'v12', 'twin-turbo', 'power', '563bhp', 'transmission', 'eight-speed', 'auto', 'rear-wheel', 'drive', '0-62mph', 'seconds', 'top', 'speed', '155mph', 'mpg', 'co2', '330gkm', 'last', 'saturday', 'dark', 'white', 'van', 'pulled', 'alongside', 'us', 'lights', 'driver', 'glanced', 'eyes', 'swivelled', 'gawped', 'saw', 'gloom', 'turquoise', 'convertible', 'rolls-royce', 'hood', 'dropped', 'reveal', 'pristine', 'leather', 'interior', 'imposing', 'car', 'chrome', 'glinting', 'like', 'star', 'dust', 'sumptuous', 'vision', 'road', 'let', 'alone', 'boring', 'junction', 'south', 'london', 'made', 'moment', 'surreal', 'sitting', 'car', 'david', 'bowie', 'sid', 'vicious', 'well', 'actually', 'friend', 'going', '50th', 'birthday', 'party', 'theme', 'dead', 'rockers', 'punk', 'worried', 'getting', 'black', 'hair', 'dye', 'white', 'headrest', 'roller', 'delivered', 'friends', 'asked', 'ready', 'spend', 'weekend', 'hated', 'would', 'wafting', 'around', 'smog', 'smugness', 'pedestrians', 'road', 'users', 'scowled', 'fact', 'exact', 'opposite', 'happened', 'everywhere', 'went', 'people', 'smiled', 'waved', 'one', 'person', 'punched', 'air', 'delight', 'dozens', 'approached', 'congratulated', 'car', 'gazing', 'wonder', 'super', 'cars', 'elicit', 'much', 'hostile', 'reaction', 'sit', 'porsche', 'ferrari', 'lamborghini', 'feel', 'disdain', 'heavy', 'upon', 'british', 'thing', 'nurture', 'lingering', 'reverence', 'historic', 'marques', 'maybe', 'rolls-royce', 'makes', 'best', 'cars', 'world', 'ever', 'seen', 'century', 'ne', 'plus', 'ultra', 'engineering', 'art', 'performance', 'top', 'new', 'dawn', 'sounds', 'like', 'morning', 'prayer', 'group', 'undeniably', 'striking', 'although', 'dawn', 'fresh', 'start', 'rolls', 'deviate', 'much', 'template', 'laid', 'bmw', 'took', 'helm', 'great', 'british', 'marque', 'front', 'gargantuan', '66-litre', 'twin-turbo', 'v12', 'behind', 'deep-muscle', 'cosseting', 'four', 'adults', 'endure', 'propped', 'lounge', 'chairs', 'surrounded', 'chrome', 'leather', 'wood', 'little', 'shiny', 'buttons', 'despite', 'size', 'dawn', 'comparatively', 'drivable', 'usable', 'daily', 'preposterous', 'way', 'took', 'sainsbury', 'twice', 'one', 'eat', 'fact', 'kate', 'moss', 'bought', 'one', 'summer', 'also', 'tells', 'dawn', 'brings', 'street', 'kudos', 'may', 'eluded', 'rolls', 'would', 'sid', 'vicious', 'buy', 'one', 'nah', 'designers', 'rolls-royce', 'would', 'happy', 'create', 'punk-themed', 'bespoke', 'ride', 'complete', 'shredded', 'leather', 'safety', 'pins', 'email', 'martin', 'martinloveobservercouk', 'follow', 'twittermartinlove166']

https://content.guardianapis.com/theobserver/2016/dec/18/tech-companies-must-take-responsibility-for-algorithms

Carole Cadwalladr is absolutely right to highlight how Google’s autocomplete and algorithmic search results can reinforce hate speech and stereotypes (“Google is not ‘just’ a platform”, Comment). But she is less right to claim I tried to absolve Google of responsibility by tweeting: “I’m sure @google will argue they aren’t responsible for the results” in support. What I actually tweeted was that plus – “but they reap advertising revenue from the search. Is that ethical?” Google and others argue their results are a mirror to society, not their responsibility. As a chartered engineer, I strongly agree with Ms Cadwalladr that companies such as Google, Facebook and Uber need to take responsibility for the unintended consequences of the algorithms and machine learning that drive their profits. They can bring huge benefits and great apps but we need a tech-savvy government to minimise the downside by opening up algorithms to regulation as well as legislating for greater consumer ownership of data and control of the advertising revenue it generates. Chi Onwurah MP Houses of Commons London SW1 In all the justifiable furore over the pernicious influence of rightwing websites and how it’s reinforced by Google’s algorithms, I’m surprised no one has mentioned one longstanding, though admittedly partial, answer: don’t use Google! Not as difficult as you might think. For several years now, I’ve avoided using Google (to the extent of barring its cookies) and used DuckDuckGo (see duckduckgo.com) for all searches. It’s just as effective and when, for instance, you try Carole Cadwalladr’s sample search, “did the hol”, none of the offending websites and references comes up. You get a long list of options, but none from Holocaust deniers; indeed, the Holocaust doesn’t come up at all. Jonathan Lamède London N8 When work is right for children On 6 December, the UN committee on the rights of the child released its general comment on rights during adolescence. Many of the recommendations are commendable; however, one fails to protect children. The recommendation to ban all employment below a minimum legal age (articles 84 and 85), a policy set out in the International Labour Organisation’s Minimum Age Convention 138 (1973), makes the false premise that children are better protected if childhood is free from work. Research has shown this can trigger worse living conditions, reduce education opportunities and push some children into more hazardous and exploitative work. Moreover, age-appropriate safe work can be developmental for children of all ages. That the Minimum Age Convention harms children is now so well established that several dozen researchers and practitioners specialising in child work formed an ad hoc expert group to provide the committee with advice and evidence, arguing that Convention 138 should be revoked or ignored and more effective policy should specifically target work that is dangerous or damaging to children. Monitoring mechanisms need to be in place to ensure children’s work at all ages benefits them and is not hazardous or exploitative and does not conflict with education. This can be done through the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Convention 138 is both harmful and unnecessary. Professor Jo Boyden University of Oxford Dr Ben White Erasmus University, the Netherlands Dr William Myers International Institute for Child Rights and Development, US Professor Priscilla Alderson University College London Dr Bree Akesson Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Dr Nicola Ansell Brunel University Professor Michael Bourdillon University of Zimbabwe Dr Rachel Burr Social Work & Education, University of Sussex Richard Carothers Partners in Technology Exchange, Canada Dr Kristen Cheney ISS, The Hague Professor John Cockburn Universite Laval, Canada Dr Tara Collins Ryerson University, Canada Dr Philip Cook International Institute for Child Rights and Development, Canada Dr Philip Cook University of Edinburgh Dr GIna Crivello University of Oxford Dr Jennifer Driscoll Kings College London Dr Jason Hart University of Bath Professor Roger Hart Graduate Centre of the City University of New York Dr Neil Howard European University Institute Dr Roy Huijsmans International Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands Dr Antonella Invernizzi independent researcher, France Dr Victor Karunan Chulalongkom University and Mahidol University, Malaysia Dr Natascha Klocker University of Wollongong, Australia Professor Deborah Levison Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Minnesota Professor Manfred Liebel International Academy Berlin Dr Peter Mackie University of Cardiff Dr Stanford Mahati University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Dr Emma Mawdsley University of Cambridge Dr Virginia Morrow University of Oxford Dr Maria Federica Moscati University of Sussex Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas University of Sussex Samuel Okyere University of Nottingham Dr Alphonce Omolo Lensthru Consultants in Social Development, Kenya Kirsten Pontalti University of Oxford Professor Gina Porter Durham University Kavita Ratna Advocacy of the Concerned for Working Children, India Dr Elsbeth Robson University of Hull Dr Kettie Roelen Institute of Development Studies Dr Jessica Taft University of California Professor Nigel Thomas University of Central Lancashire Dr Dorte Thorsen University of Sussex Professor Kay Tisdall University of Edinburgh Dr Afua Twum-Danso Imoh University of Sheffield Professor Lorraine van Blerk University of Dundee Dr Debbie Watson University of Bristol Heartless to the homeless It is a sad indictment of our society that we have driven so many of our citizens on to the streets. Now we punish them further, as illustrated by Tracy McVeigh’s excellent article on the “dehumanising” campaign against the homeless (News). Many readers will know that if it wasn’t for the bank of mum and dad, their children could be among the poor unfortunate homeless. The councils, planners, businesses and security people involved in implementing these draconian measures should hang their heads in shame. I hope they do not sleep well in their comfortable beds. We should have a policy of name and shame. How about printing a league table showing the least compassionate cities and businesses where most of this “defensive architecture” is in place, so that tourists and potential clients can boycott them? These spikes and railings must be in somebody’s parish. I know many church leaders do good voluntary work but why don’t we hear their voices in the media making comparisons to the parable of the Samaritan and the innkeeper? As for sanctuary and best use of churches, I’m sure Jesus would be delighted to see the homeless sleeping on the pews at night time. This could be overseen by a warden to ensure that nothing sacrilegious took place. R Dudley Edwards North Yorkshire Savagery is not new In the wars of the 20th century, “civilians were not surrogates for the enemy”, writes Will Hutton (Comment). Tell that to the survivors who were in Hamburg or Dresden (or, indeed, Coventry) in the 1939-45 war if he can find any. Bob Horn Cranleigh, Surrey

theobserver/2016/dec/18/tech-companies-must-take-responsibility-for-algorithms

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-18T00:01:36Z

Letters: tech companies must take responsibility for algorithms

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2016/dec/18/tech-companies-must-take-responsibility-for-algorithms

['carole', 'cadwalladr', 'absolutely', 'right', 'highlight', 'google', 'autocomplete', 'algorithmic', 'search', 'results', 'reinforce', 'hate', 'speech', 'stereotypes', 'google', 'platform', 'comment', 'less', 'right', 'claim', 'tried', 'absolve', 'google', 'responsibility', 'tweeting', 'sure', 'google', 'argue', 'responsible', 'results', 'support', 'actually', 'tweeted', 'plus', 'reap', 'advertising', 'revenue', 'search', 'ethical', 'google', 'others', 'argue', 'results', 'mirror', 'society', 'responsibility', 'chartered', 'engineer', 'strongly', 'agree', 'ms', 'cadwalladr', 'companies', 'google', 'facebook', 'uber', 'need', 'take', 'responsibility', 'unintended', 'consequences', 'algorithms', 'machine', 'learning', 'drive', 'profits', 'bring', 'huge', 'benefits', 'great', 'apps', 'need', 'tech-savvy', 'government', 'minimise', 'downside', 'opening', 'algorithms', 'regulation', 'well', 'legislating', 'greater', 'consumer', 'ownership', 'data', 'control', 'advertising', 'revenue', 'generates', 'chi', 'onwurah', 'mp', 'houses', 'commons', 'london', 'sw1', 'justifiable', 'furore', 'pernicious', 'influence', 'rightwing', 'websites', 'reinforced', 'google', 'algorithms', 'surprised', 'one', 'mentioned', 'one', 'longstanding', 'though', 'admittedly', 'partial', 'answer', 'use', 'google', 'difficult', 'might', 'think', 'several', 'years', 'avoided', 'using', 'google', 'extent', 'barring', 'cookies', 'used', 'duckduckgo', 'see', 'duckduckgocom', 'searches', 'effective', 'instance', 'try', 'carole', 'cadwalladr', 'sample', 'search', 'hol', 'none', 'offending', 'websites', 'references', 'comes', 'get', 'long', 'list', 'options', 'none', 'holocaust', 'deniers', 'indeed', 'holocaust', 'come', 'jonathan', 'lamede', 'london', 'n8', 'work', 'right', 'children', 'december', 'un', 'committee', 'rights', 'child', 'released', 'general', 'comment', 'rights', 'adolescence', 'many', 'recommendations', 'commendable', 'however', 'one', 'fails', 'protect', 'children', 'recommendation', 'ban', 'employment', 'minimum', 'legal', 'age', 'articles', 'policy', 'set', 'international', 'labour', 'organisation', 'minimum', 'age', 'convention', 'makes', 'false', 'premise', 'children', 'better', 'protected', 'childhood', 'free', 'work', 'research', 'shown', 'trigger', 'worse', 'living', 'conditions', 'reduce', 'education', 'opportunities', 'push', 'children', 'hazardous', 'exploitative', 'work', 'moreover', 'age-appropriate', 'safe', 'work', 'developmental', 'children', 'ages', 'minimum', 'age', 'convention', 'harms', 'children', 'well', 'established', 'several', 'dozen', 'researchers', 'practitioners', 'specialising', 'child', 'work', 'formed', 'ad', 'hoc', 'expert', 'group', 'provide', 'committee', 'advice', 'evidence', 'arguing', 'convention', 'revoked', 'ignored', 'effective', 'policy', 'specifically', 'target', 'work', 'dangerous', 'damaging', 'children', 'monitoring', 'mechanisms', 'need', 'place', 'ensure', 'children', 'work', 'ages', 'benefits', 'hazardous', 'exploitative', 'conflict', 'education', 'done', 'convention', 'rights', 'child', 'convention', 'harmful', 'unnecessary', 'professor', 'jo', 'boyden', 'university', 'oxford', 'dr', 'ben', 'white', 'erasmus', 'university', 'netherlands', 'dr', 'william', 'myers', 'international', 'institute', 'child', 'rights', 'development', 'us', 'professor', 'priscilla', 'alderson', 'university', 'college', 'london', 'dr', 'bree', 'akesson', 'wilfrid', 'laurier', 'university', 'canada', 'dr', 'nicola', 'ansell', 'brunel', 'university', 'professor', 'michael', 'bourdillon', 'university', 'zimbabwe', 'dr', 'rachel', 'burr', 'social', 'work', 'amp', 'education', 'university', 'sussex', 'richard', 'carothers', 'partners', 'technology', 'exchange', 'canada', 'dr', 'kristen', 'cheney', 'iss', 'hague', 'professor', 'john', 'cockburn', 'universite', 'laval', 'canada', 'dr', 'tara', 'collins', 'ryerson', 'university', 'canada', 'dr', 'philip', 'cook', 'international', 'institute', 'child', 'rights', 'development', 'canada', 'dr', 'philip', 'cook', 'university', 'edinburgh', 'dr', 'gina', 'crivello', 'university', 'oxford', 'dr', 'jennifer', 'driscoll', 'kings', 'college', 'london', 'dr', 'jason', 'hart', 'university', 'bath', 'professor', 'roger', 'hart', 'graduate', 'centre', 'city', 'university', 'new', 'york', 'dr', 'neil', 'howard', 'european', 'university', 'institute', 'dr', 'roy', 'huijsmans', 'international', 'institute', 'social', 'studies', 'netherlands', 'dr', 'antonella', 'invernizzi', 'independent', 'researcher', 'france', 'dr', 'victor', 'karunan', 'chulalongkom', 'university', 'mahidol', 'university', 'malaysia', 'dr', 'natascha', 'klocker', 'university', 'wollongong', 'australia', 'professor', 'deborah', 'levison', 'humphrey', 'school', 'public', 'affairs', 'minnesota', 'professor', 'manfred', 'liebel', 'international', 'academy', 'berlin', 'dr', 'peter', 'mackie', 'university', 'cardiff', 'dr', 'stanford', 'mahati', 'university', 'witwatersrand', 'south', 'africa', 'dr', 'emma', 'mawdsley', 'university', 'cambridge', 'dr', 'virginia', 'morrow', 'university', 'oxford', 'dr', 'maria', 'federica', 'moscati', 'university', 'sussex', 'dr', 'sevasti-melissa', 'nolas', 'university', 'sussex', 'samuel', 'okyere', 'university', 'nottingham', 'dr', 'alphonce', 'omolo', 'lensthru', 'consultants', 'social', 'development', 'kenya', 'kirsten', 'pontalti', 'university', 'oxford', 'professor', 'gina', 'porter', 'durham', 'university', 'kavita', 'ratna', 'advocacy', 'concerned', 'working', 'children', 'india', 'dr', 'elsbeth', 'robson', 'university', 'hull', 'dr', 'kettie', 'roelen', 'institute', 'development', 'studies', 'dr', 'jessica', 'taft', 'university', 'california', 'professor', 'nigel', 'thomas', 'university', 'central', 'lancashire', 'dr', 'dorte', 'thorsen', 'university', 'sussex', 'professor', 'kay', 'tisdall', 'university', 'edinburgh', 'dr', 'afua', 'twum-danso', 'imoh', 'university', 'sheffield', 'professor', 'lorraine', 'van', 'blerk', 'university', 'dundee', 'dr', 'debbie', 'watson', 'university', 'bristol', 'heartless', 'homeless', 'sad', 'indictment', 'society', 'driven', 'many', 'citizens', 'streets', 'punish', 'illustrated', 'tracy', 'mcveigh', 'excellent', 'article', 'dehumanising', 'campaign', 'homeless', 'news', 'many', 'readers', 'know', 'bank', 'mum', 'dad', 'children', 'could', 'among', 'poor', 'unfortunate', 'homeless', 'councils', 'planners', 'businesses', 'security', 'people', 'involved', 'implementing', 'draconian', 'measures', 'hang', 'heads', 'shame', 'hope', 'sleep', 'well', 'comfortable', 'beds', 'policy', 'name', 'shame', 'printing', 'league', 'table', 'showing', 'least', 'compassionate', 'cities', 'businesses', 'defensive', 'architecture', 'place', 'tourists', 'potential', 'clients', 'boycott', 'spikes', 'railings', 'must', 'somebody', 'parish', 'know', 'many', 'church', 'leaders', 'good', 'voluntary', 'work', 'hear', 'voices', 'media', 'making', 'comparisons', 'parable', 'samaritan', 'innkeeper', 'sanctuary', 'best', 'use', 'churches', 'sure', 'jesus', 'would', 'delighted', 'see', 'homeless', 'sleeping', 'pews', 'night', 'time', 'could', 'overseen', 'warden', 'ensure', 'nothing', 'sacrilegious', 'took', 'place', 'r', 'dudley', 'edwards', 'north', 'yorkshire', 'savagery', 'new', 'wars', '20th', 'century', 'civilians', 'surrogates', 'enemy', 'writes', 'hutton', 'comment', 'tell', 'survivors', 'hamburg', 'dresden', 'indeed', 'coventry', '1939-45', 'war', 'find', 'bob', 'horn', 'cranleigh', 'surrey']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/17/holocaust-deniers-google-search-top-spot

The Holocaust did not happen. At least not in the world of Google, it seems. One week ago, I typed “did the hol” into a Google search box and clicked on its autocomplete suggestion, “Did the Holocaust happen?” And there, at the top of the list, was a link to Stormfront, a neo-Nazi white supremacist website and an article entitled “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen”. On Monday, Google confirmed it would not remove the result: “We are saddened to see that hate organisations still exist. The fact that hate sites appear in search results does not mean that Google endorses these views.” The Independent ran the story. As did Fortune. And the Daily Mail. And the Jerusalem Post. And the Drudge Report. But Google held firm. David Duke, former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted his support for the decision. And over on Stormfront – the website where Anders Breivik nurtured his ideas – members celebrated. And still, anyone searching for information about the Holocaust – if it was real, if it happened, if it was a hoax, if it was fake – was being served up neo-Nazi propaganda as the top result. Until Friday. When I gamed Google’s algorithm. I succeeded in doing what Google said was impossible. I, a journalist with almost zero computer knowhow, succeeded in changing the search order of Google’s results for “did the Holocaust happen” and “was the Holocaust a hoax”. I knocked Stormfront off the top of the list. I inserted Wikipedia’s entry on the Holocaust as the number one result. I displaced a lie with a fact. How did I achieve this impossible feat? Not through writing articles. Or shaming the company into action. I did it with the only language that Google understands: money. Google has shown that it will not respond to outrage or public sentiment or any sense of morality or ethics. It does not accept that leading people with a genuine inquiry about whether the Holocaust happened to a neo-Nazi website is grossly irresponsible or that it demeans the memory of the six million Jews who died. But it was prepared to take my cold, hard cash. A Google spokesman said: “We never want to make money from searches for Holocaust denial, and we don’t allow regular advertising on those terms.” And yet, it has already made £24.01 out of me. (This was the initial cost – it has since risen to £289.) Because this is what I did: I paid to place a Google advert at the top of its search results. “The Holocaust really happened,” I wrote as the headline to my advert. And below it: “6 million Jews really did die. These search results are propagating lies. Please take action.” I did this via Google’s AdWords programme. This is the bedrock of everything that Google does, its core business: selling ads against search results. It’s this that contributes the bulk of the $5bn (£4.07bn) profit that Google makes per quarter. AdWords helpfully suggested possible “Ad group ideas” and search terms that included: “holocaust hoax”, “was the holocaust fake” and “did the holocaust happen”. And it told me how many searches a month are made for these terms: all in, 9,480. Or 113,760 a year. Or the population of Cambridge. All of whom are being informed by Google that the Holocaust didn’t happen. And are being directed to Stormfront, the website where Anders Breivik used to hang out online and whose members celebrated the death of Jo Cox. Lilian Black, chair of The Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association, and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, called it appalling. “I’m so shocked. Google has a responsibility for its actions. It’s almost like saying we know that the trains are running into Birkenau, but we’re not responsible for what’s happening at the end of it. They shape people’s thinking and are disparaging the memory of people like my grandparents who were gassed. “More than that, it’s where this leads. It’s about its relevance today as much as the past. Our learning centre is in Kirklees, where Jo Cox was murdered. What is the matter with people? Can’t they see where this leads? And to have a huge worldwide organisation refusing to acknowledge this. That’s what they think their role is? To be a bystander? To just stand by? They’re committing a hate crime, in my view.” A Google spokesman said: “The goal of search is to provide the most relevant and useful results for our users. Clearly, we don’t always get it right, but we continually work to improve our algorithms. “This is a challenging problem, and something we’re thinking deeply about in terms of how we can do a better job. Search is a reflection of the content that exists on the web. The fact that hate sites appear in search results in no way means that Google endorses these views.” Frank Pasquale, professor of law at Maryland University, a leading expert on “algorithmic accountability”, called it “gross hypocrisy”. “They frequently say that Google search is not just about giving you a list of sources, but rather to answer your question. And empirically speaking, people tend to treat Google like an authority. So this is an appalling shirking of responsibility. It’s about money. It always is. The commercial imperative trumps all other aims at the company, including moral ones.” The issue is not that Google is refusing to “edit” the results about the Holocaust, the deeper question is about why Stormfront is number one. Google said: “We handle billions of queries every day and our goal is to give you the most relevant answer to your query as quickly as possible. The issue you have raised is one where we are very unhappy with the quality of the results. “While it might seem tempting to fix the results of an individual query by hand, that approach does not scale to the many different variants of that query and the queries that we have not yet seen. So we prefer to take a scaleable algorithmic approach to fix problems, rather than removing these one by one.” But Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, and a leading expert on search, in an article that was largely sympathetic to the challenge facing Google, still noted: “It’s bizarre that something like that Holocaust denial post is showing tops in Google. It has no great number of links pointing at it, according to a Moz tool I used [a method of examining where a website links to]. The Wikipedia page below it should carry far more authority.” And he suggests a reason why it doesn’t: that Google has changed its algorithm to reward popular results over authoritative ones. For the reason that it makes Google more money. • If Stormfront is back at number one when you read this, it’s because I’ve run out of funds. Each click through costs £1.12 and I have a £200 per day limit. @carolecadwalla on Twitter for more information.

technology/2016/dec/17/holocaust-deniers-google-search-top-spot

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-17T22:32:59Z

How to bump Holocaust deniers off Google’s top spot? Pay Google

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/17/holocaust-deniers-google-search-top-spot

['holocaust', 'happen', 'least', 'world', 'google', 'seems', 'one', 'week', 'ago', 'typed', 'hol', 'google', 'search', 'box', 'clicked', 'autocomplete', 'suggestion', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'top', 'list', 'link', 'stormfront', 'neo-nazi', 'white', 'supremacist', 'website', 'article', 'entitled', 'top', 'reasons', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'monday', 'google', 'confirmed', 'would', 'remove', 'result', 'saddened', 'see', 'hate', 'organisations', 'still', 'exist', 'fact', 'hate', 'sites', 'appear', 'search', 'results', 'mean', 'google', 'endorses', 'views', 'independent', 'ran', 'story', 'fortune', 'daily', 'mail', 'jerusalem', 'post', 'drudge', 'report', 'google', 'held', 'firm', 'david', 'duke', 'former', 'imperial', 'wizard', 'ku', 'klux', 'klan', 'tweeted', 'support', 'decision', 'stormfront', 'website', 'anders', 'breivik', 'nurtured', 'ideas', 'members', 'celebrated', 'still', 'anyone', 'searching', 'information', 'holocaust', 'real', 'happened', 'hoax', 'fake', 'served', 'neo-nazi', 'propaganda', 'top', 'result', 'friday', 'gamed', 'google', 'algorithm', 'succeeded', 'google', 'said', 'impossible', 'journalist', 'almost', 'zero', 'computer', 'knowhow', 'succeeded', 'changing', 'search', 'order', 'google', 'results', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'holocaust', 'hoax', 'knocked', 'stormfront', 'top', 'list', 'inserted', 'wikipedia', 'entry', 'holocaust', 'number', 'one', 'result', 'displaced', 'lie', 'fact', 'achieve', 'impossible', 'feat', 'writing', 'articles', 'shaming', 'company', 'action', 'language', 'google', 'understands', 'money', 'google', 'shown', 'respond', 'outrage', 'public', 'sentiment', 'sense', 'morality', 'ethics', 'accept', 'leading', 'people', 'genuine', 'inquiry', 'whether', 'holocaust', 'happened', 'neo-nazi', 'website', 'grossly', 'irresponsible', 'demeans', 'memory', 'six', 'million', 'jews', 'died', 'prepared', 'take', 'cold', 'hard', 'cash', 'google', 'spokesman', 'said', 'never', 'want', 'make', 'money', 'searches', 'holocaust', 'denial', 'allow', 'regular', 'advertising', 'terms', 'yet', 'already', 'made', 'initial', 'cost', 'since', 'risen', 'paid', 'place', 'google', 'advert', 'top', 'search', 'results', 'holocaust', 'really', 'happened', 'wrote', 'headline', 'advert', 'million', 'jews', 'really', 'die', 'search', 'results', 'propagating', 'lies', 'please', 'take', 'action', 'via', 'google', 'adwords', 'programme', 'bedrock', 'everything', 'google', 'core', 'business', 'selling', 'ads', 'search', 'results', 'contributes', 'bulk', '5bn', '407bn', 'profit', 'google', 'makes', 'per', 'quarter', 'adwords', 'helpfully', 'suggested', 'possible', 'ad', 'group', 'ideas', 'search', 'terms', 'included', 'holocaust', 'hoax', 'holocaust', 'fake', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'told', 'many', 'searches', 'month', 'made', 'terms', 'year', 'population', 'cambridge', 'informed', 'google', 'holocaust', 'happen', 'directed', 'stormfront', 'website', 'anders', 'breivik', 'used', 'hang', 'online', 'whose', 'members', 'celebrated', 'death', 'jo', 'cox', 'lilian', 'black', 'chair', 'holocaust', 'survivors', 'friendship', 'association', 'daughter', 'holocaust', 'survivor', 'called', 'appalling', 'shocked', 'google', 'responsibility', 'actions', 'almost', 'like', 'saying', 'know', 'trains', 'running', 'birkenau', 'responsible', 'happening', 'end', 'shape', 'people', 'thinking', 'disparaging', 'memory', 'people', 'like', 'grandparents', 'gassed', 'leads', 'relevance', 'today', 'much', 'past', 'learning', 'centre', 'kirklees', 'jo', 'cox', 'murdered', 'matter', 'people', 'ca', 'see', 'leads', 'huge', 'worldwide', 'organisation', 'refusing', 'acknowledge', 'think', 'role', 'bystander', 'stand', 'committing', 'hate', 'crime', 'view', 'google', 'spokesman', 'said', 'goal', 'search', 'provide', 'relevant', 'useful', 'results', 'users', 'clearly', 'always', 'get', 'right', 'continually', 'work', 'improve', 'algorithms', 'challenging', 'problem', 'something', 'thinking', 'deeply', 'terms', 'better', 'job', 'search', 'reflection', 'content', 'exists', 'web', 'fact', 'hate', 'sites', 'appear', 'search', 'results', 'way', 'means', 'google', 'endorses', 'views', 'frank', 'pasquale', 'professor', 'law', 'maryland', 'university', 'leading', 'expert', 'algorithmic', 'accountability', 'called', 'gross', 'hypocrisy', 'frequently', 'say', 'google', 'search', 'giving', 'list', 'sources', 'rather', 'answer', 'question', 'empirically', 'speaking', 'people', 'tend', 'treat', 'google', 'like', 'authority', 'appalling', 'shirking', 'responsibility', 'money', 'always', 'commercial', 'imperative', 'trumps', 'aims', 'company', 'including', 'moral', 'ones', 'issue', 'google', 'refusing', 'edit', 'results', 'holocaust', 'deeper', 'question', 'stormfront', 'number', 'one', 'google', 'said', 'handle', 'billions', 'queries', 'every', 'day', 'goal', 'give', 'relevant', 'answer', 'query', 'quickly', 'possible', 'issue', 'raised', 'one', 'unhappy', 'quality', 'results', 'might', 'seem', 'tempting', 'fix', 'results', 'individual', 'query', 'hand', 'approach', 'scale', 'many', 'different', 'variants', 'query', 'queries', 'yet', 'seen', 'prefer', 'take', 'scaleable', 'algorithmic', 'approach', 'fix', 'problems', 'rather', 'removing', 'one', 'one', 'danny', 'sullivan', 'editor', 'search', 'engine', 'land', 'leading', 'expert', 'search', 'article', 'largely', 'sympathetic', 'challenge', 'facing', 'google', 'still', 'noted', 'bizarre', 'something', 'like', 'holocaust', 'denial', 'post', 'showing', 'tops', 'google', 'great', 'number', 'links', 'pointing', 'according', 'moz', 'tool', 'used', 'method', 'examining', 'website', 'links', 'wikipedia', 'page', 'carry', 'far', 'authority', 'suggests', 'reason', 'google', 'changed', 'algorithm', 'reward', 'popular', 'results', 'authoritative', 'ones', 'reason', 'makes', 'google', 'money', 'stormfront', 'back', 'number', 'one', 'read', 'run', 'funds', 'click', 'costs', 'per', 'day', 'limit', 'carolecadwalla', 'twitter', 'information']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/17/robotic-technology-advances-ousting-white-collar-workers

Trains with a guard become driver-only trains, which then become driverless trains. That’s the fear underlying Aslef’s dispute with Southern railways and accounts for the rearguard action to prevent further job losses across the rail industry. It’s not the only reason for the dispute. There is also scorn for Southern’s management, which has attacked drivers’ basic terms and conditions, and there is anger at transport secretary Chris Grayling’s anti-union stance. But, at its heart, the dispute is over the status and even the very existence of the job of train driver, which has been around for nigh on 200 years. Like most people, train drivers will have read the screaming headlines warning of a robot revolution that spells the end for millions of jobs. Countless futurologists have been joined by figures like the chief economist of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, arguing that white-collar jobs face being “hollowed out” as repetitive tasks are automated, much as blue-collar manufacturing jobs have been in recent decades. Economists are divided over the effect of increasing automation. Some hark back to the introduction of threshing machines into 19th-century agriculture and say that train drivers are the new luddites. Far from being the beginning of the end, the disappearance of farm jobs was a precursor to the growth of the manufacturing and services sectors that not only soaked up the rural working class, but also an expanding labour force. On the other side of the fence are economists who argue that the extraordinary scope of today’s software revolution, from voice recognition to problem-solving algorithms, is a different beast and will knock out jobs in almost every industry. Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, which won the Financial Times/McKinsey business book of the year in 2015, says that a large percentage of jobs are, at some level, routine and can be broken down into a discrete set of tasks that are repeated over and over each day. He believes the sheer volume of jobs lost should force governments to consider a minimum income for all workers. He says: “As machine-learning and robotics technologies advance, a large fraction of these job types will be at risk of being automated away.” In the US, automation has worked its way up the food chain for some, with the effect of shunting workers into lower-skilled jobs on lower wages. There is plenty of American academic literature on the effects of automation, but only one study has taken a detailed look at wages over the last 30 years and appeared to show the effect on individuals’ living standards. Robert Shapiro, a former economic adviser to Bill Clinton who now runs the Sonecon consultancy in Washington, spent six months hacking his way through more than three decades of census data and found that the most profound impact on the wages of college-educated, middle-income groups arrived along with the internet at the turn of the century. The widespread adoption of technology in almost every industry meant that solid office jobs that paid above-average wages began to disappear at an alarming rate from 2001/2002 onwards. The arc of rising wages during a working life that continued through the 1980s and 1990s, became a decline for many people from their 40s onwards during George W Bush’s presidency. The 2008 financial crash accelerated the process. UK studies have found the hollowing out of particular industries has failed to dent average wages, mainly because there has always been another bunch of middle-income jobs to replace those lost. Adam Corlett, a researcher at The Resolution Foundation, says: “Jobs such as those in secretarial work, administration and manufacturing have been replaced by new jobs in business, management, science, teaching and care.” If anything, he says, the UK needs more investment in technology to raise productivity, which has slumped since the financial crash and stayed low. The UK’s productivity, as measured by hours worked per unit of output, is around 30% less than the US. Step forward Capita, which provides services ranging from electronic tagging for offenders to store-card services for retailers. It said last week that 2,000 office jobs would be made redundant after it found workers assisted by automated robotic technology could achieve “ten times the amount they used to”. “It doesn’t remove the need for an individual but it speeds up how they work, which means you need less people to do it,” the company said. A series of studies by the professional services firm, Deloitte, has argued that the Capita move is a sign that technologies are increasingly behaving like a laxative for employers, flushing out jobs that are no longer needed. Deloitte says 35% of today’s jobs in the UK are at high risk of automation within the next 10 to 20 years. Only four in 10 are in the low-risk category. Across the UK, jobs paying less than £30,000 a year are nearly five times more likely to be replaced by automation than those paying more than £100,000. In London, lower-paid jobs are eight times more likely to be replaced. The only good news from the surveys is that firms apparently expect to create more of these highly paid jobs. It’s for this reason British university students must behave more like their continental and US counterparts, who often think nothing of educating themselves into their late 20s and amassing a collection of postgraduate qualifications. But the race for better qualifications to win an elite job – one that is better paid and more immune to automation – is going to get tougher as the new breed of almost jobless firms grab the lion’s share of economic activity. Amazon, Google and Facebook, which have seen their incomes and profits grow immeasurably in recent years, are not among the postwar generation of firms desperately automating their processes to stay in business – they automate from the very outset. Twenty years ago, a company with a similar stock market value and number of customers as Facebook would have employed hundreds of thousands more staff than the tech firm does today. Not only does Amazon minimise the amount of tax it pays as a corporation, it fails to replace the sheer volume of workers who are displaced by its online sales model. Rail company Southern says it has no intention of introducing driverless trains, but with driverless cars already being tested, it might not be too long before the technology arrives and train drivers are consigned to being another piece of railway history. ROBOT WARS Automation is not just going to rob a vast swath of school leavers and graduates in the developed world of a skilled and well-paid job. The robot wars are also going to disrupt the progress of developing nations as they move from a dependency on agriculture for employment to manufacturing and the services industries. In October, the World Bank said automation threatens nearly seven out of 10 jobs in India and 77% in China. In the UK, four out of 10 of jobs are at risk, according to one report. Here are some of the companies planning to swap staff with robots. Capita The UK-based company that runs the London congestion charge said it needed to axe 2,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive in response to poor trading. It said it would use the money it saved from sacking thousands of staff to fund investment in automated technology across all of the company’s divisions. It expects to use automation to take on tasks such as IT processing. Uber The taxi-hailing app was testing driverless cars (above left) in San Francisco until last week, when the California department of motor vehicles ordered it to stop after the cars jumped red lights. The company, which has a deal with Volvo, is pushing ahead with the technology that could see thousands of self-driving cars on the road within a couple of years. Electric car maker Tesla has taken more than 325,000 reservations for its Model 3, which has driverless technology and is due to arrive in late 2017. Millions of taxi drivers, lorry drivers and chauffeurs could be put out of work, though there will be jobs managing and maintaining driverless cars. Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s restaurants could become overwhelmingly reliant on self-service if the chief executive of the firm that owns the US restaurant chains gets his way. Andy Puzder, inspired by Eatsa, a restaurant where all front-of-house procedures are computerised, says he could afford to invest in healthier food options once he has shed surplus staff. “Millennials like not seeing people,” he said. “I’ve actually seen young people waiting in line to use the kiosk, when there’s a person standing behind the counter, waiting on nobody.” Adidas The sportswear brand produces 301m pairs of shoes a year and output is growing at more than 10% annually. A new automated shoe factory in Ansbach, Bavaria (above right) is the answer to its growing pains. It will still need skilled staff to oversee operations, it says, but not the legions of semi-skilled staff of old. The rollout of similar factories to growing markets in the US, South America and Asia, will only need 130 new staff per site, which means the arrival of a shoe factory in town will not give employment in the area a serious boost.

technology/2016/dec/17/robotic-technology-advances-ousting-white-collar-workers

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-17T17:48:00Z

Southern rail dispute reflects workers’ growing fears about rise of automation

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/17/robotic-technology-advances-ousting-white-collar-workers

['trains', 'guard', 'become', 'driver-only', 'trains', 'become', 'driverless', 'trains', 'fear', 'underlying', 'aslef', 'dispute', 'southern', 'railways', 'accounts', 'rearguard', 'action', 'prevent', 'job', 'losses', 'across', 'rail', 'industry', 'reason', 'dispute', 'also', 'scorn', 'southern', 'management', 'attacked', 'drivers', 'basic', 'terms', 'conditions', 'anger', 'transport', 'secretary', 'chris', 'grayling', 'anti-union', 'stance', 'heart', 'dispute', 'status', 'even', 'existence', 'job', 'train', 'driver', 'around', 'nigh', 'years', 'like', 'people', 'train', 'drivers', 'read', 'screaming', 'headlines', 'warning', 'robot', 'revolution', 'spells', 'end', 'millions', 'jobs', 'countless', 'futurologists', 'joined', 'figures', 'like', 'chief', 'economist', 'bank', 'england', 'andy', 'haldane', 'arguing', 'white-collar', 'jobs', 'face', 'hollowed', 'repetitive', 'tasks', 'automated', 'much', 'blue-collar', 'manufacturing', 'jobs', 'recent', 'decades', 'economists', 'divided', 'effect', 'increasing', 'automation', 'hark', 'back', 'introduction', 'threshing', 'machines', '19th-century', 'agriculture', 'say', 'train', 'drivers', 'new', 'luddites', 'far', 'beginning', 'end', 'disappearance', 'farm', 'jobs', 'precursor', 'growth', 'manufacturing', 'services', 'sectors', 'soaked', 'rural', 'working', 'class', 'also', 'expanding', 'labour', 'force', 'side', 'fence', 'economists', 'argue', 'extraordinary', 'scope', 'today', 'software', 'revolution', 'voice', 'recognition', 'problem-solving', 'algorithms', 'different', 'beast', 'knock', 'jobs', 'almost', 'every', 'industry', 'martin', 'ford', 'author', 'rise', 'robots', 'financial', 'timesmckinsey', 'business', 'book', 'year', 'says', 'large', 'percentage', 'jobs', 'level', 'routine', 'broken', 'discrete', 'set', 'tasks', 'repeated', 'day', 'believes', 'sheer', 'volume', 'jobs', 'lost', 'force', 'governments', 'consider', 'minimum', 'income', 'workers', 'says', 'machine-learning', 'robotics', 'technologies', 'advance', 'large', 'fraction', 'job', 'types', 'risk', 'automated', 'away', 'us', 'automation', 'worked', 'way', 'food', 'chain', 'effect', 'shunting', 'workers', 'lower-skilled', 'jobs', 'lower', 'wages', 'plenty', 'american', 'academic', 'literature', 'effects', 'automation', 'one', 'study', 'taken', 'detailed', 'look', 'wages', 'last', 'years', 'appeared', 'show', 'effect', 'individuals', 'living', 'standards', 'robert', 'shapiro', 'former', 'economic', 'adviser', 'bill', 'clinton', 'runs', 'sonecon', 'consultancy', 'washington', 'spent', 'six', 'months', 'hacking', 'way', 'three', 'decades', 'census', 'data', 'found', 'profound', 'impact', 'wages', 'college-educated', 'middle-income', 'groups', 'arrived', 'along', 'internet', 'turn', 'century', 'widespread', 'adoption', 'technology', 'almost', 'every', 'industry', 'meant', 'solid', 'office', 'jobs', 'paid', 'above-average', 'wages', 'began', 'disappear', 'alarming', 'rate', 'onwards', 'arc', 'rising', 'wages', 'working', 'life', 'continued', '1980s', '1990s', 'became', 'decline', 'many', 'people', '40s', 'onwards', 'george', 'w', 'bush', 'presidency', 'financial', 'crash', 'accelerated', 'process', 'uk', 'studies', 'found', 'hollowing', 'particular', 'industries', 'failed', 'dent', 'average', 'wages', 'mainly', 'always', 'another', 'bunch', 'middle-income', 'jobs', 'replace', 'lost', 'adam', 'corlett', 'researcher', 'resolution', 'foundation', 'says', 'jobs', 'secretarial', 'work', 'administration', 'manufacturing', 'replaced', 'new', 'jobs', 'business', 'management', 'science', 'teaching', 'care', 'anything', 'says', 'uk', 'needs', 'investment', 'technology', 'raise', 'productivity', 'slumped', 'since', 'financial', 'crash', 'stayed', 'low', 'uk', 'productivity', 'measured', 'hours', 'worked', 'per', 'unit', 'output', 'around', 'less', 'us', 'step', 'forward', 'capita', 'provides', 'services', 'ranging', 'electronic', 'tagging', 'offenders', 'store-card', 'services', 'retailers', 'said', 'last', 'week', 'office', 'jobs', 'would', 'made', 'redundant', 'found', 'workers', 'assisted', 'automated', 'robotic', 'technology', 'could', 'achieve', 'ten', 'times', 'amount', 'used', 'remove', 'need', 'individual', 'speeds', 'work', 'means', 'need', 'less', 'people', 'company', 'said', 'series', 'studies', 'professional', 'services', 'firm', 'deloitte', 'argued', 'capita', 'move', 'sign', 'technologies', 'increasingly', 'behaving', 'like', 'laxative', 'employers', 'flushing', 'jobs', 'longer', 'needed', 'deloitte', 'says', 'today', 'jobs', 'uk', 'high', 'risk', 'automation', 'within', 'next', 'years', 'four', 'low-risk', 'category', 'across', 'uk', 'jobs', 'paying', 'less', 'year', 'nearly', 'five', 'times', 'likely', 'replaced', 'automation', 'paying', 'london', 'lower-paid', 'jobs', 'eight', 'times', 'likely', 'replaced', 'good', 'news', 'surveys', 'firms', 'apparently', 'expect', 'create', 'highly', 'paid', 'jobs', 'reason', 'british', 'university', 'students', 'must', 'behave', 'like', 'continental', 'us', 'counterparts', 'often', 'think', 'nothing', 'educating', 'late', '20s', 'amassing', 'collection', 'postgraduate', 'qualifications', 'race', 'better', 'qualifications', 'win', 'elite', 'job', 'one', 'better', 'paid', 'immune', 'automation', 'going', 'get', 'tougher', 'new', 'breed', 'almost', 'jobless', 'firms', 'grab', 'lion', 'share', 'economic', 'activity', 'amazon', 'google', 'facebook', 'seen', 'incomes', 'profits', 'grow', 'immeasurably', 'recent', 'years', 'among', 'postwar', 'generation', 'firms', 'desperately', 'automating', 'processes', 'stay', 'business', 'automate', 'outset', 'twenty', 'years', 'ago', 'company', 'similar', 'stock', 'market', 'value', 'number', 'customers', 'facebook', 'would', 'employed', 'hundreds', 'thousands', 'staff', 'tech', 'firm', 'today', 'amazon', 'minimise', 'amount', 'tax', 'pays', 'corporation', 'fails', 'replace', 'sheer', 'volume', 'workers', 'displaced', 'online', 'sales', 'model', 'rail', 'company', 'southern', 'says', 'intention', 'introducing', 'driverless', 'trains', 'driverless', 'cars', 'already', 'tested', 'might', 'long', 'technology', 'arrives', 'train', 'drivers', 'consigned', 'another', 'piece', 'railway', 'history', 'robot', 'wars', 'automation', 'going', 'rob', 'vast', 'swath', 'school', 'leavers', 'graduates', 'developed', 'world', 'skilled', 'well-paid', 'job', 'robot', 'wars', 'also', 'going', 'disrupt', 'progress', 'developing', 'nations', 'move', 'dependency', 'agriculture', 'employment', 'manufacturing', 'services', 'industries', 'october', 'world', 'bank', 'said', 'automation', 'threatens', 'nearly', 'seven', 'jobs', 'india', 'china', 'uk', 'four', 'jobs', 'risk', 'according', 'one', 'report', 'companies', 'planning', 'swap', 'staff', 'robots', 'capita', 'uk-based', 'company', 'runs', 'london', 'congestion', 'charge', 'said', 'needed', 'axe', 'jobs', 'part', 'cost-cutting', 'drive', 'response', 'poor', 'trading', 'said', 'would', 'use', 'money', 'saved', 'sacking', 'thousands', 'staff', 'fund', 'investment', 'automated', 'technology', 'across', 'company', 'divisions', 'expects', 'use', 'automation', 'take', 'tasks', 'processing', 'uber', 'taxi-hailing', 'app', 'testing', 'driverless', 'cars', 'left', 'san', 'francisco', 'last', 'week', 'california', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'ordered', 'stop', 'cars', 'jumped', 'red', 'lights', 'company', 'deal', 'volvo', 'pushing', 'ahead', 'technology', 'could', 'see', 'thousands', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'road', 'within', 'couple', 'years', 'electric', 'car', 'maker', 'tesla', 'taken', 'reservations', 'model', 'driverless', 'technology', 'due', 'arrive', 'late', 'millions', 'taxi', 'drivers', 'lorry', 'drivers', 'chauffeurs', 'could', 'put', 'work', 'though', 'jobs', 'managing', 'maintaining', 'driverless', 'cars', 'carl', 'jr', 'hardee', 'restaurants', 'could', 'become', 'overwhelmingly', 'reliant', 'self-service', 'chief', 'executive', 'firm', 'owns', 'us', 'restaurant', 'chains', 'gets', 'way', 'andy', 'puzder', 'inspired', 'eatsa', 'restaurant', 'front-of-house', 'procedures', 'computerised', 'says', 'could', 'afford', 'invest', 'healthier', 'food', 'options', 'shed', 'surplus', 'staff', 'millennials', 'like', 'seeing', 'people', 'said', 'actually', 'seen', 'young', 'people', 'waiting', 'line', 'use', 'kiosk', 'person', 'standing', 'behind', 'counter', 'waiting', 'nobody', 'adidas', 'sportswear', 'brand', 'produces', '301m', 'pairs', 'shoes', 'year', 'output', 'growing', 'annually', 'new', 'automated', 'shoe', 'factory', 'ansbach', 'bavaria', 'right', 'answer', 'growing', 'pains', 'still', 'need', 'skilled', 'staff', 'oversee', 'operations', 'says', 'legions', 'semi-skilled', 'staff', 'old', 'rollout', 'similar', 'factories', 'growing', 'markets', 'us', 'south', 'america', 'asia', 'need', 'new', 'staff', 'per', 'site', 'means', 'arrival', 'shoe', 'factory', 'town', 'give', 'employment', 'area', 'serious', 'boost']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/17/lexus--rx-450h-car-review

You can tell a lot about a car by the people who admire it. When young men swarm it in the streets, you know it is renownedly fast and has red piping. When people at the school gates like it, you know it looks new (there is something about playgrounds – they dampen the petrolheads and amplify a love of tidiness). And when a car, much like the Lexus RX 450h, attracts the attention of men who look like advertising executives (slouchy attire, confident hair, always in their 40s) you know it’s both right-on and a status vehicle. It’s a tricky combination, being fundamentally contradictory: if you care about climate change, you forget about status, surely? Except not really: the Lexus speaks to the crazy mixed-up people we truly are. Its hybrid efficiency has to be weighed against the old-fashioned inefficiency of its two-tonne bulk. It is modern all the way from its shapely headlamp cluster to its cavernous front grille; old school in its leather interior, and the fact that a lot of its not inconsiderable bulk is given over to driver comfort. It’s an SUV in which the passengers feel like they’re in a hot hatch, and the boot could belong to a 70s saloon. Yet the driver feels like she’s in an armchair, and that’s what counts. Emissions are impressive, given its size, but not in the grand scheme of things; so the irritants of a hybrid irked me more. It has a soundless take off, which techies admire, being difficult to achieve; I can’t stand it, because if there’s one thing that really harshes my mellow, it’s nearly running people over. It glides through town, striking but silent, like a getaway vehicle in a Triffids dystopia (Trifftopia?) where people can only hear. It’s luxurious, almost statesmanlike. The seats are not just heated, but ventilated, the satnav is so attentive it’s like having a butler, the speakers are amazing, and there are a gazillion phone chargers, for the busy executive with multiple devices. If it’s a bit cumbersome for city streets, well, those other people should just get out of the way. Motorways are more fun, when the petrol takes over. The hush of the cabin, the precision of the steering and the insouciance in the face of dodgy road surface: all of these shout “class”. I smiled, papally, at other drivers: “Yes, fellow motorwayer. I am as virtuous yet as rich as I look.” And I guess that’s the point. I remain unpersuaded, however, that “looking expensive” is the proper business of the automobile of modernity. Lexus RX 450h: in numbers Price £59,935 Top speed 124mph Acceleration 0-62mpg in 7.7 seconds Combined fuel consumption 51.4mpg CO2 emissions 127g/km Eco rating 7/10 Cool rating 6/10

technology/2016/dec/17/lexus--rx-450h-car-review

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-17T11:00:20Z

Lexus RX 450h car review – ‘It’s right on and a status vehicle’

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/17/lexus--rx-450h-car-review

['tell', 'lot', 'car', 'people', 'admire', 'young', 'men', 'swarm', 'streets', 'know', 'renownedly', 'fast', 'red', 'piping', 'people', 'school', 'gates', 'like', 'know', 'looks', 'new', 'something', 'playgrounds', 'dampen', 'petrolheads', 'amplify', 'love', 'tidiness', 'car', 'much', 'like', 'lexus', 'rx', '450h', 'attracts', 'attention', 'men', 'look', 'like', 'advertising', 'executives', 'slouchy', 'attire', 'confident', 'hair', 'always', '40s', 'know', 'right-on', 'status', 'vehicle', 'tricky', 'combination', 'fundamentally', 'contradictory', 'care', 'climate', 'change', 'forget', 'status', 'surely', 'except', 'really', 'lexus', 'speaks', 'crazy', 'mixed-up', 'people', 'truly', 'hybrid', 'efficiency', 'weighed', 'old-fashioned', 'inefficiency', 'two-tonne', 'bulk', 'modern', 'way', 'shapely', 'headlamp', 'cluster', 'cavernous', 'front', 'grille', 'old', 'school', 'leather', 'interior', 'fact', 'lot', 'inconsiderable', 'bulk', 'given', 'driver', 'comfort', 'suv', 'passengers', 'feel', 'like', 'hot', 'hatch', 'boot', 'could', 'belong', '70s', 'saloon', 'yet', 'driver', 'feels', 'like', 'armchair', 'counts', 'emissions', 'impressive', 'given', 'size', 'grand', 'scheme', 'things', 'irritants', 'hybrid', 'irked', 'soundless', 'take', 'techies', 'admire', 'difficult', 'achieve', 'stand', 'one', 'thing', 'really', 'harshes', 'mellow', 'nearly', 'running', 'people', 'glides', 'town', 'striking', 'silent', 'like', 'getaway', 'vehicle', 'triffids', 'dystopia', 'trifftopia', 'people', 'hear', 'luxurious', 'almost', 'statesmanlike', 'seats', 'heated', 'ventilated', 'satnav', 'attentive', 'like', 'butler', 'speakers', 'amazing', 'gazillion', 'phone', 'chargers', 'busy', 'executive', 'multiple', 'devices', 'bit', 'cumbersome', 'city', 'streets', 'well', 'people', 'get', 'way', 'motorways', 'fun', 'petrol', 'takes', 'hush', 'cabin', 'precision', 'steering', 'insouciance', 'face', 'dodgy', 'road', 'surface', 'shout', 'class', 'smiled', 'papally', 'drivers', 'yes', 'fellow', 'motorwayer', 'virtuous', 'yet', 'rich', 'look', 'guess', 'point', 'remain', 'unpersuaded', 'however', 'looking', 'expensive', 'proper', 'business', 'automobile', 'modernity', 'lexus', 'rx', '450h', 'numbers', 'price', 'top', 'speed', '124mph', 'acceleration', '0-62mpg', 'seconds', 'combined', 'fuel', 'consumption', '514mpg', 'co2', 'emissions', '127gkm', 'eco', 'rating', 'cool', 'rating']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/uber-defies-california-self-driving-cars-san-francisco

California’s attorney general Kamala Harris on Friday threatened legal action against the ride-sharing tech company Uber unless it “immediately” removed its self-driving vehicles from the roads in San Francisco. The threat from the office of the outgoing attorney general was contained in a letter released to the public Friday shortly after Uber declared it would defy state regulations, a move the company said was “an important issue of principle”. Twenty companies have been approved to test self-driving cars in California, according to the department of motor vehicles (DMV). Uber is not one of them, and the company is refusing to abide by the same rules as its rivals – a defiant move that critics argue shows disregard for the law and public safety. Friday’s development portends a dramatic confrontation between Uber and California state officials, amid mounting anger in San Francisco at Uber’s refusal to abide by the same rules as other companies. Harris, a rising star in the Democratic party, was recently elected to the US Senate. The letter from attorneys in her office said they were acting on a request from California’s DMV. The DMV ordered Uber to either remove its self-driving cars from the road or obtain a permit on Wednesday, the first day the company began a trial of its self-driving taxis in San Francisco without permission. The letter warns that if Uber does not remove the vehicles from the road until it obtains a permit, the attorney general will “seek injunctive and other appropriate relief”. Earlier Friday, Uber made clear it had no intention of backing down. Anthony Levandowski, the head of Uber’s autonomous vehicle program, said the rules did not apply to the company’s fleet of vehicles because of its particular form of technology. “We cannot in good conscience sign up to regulation for something we’re not doing,” he said. “It’s an important issue of principle about when companies can operate self-driving cars on the roads and the uneven application of statewide rules across very similar types of technology.” Levandowski added: “You don’t need a belt and suspenders … if you’re wearing a dress.” Uber’s defiant stance appears to be setting the company on a collision course with California regulators in court. “If Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit, DMV will initiate legal action,” the DMV told Uber in a letter this week. The requirement to seek a testing permit for autonomous vehicles did not apply to Uber’s cars, Levandowski argued, because the company’s cars were not capable of operating without being controlled or monitored by a human operator. Levandowski compared Uber’s technology to Tesla’s autopilot feature, saying: “It’s hard to understand why the DMV would seek to require self-driving Ubers to get permits when it accepts that Tesla’s autopilot technology does not need them.” The first known death caused by a self-driving car occurred in May 2016, in a Tesla car using autopilot. Unlike Uber, Tesla is one of the 20 companies that has been issued a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California by the DMV. Uber began using autonomous vehicles to pick up fares in Pittsburgh in August. The city is home to Uber’s self-driving-car research facility, and the pilot program was met with enthusiasm by local officials. But in San Francisco, the pilot program has so far been a public relations catastrophe. Two self-driving Ubers were observed running red lights on Wednesday, the first day of the pilot. The company blamed the traffic violations on “human error” and has suspended the drivers involved. However, the company was not asked about the red light violations during a conference call with reporters Friday and has not responded to follow-up questions seeking an explanation. The San Francisco police department’s traffic division was not informed about Uber’s program until after it had begun, according to the San Francisco Examiner. Brian Wiedenmeier, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, also raised concerns about the vehicles in a blog post. Wiedenmeier said that he had been invited to take a ride in a self-driving Uber prior to the launch and came away with deep concerns about the vehicles’ ability to operate safely in a city where cars share the road with bicyclists. “Those vehicles are not yet ready for our streets,” he wrote. San Francisco mayor Ed Lee, who is generally a strong ally of the city’s technology companies, “expressly warned” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to remove the cars from the road in a telephone call Friday, according to the mayor’s press office. “Uber is failing to be a respectful civic partner to the city of San Francisco by choosing to put Uber’s self-interest before the safety of the residents of their home town,” Ellen Canale, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in a statement. In a blogpost published Wednesday, Levandowski argued that whether the company needed a permit from the state was a matter of “debate”, adding that Uber had “looked at this issue carefully” and determined that a permit was not necessary since its cars would still have human drivers monitoring them. Levandowski also appeared to argue that the state of California, home to Silicon Valley, should amend its regulations to accommodate Uber, noting that other states had regulations that “made clear that they are pro-technology”. The conflict has exposed what critics say are the unethical and illegal tactics that the company has consistently used to grow its business. After the controversial San Francisco launch, consumer advocates in California urged law enforcement to impound the self-driving cars and file criminal charges against Kalanick for violating DMV requirements. “It’s an outrageously irresponsible position,” said John M Simpson, privacy project director with Consumer Watchdog. “The DMV should immediately seek an injunction, and Uber’s executives should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible under the law.”

technology/2016/dec/16/uber-defies-california-self-driving-cars-san-francisco

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-17T02:00:47Z

California threatens legal action against Uber unless it halts self-driving cars

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/uber-defies-california-self-driving-cars-san-francisco

['california', 'attorney', 'general', 'kamala', 'harris', 'friday', 'threatened', 'legal', 'action', 'ride-sharing', 'tech', 'company', 'uber', 'unless', 'immediately', 'removed', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'roads', 'san', 'francisco', 'threat', 'office', 'outgoing', 'attorney', 'general', 'contained', 'letter', 'released', 'public', 'friday', 'shortly', 'uber', 'declared', 'would', 'defy', 'state', 'regulations', 'move', 'company', 'said', 'important', 'issue', 'principle', 'twenty', 'companies', 'approved', 'test', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'california', 'according', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'uber', 'one', 'company', 'refusing', 'abide', 'rules', 'rivals', 'defiant', 'move', 'critics', 'argue', 'shows', 'disregard', 'law', 'public', 'safety', 'friday', 'development', 'portends', 'dramatic', 'confrontation', 'uber', 'california', 'state', 'officials', 'amid', 'mounting', 'anger', 'san', 'francisco', 'uber', 'refusal', 'abide', 'rules', 'companies', 'harris', 'rising', 'star', 'democratic', 'party', 'recently', 'elected', 'us', 'senate', 'letter', 'attorneys', 'office', 'said', 'acting', 'request', 'california', 'dmv', 'dmv', 'ordered', 'uber', 'either', 'remove', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'road', 'obtain', 'permit', 'wednesday', 'first', 'day', 'company', 'began', 'trial', 'self-driving', 'taxis', 'san', 'francisco', 'without', 'permission', 'letter', 'warns', 'uber', 'remove', 'vehicles', 'road', 'obtains', 'permit', 'attorney', 'general', 'seek', 'injunctive', 'appropriate', 'relief', 'earlier', 'friday', 'uber', 'made', 'clear', 'intention', 'backing', 'anthony', 'levandowski', 'head', 'uber', 'autonomous', 'vehicle', 'program', 'said', 'rules', 'apply', 'company', 'fleet', 'vehicles', 'particular', 'form', 'technology', 'cannot', 'good', 'conscience', 'sign', 'regulation', 'something', 'said', 'important', 'issue', 'principle', 'companies', 'operate', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'roads', 'uneven', 'application', 'statewide', 'rules', 'across', 'similar', 'types', 'technology', 'levandowski', 'added', 'need', 'belt', 'suspenders', 'wearing', 'dress', 'uber', 'defiant', 'stance', 'appears', 'setting', 'company', 'collision', 'course', 'california', 'regulators', 'court', 'uber', 'confirm', 'immediately', 'stop', 'launch', 'seek', 'testing', 'permit', 'dmv', 'initiate', 'legal', 'action', 'dmv', 'told', 'uber', 'letter', 'week', 'requirement', 'seek', 'testing', 'permit', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'apply', 'uber', 'cars', 'levandowski', 'argued', 'company', 'cars', 'capable', 'operating', 'without', 'controlled', 'monitored', 'human', 'operator', 'levandowski', 'compared', 'uber', 'technology', 'tesla', 'autopilot', 'feature', 'saying', 'hard', 'understand', 'dmv', 'would', 'seek', 'require', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'get', 'permits', 'accepts', 'tesla', 'autopilot', 'technology', 'need', 'first', 'known', 'death', 'caused', 'self-driving', 'car', 'occurred', 'may', 'tesla', 'car', 'using', 'autopilot', 'unlike', 'uber', 'tesla', 'one', 'companies', 'issued', 'permit', 'test', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'california', 'dmv', 'uber', 'began', 'using', 'autonomous', 'vehicles', 'pick', 'fares', 'pittsburgh', 'august', 'city', 'home', 'uber', 'self-driving-car', 'research', 'facility', 'pilot', 'program', 'met', 'enthusiasm', 'local', 'officials', 'san', 'francisco', 'pilot', 'program', 'far', 'public', 'relations', 'catastrophe', 'two', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'observed', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'wednesday', 'first', 'day', 'pilot', 'company', 'blamed', 'traffic', 'violations', 'human', 'error', 'suspended', 'drivers', 'involved', 'however', 'company', 'asked', 'red', 'light', 'violations', 'conference', 'call', 'reporters', 'friday', 'responded', 'follow-up', 'questions', 'seeking', 'explanation', 'san', 'francisco', 'police', 'department', 'traffic', 'division', 'informed', 'uber', 'program', 'begun', 'according', 'san', 'francisco', 'examiner', 'brian', 'wiedenmeier', 'executive', 'director', 'san', 'francisco', 'bicycle', 'coalition', 'also', 'raised', 'concerns', 'vehicles', 'blog', 'post', 'wiedenmeier', 'said', 'invited', 'take', 'ride', 'self-driving', 'uber', 'prior', 'launch', 'came', 'away', 'deep', 'concerns', 'vehicles', 'ability', 'operate', 'safely', 'city', 'cars', 'share', 'road', 'bicyclists', 'vehicles', 'yet', 'ready', 'streets', 'wrote', 'san', 'francisco', 'mayor', 'ed', 'lee', 'generally', 'strong', 'ally', 'city', 'technology', 'companies', 'expressly', 'warned', 'uber', 'ceo', 'travis', 'kalanick', 'remove', 'cars', 'road', 'telephone', 'call', 'friday', 'according', 'mayor', 'press', 'office', 'uber', 'failing', 'respectful', 'civic', 'partner', 'city', 'san', 'francisco', 'choosing', 'put', 'uber', 'self-interest', 'safety', 'residents', 'home', 'town', 'ellen', 'canale', 'spokeswoman', 'mayor', 'said', 'statement', 'blogpost', 'published', 'wednesday', 'levandowski', 'argued', 'whether', 'company', 'needed', 'permit', 'state', 'matter', 'debate', 'adding', 'uber', 'looked', 'issue', 'carefully', 'determined', 'permit', 'necessary', 'since', 'cars', 'would', 'still', 'human', 'drivers', 'monitoring', 'levandowski', 'also', 'appeared', 'argue', 'state', 'california', 'home', 'silicon', 'valley', 'amend', 'regulations', 'accommodate', 'uber', 'noting', 'states', 'regulations', 'made', 'clear', 'pro-technology', 'conflict', 'exposed', 'critics', 'say', 'unethical', 'illegal', 'tactics', 'company', 'consistently', 'used', 'grow', 'business', 'controversial', 'san', 'francisco', 'launch', 'consumer', 'advocates', 'california', 'urged', 'law', 'enforcement', 'impound', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'file', 'criminal', 'charges', 'kalanick', 'violating', 'dmv', 'requirements', 'outrageously', 'irresponsible', 'position', 'said', 'john', 'simpson', 'privacy', 'project', 'director', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'dmv', 'immediately', 'seek', 'injunction', 'uber', 'executives', 'prosecuted', 'fullest', 'extent', 'possible', 'law']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-fake-news-system-problems-fact-checking

Facebook’s new effort to flag news deemed to be “fake” began on Friday, as new questions emerged about the limitations of the system the social media giant has put in place to outsource the fact-checking process. The tech company’s decision to swiftly test a system to identify fraudulent news stories has won plaudits from fact-checking experts, including some involved in the project. However, its first day of operation raised questions about the mechanics of the process – and Facebook’s apparently unwillingness to pay for a fact-checking process that relies entirely upon voluntary action of users and a handful of non-partisan organizations. “I think it’s tremendously promising. This is exactly the kind of thing that I would hope a company like Facebook would do in taking advantage of the very diligent effort being done by these professional fact-checking organizations,” said Lucas Graves, author of Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism. Facebook’s plan for combating fake news, a response to mounting criticism over the spread of misinformation, particularly during the US presidential election, is theoretically relatively simple. When enough users flag a news article they think is factually inaccurate, Facebook sends the link to a digital clearing house accessible to a handful of fact-checking organizations. Those organizations can choose which stories they would like to assess and, if their investigation deems the article to be a hoax or containing false information, it will be marked as “disputed” whenever it appears on the social network. It will also be deprioritized in Facebook’s news feed. One of the first articles to be sent by Facebook to its team of specially selected fact-checking organizations on Friday was an article by Bipartisan Report that falsely claimed that Florida was holding an election recount over voter fraud. The story was deemed false by ABC News, one of Facebook’s fact-checkers. However, potential problems with the system are already emerging. The organizations tasked with policing Facebook’s content are not getting paid for their troubles. This could create a huge burden for some of the smaller organizations to make a dent on viral misinformation, particularly as each story has to be addressed individually. (Facebook will not apply the “disputed” flag across similar stories, even if they report the same hoax or misinformation.) FactCheck.org, for example, has a team of five full-time staff and five undergraduate students who each work 15 hours a week. “I’d like to say we could dedicate someone to this, but it depends on our resources. Facebook isn’t providing any funding for this, so we’ll fit it in along with other things we do,” said director Eugene Kiely. The process involved in establishing the veracity of stories is also complicated. Typically, Kiely’s organization fact-checks statements made by politicians, rather than news articles themselves. “Here the job is going to be labelling the story as reliable or not reliable, rather than an individual claim, and that’s going to require some adjustment by the fact-checkers,” Graves said. Better-resourced groups have allocated whole teams to the problem. ABC News said it had a team of about six people dealing with fake news, which means that the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC News, is effectively subsidizing a solution to a problem faced by Facebook. This, despite the fact that Facebook is among the most valuable companies in the world, with a market cap of more than $340bn. “I think an ideal model would be one in which companies that really dominate the lion’s share of ad revenue, so companies like Facebook and Google, would direct some support to an independent fund, which would in turn be used to support third-party fact-checking,” Graves said. “We could use some money from Facebook or anyone else willing to help out,” added Kiely. The fact-checking organizations helping Facebook identify and flag fake news do, however, stand to benefit from the tool. If a Facebook reader wants to find out why a story has been labeled “disputed”, they can click on a link to an article by the fact-checking organization explaining the decision. This could mean a traffic boost to those sites. Another issue is that the system is currently built to flag only articles hosted by external sites. That means that videos, memes or photos will be unaffected – even if they contain the very same false information or hoaxes. The Guardian understands that Facebook will, however, reassess this once they have tested the system with news articles. There is also the possibility that the system could be gamed by disgruntled Facebook users who could work together to flag factually accurate stories as “fake news” in order to clog up the fact-checking clearing house. This is a particular challenge given that some rightwing groups, which have a track record of corralling online activists, deem the fact-checking organizations to be biased against them. InfoWars, a rightwing website known to peddle conspiracies and fake news, has already declared that the partnership with Snopes “clearly opens the door for the outright censorship of conservative content and opinion”. Facebook said that it will have some ability to detect when someone is trying to spam the system with false flags and that it would only send news articles, and not personal blogposts, through to its volunteer fact checkers. “What Facebook is doing isn’t going to deal with the gray area. It’s looking at stuff that’s completely made up,” Kiely said. Nevertheless, he accepts that the facts won’t matter to some people. “President Trump goes around talking about the dishonest media and fact checkers and his supporters will trust what he’s saying and not what we’re saying,” he said. “If we are saying something counter to their beliefs then they are not going to accept it. We are not writing for those people but the larger chunk in the middle between the two sides [of the political fence].”

technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-fake-news-system-problems-fact-checking

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T22:24:45Z

Facebook's plan to tackle fake news raises questions over limitations

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-fake-news-system-problems-fact-checking

['facebook', 'new', 'effort', 'flag', 'news', 'deemed', 'fake', 'began', 'friday', 'new', 'questions', 'emerged', 'limitations', 'system', 'social', 'media', 'giant', 'put', 'place', 'outsource', 'fact-checking', 'process', 'tech', 'company', 'decision', 'swiftly', 'test', 'system', 'identify', 'fraudulent', 'news', 'stories', 'plaudits', 'fact-checking', 'experts', 'including', 'involved', 'project', 'however', 'first', 'day', 'operation', 'raised', 'questions', 'mechanics', 'process', 'facebook', 'apparently', 'unwillingness', 'pay', 'fact-checking', 'process', 'relies', 'entirely', 'upon', 'voluntary', 'action', 'users', 'handful', 'non-partisan', 'organizations', 'think', 'tremendously', 'promising', 'exactly', 'kind', 'thing', 'would', 'hope', 'company', 'like', 'facebook', 'would', 'taking', 'advantage', 'diligent', 'effort', 'done', 'professional', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'said', 'lucas', 'graves', 'author', 'deciding', 'true', 'rise', 'political', 'fact-checking', 'american', 'journalism', 'facebook', 'plan', 'combating', 'fake', 'news', 'response', 'mounting', 'criticism', 'spread', 'misinformation', 'particularly', 'us', 'presidential', 'election', 'theoretically', 'relatively', 'simple', 'enough', 'users', 'flag', 'news', 'article', 'think', 'factually', 'inaccurate', 'facebook', 'sends', 'link', 'digital', 'clearing', 'house', 'accessible', 'handful', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'organizations', 'choose', 'stories', 'would', 'like', 'assess', 'investigation', 'deems', 'article', 'hoax', 'containing', 'false', 'information', 'marked', 'disputed', 'whenever', 'appears', 'social', 'network', 'also', 'deprioritized', 'facebook', 'news', 'feed', 'one', 'first', 'articles', 'sent', 'facebook', 'team', 'specially', 'selected', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'friday', 'article', 'bipartisan', 'report', 'falsely', 'claimed', 'florida', 'holding', 'election', 'recount', 'voter', 'fraud', 'story', 'deemed', 'false', 'abc', 'news', 'one', 'facebook', 'fact-checkers', 'however', 'potential', 'problems', 'system', 'already', 'emerging', 'organizations', 'tasked', 'policing', 'facebook', 'content', 'getting', 'paid', 'troubles', 'could', 'create', 'huge', 'burden', 'smaller', 'organizations', 'make', 'dent', 'viral', 'misinformation', 'particularly', 'story', 'addressed', 'individually', 'facebook', 'apply', 'disputed', 'flag', 'across', 'similar', 'stories', 'even', 'report', 'hoax', 'misinformation', 'factcheckorg', 'example', 'team', 'five', 'full-time', 'staff', 'five', 'undergraduate', 'students', 'work', 'hours', 'week', 'would', 'like', 'say', 'could', 'dedicate', 'someone', 'depends', 'resources', 'facebook', 'providing', 'funding', 'fit', 'along', 'things', 'said', 'director', 'eugene', 'kiely', 'process', 'involved', 'establishing', 'veracity', 'stories', 'also', 'complicated', 'typically', 'kiely', 'organization', 'fact-checks', 'statements', 'made', 'politicians', 'rather', 'news', 'articles', 'job', 'going', 'labelling', 'story', 'reliable', 'reliable', 'rather', 'individual', 'claim', 'going', 'require', 'adjustment', 'fact-checkers', 'graves', 'said', 'better-resourced', 'groups', 'allocated', 'whole', 'teams', 'problem', 'abc', 'news', 'said', 'team', 'six', 'people', 'dealing', 'fake', 'news', 'means', 'walt', 'disney', 'company', 'owns', 'abc', 'news', 'effectively', 'subsidizing', 'solution', 'problem', 'faced', 'facebook', 'despite', 'fact', 'facebook', 'among', 'valuable', 'companies', 'world', 'market', 'cap', '340bn', 'think', 'ideal', 'model', 'would', 'one', 'companies', 'really', 'dominate', 'lion', 'share', 'ad', 'revenue', 'companies', 'like', 'facebook', 'google', 'would', 'direct', 'support', 'independent', 'fund', 'would', 'turn', 'used', 'support', 'third-party', 'fact-checking', 'graves', 'said', 'could', 'use', 'money', 'facebook', 'anyone', 'else', 'willing', 'help', 'added', 'kiely', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'helping', 'facebook', 'identify', 'flag', 'fake', 'news', 'however', 'stand', 'benefit', 'tool', 'facebook', 'reader', 'wants', 'find', 'story', 'labeled', 'disputed', 'click', 'link', 'article', 'fact-checking', 'organization', 'explaining', 'decision', 'could', 'mean', 'traffic', 'boost', 'sites', 'another', 'issue', 'system', 'currently', 'built', 'flag', 'articles', 'hosted', 'external', 'sites', 'means', 'videos', 'memes', 'photos', 'unaffected', 'even', 'contain', 'false', 'information', 'hoaxes', 'guardian', 'understands', 'facebook', 'however', 'reassess', 'tested', 'system', 'news', 'articles', 'also', 'possibility', 'system', 'could', 'gamed', 'disgruntled', 'facebook', 'users', 'could', 'work', 'together', 'flag', 'factually', 'accurate', 'stories', 'fake', 'news', 'order', 'clog', 'fact-checking', 'clearing', 'house', 'particular', 'challenge', 'given', 'rightwing', 'groups', 'track', 'record', 'corralling', 'online', 'activists', 'deem', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'biased', 'infowars', 'rightwing', 'website', 'known', 'peddle', 'conspiracies', 'fake', 'news', 'already', 'declared', 'partnership', 'snopes', 'clearly', 'opens', 'door', 'outright', 'censorship', 'conservative', 'content', 'opinion', 'facebook', 'said', 'ability', 'detect', 'someone', 'trying', 'spam', 'system', 'false', 'flags', 'would', 'send', 'news', 'articles', 'personal', 'blogposts', 'volunteer', 'fact', 'checkers', 'facebook', 'going', 'deal', 'gray', 'area', 'looking', 'stuff', 'completely', 'made', 'kiely', 'said', 'nevertheless', 'accepts', 'facts', 'matter', 'people', 'president', 'trump', 'goes', 'around', 'talking', 'dishonest', 'media', 'fact', 'checkers', 'supporters', 'trust', 'saying', 'saying', 'said', 'saying', 'something', 'counter', 'beliefs', 'going', 'accept', 'writing', 'people', 'larger', 'chunk', 'middle', 'two', 'sides', 'political', 'fence']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/how-to-safely-open-a-car-door-dutch-style

The Netherlands has found a solution to the problem of car doors and cyclists (Transport secretary knocks man off his bike, 16 December). Dutch motorists are trained to open the car door with their opposite hand. This forces the body to swivel, and your eyes to look backward, thus spotting a passing cyclist. Drivers must demonstrate this to pass the driving test. It is referred to sometimes as the “Dutch reach”. In the Netherlands it is simply called how you open your car door. Henry Stewart London • As the transport secretary is now a little more aware of the safety issues surrounding the opening of a door, can we look forward to a prompt resolution to the current rail dispute? Ian Grieve “Gordon Bennett”, Shropshire Union canal • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

technology/2016/dec/16/how-to-safely-open-a-car-door-dutch-style

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T18:00:14Z

How to safely open a car door, Dutch-style | Letters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/how-to-safely-open-a-car-door-dutch-style

['netherlands', 'found', 'solution', 'problem', 'car', 'doors', 'cyclists', 'transport', 'secretary', 'knocks', 'man', 'bike', 'december', 'dutch', 'motorists', 'trained', 'open', 'car', 'door', 'opposite', 'hand', 'forces', 'body', 'swivel', 'eyes', 'look', 'backward', 'thus', 'spotting', 'passing', 'cyclist', 'drivers', 'must', 'demonstrate', 'pass', 'driving', 'test', 'referred', 'sometimes', 'dutch', 'reach', 'netherlands', 'simply', 'called', 'open', 'car', 'door', 'henry', 'stewart', 'london', 'transport', 'secretary', 'little', 'aware', 'safety', 'issues', 'surrounding', 'opening', 'door', 'look', 'forward', 'prompt', 'resolution', 'current', 'rail', 'dispute', 'ian', 'grieve', 'gordon', 'bennett', 'shropshire', 'union', 'canal', 'join', 'debate', 'email', 'guardianletterstheguardiancom', 'read', 'guardian', 'letters', 'click', 'visit', 'gucomletters']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/why-is-the-uks-mobile-phone-coverage-so-bad

Is the UK’s 4G mobile phone coverage really worse than Romania, Albania and Peru, as a report suggested last week? Yes and no. The report by the National Infrastructure Commission used data on how much of the time a person’s mobile is connected to 4G. On that measure, the UK scores worse than 53 countries, many of which we might expect to have far worse mobile networks – not just Romania, Albania and Peru, but also Georgia, Latvia and Mexico. UK phones were connected to 4G barely half the time. But the rankings didn’t measure geographical coverage, ie where you can get a signal, or speeds, which will vary even on a solid 4G connection. According to the same researchers who produced the data on availability, the UK ranks 29th globally for average speed, and in terms of 4G coverage of where people live and work, in 2015 Ofcom put the UK ahead of all the EU’s largest economies except Germany. So is there actually a problem? Yes, because people are still spending a lot of time unable to get fast internet connections. The full NIC report cited figures showing that around 20% of buildings in cities and towns, and almost 80% of those in rural areas, don’t have 4G. Roads are also often “digital deserts”, with just 8% of A and B roads fully covered, and almost half having none at all. Why isn’t the UK better at making sure I can get a good signal? The report cites the UK’s comparatively late auction of the 4G spectrum – whereby mobile operators and networks bid for space on the airwaves used to carry calls, texts and data – as one of the reasons coverage isn’t up to scratch. While the US held its auction in 2008, the UK took until 2013 (though EE was allowed, controversially, to repurpose some of its spectrum earlier). One explanation for the delay was that the spectrum up for sale was previously in use by analogue TV services, which weren’t fully switched off until 2012. But while this did delay the 4G rollout, there are a range of other factors that have held back better coverage. The type of frequency band within the spectrum the operators have, and how they use it, is one. Lower-frequency bands, particularly under 1GHz, travel further and are better at penetrating buildings, while higher-frequency bands carry more data. The ideal situation for any mobile phone company (and its customers) is to have a range of bands so it can provide both wide coverage and fast speeds. However, the UK government has been criticised for not doing enough to make sure each operator got a large slice of lower-frequency bands. So all we need to do is shift some frequency bands around? Unfortunately not, because the other big issue for improving coverage is even more thorny – the UK’s planning laws. The closer to a mobile mast you are, the better and more reliable your connection, and the more masts an operator has, the better the coverage they can offer. But rules such as how high a mast can be, and where it can be built, make life difficult for operators and the companies they pay to manage their network. Add in local concerns about the (unproven) health impacts of living near a mast, and occasionally belligerent landowners charging fees for access or denying it altogether, and the process of putting up more masts can be lengthy and costly. Will 5G solve the problem? Not really. 5G, which will be rolled out after 2020, will make mobile data connections faster – probably much faster. But similar limitations imposed by what frequency bands it travels over, and where the masts are, will apply. As the NIC’s chair, Andrew Adonis, said about the 5G rollout when the report was released, “none of this will matter unless we bring our mobile network up to speed”. So what needs to be done to make sure I get better mobile signal? Things are already set to improve in coming years. More of the low-frequency spectrum that is good at providing wider coverage is being used, and the EU’s recent freeing up of some of the 700MHz band currently used for digital TV is likely to help further. Ofcom has set a target that all indoor premises will have more than 98% 4G coverage by end of 2017, from at least one mobile network (though there are doubts about whether that will be achieved), and the NIC has recommended universal service obligation for operators for no later than 2025. How Ofcom handles the 5G auction, and the distribution of frequency bands, could also make a difference. Planning issues are likely to be tougher to deal with and in some cases that will mean people deciding which they value more, the video on their smartphone or the view out of their window.

technology/2016/dec/16/why-is-the-uks-mobile-phone-coverage-so-bad

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T15:33:35Z

Why is the UK's mobile phone coverage so bad?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/why-is-the-uks-mobile-phone-coverage-so-bad

['uk', '4g', 'mobile', 'phone', 'coverage', 'really', 'worse', 'romania', 'albania', 'peru', 'report', 'suggested', 'last', 'week', 'yes', 'report', 'national', 'infrastructure', 'commission', 'used', 'data', 'much', 'time', 'person', 'mobile', 'connected', '4g', 'measure', 'uk', 'scores', 'worse', 'countries', 'many', 'might', 'expect', 'far', 'worse', 'mobile', 'networks', 'romania', 'albania', 'peru', 'also', 'georgia', 'latvia', 'mexico', 'uk', 'phones', 'connected', '4g', 'barely', 'half', 'time', 'rankings', 'measure', 'geographical', 'coverage', 'ie', 'get', 'signal', 'speeds', 'vary', 'even', 'solid', '4g', 'connection', 'according', 'researchers', 'produced', 'data', 'availability', 'uk', 'ranks', '29th', 'globally', 'average', 'speed', 'terms', '4g', 'coverage', 'people', 'live', 'work', 'ofcom', 'put', 'uk', 'ahead', 'eu', 'largest', 'economies', 'except', 'germany', 'actually', 'problem', 'yes', 'people', 'still', 'spending', 'lot', 'time', 'unable', 'get', 'fast', 'internet', 'connections', 'full', 'nic', 'report', 'cited', 'figures', 'showing', 'around', 'buildings', 'cities', 'towns', 'almost', 'rural', 'areas', '4g', 'roads', 'also', 'often', 'digital', 'deserts', 'b', 'roads', 'fully', 'covered', 'almost', 'half', 'none', 'uk', 'better', 'making', 'sure', 'get', 'good', 'signal', 'report', 'cites', 'uk', 'comparatively', 'late', 'auction', '4g', 'spectrum', 'whereby', 'mobile', 'operators', 'networks', 'bid', 'space', 'airwaves', 'used', 'carry', 'calls', 'texts', 'data', 'one', 'reasons', 'coverage', 'scratch', 'us', 'held', 'auction', 'uk', 'took', 'though', 'ee', 'allowed', 'controversially', 'repurpose', 'spectrum', 'earlier', 'one', 'explanation', 'delay', 'spectrum', 'sale', 'previously', 'use', 'analogue', 'tv', 'services', 'fully', 'switched', 'delay', '4g', 'rollout', 'range', 'factors', 'held', 'back', 'better', 'coverage', 'type', 'frequency', 'band', 'within', 'spectrum', 'operators', 'use', 'one', 'lower-frequency', 'bands', 'particularly', '1ghz', 'travel', 'better', 'penetrating', 'buildings', 'higher-frequency', 'bands', 'carry', 'data', 'ideal', 'situation', 'mobile', 'phone', 'company', 'customers', 'range', 'bands', 'provide', 'wide', 'coverage', 'fast', 'speeds', 'however', 'uk', 'government', 'criticised', 'enough', 'make', 'sure', 'operator', 'got', 'large', 'slice', 'lower-frequency', 'bands', 'need', 'shift', 'frequency', 'bands', 'around', 'unfortunately', 'big', 'issue', 'improving', 'coverage', 'even', 'thorny', 'uk', 'planning', 'laws', 'closer', 'mobile', 'mast', 'better', 'reliable', 'connection', 'masts', 'operator', 'better', 'coverage', 'offer', 'rules', 'high', 'mast', 'built', 'make', 'life', 'difficult', 'operators', 'companies', 'pay', 'manage', 'network', 'add', 'local', 'concerns', 'unproven', 'health', 'impacts', 'living', 'near', 'mast', 'occasionally', 'belligerent', 'landowners', 'charging', 'fees', 'access', 'denying', 'altogether', 'process', 'putting', 'masts', 'lengthy', 'costly', '5g', 'solve', 'problem', 'really', '5g', 'rolled', 'make', 'mobile', 'data', 'connections', 'faster', 'probably', 'much', 'faster', 'similar', 'limitations', 'imposed', 'frequency', 'bands', 'travels', 'masts', 'apply', 'nic', 'chair', 'andrew', 'adonis', 'said', '5g', 'rollout', 'report', 'released', 'none', 'matter', 'unless', 'bring', 'mobile', 'network', 'speed', 'needs', 'done', 'make', 'sure', 'get', 'better', 'mobile', 'signal', 'things', 'already', 'set', 'improve', 'coming', 'years', 'low-frequency', 'spectrum', 'good', 'providing', 'wider', 'coverage', 'used', 'eu', 'recent', 'freeing', '700mhz', 'band', 'currently', 'used', 'digital', 'tv', 'likely', 'help', 'ofcom', 'set', 'target', 'indoor', 'premises', '4g', 'coverage', 'end', 'least', 'one', 'mobile', 'network', 'though', 'doubts', 'whether', 'achieved', 'nic', 'recommended', 'universal', 'service', 'obligation', 'operators', 'later', 'ofcom', 'handles', '5g', 'auction', 'distribution', 'frequency', 'bands', 'could', 'also', 'make', 'difference', 'planning', 'issues', 'likely', 'tougher', 'deal', 'cases', 'mean', 'people', 'deciding', 'value', 'video', 'smartphone', 'view', 'window']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/guardian-ranked-second-most-secure-online-news-site

The Guardian has been listed as the second most secure news publication on the web, according to a ranking produced by the American non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation. Points were awarded for supporting technologies which protect the privacy and security of visitors, with a focus on using HTTPS, a web protocol that allows for encrypted connections. The ranking was topped by the US news site The Intercept, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. It gained the highest score of A+. The Guardian, rated as A- along with TechCrunch and ProPublica, scored highly for having a valid HTTPS version of its website, and for defaulting to that connection for all visitors. The ranking also awarded points for enabling HSTS (HTTP Strict-Transport-Security), a feature which ensures that repeat visitors cannot be forced onto an insecure copy of the website by a “man in the middle” attacker. With HSTS enabled, web browsers know to never accept insecure versions of the website, providing added protection to readers who fear eavesdropping. The Intercept was the only site to use HSTS preloading which give it its A+ score. Preloading involves passing the HSTS information to a trusted authority like Google or Mozilla so that it can be loaded into the browsers of web users who have never even visited a particular site, ensuring that even their very first visit does not run the risk of eavesdropping. Freedom of the Press Foundation said that only 28% of news sites offer an HTTPS connection, and just 14% default to it. It awarded a grade of F to those that did not use HTTPS. The Guardian’s switch to HTTPS as default was made in late November, after six months of testing to ensure no disruption to readers. “By using HTTPS, internet service providers (ISPs) are not able to track the pages our readers are accessing,” wrote Mariot Chauvin and Huma Islam, two members of the Guardian’s digital development team. “It means we protect the privacy of our readers when accessing content that may disclose political opinions, faith, sexual orientation or any information that may be used against them. It matches our core values. We believe that protecting our visitors is good internet citizenship.” The Freedom of the Press Foundation called on all publications to protect reader privacy: “With HTTPS enabled by default you can protect reader privacy, improve your website’s security, better protect your sources, prevent censorship, improve your search rankings, provide a better user experience, see your website loading speeds potentially increase, and avoid Google shaming.” Since 2014, Google has been ranking secure sites slightly higher in its search results.

technology/2016/dec/16/guardian-ranked-second-most-secure-online-news-site

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T12:57:09Z

Guardian ranked second most secure online news site

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/guardian-ranked-second-most-secure-online-news-site

['guardian', 'listed', 'second', 'secure', 'news', 'publication', 'web', 'according', 'ranking', 'produced', 'american', 'non-profit', 'freedom', 'press', 'foundation', 'points', 'awarded', 'supporting', 'technologies', 'protect', 'privacy', 'security', 'visitors', 'focus', 'using', 'https', 'web', 'protocol', 'allows', 'encrypted', 'connections', 'ranking', 'topped', 'us', 'news', 'site', 'intercept', 'created', 'ebay', 'founder', 'pierre', 'omidyar', 'gained', 'highest', 'score', 'guardian', 'rated', 'a-', 'along', 'techcrunch', 'propublica', 'scored', 'highly', 'valid', 'https', 'version', 'website', 'defaulting', 'connection', 'visitors', 'ranking', 'also', 'awarded', 'points', 'enabling', 'hsts', 'http', 'strict-transport-security', 'feature', 'ensures', 'repeat', 'visitors', 'cannot', 'forced', 'onto', 'insecure', 'copy', 'website', 'man', 'middle', 'attacker', 'hsts', 'enabled', 'web', 'browsers', 'know', 'never', 'accept', 'insecure', 'versions', 'website', 'providing', 'added', 'protection', 'readers', 'fear', 'eavesdropping', 'intercept', 'site', 'use', 'hsts', 'preloading', 'give', 'score', 'preloading', 'involves', 'passing', 'hsts', 'information', 'trusted', 'authority', 'like', 'google', 'mozilla', 'loaded', 'browsers', 'web', 'users', 'never', 'even', 'visited', 'particular', 'site', 'ensuring', 'even', 'first', 'visit', 'run', 'risk', 'eavesdropping', 'freedom', 'press', 'foundation', 'said', 'news', 'sites', 'offer', 'https', 'connection', 'default', 'awarded', 'grade', 'f', 'use', 'https', 'guardian', 'switch', 'https', 'default', 'made', 'late', 'november', 'six', 'months', 'testing', 'ensure', 'disruption', 'readers', 'using', 'https', 'internet', 'service', 'providers', 'isps', 'able', 'track', 'pages', 'readers', 'accessing', 'wrote', 'mariot', 'chauvin', 'huma', 'islam', 'two', 'members', 'guardian', 'digital', 'development', 'team', 'means', 'protect', 'privacy', 'readers', 'accessing', 'content', 'may', 'disclose', 'political', 'opinions', 'faith', 'sexual', 'orientation', 'information', 'may', 'used', 'matches', 'core', 'values', 'believe', 'protecting', 'visitors', 'good', 'internet', 'citizenship', 'freedom', 'press', 'foundation', 'called', 'publications', 'protect', 'reader', 'privacy', 'https', 'enabled', 'default', 'protect', 'reader', 'privacy', 'improve', 'website', 'security', 'better', 'protect', 'sources', 'prevent', 'censorship', 'improve', 'search', 'rankings', 'provide', 'better', 'user', 'experience', 'see', 'website', 'loading', 'speeds', 'potentially', 'increase', 'avoid', 'google', 'shaming', 'since', 'google', 'ranking', 'secure', 'sites', 'slightly', 'higher', 'search', 'results']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/uber-self-driving-cars-california-illegal-unethical-tactics

Uber has launched an aggressive battle with California over its controversial self-driving cars, with regulators and consumer advocates accusing the corporation of flagrantly violating the law, endangering public safety and mistreating drivers. The intense fight with the state – which ignited hours after numerous self-driving cars were caught running red lights in Uber’s home town – has exposed what critics say are the unethical and illegal tactics that the company has repeatedly used to grow its business. The ride-sharing company, which launched semi-autonomous vehicles in San Francisco without permits this week, was ordered by the California department of motor vehicles (DMV) to immediately remove the cars from the road or face legal action. But Uber, which has not publicly responded to the state’s demands, blamed the traffic light violations on “human error” and suspended the drivers who were monitoring the cars. This bold deflection of blame further highlights the corporation’s refusal to take responsibility for potential faults in its technology and raises questions about the dangers of prematurely rolling out self-driving vehicles. “How many people are they going to kill before they understand they’re not doing the right thing?” said John M Simpson, privacy project director with Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit that has called for Uber to face consequences for side-stepping regulations. “If you’re going to use public highways as your own private laboratory, you’ve got an obligation to follow the rules.” Uber’s open defiance of California regulators marks the latest case of a “sharing economy” corporation ignoring government under the guise of “disruption” and “innovation”. Uber has long claimed that it is a technology “platform” and not a transportation company and thus does not have to classify its drivers as employees or follow traditional taxicab regulations. That strategy has resulted in more than 70 lawsuits in federal courts and hefty settlements, along with claims from opponents that the company is abusing workers’ rights and failing to ensure the safety of riders. The San Francisco self-driving car scandal centers on Uber’s Volvo XC90s, which can navigate on their own while licensed drivers sit at the wheel and take control when necessary. The company first piloted semi-autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh in August. In Pennsylvania, some drivers responded to the program with shock and concern and wondered how quickly they could lose their jobs to full automation. The abrupt rollout in San Francisco and subsequent suspensions has led some California drivers to question whether Uber will toss them aside when the technology malfunctions or drivers aren’t properly trained and make a mistake. “Uber itself is a very unethical company,” said Travis Taborek, a 26-year-old Bay Area resident, who drives full time for Uber and its competitor, Lyft. “If you launch technology like this on the scale of a city, then you need to go through proper channels. That’s how people are protected.” In the long term, he added, “I am concerned self-driving cars are going to put a lot of people out of work.” One San Francisco Uber driver, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, followed a self-driving car for about 15 minutes on Wednesday and filmed its movements. The footage shows multiple minor violations or potentially dangerous moves, such as failing to fully brake at a stop sign or cutting off a bus. “I’d expect better behavior from a company with such clout in the transportation industry,” he said. Uber has argued that it does not need permits since its cars aren’t fully autonomous, though the DMV noted that 20 companies have followed proper procedures and were approved to test self-driving vehicles in California. Uber did not respond to repeated inquiries about the state’s order and lawsuit threat. In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson claimed that two cars running red lights were not part of the pilot and weren’t carrying customers. “These incidents were due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers.” A spokesperson also claimed the cars require “human monitoring and intervention in many conditions, including bad weather”. Experts note that Uber has an obvious financial interest in a system with minimal regulations. By ignoring California regulators, the corporation is attempting to preemptively create a framework in which self-driving cars are treated similarly to traditional vehicles, said Arun Sundararajan, a New York University business professor and expert on the sharing economy. “The act of asking for permission is sort of a tacit admission that this needs to be regulated,” he said. “They are playing a long game here … They’re trying to define what the regulatory space is going to look like.” Michael Gumora, a longtime San Francisco Uber driver who runs a website called RideshareReport.com, said it was a public relations ploy to announce suspensions and say the drivers erred when the automation system clearly didn’t work properly. “It’s a human error, but the vehicle and the technology didn’t compensate,” he said. “The technology itself wasn’t able to avoid running the red light.” Taborek said publicly admonishing the operators was another example of Uber mistreating drivers. “I would take anything Uber says with massive grains of salt ... I’d be willing to bet good money that the technology is at fault.” Uber’s response is reminiscent of statements from Tesla earlier this year after a driver using its “autopilot” technology died in a crash. The corporation denied responsibility and defended its technology even though the car’s system failed to detect a truck in front of it. “You put unsafe vehicles on the road and then you blame a human,” said Simpson, who argued that San Francisco police should respond to Uber’s rogue operations by impounding the vehicles operating without a permit. Consumer Watchdog also called for criminal charges against Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick for violating DMV requirements. “This is essentially driving without a license,” Simpson said. “It’s really unconscionable.” Contact the author: [email protected]

technology/2016/dec/16/uber-self-driving-cars-california-illegal-unethical-tactics

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T11:00:01Z

Self-driving cars: Uber's open defiance of California shines light on brazen tactics

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/uber-self-driving-cars-california-illegal-unethical-tactics

['uber', 'launched', 'aggressive', 'battle', 'california', 'controversial', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'regulators', 'consumer', 'advocates', 'accusing', 'corporation', 'flagrantly', 'violating', 'law', 'endangering', 'public', 'safety', 'mistreating', 'drivers', 'intense', 'fight', 'state', 'ignited', 'hours', 'numerous', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'caught', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'uber', 'home', 'town', 'exposed', 'critics', 'say', 'unethical', 'illegal', 'tactics', 'company', 'repeatedly', 'used', 'grow', 'business', 'ride-sharing', 'company', 'launched', 'semi-autonomous', 'vehicles', 'san', 'francisco', 'without', 'permits', 'week', 'ordered', 'california', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'immediately', 'remove', 'cars', 'road', 'face', 'legal', 'action', 'uber', 'publicly', 'responded', 'state', 'demands', 'blamed', 'traffic', 'light', 'violations', 'human', 'error', 'suspended', 'drivers', 'monitoring', 'cars', 'bold', 'deflection', 'blame', 'highlights', 'corporation', 'refusal', 'take', 'responsibility', 'potential', 'faults', 'technology', 'raises', 'questions', 'dangers', 'prematurely', 'rolling', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'many', 'people', 'going', 'kill', 'understand', 'right', 'thing', 'said', 'john', 'simpson', 'privacy', 'project', 'director', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'non-profit', 'called', 'uber', 'face', 'consequences', 'side-stepping', 'regulations', 'going', 'use', 'public', 'highways', 'private', 'laboratory', 'got', 'obligation', 'follow', 'rules', 'uber', 'open', 'defiance', 'california', 'regulators', 'marks', 'latest', 'case', 'sharing', 'economy', 'corporation', 'ignoring', 'government', 'guise', 'disruption', 'innovation', 'uber', 'long', 'claimed', 'technology', 'platform', 'transportation', 'company', 'thus', 'classify', 'drivers', 'employees', 'follow', 'traditional', 'taxicab', 'regulations', 'strategy', 'resulted', 'lawsuits', 'federal', 'courts', 'hefty', 'settlements', 'along', 'claims', 'opponents', 'company', 'abusing', 'workers', 'rights', 'failing', 'ensure', 'safety', 'riders', 'san', 'francisco', 'self-driving', 'car', 'scandal', 'centers', 'uber', 'volvo', 'xc90s', 'navigate', 'licensed', 'drivers', 'sit', 'wheel', 'take', 'control', 'necessary', 'company', 'first', 'piloted', 'semi-autonomous', 'vehicles', 'pittsburgh', 'august', 'pennsylvania', 'drivers', 'responded', 'program', 'shock', 'concern', 'wondered', 'quickly', 'could', 'lose', 'jobs', 'full', 'automation', 'abrupt', 'rollout', 'san', 'francisco', 'subsequent', 'suspensions', 'led', 'california', 'drivers', 'question', 'whether', 'uber', 'toss', 'aside', 'technology', 'malfunctions', 'drivers', 'properly', 'trained', 'make', 'mistake', 'uber', 'unethical', 'company', 'said', 'travis', 'taborek', '26-year-old', 'bay', 'area', 'resident', 'drives', 'full', 'time', 'uber', 'competitor', 'lyft', 'launch', 'technology', 'like', 'scale', 'city', 'need', 'go', 'proper', 'channels', 'people', 'protected', 'long', 'term', 'added', 'concerned', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'going', 'put', 'lot', 'people', 'work', 'one', 'san', 'francisco', 'uber', 'driver', 'requested', 'anonymity', 'fear', 'retaliation', 'followed', 'self-driving', 'car', 'minutes', 'wednesday', 'filmed', 'movements', 'footage', 'shows', 'multiple', 'minor', 'violations', 'potentially', 'dangerous', 'moves', 'failing', 'fully', 'brake', 'stop', 'sign', 'cutting', 'bus', 'would', 'expect', 'better', 'behavior', 'company', 'clout', 'transportation', 'industry', 'said', 'uber', 'argued', 'need', 'permits', 'since', 'cars', 'fully', 'autonomous', 'though', 'dmv', 'noted', 'companies', 'followed', 'proper', 'procedures', 'approved', 'test', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'california', 'uber', 'respond', 'repeated', 'inquiries', 'state', 'order', 'lawsuit', 'threat', 'statement', 'guardian', 'spokesperson', 'claimed', 'two', 'cars', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'part', 'pilot', 'carrying', 'customers', 'incidents', 'due', 'human', 'error', 'believe', 'much', 'making', 'roads', 'safer', 'building', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'spokesperson', 'also', 'claimed', 'cars', 'require', 'human', 'monitoring', 'intervention', 'many', 'conditions', 'including', 'bad', 'weather', 'experts', 'note', 'uber', 'obvious', 'financial', 'interest', 'system', 'minimal', 'regulations', 'ignoring', 'california', 'regulators', 'corporation', 'attempting', 'preemptively', 'create', 'framework', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'treated', 'similarly', 'traditional', 'vehicles', 'said', 'arun', 'sundararajan', 'new', 'york', 'university', 'business', 'professor', 'expert', 'sharing', 'economy', 'act', 'asking', 'permission', 'sort', 'tacit', 'admission', 'needs', 'regulated', 'said', 'playing', 'long', 'game', 'trying', 'define', 'regulatory', 'space', 'going', 'look', 'like', 'michael', 'gumora', 'longtime', 'san', 'francisco', 'uber', 'driver', 'runs', 'website', 'called', 'ridesharereportcom', 'said', 'public', 'relations', 'ploy', 'announce', 'suspensions', 'say', 'drivers', 'erred', 'automation', 'system', 'clearly', 'work', 'properly', 'human', 'error', 'vehicle', 'technology', 'compensate', 'said', 'technology', 'able', 'avoid', 'running', 'red', 'light', 'taborek', 'said', 'publicly', 'admonishing', 'operators', 'another', 'example', 'uber', 'mistreating', 'drivers', 'would', 'take', 'anything', 'uber', 'says', 'massive', 'grains', 'salt', 'would', 'willing', 'bet', 'good', 'money', 'technology', 'fault', 'uber', 'response', 'reminiscent', 'statements', 'tesla', 'earlier', 'year', 'driver', 'using', 'autopilot', 'technology', 'died', 'crash', 'corporation', 'denied', 'responsibility', 'defended', 'technology', 'even', 'though', 'car', 'system', 'failed', 'detect', 'truck', 'front', 'put', 'unsafe', 'vehicles', 'road', 'blame', 'human', 'said', 'simpson', 'argued', 'san', 'francisco', 'police', 'respond', 'uber', 'rogue', 'operations', 'impounding', 'vehicles', 'operating', 'without', 'permit', 'consumer', 'watchdog', 'also', 'called', 'criminal', 'charges', 'uber', 'ceo', 'travis', 'kalanick', 'violating', 'dmv', 'requirements', 'essentially', 'driving', 'without', 'license', 'simpson', 'said', 'really', 'unconscionable', 'contact', 'author', 'samlevintheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda

Google’s search algorithm appears to be systematically promoting information that is either false or slanted with an extreme rightwing bias on subjects as varied as climate change and homosexuality. Following a recent investigation by the Observer, which found that Google’s search engine prominently suggests neo-Nazi websites and antisemitic writing, the Guardian has uncovered a dozen additional examples of biased search results. Google’s search algorithm and its autocomplete function prioritize websites that, for example, declare that climate change is a hoax, being gay is a sin, and the Sandy Hook mass shooting never happened. The increased scrutiny on the algorithms of Google – which removed antisemitic and sexist autocomplete phrases after the recent Observer investigation – comes at a time of tense debate surrounding the role of fake news in building support for conservative political leaders, particularly US president-elect Donald Trump. Facebook has faced significant backlash for its role in enabling widespread dissemination of misinformation, and data scientists and communication experts have argued that rightwing groups have found creative ways to manipulate social media trends and search algorithms. The Guardian’s latest findings further suggest that Google’s searches are contributing to the problem. In the past, when a journalist or academic exposes one of these algorithmic hiccups, humans at Google quietly make manual adjustments in a process that’s neither transparent nor accountable. At the same time, politically motivated third parties including the “alt-right”, a far-right movement in the US, use a variety of techniques to trick the algorithm and push propaganda and misinformation higher up Google’s search rankings. These insidious manipulations – both by Google and by third parties trying to game the system – impact how users of the search engine perceive the world, even influencing the way they vote. This has led some researchers to study Google’s role in the presidential election in the same way that they have scrutinized Facebook. Robert Epstein from the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology has spent four years trying to reverse engineer Google’s search algorithms. He believes, based on systematic research, that Google has the power to rig elections through something he calls the search engine manipulation effect (SEME). Epstein conducted five experiments in two countries to find that biased rankings in search results can shift the opinions of undecided voters. If Google tweaks its algorithm to show more positive search results for a candidate, the searcher may form a more positive opinion of that candidate. In September 2016, Epstein released findings, published through Russian news agency Sputnik News, that indicated Google had suppressed negative autocomplete search results relating to Hillary Clinton. “We know that if there’s a negative autocomplete suggestion in the list, it will draw somewhere between five and 15 times as many clicks as a neutral suggestion,” Epstein said. “If you omit negatives for one perspective, one hotel chain or one candidate, you have a heck of a lot of people who are going to see only positive things for whatever the perspective you are supporting.” Even changing the order in which certain search terms appear in the autocompleted list can make a huge impact, with the first result drawing the most clicks, he said. At the time, Google said the autocomplete algorithm was designed to omit disparaging or offensive terms associated with individuals’ names but that it wasn’t an “exact science”. Then there’s the secret recipe of factors that feed into the algorithm Google uses to determine a web page’s importance – embedded with the biases of the humans who programmed it. These factors include how many and which other websites link to a page, how much traffic it receives, and how often a page is updated. People who are very active politically are typically the most partisan, which means that extremist views peddled actively on blogs and fringe media sites get elevated in the search ranking. “These platforms are structured in such a way that they are allowing and enabling – consciously or unconsciously – more extreme views to dominate,” said Martin Moore from Kings College London’s Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power. Appearing on the first page of Google search results can give websites with questionable editorial principles undue authority and traffic. “These two manipulations can work together to have an enormous impact on people without their knowledge that they are being manipulated, and our research shows that very clearly,” Epstein said. “Virtually no one is aware of bias in search suggestions or rankings.” This is compounded by Google’s personalization of search results, which means different users see different results based on their interests. “This gives companies like Google even more power to influence people’s opinions, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors,” he said. Epstein wants Google to be more transparent about how and when it manually manipulates the algorithm. “They are constantly making these adjustments. It’s absurd for them to say everything is automated,” he said. Manual removals from autocomplete include “are jews evil” and “are women evil”. Google has also altered its results so when someone searches for ways to kill themselves they are shown a suicide helpline. Shortly after Epstein released his research indicating the suppression of negative autocomplete search results relating to Clinton, which he credits to close ties between the Clinton campaign and Google, the search engine appeared to pull back from such censorship, he said. This, he argued, allowed for a flood of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton content (including fake news), some of which was created in retaliation to bubble to the top. “If I had to do it over again I would not have released those data. There is some indication that they had an impact that was detrimental to Hillary Clinton, which was never my intention.” Rhea Drysdale, the CEO of digital marketing company Outspoken Media, did not see evidence of pro-Clinton editing by Google. However, she did note networks of partisan websites – disproportionately rightwing – using much better search engine optimization techniques to ensure their worldview ranked highly. Meanwhile, tech-savvy rightwing groups organized online and developed creative ways to control and manipulate social media conversations through mass actions, said Shane Burley, a journalist and researcher who has studied the “alt-right”. “What happens is they can essentially jam hashtags so densely using multiple accounts, they end up making it trending,” he said. “That’s a great way for them to dictate how something is going to be covered, what’s going to be discussed. That’s helped them reframe the discussion of immigration.” Burley noted that “cuckservative” – meaning conservatives who have sold out – is a good example of a term that the “alt-right” has managed to popularize in an effective way. Similarly if you search for “feminism is ...” in Google, it autocompletes to “feminism is cancer”, a popular rallying cry for Trump supporters. “It has this effect of making certain words kind of like magic words in search algorithms.” The same groups – including members of the popular “alt-right” Reddit forum The_Donald – used techniques that are used by reputation management firms and marketers to push their companies up Google’s search results, to ensure pro-Trump imagery and articles ranked highly. “Extremists have been trying to play Google’s algorithm for years, with varying degrees of success,” said Brittan Heller, director of technology and society at the Anti-Defamation League. “The key has traditionally been connected to influencing the algorithm with a high volume of biased search terms.” The problem has become particularly challenging for Google in a post-truth era, where white supremacist websites may have the same indicator of “trustworthiness” in the eyes of Google as other websites high in the page rank. “What does Google do when the lies aren’t the outliers any more?” Heller said. “Previously there was the assumption that everything on the internet had a glimmer of truth about it. With the phenomenon of fake news and media hacking, that may be changing.” A Google spokeswoman said in a statement: “We’ve received a lot of questions about autocomplete, and we want to help people understand how it works: Autocomplete predictions are algorithmically generated based on users’ search activity and interests. Users search for such a wide range of material on the web – 15% of searches we see every day are new. Because of this, terms that appear in Autocomplete may be unexpected or unpleasant. We do our best to prevent offensive terms, like porn and hate speech, from appearing, but we don’t always get it right. Autocomplete isn’t an exact science and we’re always working to improve our algorithms.”

technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T11:00:01Z

How Google's search algorithm spreads false information with a rightwing bias

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda

['google', 'search', 'algorithm', 'appears', 'systematically', 'promoting', 'information', 'either', 'false', 'slanted', 'extreme', 'rightwing', 'bias', 'subjects', 'varied', 'climate', 'change', 'homosexuality', 'following', 'recent', 'investigation', 'observer', 'found', 'google', 'search', 'engine', 'prominently', 'suggests', 'neo-nazi', 'websites', 'antisemitic', 'writing', 'guardian', 'uncovered', 'dozen', 'additional', 'examples', 'biased', 'search', 'results', 'google', 'search', 'algorithm', 'autocomplete', 'function', 'prioritize', 'websites', 'example', 'declare', 'climate', 'change', 'hoax', 'gay', 'sin', 'sandy', 'hook', 'mass', 'shooting', 'never', 'happened', 'increased', 'scrutiny', 'algorithms', 'google', 'removed', 'antisemitic', 'sexist', 'autocomplete', 'phrases', 'recent', 'observer', 'investigation', 'comes', 'time', 'tense', 'debate', 'surrounding', 'role', 'fake', 'news', 'building', 'support', 'conservative', 'political', 'leaders', 'particularly', 'us', 'president-elect', 'donald', 'trump', 'facebook', 'faced', 'significant', 'backlash', 'role', 'enabling', 'widespread', 'dissemination', 'misinformation', 'data', 'scientists', 'communication', 'experts', 'argued', 'rightwing', 'groups', 'found', 'creative', 'ways', 'manipulate', 'social', 'media', 'trends', 'search', 'algorithms', 'guardian', 'latest', 'findings', 'suggest', 'google', 'searches', 'contributing', 'problem', 'past', 'journalist', 'academic', 'exposes', 'one', 'algorithmic', 'hiccups', 'humans', 'google', 'quietly', 'make', 'manual', 'adjustments', 'process', 'neither', 'transparent', 'accountable', 'time', 'politically', 'motivated', 'third', 'parties', 'including', 'alt-right', 'far-right', 'movement', 'us', 'use', 'variety', 'techniques', 'trick', 'algorithm', 'push', 'propaganda', 'misinformation', 'higher', 'google', 'search', 'rankings', 'insidious', 'manipulations', 'google', 'third', 'parties', 'trying', 'game', 'system', 'impact', 'users', 'search', 'engine', 'perceive', 'world', 'even', 'influencing', 'way', 'vote', 'led', 'researchers', 'study', 'google', 'role', 'presidential', 'election', 'way', 'scrutinized', 'facebook', 'robert', 'epstein', 'american', 'institute', 'behavioral', 'research', 'technology', 'spent', 'four', 'years', 'trying', 'reverse', 'engineer', 'google', 'search', 'algorithms', 'believes', 'based', 'systematic', 'research', 'google', 'power', 'rig', 'elections', 'something', 'calls', 'search', 'engine', 'manipulation', 'effect', 'seme', 'epstein', 'conducted', 'five', 'experiments', 'two', 'countries', 'find', 'biased', 'rankings', 'search', 'results', 'shift', 'opinions', 'undecided', 'voters', 'google', 'tweaks', 'algorithm', 'show', 'positive', 'search', 'results', 'candidate', 'searcher', 'may', 'form', 'positive', 'opinion', 'candidate', 'september', 'epstein', 'released', 'findings', 'published', 'russian', 'news', 'agency', 'sputnik', 'news', 'indicated', 'google', 'suppressed', 'negative', 'autocomplete', 'search', 'results', 'relating', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'know', 'negative', 'autocomplete', 'suggestion', 'list', 'draw', 'somewhere', 'five', 'times', 'many', 'clicks', 'neutral', 'suggestion', 'epstein', 'said', 'omit', 'negatives', 'one', 'perspective', 'one', 'hotel', 'chain', 'one', 'candidate', 'heck', 'lot', 'people', 'going', 'see', 'positive', 'things', 'whatever', 'perspective', 'supporting', 'even', 'changing', 'order', 'certain', 'search', 'terms', 'appear', 'autocompleted', 'list', 'make', 'huge', 'impact', 'first', 'result', 'drawing', 'clicks', 'said', 'time', 'google', 'said', 'autocomplete', 'algorithm', 'designed', 'omit', 'disparaging', 'offensive', 'terms', 'associated', 'individuals', 'names', 'exact', 'science', 'secret', 'recipe', 'factors', 'feed', 'algorithm', 'google', 'uses', 'determine', 'web', 'page', 'importance', 'embedded', 'biases', 'humans', 'programmed', 'factors', 'include', 'many', 'websites', 'link', 'page', 'much', 'traffic', 'receives', 'often', 'page', 'updated', 'people', 'active', 'politically', 'typically', 'partisan', 'means', 'extremist', 'views', 'peddled', 'actively', 'blogs', 'fringe', 'media', 'sites', 'get', 'elevated', 'search', 'ranking', 'platforms', 'structured', 'way', 'allowing', 'enabling', 'consciously', 'unconsciously', 'extreme', 'views', 'dominate', 'said', 'martin', 'moore', 'kings', 'college', 'london', 'centre', 'study', 'media', 'communication', 'power', 'appearing', 'first', 'page', 'google', 'search', 'results', 'give', 'websites', 'questionable', 'editorial', 'principles', 'undue', 'authority', 'traffic', 'two', 'manipulations', 'work', 'together', 'enormous', 'impact', 'people', 'without', 'knowledge', 'manipulated', 'research', 'shows', 'clearly', 'epstein', 'said', 'virtually', 'one', 'aware', 'bias', 'search', 'suggestions', 'rankings', 'compounded', 'google', 'personalization', 'search', 'results', 'means', 'different', 'users', 'see', 'different', 'results', 'based', 'interests', 'gives', 'companies', 'like', 'google', 'even', 'power', 'influence', 'people', 'opinions', 'attitudes', 'beliefs', 'behaviors', 'said', 'epstein', 'wants', 'google', 'transparent', 'manually', 'manipulates', 'algorithm', 'constantly', 'making', 'adjustments', 'absurd', 'say', 'everything', 'automated', 'said', 'manual', 'removals', 'autocomplete', 'include', 'jews', 'evil', 'women', 'evil', 'google', 'also', 'altered', 'results', 'someone', 'searches', 'ways', 'kill', 'shown', 'suicide', 'helpline', 'shortly', 'epstein', 'released', 'research', 'indicating', 'suppression', 'negative', 'autocomplete', 'search', 'results', 'relating', 'clinton', 'credits', 'close', 'ties', 'clinton', 'campaign', 'google', 'search', 'engine', 'appeared', 'pull', 'back', 'censorship', 'said', 'argued', 'allowed', 'flood', 'pro-trump', 'anti-clinton', 'content', 'including', 'fake', 'news', 'created', 'retaliation', 'bubble', 'top', 'would', 'released', 'data', 'indication', 'impact', 'detrimental', 'hillary', 'clinton', 'never', 'intention', 'rhea', 'drysdale', 'ceo', 'digital', 'marketing', 'company', 'outspoken', 'media', 'see', 'evidence', 'pro-clinton', 'editing', 'google', 'however', 'note', 'networks', 'partisan', 'websites', 'disproportionately', 'rightwing', 'using', 'much', 'better', 'search', 'engine', 'optimization', 'techniques', 'ensure', 'worldview', 'ranked', 'highly', 'meanwhile', 'tech-savvy', 'rightwing', 'groups', 'organized', 'online', 'developed', 'creative', 'ways', 'control', 'manipulate', 'social', 'media', 'conversations', 'mass', 'actions', 'said', 'shane', 'burley', 'journalist', 'researcher', 'studied', 'alt-right', 'happens', 'essentially', 'jam', 'hashtags', 'densely', 'using', 'multiple', 'accounts', 'end', 'making', 'trending', 'said', 'great', 'way', 'dictate', 'something', 'going', 'covered', 'going', 'discussed', 'helped', 'reframe', 'discussion', 'immigration', 'burley', 'noted', 'cuckservative', 'meaning', 'conservatives', 'sold', 'good', 'example', 'term', 'alt-right', 'managed', 'popularize', 'effective', 'way', 'similarly', 'search', 'feminism', 'google', 'autocompletes', 'feminism', 'cancer', 'popular', 'rallying', 'cry', 'trump', 'supporters', 'effect', 'making', 'certain', 'words', 'kind', 'like', 'magic', 'words', 'search', 'algorithms', 'groups', 'including', 'members', 'popular', 'alt-right', 'reddit', 'forum', 'thedonald', 'used', 'techniques', 'used', 'reputation', 'management', 'firms', 'marketers', 'push', 'companies', 'google', 'search', 'results', 'ensure', 'pro-trump', 'imagery', 'articles', 'ranked', 'highly', 'extremists', 'trying', 'play', 'google', 'algorithm', 'years', 'varying', 'degrees', 'success', 'said', 'brittan', 'heller', 'director', 'technology', 'society', 'anti-defamation', 'league', 'key', 'traditionally', 'connected', 'influencing', 'algorithm', 'high', 'volume', 'biased', 'search', 'terms', 'problem', 'become', 'particularly', 'challenging', 'google', 'post-truth', 'era', 'white', 'supremacist', 'websites', 'may', 'indicator', 'trustworthiness', 'eyes', 'google', 'websites', 'high', 'page', 'rank', 'google', 'lies', 'outliers', 'heller', 'said', 'previously', 'assumption', 'everything', 'internet', 'glimmer', 'truth', 'phenomenon', 'fake', 'news', 'media', 'hacking', 'may', 'changing', 'google', 'spokeswoman', 'said', 'statement', 'received', 'lot', 'questions', 'autocomplete', 'want', 'help', 'people', 'understand', 'works', 'autocomplete', 'predictions', 'algorithmically', 'generated', 'based', 'users', 'search', 'activity', 'interests', 'users', 'search', 'wide', 'range', 'material', 'web', 'searches', 'see', 'every', 'day', 'new', 'terms', 'appear', 'autocomplete', 'may', 'unexpected', 'unpleasant', 'best', 'prevent', 'offensive', 'terms', 'like', 'porn', 'hate', 'speech', 'appearing', 'always', 'get', 'right', 'autocomplete', 'exact', 'science', 'always', 'working', 'improve', 'algorithms']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-copies-snapchat-feature-for-15th-time

Facebook has, for the 15th time, tried to take on Snapchat. “Facebook Messenger built a new in-app camera for Snapchat-style selfies”, reports Recode. The messaging app has rolled out a new camera with features including photo filters (aka geofilters), masks (aka lenses) and stickers (aka ... actually, Snapchat calls them stickers too). Previously (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) from Facebook: two clones of Snapchat Stories, two attempted acquisitions, four standalone apps, two ephemeral messaging implementations, and four new cameras with AR lenses. But it also looks like Facebook is tired of fighting a rearguard action. The social network has gone on the offensive, forcing pages which use a Snapcode as their profile image (those are the yellow QR-like images which you can scan to add someone on Snapchat) to change it. Facebook tries to clone Snapchat for the 8th, 9th and 10th times Facebook makes 13th attempt to clone Snapchat This is getting silly now

technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-copies-snapchat-feature-for-15th-time

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T09:44:23Z

Facebook copies Snapchat feature for 15th time

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/facebook-copies-snapchat-feature-for-15th-time

['facebook', '15th', 'time', 'tried', 'take', 'snapchat', 'facebook', 'messenger', 'built', 'new', 'in-app', 'camera', 'snapchat-style', 'selfies', 'reports', 'recode', 'messaging', 'app', 'rolled', 'new', 'camera', 'features', 'including', 'photo', 'filters', 'aka', 'geofilters', 'masks', 'aka', 'lenses', 'stickers', 'aka', 'actually', 'snapchat', 'calls', 'stickers', 'previously', 'facebook', 'two', 'clones', 'snapchat', 'stories', 'two', 'attempted', 'acquisitions', 'four', 'standalone', 'apps', 'two', 'ephemeral', 'messaging', 'implementations', 'four', 'new', 'cameras', 'ar', 'lenses', 'also', 'looks', 'like', 'facebook', 'tired', 'fighting', 'rearguard', 'action', 'social', 'network', 'gone', 'offensive', 'forcing', 'pages', 'use', 'snapcode', 'profile', 'image', 'yellow', 'qr-like', 'images', 'scan', 'add', 'someone', 'snapchat', 'change', 'facebook', 'tries', 'clone', 'snapchat', '8th', '9th', '10th', 'times', 'facebook', 'makes', '13th', 'attempt', 'clone', 'snapchat', 'getting', 'silly']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/wireless-bluetooth-earbuds-bragi-jabra-elite-earin-motorola

Completely wireless earbuds are the future of in-ear music, freeing us from the shackles of cables even between the ears. But while many have tried to make wireless earbuds that work, very few actually do. Others haven’t even got theirs to market yet, with even Apple being forced to delay its AirPods for six weeks. The big problem with those that do exist is most cannot maintain a solid connection between themselveswhile on opposite sides of your head. To complicate things, smartphones are not all born equally for Bluetooth performance. To conduct the test I used a Google Pixel XL, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Apple iPhone 7 and tried as many earbuds as I could get my hands on, finally finding only two worth buying. Here are the ones to avoid, and why ... Earin Price: £199 (buy here) Earin look like old school car cigarette lighters shrunk so they can fit in your ear. They lack any buttons or controls, charge in a long cylindrical battery case and sound pretty good for over two hours between trips in the case. They worked better with the Galaxy S7 Edge than the rest of the smartphones, but could not maintain a stable connection between the two earbuds, with the right slave bud cutting out intermittently while walking down the street. They also blast a loud pop into your earholes when they run out of battery. Verdict: not worth buying if you walk anywhere Motorola VerveOnes+ Price: £149.99/£179.99 (buy here) Available in a sweat-proof “plus” version and normal, the VerveOnes+ use a rubber-coated back to them to wedge themselves in your ear. They stick out further than most, but were comfortable, lasting a couple of hours between trips in the rotating charging case. They were fine when out running connected to a smartwatch, and worked better than some others, but still struggled to maintain a connection between the left and right earbuds when walking in town, in the office or the train station. Verdict: OK for running, but frustrating for commuting PK K’asq Price: £116.62 (buy here) If you want to look like you’re a taxi driver, but with a Bluetooth headset in each ear, the PK K’asq are for you. They stick out your ear and draw odd looks from those around you. I found them deeply uncomfortable in my ear, they sounded OK, but failed badly, with both earbuds cutting out when the connection between them was lost while walking down the road. Verdict: one to avoid Rowkin Bit Charge Price: $109.99/129.99 (buy here) Some of the smallest buds on the market, when they work they sound OK, are relatively comfortable and are the most discreet in this bunch. They’re available in two versions, with and without a charging case, held into their holders with magnets. They struggled to maintain a connection between themselves, and the pairing routine was downright tedious if you wanted to connect them to another device. Verdict: great form, poor function Here are the ones to buy … Bragi the Headphone Price: €149 (£125) (buy here) Bragi made some of the very first wireless earbuds with the Dash produced from a $3m Kickstarter campaign in 2014. They were a combination between earbud and fitness tracker that failed to live up to expectations. Now the new Bragi the Headphone – stupid name as they’re earbuds not headphones – aims to simplify things and fix the problems that held back the Dash and so many others like it: connection reliability. The earphones are kidney-shaped with an earbud sticking out like an old gramophone horn, which blasts the sound down your earhole and keeps them in place. They’re light and nothing else of the earbuds has to touch your ears and you can wear them in multiple orientations making them the most comfortable wireless earbuds I’ve tried. The right earbud has three buttons. The bottom one is the power button – hold for three seconds to turn them on or off – as well as the play, pause and skip-track button. The left and right buttons adjust volume and switch ambient noise on and off, which pipes the sounds of the environment around you into your ear using the microphones built into the earbuds. The buttons are a bit stiff, but it’s not too difficult to grab the back of the bud with your finger when you press them to save your ear canals. They sound pretty good, once you get the fit right with the tips – they come with three, but only the comply foam ones did the job for me – and are comfortable to wear for extended periods. They do not sound as good as a £125 pair of wired earbuds, but they’re balanced, with decent separation, mids and highs. Those looking for thunderous bass are out of luck and you have to put up with a small hiss sound in the background when they’re active. Bragi reckons they’ll last for six hours between charges. They lasted more like five in my testing. The case doesn’t have a battery, which means you need to plug it in to charge your earbuds, but is has the plus of being able to completely turn off the Headphone meaning they’ll still have charge when you come back to them after a long weekend or so. But they have one winning feature that sets them apart from almost all the others: rock-solid connectivity with all smartphones in the group. Whether it’s to your smartphone or between themselves, the Headphone simply work where others do not. In the office, on the train, on the underground, on a bus, walking down the street or through a train station, they kept their connection and the music flowing. Call quality, although only in mono through the right earbud, was excellent and the recipient could hear me just fine. Verdict: simple, good-sounding, comfortable and work, making them worth buying Jabra Elite Sport Price: £229 (buy here) Jabra have a long history of making good but not overly popular Bluetooth headphones. The Elite are the company’s first wireless earbuds and while they’re relatively late to the game, they’re worth waiting for. Unlike the Bragi, the Elite earbuds fill the ear like a canal shell hearing aid. The bottom bit, which has a heart rate sensor in it in the right earbud, fits against your antitragus and the top bit the lower crural of the antihelix, holding the earbuds securely in place while the tip fits into your ear canal. They come with three sizes of wing and three different sizes of earbud in two materials, but I found the smallest wings to completely fill my outer ear. The right felt a little uncomfortable at first, but settled down. The left ear is obviously a slightly different shape as the top part of the earbud constantly caused pain with the smallest wing. The Elite’s connection both between each bud and to any of the smartphones was rock solid with no interruptions under any of the conditions I tested. They sound pretty good, with more bass than the Bragi, although slightly less balance and separation in the rest of the range. They also blocked out more ambient noise, but still made a small hiss sound when active in the ear. Each earbud has two buttons and two microphones. The right earbud controls pause, play and starts exercise tracking. Double pressing the play button also activates ambient sound. The left earbud has volume control buttons, which you hold for a second to skip track. They last for about three hours and come with a compact battery case that will charge them twice. The buds can track heart rate, fed to the Jabra Sport Life app, and provide audio guidance for workouts, runs, races and recovery sessions, using the GPS from your phone to track your pace. Call quality was good and in stereo, but the recipient couldn’t hear me quite as clearly as with the Bragi. Verdict: larger size could make them less comfortable, but they have rock-solid connection, good sound and added fitness features Other reviews Five of the best Bluetooth headphones to break free of cables Optoma NuForce BE6 review: Bluetooth earbuds worth buying Plantronics BackBeat Sense review: light, long-lasting and great sounding Bluetooth headphones Marshall Major II Bluetooth headphones: they last for ages and sound great too Bose QC35 wireless headphones: simply unrivalled noise cancelling Some Guardian articles and galleries contain links to various products and services. We may earn a small commission if a reader clicks on a link from the Guardian and buys a product, but our journalism is never influenced by advertisers or affiliates and is not written to promote these products. More information on affiliate links

technology/2016/dec/16/wireless-bluetooth-earbuds-bragi-jabra-elite-earin-motorola

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T07:00:47Z

I tried every set of wireless earbuds until I found some that worked, so you don’t have to

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/wireless-bluetooth-earbuds-bragi-jabra-elite-earin-motorola

['completely', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'future', 'in-ear', 'music', 'freeing', 'us', 'shackles', 'cables', 'even', 'ears', 'many', 'tried', 'make', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'work', 'actually', 'others', 'even', 'got', 'market', 'yet', 'even', 'apple', 'forced', 'delay', 'airpods', 'six', 'weeks', 'big', 'problem', 'exist', 'cannot', 'maintain', 'solid', 'connection', 'themselveswhile', 'opposite', 'sides', 'head', 'complicate', 'things', 'smartphones', 'born', 'equally', 'bluetooth', 'performance', 'conduct', 'test', 'used', 'google', 'pixel', 'xl', 'samsung', 'galaxy', 's7', 'edge', 'apple', 'iphone', 'tried', 'many', 'earbuds', 'could', 'get', 'hands', 'finally', 'finding', 'two', 'worth', 'buying', 'ones', 'avoid', 'earin', 'price', 'buy', 'earin', 'look', 'like', 'old', 'school', 'car', 'cigarette', 'lighters', 'shrunk', 'fit', 'ear', 'lack', 'buttons', 'controls', 'charge', 'long', 'cylindrical', 'battery', 'case', 'sound', 'pretty', 'good', 'two', 'hours', 'trips', 'case', 'worked', 'better', 'galaxy', 's7', 'edge', 'rest', 'smartphones', 'could', 'maintain', 'stable', 'connection', 'two', 'earbuds', 'right', 'slave', 'bud', 'cutting', 'intermittently', 'walking', 'street', 'also', 'blast', 'loud', 'pop', 'earholes', 'run', 'battery', 'verdict', 'worth', 'buying', 'walk', 'anywhere', 'motorola', 'verveones', 'price', 'buy', 'available', 'sweat-proof', 'plus', 'version', 'normal', 'verveones', 'use', 'rubber-coated', 'back', 'wedge', 'ear', 'stick', 'comfortable', 'lasting', 'couple', 'hours', 'trips', 'rotating', 'charging', 'case', 'fine', 'running', 'connected', 'smartwatch', 'worked', 'better', 'others', 'still', 'struggled', 'maintain', 'connection', 'left', 'right', 'earbuds', 'walking', 'town', 'office', 'train', 'station', 'verdict', 'ok', 'running', 'frustrating', 'commuting', 'pk', 'kasq', 'price', 'buy', 'want', 'look', 'like', 'taxi', 'driver', 'bluetooth', 'headset', 'ear', 'pk', 'kasq', 'stick', 'ear', 'draw', 'odd', 'looks', 'around', 'found', 'deeply', 'uncomfortable', 'ear', 'sounded', 'ok', 'failed', 'badly', 'earbuds', 'cutting', 'connection', 'lost', 'walking', 'road', 'verdict', 'one', 'avoid', 'rowkin', 'bit', 'charge', 'price', 'buy', 'smallest', 'buds', 'market', 'work', 'sound', 'ok', 'relatively', 'comfortable', 'discreet', 'bunch', 'available', 'two', 'versions', 'without', 'charging', 'case', 'held', 'holders', 'magnets', 'struggled', 'maintain', 'connection', 'pairing', 'routine', 'downright', 'tedious', 'wanted', 'connect', 'another', 'device', 'verdict', 'great', 'form', 'poor', 'function', 'ones', 'buy', 'bragi', 'headphone', 'price', 'buy', 'bragi', 'made', 'first', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'dash', 'produced', '3m', 'kickstarter', 'campaign', 'combination', 'earbud', 'fitness', 'tracker', 'failed', 'live', 'expectations', 'new', 'bragi', 'headphone', 'stupid', 'name', 'earbuds', 'headphones', 'aims', 'simplify', 'things', 'fix', 'problems', 'held', 'back', 'dash', 'many', 'others', 'like', 'connection', 'reliability', 'earphones', 'kidney-shaped', 'earbud', 'sticking', 'like', 'old', 'gramophone', 'horn', 'blasts', 'sound', 'earhole', 'keeps', 'place', 'light', 'nothing', 'else', 'earbuds', 'touch', 'ears', 'wear', 'multiple', 'orientations', 'making', 'comfortable', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'tried', 'right', 'earbud', 'three', 'buttons', 'bottom', 'one', 'power', 'button', 'hold', 'three', 'seconds', 'turn', 'well', 'play', 'pause', 'skip-track', 'button', 'left', 'right', 'buttons', 'adjust', 'volume', 'switch', 'ambient', 'noise', 'pipes', 'sounds', 'environment', 'around', 'ear', 'using', 'microphones', 'built', 'earbuds', 'buttons', 'bit', 'stiff', 'difficult', 'grab', 'back', 'bud', 'finger', 'press', 'save', 'ear', 'canals', 'sound', 'pretty', 'good', 'get', 'fit', 'right', 'tips', 'come', 'three', 'comply', 'foam', 'ones', 'job', 'comfortable', 'wear', 'extended', 'periods', 'sound', 'good', 'pair', 'wired', 'earbuds', 'balanced', 'decent', 'separation', 'mids', 'highs', 'looking', 'thunderous', 'bass', 'luck', 'put', 'small', 'hiss', 'sound', 'background', 'active', 'bragi', 'reckons', 'last', 'six', 'hours', 'charges', 'lasted', 'like', 'five', 'testing', 'case', 'battery', 'means', 'need', 'plug', 'charge', 'earbuds', 'plus', 'able', 'completely', 'turn', 'headphone', 'meaning', 'still', 'charge', 'come', 'back', 'long', 'weekend', 'one', 'winning', 'feature', 'sets', 'apart', 'almost', 'others', 'rock-solid', 'connectivity', 'smartphones', 'group', 'whether', 'smartphone', 'headphone', 'simply', 'work', 'others', 'office', 'train', 'underground', 'bus', 'walking', 'street', 'train', 'station', 'kept', 'connection', 'music', 'flowing', 'call', 'quality', 'although', 'mono', 'right', 'earbud', 'excellent', 'recipient', 'could', 'hear', 'fine', 'verdict', 'simple', 'good-sounding', 'comfortable', 'work', 'making', 'worth', 'buying', 'jabra', 'elite', 'sport', 'price', 'buy', 'jabra', 'long', 'history', 'making', 'good', 'overly', 'popular', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'elite', 'company', 'first', 'wireless', 'earbuds', 'relatively', 'late', 'game', 'worth', 'waiting', 'unlike', 'bragi', 'elite', 'earbuds', 'fill', 'ear', 'like', 'canal', 'shell', 'hearing', 'aid', 'bottom', 'bit', 'heart', 'rate', 'sensor', 'right', 'earbud', 'fits', 'antitragus', 'top', 'bit', 'lower', 'crural', 'antihelix', 'holding', 'earbuds', 'securely', 'place', 'tip', 'fits', 'ear', 'canal', 'come', 'three', 'sizes', 'wing', 'three', 'different', 'sizes', 'earbud', 'two', 'materials', 'found', 'smallest', 'wings', 'completely', 'fill', 'outer', 'ear', 'right', 'felt', 'little', 'uncomfortable', 'first', 'settled', 'left', 'ear', 'obviously', 'slightly', 'different', 'shape', 'top', 'part', 'earbud', 'constantly', 'caused', 'pain', 'smallest', 'wing', 'elite', 'connection', 'bud', 'smartphones', 'rock', 'solid', 'interruptions', 'conditions', 'tested', 'sound', 'pretty', 'good', 'bass', 'bragi', 'although', 'slightly', 'less', 'balance', 'separation', 'rest', 'range', 'also', 'blocked', 'ambient', 'noise', 'still', 'made', 'small', 'hiss', 'sound', 'active', 'ear', 'earbud', 'two', 'buttons', 'two', 'microphones', 'right', 'earbud', 'controls', 'pause', 'play', 'starts', 'exercise', 'tracking', 'double', 'pressing', 'play', 'button', 'also', 'activates', 'ambient', 'sound', 'left', 'earbud', 'volume', 'control', 'buttons', 'hold', 'second', 'skip', 'track', 'last', 'three', 'hours', 'come', 'compact', 'battery', 'case', 'charge', 'twice', 'buds', 'track', 'heart', 'rate', 'fed', 'jabra', 'sport', 'life', 'app', 'provide', 'audio', 'guidance', 'workouts', 'runs', 'races', 'recovery', 'sessions', 'using', 'gps', 'phone', 'track', 'pace', 'call', 'quality', 'good', 'stereo', 'recipient', 'could', 'hear', 'quite', 'clearly', 'bragi', 'verdict', 'larger', 'size', 'could', 'make', 'less', 'comfortable', 'rock-solid', 'connection', 'good', 'sound', 'added', 'fitness', 'features', 'reviews', 'five', 'best', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'break', 'free', 'cables', 'optoma', 'nuforce', 'be6', 'review', 'bluetooth', 'earbuds', 'worth', 'buying', 'plantronics', 'backbeat', 'sense', 'review', 'light', 'long-lasting', 'great', 'sounding', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'marshall', 'major', 'ii', 'bluetooth', 'headphones', 'last', 'ages', 'sound', 'great', 'bose', 'qc35', 'wireless', 'headphones', 'simply', 'unrivalled', 'noise', 'cancelling', 'guardian', 'articles', 'galleries', 'contain', 'links', 'various', 'products', 'services', 'may', 'earn', 'small', 'commission', 'reader', 'clicks', 'link', 'guardian', 'buys', 'product', 'journalism', 'never', 'influenced', 'advertisers', 'affiliates', 'written', 'promote', 'products', 'information', 'affiliate', 'links']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/16/nbn-co-downplays-report-showing-australia-lagging-on-internet-speed

The company that operates the national broadband network has downplayed new findings on global internet speeds that show Australia continues to lag behind other Asia-Pacific countries. Akamai released its third-quarter “State of the Internet” connectivity report, acknowledged as a benchmark for broadband performance within the industry, on Thursday. Australia ranked 50th in the global rankings for average connection speed, and eighth among Asia-Pacific countries and regions, with an average of 9.6Mbps for the third quarter this year – a decline of 13% on the previous quarter. South Korea and Hong Kong were at first and second in the world, with 26.3Mbps and 20.1Mbps respectively. Average connection speeds globally had increased by 2.3% to 6.3Mbps, a 21% increase year-over-year. Australia’s average peak connection speed was 46.9Mbps, putting it at 57th in the world, and far behind leaders in the Asia-Pacific region such as Singapore – with the highest peak speed of the countries assessed of 162.0Mbps. With Japan, Australia had the smallest gains year-over-year of countries within the Asia-Pacific in the third quarter, at just 12%. By comparison, Indonesia’s speeds increased by 220%. But third-quarter average mobile connections in Australia were 12.8Mbps, behind only the Philippines in the Asia-Pacific region. The Akamai report said the NBN was on track to roll out universal broadband access in Australia at a minimum speed of 25Mbps, with 40% of the country having gigabit-speed access by 2020. A spokeswoman for the national broadband network agreed that the findings reflected the need to bridge the digital divide in Australia, but said most of the 10m IP addresses assessed by Akamai would be “legacy ADSL services” and were not a reflection on the NBN. The speed experienced by consumers would be ultimately dictated by their choice of package from internet service providers, she said. “Consumers may choose a 12Mbps package and that what would be what is measured, not what the line is capable of doing.” She also noted that Australia’s average speeds had increased year-over-year. Some 1.6m premises around Australia now have NBN services. Internet Australia, the not-for-profit peak body representing the interests of Australian internet users, said the mix of technologies being used in the NBN meant it could not guarantee the speeds that would be delivered to all consumers. Between 30% and 40% of premises using the NBN will be serviced by “fibre-to-the-node”, which IA’s chief executive, Laurie Patton, says will not meet Australia’s future needs, given the fact that ageing copper-wire fibres will need replacing in 10 to 15 years’ time. “The simple fact is we are being outplayed by our global competitors who are building fibre-based systems providing speeds that cannot be matched by fibre-to-the-node,” he said. “The wholesale speeds claimed by NBN are largely irrelevant as they are not necessarily the speeds that will be delivered to consumers. What counts is what you pay for and what you get.” IA has been calling for the NBN to dump the fibre-to-the-node rollout in favour of the “fibre-to-the-home” approach initially committed to by Kevin Rudd’s government before being watered down by the Abbott-led government. The annual cost to the federal budget of the government’s investment in the NBN is expected to grow in coming years. A report by the Parliamentary Budget Office released on Wednesday estimated the cost to the budget in 2016-17 to be about $580m.

technology/2016/dec/16/nbn-co-downplays-report-showing-australia-lagging-on-internet-speed

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-16T03:29:43Z

NBN Co downplays report showing Australia lagging on internet speed

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/nbn-co-downplays-report-showing-australia-lagging-on-internet-speed

['company', 'operates', 'national', 'broadband', 'network', 'downplayed', 'new', 'findings', 'global', 'internet', 'speeds', 'show', 'australia', 'continues', 'lag', 'behind', 'asia-pacific', 'countries', 'akamai', 'released', 'third-quarter', 'state', 'internet', 'connectivity', 'report', 'acknowledged', 'benchmark', 'broadband', 'performance', 'within', 'industry', 'thursday', 'australia', 'ranked', '50th', 'global', 'rankings', 'average', 'connection', 'speed', 'eighth', 'among', 'asia-pacific', 'countries', 'regions', 'average', '96mbps', 'third', 'quarter', 'year', 'decline', 'previous', 'quarter', 'south', 'korea', 'hong', 'kong', 'first', 'second', 'world', '263mbps', '201mbps', 'respectively', 'average', 'connection', 'speeds', 'globally', 'increased', '63mbps', 'increase', 'year-over-year', 'australia', 'average', 'peak', 'connection', 'speed', '469mbps', 'putting', '57th', 'world', 'far', 'behind', 'leaders', 'asia-pacific', 'region', 'singapore', 'highest', 'peak', 'speed', 'countries', 'assessed', '1620mbps', 'japan', 'australia', 'smallest', 'gains', 'year-over-year', 'countries', 'within', 'asia-pacific', 'third', 'quarter', 'comparison', 'indonesia', 'speeds', 'increased', 'third-quarter', 'average', 'mobile', 'connections', 'australia', '128mbps', 'behind', 'philippines', 'asia-pacific', 'region', 'akamai', 'report', 'said', 'nbn', 'track', 'roll', 'universal', 'broadband', 'access', 'australia', 'minimum', 'speed', '25mbps', 'country', 'gigabit-speed', 'access', 'spokeswoman', 'national', 'broadband', 'network', 'agreed', 'findings', 'reflected', 'need', 'bridge', 'digital', 'divide', 'australia', 'said', '10m', 'ip', 'addresses', 'assessed', 'akamai', 'would', 'legacy', 'adsl', 'services', 'reflection', 'nbn', 'speed', 'experienced', 'consumers', 'would', 'ultimately', 'dictated', 'choice', 'package', 'internet', 'service', 'providers', 'said', 'consumers', 'may', 'choose', '12mbps', 'package', 'would', 'measured', 'line', 'capable', 'also', 'noted', 'australia', 'average', 'speeds', 'increased', 'year-over-year', '16m', 'premises', 'around', 'australia', 'nbn', 'services', 'internet', 'australia', 'not-for-profit', 'peak', 'body', 'representing', 'interests', 'australian', 'internet', 'users', 'said', 'mix', 'technologies', 'used', 'nbn', 'meant', 'could', 'guarantee', 'speeds', 'would', 'delivered', 'consumers', 'premises', 'using', 'nbn', 'serviced', 'fibre-to-the-node', 'ia', 'chief', 'executive', 'laurie', 'patton', 'says', 'meet', 'australia', 'future', 'needs', 'given', 'fact', 'ageing', 'copper-wire', 'fibres', 'need', 'replacing', 'years', 'time', 'simple', 'fact', 'outplayed', 'global', 'competitors', 'building', 'fibre-based', 'systems', 'providing', 'speeds', 'cannot', 'matched', 'fibre-to-the-node', 'said', 'wholesale', 'speeds', 'claimed', 'nbn', 'largely', 'irrelevant', 'necessarily', 'speeds', 'delivered', 'consumers', 'counts', 'pay', 'get', 'ia', 'calling', 'nbn', 'dump', 'fibre-to-the-node', 'rollout', 'favour', 'fibre-to-the-home', 'approach', 'initially', 'committed', 'kevin', 'rudd', 'government', 'watered', 'abbott-led', 'government', 'annual', 'cost', 'federal', 'budget', 'government', 'investment', 'nbn', 'expected', 'grow', 'coming', 'years', 'report', 'parliamentary', 'budget', 'office', 'released', 'wednesday', 'estimated', 'cost', 'budget', '2016-17', '580m']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/fcc-chairman-resigns-tom-wheeler-net-neutrality

Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler, who championed strong net neutrality rules, resigned on Thursday, calling his service “during this period of historical technological change” a particular honor. “It has been a privilege to work with my fellow commissioners to help protect consumers, strengthen public safety and cybersecurity, and ensure fast, fair and open networks for all Americans,” Wheeler wrote. His resignation paves the way for a likely more conservative FCC chairman under Donald Trump and a new battle over net neutrality. Wheeler’s loudest opposition on the five-member commission, Ajit Pai, said Wheeler “brought passion and tenacity to the playing field each and every day” in a statement to press, and that it had been a privilege to serve alongside him. Wheeler came to the position after leading two separate lobbying instruments for the cable industry: the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), where he was president and CEO, respectively. Both groups, representing AT&T, Comcast, and dozens of other telcos, sued the FCC over net neutrality during Wheeler’s leadership. The regulator passed broad rules reclassifying internet service under the same category as telephone service, preventing web providers from forcing subscribers into “slow lanes” unless they paid more. The industry groups lost the lawsuit in June. Wheeler was met with suspicion when president Barack Obama first appointed him. Comedian John Oliver said Obama’s choice was “the equivalent of needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo” and encouraged viewers to flood the FCC’s system with pro-net neutrality comments. Wheeler himself was taken aback when the comments came at such a volume that they crashed the comments system. “I would like to state for the record that I am not a dingo,” he said when pressed by a reporter over the incident. Indeed, Wheeler has been instrumental in changing the industry to accommodate new players and to vex the establishment he once represented. “My history has always been working with the insurgent, not the incumbent,” he told Ars Technica last year.

technology/2016/dec/15/fcc-chairman-resigns-tom-wheeler-net-neutrality

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T21:06:07Z

Resignation of FCC chair Tom Wheeler paves the way for net neutrality battle

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/fcc-chairman-resigns-tom-wheeler-net-neutrality

['federal', 'communications', 'commission', 'chairman', 'tom', 'wheeler', 'championed', 'strong', 'net', 'neutrality', 'rules', 'resigned', 'thursday', 'calling', 'service', 'period', 'historical', 'technological', 'change', 'particular', 'honor', 'privilege', 'work', 'fellow', 'commissioners', 'help', 'protect', 'consumers', 'strengthen', 'public', 'safety', 'cybersecurity', 'ensure', 'fast', 'fair', 'open', 'networks', 'americans', 'wheeler', 'wrote', 'resignation', 'paves', 'way', 'likely', 'conservative', 'fcc', 'chairman', 'donald', 'trump', 'new', 'battle', 'net', 'neutrality', 'wheeler', 'loudest', 'opposition', 'five-member', 'commission', 'ajit', 'pai', 'said', 'wheeler', 'brought', 'passion', 'tenacity', 'playing', 'field', 'every', 'day', 'statement', 'press', 'privilege', 'serve', 'alongside', 'wheeler', 'came', 'position', 'leading', 'two', 'separate', 'lobbying', 'instruments', 'cable', 'industry', 'national', 'cable', 'telecommunications', 'association', 'ncta', 'cellular', 'telecommunications', 'internet', 'association', 'ctia', 'president', 'ceo', 'respectively', 'groups', 'representing', 'atampt', 'comcast', 'dozens', 'telcos', 'sued', 'fcc', 'net', 'neutrality', 'wheeler', 'leadership', 'regulator', 'passed', 'broad', 'rules', 'reclassifying', 'internet', 'service', 'category', 'telephone', 'service', 'preventing', 'web', 'providers', 'forcing', 'subscribers', 'slow', 'lanes', 'unless', 'paid', 'industry', 'groups', 'lost', 'lawsuit', 'june', 'wheeler', 'met', 'suspicion', 'president', 'barack', 'obama', 'first', 'appointed', 'comedian', 'john', 'oliver', 'said', 'obama', 'choice', 'equivalent', 'needing', 'babysitter', 'hiring', 'dingo', 'encouraged', 'viewers', 'flood', 'fcc', 'system', 'pro-net', 'neutrality', 'comments', 'wheeler', 'taken', 'aback', 'comments', 'came', 'volume', 'crashed', 'comments', 'system', 'would', 'like', 'state', 'record', 'dingo', 'said', 'pressed', 'reporter', 'incident', 'indeed', 'wheeler', 'instrumental', 'changing', 'industry', 'accommodate', 'new', 'players', 'vex', 'establishment', 'represented', 'history', 'always', 'working', 'insurgent', 'incumbent', 'told', 'ars', 'technica', 'last', 'year']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/facebook-flag-fake-news-fact-check

Facebook will begin flagging fake news stories with the help of users and outside fact checkers, the company announced on Thursday, responding to a torrent of criticism over fake news during the US election. Readers will be able to alert Facebook to possible fake news stories, which the social media behemoth will then send to outside fact-checking organizations to verify. Facebook is working with five fact-checking organizations – ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes – to launch the initiative. If enough of Facebook’s users report a story as fake, the social network will pass it onto these third parties to scrutinize. If a story is deemed to fail the fact check, it will be publicly flagged as “disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers” whenever it appears on the social network. Users will be able to click on a link to understand why it’s disputed. If a Facebook user then still want to share the story, they’ll get another warning about its reliability. Disputed stories also may appear lower in the newsfeed, said Facebook. “It’s important to us that the stories you see on Facebook are authentic and meaningful,” reads the Facebook press release. The fact-checking organizations will not be paid to provide this service. Another change being rolled out identifies stories that are being shared more by people who have only read the headline than by people who have actually clicked on them and read the text. “We’ve found that if reading an article makes people significantly less likely to share it, that may be a sign that a story has misled people in some way,” the company said. Facebook is also attempting to reduce the financial incentives to create fake news websites, by making it harder to spoof existing legitimate domains. In a post on his own Facebook page announcing the changes, founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted the business has a “greater responsibility” to the public than just being a tech company. He wrote: While we don’t write the news stories you read and share, we also recognize we’re more than just a distributor of news. We’re a new kind of platform for public discourse – and that means we have a new kind of responsibility to enable people to have the most meaningful conversations, and to build a space where people can be informed. The fact-checking announcement is a turnaround from 12 November, just days after Donald Trump won the election, when Zuckerberg said of Facebook: “I believe we must be extremely cautious about becoming arbiters of truth ourselves.” Activist and journalist Daniel Sieradski, who created a browser plug-in called BS Detector that flags questionable news sources, has been a vocal critic of Facebook’s failure to acknowledge any responsibility for the spread of misleading and false information on its platform. He welcomed Facebook’s announcement. “It seems like a pretty good set of suggestions to me,” he said. However, he’s concerned that the system relies on Facebook users flagging stories as hoaxes. “They will get so many things false-flagged as fake news by people with an axe to grind, so it’s going to make it more challenging to moderate. “But it’s a step in the right direction.” The role of Facebook in encouraging and spreading misinformation during the US election, including completely fictional news stories created as a moneymaking scheme by teenagers in Macedonia and inaccurate propaganda, saw the company be accused of abdicating its responsibility and helping the election of Donald Trump. Many fake news stories appear in the “trending” feed on Facebook, encouraging them to be read and shared, despite their inaccuracies. The rise of fake news across Facebook and other social media has quickly became a global problem, with tech companies, including Twitter, rolling out changes to attempt to thwart the trend.

technology/2016/dec/15/facebook-flag-fake-news-fact-check

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T20:05:36Z

Facebook to begin flagging fake news in response to mounting criticism

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/facebook-flag-fake-news-fact-check

['facebook', 'begin', 'flagging', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'help', 'users', 'outside', 'fact', 'checkers', 'company', 'announced', 'thursday', 'responding', 'torrent', 'criticism', 'fake', 'news', 'us', 'election', 'readers', 'able', 'alert', 'facebook', 'possible', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'social', 'media', 'behemoth', 'send', 'outside', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'verify', 'facebook', 'working', 'five', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'abc', 'news', 'ap', 'factcheckorg', 'politifact', 'snopes', 'launch', 'initiative', 'enough', 'facebook', 'users', 'report', 'story', 'fake', 'social', 'network', 'pass', 'onto', 'third', 'parties', 'scrutinize', 'story', 'deemed', 'fail', 'fact', 'check', 'publicly', 'flagged', 'disputed', '3rd', 'party', 'fact-checkers', 'whenever', 'appears', 'social', 'network', 'users', 'able', 'click', 'link', 'understand', 'disputed', 'facebook', 'user', 'still', 'want', 'share', 'story', 'get', 'another', 'warning', 'reliability', 'disputed', 'stories', 'also', 'may', 'appear', 'lower', 'newsfeed', 'said', 'facebook', 'important', 'us', 'stories', 'see', 'facebook', 'authentic', 'meaningful', 'reads', 'facebook', 'press', 'release', 'fact-checking', 'organizations', 'paid', 'provide', 'service', 'another', 'change', 'rolled', 'identifies', 'stories', 'shared', 'people', 'read', 'headline', 'people', 'actually', 'clicked', 'read', 'text', 'found', 'reading', 'article', 'makes', 'people', 'significantly', 'less', 'likely', 'share', 'may', 'sign', 'story', 'misled', 'people', 'way', 'company', 'said', 'facebook', 'also', 'attempting', 'reduce', 'financial', 'incentives', 'create', 'fake', 'news', 'websites', 'making', 'harder', 'spoof', 'existing', 'legitimate', 'domains', 'post', 'facebook', 'page', 'announcing', 'changes', 'founder', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'admitted', 'business', 'greater', 'responsibility', 'public', 'tech', 'company', 'wrote', 'write', 'news', 'stories', 'read', 'share', 'also', 'recognize', 'distributor', 'news', 'new', 'kind', 'platform', 'public', 'discourse', 'means', 'new', 'kind', 'responsibility', 'enable', 'people', 'meaningful', 'conversations', 'build', 'space', 'people', 'informed', 'fact-checking', 'announcement', 'turnaround', 'november', 'days', 'donald', 'trump', 'election', 'zuckerberg', 'said', 'facebook', 'believe', 'must', 'extremely', 'cautious', 'becoming', 'arbiters', 'truth', 'activist', 'journalist', 'daniel', 'sieradski', 'created', 'browser', 'plug-in', 'called', 'bs', 'detector', 'flags', 'questionable', 'news', 'sources', 'vocal', 'critic', 'facebook', 'failure', 'acknowledge', 'responsibility', 'spread', 'misleading', 'false', 'information', 'platform', 'welcomed', 'facebook', 'announcement', 'seems', 'like', 'pretty', 'good', 'set', 'suggestions', 'said', 'however', 'concerned', 'system', 'relies', 'facebook', 'users', 'flagging', 'stories', 'hoaxes', 'get', 'many', 'things', 'false-flagged', 'fake', 'news', 'people', 'axe', 'grind', 'going', 'make', 'challenging', 'moderate', 'step', 'right', 'direction', 'role', 'facebook', 'encouraging', 'spreading', 'misinformation', 'us', 'election', 'including', 'completely', 'fictional', 'news', 'stories', 'created', 'moneymaking', 'scheme', 'teenagers', 'macedonia', 'inaccurate', 'propaganda', 'saw', 'company', 'accused', 'abdicating', 'responsibility', 'helping', 'election', 'donald', 'trump', 'many', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'appear', 'trending', 'feed', 'facebook', 'encouraging', 'read', 'shared', 'despite', 'inaccuracies', 'rise', 'fake', 'news', 'across', 'facebook', 'social', 'media', 'quickly', 'became', 'global', 'problem', 'tech', 'companies', 'including', 'twitter', 'rolling', 'changes', 'attempt', 'thwart', 'trend']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/twitter-dataminr-user-data-aclu

Twitter has blocked federally funded “domestic spy centers” from using a powerful social media monitoring tool after public records revealed that the government had special access to users’ information for controversial surveillance efforts. The American Civil Liberties Union of California discovered that so-called fusion centers, which collect intelligence, had access to monitoring technology from Dataminr, an analytics company partially owned by Twitter. The ACLU’s records prompted the companies to announce that Dataminr had terminated access for all fusion centers and would no longer provide social media surveillance tools to any local, state or federal government entities. The government centers are partnerships between agencies that work to collect vast amounts of information purportedly to analyze “threats”. The spy centers, according to the ACLU, target protesters, journalists and others protected by free speech rights while also racially profiling people deemed “suspicious” by law enforcement. “These are massive hubs for information collection and monitoring and surveillance of individuals,” said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of California. “The information they collect is often about innocent people.” The revelations about the potential collaboration between the government centers and private technology companies are particularly alarming given heightened concerns about mass surveillance under President-elect Donald Trump. Records that the ACLU obtained uncovered that a fusion center in southern California had access to Dataminr’s “geospatial analysis application”, which allowed the government to do location-based tracking as well as searches tied to keywords. That means the center could use Dataminr to search billions of tweets and monitor specific demographics or organizations. In one email, Dataminr told Los Angeles police that its product could be customized to track protests, adding: “Twitter owns part of Dataminr (5%) so our access to their data is unmatched – no other company ingests the full firehouse of 500 million tweets in real-time … Twitter has been very clear with my CEO: ‘Dataminr is the only company with full, unrestricted access.’” A Dataminr brochure touted the use of the company’s geospatial analysis application to monitor a student demonstration in South Africa by tracking hashtags and keywords. Although Twitter has since cut off the spy centers’ access, some have argued that social media companies should have had stronger protections in place so that this kind of partnership and data sharing doesn’t happen in the first place. By giving government agencies access to these tools, Dataminr was also clearly violating Twitter’s policy prohibiting the use of its data for surveillance, according to the ACLU. “It’s really even more important now than ever that the companies have strong policies in place and that they have the right auditing and enforcement to make sure those rules are followed,” Ozer said. In October, the ACLU obtained government records revealing that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had provided users’ data to Geofeedia, a software company that aids police surveillance programs and has targeted protesters of color. The revelations prompted all three companies to remove access to certain data streams. In the spring, Twitter also blocked US national security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, from buying bulk data on its users from Dataminr. The announcement on Thursday applies to all 77 fusion centers in the US. Ozer said she hoped other companies would follow suit, noting that Dataminr’s technology “is probably not the only type of tool that fusion centers may have access to. It’s really important for other companies to be taking action to protect their users.” Spokespeople for Twitter and Dataminr pointed to their letter to the ACLU this week, which noted that Dataminr only received public Twitter data. The letter also said Dataminr had “refined” its product for public sectors, focusing on a “breaking news alert” that helps first responders learn about events as quickly as possible. “Dataminr is committed to privacy and civil liberties protections,” the company said in a statement. “We have worked closely with Twitter to modify our product and incorporate feedback that ensures the strongest safeguards are in place for people who use Twitter.”

technology/2016/dec/15/twitter-dataminr-user-data-aclu

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T19:41:17Z

Twitter blocks government 'spy centers' from accessing user data

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/twitter-dataminr-user-data-aclu

['twitter', 'blocked', 'federally', 'funded', 'domestic', 'spy', 'centers', 'using', 'powerful', 'social', 'media', 'monitoring', 'tool', 'public', 'records', 'revealed', 'government', 'special', 'access', 'users', 'information', 'controversial', 'surveillance', 'efforts', 'american', 'civil', 'liberties', 'union', 'california', 'discovered', 'so-called', 'fusion', 'centers', 'collect', 'intelligence', 'access', 'monitoring', 'technology', 'dataminr', 'analytics', 'company', 'partially', 'owned', 'twitter', 'aclu', 'records', 'prompted', 'companies', 'announce', 'dataminr', 'terminated', 'access', 'fusion', 'centers', 'would', 'longer', 'provide', 'social', 'media', 'surveillance', 'tools', 'local', 'state', 'federal', 'government', 'entities', 'government', 'centers', 'partnerships', 'agencies', 'work', 'collect', 'vast', 'amounts', 'information', 'purportedly', 'analyze', 'threats', 'spy', 'centers', 'according', 'aclu', 'target', 'protesters', 'journalists', 'others', 'protected', 'free', 'speech', 'rights', 'also', 'racially', 'profiling', 'people', 'deemed', 'suspicious', 'law', 'enforcement', 'massive', 'hubs', 'information', 'collection', 'monitoring', 'surveillance', 'individuals', 'said', 'nicole', 'ozer', 'technology', 'civil', 'liberties', 'policy', 'director', 'aclu', 'california', 'information', 'collect', 'often', 'innocent', 'people', 'revelations', 'potential', 'collaboration', 'government', 'centers', 'private', 'technology', 'companies', 'particularly', 'alarming', 'given', 'heightened', 'concerns', 'mass', 'surveillance', 'president-elect', 'donald', 'trump', 'records', 'aclu', 'obtained', 'uncovered', 'fusion', 'center', 'southern', 'california', 'access', 'dataminr', 'geospatial', 'analysis', 'application', 'allowed', 'government', 'location-based', 'tracking', 'well', 'searches', 'tied', 'keywords', 'means', 'center', 'could', 'use', 'dataminr', 'search', 'billions', 'tweets', 'monitor', 'specific', 'demographics', 'organizations', 'one', 'email', 'dataminr', 'told', 'los', 'angeles', 'police', 'product', 'could', 'customized', 'track', 'protests', 'adding', 'twitter', 'owns', 'part', 'dataminr', 'access', 'data', 'unmatched', 'company', 'ingests', 'full', 'firehouse', 'million', 'tweets', 'real-time', 'twitter', 'clear', 'ceo', 'dataminr', 'company', 'full', 'unrestricted', 'access', 'dataminr', 'brochure', 'touted', 'use', 'company', 'geospatial', 'analysis', 'application', 'monitor', 'student', 'demonstration', 'south', 'africa', 'tracking', 'hashtags', 'keywords', 'although', 'twitter', 'since', 'cut', 'spy', 'centers', 'access', 'argued', 'social', 'media', 'companies', 'stronger', 'protections', 'place', 'kind', 'partnership', 'data', 'sharing', 'happen', 'first', 'place', 'giving', 'government', 'agencies', 'access', 'tools', 'dataminr', 'also', 'clearly', 'violating', 'twitter', 'policy', 'prohibiting', 'use', 'data', 'surveillance', 'according', 'aclu', 'really', 'even', 'important', 'ever', 'companies', 'strong', 'policies', 'place', 'right', 'auditing', 'enforcement', 'make', 'sure', 'rules', 'followed', 'ozer', 'said', 'october', 'aclu', 'obtained', 'government', 'records', 'revealing', 'twitter', 'facebook', 'instagram', 'provided', 'users', 'data', 'geofeedia', 'software', 'company', 'aids', 'police', 'surveillance', 'programs', 'targeted', 'protesters', 'color', 'revelations', 'prompted', 'three', 'companies', 'remove', 'access', 'certain', 'data', 'streams', 'spring', 'twitter', 'also', 'blocked', 'us', 'national', 'security', 'agencies', 'including', 'fbi', 'cia', 'buying', 'bulk', 'data', 'users', 'dataminr', 'announcement', 'thursday', 'applies', 'fusion', 'centers', 'us', 'ozer', 'said', 'hoped', 'companies', 'would', 'follow', 'suit', 'noting', 'dataminr', 'technology', 'probably', 'type', 'tool', 'fusion', 'centers', 'may', 'access', 'really', 'important', 'companies', 'taking', 'action', 'protect', 'users', 'spokespeople', 'twitter', 'dataminr', 'pointed', 'letter', 'aclu', 'week', 'noted', 'dataminr', 'received', 'public', 'twitter', 'data', 'letter', 'also', 'said', 'dataminr', 'refined', 'product', 'public', 'sectors', 'focusing', 'breaking', 'news', 'alert', 'helps', 'first', 'responders', 'learn', 'events', 'quickly', 'possible', 'dataminr', 'committed', 'privacy', 'civil', 'liberties', 'protections', 'company', 'said', 'statement', 'worked', 'closely', 'twitter', 'modify', 'product', 'incorporate', 'feedback', 'ensures', 'strongest', 'safeguards', 'place', 'people', 'use', 'twitter']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/google-campus-silicon-valley-farm-martinellis

A Bay Area family is holding on to its ramshackle farmstead in the heart of Google’s sprawling headquarters despite reason to believe it has been offered $5m to $7m by the tech giant for the tiny patch of land. The land – which is home to battered pickups, a crumbling ice house, and a handful of renters – is now surrounded on all sides by the tech company’s more than 25-acre campus in Mountain View, California. Measuring less than an acre, the property is also home to fig, tangerine, avocado and ancient pepper trees, many of which were planted and harvested by the late patriarch of the family, Victor Molinari, who died five years ago. His surviving relatives appear disinclined to sell. “Right now we’re living,” said Leonard Martinelli, 49. “We don’t need the money. Right now it’s not for sale.” His sister, Sandra Martinelli Bilyeu, 43, added: “If we keep it, we keep our history.” But it is not only the family’s history that is being preserved. Silicon Valley may now be synonymous with tech behemoths such as Google, Apple and Facebook, but not so long ago it was miles of lush farm fields where plums, cherries and tomatoes grew in abundance. Although Silicon Valley has been generous to the point of extravagance in preserving its own history – the massive Computer History Museum is almost exactly one mile away from the farmstead – the industry and its supporters have been less enthusiastic about memorializing anything before the advent of high tech. “I don’t think anyone sees any historic significance” in the property, said Mountain View city councilman Leonard Siegel. “Eventually all these properties are going to go. There’s nothing unique about them.” “It’s not as if the Golden Era of Mountain View was when it was agricultural,” added Siegel, who describes himself as a professional environmental advocate. “Silicon Valley’s strength is its permanent sense of evolution.” That sentiment was called “unfortunate and not surprising” by Brian Grayson of the valley’s preservation action council. “The fabric of a community comes from what happened here. Newcomers have no connection to why we came here except for more jobs. That’s it for them.” Those newcomers have transformed the agricultural land south of San Francisco into one of the most expensive swaths of real estate in the world, and the Martinelli family has witnessed the value of its land rocket. “That land is worth probably $5m-7m,” according to Myron Von Raesfeld, a leading real estate expert in the valley and former president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors. “I have reason to believe they’ve been offered that kind of money from Google.” Google declined to respond to inquiries about the attempted purchase of the property. The Martinelli clan no longer reside at the farmstead, which has been gradually surrounded by the tech giant’s campus, known as Googleplex, which provides offices for about 20,000 employees. Instead, it is now home to a handful of eclectic renters such as Mihail Kivachitsky, a self-described artist who declined to be interviewed but makes a living as a carpenter. Victoria Martinelli, 79, one of the elders of the Martinelli clan and the late Victor Molinari’s sister, remembers working the vegetable rows and learning to drive on a tractor in the fields during childhood summer vacations. She gave the Guardian a recent tour of the property. She glanced at a weathered shed, recalling how, about 70 years ago, her family built it and a now ruined barn. The latter included a place to keep the produce cold before trucking it to the San Francisco produce markets. “That was in 1946, maybe 1947,” Victoria Martinelli recalled. “That’s where they washed the fruit before it went on the truck. The shelves are where we stored the onions.” While her children appeared reluctant to let go of the family’s farm, Victoria Martinelli was more ambivalent. “We don’t know,” she said, noting that there were “lots of grandchildren” and endowing them with financial independence deserves consideration. Should the family change its mind and relinquish its farmstead, Google would extend its formidable imprint on Mountain View – resigning to history the bucolic fields that have since turned to concrete. “It’s a pretty much amazing-looking place right here in the middle of all this,” said Rob Carr, a young Google software engineer walking by the old farmhouse. “I can see the value in saving it. But I also believe property should be used.”

technology/2016/dec/15/google-campus-silicon-valley-farm-martinellis

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T18:57:56Z

Family resists Google's campus sprawl despite offer to buy farm for millions

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/google-campus-silicon-valley-farm-martinellis

['bay', 'area', 'family', 'holding', 'ramshackle', 'farmstead', 'heart', 'google', 'sprawling', 'headquarters', 'despite', 'reason', 'believe', 'offered', '5m', '7m', 'tech', 'giant', 'tiny', 'patch', 'land', 'land', 'home', 'battered', 'pickups', 'crumbling', 'ice', 'house', 'handful', 'renters', 'surrounded', 'sides', 'tech', 'company', '25-acre', 'campus', 'mountain', 'view', 'california', 'measuring', 'less', 'acre', 'property', 'also', 'home', 'fig', 'tangerine', 'avocado', 'ancient', 'pepper', 'trees', 'many', 'planted', 'harvested', 'late', 'patriarch', 'family', 'victor', 'molinari', 'died', 'five', 'years', 'ago', 'surviving', 'relatives', 'appear', 'disinclined', 'sell', 'right', 'living', 'said', 'leonard', 'martinelli', 'need', 'money', 'right', 'sale', 'sister', 'sandra', 'martinelli', 'bilyeu', 'added', 'keep', 'keep', 'history', 'family', 'history', 'preserved', 'silicon', 'valley', 'may', 'synonymous', 'tech', 'behemoths', 'google', 'apple', 'facebook', 'long', 'ago', 'miles', 'lush', 'farm', 'fields', 'plums', 'cherries', 'tomatoes', 'grew', 'abundance', 'although', 'silicon', 'valley', 'generous', 'point', 'extravagance', 'preserving', 'history', 'massive', 'computer', 'history', 'museum', 'almost', 'exactly', 'one', 'mile', 'away', 'farmstead', 'industry', 'supporters', 'less', 'enthusiastic', 'memorializing', 'anything', 'advent', 'high', 'tech', 'think', 'anyone', 'sees', 'historic', 'significance', 'property', 'said', 'mountain', 'view', 'city', 'councilman', 'leonard', 'siegel', 'eventually', 'properties', 'going', 'go', 'nothing', 'unique', 'golden', 'era', 'mountain', 'view', 'agricultural', 'added', 'siegel', 'describes', 'professional', 'environmental', 'advocate', 'silicon', 'valley', 'strength', 'permanent', 'sense', 'evolution', 'sentiment', 'called', 'unfortunate', 'surprising', 'brian', 'grayson', 'valley', 'preservation', 'action', 'council', 'fabric', 'community', 'comes', 'happened', 'newcomers', 'connection', 'came', 'except', 'jobs', 'newcomers', 'transformed', 'agricultural', 'land', 'south', 'san', 'francisco', 'one', 'expensive', 'swaths', 'real', 'estate', 'world', 'martinelli', 'family', 'witnessed', 'value', 'land', 'rocket', 'land', 'worth', 'probably', '5m-7m', 'according', 'myron', 'von', 'raesfeld', 'leading', 'real', 'estate', 'expert', 'valley', 'former', 'president', 'santa', 'clara', 'county', 'association', 'realtors', 'reason', 'believe', 'offered', 'kind', 'money', 'google', 'google', 'declined', 'respond', 'inquiries', 'attempted', 'purchase', 'property', 'martinelli', 'clan', 'longer', 'reside', 'farmstead', 'gradually', 'surrounded', 'tech', 'giant', 'campus', 'known', 'googleplex', 'provides', 'offices', 'employees', 'instead', 'home', 'handful', 'eclectic', 'renters', 'mihail', 'kivachitsky', 'self-described', 'artist', 'declined', 'interviewed', 'makes', 'living', 'carpenter', 'victoria', 'martinelli', 'one', 'elders', 'martinelli', 'clan', 'late', 'victor', 'molinari', 'sister', 'remembers', 'working', 'vegetable', 'rows', 'learning', 'drive', 'tractor', 'fields', 'childhood', 'summer', 'vacations', 'gave', 'guardian', 'recent', 'tour', 'property', 'glanced', 'weathered', 'shed', 'recalling', 'years', 'ago', 'family', 'built', 'ruined', 'barn', 'latter', 'included', 'place', 'keep', 'produce', 'cold', 'trucking', 'san', 'francisco', 'produce', 'markets', 'maybe', 'victoria', 'martinelli', 'recalled', 'washed', 'fruit', 'went', 'truck', 'shelves', 'stored', 'onions', 'children', 'appeared', 'reluctant', 'let', 'go', 'family', 'farm', 'victoria', 'martinelli', 'ambivalent', 'know', 'said', 'noting', 'lots', 'grandchildren', 'endowing', 'financial', 'independence', 'deserves', 'consideration', 'family', 'change', 'mind', 'relinquish', 'farmstead', 'google', 'would', 'extend', 'formidable', 'imprint', 'mountain', 'view', 'resigning', 'history', 'bucolic', 'fields', 'since', 'turned', 'concrete', 'pretty', 'much', 'amazing-looking', 'place', 'right', 'middle', 'said', 'rob', 'carr', 'young', 'google', 'software', 'engineer', 'walking', 'old', 'farmhouse', 'see', 'value', 'saving', 'also', 'believe', 'property', 'used']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/fbi-investigation-yahoo-hack-one-billion

The FBI is investigating the attack on Yahoo that compromised at least 1bn user accounts, the White House said on Thursday. Speaking to reporters at the daily White House press briefing on Thursday, spokesman Josh Earnest said he could not comment on the scope of material that may have been compromised in the hack, the largest data breach in history, which Yahoo believes was state-sponsored. “What I can say is that the FBI is investigating this matter,” Earnest said. “There was a previously reported breach that the FBI had previously indicated that they were investigating and they’re investigating this situation as well, so I’ll let them speak to what they have found over the course of that investigation thus far.” Before the FBI made an announcement about who was responsible for the breach, Earnest added, it would want to be certain that going public would not undermine the investigation. The attack on Yahoo’s systems took place in 2013 but was only revealed on Wednesday; Yahoo discovered it after investigating another breach of 500m accounts in 2014, which the company revealed in September. On Wednesday evening, Bloomberg reported that the victims of the billion-user hack include FBI, CIA, NSA and White House workers. Virginia senator Mark Warner joined technical analysts in expressing disappointment in the company. “This most-recent revelation warrants a separate follow-up and I plan to press the company on why its cyber defenses have been so weak as to have compromised over a billion users,” Warner wrote in a statement. Some experts have questioned Yahoo’s claim that the attack was “state-sponsored”; Michael Mimoso of security firm Kaspersky Lab suggested “a criminal operation was behind the attack and sold the data to an eastern European government”, resulting in the confusion. Security researcher Brian Krebs said Yahoo’s security was especially bad “because of pseudo-security features (like secret questions) that tend to end up weakening the security of accounts”, and recommended users stay away from the company. Six US senators demanded Yahoo explain exactly when it had detected the theft of user data in a letter to the company after the September revelations; the company did not comply in its response. In its November quarterly results report, though, Yahoo hinted that there was worse to come: “On November 7, 2016, law enforcement authorities began sharing certain data that they indicated was provided by a hacker who claimed the information was Yahoo user account data,” company spokespeople told investors. Yahoo now believes the hackers stole proprietary code from the company and used it to build falsified “session cookies” – bits of code that tell Yahoo’s servers that a computer has already logged in, so that users don’t have to keep entering passwords every time they open a new window. With the “forged cookies”, as Yahoo chief information security officer put it on the company blog, the hackers could peer into emails without a password. US telecoms giant Verizon has signed a deal to acquire Yahoo for $4.85bn. Citing “people familiar with the matter”, Bloomberg reported in the wake of the historic data breach that Verizon now wants either a steep discount or to abandon the deal altogether. Shares of Yahoo fell 6.5% on the news. Yahoo’s woes continued as Germany’s cybersecurity authority, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), advised German consumers to consider switching to safer alternatives for email, and criticized Yahoo for failing to adopt modern encryption techniques to protect users’ personal data. “Considering the repeated cases of data theft, users should look more closely at which services they want to use in the future and security should play a part in that decision,” the BSI’s president, Arne Schoenbohm, said in a statement. The company’s legal situation may worsen: In response to Yahoo’s revelations in September, 23 consumer class action lawsuits have been filed against the firm in US federal and state courts. The lawsuit tally is from a filing with the US securities and exchange commission in November, over a month before Yahoo’s 500m-user breach became only the second-biggest-ever hack.

technology/2016/dec/15/fbi-investigation-yahoo-hack-one-billion

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T18:47:44Z

White House says FBI is investigating hack of 1bn Yahoo user accounts

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/fbi-investigation-yahoo-hack-one-billion

['fbi', 'investigating', 'attack', 'yahoo', 'compromised', 'least', '1bn', 'user', 'accounts', 'white', 'house', 'said', 'thursday', 'speaking', 'reporters', 'daily', 'white', 'house', 'press', 'briefing', 'thursday', 'spokesman', 'josh', 'earnest', 'said', 'could', 'comment', 'scope', 'material', 'may', 'compromised', 'hack', 'largest', 'data', 'breach', 'history', 'yahoo', 'believes', 'state-sponsored', 'say', 'fbi', 'investigating', 'matter', 'earnest', 'said', 'previously', 'reported', 'breach', 'fbi', 'previously', 'indicated', 'investigating', 'investigating', 'situation', 'well', 'let', 'speak', 'found', 'course', 'investigation', 'thus', 'far', 'fbi', 'made', 'announcement', 'responsible', 'breach', 'earnest', 'added', 'would', 'want', 'certain', 'going', 'public', 'would', 'undermine', 'investigation', 'attack', 'yahoo', 'systems', 'took', 'place', 'revealed', 'wednesday', 'yahoo', 'discovered', 'investigating', 'another', 'breach', '500m', 'accounts', 'company', 'revealed', 'september', 'wednesday', 'evening', 'bloomberg', 'reported', 'victims', 'billion-user', 'hack', 'include', 'fbi', 'cia', 'nsa', 'white', 'house', 'workers', 'virginia', 'senator', 'mark', 'warner', 'joined', 'technical', 'analysts', 'expressing', 'disappointment', 'company', 'most-recent', 'revelation', 'warrants', 'separate', 'follow-up', 'plan', 'press', 'company', 'cyber', 'defenses', 'weak', 'compromised', 'billion', 'users', 'warner', 'wrote', 'statement', 'experts', 'questioned', 'yahoo', 'claim', 'attack', 'state-sponsored', 'michael', 'mimoso', 'security', 'firm', 'kaspersky', 'lab', 'suggested', 'criminal', 'operation', 'behind', 'attack', 'sold', 'data', 'eastern', 'european', 'government', 'resulting', 'confusion', 'security', 'researcher', 'brian', 'krebs', 'said', 'yahoo', 'security', 'especially', 'bad', 'pseudo-security', 'features', 'like', 'secret', 'questions', 'tend', 'end', 'weakening', 'security', 'accounts', 'recommended', 'users', 'stay', 'away', 'company', 'six', 'us', 'senators', 'demanded', 'yahoo', 'explain', 'exactly', 'detected', 'theft', 'user', 'data', 'letter', 'company', 'september', 'revelations', 'company', 'comply', 'response', 'november', 'quarterly', 'results', 'report', 'though', 'yahoo', 'hinted', 'worse', 'come', 'november', 'law', 'enforcement', 'authorities', 'began', 'sharing', 'certain', 'data', 'indicated', 'provided', 'hacker', 'claimed', 'information', 'yahoo', 'user', 'account', 'data', 'company', 'spokespeople', 'told', 'investors', 'yahoo', 'believes', 'hackers', 'stole', 'proprietary', 'code', 'company', 'used', 'build', 'falsified', 'session', 'cookies', 'bits', 'code', 'tell', 'yahoo', 'servers', 'computer', 'already', 'logged', 'users', 'keep', 'entering', 'passwords', 'every', 'time', 'open', 'new', 'window', 'forged', 'cookies', 'yahoo', 'chief', 'information', 'security', 'officer', 'put', 'company', 'blog', 'hackers', 'could', 'peer', 'emails', 'without', 'password', 'us', 'telecoms', 'giant', 'verizon', 'signed', 'deal', 'acquire', 'yahoo', '485bn', 'citing', 'people', 'familiar', 'matter', 'bloomberg', 'reported', 'wake', 'historic', 'data', 'breach', 'verizon', 'wants', 'either', 'steep', 'discount', 'abandon', 'deal', 'altogether', 'shares', 'yahoo', 'fell', 'news', 'yahoo', 'woes', 'continued', 'germany', 'cybersecurity', 'authority', 'federal', 'office', 'information', 'security', 'bsi', 'advised', 'german', 'consumers', 'consider', 'switching', 'safer', 'alternatives', 'email', 'criticized', 'yahoo', 'failing', 'adopt', 'modern', 'encryption', 'techniques', 'protect', 'users', 'personal', 'data', 'considering', 'repeated', 'cases', 'data', 'theft', 'users', 'look', 'closely', 'services', 'want', 'use', 'future', 'security', 'play', 'part', 'decision', 'bsi', 'president', 'arne', 'schoenbohm', 'said', 'statement', 'company', 'legal', 'situation', 'may', 'worsen', 'response', 'yahoo', 'revelations', 'september', 'consumer', 'class', 'action', 'lawsuits', 'filed', 'firm', 'us', 'federal', 'state', 'courts', 'lawsuit', 'tally', 'filing', 'us', 'securities', 'exchange', 'commission', 'november', 'month', 'yahoo', '500m-user', 'breach', 'became', 'second-biggest-ever', 'hack']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/female-mp-received-death-threats-for-calling-for-ban-on-britain-first

Police are investigating after a female Labour MP received “very explicit death threats” online. Louise Haigh, MP for Sheffield Heeley, told parliament she was targeted after calling for a debate on the banning of Britain First, the far-right group which may have inspired the murder of her colleague Jo Cox. She told the Guardian such threats were becoming commonplace among female MPs, noting that Cox’s successor in parliament, Tracy Brabin, had received “horrific levels” of abuse. Speaking in a Commons debate on Wednesday night, Haigh said: “I just called for the house to be given evidence and to look at the details of the group’s paramilitary activity and anti-democratic behaviour. As a result of that and of how the media covered my call, I have received very explicit death threats. I have been called a traitor and a Muslim lover. “On Friday, an individual went through every one of my YouTube videos and said he would not rest until I was murdered. If that is not evidence that Britain First should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, I am not sure what is.” Haigh, who at 29 is the youngest Labour MP in the House of Commons, said she was disappointed with the initial reaction from police when she reported the abuse. She said she first told a special police unit situated in parliament designed to deal with such investigations. “Their reaction was: ‘South Yorkshire police need to deal with this.’ We reported it to SYP and the initial reaction was pretty dismissive: ‘It is really difficult to find people on the internet.’” The MP said SYP only seemed to start actively investigating after she told the media about the threats, though they were quick to install panic alarms in her Sheffield home and office, and to provide her with uniformed and undercover protection while going about constituency business over the weekend. The force has now put in a request to Google for IP information, she said. “I didn’t think they were going to act until the media attention. I don’t know what it would take to make them act. The same group [Britain First] inspired the murder of Jo, one force over [the border in West Yorkshire],” she said. Haigh said she shrugged off the threats at first. She said: “My initial reaction was to treat it as fairly usual: I get really abusive messages all the time. But reflecting on how obsessive the individual seemed, and the specific obvious threats of murdering me, it did really affect me. I didn’t really feel safe until I came down to London on Monday. “SYP was really good at offering resources to protect me, had cars following me at roving surgery and undercover police at events. But I would really rather they put resources into investigating.” Following the parliamentary debate, Ben Wallace, the minister of state for security at the Home Office, said he would intervene, Haigh said. Being abused was now part and parcel of life as a female politician in the UK, she said. “For women it’s definitely depressingly familiar,” she said. “Speaking to male colleagues they just don’t seem to receive the same level or magnitude of abuse I get on a fairly regular basis. But it’s nothing compared with some colleagues, like Jess Phillips [MP for Birmingham Yardley]. I know Tracy Brabin has had horrific levels. We do become accustomed to it and we shouldn’t. I worry that it will put some women off coming into politics.” Brabin told the Guardian she had received abuse on social media in response to her efforts to champion diversity in her constituency of Batley and Spen and had asked the members of her local Labour party to respond by retweeting the positive things on her Twitter page. She has also had abuse by post, which one of her researchers has spoken to the police in the House of Commons about. Brabin said she would support her fellow female MPs however they chose to respond to such abuse, but she was trying not to let any of it get to her and had not made formal complaints to the police. “Everybody deals with it in their own way, but I particularly cannot afford to let it affect what I do because I wouldn’t get out of bed,” she said. A spokeswoman for South Yorkshire police confirmed that the force received a report of malicious communication in the early hours of 9 December. She said: “The force takes reports of this nature extremely seriously and inquiries are ongoing in relation to this matter.”

technology/2016/dec/15/female-mp-received-death-threats-for-calling-for-ban-on-britain-first

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T16:47:37Z

Female MP received death threats for calling for ban on Britain First

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/female-mp-received-death-threats-for-calling-for-ban-on-britain-first

['police', 'investigating', 'female', 'labour', 'mp', 'received', 'explicit', 'death', 'threats', 'online', 'louise', 'haigh', 'mp', 'sheffield', 'heeley', 'told', 'parliament', 'targeted', 'calling', 'debate', 'banning', 'britain', 'first', 'far-right', 'group', 'may', 'inspired', 'murder', 'colleague', 'jo', 'cox', 'told', 'guardian', 'threats', 'becoming', 'commonplace', 'among', 'female', 'mps', 'noting', 'cox', 'successor', 'parliament', 'tracy', 'brabin', 'received', 'horrific', 'levels', 'abuse', 'speaking', 'commons', 'debate', 'wednesday', 'night', 'haigh', 'said', 'called', 'house', 'given', 'evidence', 'look', 'details', 'group', 'paramilitary', 'activity', 'anti-democratic', 'behaviour', 'result', 'media', 'covered', 'call', 'received', 'explicit', 'death', 'threats', 'called', 'traitor', 'muslim', 'lover', 'friday', 'individual', 'went', 'every', 'one', 'youtube', 'videos', 'said', 'would', 'rest', 'murdered', 'evidence', 'britain', 'first', 'proscribed', 'terrorist', 'organisation', 'sure', 'haigh', 'youngest', 'labour', 'mp', 'house', 'commons', 'said', 'disappointed', 'initial', 'reaction', 'police', 'reported', 'abuse', 'said', 'first', 'told', 'special', 'police', 'unit', 'situated', 'parliament', 'designed', 'deal', 'investigations', 'reaction', 'south', 'yorkshire', 'police', 'need', 'deal', 'reported', 'syp', 'initial', 'reaction', 'pretty', 'dismissive', 'really', 'difficult', 'find', 'people', 'internet', 'mp', 'said', 'syp', 'seemed', 'start', 'actively', 'investigating', 'told', 'media', 'threats', 'though', 'quick', 'install', 'panic', 'alarms', 'sheffield', 'home', 'office', 'provide', 'uniformed', 'undercover', 'protection', 'going', 'constituency', 'business', 'weekend', 'force', 'put', 'request', 'google', 'ip', 'information', 'said', 'think', 'going', 'act', 'media', 'attention', 'know', 'would', 'take', 'make', 'act', 'group', 'britain', 'first', 'inspired', 'murder', 'jo', 'one', 'force', 'border', 'west', 'yorkshire', 'said', 'haigh', 'said', 'shrugged', 'threats', 'first', 'said', 'initial', 'reaction', 'treat', 'fairly', 'usual', 'get', 'really', 'abusive', 'messages', 'time', 'reflecting', 'obsessive', 'individual', 'seemed', 'specific', 'obvious', 'threats', 'murdering', 'really', 'affect', 'really', 'feel', 'safe', 'came', 'london', 'monday', 'syp', 'really', 'good', 'offering', 'resources', 'protect', 'cars', 'following', 'roving', 'surgery', 'undercover', 'police', 'events', 'would', 'really', 'rather', 'put', 'resources', 'investigating', 'following', 'parliamentary', 'debate', 'ben', 'wallace', 'minister', 'state', 'security', 'home', 'office', 'said', 'would', 'intervene', 'haigh', 'said', 'abused', 'part', 'parcel', 'life', 'female', 'politician', 'uk', 'said', 'women', 'definitely', 'depressingly', 'familiar', 'said', 'speaking', 'male', 'colleagues', 'seem', 'receive', 'level', 'magnitude', 'abuse', 'get', 'fairly', 'regular', 'basis', 'nothing', 'compared', 'colleagues', 'like', 'jess', 'phillips', 'mp', 'birmingham', 'yardley', 'know', 'tracy', 'brabin', 'horrific', 'levels', 'become', 'accustomed', 'worry', 'put', 'women', 'coming', 'politics', 'brabin', 'told', 'guardian', 'received', 'abuse', 'social', 'media', 'response', 'efforts', 'champion', 'diversity', 'constituency', 'batley', 'spen', 'asked', 'members', 'local', 'labour', 'party', 'respond', 'retweeting', 'positive', 'things', 'twitter', 'page', 'also', 'abuse', 'post', 'one', 'researchers', 'spoken', 'police', 'house', 'commons', 'brabin', 'said', 'would', 'support', 'fellow', 'female', 'mps', 'however', 'chose', 'respond', 'abuse', 'trying', 'let', 'get', 'made', 'formal', 'complaints', 'police', 'everybody', 'deals', 'way', 'particularly', 'cannot', 'afford', 'let', 'affect', 'would', 'get', 'bed', 'said', 'spokeswoman', 'south', 'yorkshire', 'police', 'confirmed', 'force', 'received', 'report', 'malicious', 'communication', 'early', 'hours', 'december', 'said', 'force', 'takes', 'reports', 'nature', 'extremely', 'seriously', 'inquiries', 'ongoing', 'relation', 'matter']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/just-eat-online-takeaway-service-buy-uk-rival-hungry-house

The online takeaway food service Just Eat is to spend up to £300m on a buying spree, swallowing up its smaller rivals Hungry House and SkipTheDishes. Just Eat is paying £200m upfront to buy Hungry House, its biggest UK competitor, from the German group Delivery Hero. It has promised to hand over another £40m if the company hits performance targets. “Through this transaction, we would extend our market presence in the UK and sustain high levels of growth given the considerable opportunity in this market,” said Just Eat’s chief executive, David Buttress. Just Eat, which listed in 2014, earns commission on restaurant orders placed via its website and apps. Hungry House, which is the second-biggest player in the UK market after Just Eat, operates a similar model. Just Eat said Hungry House would generate topline operating profits of £12m to £15m in 2017 excluding exceptional integration costs of about £1m. The Hungry House deal will have to be cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). After initially touching a new high of 623.5p Just Eat shares were down more than 1% at 591.5p by lunchtime. The Jefferies analyst David Reynolds said consolidation was a good thing for online marketplace models, with the purchase of Hungry House removing the possibility of the rival combining with the likes of Deliveroo. “While it may be some time before the CMA bless this deal, the strategic imperative for Just Eat makes sense,” said Reynolds. “We do not underestimate the importance of Just Eat taking Hungry House off the table.” Separately Just Eat announced the acquisition of the fast-growing Canadian outfit SkipTheDishes in a cash and shares deal worth CAD$110m (£66.1m). The business, which has 350,000 customers, is expected to have sales of CAD$23.5m in 2016. It handled 1.6m orders in the 10 months to October, which was up 186% year on year.

technology/2016/dec/15/just-eat-online-takeaway-service-buy-uk-rival-hungry-house

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T13:52:06Z

Just Eat online takeaway service pays £200m for UK rival Hungry House

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/just-eat-online-takeaway-service-buy-uk-rival-hungry-house

['online', 'takeaway', 'food', 'service', 'eat', 'spend', '300m', 'buying', 'spree', 'swallowing', 'smaller', 'rivals', 'hungry', 'house', 'skipthedishes', 'eat', 'paying', '200m', 'upfront', 'buy', 'hungry', 'house', 'biggest', 'uk', 'competitor', 'german', 'group', 'delivery', 'hero', 'promised', 'hand', 'another', '40m', 'company', 'hits', 'performance', 'targets', 'transaction', 'would', 'extend', 'market', 'presence', 'uk', 'sustain', 'high', 'levels', 'growth', 'given', 'considerable', 'opportunity', 'market', 'said', 'eat', 'chief', 'executive', 'david', 'buttress', 'eat', 'listed', 'earns', 'commission', 'restaurant', 'orders', 'placed', 'via', 'website', 'apps', 'hungry', 'house', 'second-biggest', 'player', 'uk', 'market', 'eat', 'operates', 'similar', 'model', 'eat', 'said', 'hungry', 'house', 'would', 'generate', 'topline', 'operating', 'profits', '12m', '15m', 'excluding', 'exceptional', 'integration', 'costs', '1m', 'hungry', 'house', 'deal', 'cleared', 'competition', 'markets', 'authority', 'cma', 'initially', 'touching', 'new', 'high', '6235p', 'eat', 'shares', '5915p', 'lunchtime', 'jefferies', 'analyst', 'david', 'reynolds', 'said', 'consolidation', 'good', 'thing', 'online', 'marketplace', 'models', 'purchase', 'hungry', 'house', 'removing', 'possibility', 'rival', 'combining', 'likes', 'deliveroo', 'may', 'time', 'cma', 'bless', 'deal', 'strategic', 'imperative', 'eat', 'makes', 'sense', 'said', 'reynolds', 'underestimate', 'importance', 'eat', 'taking', 'hungry', 'house', 'table', 'separately', 'eat', 'announced', 'acquisition', 'fast-growing', 'canadian', 'outfit', 'skipthedishes', 'cash', 'shares', 'deal', 'worth', 'cad110m', '661m', 'business', 'customers', 'expected', 'sales', 'cad235m', 'handled', '16m', 'orders', 'months', 'october', 'year', 'year']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/yahoo-details-compromised-by-an-email-hack-share-your-story

Yahoo said on Wednesday it had discovered another major cyber attack (saying data from more than 1bn user accounts was compromised in August 2013). This is the largest such breach in history. The hackers forged cookies - files that stay in the user’s browser cache so that a website doesn’t require a login with every visit. The faked cookies allow an intruder to access users’ accounts without a password. The company believes the hacks are connected and that the breaches are “state-sponsored”. The Yahoo hack is the latest to compromise massive amounts of user data. Over the last few years companies like MySpace, Tumblr, TalkTalk and Ashley Madison have also fallen victim. Along with email addresses and passwords, breaches can reveal bank details and family information which can be used for identity theft.. We want to hear from people affected by hacking . What happened and how did it impact on your life? Were your bank details revealed? Share your stories with us below the line.

technology/2016/dec/15/yahoo-details-compromised-by-an-email-hack-share-your-story

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T12:31:07Z

Have you had your details compromised by an email hack? Share your story

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/yahoo-details-compromised-by-an-email-hack-share-your-story

['yahoo', 'said', 'wednesday', 'discovered', 'another', 'major', 'cyber', 'attack', 'saying', 'data', '1bn', 'user', 'accounts', 'compromised', 'august', 'largest', 'breach', 'history', 'hackers', 'forged', 'cookies', '-', 'files', 'stay', 'user', 'browser', 'cache', 'website', 'require', 'login', 'every', 'visit', 'faked', 'cookies', 'allow', 'intruder', 'access', 'users', 'accounts', 'without', 'password', 'company', 'believes', 'hacks', 'connected', 'breaches', 'state-sponsored', 'yahoo', 'hack', 'latest', 'compromise', 'massive', 'amounts', 'user', 'data', 'last', 'years', 'companies', 'like', 'myspace', 'tumblr', 'talktalk', 'ashley', 'madison', 'also', 'fallen', 'victim', 'along', 'email', 'addresses', 'passwords', 'breaches', 'reveal', 'bank', 'details', 'family', 'information', 'used', 'identity', 'theft', 'want', 'hear', 'people', 'affected', 'hacking', 'happened', 'impact', 'life', 'bank', 'details', 'revealed', 'share', 'stories', 'us', 'line']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/security-experts-yahoo-hack

Experts have attacked Yahoo’s weak security after the revelation it suffered a hack in 2013, which exposed the personal data of 1 billion users, just months after revealing a 500-million-user data breach from 2014. The hack saw the potential theft of login details, personal details and any confidential or sensitive information contained within email correspondences. Yahoo provided the email services for BT and Sky customers, as well as other services. Bruce Schneier, a cryptologist and one of the world’s most respected security experts, said: “Yahoo badly screwed up. They weren’t taking security seriously and that’s now very clear. I would have trouble trusting Yahoo going forward.” Not only did Yahoo fail to prevent the breach, it also failed to detect the breach when it happened in 2013, only realising the intrusion and data theft after recently being notified by a third party. That left users unknowingly compromised for at least three years, vulnerable to identify theft among many other potential criminal uses of their personal data and passwords. John Madelin, CEO at RelianceACSN and a former vice president responsible for the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, said: “We thought the previous breach of 500 million user accounts was huge, but 1 billion is monumental.” Tyler Moffitt, senior threat research analyst at Webroot, said: “All of the data stolen, including emails, passwords and security questions, make a potent package for identify theft. The main email account has links to other online logins and the average user likely has password overlap with multiple accounts.” Moffitt takes little comfort from Yahoo’s efforts to secure user accounts. He said: “These accounts have been compromised for years and the sheer number of them means they have already been a large source of identity theft. No one should have faith in Yahoo at this point.” Failing to prevent a breach is just one aspect of Yahoo’s fiasco. Given the sheer number of user accounts and the volume of data each one contained, data security was crucial. Unfortunately Yahoo’s disregard for the safety of user data led to the use of out-dated security techniques. For instance, Yahoo stored user passwords using a hashing algorithm called MD5, which was first published in 1992 but has inherent weaknesses that meant it was discounted as an effective method for security data from the mid–2000s. Jonathan Care, research director at analysts Gartner, said: “MD5 hashing is vulnerable to an attack type called ‘collision attacks’ which means that an attacker can find a string of characters that will resolve to the same hash as a hashed password. MD5 is strongly deprecated and this points to troubling software development security practices in Yahoo or its suppliers.” The latest data breach revelation from Yahoo – after a 500-million-user-account hack from 2014 revealed in September – paints a picture of an ageing, creaking company, failing on all counts. And with its acquisition by Verizon looming on the horizon, yet another failure on this scale will surely impact the deal in cost at the very least. Madelin said: “If Verizon were seeking a billion-dollar discount from the agreed $4.8bn takeover [as a result of the last breach], then logically a breach twice the size should shave off a further $2bn. The extensive list of hacks and data breaches revealed this year points to a worrying trend. Hackers are no longer targeting corporate networks for gain, instead going after sensitive data hiding in plain sight within personal information and correspondence. “Think about all of the highly sensitive files that could be lurking in these breached Yahoo email accounts: incredibly sensitive tax or financial statements, personal healthcare data, even banking or credit card information,” said Kevin Cunningham, president and founder at identify firm SailPoint. Cunningham said hacks of this nature, particularly of firms with weak security but obvious data stores such, will likely feature heavily in 2017. Millions of BT and Sky Broadband customers could be affected by Yahoo hack Eight things you need to do right now to protect yourself online

technology/2016/dec/15/security-experts-yahoo-hack

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T12:29:05Z

Security experts: 'No one should have faith in Yahoo at this point'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/security-experts-yahoo-hack

['experts', 'attacked', 'yahoo', 'weak', 'security', 'revelation', 'suffered', 'hack', 'exposed', 'personal', 'data', 'billion', 'users', 'months', 'revealing', '500-million-user', 'data', 'breach', 'hack', 'saw', 'potential', 'theft', 'login', 'details', 'personal', 'details', 'confidential', 'sensitive', 'information', 'contained', 'within', 'email', 'correspondences', 'yahoo', 'provided', 'email', 'services', 'bt', 'sky', 'customers', 'well', 'services', 'bruce', 'schneier', 'cryptologist', 'one', 'world', 'respected', 'security', 'experts', 'said', 'yahoo', 'badly', 'screwed', 'taking', 'security', 'seriously', 'clear', 'would', 'trouble', 'trusting', 'yahoo', 'going', 'forward', 'yahoo', 'fail', 'prevent', 'breach', 'also', 'failed', 'detect', 'breach', 'happened', 'realising', 'intrusion', 'data', 'theft', 'recently', 'notified', 'third', 'party', 'left', 'users', 'unknowingly', 'compromised', 'least', 'three', 'years', 'vulnerable', 'identify', 'theft', 'among', 'many', 'potential', 'criminal', 'uses', 'personal', 'data', 'passwords', 'john', 'madelin', 'ceo', 'relianceacsn', 'former', 'vice', 'president', 'responsible', 'verizon', 'data', 'breach', 'investigations', 'report', 'said', 'thought', 'previous', 'breach', 'million', 'user', 'accounts', 'huge', 'billion', 'monumental', 'tyler', 'moffitt', 'senior', 'threat', 'research', 'analyst', 'webroot', 'said', 'data', 'stolen', 'including', 'emails', 'passwords', 'security', 'questions', 'make', 'potent', 'package', 'identify', 'theft', 'main', 'email', 'account', 'links', 'online', 'logins', 'average', 'user', 'likely', 'password', 'overlap', 'multiple', 'accounts', 'moffitt', 'takes', 'little', 'comfort', 'yahoo', 'efforts', 'secure', 'user', 'accounts', 'said', 'accounts', 'compromised', 'years', 'sheer', 'number', 'means', 'already', 'large', 'source', 'identity', 'theft', 'one', 'faith', 'yahoo', 'point', 'failing', 'prevent', 'breach', 'one', 'aspect', 'yahoo', 'fiasco', 'given', 'sheer', 'number', 'user', 'accounts', 'volume', 'data', 'one', 'contained', 'data', 'security', 'crucial', 'unfortunately', 'yahoo', 'disregard', 'safety', 'user', 'data', 'led', 'use', 'out-dated', 'security', 'techniques', 'instance', 'yahoo', 'stored', 'user', 'passwords', 'using', 'hashing', 'algorithm', 'called', 'md5', 'first', 'published', 'inherent', 'weaknesses', 'meant', 'discounted', 'effective', 'method', 'security', 'data', 'mid2000s', 'jonathan', 'care', 'research', 'director', 'analysts', 'gartner', 'said', 'md5', 'hashing', 'vulnerable', 'attack', 'type', 'called', 'collision', 'attacks', 'means', 'attacker', 'find', 'string', 'characters', 'resolve', 'hash', 'hashed', 'password', 'md5', 'strongly', 'deprecated', 'points', 'troubling', 'software', 'development', 'security', 'practices', 'yahoo', 'suppliers', 'latest', 'data', 'breach', 'revelation', 'yahoo', '500-million-user-account', 'hack', 'revealed', 'september', 'paints', 'picture', 'ageing', 'creaking', 'company', 'failing', 'counts', 'acquisition', 'verizon', 'looming', 'horizon', 'yet', 'another', 'failure', 'scale', 'surely', 'impact', 'deal', 'cost', 'least', 'madelin', 'said', 'verizon', 'seeking', 'billion-dollar', 'discount', 'agreed', '48bn', 'takeover', 'result', 'last', 'breach', 'logically', 'breach', 'twice', 'size', 'shave', '2bn', 'extensive', 'list', 'hacks', 'data', 'breaches', 'revealed', 'year', 'points', 'worrying', 'trend', 'hackers', 'longer', 'targeting', 'corporate', 'networks', 'gain', 'instead', 'going', 'sensitive', 'data', 'hiding', 'plain', 'sight', 'within', 'personal', 'information', 'correspondence', 'think', 'highly', 'sensitive', 'files', 'could', 'lurking', 'breached', 'yahoo', 'email', 'accounts', 'incredibly', 'sensitive', 'tax', 'financial', 'statements', 'personal', 'healthcare', 'data', 'even', 'banking', 'credit', 'card', 'information', 'said', 'kevin', 'cunningham', 'president', 'founder', 'identify', 'firm', 'sailpoint', 'cunningham', 'said', 'hacks', 'nature', 'particularly', 'firms', 'weak', 'security', 'obvious', 'data', 'stores', 'likely', 'feature', 'heavily', 'millions', 'bt', 'sky', 'broadband', 'customers', 'could', 'affected', 'yahoo', 'hack', 'eight', 'things', 'need', 'right', 'protect', 'online']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-self-driving-cars-run-red-lights-san-francisco

California regulators ordered Uber to remove its self-driving vehicles from the road on the same day that the company’s vehicles were caught running red lights – violations the company immediately blamed on “human error”. “It is essential that Uber takes appropriate measures to ensure safety of the public,” the California department of motor vehicles (DMV) wrote to Uber on Wednesday after it defied government officials and began piloting the cars in San Francisco without permits. “If Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit, DMV will initiate legal action.” An Uber spokesperson said two red-light violations were due to mistakes by the people required to sit behind the steering wheel and said the company has suspended the drivers. A video posted by Charles Rotter, an operations manager at Luxor, a traditional cab company, shows one of Uber’s computer-controlled cars plowing through a pedestrian crosswalk in downtown about four seconds after the light turned red. Elsewhere, a photo from a San Francisco writer showed one of the Uber vehicles entering an intersection against a red light. “People could die,” Rotter said in an interview later. “This is obviously not ready for primetime.” The traffic violations and threat of legal action are a significant blow to Uber in its home town, where the California department of motor vehicles has said that Uber requires permits to test the technology on its roads. Despite that stated mandate from a government agency, Uber declared in a blogpost that it did not believe it needed a “testing permit” to launch self-driving vehicles in San Francisco, arguing that the rules don’t apply since the cars have people in them monitoring movements. “Most states see the potential benefits, especially when it comes to road safety,” wrote Anthony Levandowski, head of Uber’s advanced technology group. His post announcing the Wednesday launch noted the Volvo XC90s’ “core safety capabilities”. In his letter to Levandowski, the DMV’s deputy director, Brian Soublet, noted that 20 companies have already been approved to test self-driving vehicles in California. “They are obeying the law and are responsibly testing and advancing their technology,” he said, adding, “This technology holds the promise of true safety benefits on our roadways, but must be tested responsibly.” The self-driving vehicles of the popular car-sharing company were first unveiled in Pittsburgh in September. The vehicles have technology that allows them to navigate on their own, though licensed drivers sit behind the wheel and can take control as necessary. Annie Gaus, a San Francisco writer and producer, said she was riding to work on Wednesday in a Lyft, Uber’s biggest competitor, when she saw one of the Uber self-driving vehicles nearly crash into her. She tweeted a photo of the car in the intersection after it ran the red light. “The Uber car sort of jutted out into the intersection,” she told the Guardian by phone, noting that she and her Lyft driver were both taken aback. “It was close enough that we were both kind of like, ‘Woah.’ It’s close enough that you kind of react and are sort of rattled.” Gaus, who has written about technology and has contributed to the Guardian, said the red-light violations on day one of the pilot seem to highlight how the implementation of the technology in a place like San Francisco may be premature. “I don’t think anybody has a good understanding of how this works in a city context.” An Uber spokesperson said both cars running red lights were not part of the pilot and were not carrying customers. “These incidents were due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers,” the statement said. “The drivers involved have been suspended while we continue to investigate.” The company did not immediately respond to questions about the state’s order to remove the cars from the road. It’s unclear how law enforcement may address these kinds of violations. Asked how the San Francisco police department would respond to a self-driving Uber running a red light, officer Giselle Talkoff said: “I don’t even know. I guess we could pull them over.” After the Guardian sent Talkoff footage of the Uber violation, first reported by the San Francisco Examiner, she said the police were not investigating the specific incident. But she noted officers would follow up in cases in which there was an injury or if they witnessed a violation in person – though she said she wasn’t sure if the “secondary driver” or the company would be held accountable. “There was a person that was walking very closely,” she said of the footage, pointing out that a pedestrian was entering the street when the Uber car ran the red. Talkoff further noted that there aren’t state or federal laws governing self-driving cars. “First comes technology, then comes policy. It’s going to be a matter of setting some precedents,” she said, adding, “The companies that are putting these vehicles on the road should have their vehicles operate with due regard to the rules of the road.” A sergeant with the police traffic division said his department was not even aware that Uber had started using autonomous cars in San Francisco. Rotter argued that the technology company should be held responsible for sending the vehicles out on the road despite government objections. “What this company has done is start operating illegally and push for permission later.” Contact the author: [email protected]

technology/2016/dec/14/uber-self-driving-cars-run-red-lights-san-francisco

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T12:25:52Z

Uber blames humans for self-driving car traffic offenses as California orders halt

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-self-driving-cars-run-red-lights-san-francisco

['california', 'regulators', 'ordered', 'uber', 'remove', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'road', 'day', 'company', 'vehicles', 'caught', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'violations', 'company', 'immediately', 'blamed', 'human', 'error', 'essential', 'uber', 'takes', 'appropriate', 'measures', 'ensure', 'safety', 'public', 'california', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'dmv', 'wrote', 'uber', 'wednesday', 'defied', 'government', 'officials', 'began', 'piloting', 'cars', 'san', 'francisco', 'without', 'permits', 'uber', 'confirm', 'immediately', 'stop', 'launch', 'seek', 'testing', 'permit', 'dmv', 'initiate', 'legal', 'action', 'uber', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'two', 'red-light', 'violations', 'due', 'mistakes', 'people', 'required', 'sit', 'behind', 'steering', 'wheel', 'said', 'company', 'suspended', 'drivers', 'video', 'posted', 'charles', 'rotter', 'operations', 'manager', 'luxor', 'traditional', 'cab', 'company', 'shows', 'one', 'uber', 'computer-controlled', 'cars', 'plowing', 'pedestrian', 'crosswalk', 'downtown', 'four', 'seconds', 'light', 'turned', 'red', 'elsewhere', 'photo', 'san', 'francisco', 'writer', 'showed', 'one', 'uber', 'vehicles', 'entering', 'intersection', 'red', 'light', 'people', 'could', 'die', 'rotter', 'said', 'interview', 'later', 'obviously', 'ready', 'primetime', 'traffic', 'violations', 'threat', 'legal', 'action', 'significant', 'blow', 'uber', 'home', 'town', 'california', 'department', 'motor', 'vehicles', 'said', 'uber', 'requires', 'permits', 'test', 'technology', 'roads', 'despite', 'stated', 'mandate', 'government', 'agency', 'uber', 'declared', 'blogpost', 'believe', 'needed', 'testing', 'permit', 'launch', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'san', 'francisco', 'arguing', 'rules', 'apply', 'since', 'cars', 'people', 'monitoring', 'movements', 'states', 'see', 'potential', 'benefits', 'especially', 'comes', 'road', 'safety', 'wrote', 'anthony', 'levandowski', 'head', 'uber', 'advanced', 'technology', 'group', 'post', 'announcing', 'wednesday', 'launch', 'noted', 'volvo', 'xc90s', 'core', 'safety', 'capabilities', 'letter', 'levandowski', 'dmv', 'deputy', 'director', 'brian', 'soublet', 'noted', 'companies', 'already', 'approved', 'test', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'california', 'obeying', 'law', 'responsibly', 'testing', 'advancing', 'technology', 'said', 'adding', 'technology', 'holds', 'promise', 'true', 'safety', 'benefits', 'roadways', 'must', 'tested', 'responsibly', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'popular', 'car-sharing', 'company', 'first', 'unveiled', 'pittsburgh', 'september', 'vehicles', 'technology', 'allows', 'navigate', 'though', 'licensed', 'drivers', 'sit', 'behind', 'wheel', 'take', 'control', 'necessary', 'annie', 'gaus', 'san', 'francisco', 'writer', 'producer', 'said', 'riding', 'work', 'wednesday', 'lyft', 'uber', 'biggest', 'competitor', 'saw', 'one', 'uber', 'self-driving', 'vehicles', 'nearly', 'crash', 'tweeted', 'photo', 'car', 'intersection', 'ran', 'red', 'light', 'uber', 'car', 'sort', 'jutted', 'intersection', 'told', 'guardian', 'phone', 'noting', 'lyft', 'driver', 'taken', 'aback', 'close', 'enough', 'kind', 'like', 'woah', 'close', 'enough', 'kind', 'react', 'sort', 'rattled', 'gaus', 'written', 'technology', 'contributed', 'guardian', 'said', 'red-light', 'violations', 'day', 'one', 'pilot', 'seem', 'highlight', 'implementation', 'technology', 'place', 'like', 'san', 'francisco', 'may', 'premature', 'think', 'anybody', 'good', 'understanding', 'works', 'city', 'context', 'uber', 'spokesperson', 'said', 'cars', 'running', 'red', 'lights', 'part', 'pilot', 'carrying', 'customers', 'incidents', 'due', 'human', 'error', 'believe', 'much', 'making', 'roads', 'safer', 'building', 'self-driving', 'ubers', 'statement', 'said', 'drivers', 'involved', 'suspended', 'continue', 'investigate', 'company', 'immediately', 'respond', 'questions', 'state', 'order', 'remove', 'cars', 'road', 'unclear', 'law', 'enforcement', 'may', 'address', 'kinds', 'violations', 'asked', 'san', 'francisco', 'police', 'department', 'would', 'respond', 'self-driving', 'uber', 'running', 'red', 'light', 'officer', 'giselle', 'talkoff', 'said', 'even', 'know', 'guess', 'could', 'pull', 'guardian', 'sent', 'talkoff', 'footage', 'uber', 'violation', 'first', 'reported', 'san', 'francisco', 'examiner', 'said', 'police', 'investigating', 'specific', 'incident', 'noted', 'officers', 'would', 'follow', 'cases', 'injury', 'witnessed', 'violation', 'person', 'though', 'said', 'sure', 'secondary', 'driver', 'company', 'would', 'held', 'accountable', 'person', 'walking', 'closely', 'said', 'footage', 'pointing', 'pedestrian', 'entering', 'street', 'uber', 'car', 'ran', 'red', 'talkoff', 'noted', 'state', 'federal', 'laws', 'governing', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'first', 'comes', 'technology', 'comes', 'policy', 'going', 'matter', 'setting', 'precedents', 'said', 'adding', 'companies', 'putting', 'vehicles', 'road', 'vehicles', 'operate', 'due', 'regard', 'rules', 'road', 'sergeant', 'police', 'traffic', 'division', 'said', 'department', 'even', 'aware', 'uber', 'started', 'using', 'autonomous', 'cars', 'san', 'francisco', 'rotter', 'argued', 'technology', 'company', 'held', 'responsible', 'sending', 'vehicles', 'road', 'despite', 'government', 'objections', 'company', 'done', 'start', 'operating', 'illegally', 'push', 'permission', 'later', 'contact', 'author', 'samlevintheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/15/whats-the-best-way-to-set-up-a-windows-10-machine

My daughter has asked for a Windows laptop for Christmas, for schoolwork and games. I’m a Mac user and haven’t set up a Windows machine for many years so I’d appreciate any advice ... except “get her a Mac/Linux” from below the line! Stuart Windows has changed a lot in the past decade, and now it’s a mobile operating system. If your daughter has some experience with Google Android, she’ll probably cope quite well. Many of Windows 10’s main features came from the mobile world. These include sandboxed apps installed and updated from an online store, log-on PINs, touch screens, notifications, a voice-aware intelligent assistant (Cortana), location awareness and a “Find my device” feature. Your daughter should ideally have some information ready before going through Windows 10’s “out of box experience”, or OOBE, as it’s known in the trade. Some are obvious: country, preferred language, time zone etc. She should also have your Wi-Fi password, and a working email address for her log-on. Otherwise, she can choose Express Settings to speed up the process. She can change the settings later. Microsoft Accounts Your daughter can use any email address as her Microsoft account (MSA). It’s the Microsoft equivalent of a Google Account (Gmail address) or an Apple ID. It’s used to link her laptop to OneDrive cloud storage, the Windows Store, Skype, Cortana’s personalisation data, the free online Microsoft Office programs etc. It also links her PC to other Windows devices, Android and Apple smartphones and tablets, Xbox One games consoles, and so on. Finally, the MSA stores the laptop’s activation details (which used to be a product key) and encryption keys. People typically use an existing Microsoft email address. This can be at Hotmail, Live, MSN, Outlook.com or whatever. If she doesn’t have one, the Windows 10 set-up procedure will create one. However, it’s simpler and less stressful to have one ready to go. When your daughter enters her email address and password, Windows 10’s Mail app will automatically download recent emails. If she has used this account on a Windows machine before, Windows 10 will offer to set up her new laptop with the same settings. This includes her wallpaper (desktop background) and any apps she has downloaded from the Windows Store. Setting up Once logged on to Windows 10, click the Start button in the bottom left, type ‘get’ in the Search box and click the “Get Started” app. This introduces most of Windows 10’s features, and includes around 50 short videos. The What’s New section covers Cortana and the Edge browser. I strongly recommend watching Reduce Distractions, a two-minute video in the Ease of Access section. It shows how to remove unwanted animations, tiles, pinned programs, and so on. Frequently used programs should be pinned to the taskbar, though many people still keep icons on the desktop. Programs that aren’t used very often can be unpinned, then run from the search box, the Start menu, or a live tile. Next, run the Settings app (cogwheel icon) for simplified access to most of Windows 10 settings. It hasn’t completely replaced the old Control Panel, yet, but it links to Control Panel pages for more advanced settings. It’s a good idea to browse Settings just to see what’s where. After that, you can find things by typing a few letters into the search box, or by asking Cortana. The System section of the Settings app lists all the programs installed, and what they are allowed to do. The Default apps part lets users choose default programs for browsing the web, showing photos, playing music and videos, collecting emails and so on. These will be the Microsoft programs included in Windows 10, until your daughter installs alternatives. The Personalisation section is for picking a lockscreen photo and wallpapers, and for customising the Start menu and Taskbar. It’s where you turn off “suggested apps”. The Privacy section lets you opt out of personalised advertising (ie turn off your “advertising ID”), and choose which apps can use which features. Go through the Camera, Microphone and Location settings to deny access to every program all at once, or allow/deny one app at a time. Apps can’t force you to give them permissions they shouldn’t need. Telemetry The penultimate entry in Privacy is “Feedback & diagnostics”. Windows versions 7 to 10 include telemetry, which means the PC sends information to Microsoft about how well it’s working. None of this is personal information – it doesn’t include the contents of files, chats or emails – and none of it is normally accessible to Microsoft staff, or anyone else. The telemetry is used for “big data” analysis based on more than 400m Windows 10 systems. Google and Facebook, among others, use the same techniques for the same purposes: to find problems, and to create more useful and more reliable software. You can set telemetry data to Basic, Enhanced or Full. The Basic level includes the PC’s specification, app use and any compatibility problems. The aim is to keep your PC up-to-date and working. The Enhanced level includes more advanced performance and reliability data, to check that your PC is working well. The Full level includes access to “crash dumps” (data saved after a program crashes) and the ability to trigger diagnostics. I have my PCs on Full, but crash data may contain some unwanted personal data. For example, if Microsoft Word fell over, the crash dump might well contain fragments of whatever I was writing. If that worries you, set Basic. Note that telemetry data is different from functional data. If Microsoft’s Mail app checks for email, or OneDrive synchronises files, or the Weather app checks your location for updates, that is not telemetry. It’s just the way every connected PC, tablet or smartphone works. Controlling updates Windows 10 is updated on a regular basis, sometimes at inconvenient times. The “Update & security” section of Settings lets you set “active hours” when your PC will not install updates and restart. You can set times up to 12 hours apart, such as 8am to 8pm. Alternatively, you can choose a custom restart time when your PC will be switched on. The Pro and Enterprise versions of Windows 10 can postpone feature upgrades for a few months, but not essential security updates. Of course, most home users have the Home version. Phone companion Windows 10 includes Phone Companion, an app that provides integration with a Windows, Android or Apple smartphone or tablet. Plug your device into a USB port and the app helps you set up Cortana (if available), photos, music, to-do lists, Skype, email, and online Microsoft Office apps. Of course, you still have to download the Microsoft apps from iTunes, Google Play or the Windows Store. You can plug a phone or tablet into a Windows 10 laptop and use File Explorer to copy files manually. However, OneDrive can automatically collect camera roll photos from your smartphone and copy them to your PC, which is handy. You can also create playlists and play tracks from OneDrive on your phone. Next week Setting up a new laptop usually involves downloading a selection of familiar programs, often starting with a web browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome. I’ll cover that topic next week ... Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to [email protected]

technology/askjack/2016/dec/15/whats-the-best-way-to-set-up-a-windows-10-machine

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T10:27:21Z

What’s the best way to set up a Windows 10 machine?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2016/dec/15/whats-the-best-way-to-set-up-a-windows-10-machine

['daughter', 'asked', 'windows', 'laptop', 'christmas', 'schoolwork', 'games', 'mac', 'user', 'set', 'windows', 'machine', 'many', 'years', 'would', 'appreciate', 'advice', 'except', 'get', 'maclinux', 'line', 'stuart', 'windows', 'changed', 'lot', 'past', 'decade', 'mobile', 'operating', 'system', 'daughter', 'experience', 'google', 'android', 'probably', 'cope', 'quite', 'well', 'many', 'windows', 'main', 'features', 'came', 'mobile', 'world', 'include', 'sandboxed', 'apps', 'installed', 'updated', 'online', 'store', 'log-on', 'pins', 'touch', 'screens', 'notifications', 'voice-aware', 'intelligent', 'assistant', 'cortana', 'location', 'awareness', 'find', 'device', 'feature', 'daughter', 'ideally', 'information', 'ready', 'going', 'windows', 'box', 'experience', 'oobe', 'known', 'trade', 'obvious', 'country', 'preferred', 'language', 'time', 'zone', 'etc', 'also', 'wi-fi', 'password', 'working', 'email', 'address', 'log-on', 'otherwise', 'choose', 'express', 'settings', 'speed', 'process', 'change', 'settings', 'later', 'microsoft', 'accounts', 'daughter', 'use', 'email', 'address', 'microsoft', 'account', 'msa', 'microsoft', 'equivalent', 'google', 'account', 'gmail', 'address', 'apple', 'id', 'used', 'link', 'laptop', 'onedrive', 'cloud', 'storage', 'windows', 'store', 'skype', 'cortana', 'personalisation', 'data', 'free', 'online', 'microsoft', 'office', 'programs', 'etc', 'also', 'links', 'pc', 'windows', 'devices', 'android', 'apple', 'smartphones', 'tablets', 'xbox', 'one', 'games', 'consoles', 'finally', 'msa', 'stores', 'laptop', 'activation', 'details', 'used', 'product', 'key', 'encryption', 'keys', 'people', 'typically', 'use', 'existing', 'microsoft', 'email', 'address', 'hotmail', 'live', 'msn', 'outlookcom', 'whatever', 'one', 'windows', 'set-up', 'procedure', 'create', 'one', 'however', 'simpler', 'less', 'stressful', 'one', 'ready', 'go', 'daughter', 'enters', 'email', 'address', 'password', 'windows', 'mail', 'app', 'automatically', 'download', 'recent', 'emails', 'used', 'account', 'windows', 'machine', 'windows', 'offer', 'set', 'new', 'laptop', 'settings', 'includes', 'wallpaper', 'desktop', 'background', 'apps', 'downloaded', 'windows', 'store', 'setting', 'logged', 'windows', 'click', 'start', 'button', 'bottom', 'left', 'type', 'get', 'search', 'box', 'click', 'get', 'started', 'app', 'introduces', 'windows', 'features', 'includes', 'around', 'short', 'videos', 'new', 'section', 'covers', 'cortana', 'edge', 'browser', 'strongly', 'recommend', 'watching', 'reduce', 'distractions', 'two-minute', 'video', 'ease', 'access', 'section', 'shows', 'remove', 'unwanted', 'animations', 'tiles', 'pinned', 'programs', 'frequently', 'used', 'programs', 'pinned', 'taskbar', 'though', 'many', 'people', 'still', 'keep', 'icons', 'desktop', 'programs', 'used', 'often', 'unpinned', 'run', 'search', 'box', 'start', 'menu', 'live', 'tile', 'next', 'run', 'settings', 'app', 'cogwheel', 'icon', 'simplified', 'access', 'windows', 'settings', 'completely', 'replaced', 'old', 'control', 'panel', 'yet', 'links', 'control', 'panel', 'pages', 'advanced', 'settings', 'good', 'idea', 'browse', 'settings', 'see', 'find', 'things', 'typing', 'letters', 'search', 'box', 'asking', 'cortana', 'system', 'section', 'settings', 'app', 'lists', 'programs', 'installed', 'allowed', 'default', 'apps', 'part', 'lets', 'users', 'choose', 'default', 'programs', 'browsing', 'web', 'showing', 'photos', 'playing', 'music', 'videos', 'collecting', 'emails', 'microsoft', 'programs', 'included', 'windows', 'daughter', 'installs', 'alternatives', 'personalisation', 'section', 'picking', 'lockscreen', 'photo', 'wallpapers', 'customising', 'start', 'menu', 'taskbar', 'turn', 'suggested', 'apps', 'privacy', 'section', 'lets', 'opt', 'personalised', 'advertising', 'ie', 'turn', 'advertising', 'id', 'choose', 'apps', 'use', 'features', 'go', 'camera', 'microphone', 'location', 'settings', 'deny', 'access', 'every', 'program', 'allowdeny', 'one', 'app', 'time', 'apps', 'force', 'give', 'permissions', 'need', 'telemetry', 'penultimate', 'entry', 'privacy', 'feedback', 'amp', 'diagnostics', 'windows', 'versions', 'include', 'telemetry', 'means', 'pc', 'sends', 'information', 'microsoft', 'well', 'working', 'none', 'personal', 'information', 'include', 'contents', 'files', 'chats', 'emails', 'none', 'normally', 'accessible', 'microsoft', 'staff', 'anyone', 'else', 'telemetry', 'used', 'big', 'data', 'analysis', 'based', '400m', 'windows', 'systems', 'google', 'facebook', 'among', 'others', 'use', 'techniques', 'purposes', 'find', 'problems', 'create', 'useful', 'reliable', 'software', 'set', 'telemetry', 'data', 'basic', 'enhanced', 'full', 'basic', 'level', 'includes', 'pc', 'specification', 'app', 'use', 'compatibility', 'problems', 'aim', 'keep', 'pc', 'up-to-date', 'working', 'enhanced', 'level', 'includes', 'advanced', 'performance', 'reliability', 'data', 'check', 'pc', 'working', 'well', 'full', 'level', 'includes', 'access', 'crash', 'dumps', 'data', 'saved', 'program', 'crashes', 'ability', 'trigger', 'diagnostics', 'pcs', 'full', 'crash', 'data', 'may', 'contain', 'unwanted', 'personal', 'data', 'example', 'microsoft', 'word', 'fell', 'crash', 'dump', 'might', 'well', 'contain', 'fragments', 'whatever', 'writing', 'worries', 'set', 'basic', 'note', 'telemetry', 'data', 'different', 'functional', 'data', 'microsoft', 'mail', 'app', 'checks', 'email', 'onedrive', 'synchronises', 'files', 'weather', 'app', 'checks', 'location', 'updates', 'telemetry', 'way', 'every', 'connected', 'pc', 'tablet', 'smartphone', 'works', 'controlling', 'updates', 'windows', 'updated', 'regular', 'basis', 'sometimes', 'inconvenient', 'times', 'update', 'amp', 'security', 'section', 'settings', 'lets', 'set', 'active', 'hours', 'pc', 'install', 'updates', 'restart', 'set', 'times', 'hours', 'apart', '8am', '8pm', 'alternatively', 'choose', 'custom', 'restart', 'time', 'pc', 'switched', 'pro', 'enterprise', 'versions', 'windows', 'postpone', 'feature', 'upgrades', 'months', 'essential', 'security', 'updates', 'course', 'home', 'users', 'home', 'version', 'phone', 'companion', 'windows', 'includes', 'phone', 'companion', 'app', 'provides', 'integration', 'windows', 'android', 'apple', 'smartphone', 'tablet', 'plug', 'device', 'usb', 'port', 'app', 'helps', 'set', 'cortana', 'available', 'photos', 'music', 'to-do', 'lists', 'skype', 'email', 'online', 'microsoft', 'office', 'apps', 'course', 'still', 'download', 'microsoft', 'apps', 'itunes', 'google', 'play', 'windows', 'store', 'plug', 'phone', 'tablet', 'windows', 'laptop', 'use', 'file', 'explorer', 'copy', 'files', 'manually', 'however', 'onedrive', 'automatically', 'collect', 'camera', 'roll', 'photos', 'smartphone', 'copy', 'pc', 'handy', 'also', 'create', 'playlists', 'play', 'tracks', 'onedrive', 'phone', 'next', 'week', 'setting', 'new', 'laptop', 'usually', 'involves', 'downloading', 'selection', 'familiar', 'programs', 'often', 'starting', 'web', 'browser', 'firefox', 'google', 'chrome', 'cover', 'topic', 'next', 'week', 'got', 'another', 'question', 'jack', 'email', 'askjacktheguardiancom']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/passwords-hacking-hashing-salting-sha-2

From Yahoo, MySpace and TalkTalk to Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder, personal information has been stolen by hackers from around the world. But with each hack there’s the big question of how well the site protected its users’ data. Was it open and freely available, or was it hashed, secured and practically unbreakable? From cleartext to hashed, salted, peppered and bcrypted, here’s what the impenetrable jargon of password security really means. The terminology Plain text When something is described being stored as “cleartext” or as “plain text” it means that thing is in the open as simple text – with no security beyond a simple access control to the database which contains it. If you have access to the database containing the passwords you can read them just as you can read the text on this page. Hashing When a password has been “hashed” it means it has been turned into a scrambled representation of itself. A user’s password is taken and – using a key known to the site – the hash value is derived from the combination of both the password and the key, using a set algorithm. To verify a user’s password is correct it is hashed and the value compared with that stored on record each time they login. You cannot directly turn a hashed value into the password, but you can work out what the password is if you continually generate hashes from passwords until you find one that matches, a so-called brute-force attack, or similar methods. Salting Passwords are often described as “hashed and salted”. Salting is simply the addition of a unique, random string of characters known only to the site to each password before it is hashed, typically this “salt” is placed in front of each password. The salt value needs to be stored by the site, which means sometimes sites use the same salt for every password. This makes it less effective than if individual salts are used. The use of unique salts means that common passwords shared by multiple users – such as “123456” or “password” – aren’t immediately revealed when one such hashed password is identified – because despite the passwords being the same the salted and hashed values are not. Large salts also protect against certain methods of attack on hashes, including rainbow tables or logs of hashed passwords previously broken. Both hashing and salting can be repeated more than once to increase the difficulty in breaking the security. Peppering Cryptographers like their seasonings. A “pepper” is similar to a salt - a value added to the password before being hashed - but typically placed at the end of the password. There are broadly two versions of pepper. The first is simply a known secret value added to each password, which is only beneficial if it is not known by the attacker. The second is a value that’s randomly generated but never stored. That means every time a user attempts to log into the site it has to try multiple combinations of the pepper and hashing algorithm to find the right pepper value and match the hash value. Even with a small range in the unknown pepper value, trying all the values can take minutes per login attempt, so is rarely used. Encryption Encryption, like hashing, is a function of cryptography, but the main difference is that encryption is something you can undo, while hashing is not. If you need to access the source text to change it or read it, encryption allows you to secure it but still read it after decrypting it. Hashing cannot be reversed, which means you can only know what the hash represents by matching it with another hash of what you think is the same information. If a site such as a bank asks you to verify particular characters of your password, rather than enter the whole thing, it is encrypting your password as it must decrypt it and verify individual characters rather than simply match the whole password to a stored hash. Encrypted passwords are typically used for second-factor verification, rather than as the primary login factor. Hexadecimal A hexadecimal number, also simply known as “hex” or “base 16”, is way of representing values of zero to 15 as using 16 separate symbols. The numbers 0-9 represent values zero to nine, with a, b, c, d, e and f representing 10-15. They are widely used in computing as a human-friendly way of representing binary numbers. Each hexadecimal digit represents four bits or half a byte. The algorithms MD5 Originally designed as a cryptographic hashing algorithm, first published in 1992, MD5 has been shown to have extensive weaknesses, which make it relatively easy to break. Its 128-bit hash values, which are quite easy to produce, are more commonly used for file verification to make sure that a downloaded file has not been tampered with. It should not be used to secure passwords. SHA-1 Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) is cryptographic hashing algorithm originally design by the US National Security Agency in 1993 and published in 1995. It generates 160-bit hash value that is typically rendered as a 40-digit hexadecimal number. As of 2005, SHA-1 was deemed as no longer secure as the exponential increase in computing power and sophisticated methods meant that it was possible to perform a so-called attack on the hash and produce the source password or text without spending millions on computing resource and time. SHA-2 The successor to SHA-1, Secure Hash Algorithm 2 (SHA-2) is a family of hash functions that produce longer hash values with 224, 256, 384 or 512 bits, written as SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 or SHA-512. It was first published in 2001, designed by again by the NSA, and an effective attack has yet to be demonstrated against it. That means SHA-2 is generally recommended for secure hashing. SHA-3, while not a replacement for SHA-2, was developed not by the NSA but by Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen, Michaël Peeters and Gilles Van Assche from STMicroelectronics and Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. It was standardised in 2015. Bcrypt As computational power has increased the number of brute-force guesses a hacker can make for an efficient hashing algorithm has increased exponentially. Bcrypt, which is based on the Blowfish cipher and includes a salt, is designed to protect against brute-force attacks by intentionally being slower to operate. It has a so-called work factor that effectively puts your password through a definable number of rounds of extension before being hashed. By increasing the work factor it takes longer to brute-force the password and match the hash. The theory is that the site owner sets a sufficiently high-enough work factor to reduce the number of guesses today’s computers can make at the password and extend the time from days or weeks to months or years, making it prohibitively time consuming and expensive. PBKDF2 Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2 (PBKDF2), developed by RSA Laboratories, is another algorithm for key extension that makes hashes more difficult to brute force. It is considered slightly easier to brute force than Bcrypt at a certain value because it requires less computer memory to run the algorithm. Scrypt Scrypt like Bcrypt and PBKDF2 is an algorithm that extends keys and makes it harder to brute-force attack a hash. Unlike PBKDF2, however, scrypt is designed to use either a large amount of computer memory or force many more calculations as it runs. For legitimate users having to only hash one password to check if it matches a stored value, the cost is negligible. But for someone attempting to try 100,000s of passwords it makes cost of doing so much higher or take prohibitively long. But what about the passwords? If a password is properly hashed using SHA-2 or newer, and is salted, then to break a password requires a brute-force attack. The longer the password, the longer the brute-force attack is going to last. And the longer the brute-force attack required, the more time-consuming and expensive it is to match the hash and discover the password. Which means the longer the password the better, but the configuration of the password also makes a difference. A truly random eight-character password will be more secure than a eight-letter dictionary word, because brute-force attacks use dictionaries, names and other lists of words as fodder. However, if the site stores your password as plain text it doesn’t matter how long your password is if the database is stolen. Eight things you need to do right now to protect yourself online

technology/2016/dec/15/passwords-hacking-hashing-salting-sha-2

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T09:18:06Z

Passwords and hacking: the jargon of hashing, salting and SHA-2 explained

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/passwords-hacking-hashing-salting-sha-2

['yahoo', 'myspace', 'talktalk', 'ashley', 'madison', 'adult', 'friend', 'finder', 'personal', 'information', 'stolen', 'hackers', 'around', 'world', 'hack', 'big', 'question', 'well', 'site', 'protected', 'users', 'data', 'open', 'freely', 'available', 'hashed', 'secured', 'practically', 'unbreakable', 'cleartext', 'hashed', 'salted', 'peppered', 'bcrypted', 'impenetrable', 'jargon', 'password', 'security', 'really', 'means', 'terminology', 'plain', 'text', 'something', 'described', 'stored', 'cleartext', 'plain', 'text', 'means', 'thing', 'open', 'simple', 'text', 'security', 'beyond', 'simple', 'access', 'control', 'database', 'contains', 'access', 'database', 'containing', 'passwords', 'read', 'read', 'text', 'page', 'hashing', 'password', 'hashed', 'means', 'turned', 'scrambled', 'representation', 'user', 'password', 'taken', 'using', 'key', 'known', 'site', 'hash', 'value', 'derived', 'combination', 'password', 'key', 'using', 'set', 'algorithm', 'verify', 'user', 'password', 'correct', 'hashed', 'value', 'compared', 'stored', 'record', 'time', 'login', 'cannot', 'directly', 'turn', 'hashed', 'value', 'password', 'work', 'password', 'continually', 'generate', 'hashes', 'passwords', 'find', 'one', 'matches', 'so-called', 'brute-force', 'attack', 'similar', 'methods', 'salting', 'passwords', 'often', 'described', 'hashed', 'salted', 'salting', 'simply', 'addition', 'unique', 'random', 'string', 'characters', 'known', 'site', 'password', 'hashed', 'typically', 'salt', 'placed', 'front', 'password', 'salt', 'value', 'needs', 'stored', 'site', 'means', 'sometimes', 'sites', 'use', 'salt', 'every', 'password', 'makes', 'less', 'effective', 'individual', 'salts', 'used', 'use', 'unique', 'salts', 'means', 'common', 'passwords', 'shared', 'multiple', 'users', 'password', 'immediately', 'revealed', 'one', 'hashed', 'password', 'identified', 'despite', 'passwords', 'salted', 'hashed', 'values', 'large', 'salts', 'also', 'protect', 'certain', 'methods', 'attack', 'hashes', 'including', 'rainbow', 'tables', 'logs', 'hashed', 'passwords', 'previously', 'broken', 'hashing', 'salting', 'repeated', 'increase', 'difficulty', 'breaking', 'security', 'peppering', 'cryptographers', 'like', 'seasonings', 'pepper', 'similar', 'salt', '-', 'value', 'added', 'password', 'hashed', '-', 'typically', 'placed', 'end', 'password', 'broadly', 'two', 'versions', 'pepper', 'first', 'simply', 'known', 'secret', 'value', 'added', 'password', 'beneficial', 'known', 'attacker', 'second', 'value', 'randomly', 'generated', 'never', 'stored', 'means', 'every', 'time', 'user', 'attempts', 'log', 'site', 'try', 'multiple', 'combinations', 'pepper', 'hashing', 'algorithm', 'find', 'right', 'pepper', 'value', 'match', 'hash', 'value', 'even', 'small', 'range', 'unknown', 'pepper', 'value', 'trying', 'values', 'take', 'minutes', 'per', 'login', 'attempt', 'rarely', 'used', 'encryption', 'encryption', 'like', 'hashing', 'function', 'cryptography', 'main', 'difference', 'encryption', 'something', 'undo', 'hashing', 'need', 'access', 'source', 'text', 'change', 'read', 'encryption', 'allows', 'secure', 'still', 'read', 'decrypting', 'hashing', 'cannot', 'reversed', 'means', 'know', 'hash', 'represents', 'matching', 'another', 'hash', 'think', 'information', 'site', 'bank', 'asks', 'verify', 'particular', 'characters', 'password', 'rather', 'enter', 'whole', 'thing', 'encrypting', 'password', 'must', 'decrypt', 'verify', 'individual', 'characters', 'rather', 'simply', 'match', 'whole', 'password', 'stored', 'hash', 'encrypted', 'passwords', 'typically', 'used', 'second-factor', 'verification', 'rather', 'primary', 'login', 'factor', 'hexadecimal', 'hexadecimal', 'number', 'also', 'simply', 'known', 'hex', 'base', 'way', 'representing', 'values', 'zero', 'using', 'separate', 'symbols', 'numbers', '0-9', 'represent', 'values', 'zero', 'nine', 'b', 'c', 'e', 'f', 'representing', '10-15', 'widely', 'used', 'computing', 'human-friendly', 'way', 'representing', 'binary', 'numbers', 'hexadecimal', 'digit', 'represents', 'four', 'bits', 'half', 'byte', 'algorithms', 'md5', 'originally', 'designed', 'cryptographic', 'hashing', 'algorithm', 'first', 'published', 'md5', 'shown', 'extensive', 'weaknesses', 'make', 'relatively', 'easy', 'break', '128-bit', 'hash', 'values', 'quite', 'easy', 'produce', 'commonly', 'used', 'file', 'verification', 'make', 'sure', 'downloaded', 'file', 'tampered', 'used', 'secure', 'passwords', 'sha-1', 'secure', 'hash', 'algorithm', 'sha-1', 'cryptographic', 'hashing', 'algorithm', 'originally', 'design', 'us', 'national', 'security', 'agency', 'published', 'generates', '160-bit', 'hash', 'value', 'typically', 'rendered', '40-digit', 'hexadecimal', 'number', 'sha-1', 'deemed', 'longer', 'secure', 'exponential', 'increase', 'computing', 'power', 'sophisticated', 'methods', 'meant', 'possible', 'perform', 'so-called', 'attack', 'hash', 'produce', 'source', 'password', 'text', 'without', 'spending', 'millions', 'computing', 'resource', 'time', 'sha-2', 'successor', 'sha-1', 'secure', 'hash', 'algorithm', 'sha-2', 'family', 'hash', 'functions', 'produce', 'longer', 'hash', 'values', 'bits', 'written', 'sha-224', 'sha-256', 'sha-384', 'sha-512', 'first', 'published', 'designed', 'nsa', 'effective', 'attack', 'yet', 'demonstrated', 'means', 'sha-2', 'generally', 'recommended', 'secure', 'hashing', 'sha-3', 'replacement', 'sha-2', 'developed', 'nsa', 'guido', 'bertoni', 'joan', 'daemen', 'michael', 'peeters', 'gilles', 'van', 'assche', 'stmicroelectronics', 'radboud', 'university', 'nijmegen', 'netherlands', 'standardised', 'bcrypt', 'computational', 'power', 'increased', 'number', 'brute-force', 'guesses', 'hacker', 'make', 'efficient', 'hashing', 'algorithm', 'increased', 'exponentially', 'bcrypt', 'based', 'blowfish', 'cipher', 'includes', 'salt', 'designed', 'protect', 'brute-force', 'attacks', 'intentionally', 'slower', 'operate', 'so-called', 'work', 'factor', 'effectively', 'puts', 'password', 'definable', 'number', 'rounds', 'extension', 'hashed', 'increasing', 'work', 'factor', 'takes', 'longer', 'brute-force', 'password', 'match', 'hash', 'theory', 'site', 'owner', 'sets', 'sufficiently', 'high-enough', 'work', 'factor', 'reduce', 'number', 'guesses', 'today', 'computers', 'make', 'password', 'extend', 'time', 'days', 'weeks', 'months', 'years', 'making', 'prohibitively', 'time', 'consuming', 'expensive', 'pbkdf2', 'password-based', 'key', 'derivation', 'function', 'pbkdf2', 'developed', 'rsa', 'laboratories', 'another', 'algorithm', 'key', 'extension', 'makes', 'hashes', 'difficult', 'brute', 'force', 'considered', 'slightly', 'easier', 'brute', 'force', 'bcrypt', 'certain', 'value', 'requires', 'less', 'computer', 'memory', 'run', 'algorithm', 'scrypt', 'scrypt', 'like', 'bcrypt', 'pbkdf2', 'algorithm', 'extends', 'keys', 'makes', 'harder', 'brute-force', 'attack', 'hash', 'unlike', 'pbkdf2', 'however', 'scrypt', 'designed', 'use', 'either', 'large', 'amount', 'computer', 'memory', 'force', 'many', 'calculations', 'runs', 'legitimate', 'users', 'hash', 'one', 'password', 'check', 'matches', 'stored', 'value', 'cost', 'negligible', 'someone', 'attempting', 'try', '100000s', 'passwords', 'makes', 'cost', 'much', 'higher', 'take', 'prohibitively', 'long', 'passwords', 'password', 'properly', 'hashed', 'using', 'sha-2', 'newer', 'salted', 'break', 'password', 'requires', 'brute-force', 'attack', 'longer', 'password', 'longer', 'brute-force', 'attack', 'going', 'last', 'longer', 'brute-force', 'attack', 'required', 'time-consuming', 'expensive', 'match', 'hash', 'discover', 'password', 'means', 'longer', 'password', 'better', 'configuration', 'password', 'also', 'makes', 'difference', 'truly', 'random', 'eight-character', 'password', 'secure', 'eight-letter', 'dictionary', 'word', 'brute-force', 'attacks', 'use', 'dictionaries', 'names', 'lists', 'words', 'fodder', 'however', 'site', 'stores', 'password', 'plain', 'text', 'matter', 'long', 'password', 'database', 'stolen', 'eight', 'things', 'need', 'right', 'protect', 'online']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/protect-passwords-two-step-verification-encryption-digital-life-privacy

1. Use unique passwords for all your accounts What: Stop kidding yourself that you only re-use passwords on accounts that don’t matter, or that you have an unbreakable password scheme that no one else can guess. Every single thing with a password needs to have a unique password, shared with nothing else. Why: Services get hacked, with entire databases of passwords published in the open. People get “phished”, tricked into entering their passwords into shady imitations of the sites they intended to visit. If this happens, you want to limit the damage, ensuring that only one site gets breached. How: Unless you absolutely categorically have a reason not to … 2. Use a password manager What: Software like LastPass (free) or 1Password ($2.99/month or $49), which will store your passwords, generate secure random ones for you, and sync them across multiple devices. Why: If you can memorise all your passwords, you can almost guarantee that they aren’t varied enough to be secure. A password manager may feel like putting all your eggs in one basket, but it’s a padded secure basket kept up-to-date by the best minds in the basket business, and what you’re doing right now is more like juggling the eggs above your head while blindfolded. How: Download the password manager, install it on your desktop (you can do mobile later), and start running it. You don’t even have to change your passwords all at once: the manager will notice when you log in, and ask you whether you want to save the new password. That should be your cue to create a new one. 3) Use random passwords What: Once you’ve got your password manager, use it to generate secure random passwords for you, rather than trying to invent your own. Why: You aren’t as random as you think, and “brute forcing” passwords – systematically trying every variation until you succeed – is getting quicker at the same rate computers are. If you have a handy method for creating passwords, like “take the first letter of every word in a line of poetry”, then someone else has probably also realised the same thing, and written a programme to automatically guess those passwords. Try searching Google for “tbontbtitq” (or “to be or not to be, that is the question”) if you don’t believe me. How: You’ve already got your password manager set up, yes? Even if you haven’t, some browsers will do it for you. Apple’s Safari, for instance, will happily generate random passwords when signing up for new accounts, then store them in iCloud Keychain. 4. Turn on two-step verification everywhere you can What: Many services, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Tumblr and more, let you enable two-step verification, also known as two-factor authentication. As well as a password, you need to prove you have access to a second trusted device, normally a phone, to log on. How you prove that varies: sometimes a text is sent, sometimes you use a special app, sometimes you just hit a notification on your phone. Why: Two-step verification prevents a third-party from logging in to your accounts even if they have managed to steal your password. It’s an added layer of security, which makes it very difficult indeed to hack in to protect accounts. How: Every service has a different method for enabling the process, which hurts take-up, but handy resource Turn On 2FA will walk you through it for all the sites you use. 5. Update your software What: Most software has an automatic update function. Use it. Why: Most hacks are carried out by attacking software using weaknesses that were known, and fixed, long ago. It’s like we’ve invented vaccines, but you’re still catching smallpox. Particular focus should be paid to your operating system, web browser, and Adobe Flash. How: Enable automatic updates. 6. Put a six-digit PIN on your phone and set it to wipe if it’s guessed wrongly too many times What: Your phone has the ability to require a PIN before it is unlocked it. Use it. Why: If your phone gets taken while it’s unlocked, there’s not much you can do. But if it’s locked when it gets stolen, you can prevent the bad loss of hundreds of pounds of technology from turning into the loss of enough personal data to have your identity stolen too. How: On an iPhone, open settings, hit Touch ID & Passcode, flick on Erase Data, and click Change Passcode to set it to a six-digit PIN. Almost every Android is different, but look for a “security” menu in the settings app, sometimes under “personal”. Then, head to the “lock screen” menu to enable the auto-erase feature. 7. Enable full-disk encryption What: Your computer’s hard drive can be set to automatically encrypt when it’s turned off. Why: You think the risk of identity theft is bad when your phone is stolen, just think what happens when your computer is lifted. How: On a Mac, enable FileVault; on Windows, turn on BitLocker. 8. Back-up to an external hard drive What: Everything on your computer should be stored on a physically separate hard drive under your possession. Ideally, everything on your phone should be stored on your computer which should then be etc etc. Why: If the worst happens, and you lose everything, you need to be able to restore. This could happen because of a ransomware attack, because someone decided to personally ruin your life, or just because of a literal lighting strike. Cloud storage will help, but cloud platforms go bust unexpectedly, are just as vulnerable to hacking, and have an annoying tendency to “mirror” your computer – meaning something deleted from your local storage can be deleted from the cloud at the same time. How: Buy a cheap USB hard drive. If you use a Mac, just leave it plugged in and enable Time Machine; if you have a Windows PC, plug it in and follow these instructions. Yahoo hack: 1bn accounts compromised by biggest data breach in history

technology/2016/dec/15/protect-passwords-two-step-verification-encryption-digital-life-privacy

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T08:27:30Z

Eight things you need to do right now to protect yourself online

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/protect-passwords-two-step-verification-encryption-digital-life-privacy

['use', 'unique', 'passwords', 'accounts', 'stop', 'kidding', 're-use', 'passwords', 'accounts', 'matter', 'unbreakable', 'password', 'scheme', 'one', 'else', 'guess', 'every', 'single', 'thing', 'password', 'needs', 'unique', 'password', 'shared', 'nothing', 'else', 'services', 'get', 'hacked', 'entire', 'databases', 'passwords', 'published', 'open', 'people', 'get', 'phished', 'tricked', 'entering', 'passwords', 'shady', 'imitations', 'sites', 'intended', 'visit', 'happens', 'want', 'limit', 'damage', 'ensuring', 'one', 'site', 'gets', 'breached', 'unless', 'absolutely', 'categorically', 'reason', 'use', 'password', 'manager', 'software', 'like', 'lastpass', 'free', '1password', '299month', 'store', 'passwords', 'generate', 'secure', 'random', 'ones', 'sync', 'across', 'multiple', 'devices', 'memorise', 'passwords', 'almost', 'guarantee', 'varied', 'enough', 'secure', 'password', 'manager', 'may', 'feel', 'like', 'putting', 'eggs', 'one', 'basket', 'padded', 'secure', 'basket', 'kept', 'up-to-date', 'best', 'minds', 'basket', 'business', 'right', 'like', 'juggling', 'eggs', 'head', 'blindfolded', 'download', 'password', 'manager', 'install', 'desktop', 'mobile', 'later', 'start', 'running', 'even', 'change', 'passwords', 'manager', 'notice', 'log', 'ask', 'whether', 'want', 'save', 'new', 'password', 'cue', 'create', 'new', 'one', 'use', 'random', 'passwords', 'got', 'password', 'manager', 'use', 'generate', 'secure', 'random', 'passwords', 'rather', 'trying', 'invent', 'random', 'think', 'brute', 'forcing', 'passwords', 'systematically', 'trying', 'every', 'variation', 'succeed', 'getting', 'quicker', 'rate', 'computers', 'handy', 'method', 'creating', 'passwords', 'like', 'take', 'first', 'letter', 'every', 'word', 'line', 'poetry', 'someone', 'else', 'probably', 'also', 'realised', 'thing', 'written', 'programme', 'automatically', 'guess', 'passwords', 'try', 'searching', 'google', 'tbontbtitq', 'question', 'believe', 'already', 'got', 'password', 'manager', 'set', 'yes', 'even', 'browsers', 'apple', 'safari', 'instance', 'happily', 'generate', 'random', 'passwords', 'signing', 'new', 'accounts', 'store', 'icloud', 'keychain', 'turn', 'two-step', 'verification', 'everywhere', 'many', 'services', 'including', 'facebook', 'google', 'twitter', 'tumblr', 'let', 'enable', 'two-step', 'verification', 'also', 'known', 'two-factor', 'authentication', 'well', 'password', 'need', 'prove', 'access', 'second', 'trusted', 'device', 'normally', 'phone', 'log', 'prove', 'varies', 'sometimes', 'text', 'sent', 'sometimes', 'use', 'special', 'app', 'sometimes', 'hit', 'notification', 'phone', 'two-step', 'verification', 'prevents', 'third-party', 'logging', 'accounts', 'even', 'managed', 'steal', 'password', 'added', 'layer', 'security', 'makes', 'difficult', 'indeed', 'hack', 'protect', 'accounts', 'every', 'service', 'different', 'method', 'enabling', 'process', 'hurts', 'take-up', 'handy', 'resource', 'turn', '2fa', 'walk', 'sites', 'use', 'update', 'software', 'software', 'automatic', 'update', 'function', 'use', 'hacks', 'carried', 'attacking', 'software', 'using', 'weaknesses', 'known', 'fixed', 'long', 'ago', 'like', 'invented', 'vaccines', 'still', 'catching', 'smallpox', 'particular', 'focus', 'paid', 'operating', 'system', 'web', 'browser', 'adobe', 'flash', 'enable', 'automatic', 'updates', 'put', 'six-digit', 'pin', 'phone', 'set', 'wipe', 'guessed', 'wrongly', 'many', 'times', 'phone', 'ability', 'require', 'pin', 'unlocked', 'use', 'phone', 'gets', 'taken', 'unlocked', 'much', 'locked', 'gets', 'stolen', 'prevent', 'bad', 'loss', 'hundreds', 'pounds', 'technology', 'turning', 'loss', 'enough', 'personal', 'data', 'identity', 'stolen', 'iphone', 'open', 'settings', 'hit', 'touch', 'id', 'amp', 'passcode', 'flick', 'erase', 'data', 'click', 'change', 'passcode', 'set', 'six-digit', 'pin', 'almost', 'every', 'android', 'different', 'look', 'security', 'menu', 'settings', 'app', 'sometimes', 'personal', 'head', 'lock', 'screen', 'menu', 'enable', 'auto-erase', 'feature', 'enable', 'full-disk', 'encryption', 'computer', 'hard', 'drive', 'set', 'automatically', 'encrypt', 'turned', 'think', 'risk', 'identity', 'theft', 'bad', 'phone', 'stolen', 'think', 'happens', 'computer', 'lifted', 'mac', 'enable', 'filevault', 'windows', 'turn', 'bitlocker', 'back-up', 'external', 'hard', 'drive', 'everything', 'computer', 'stored', 'physically', 'separate', 'hard', 'drive', 'possession', 'ideally', 'everything', 'phone', 'stored', 'computer', 'etc', 'etc', 'worst', 'happens', 'lose', 'everything', 'need', 'able', 'restore', 'could', 'happen', 'ransomware', 'attack', 'someone', 'decided', 'personally', 'ruin', 'life', 'literal', 'lighting', 'strike', 'cloud', 'storage', 'help', 'cloud', 'platforms', 'go', 'bust', 'unexpectedly', 'vulnerable', 'hacking', 'annoying', 'tendency', 'mirror', 'computer', 'meaning', 'something', 'deleted', 'local', 'storage', 'deleted', 'cloud', 'time', 'buy', 'cheap', 'usb', 'hard', 'drive', 'use', 'mac', 'leave', 'plugged', 'enable', 'time', 'machine', 'windows', 'pc', 'plug', 'follow', 'instructions', 'yahoo', 'hack', '1bn', 'accounts', 'compromised', 'biggest', 'data', 'breach', 'history']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/15/judge-orders-internet-providers-to-block-illegal-downloading-websites

The federal court has ordered internet providers to block major illegal download or torrenting websites, such as Pirate Bay and Torrentz, in a bid to crack down on online copyright infringement. Justice John Nicholas handed down his judgment on Thursday afternoon in Sydney, ordering internet service providers to “take reasonable steps to disable access” to Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and the streaming service SolarMovie within 15 working days. Foxtel and Village Roadshow filed their application in February. Village Roadshow sought to have SolarMovie blocked, while Foxtel targeted the four other sites. Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 were the major respondents. It is the first time laws introduced with the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act have been successfully applied since it passed in June last year. The federal court has allowed ISPs to determine how best to enact the order, with blocking domain names, IP addresses or target URLs among the possible strategies. Any other alternative means must be agreed upon in writing with the applicants. TPG has proposed using domain name system (DNS) blocking to target the sites to prevent them from getting around the ban by changing their IP addresses. Though Village Roadshow and Foxtel had proposed that the ISPs pay their own costs of compliance, the respondents uniformly opposed it. Nicholas said that there had been “a large measure of co-operation between the applicants and the respondents”. He proposed a “uniform amount for compliance costs” determined by the number of domain names that the ISPs would be required to block. Peter Tonagh, the chief executive of Foxtel, welcomed the federal court’s ruling in a statement provided to the ABC. “This judgment is a major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft. “This judgment gives us another tool to fight the international criminals who seek to profit from the hard work of actors, writers, directors and other creators the world over.” Foxtel or Village Roadshow will have to apply to have any new websites added to the judgement. Universal Music’s action to have Kickass Torrents blocked remains active. A landmark case against Australian internet users accused of pirating the film Dallas Buyers Club was dropped by the plaintiff, DBC LLC, in February. A federal court judge had said it was “wholly unrealistic” for the ISP iiNet to hand over the personal details of almost 5,000 customers who were accused of having downloaded the film.

technology/2016/dec/15/judge-orders-internet-providers-to-block-illegal-downloading-websites

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-15T05:55:59Z

Judge orders internet providers to block illegal downloading websites

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/judge-orders-internet-providers-to-block-illegal-downloading-websites

['federal', 'court', 'ordered', 'internet', 'providers', 'block', 'major', 'illegal', 'download', 'torrenting', 'websites', 'pirate', 'bay', 'torrentz', 'bid', 'crack', 'online', 'copyright', 'infringement', 'justice', 'john', 'nicholas', 'handed', 'judgment', 'thursday', 'afternoon', 'sydney', 'ordering', 'internet', 'service', 'providers', 'take', 'reasonable', 'steps', 'disable', 'access', 'pirate', 'bay', 'torrentz', 'torrenthound', 'isohunt', 'streaming', 'service', 'solarmovie', 'within', 'working', 'days', 'foxtel', 'village', 'roadshow', 'filed', 'application', 'february', 'village', 'roadshow', 'sought', 'solarmovie', 'blocked', 'foxtel', 'targeted', 'four', 'sites', 'telstra', 'optus', 'tpg', 'm2', 'major', 'respondents', 'first', 'time', 'laws', 'introduced', 'copyright', 'amendment', 'online', 'infringement', 'act', 'successfully', 'applied', 'since', 'passed', 'june', 'last', 'year', 'federal', 'court', 'allowed', 'isps', 'determine', 'best', 'enact', 'order', 'blocking', 'domain', 'names', 'ip', 'addresses', 'target', 'urls', 'among', 'possible', 'strategies', 'alternative', 'means', 'must', 'agreed', 'upon', 'writing', 'applicants', 'tpg', 'proposed', 'using', 'domain', 'name', 'system', 'dns', 'blocking', 'target', 'sites', 'prevent', 'getting', 'around', 'ban', 'changing', 'ip', 'addresses', 'though', 'village', 'roadshow', 'foxtel', 'proposed', 'isps', 'pay', 'costs', 'compliance', 'respondents', 'uniformly', 'opposed', 'nicholas', 'said', 'large', 'measure', 'co-operation', 'applicants', 'respondents', 'proposed', 'uniform', 'amount', 'compliance', 'costs', 'determined', 'number', 'domain', 'names', 'isps', 'would', 'required', 'block', 'peter', 'tonagh', 'chief', 'executive', 'foxtel', 'welcomed', 'federal', 'court', 'ruling', 'statement', 'provided', 'abc', 'judgment', 'major', 'step', 'directly', 'combating', 'piracy', 'educating', 'public', 'accessing', 'content', 'sites', 'ok', 'fact', 'theft', 'judgment', 'gives', 'us', 'another', 'tool', 'fight', 'international', 'criminals', 'seek', 'profit', 'hard', 'work', 'actors', 'writers', 'directors', 'creators', 'world', 'foxtel', 'village', 'roadshow', 'apply', 'new', 'websites', 'added', 'judgement', 'universal', 'music', 'action', 'kickass', 'torrents', 'blocked', 'remains', 'active', 'landmark', 'case', 'australian', 'internet', 'users', 'accused', 'pirating', 'film', 'dallas', 'buyers', 'club', 'dropped', 'plaintiff', 'dbc', 'llc', 'february', 'federal', 'court', 'judge', 'said', 'wholly', 'unrealistic', 'isp', 'iinet', 'hand', 'personal', 'details', 'almost', 'customers', 'accused', 'downloaded', 'film']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/amazon-claims-first-successful-prime-air-drone-delivery

Amazon says it has successfully trialled its Prime Air drone delivery service in Cambridge, UK, by delivering a TV streaming stick and bag of popcorn directly to the garden of a nearby customer. The breakthrough suggests that autonomous aerial delivery could become a viable business sooner than thought, albeit only for customers with huge gardens, who live close to the delivery depot, and want items weighing less than 2.6kg. Additionally, while deliveries will be available seven days a week, the drones can only fly in daylight hours and clement weather. Currently, the trial is only open to two customers, but Amazon says it hopes to expand that to dozens in the coming months. For those customers, Prime Air is available for no extra cost. The company says the delivery, which took place last week, involved fully autonomous flight, with no human pilot involved in the process. The success was announced by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, who tweeted: “first ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery.” Amazon released a video of the flight but no press were invited to witness the test. Amazon’s drone testing facility on the outskirts of Cambridge has been operating since summer 2015, according to documents revealed under a freedom of information request. That was when the company invited the Civil Aviation Authority to witness its first test flight. Government regulations in the UK are generally considered favourable to companies wanting to experiment with autonomous aircraft, but the restrictions still heavily limit what Amazon can test. The company is allowed to test drones that fly beyond line-of-sight in rural and suburban areas; flights where one person operates multiple largely autonomous drones; and sensor performance associated with sense-and-avoid technology. Amazon first announced its intention to deliver packages by drone in 2013, in a lavishly-produced special on US TV show 60 Minutes. At the time, Bezos suggested that the company would begin delivery in 2018, a timescale commentators called “hugely optimistic”, citing a number of concerns around theft, liability and safety. The latest limited trials suggest that Amazon still intends to hit that 2018 target, albeit by sidestepping many of the concerns through the limited nature of the rollout. Amazon isn’t alone in the field: Google’s experimental sibling, X, has a long-running drone delivery project of its own, Project Wing. Its prototypes use a fixed-wing drone, and are aimed at deliveries to particularly isolated rural customers.

technology/2016/dec/14/amazon-claims-first-successful-prime-air-drone-delivery

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T15:02:45Z

Amazon claims first successful Prime Air drone delivery

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/amazon-claims-first-successful-prime-air-drone-delivery

['amazon', 'says', 'successfully', 'trialled', 'prime', 'air', 'drone', 'delivery', 'service', 'cambridge', 'uk', 'delivering', 'tv', 'streaming', 'stick', 'bag', 'popcorn', 'directly', 'garden', 'nearby', 'customer', 'breakthrough', 'suggests', 'autonomous', 'aerial', 'delivery', 'could', 'become', 'viable', 'business', 'sooner', 'thought', 'albeit', 'customers', 'huge', 'gardens', 'live', 'close', 'delivery', 'depot', 'want', 'items', 'weighing', 'less', '26kg', 'additionally', 'deliveries', 'available', 'seven', 'days', 'week', 'drones', 'fly', 'daylight', 'hours', 'clement', 'weather', 'currently', 'trial', 'open', 'two', 'customers', 'amazon', 'says', 'hopes', 'expand', 'dozens', 'coming', 'months', 'customers', 'prime', 'air', 'available', 'extra', 'cost', 'company', 'says', 'delivery', 'took', 'place', 'last', 'week', 'involved', 'fully', 'autonomous', 'flight', 'human', 'pilot', 'involved', 'process', 'success', 'announced', 'amazon', 'chief', 'executive', 'jeff', 'bezos', 'tweeted', 'first', 'ever', 'amazonprimeair', 'customer', 'delivery', 'books', 'minclick', 'delivery', 'amazon', 'released', 'video', 'flight', 'press', 'invited', 'witness', 'test', 'amazon', 'drone', 'testing', 'facility', 'outskirts', 'cambridge', 'operating', 'since', 'summer', 'according', 'documents', 'revealed', 'freedom', 'information', 'request', 'company', 'invited', 'civil', 'aviation', 'authority', 'witness', 'first', 'test', 'flight', 'government', 'regulations', 'uk', 'generally', 'considered', 'favourable', 'companies', 'wanting', 'experiment', 'autonomous', 'aircraft', 'restrictions', 'still', 'heavily', 'limit', 'amazon', 'test', 'company', 'allowed', 'test', 'drones', 'fly', 'beyond', 'line-of-sight', 'rural', 'suburban', 'areas', 'flights', 'one', 'person', 'operates', 'multiple', 'largely', 'autonomous', 'drones', 'sensor', 'performance', 'associated', 'sense-and-avoid', 'technology', 'amazon', 'first', 'announced', 'intention', 'deliver', 'packages', 'drone', 'lavishly-produced', 'special', 'us', 'tv', 'show', 'minutes', 'time', 'bezos', 'suggested', 'company', 'would', 'begin', 'delivery', 'timescale', 'commentators', 'called', 'hugely', 'optimistic', 'citing', 'number', 'concerns', 'around', 'theft', 'liability', 'safety', 'latest', 'limited', 'trials', 'suggest', 'amazon', 'still', 'intends', 'hit', 'target', 'albeit', 'sidestepping', 'many', 'concerns', 'limited', 'nature', 'rollout', 'amazon', 'alone', 'field', 'google', 'experimental', 'sibling', 'x', 'long-running', 'drone', 'delivery', 'project', 'project', 'wing', 'prototypes', 'use', 'fixed-wing', 'drone', 'aimed', 'deliveries', 'particularly', 'isolated', 'rural', 'customers']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-appeals-against-ruling-that-its-uk-drivers-are-employees

Uber has launched an appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its minicab drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage, sick pay and paid holidays. The taxi-app company filed papers with the appeal tribunal on Tuesday in an attempt to overturn the October judgment that, if it stands, could affect tens of thousands of workers in the gig economy. The move came as several dozen Uber drivers picketed City Hall on Wednesday holding placards demanding Transport for London, which licences Uber as a private hire operator in the capital, “end sweated labour now”. It also mounted a protest at the City of London offices of Salesforce, a US computing company that is a major Uber client. Two Uber drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, took Uber to court on behalf of a group 19 others who argued that they were employed by the San Francisco-based company, rather than working for themselves. Uber’s business model has been based on treating drivers who log on to its app as self-employed contractors and taking a cut of their fares, which Uber dictates. The employment tribunal judges were scathing about Uber’s case that drivers who use its phone app to pick up fares were self-employed. “The notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common ‘platform’ is to our minds faintly ridiculous,” they said. “Drivers do not and cannot negotiate with passengers … They are offered and accept trips strictly on Uber’s terms.” Farrar said Uber’s appeal was expected but was “really disappointing”. “It means we have to fight again, but why?” he said. “It is just because they don’t want to pay the minimum wage. We are confident. Our case is rock solid and the original judgment was emphatic.” Jo Bertram, Uber’s UK general manager, said: “Tens of thousands of people in London drive with Uber precisely because they want to be self-employed and their own boss. The overwhelming majority of drivers who use the Uber app want to keep the freedom and flexibility of being able to drive when and where they want.” Meanwhile, 25 more Uber drivers are planning to claim workers’ rights from Uber and have joined the legal action the law firm Leigh Day is bringing with the GMB union. “Since the judgment was issued, we and GMB have spoken to hundreds of Uber drivers who wish to claim compensation for Uber’s failure to provide these entitlements in the past, as well as to ensure that they are paid at least the national minimum wage and holiday pay in future,” said Nigel MacKay, the lawyer representing the claimants. “We are issuing claims on behalf of those drivers and the latest 25 claimants who have joined the legal action will be included in claims for compensation. We anticipate issuing further claims on behalf of drivers in the coming weeks.” Leigh Day believes there may be thousands of drivers who can claim for the money and benefits they have not received as drivers for Uber. Uber’s appeal comes amid mounting concern within the government about the growing trend towards self-employed workforces. The government has recently announced a six-month review of modern working practices and HMRC is setting up a new unit, the employment status and intermediaries team, to investigate companies. Last week Frank Field, the chairman of the House of Commons work and pensions select committee, published a report including the testimonies of 83 Uber drivers, which claimed that they had almost no independence. Field’s report, contested by Uber, said the company dictates drivers’ working patterns once they have logged on, imposes lockouts from its system if drivers turn down too many jobs, and has raised its commission while cutting the rates drivers can charge. This, combined with the cost of the vehicles needed to meet Uber’s requirements, is creating “chronically low pay” and insecurity, the report said.

technology/2016/dec/14/uber-appeals-against-ruling-that-its-uk-drivers-are-employees

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T14:25:58Z

Uber appeals against ruling that its UK drivers are workers

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-appeals-against-ruling-that-its-uk-drivers-are-employees

['uber', 'launched', 'appeal', 'landmark', 'employment', 'tribunal', 'ruling', 'minicab', 'drivers', 'classed', 'workers', 'access', 'minimum', 'wage', 'sick', 'pay', 'paid', 'holidays', 'taxi-app', 'company', 'filed', 'papers', 'appeal', 'tribunal', 'tuesday', 'attempt', 'overturn', 'october', 'judgment', 'stands', 'could', 'affect', 'tens', 'thousands', 'workers', 'gig', 'economy', 'move', 'came', 'several', 'dozen', 'uber', 'drivers', 'picketed', 'city', 'hall', 'wednesday', 'holding', 'placards', 'demanding', 'transport', 'london', 'licences', 'uber', 'private', 'hire', 'operator', 'capital', 'end', 'sweated', 'labour', 'also', 'mounted', 'protest', 'city', 'london', 'offices', 'salesforce', 'us', 'computing', 'company', 'major', 'uber', 'client', 'two', 'uber', 'drivers', 'james', 'farrar', 'yaseen', 'aslam', 'took', 'uber', 'court', 'behalf', 'group', 'others', 'argued', 'employed', 'san', 'francisco-based', 'company', 'rather', 'working', 'uber', 'business', 'model', 'based', 'treating', 'drivers', 'log', 'app', 'self-employed', 'contractors', 'taking', 'cut', 'fares', 'uber', 'dictates', 'employment', 'tribunal', 'judges', 'scathing', 'uber', 'case', 'drivers', 'use', 'phone', 'app', 'pick', 'fares', 'self-employed', 'notion', 'uber', 'london', 'mosaic', 'small', 'businesses', 'linked', 'common', 'platform', 'minds', 'faintly', 'ridiculous', 'said', 'drivers', 'cannot', 'negotiate', 'passengers', 'offered', 'accept', 'trips', 'strictly', 'uber', 'terms', 'farrar', 'said', 'uber', 'appeal', 'expected', 'really', 'disappointing', 'means', 'fight', 'said', 'want', 'pay', 'minimum', 'wage', 'confident', 'case', 'rock', 'solid', 'original', 'judgment', 'emphatic', 'jo', 'bertram', 'uber', 'uk', 'general', 'manager', 'said', 'tens', 'thousands', 'people', 'london', 'drive', 'uber', 'precisely', 'want', 'self-employed', 'boss', 'overwhelming', 'majority', 'drivers', 'use', 'uber', 'app', 'want', 'keep', 'freedom', 'flexibility', 'able', 'drive', 'want', 'meanwhile', 'uber', 'drivers', 'planning', 'claim', 'workers', 'rights', 'uber', 'joined', 'legal', 'action', 'law', 'firm', 'leigh', 'day', 'bringing', 'gmb', 'union', 'since', 'judgment', 'issued', 'gmb', 'spoken', 'hundreds', 'uber', 'drivers', 'wish', 'claim', 'compensation', 'uber', 'failure', 'provide', 'entitlements', 'past', 'well', 'ensure', 'paid', 'least', 'national', 'minimum', 'wage', 'holiday', 'pay', 'future', 'said', 'nigel', 'mackay', 'lawyer', 'representing', 'claimants', 'issuing', 'claims', 'behalf', 'drivers', 'latest', 'claimants', 'joined', 'legal', 'action', 'included', 'claims', 'compensation', 'anticipate', 'issuing', 'claims', 'behalf', 'drivers', 'coming', 'weeks', 'leigh', 'day', 'believes', 'may', 'thousands', 'drivers', 'claim', 'money', 'benefits', 'received', 'drivers', 'uber', 'uber', 'appeal', 'comes', 'amid', 'mounting', 'concern', 'within', 'government', 'growing', 'trend', 'towards', 'self-employed', 'workforces', 'government', 'recently', 'announced', 'six-month', 'review', 'modern', 'working', 'practices', 'hmrc', 'setting', 'new', 'unit', 'employment', 'status', 'intermediaries', 'team', 'investigate', 'companies', 'last', 'week', 'frank', 'field', 'chairman', 'house', 'commons', 'work', 'pensions', 'select', 'committee', 'published', 'report', 'including', 'testimonies', 'uber', 'drivers', 'claimed', 'almost', 'independence', 'field', 'report', 'contested', 'uber', 'said', 'company', 'dictates', 'drivers', 'working', 'patterns', 'logged', 'imposes', 'lockouts', 'system', 'drivers', 'turn', 'many', 'jobs', 'raised', 'commission', 'cutting', 'rates', 'drivers', 'charge', 'combined', 'cost', 'vehicles', 'needed', 'meet', 'uber', 'requirements', 'creating', 'chronically', 'low', 'pay', 'insecurity', 'report', 'said']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/waymo-google-self-driving-car-division

Google’s self-driving cars have graduated from the company’s “moonshot division”, X labs, to become a full-blown subsidiary of umbrella group Alphabet, called Waymo. The new company, headed by X alumni John Krafcik, is charged with turning the self-driving car technology that Google has been developing behind closed doors into a viable business for the future. How that will actually happen, though, Waymo has apparently not yet decided. Mooted revenue streams include Uber-style driverless ride sharing, disrupting the trucking and logistics sector, fitting self-driving technology into public transit vehicles, improving the “last mile” of postal delivery or even simply licensing the software to car manufacturers who will sell cars to end users. “Self-driving technology is awesome in all these categories,” said Krafcik at an event to announce the launch of Waymo. But one thing Waymo won’t be doing is building its own cars – a step back in ambition from the highest goals of the X labs team. “We are a self-driving technology company,” Krafcik said. “We’ve been really clear that we’re not a car company, although there’s been some confusion on that point. We’re not in the business of making better cars. We’re in the business of making better drivers.” That means the small, purpose-built “Koala cars” that Google currently uses for testing its self-driving technology are unlikely to evolve into an actual product that consumers can buy. Instead, the best hope for someone who wants to get their hands on Google’s software looks to be Fiat Chrysler, who signed a deal with Google in May to put its self-driving tech in a small fleet of the company’s Pacifica minivans. If that deal expands into a full-blown partnership, Fiat Chrysler could be the first company selling Google tech to end users. If not Fiat Chrysler, Waymo will have to pair with someone, because Google is fast becoming a victim of its own success. When the company first initiated its self-driving product at X Labs, it was almost alone in Silicon Valley in thinking that self-driving cars were a solvable problem. But as the years progressed, others joined the field, some directly inspired by Google’s success: Uber’s Travis Kalanick has spoken about how he was inspired to enter the self-driving car business by a ride in one of Google’s prototypes. He promptly hired a substantial portion of Carnegie-Mellon university’s ground-breaking robotics lab. Conventional auto manufacturers have also entered the fray: as well as Tesla Motors, whose Autopilot system is one of the most advanced driver-assist features on the market, older businesses like Ford, BMW and Nissan have all pushed their own automation systems onto the market. Part of the reason for Google losing its lead in the market was the company’s insistence on only pursuing full automation. “The system we have built is aimed at full autonomy, and it is therefore much more complicated than a lot of these other systems,” X labs engineer Andrew Chatham told the Guardian in August. “This is not the engineeringly efficient or cost-effective way to build something that just helps you stay in your lane.” It is unclear whether Waymo will continue that all-or-nothing goal. Google proudly trumpeted a previously secret milestone it had achieved in the summer of 2015, when a blind man, Steve Mahan, had “driven”, unaccompanied, one of its Koala cars on the public roads of Austin, Texas. That trip was the world’s first fully driverless trip on public roads. But behind the scenes, reports suggest that Waymo might pull the trigger on the technology earlier than the company intended to when it was simply a research lab. On Monday, industry news site The Information reported the groundbreaking partnership with Fiat Chrysler had represented one step towards that intermediary goal, to the concern of some of Google’s self-driving engineers. Some of those engineers have left the company since the new direction was decided at the start of 2016. Chris Urmson, the former head of the division, quit this summer to start a new company, less than a year after Krafcik was hired. Anthony Levandowski, one of the industry’s pioneers, left in early 2016 to found a self-driving truck startup, Otto, which has since been acquired by Uber. Jiajun Zhu, a founder member of the team, and software engineering manager Dave Ferguson left in the summer to co-found autonomous car company Nuro. In total, 14 members of the team are known to have left in 2016 alone. As a fully standalone unit, Waymo will have more power within the wider Alphabet hierarchy to set its priorities and decide its own future. But that power also comes with responsibility: for the first time, Google’s self-driving cars will have a bottom line, and an expectation that, at some point, it will start paying its own way. Simply making the best technology isn’t the only requirement to making money in the car industry – Waymo also needs to make friends.

technology/2016/dec/14/waymo-google-self-driving-car-division

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T11:57:58Z

Google spins off self-driving car division, signalling new direction

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/waymo-google-self-driving-car-division

['google', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'graduated', 'company', 'moonshot', 'division', 'x', 'labs', 'become', 'full-blown', 'subsidiary', 'umbrella', 'group', 'alphabet', 'called', 'waymo', 'new', 'company', 'headed', 'x', 'alumni', 'john', 'krafcik', 'charged', 'turning', 'self-driving', 'car', 'technology', 'google', 'developing', 'behind', 'closed', 'doors', 'viable', 'business', 'future', 'actually', 'happen', 'though', 'waymo', 'apparently', 'yet', 'decided', 'mooted', 'revenue', 'streams', 'include', 'uber-style', 'driverless', 'ride', 'sharing', 'disrupting', 'trucking', 'logistics', 'sector', 'fitting', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'public', 'transit', 'vehicles', 'improving', 'last', 'mile', 'postal', 'delivery', 'even', 'simply', 'licensing', 'software', 'car', 'manufacturers', 'sell', 'cars', 'end', 'users', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'awesome', 'categories', 'said', 'krafcik', 'event', 'announce', 'launch', 'waymo', 'one', 'thing', 'waymo', 'building', 'cars', 'step', 'back', 'ambition', 'highest', 'goals', 'x', 'labs', 'team', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'company', 'krafcik', 'said', 'really', 'clear', 'car', 'company', 'although', 'confusion', 'point', 'business', 'making', 'better', 'cars', 'business', 'making', 'better', 'drivers', 'means', 'small', 'purpose-built', 'koala', 'cars', 'google', 'currently', 'uses', 'testing', 'self-driving', 'technology', 'unlikely', 'evolve', 'actual', 'product', 'consumers', 'buy', 'instead', 'best', 'hope', 'someone', 'wants', 'get', 'hands', 'google', 'software', 'looks', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'signed', 'deal', 'google', 'may', 'put', 'self-driving', 'tech', 'small', 'fleet', 'company', 'pacifica', 'minivans', 'deal', 'expands', 'full-blown', 'partnership', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'could', 'first', 'company', 'selling', 'google', 'tech', 'end', 'users', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'waymo', 'pair', 'someone', 'google', 'fast', 'becoming', 'victim', 'success', 'company', 'first', 'initiated', 'self-driving', 'product', 'x', 'labs', 'almost', 'alone', 'silicon', 'valley', 'thinking', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'solvable', 'problem', 'years', 'progressed', 'others', 'joined', 'field', 'directly', 'inspired', 'google', 'success', 'uber', 'travis', 'kalanick', 'spoken', 'inspired', 'enter', 'self-driving', 'car', 'business', 'ride', 'one', 'google', 'prototypes', 'promptly', 'hired', 'substantial', 'portion', 'carnegie-mellon', 'university', 'ground-breaking', 'robotics', 'lab', 'conventional', 'auto', 'manufacturers', 'also', 'entered', 'fray', 'well', 'tesla', 'motors', 'whose', 'autopilot', 'system', 'one', 'advanced', 'driver-assist', 'features', 'market', 'older', 'businesses', 'like', 'ford', 'bmw', 'nissan', 'pushed', 'automation', 'systems', 'onto', 'market', 'part', 'reason', 'google', 'losing', 'lead', 'market', 'company', 'insistence', 'pursuing', 'full', 'automation', 'system', 'built', 'aimed', 'full', 'autonomy', 'therefore', 'much', 'complicated', 'lot', 'systems', 'x', 'labs', 'engineer', 'andrew', 'chatham', 'told', 'guardian', 'august', 'engineeringly', 'efficient', 'cost-effective', 'way', 'build', 'something', 'helps', 'stay', 'lane', 'unclear', 'whether', 'waymo', 'continue', 'all-or-nothing', 'goal', 'google', 'proudly', 'trumpeted', 'previously', 'secret', 'milestone', 'achieved', 'summer', 'blind', 'man', 'steve', 'mahan', 'driven', 'unaccompanied', 'one', 'koala', 'cars', 'public', 'roads', 'austin', 'texas', 'trip', 'world', 'first', 'fully', 'driverless', 'trip', 'public', 'roads', 'behind', 'scenes', 'reports', 'suggest', 'waymo', 'might', 'pull', 'trigger', 'technology', 'earlier', 'company', 'intended', 'simply', 'research', 'lab', 'monday', 'industry', 'news', 'site', 'information', 'reported', 'groundbreaking', 'partnership', 'fiat', 'chrysler', 'represented', 'one', 'step', 'towards', 'intermediary', 'goal', 'concern', 'google', 'self-driving', 'engineers', 'engineers', 'left', 'company', 'since', 'new', 'direction', 'decided', 'start', 'chris', 'urmson', 'former', 'head', 'division', 'quit', 'summer', 'start', 'new', 'company', 'less', 'year', 'krafcik', 'hired', 'anthony', 'levandowski', 'one', 'industry', 'pioneers', 'left', 'early', 'found', 'self-driving', 'truck', 'startup', 'otto', 'since', 'acquired', 'uber', 'jiajun', 'zhu', 'founder', 'member', 'team', 'software', 'engineering', 'manager', 'dave', 'ferguson', 'left', 'summer', 'co-found', 'autonomous', 'car', 'company', 'nuro', 'total', 'members', 'team', 'known', 'left', 'alone', 'fully', 'standalone', 'unit', 'waymo', 'power', 'within', 'wider', 'alphabet', 'hierarchy', 'set', 'priorities', 'decide', 'future', 'power', 'also', 'comes', 'responsibility', 'first', 'time', 'google', 'self-driving', 'cars', 'bottom', 'line', 'expectation', 'point', 'start', 'paying', 'way', 'simply', 'making', 'best', 'technology', 'requirement', 'making', 'money', 'car', 'industry', 'waymo', 'also', 'needs', 'make', 'friends']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/donald-trump-tech-summit-immigration-automation

One of the most pressing questions Silicon Valley leaders will want answered at their Wednesday meeting with President-elect Donald Trump is whether his administration will clamp down on the immigration policies that technology companies have come to rely on. You only have to look at the executive boards of some of the world’s fastest growing companies to see the contribution immigrants have made. According to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy, immigrants founded more than half (51%) of the current crop of US-based startups valued at more than $1bn. All of this could be under threat if we are to take some of the comments the Trump campaign made in the run-up to the election at face value. The outspoken candidate claimed that Mark Zuckerberg’s push for specialist H1B visas (the main visa used to hire foreign talent to tech companies) was a threat to jobs for American women and minorities. Meanwhile, Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon suggested that Asians have too much power in Silicon Valley. About a dozen members of Silicon Valley’s elite – including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg – will meet with Trump in New York. The meeting is likely to provide an opportunity for them to highlight their concerns and priorities with the incoming administration. Trump was critical of Silicon Valley business practices during his campaign – from wanting Apple to stop making phones in China to saying Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post to exert political power and avoid paying taxes. “If you look at the history of Silicon Valley, it’s clear that drawing on immigrants has been a big part of the vitality, creativity and success of that entrepreneurial melange,” said Marjory Blumenthal, senior policy analyst at Rand Corporation. The incoming administration is leaving some highly skilled tech workers nervous about their immigration status. “I am worried that I might have to go back to India,” said Sandeep Purwar, the founder and CEO of the tech recruiting platform JobAnts. He came into the US on an H1B visa but has since gotten a green card. He’s applying for citizenship as soon as possible to secure his position in the US. He hopes that Trump’s pro-business stance will outshine his anti-immigration rhetoric. “During his campaign, a lot of his talk about building a wall and sending back immigrants was to attract and energize the rightwing Republican base. But he’s a businessman. He knows the importance of having manpower in this country, so hopefully he’ll be softening on these policies.” Zoltan Istvan, a futurist who ran as an independent presidential candidate, said: “It’s in our very best interest to steal the best engineers from over the world and have them live in America,.” Since the election, the Internet Association, a group of technology companies that includes Facebook, Google, Twitter, Netflix and Amazon, has written to Trump asking him to support a sector that accounts for 6% of the economy by increasing immigration. “The US immigration system must allow more high-skilled graduates and workers to stay in the United States and contribute to our economy,” the association said in an open letter. The letter echoes the demands of Fwd.us, a lobby group set up by tech leaders including Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt in 2013 to support immigration reform and expand the H1B visa program, which admits 65,000 workers and another 20,000 graduate student workers each year. While Silicon Valley relies on H1B to bring in skilled foreign workers, the immigration scheme has also been exploited in a way that drives down wages and in some cases displaces American jobs, said Daniel Costa, of the Economic Policy Institute. When tech companies such as Microsoft and Google use H1B as intended – to hire skilled, well-paid foreign workers in short supply – they might also help them get green cards to extend their stays. However, the system is frequently abused, particularly by large contracting firms such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services that use the visas to deploy lower-paid contractors that critics say rarely end up with green cards. This exploitation of the system could be fixed by making sure contractors pay H1B workers a fair wage and advertise all jobs to US workers first, Costa explained. But Silicon Valley tech companies have even lobbied against this. Why? “It’s very possible they have shadow workforces staffed with people from outsourcing companies and they don’t want their labor costs to increase,” Costa said. All of the talk about immigrants taking American jobs ignores another looming challenge: robots or artificial intelligence taking American jobs. “Automation, not immigration, is the bigger issue. AI, software and robots are just starting to destroy the very core economy of America,” Istvan said. “You could try to put legal restrictions on automation but then you can’t create new jobs. It’s a much bigger issue.” According to Sebastian Thrun, the German-born founder of the educational organization Udacity and a former Google employee, automation won’t eliminate jobs, but will create very different ones. Policymakers and workers have no choice but to embrace the change. “If you try to re-create the past we will be left behind,” he said. He argues that automation will free people from the drudgery of repetitive office work and allow them to become inventors. “We’ll enter an age of unparalleled creativity and innovation.” For Trump’s administration, this will mean shifting away from some of the anti-science rhetoric in order to make America a superpower in science and technology. “We are in a scientific Olympic Games with China, so let’s win this,” said Istvan, who has applied to be an adviser to Trump. “I just hope the vice-president [Mike Pence, who isopposed to abortion rights and doesn’t believe in evolution] and other more religious candidates don’t get in the way of things like genetic editing or artificial intelligence, which crosses a few religious lines.”

technology/2016/dec/14/donald-trump-tech-summit-immigration-automation

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T11:47:30Z

Trump to meet tech firms including Apple, Facebook and Google

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/donald-trump-tech-summit-immigration-automation

['one', 'pressing', 'questions', 'silicon', 'valley', 'leaders', 'want', 'answered', 'wednesday', 'meeting', 'president-elect', 'donald', 'trump', 'whether', 'administration', 'clamp', 'immigration', 'policies', 'technology', 'companies', 'come', 'rely', 'look', 'executive', 'boards', 'world', 'fastest', 'growing', 'companies', 'see', 'contribution', 'immigrants', 'made', 'according', 'study', 'national', 'foundation', 'american', 'policy', 'immigrants', 'founded', 'half', 'current', 'crop', 'us-based', 'startups', 'valued', '1bn', 'could', 'threat', 'take', 'comments', 'trump', 'campaign', 'made', 'run-up', 'election', 'face', 'value', 'outspoken', 'candidate', 'claimed', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'push', 'specialist', 'h1b', 'visas', 'main', 'visa', 'used', 'hire', 'foreign', 'talent', 'tech', 'companies', 'threat', 'jobs', 'american', 'women', 'minorities', 'meanwhile', 'trump', 'chief', 'strategist', 'steve', 'bannon', 'suggested', 'asians', 'much', 'power', 'silicon', 'valley', 'dozen', 'members', 'silicon', 'valley', 'elite', 'including', 'apple', 'ceo', 'tim', 'cook', 'alphabet', 'ceo', 'larry', 'page', 'microsoft', 'ceo', 'satya', 'nadella', 'facebook', 'coo', 'sheryl', 'sandberg', 'meet', 'trump', 'new', 'york', 'meeting', 'likely', 'provide', 'opportunity', 'highlight', 'concerns', 'priorities', 'incoming', 'administration', 'trump', 'critical', 'silicon', 'valley', 'business', 'practices', 'campaign', 'wanting', 'apple', 'stop', 'making', 'phones', 'china', 'saying', 'amazon', 'founder', 'jeff', 'bezos', 'bought', 'washington', 'post', 'exert', 'political', 'power', 'avoid', 'paying', 'taxes', 'look', 'history', 'silicon', 'valley', 'clear', 'drawing', 'immigrants', 'big', 'part', 'vitality', 'creativity', 'success', 'entrepreneurial', 'melange', 'said', 'marjory', 'blumenthal', 'senior', 'policy', 'analyst', 'rand', 'corporation', 'incoming', 'administration', 'leaving', 'highly', 'skilled', 'tech', 'workers', 'nervous', 'immigration', 'status', 'worried', 'might', 'go', 'back', 'india', 'said', 'sandeep', 'purwar', 'founder', 'ceo', 'tech', 'recruiting', 'platform', 'jobants', 'came', 'us', 'h1b', 'visa', 'since', 'gotten', 'green', 'card', 'applying', 'citizenship', 'soon', 'possible', 'secure', 'position', 'us', 'hopes', 'trump', 'pro-business', 'stance', 'outshine', 'anti-immigration', 'rhetoric', 'campaign', 'lot', 'talk', 'building', 'wall', 'sending', 'back', 'immigrants', 'attract', 'energize', 'rightwing', 'republican', 'base', 'businessman', 'knows', 'importance', 'manpower', 'country', 'hopefully', 'softening', 'policies', 'zoltan', 'istvan', 'futurist', 'ran', 'independent', 'presidential', 'candidate', 'said', 'best', 'interest', 'steal', 'best', 'engineers', 'world', 'live', 'america', 'since', 'election', 'internet', 'association', 'group', 'technology', 'companies', 'includes', 'facebook', 'google', 'twitter', 'netflix', 'amazon', 'written', 'trump', 'asking', 'support', 'sector', 'accounts', 'economy', 'increasing', 'immigration', 'us', 'immigration', 'system', 'must', 'allow', 'high-skilled', 'graduates', 'workers', 'stay', 'united', 'states', 'contribute', 'economy', 'association', 'said', 'open', 'letter', 'letter', 'echoes', 'demands', 'fwdus', 'lobby', 'group', 'set', 'tech', 'leaders', 'including', 'zuckerberg', 'bill', 'gates', 'eric', 'schmidt', 'support', 'immigration', 'reform', 'expand', 'h1b', 'visa', 'program', 'admits', 'workers', 'another', 'graduate', 'student', 'workers', 'year', 'silicon', 'valley', 'relies', 'h1b', 'bring', 'skilled', 'foreign', 'workers', 'immigration', 'scheme', 'also', 'exploited', 'way', 'drives', 'wages', 'cases', 'displaces', 'american', 'jobs', 'said', 'daniel', 'costa', 'economic', 'policy', 'institute', 'tech', 'companies', 'microsoft', 'google', 'use', 'h1b', 'intended', 'hire', 'skilled', 'well-paid', 'foreign', 'workers', 'short', 'supply', 'might', 'also', 'help', 'get', 'green', 'cards', 'extend', 'stays', 'however', 'system', 'frequently', 'abused', 'particularly', 'large', 'contracting', 'firms', 'infosys', 'tata', 'consultancy', 'services', 'use', 'visas', 'deploy', 'lower-paid', 'contractors', 'critics', 'say', 'rarely', 'end', 'green', 'cards', 'exploitation', 'system', 'could', 'fixed', 'making', 'sure', 'contractors', 'pay', 'h1b', 'workers', 'fair', 'wage', 'advertise', 'jobs', 'us', 'workers', 'first', 'costa', 'explained', 'silicon', 'valley', 'tech', 'companies', 'even', 'lobbied', 'possible', 'shadow', 'workforces', 'staffed', 'people', 'outsourcing', 'companies', 'want', 'labor', 'costs', 'increase', 'costa', 'said', 'talk', 'immigrants', 'taking', 'american', 'jobs', 'ignores', 'another', 'looming', 'challenge', 'robots', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'taking', 'american', 'jobs', 'automation', 'immigration', 'bigger', 'issue', 'ai', 'software', 'robots', 'starting', 'destroy', 'core', 'economy', 'america', 'istvan', 'said', 'could', 'try', 'put', 'legal', 'restrictions', 'automation', 'create', 'new', 'jobs', 'much', 'bigger', 'issue', 'according', 'sebastian', 'thrun', 'german-born', 'founder', 'educational', 'organization', 'udacity', 'former', 'google', 'employee', 'automation', 'eliminate', 'jobs', 'create', 'different', 'ones', 'policymakers', 'workers', 'choice', 'embrace', 'change', 'try', 're-create', 'past', 'left', 'behind', 'said', 'argues', 'automation', 'free', 'people', 'drudgery', 'repetitive', 'office', 'work', 'allow', 'become', 'inventors', 'enter', 'age', 'unparalleled', 'creativity', 'innovation', 'trump', 'administration', 'mean', 'shifting', 'away', 'anti-science', 'rhetoric', 'order', 'make', 'america', 'superpower', 'science', 'technology', 'scientific', 'olympic', 'games', 'china', 'let', 'win', 'said', 'istvan', 'applied', 'adviser', 'trump', 'hope', 'vice-president', 'mike', 'pence', 'isopposed', 'abortion', 'rights', 'believe', 'evolution', 'religious', 'candidates', 'get', 'way', 'things', 'like', 'genetic', 'editing', 'artificial', 'intelligence', 'crosses', 'religious', 'lines']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/apple-fixes-inaccurate-macbook-pro-battery-estimate-by-removing-it

Apple has issued a “fix” for battery life complaints from users of its new MacBook Pro and other Mac computers. The latest MacOS update, 10.12.2, has tackled the issue of frequently inaccurate battery life estimates by removing the feature. The change means users will no longer be provided with any estimate of how long their Apple laptop battery will last, except the percentage left, and therefore be unaware when it underperforms. The update which “improved the stability, compatibility and performance” of Mac computers and is “recommended for users”. Battery life estimates have always been notoriously unreliable. Some point to the power consumption variability of modern processors, which have the ability to ramp their performance up and down in response to the task at hand and therefore alter their power requirements, as the biggest issue in attempting to calculate the remaining time left. Some of Apple’s laptops also include two graphics cards – one energy efficient integrated GPU and one discreet, more powerful one. When the graphics demands of an app currently running breach a threshold, the power-hungry graphics card fires up, which has a significant impact on battery life. But many users are unhappy with the removal of the feature. Microsoft’s Windows 10 continues to give estimates of battery life under similar conditions with the same types of processor and graphics card configurations. Apple’s battery meter is now limited to percentage remaining only. Why does the MacBook Pro only have USB-C ports? Spanish ‘Apple engineer’ explains Apple’s latest product is a ‘greatest hits’ photo album

technology/2016/dec/14/apple-fixes-inaccurate-macbook-pro-battery-estimate-by-removing-it

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T10:55:25Z

Apple 'fixes' inaccurate MacBook Pro battery estimate – by removing it

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/apple-fixes-inaccurate-macbook-pro-battery-estimate-by-removing-it

['apple', 'issued', 'fix', 'battery', 'life', 'complaints', 'users', 'new', 'macbook', 'pro', 'mac', 'computers', 'latest', 'macos', 'update', 'tackled', 'issue', 'frequently', 'inaccurate', 'battery', 'life', 'estimates', 'removing', 'feature', 'change', 'means', 'users', 'longer', 'provided', 'estimate', 'long', 'apple', 'laptop', 'battery', 'last', 'except', 'percentage', 'left', 'therefore', 'unaware', 'underperforms', 'update', 'improved', 'stability', 'compatibility', 'performance', 'mac', 'computers', 'recommended', 'users', 'battery', 'life', 'estimates', 'always', 'notoriously', 'unreliable', 'point', 'power', 'consumption', 'variability', 'modern', 'processors', 'ability', 'ramp', 'performance', 'response', 'task', 'hand', 'therefore', 'alter', 'power', 'requirements', 'biggest', 'issue', 'attempting', 'calculate', 'remaining', 'time', 'left', 'apple', 'laptops', 'also', 'include', 'two', 'graphics', 'cards', 'one', 'energy', 'efficient', 'integrated', 'gpu', 'one', 'discreet', 'powerful', 'one', 'graphics', 'demands', 'app', 'currently', 'running', 'breach', 'threshold', 'power-hungry', 'graphics', 'card', 'fires', 'significant', 'impact', 'battery', 'life', 'many', 'users', 'unhappy', 'removal', 'feature', 'microsoft', 'windows', 'continues', 'give', 'estimates', 'battery', 'life', 'similar', 'conditions', 'types', 'processor', 'graphics', 'card', 'configurations', 'apple', 'battery', 'meter', 'limited', 'percentage', 'remaining', 'macbook', 'pro', 'usb-c', 'ports', 'spanish', 'apple', 'engineer', 'explains', 'apple', 'latest', 'product', 'greatest', 'hits', 'photo', 'album']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/london-company-advertises-emoji-translator

Do you venture further into the emoji dictionary than the faces and food pages? Does your vocabulary extend beyond “thumbs up” and “red heart”? Do you know your “face with tears of joy” from your “grinning face with smiling eyes”? A London translation agency is advertising for its first “emoji translator/ specialist” to help meet the “challenges posed by the world’s fastest-growing language”. Based in the City of London financial district, Today Translations is advertising on its website for a translator able to interpret the miniature images, from smiley faces to food items, beloved of smartphone users the world over. “Emoji translation is itself an emerging field – but one dominated to date by software, which is often insensitive to the many cultural differences in usage and interpretation,” said the advert. “We are therefore seeking an exceptional individual to provide the human touch needed where translation software is inadequate.” Chief executive Jurga Zilinskiene said the company decided to create the freelance position after being approached by a client to translate a family diary from English into emoji. “We started looking into it and decided we had to do much more work to understand the culture of emojis across the globe,” she told AFP. The recruit will be required to write monthly reports on emoji trends and research cultural differences in usage, as well as carry out translations. “In the absence of any native speakers, the successful candidate should be able to demonstrate a passion for emojis, combined with cutting-edge knowledge and awareness of areas of confusion and cultural/international differences,” continued the advert. Remuneration for the position is listed as “competitive”, but applicants are warned that a “practical test of emoji knowledge/skills may be given”. An exemplar “Emoji Translation Test” is available for potential candidates on the company’s website. The successful recruit will join a company that works with 3,000 linguists who speak some 200 languages, according to the job posting. Zilinskiene is confident that demand for emoji translation is set to grow. “We are already seeing a professional use for legal cases where text messages are used as evidence,” she said, adding that interpreting emojis was “even more complex than the written word”.

technology/2016/dec/14/london-company-advertises-emoji-translator

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-14T00:51:55Z

Sign of the times: London company advertises for 'emoji translator'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/london-company-advertises-emoji-translator

['venture', 'emoji', 'dictionary', 'faces', 'food', 'pages', 'vocabulary', 'extend', 'beyond', 'thumbs', 'red', 'heart', 'know', 'face', 'tears', 'joy', 'grinning', 'face', 'smiling', 'eyes', 'london', 'translation', 'agency', 'advertising', 'first', 'emoji', 'translator', 'specialist', 'help', 'meet', 'challenges', 'posed', 'world', 'fastest-growing', 'language', 'based', 'city', 'london', 'financial', 'district', 'today', 'translations', 'advertising', 'website', 'translator', 'able', 'interpret', 'miniature', 'images', 'smiley', 'faces', 'food', 'items', 'beloved', 'smartphone', 'users', 'world', 'emoji', 'translation', 'emerging', 'field', 'one', 'dominated', 'date', 'software', 'often', 'insensitive', 'many', 'cultural', 'differences', 'usage', 'interpretation', 'said', 'advert', 'therefore', 'seeking', 'exceptional', 'individual', 'provide', 'human', 'touch', 'needed', 'translation', 'software', 'inadequate', 'chief', 'executive', 'jurga', 'zilinskiene', 'said', 'company', 'decided', 'create', 'freelance', 'position', 'approached', 'client', 'translate', 'family', 'diary', 'english', 'emoji', 'started', 'looking', 'decided', 'much', 'work', 'understand', 'culture', 'emojis', 'across', 'globe', 'told', 'afp', 'recruit', 'required', 'write', 'monthly', 'reports', 'emoji', 'trends', 'research', 'cultural', 'differences', 'usage', 'well', 'carry', 'translations', 'absence', 'native', 'speakers', 'successful', 'candidate', 'able', 'demonstrate', 'passion', 'emojis', 'combined', 'cutting-edge', 'knowledge', 'awareness', 'areas', 'confusion', 'culturalinternational', 'differences', 'continued', 'advert', 'remuneration', 'position', 'listed', 'competitive', 'applicants', 'warned', 'practical', 'test', 'emoji', 'knowledgeskills', 'may', 'given', 'exemplar', 'emoji', 'translation', 'test', 'available', 'potential', 'candidates', 'company', 'website', 'successful', 'recruit', 'join', 'company', 'works', 'linguists', 'speak', 'languages', 'according', 'job', 'posting', 'zilinskiene', 'confident', 'demand', 'emoji', 'translation', 'set', 'grow', 'already', 'seeing', 'professional', 'use', 'legal', 'cases', 'text', 'messages', 'used', 'evidence', 'said', 'adding', 'interpreting', 'emojis', 'even', 'complex', 'written', 'word']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/13/twitter-fails-deal-farright-abuse-tell-mama-extremism-commons

The founder of a hate-crime monitoring group has told MPs that Twitter is failing to tackle far-right extremists in the wake of Jo Cox’s murder. Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell MAMA, which records anti-Muslim abuse, said the group’s attempts to report far-right extremism, including voices that call for the eradication of Muslims, had been ignored by the social networking site. Mughal said the state was picking up the bill for dealing with far-right extremism and called for representatives of Twitter to be hauled before the government. “We’re talking about individuals who open up websites, name and shame members of the Muslim community, who will give addresses where they’re going to speak, who will put them at risk in terms of their social activities,” he told the Commons home affairs select committee. “These are individuals who regard Muslims as groomers and paedophiles and they should be deported, and if not deported, eradicated from this country. This is the language we are dealing with. “There’s a real risk after the murder of Jo Cox to individuals in our country that organisations and corporations like Twitter simply disregard, … and it can not continue.” Cox was murdered by the far-right terrorist Thomas Mair who repeatedly shot and stabbed the Labour MP in an attack during the EU referendum campaign in June. Mughal said Tell MAMA had recently submitted research into far-right networks’ use of Twitter to the company but nothing was done. In the two weeks since Tell MAMA contacted Twitter one extremist account posted 2,500 tweets, according to the group. “It’s a significant and ongoing problem and it affects many parts of our country and our communities,” he said. “We’ve had to do the police work. We’ve had to put the networks together, explain what they are, give names, identities that are open source, to Twitter to say here is the evidence and we’ve reported through their channels. And those accounts are still open.” Mughal said Twitter continues with “business as normal”. He said it was not just Muslims being attacked by online far-right extremists but also Jews, members of the LGBT community and women. Bharath Ganesh, a researcher at Tell MAMA, told the committee – currently conducting an inquiry into hate crime – that far-right and so-called alt-right narratives are being picked up by young people on Twitter, including those under 18. He said: “One thing we’ve seen is young people on Twitter that are UK-based … getting their information from sources in the US that are far right, people in France, Germany, Netherlands, other parts of Europe that are also far right, as well as some of the ideologues we have in the UK. There’s a large transnational echo chamber forming. It appears young people are being influenced by that rhetoric.” In response, Twitter reiterated the statement it made on safety and abuse in November. “Our hateful conduct policy prohibits specific conduct that targets people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease,” the statement said. “ ... On enforcement, we’ve retrained all of our support teams on our policies, including special sessions on cultural and historical contextualization of hateful conduct, and implemented an ongoing refresher program. “We don’t expect these announcements to suddenly remove abusive conduct from Twitter. No single action by us would do that. Instead we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn.”

technology/2016/dec/13/twitter-fails-deal-farright-abuse-tell-mama-extremism-commons

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-13T18:29:29Z

Twitter fails to deal with far-right abuse, anti-hate crime group tells MPs

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/twitter-fails-deal-farright-abuse-tell-mama-extremism-commons

['founder', 'hate-crime', 'monitoring', 'group', 'told', 'mps', 'twitter', 'failing', 'tackle', 'far-right', 'extremists', 'wake', 'jo', 'cox', 'murder', 'fiyaz', 'mughal', 'founder', 'tell', 'mama', 'records', 'anti-muslim', 'abuse', 'said', 'group', 'attempts', 'report', 'far-right', 'extremism', 'including', 'voices', 'call', 'eradication', 'muslims', 'ignored', 'social', 'networking', 'site', 'mughal', 'said', 'state', 'picking', 'bill', 'dealing', 'far-right', 'extremism', 'called', 'representatives', 'twitter', 'hauled', 'government', 'talking', 'individuals', 'open', 'websites', 'name', 'shame', 'members', 'muslim', 'community', 'give', 'addresses', 'going', 'speak', 'put', 'risk', 'terms', 'social', 'activities', 'told', 'commons', 'home', 'affairs', 'select', 'committee', 'individuals', 'regard', 'muslims', 'groomers', 'paedophiles', 'deported', 'deported', 'eradicated', 'country', 'language', 'dealing', 'real', 'risk', 'murder', 'jo', 'cox', 'individuals', 'country', 'organisations', 'corporations', 'like', 'twitter', 'simply', 'disregard', 'continue', 'cox', 'murdered', 'far-right', 'terrorist', 'thomas', 'mair', 'repeatedly', 'shot', 'stabbed', 'labour', 'mp', 'attack', 'eu', 'referendum', 'campaign', 'june', 'mughal', 'said', 'tell', 'mama', 'recently', 'submitted', 'research', 'far-right', 'networks', 'use', 'twitter', 'company', 'nothing', 'done', 'two', 'weeks', 'since', 'tell', 'mama', 'contacted', 'twitter', 'one', 'extremist', 'account', 'posted', 'tweets', 'according', 'group', 'significant', 'ongoing', 'problem', 'affects', 'many', 'parts', 'country', 'communities', 'said', 'police', 'work', 'put', 'networks', 'together', 'explain', 'give', 'names', 'identities', 'open', 'source', 'twitter', 'say', 'evidence', 'reported', 'channels', 'accounts', 'still', 'open', 'mughal', 'said', 'twitter', 'continues', 'business', 'normal', 'said', 'muslims', 'attacked', 'online', 'far-right', 'extremists', 'also', 'jews', 'members', 'lgbt', 'community', 'women', 'bharath', 'ganesh', 'researcher', 'tell', 'mama', 'told', 'committee', 'currently', 'conducting', 'inquiry', 'hate', 'crime', 'far-right', 'so-called', 'alt-right', 'narratives', 'picked', 'young', 'people', 'twitter', 'including', 'said', 'one', 'thing', 'seen', 'young', 'people', 'twitter', 'uk-based', 'getting', 'information', 'sources', 'us', 'far', 'right', 'people', 'france', 'germany', 'netherlands', 'parts', 'europe', 'also', 'far', 'right', 'well', 'ideologues', 'uk', 'large', 'transnational', 'echo', 'chamber', 'forming', 'appears', 'young', 'people', 'influenced', 'rhetoric', 'response', 'twitter', 'reiterated', 'statement', 'made', 'safety', 'abuse', 'november', 'hateful', 'conduct', 'policy', 'prohibits', 'specific', 'conduct', 'targets', 'people', 'basis', 'race', 'ethnicity', 'national', 'origin', 'sexual', 'orientation', 'gender', 'gender', 'identity', 'religious', 'affiliation', 'age', 'disability', 'disease', 'statement', 'said', 'enforcement', 'retrained', 'support', 'teams', 'policies', 'including', 'special', 'sessions', 'cultural', 'historical', 'contextualization', 'hateful', 'conduct', 'implemented', 'ongoing', 'refresher', 'program', 'expect', 'announcements', 'suddenly', 'remove', 'abusive', 'conduct', 'twitter', 'single', 'action', 'us', 'would', 'instead', 'commit', 'rapidly', 'improving', 'twitter', 'based', 'everything', 'observe', 'learn']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/13/bill-mackenzie-obituary

As factory manager in the 1970s for Pye Unicam, a manufacturer of scientific instruments in Cambridge, my dad, Bill MacKenzie, introduced advanced equipment from around the world. His talents were noticed by Philips when they bought the company in the mid-1970s, and Bill’s international career began. For 20 years Bill, who has died aged 82, managed and modernised factories for Philips in Turkey, Venezuela, Brazil and Quebec. He was an excellent linguist, and his success and achievements were due in part to communicating with his teams in their own languages. However, he was also a forward thinker, practising corporate social responsibility long before it became commonplace. His genuine desire to improve conditions for people working in those factories earned their admiration and respect. He was born in Montrose, Angus, son of Isabella (nee Anderson), a seamstress, and David MacKenzie, a driving instructor. When Bill was two, his family moved to Glasgow. He was five when the second world war began and he recalled watching the blazing fires of the Clydebank blitz from his bedroom. Despite the trials of war, he had a happy childhood, and when he was 11 the family returned to Montrose. Bill never settled at Montrose academy and, to his maths teacher’s regret, left school at 16 to begin his engineering career with a five-year indentured apprenticeship at Matrix in Brechin. This was the beginning of 11 years of night classes and further education, during which the studious youngster excelled. During his national service, he was based in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, continuing his engineering training and working on aircraft instruments. In 1955 Bill married Lorna Duncan, a nurse, whom he had met when they were both 17. My brother, Billy, was born in 1957 and I followed in 1959. By then our family had returned to Scotland, where Bill worked at Glaxo in Montrose, then Ferranti in Dundee. In 1967, he joined Pye Unicam in Cambridge. After Bill’s retirement from Philips in 1996, he and Lorna spent 20 years creating a beautiful home and garden near Montrose, where they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last December. What was most important to Bill was his love for his family and theirs for him. His greatest sadness was the death of his son in 2002. This talented, creative and caring man instilled in his family a respect for other countries and cultures and his lifelong desire for learning. He is survived by my mother and me, four grandchildren, Hayley, Alex, Kirsty and Gordon, and a great-granddaughter, Isla.

technology/2016/dec/13/bill-mackenzie-obituary

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-13T15:22:45Z

Bill MacKenzie obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/bill-mackenzie-obituary

['factory', 'manager', '1970s', 'pye', 'unicam', 'manufacturer', 'scientific', 'instruments', 'cambridge', 'dad', 'bill', 'mackenzie', 'introduced', 'advanced', 'equipment', 'around', 'world', 'talents', 'noticed', 'philips', 'bought', 'company', 'mid-1970s', 'bill', 'international', 'career', 'began', 'years', 'bill', 'died', 'aged', 'managed', 'modernised', 'factories', 'philips', 'turkey', 'venezuela', 'brazil', 'quebec', 'excellent', 'linguist', 'success', 'achievements', 'due', 'part', 'communicating', 'teams', 'languages', 'however', 'also', 'forward', 'thinker', 'practising', 'corporate', 'social', 'responsibility', 'long', 'became', 'commonplace', 'genuine', 'desire', 'improve', 'conditions', 'people', 'working', 'factories', 'earned', 'admiration', 'respect', 'born', 'montrose', 'angus', 'son', 'isabella', 'nee', 'anderson', 'seamstress', 'david', 'mackenzie', 'driving', 'instructor', 'bill', 'two', 'family', 'moved', 'glasgow', 'five', 'second', 'world', 'war', 'began', 'recalled', 'watching', 'blazing', 'fires', 'clydebank', 'blitz', 'bedroom', 'despite', 'trials', 'war', 'happy', 'childhood', 'family', 'returned', 'montrose', 'bill', 'never', 'settled', 'montrose', 'academy', 'maths', 'teacher', 'regret', 'left', 'school', 'begin', 'engineering', 'career', 'five-year', 'indentured', 'apprenticeship', 'matrix', 'brechin', 'beginning', 'years', 'night', 'classes', 'education', 'studious', 'youngster', 'excelled', 'national', 'service', 'based', 'hitchin', 'hertfordshire', 'continuing', 'engineering', 'training', 'working', 'aircraft', 'instruments', 'bill', 'married', 'lorna', 'duncan', 'nurse', 'met', 'brother', 'billy', 'born', 'followed', 'family', 'returned', 'scotland', 'bill', 'worked', 'glaxo', 'montrose', 'ferranti', 'dundee', 'joined', 'pye', 'unicam', 'cambridge', 'bill', 'retirement', 'philips', 'lorna', 'spent', 'years', 'creating', 'beautiful', 'home', 'garden', 'near', 'montrose', 'celebrated', '60th', 'wedding', 'anniversary', 'last', 'december', 'important', 'bill', 'love', 'family', 'greatest', 'sadness', 'death', 'son', 'talented', 'creative', 'caring', 'man', 'instilled', 'family', 'respect', 'countries', 'cultures', 'lifelong', 'desire', 'learning', 'survived', 'mother', 'four', 'grandchildren', 'hayley', 'alex', 'kirsty', 'gordon', 'great-granddaughter', 'isla']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/14/airbnb-a-solution-to-middle-class-inequality-company-says

Airbnb says it is a solution to the problem of growing middle-class inequality that Donald Trump campaigned on, as it attempts to persuade local governments around the world of what it has to offer. Chris Lehane, head of global policy, told media in Sydney on Tuesday that a struggling middle class was a concern for both the Democrats and the Republican party in the recent presidential election campaign. But, he said, opportunities presented by the sharing economy were helping to mitigate the blows dealt by the financial crisis in 2008. “President-elect Trump talked a lot about quote-unquote the ‘dwindling’ middle class and, on the left, Democrats talked a lot about economic inequality. “We certainly believe – and the data supports it – that the Airbnb platform is a platform for the middle class. For everyday families, it is generating that supplemental income.” Lehane said most Airbnb hosts were middle-class homeowners renting out rooms in their primary residence “on an amateur basis” for supplemental income. The fastest-growing cohort is senior women, who are motivated by social interaction as much as they are disposable income. He said the typical senior host earned US$8,350 from Airbnb each year. “Wherever I go and in particular when I am meeting elected officials ... I do genuinely ask, ‘are there any programs here that are generating the types of economics that this program is generating for the middle class?’ “I’m yet to see someone come up with something that is producing what this [Airbnb] does in fact produce. “I want to be clear, I don’t think we are the solution for economic inequality, we most certainly are not, but are part of the solution to it? Yes.” The US president-elect is meeting with tech executives – reportedly including Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel – on Wednesday. Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive and cofounder, had been invited to the meeting but declined due to a family commitment outside of the US, said Lehane. He understood that though Airbnb put forward other representatives to attend, “the invite was nontransferable. It was for CEOs”. Asked if Airbnb had concerns about a hotel magnate in the White House, Lehane said Airbnb felt “pretty good about [its] value proposition” to Trump, “someone who’s talked about how you help the middle class out there”. He added that most regulation of Airbnb in the US took place at a city level, not state or federal level. It was mostly the same in Europe; in Australia and Latin America, it occurred at a state level. The challenge for the service globally, Lehane said, was persuading policymakers of its benefits. Last Wednesday, Airbnb released its “policy tool chest”, presenting local governments with options for how they can benefit from home sharing. It followed legislation passed in New Orleans that directed a portion of tax revenue to the construction of affordable housing. Philadelphia and San Jose, as well as some European cities, have introduced a “two-track” regulatory structure that distinguishes between renting out primary residences and secondary ones. Earlier this month, Airbnb reached separate agreements with London and Amsterdam that it would cap the number of days a full unit could be let per year, at 90 days and 60 respectively. The cap, said Lehane, reflected the period at which it “would make more sense for the property to be put on the long-term market”. In both cases Airbnb had agreed to enforce the cap because of barriers posed to local authorities by laws relating to privacy and information-sharing. With similar agreements in the US, Lehane said Airbnb had cooperated with cities on a registration system to enable them to oversee enforcement themselves. Lehane said Airbnb wished to partner with cities, not shirk its responsibilities. “Ultimately, we’re willing to go in either direction, depending on how those cities want to handle it. “There are a bunch of tools that we can put into place, working very closely with the government, so that they’re able to meet the objectives that they want – benefiting the middle class, getting the benefits for tourism, but also making sure that they’re doing right by the housing market.” Not every market has welcomed Airbnb’s disruption. It had been pushing back on a law introduced in New York City in October that imposes penalties on people who post short-term apartment rentals. Last week Airbnb agreed to drop the lawsuit if regulators pursue hosts, not the platform. Linda Rosenthal, the Manhattan state assembly member who had led the effort against Airbnb, said the settlement was an “astounding about-face” by the company. Lehane said resistance from New York City had “stood out as a bit of an aberration”. “New York is a classic example of cities defaulting back to horse and buggy when the car has shown up.” Nine of the US’s 10 biggest cities will have agreements in place in the coming months, and 19 of the top 20 over the course of 2017, he said.

technology/2016/dec/14/airbnb-a-solution-to-middle-class-inequality-company-says

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-13T13:01:57Z

Airbnb a solution to middle-class inequality, company says

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/airbnb-a-solution-to-middle-class-inequality-company-says

['airbnb', 'says', 'solution', 'problem', 'growing', 'middle-class', 'inequality', 'donald', 'trump', 'campaigned', 'attempts', 'persuade', 'local', 'governments', 'around', 'world', 'offer', 'chris', 'lehane', 'head', 'global', 'policy', 'told', 'media', 'sydney', 'tuesday', 'struggling', 'middle', 'class', 'concern', 'democrats', 'republican', 'party', 'recent', 'presidential', 'election', 'campaign', 'said', 'opportunities', 'presented', 'sharing', 'economy', 'helping', 'mitigate', 'blows', 'dealt', 'financial', 'crisis', 'president-elect', 'trump', 'talked', 'lot', 'quote-unquote', 'dwindling', 'middle', 'class', 'left', 'democrats', 'talked', 'lot', 'economic', 'inequality', 'certainly', 'believe', 'data', 'supports', 'airbnb', 'platform', 'platform', 'middle', 'class', 'everyday', 'families', 'generating', 'supplemental', 'income', 'lehane', 'said', 'airbnb', 'hosts', 'middle-class', 'homeowners', 'renting', 'rooms', 'primary', 'residence', 'amateur', 'basis', 'supplemental', 'income', 'fastest-growing', 'cohort', 'senior', 'women', 'motivated', 'social', 'interaction', 'much', 'disposable', 'income', 'said', 'typical', 'senior', 'host', 'earned', 'us8350', 'airbnb', 'year', 'wherever', 'go', 'particular', 'meeting', 'elected', 'officials', 'genuinely', 'ask', 'programs', 'generating', 'types', 'economics', 'program', 'generating', 'middle', 'class', 'yet', 'see', 'someone', 'come', 'something', 'producing', 'airbnb', 'fact', 'produce', 'want', 'clear', 'think', 'solution', 'economic', 'inequality', 'certainly', 'part', 'solution', 'yes', 'us', 'president-elect', 'meeting', 'tech', 'executives', 'reportedly', 'including', 'elon', 'musk', 'apple', 'tim', 'cook', 'sheryl', 'sandberg', 'facebook', 'silicon', 'valley', 'investor', 'peter', 'thiel', 'wednesday', 'brian', 'chesky', 'airbnb', 'chief', 'executive', 'cofounder', 'invited', 'meeting', 'declined', 'due', 'family', 'commitment', 'outside', 'us', 'said', 'lehane', 'understood', 'though', 'airbnb', 'put', 'forward', 'representatives', 'attend', 'invite', 'nontransferable', 'ceos', 'asked', 'airbnb', 'concerns', 'hotel', 'magnate', 'white', 'house', 'lehane', 'said', 'airbnb', 'felt', 'pretty', 'good', 'value', 'proposition', 'trump', 'someone', 'talked', 'help', 'middle', 'class', 'added', 'regulation', 'airbnb', 'us', 'took', 'place', 'city', 'level', 'state', 'federal', 'level', 'mostly', 'europe', 'australia', 'latin', 'america', 'occurred', 'state', 'level', 'challenge', 'service', 'globally', 'lehane', 'said', 'persuading', 'policymakers', 'benefits', 'last', 'wednesday', 'airbnb', 'released', 'policy', 'tool', 'chest', 'presenting', 'local', 'governments', 'options', 'benefit', 'home', 'sharing', 'followed', 'legislation', 'passed', 'new', 'orleans', 'directed', 'portion', 'tax', 'revenue', 'construction', 'affordable', 'housing', 'philadelphia', 'san', 'jose', 'well', 'european', 'cities', 'introduced', 'two-track', 'regulatory', 'structure', 'distinguishes', 'renting', 'primary', 'residences', 'secondary', 'ones', 'earlier', 'month', 'airbnb', 'reached', 'separate', 'agreements', 'london', 'amsterdam', 'would', 'cap', 'number', 'days', 'full', 'unit', 'could', 'let', 'per', 'year', 'days', 'respectively', 'cap', 'said', 'lehane', 'reflected', 'period', 'would', 'make', 'sense', 'property', 'put', 'long-term', 'market', 'cases', 'airbnb', 'agreed', 'enforce', 'cap', 'barriers', 'posed', 'local', 'authorities', 'laws', 'relating', 'privacy', 'information-sharing', 'similar', 'agreements', 'us', 'lehane', 'said', 'airbnb', 'cooperated', 'cities', 'registration', 'system', 'enable', 'oversee', 'enforcement', 'lehane', 'said', 'airbnb', 'wished', 'partner', 'cities', 'shirk', 'responsibilities', 'ultimately', 'willing', 'go', 'either', 'direction', 'depending', 'cities', 'want', 'handle', 'bunch', 'tools', 'put', 'place', 'working', 'closely', 'government', 'able', 'meet', 'objectives', 'want', 'benefiting', 'middle', 'class', 'getting', 'benefits', 'tourism', 'also', 'making', 'sure', 'right', 'housing', 'market', 'every', 'market', 'welcomed', 'airbnb', 'disruption', 'pushing', 'back', 'law', 'introduced', 'new', 'york', 'city', 'october', 'imposes', 'penalties', 'people', 'post', 'short-term', 'apartment', 'rentals', 'last', 'week', 'airbnb', 'agreed', 'drop', 'lawsuit', 'regulators', 'pursue', 'hosts', 'platform', 'linda', 'rosenthal', 'manhattan', 'state', 'assembly', 'member', 'led', 'effort', 'airbnb', 'said', 'settlement', 'astounding', 'about-face', 'company', 'lehane', 'said', 'resistance', 'new', 'york', 'city', 'stood', 'bit', 'aberration', 'new', 'york', 'classic', 'example', 'cities', 'defaulting', 'back', 'horse', 'buggy', 'car', 'shown', 'nine', 'us', 'biggest', 'cities', 'agreements', 'place', 'coming', 'months', 'top', 'course', 'said']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-employees-spying-ex-partners-politicians-beyonce

Uber employees regularly abused the company’s “God view” to spy on the movements of “high-profile politicians, celebrities and even personal acquaintances of Uber employees, including ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, and ex-spouses”, according to testimony from the company’s former forensic investigator Samuel Ward Spangenberg. Even Beyoncé’s account was monitored, the investigator said. Spangenberg, who is suing the minicab company alleging age discrimination and whistleblower retaliation, made the claims in a court declaration in October. He says he told Uber executives including the company’s head of information security, John Flynn, and its HR chief Andrew Wegley, of his concerns around the lack of security, and was fired 11 months later. As well as a lack of oversight regarding customer data, Spangenberg alleges numerous other ethical breaches at Uber. The company stored driver and employee information in an insecure manner, he says, while it operated a vulnerability management policy which allowed data to be stored that way if the company deemed there to be a “legitimate business purpose” for doing so. In his testimony, given under penalty of perjury, Spangenberg also objected to Uber’s protocols to deal with raids on its offices – a relatively common occurrence at the company, which has been frequently criticised for riding roughshod over local regulations. “As part of Uber’s incident response team, I would be called when governmental agencies raided Uber’s offices due to concerns regarding noncompliance with governmental regulations,” Spangenberg said. “In those instances, Uber would lock down the office and immediately cut all connectivity so that law enforcement could not access Uber’s information. I would then be tasked with purchasing all new equipment for the office within the day, which I did when Uber’s Montreal office was raided.” Spangenberg’s allegations were reported by the Centre for Investigative Reporting’s (CIR) Reveal project, but it isn’t the first time Uber has been accused of mistreating customer data. In 2014, Buzzfeed revealed the existence of the “God View” tool, after Uber’s New York general manager discussed using it to track a reporter’s journey. The tool’s existence appears to date back to 2011, when venture capitalist Peter Sims says he was tracked by a visitor to Uber’s Chicago offices, where the God View data was shown on a large public screen. In a statement given to a number of media outlets, Uber said it “continues to increase our security investments and many of these efforts, like our multi-factor authentication checks and bug bounty program, have been widely reported. We have hundreds of security and privacy experts working around the clock to protect our data. This includes enforcing to authorised employees solely for purposes of their job responsibilities, and all potential violations are quickly and thoroughly investigated.” Spangenberg told CIR that Uber had increased security provisions during his time there, as well as renaming the tool “Heaven View”. Uber confirmed that some employees – “fewer than 10” – had been fired for abusing the tool, and said that it needs to provide relatively widespread access for a number of reasons, including refunding customers and investigating accidents. To prevent spying on celebrities, Uber implemented a flag for searches for customers considered “MVP”, but Spangenberg pointed out that that did nothing to protect non-MVPs. The news comes just two weeks after Uber updated its app to increase the amount of location information collected about users. The company said the new collection practices, which continue to send the user’s location for five minutes after they are dropped off, would be used to improve drop-offs and pick-ups, but it faced a backlash from users worried about the increased permissions.

technology/2016/dec/13/uber-employees-spying-ex-partners-politicians-beyonce

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-13T12:17:32Z

Uber employees 'spied on ex-partners, politicians and Beyoncé'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-employees-spying-ex-partners-politicians-beyonce

['uber', 'employees', 'regularly', 'abused', 'company', 'god', 'view', 'spy', 'movements', 'high-profile', 'politicians', 'celebrities', 'even', 'personal', 'acquaintances', 'uber', 'employees', 'including', 'ex-boyfriendsgirlfriends', 'ex-spouses', 'according', 'testimony', 'company', 'former', 'forensic', 'investigator', 'samuel', 'ward', 'spangenberg', 'even', 'beyonce', 'account', 'monitored', 'investigator', 'said', 'spangenberg', 'suing', 'minicab', 'company', 'alleging', 'age', 'discrimination', 'whistleblower', 'retaliation', 'made', 'claims', 'court', 'declaration', 'october', 'says', 'told', 'uber', 'executives', 'including', 'company', 'head', 'information', 'security', 'john', 'flynn', 'hr', 'chief', 'andrew', 'wegley', 'concerns', 'around', 'lack', 'security', 'fired', 'months', 'later', 'well', 'lack', 'oversight', 'regarding', 'customer', 'data', 'spangenberg', 'alleges', 'numerous', 'ethical', 'breaches', 'uber', 'company', 'stored', 'driver', 'employee', 'information', 'insecure', 'manner', 'says', 'operated', 'vulnerability', 'management', 'policy', 'allowed', 'data', 'stored', 'way', 'company', 'deemed', 'legitimate', 'business', 'purpose', 'testimony', 'given', 'penalty', 'perjury', 'spangenberg', 'also', 'objected', 'uber', 'protocols', 'deal', 'raids', 'offices', 'relatively', 'common', 'occurrence', 'company', 'frequently', 'criticised', 'riding', 'roughshod', 'local', 'regulations', 'part', 'uber', 'incident', 'response', 'team', 'would', 'called', 'governmental', 'agencies', 'raided', 'uber', 'offices', 'due', 'concerns', 'regarding', 'noncompliance', 'governmental', 'regulations', 'spangenberg', 'said', 'instances', 'uber', 'would', 'lock', 'office', 'immediately', 'cut', 'connectivity', 'law', 'enforcement', 'could', 'access', 'uber', 'information', 'would', 'tasked', 'purchasing', 'new', 'equipment', 'office', 'within', 'day', 'uber', 'montreal', 'office', 'raided', 'spangenberg', 'allegations', 'reported', 'centre', 'investigative', 'reporting', 'cir', 'reveal', 'project', 'first', 'time', 'uber', 'accused', 'mistreating', 'customer', 'data', 'buzzfeed', 'revealed', 'existence', 'god', 'view', 'tool', 'uber', 'new', 'york', 'general', 'manager', 'discussed', 'using', 'track', 'reporter', 'journey', 'tool', 'existence', 'appears', 'date', 'back', 'venture', 'capitalist', 'peter', 'sims', 'says', 'tracked', 'visitor', 'uber', 'chicago', 'offices', 'god', 'view', 'data', 'shown', 'large', 'public', 'screen', 'statement', 'given', 'number', 'media', 'outlets', 'uber', 'said', 'continues', 'increase', 'security', 'investments', 'many', 'efforts', 'like', 'multi-factor', 'authentication', 'checks', 'bug', 'bounty', 'program', 'widely', 'reported', 'hundreds', 'security', 'privacy', 'experts', 'working', 'around', 'clock', 'protect', 'data', 'includes', 'enforcing', 'authorised', 'employees', 'solely', 'purposes', 'job', 'responsibilities', 'potential', 'violations', 'quickly', 'thoroughly', 'investigated', 'spangenberg', 'told', 'cir', 'uber', 'increased', 'security', 'provisions', 'time', 'well', 'renaming', 'tool', 'heaven', 'view', 'uber', 'confirmed', 'employees', 'fewer', 'fired', 'abusing', 'tool', 'said', 'needs', 'provide', 'relatively', 'widespread', 'access', 'number', 'reasons', 'including', 'refunding', 'customers', 'investigating', 'accidents', 'prevent', 'spying', 'celebrities', 'uber', 'implemented', 'flag', 'searches', 'customers', 'considered', 'mvp', 'spangenberg', 'pointed', 'nothing', 'protect', 'non-mvps', 'news', 'comes', 'two', 'weeks', 'uber', 'updated', 'app', 'increase', 'amount', 'location', 'information', 'collected', 'users', 'company', 'said', 'new', 'collection', 'practices', 'continue', 'send', 'user', 'location', 'five', 'minutes', 'dropped', 'would', 'used', 'improve', 'drop-offs', 'pick-ups', 'faced', 'backlash', 'users', 'worried', 'increased', 'permissions']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/13/chatterbox-tuesday

It’s Tuesday.

technology/2016/dec/13/chatterbox-tuesday

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-13T07:00:49Z

Chatterbox: Tuesday

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/chatterbox-tuesday

['tuesday']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/13/coalition-to-introduce-broadband-surcharge-to-help-pay-for-rural-nbn

The Turnbull government is planning to charge competitors to the National Broadband Network a levy to help pay for rural broadband services. The levy would ensure NBN rivals are unable to cherrypick the most profitable parts of the market, usually in the inner city, and leave NBN Co to wholly subsidise the cost of providing services to rural and remote areas, which is expected to cost about $10bn over the next 30 years. The Coalition is calling for public feedback on the scheme, which the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, said would strengthen the provision of broadband and make the system sustainable. In a joint statement from Fifield and the deputy Nationals leader, Fiona Nash, the government said it expected the regional broadband scheme (RBS) to raise $40m in the first year of operation, but only 10% of that would be provided by NBN’s competitors. In the first financial year of 2017-18 – if it passes the parliament – owners of superfast broadband networks would be charged $7.09 per line a month. “Regional and rural users of NBN’s fixed wireless and satellite services will benefit from the RBS, which will require all eligible fixed-line superfast broadband networks to make a proportionate contribution to the long-term cost of these services,” the government’s statement said. The government estimates non-NBN fixed-line networks provide 10% of fixed-line services. “NBN, as the largest network, will continue to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of funding for regional and rural services and will make around 90% of RBS contributions,” the Coalition statement said. Fifield said the draft legislation would also formalise a commitment to ensure all Australian premises could access a fast broadband connection. The draft legislation would set up a special account which could only be used to pay for fixed wireless, satellite services, administration costs and refunds to carriers. Labor’s communications spokeswoman, Michelle Rowland, said Labor would examine the plan but said the minister received funding options for regional services in March. She questioned why the draft legislation had not been released until Monday. “This process, as with everything this minister touches, has been a complete bungle,” Rowland said. In April next year the Productivity Commission is due to release its final report into the telecommunications universal service obligation, which was originally designed to ensure all Australians had access to a fixed phone line. The draft report released last week proposed the obligation “be replaced with a universal service policy objective to provide a baseline or minimum broadband (including voice) service to all premises in Australia, having regard to its accessibility and affordability, once NBN infrastructure is fully rolled out”. Reg Coutts, emeritus professor of telecommunications at Adelaide University, said the unexpected release of the RBS policy separate to the consideration of the universal service obligation was “bizarre”. Coutts was a member of the NBN expert panel which evaluated the first round of bids for Australia’s broadband network. “Releasing this prior to finalisation of the Productivity Commission report on USO is bizarre – it is totally disconnected to other policy, a case of the right hand not knowing what the left one is doing,” Coutts said. “Why is the government coming out with this method of subsidising and not linking in with the consideration of USO?” He said the change in technology creating the integration of fixed lines, mobiles and broadband was obvious to both consumers and industry. “So the government is running behind what industry knows and what the consumer knows.” A spokeswoman for the communications minister said in its draft USO report last week, the Productivity Commission supported the enactment of a statutory infrastructure provider (SIP) regime for the provision of high speed data like the one proposed. She said the introduction of a SIP regime would guarantee that all people in Australia, no matter where they live, would have access to high-speed broadband. Under the government’s plans, the NBN will be the default SIP for all of Australia. “The SIP regime will provide certainty for the rollout of high-speed broadband infrastructure and the provision of wholesale services and envisages retail services being widely available as a result of competition at the retail layer,” the spokeswoman said. “How the USO may interact with that underlying regime will depend on the Productivity Commission’s final report and the government’s response to it.” Consultation on the draft legislation is open until 3 February.

technology/2016/dec/13/coalition-to-introduce-broadband-surcharge-to-help-pay-for-rural-nbn

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-12T23:59:21Z

Coalition to introduce broadband surcharge to help pay for rural NBN

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/coalition-to-introduce-broadband-surcharge-to-help-pay-for-rural-nbn

['turnbull', 'government', 'planning', 'charge', 'competitors', 'national', 'broadband', 'network', 'levy', 'help', 'pay', 'rural', 'broadband', 'services', 'levy', 'would', 'ensure', 'nbn', 'rivals', 'unable', 'cherrypick', 'profitable', 'parts', 'market', 'usually', 'inner', 'city', 'leave', 'nbn', 'co', 'wholly', 'subsidise', 'cost', 'providing', 'services', 'rural', 'remote', 'areas', 'expected', 'cost', '10bn', 'next', 'years', 'coalition', 'calling', 'public', 'feedback', 'scheme', 'communications', 'minister', 'mitch', 'fifield', 'said', 'would', 'strengthen', 'provision', 'broadband', 'make', 'system', 'sustainable', 'joint', 'statement', 'fifield', 'deputy', 'nationals', 'leader', 'fiona', 'nash', 'government', 'said', 'expected', 'regional', 'broadband', 'scheme', 'rbs', 'raise', '40m', 'first', 'year', 'operation', 'would', 'provided', 'nbn', 'competitors', 'first', 'financial', 'year', '2017-18', 'passes', 'parliament', 'owners', 'superfast', 'broadband', 'networks', 'would', 'charged', 'per', 'line', 'month', 'regional', 'rural', 'users', 'nbn', 'fixed', 'wireless', 'satellite', 'services', 'benefit', 'rbs', 'require', 'eligible', 'fixed-line', 'superfast', 'broadband', 'networks', 'make', 'proportionate', 'contribution', 'long-term', 'cost', 'services', 'government', 'statement', 'said', 'government', 'estimates', 'non-nbn', 'fixed-line', 'networks', 'provide', 'fixed-line', 'services', 'nbn', 'largest', 'network', 'continue', 'responsible', 'overwhelming', 'majority', 'funding', 'regional', 'rural', 'services', 'make', 'around', 'rbs', 'contributions', 'coalition', 'statement', 'said', 'fifield', 'said', 'draft', 'legislation', 'would', 'also', 'formalise', 'commitment', 'ensure', 'australian', 'premises', 'could', 'access', 'fast', 'broadband', 'connection', 'draft', 'legislation', 'would', 'set', 'special', 'account', 'could', 'used', 'pay', 'fixed', 'wireless', 'satellite', 'services', 'administration', 'costs', 'refunds', 'carriers', 'labor', 'communications', 'spokeswoman', 'michelle', 'rowland', 'said', 'labor', 'would', 'examine', 'plan', 'said', 'minister', 'received', 'funding', 'options', 'regional', 'services', 'march', 'questioned', 'draft', 'legislation', 'released', 'monday', 'process', 'everything', 'minister', 'touches', 'complete', 'bungle', 'rowland', 'said', 'april', 'next', 'year', 'productivity', 'commission', 'due', 'release', 'final', 'report', 'telecommunications', 'universal', 'service', 'obligation', 'originally', 'designed', 'ensure', 'australians', 'access', 'fixed', 'phone', 'line', 'draft', 'report', 'released', 'last', 'week', 'proposed', 'obligation', 'replaced', 'universal', 'service', 'policy', 'objective', 'provide', 'baseline', 'minimum', 'broadband', 'including', 'voice', 'service', 'premises', 'australia', 'regard', 'accessibility', 'affordability', 'nbn', 'infrastructure', 'fully', 'rolled', 'reg', 'coutts', 'emeritus', 'professor', 'telecommunications', 'adelaide', 'university', 'said', 'unexpected', 'release', 'rbs', 'policy', 'separate', 'consideration', 'universal', 'service', 'obligation', 'bizarre', 'coutts', 'member', 'nbn', 'expert', 'panel', 'evaluated', 'first', 'round', 'bids', 'australia', 'broadband', 'network', 'releasing', 'prior', 'finalisation', 'productivity', 'commission', 'report', 'uso', 'bizarre', 'totally', 'disconnected', 'policy', 'case', 'right', 'hand', 'knowing', 'left', 'one', 'coutts', 'said', 'government', 'coming', 'method', 'subsidising', 'linking', 'consideration', 'uso', 'said', 'change', 'technology', 'creating', 'integration', 'fixed', 'lines', 'mobiles', 'broadband', 'obvious', 'consumers', 'industry', 'government', 'running', 'behind', 'industry', 'knows', 'consumer', 'knows', 'spokeswoman', 'communications', 'minister', 'said', 'draft', 'uso', 'report', 'last', 'week', 'productivity', 'commission', 'supported', 'enactment', 'statutory', 'infrastructure', 'provider', 'sip', 'regime', 'provision', 'high', 'speed', 'data', 'like', 'one', 'proposed', 'said', 'introduction', 'sip', 'regime', 'would', 'guarantee', 'people', 'australia', 'matter', 'live', 'would', 'access', 'high-speed', 'broadband', 'government', 'plans', 'nbn', 'default', 'sip', 'australia', 'sip', 'regime', 'provide', 'certainty', 'rollout', 'high-speed', 'broadband', 'infrastructure', 'provision', 'wholesale', 'services', 'envisages', 'retail', 'services', 'widely', 'available', 'result', 'competition', 'retail', 'layer', 'spokeswoman', 'said', 'uso', 'may', 'interact', 'underlying', 'regime', 'depend', 'productivity', 'commission', 'final', 'report', 'government', 'response', 'consultation', 'draft', 'legislation', 'open', 'february']

https://content.guardianapis.com/technology/2016/dec/12/facebook-advertises-for-head-of-news-us-election-concerns-fake-news

Facebook is looking for an experienced media executive to help smooth its relationship with the press amid mounting concerns about fake news and the social network’s influence over the public. On Monday the company began advertising for a head of news partnerships with “20+ years of experience in news, with strong track-record and understanding across the business”. The requirement means those applying must have started their news career before Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had celebrated his 13th birthday. The applicant will also be expected to be the “public-facing voice of Facebook and its role in the news ecosystem” and “a strong voice within Facebook on the goals and priorities of news publishers”. The company already has a director of global media partnerships, Andy Mitchell, who has a background on the business side of news organisations, mainly with CNN. It has also employed former journalists in less senior roles. But the latest job ad suggests the company is looking for someone to address concerns raised by media organisations, politicians and others about the social network’s wider impact. Fake news stories concerning the US election, in particular favouring Donald Trump, have been blamed by some for influencing voters and has pushed Facebook’s role into the spotlight. The company has also come under scrutiny for removing the famous photograph of a girl fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam war, manually editing its trending results, and attracting the lion’s share of mobile advertising revenues which many media organisations are competing for. The wording of the head of news job posting stops far short of suggesting Facebook is looking for someone to explicitly operate as an editor, something many in the industry have suggested is necessary but that the company has vigorously resisted. Zuckerberg has repeatedly denied that fake news on Facebook could have influenced the results of the US election, and while he has said the company would take steps to tackle the problem, he has warned that it should not be “arbiters of truth ourselves”. His staff have reportedly taken a more robust approach, allegedly forming a taskforce to tackle the problem. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

technology/2016/dec/12/facebook-advertises-for-head-of-news-us-election-concerns-fake-news

pillar/news

News

technology

Technology

article

2016-12-12T17:44:07Z

Facebook advertises for a head of news after US election concerns

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/12/facebook-advertises-for-head-of-news-us-election-concerns-fake-news

['facebook', 'looking', 'experienced', 'media', 'executive', 'help', 'smooth', 'relationship', 'press', 'amid', 'mounting', 'concerns', 'fake', 'news', 'social', 'network', 'influence', 'public', 'monday', 'company', 'began', 'advertising', 'head', 'news', 'partnerships', 'years', 'experience', 'news', 'strong', 'track-record', 'understanding', 'across', 'business', 'requirement', 'means', 'applying', 'must', 'started', 'news', 'career', 'facebook', 'founder', 'mark', 'zuckerberg', 'celebrated', '13th', 'birthday', 'applicant', 'also', 'expected', 'public-facing', 'voice', 'facebook', 'role', 'news', 'ecosystem', 'strong', 'voice', 'within', 'facebook', 'goals', 'priorities', 'news', 'publishers', 'company', 'already', 'director', 'global', 'media', 'partnerships', 'andy', 'mitchell', 'background', 'business', 'side', 'news', 'organisations', 'mainly', 'cnn', 'also', 'employed', 'former', 'journalists', 'less', 'senior', 'roles', 'latest', 'job', 'ad', 'suggests', 'company', 'looking', 'someone', 'address', 'concerns', 'raised', 'media', 'organisations', 'politicians', 'others', 'social', 'network', 'wider', 'impact', 'fake', 'news', 'stories', 'concerning', 'us', 'election', 'particular', 'favouring', 'donald', 'trump', 'blamed', 'influencing', 'voters', 'pushed', 'facebook', 'role', 'spotlight', 'company', 'also', 'come', 'scrutiny', 'removing', 'famous', 'photograph', 'girl', 'fleeing', 'napalm', 'attack', 'vietnam', 'war', 'manually', 'editing', 'trending', 'results', 'attracting', 'lion', 'share', 'mobile', 'advertising', 'revenues', 'many', 'media', 'organisations', 'competing', 'wording', 'head', 'news', 'job', 'posting', 'stops', 'far', 'short', 'suggesting', 'facebook', 'looking', 'someone', 'explicitly', 'operate', 'editor', 'something', 'many', 'industry', 'suggested', 'necessary', 'company', 'vigorously', 'resisted', 'zuckerberg', 'repeatedly', 'denied', 'fake', 'news', 'facebook', 'could', 'influenced', 'results', 'us', 'election', 'said', 'company', 'would', 'take', 'steps', 'tackle', 'problem', 'warned', 'arbiters', 'truth', 'staff', 'reportedly', 'taken', 'robust', 'approach', 'allegedly', 'forming', 'taskforce', 'tackle', 'problem', 'facebook', 'immediately', 'respond', 'request', 'comment']