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Showing posts from April, 2018

Watch a Parachuting Skier Take Flight Moments Before an Avalanche Buries Him Alive

The terrifying aerial footage of the avalanche also reveals the tracks of countless other ski runs, so skier Maxence Cavalde probably assumed the mountain wasn’t primed for disaster that day. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/watch-a-parachuting-skier-take-flight-moments-before-an-avalanche-buries-him-alive/

Australia Pledges £274 Million to Help Save the Great Barrier Reef, But It Won't Be Enough

Although this is the largest single investment ever committed towards the reef’s future, environmental activists say it's still too little to preserve it in the face of climate change and ocean acidification. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/australia-pledges-274-million-to-help-save-the-great-barrier-reef-but-it-wont-be-enough/

Facebook ‘Looking Into’ Palantir’s Access to User Data Harvested by Cambridge Analytica

While it’s unclear if it gained access to the user data that Cambridge Analytica harvested, Palantir’s connection to Facebook extends beyond any potential collaboration with the company. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/facebook-looking-into-palantirs-access-to-user-data-harvested-by-cambridge-analytica/

Don't Worry Amazon Prime Isn't Getting a Price Hike in the UK

Last night Amazon announced that the cost of subscribing to Prime in the US was going to go up, increasing from $99 a year to $119. The good news is that this change currently only affects the US, which Amazon has confirmed via email. That means the cost of subscribing to Prime in the UK will be staying exactly the same, or at least it will be for the time being. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/dont-worry-amazon-prime-isnt-getting-a-price-hike-in-the-uk/

Amazon Sued by Former Human Resources Administrator for Alleged 'Unlawful Employment Practices'

HR staffer Jorge Mejia claims that for raising the issue, he was retaliated against, had his punch-in times questioned, and was eventually fired without a single write-up. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/amazon-sued-by-former-human-resources-administrator-for-alleged-unlawful-employment-practices/

Star Wars Resistance Is the Next Lucasfilm Animated Series and the Details Are Absolutely Incredible

The new chapter in Lucasfilm’s world is leaving behind the age of the Rebellion to tell a new saga set in the run-up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/star-wars-resistance-is-the-next-lucasfilm-animated-series-and-the-details-are-absolutely-incredible/

The Big Questions – Two – What Are We?

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity . You can purchase the book here . The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.” In  The Fourth Age , Byron Reese argues that most of the big questions around technology like AI and automation are not about what technological breakthroughs will happen, but center around foundational questions about life, humanity, and reality. He distills them down to three key questions. Below is the second one: What Are We? And check out the f

Five questions for… the AURA fitness band

Based in the UK and Moscow, AURA Devices is launching a fitness band that goes to places others currently don’t based on what it calls ‘bio-impedance’ technology. The company’s Kickstarter is being pretty successful, with the company nearly doubling its original goal of $40,000. I spoke to co-founder Stas Gorbunov about the wrist-based health monitoring device. 1. Where did the ideas behind AURA come from? The technology behind AURA was based on a university scientific project around bio-impedance, following which the founders decided to bring it to the wider market. When we started out, we wanted to use bio-impedance more conveniently than currently. So we thought about fitness trackers — we went to the corporate guys, the big IT companies, insurance companies who were working on smart health, if you are fit can reduce premiums and so on. We also worked with athletes/fitness enthusiasts – who can track how body compositions changed, and people wanting to lose weight, who need to t

GDPR – are we witnessing the death of one-way monetisation?

I may have spoken too soon about GDPR. Despite the conflicting legal advice and the general level of vagueness around the new legislation, a head of steam has been building up behind the notion of privacy. In significant part, it has been helped by the scandal around Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and so on — despite various authorities railing for years about social media playing fast and loose with our data (hence GDPR, of course), it has taken our august media to raise the level of public awareness alongside a frisson of panic among data controllers. To be fair, this was difficult to predict but it has had quite an effect: the need for headline-grabbing material really is a two-edged sword. The consequence is that many organisations are treating the looming threat of GDPR non-compliance like a hot stone, to be dropped at the earliest opportunity. I’m sure I won’t be the only person to have received a raft of emails from various commercial and non-commercial sources, saying that if

The Big Questions – One – What is the Composition of the Universe?

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity . You can purchase the book here . The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.” In  The Fourth Age , Byron Reese argues that most of the big questions around technology like AI and automation are not about what technological breakthroughs will happen, but center around foundational questions about life, humanity, and reality. He distills them down to three key questions. Below is the first one: What Is the Composition of the Un

5 questions for… Densify: a sign of the times

Densify is an analytical service company whose mission is to help organisations move their server workloads to the public cloud and to optimise workloads once they are there. While the name is new, the company has been around (previously known as Cirba) since 1999 — that is, back to times when cloud was a twinkle in the eye of ASPs. Densify operates a subscription model, charged on a per-managed-virtual-instance basis.  In terms of the offering, Densify has data gathering and analytics tool known as Cloe — “the Cloud-Learning Optimization Engine”. Cloe outputs information about specific workloads, their current performance, and how they might be better sized, scaled and priced in a cloud environment. In other words, Cloe automatically balances application demand with cloud supply. Cloe’s outputs are interpreted by Densify experts — called  “densification advisors” — who work with customers to set priorities and propose alternative targets for the workloads concerned. Given that I’ve

The Fourth Age – Preface

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity . You can purchase the book here . The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.” What follows is the preface from  The Fourth Age . PREFACE (Please read. Not the usual blah-blah stuff.) Robots. Jobs. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Conscious computers. Superintelligence. Abundance. A jobless future. “Useless” humans. The end of scarcity. Creative computers. Robot overlords. Unlimited wealth. The end of work. A permanent

Sky Mobile Now has Wi-Fi Calling, But Only on One Phone

Sky Mobile has just announced that it's launched Wi-Fi calling, so people can call and text even if the local phone signal is rubbish. It's free, but the downside is the feature is only available to people with one specific handset: the Xperia XZ1. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/sky-mobile-now-has-wi-fi-calling-but-only-on-one-phone/

Government Official Says It's Too Expensive to Delete All the Mugshots of Innocent People in Police Databases

At least 19 million facial images are contained in the Police National Database (PND). Hundreds of thousands of these photos are believed to be of people who were never charged with or convicted of a crime. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/government-official-says-its-too-expensive-to-delete-all-the-mugshots-of-innocent-people-in-police-databases/

Lords Warn Brexit Will Screw UK Space Ambitions, Making it Harder to Leave This Godawful Place

The government (and the one before it) have been planning for Britain's spacefaring future for some time now, what with the plans to build a spaceport and the recent passing of the Space Industry Bill from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/lords-warn-brexit-will-screw-uk-space-ambitions-making-it-harder-to-leave-this-godawful-place/

Twitter Bans Kaspersky Labs Ads Over Alleged Ties to Russian Intelligence

The Moscow-based security and antivirus provider has been banned from advertising on Twitter based on concerns that it operates using a business model that " inherently conflicts with acceptable Twitter Ads business practices,". from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/twitter-bans-kaspersky-labs-ads-over-alleged-ties-to-russian-intelligence/