Google’s ‘secret web tracking pages’ explained

Posted by & filed under Ethical Issues, ethics, Google.

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Google has been accused of using hidden webpages that are assigned to users to provide more information to advertisers about their every move online.

The allegation has been added to a complaint lodged with the Irish Data Protection Commission.

The tech firm insists it acts in accordance with EU privacy laws.

It comes a day after Google was fined $170m (£138m) by a US watchdog for illegally capturing data from children and targeting them with adverts.

Source: BBC Technology News

Date: September 5th, 2019

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49593830

Discussion

  1. A police officer “said he discovered hidden webpages that had a unique address. It acted as an identifier, which was unique to him. This so-called pseudonymous marker, when combined with cookies, can help track user activity across the web, he claims.” Should Google be allowed to anonymously track everything you do?
  2. How could you stop Google tracking you?

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Alarmed By Deepfake Videos, Facebook Creates Contest to Detect Them

Posted by & filed under Deepfake videos, FaceBook.

Facebook logo

Alarmed by the rise of realistic fake videos created with artificial intelligence, Facebook is funding a competition to find ways to automatically detect these counterfeits.

The competition, called the Deepfake Detection Challenge, will be overseen by the Partnership on AI, a non-profit group whose members include many leading technology companies, non-governmental organizations, and research bodies. Microsoft will also be working on the project along with researchers from several well-known universities, according to a blog Facebook posted Thursday.



Source: Fortune Magazine

Date: September 5th, 2019

Link: https://fortune.com/2019/09/05/deepfake-videos-facebook-contest/

Discussion

  1. How might you go about detecting deepfake video?
  2. Why are deepfake videos thought to be more problematic than fake news?



Walmart Canada rolls out nationwide grocery delivery through Instacart

Posted by & filed under App Economy.

Instacart Walmart Canada Produce

Walmart’s  relationship with Instacart  deepened today with an expansion of their partnership across Canada for grocery delivery. Walmart Canada had previously run a 17-store pilot program with Instacart, starting last September, in both the Greater Toronto area and Winnipeg. With the expansion, Walmart Canada will offer same-day grocery delivery from nearly 200 Walmart stores nationwide.

Canadian Walmart shoppers can now shop online via Instacart’s website or mobile app, select their city and store, then add items to a grocery cart, check out and choose their delivery window. The delivery can arrive in as fast as one hour, or it can be scheduled as much as five days in advance.

Source: TechCrunch

Date: August 30th, 2019

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/15/walmart-canada-rolls-out-nationwide-grocery-delivery-through-instacart/

Discussion

  1. Why is WalMart partnering with Instacart here, rather than rolling out this service through it’s own app?
  2. WalMart is one of the world’s largest companies. Why do they roll out services like this with a “pilot program” first?

‘Dangerous’ AI offers to write fake news

Posted by & filed under Artificial intelligence, Ethical Issues, ethics, IS ethics.



A robot hand writing on a keyboard

An artificial intelligence system that generates realistic stories, poems and articles has been updated, with some claiming it is now almost as good as a human writer.

The text generator, built by research firm OpenAI, was originally considered “too dangerous” to make public because of the potential for abuse.

But now a new, more powerful version of the system – that could be used to create fake news or abusive spam on social media – has been released.

Source: BBC Technology News

Date: August 27th, 2019

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49446729

Discussion

  1. How could you usefully this technology to create a business?
  2. Should this sort of technology be banned?
  3. Is it actually possible to ban any sort of technology that can be distributed over the internet?



The Zambian agri-tech app making farming cool

Posted by & filed under App Economy.



Agripredict, led by young founder and CEO Mwila Kangwa, helps identify and stop the crop diseases that have ravaged Zambia’s farms in past seasons. Using Agripredict’s phone application, the 22,000 Zambian farmers in the company’s pilot program can get detailed information on plant diseases and weather patterns that would before have come only from skilled agronomists. This has helped farmers cut costs and run their farms more efficiently, and also enabled older, non-tech-focused farmers access to reliable data – even if they cannot afford smartphone plans.

Source: BBC Workfile

Date: August 27th, 2019

Link (includes video): https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190822-the-zambian-agri-tech-app-making-farming-cool

Discussion

  1. What is being written about here could be done in your country or state. How would you roll this out to users?
  2. How does this idea work “even if they cannot afford smartphone plans”?



Peer-to-peer parking marketplace Rover tests monthly subscriptions

Posted by & filed under App Economy.

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In today’s installment of “the future is 100% subscription-based,” Toronto-based startup Rover is testing out subscriptions for its parking marketplace. Rover lets users list their unused parking spots for on-demand rental by others on the service, giving them a passive way to earn some income while hopefully increasing the utilization rate of parking spaces at the same time.

Source: Tech Crunch

Date: August 21st, 2019

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/peer-to-peer-parking-marketplace-rover-tests-monthly-subscriptions/

Discussion

  1. ” the future is 100% subscription-based” I currently have a subscription with HP where I pay for a certain number of pages that I can print each month (100) for a subscription ($4.99) paid each month. It matters not whether I print a page with just a single word on it, or a full page full colour photo. HP sends me new ink cartridges when the printer says it needs them. So instead of paying for ink, which I don’t really need, I am paying for pages printed, which I do need.
    What subscription services do you currently have?
  2. What other things (unused parking spaces, in this article) could be sold on a subscription basis via an app?

YouTube shuts down 210 channels posting about Hong Kong

Posted by & filed under FaceBook, Google, IT and Politics, politics, Twitter.



Google announced Thursday that it had disabled 210 YouTube channels that were uploading videos “in a coordinated manner” about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.The announcement came three days after Twitter and Facebook announced they had shut down a network of hundreds of accounts that were posting content aimed at undermining pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Some of the accounts posed as news organizations and independent entities but in fact had links to the Chinese government, both companies said.

Source: CNN Technology News

Date: August 21st, 2019

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/tech/youtube-china-hong-kong/index.html

Discussion

  1. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (Google) shut down accounts “aimed at undermining pro-democracy protesters…” Should companies be allowed to make decisions about the content that is shared across their platforms?
  2. How might Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (Google) have determined, in a reliable, repeatable process, that an account is “undermining pro-democracy”?



Internet beamed from space could create new jobs

Posted by & filed under App Economy, Space-based internet.



Four billion people lack internet access. Satellite internet could change that. But will the jobs created be good ones?

More than half the world is still unconnected to the internet. While coverage is rising in the regions mentioned above, installing cables and mobile phone masts to hook up the remaining 4 billion people would be a very slow process. The distances involved are huge. But now a handful of companies are planning something different – the internet, from space.

Source: BBC Worklife

Date: August 21st, 2019

Link: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190816-how-satellites-could-revolutionise-the-internet

Discussion

  1. The article talks about spaced-based internet allowing for “Uber for anything” What do they mean by this phrase?
  2. What sorts of apps might be useful in a rural environment that could be served by spaced-based internet?



The Slack origin story How a whimsical online game became an enterprise software giant

Posted by & filed under Software, System development.

Image result for tiny speck game

 

Let’s rewind a decade. It’s 2009. Vancouver, Canada.

Stewart Butterfield,  known already for his part in building Flickr,  a photo-sharing service acquired by Yahoo in 2005, decided to try his hand — again — at building a game. Flickr had been a failed attempt at a game called Game Neverending followed by a big pivot. This time, Butterfield would make it work.

To make his dreams a reality, he joined forces with Flickr’s original chief software architect Cal Henderson, as well as former Flickr employees Eric Costello and Serguei Mourachov, who like himself, had served some time at Yahoo  after the acquisition. Together, they would build Tiny Speck, the company behind an artful, non-combat massively multiplayer online game.

 

Source:   Tech Crunch

Date:  May 29th, 2019

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/the-slack-origin-story/

Discussion

1) This article is about the development of Slack.  What is Slack, and why would it be useful?  https://slack.com/

2) Why do you think a gaming company pivoted to build a workplace productivity tool?

Dating app scammers spotted by AI

Posted by & filed under Advertisement, Analytics, Artificial intelligence.

Hearts on keyboard
Scammers who use dating sites to trick people into handing over cash can be spotted using artificial intelligence, research suggests. A neural network has analysed profiles, messages and images from real dating data to get better at spotting fakes. It sampled age, gender and ethnicity as well as the language people use to describe themselves. The system proved accurate at spotting scammers and fakes in 93% of cases, the researchers said. Source: BBC Technology News Date: May 29th, 2019 Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48472811 Discussion
  1. The article says that AI was used, but the article also seems to suggest that this was just a textual analysis (finding which words get used most). What is AI?
  2. Why do news reports, and companies selling technology, use terms like AI in their press releases?