Israeli Firm Unveils Armed Robot to Patrol Volatile Borders
By: AP September 13, 2021 LOD, Israel (AP) — An Israeli defense contractor on Monday unveiled a remote-controlled armed robot it says can patrol battle zones, track infiltrators and open fire. The unmanned vehicle is the latest addition to the world of drone technology, which is rapidly reshaping the modern battlefield. Proponents say […]
Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?
By: NY Times September 3, 2021 Cryptocurrencies have emerged as one of the most captivating, yet head-scratching, investments in the world. They soar in value. They crash. They’ll change the world, their fans claim, by displacing traditional currencies like the dollar, rupee or ruble. They’re named after dog memes. And in the process of […]
The Third Revolution in Warfare
By: The Atlantic September 11, 2021 On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, against the backdrop of the rushed U.S.-allied Afghanistan withdrawal, the grisly reality of armed combat and the challenge posed by asymmetric suicide terror attacks grow harder to ignore. But weapons technology has changed substantially over the past two decades. And thinking […]
The Way Amazon Uses Tech to Squeeze Performance Out of Workers Deserves Its Own Name: Bezosism
By: The Wall Street Journal September 11, 2021 For Austin Morreale, working as a stower in an Amazon warehouse was tough to the point of being physically unsustainable, but nonetheless rewarding. The hours were long and the work grueling. The night shift he took at Amazon on top of his day job as a […]
Revealed: Google Illegally Underpaid Thousands of Workers Across Dozens of Countries
By: The Guardian September 10, 2021 Google has been illegally underpaying thousands of temporary workers in dozens of countries and delayed correcting the pay rates for more than two years as it attempted to cover up the problem, the Guardian can reveal. Google executives have been aware since at least May 2019 that […]
A.I. Can Now Write Its Own Computer Code. That’s Good News for Humans
By: NY Times September 9, 2021 As soon as Tom Smith got his hands on Codex — a new artificial intelligence technology that writes its own computer programs — he gave it a job interview. He asked if it could tackle the “coding challenges” that programmers often face when interviewing for big-money jobs at […]
Study Finds Growing Government Use of Sensitive Data to ‘Nudge’ Behaviour
By: The Guardian September 8, 2021 A new form of “influence government”, which uses sensitive personal data to craft campaigns aimed at altering behaviour has been “supercharged” by the rise of big tech firms, researchers have warned. National and local governments have turned to targeted advertisements on search engines and social media […]
Twitter Trials ‘Soft Block’ Feature To Let Users Remove Followers
By: The Guardian September 8, 2020 Twitter is trialling a feature that allows users to shrug off unwanted followers without officially blocking them. It provides a less stark alternative to hitting the “block” button – a move that is often publicised across timelines when the blocked user screenshots the notification and publishes it. […]
China’s Alibaba to Invest Billions by 2025 For ‘Common Prosperity’
By: The Guardian September 3, 2021 China’s Alibaba Group will invest 100bn yuan ($15.5bn) by 2025 in support of “common prosperity”, it said, becoming the latest corporate giant to pledge support for the initiative driven by the president, Xi Jinping. Beijing has been encouraging companies to share wealth as part of the effort to […]