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Technology
Internet: It’s all about Surveillance and little about Democracy
The Internet was, from its inception, financed and promoted by the Pentagon and Wall Street. One is tempted to miss the simpler and optimistic times before the internet was out of control, or perhaps, too much under the control of so few. In a manifesto published in September 2018, Tim Berners-Lee himself recognized that “despite all the good that we have achieved, the Internet has become an engine division ...Read full article...
The terrifying future of facial recognition
Although we do not notice it, automatic learning is an element present in our lives. Different algorithms learn on their own and choose the ads we see, identify us when we cross borders, let our cars know when they have to brake, etc. Among all these cases, facial recognition is perhaps the most powerful. Current technology allows us to recognize tens of thousands of points of our face in ...Read full article...
This is how Google and social networks erode our ability to think
The Internet has turned the human being into a superficial animal, far from the depth that is presupposed to his reasoning. Twitter is just a place to express personal minutiae. It offers a refuge for insignificance because that is what opinions without facts are: insignificant. We have lost our innocence with respect to the digital realm. We have become disillusioned. Social networks are infested with people with depression, anxiety, ...Read full article...
Technology shapes our human identity
The human essence is modified by technology every day. We can’t see it or feel it. It just happens every time we interact with computers, cellphones, tablets and other devices. Advances in the digital era lead us to new brain-machine interfaces that could modify our mental abilities, for better and for worse. We know that human brains have been changing, adapting and developing for centuries in response to external ...Read full article...
Digital Isolation may be the only way to protect yourself from cyber crimes
Powerful governments understand the dangers of being on the grid and are already creating their own internet infrastructure, independent of the world wide web. A good part of the soldiers of our day does not carry firearms. Not even knives, unless the keyboard of a computer or a wireless mouse can be considered sharp elements. Neither are the battlefields the same: wars between nations take place on the internet and ...Read full article...
Hyperconnected and hyper impatient
Making abusive use of electronic devices turns people, especially teenagers, into obsessive, impatient and selfish beings. In some countries, almost 30% of ten-year-olds already have a telephone, which can make relationships in family contexts difficult if clear limits are not established from the start: Sometimes we assume that with that age they are too young to get into trouble and we give them a freedom that could lead to ...Read full article...
Technology can now beam voices inside your head
We’ve had all sorts of articles on this website about technology run amok, like videos that are undiscernable from reality and doorbells that monitor the entire neighborhood and China mining data from the brains of workers. But this one takes the creepy sci-fact cake. According to MIT, (Edited to add: the website where this paper is hosted is now offline) there now exists technology that can beam a voice right ...Read full article...
These are the very real risks with 5G technology
Risks would multiply in line with the multiplication of the number of devices and their ease in hacking them. The latest generation of mobile communications is allowing us to access multimedia content or interact with computer systems at hitherto unknown transmission speeds. However, even before its use has been consolidated, a new concept has emerged, 5G. But, really, what does this new generation of mobile communications mean? One of ...Read full article...
From multitasker to non productive: How technology makes you useless
Low productivity is not the result of poor organization. Today, we have a huge amount of tools and systems that help us measure, manage and maximize our performance. The technological battlefield is full of thousands of applications and software that aim to improve our day. Some technology websites like Zapier mention up to 25 apps to improve our personal productivity and manage time well when a person only needs ...Read full article...
Facebook blocked me for 24 hours and threatened with a 3-day blackout.
Although I know that powerful social media platforms are out to block and ban people who say things they do not like, being blocked myself has a different taste to it. The story began yesterday when I posted an article titled “The Fascism that is coming” and illustrated it with a swastika. The censorship began soon after the article was posted on my Facebook profile and pages. First, they ...Read full article...
Facebook patents technology to predict where you will be in the future
What reasons lead you to think that someone may be spying on you? You are not a TV personality or lingerie top model. Unfortunately, data management and violations of privacy committed by Facebook do not depend on a person’s relevance in society, since social media users are seen as products, not people. It is very likely that the way in which Facebook manages user data might be just enough ...Read full article...
Amazon’s Cloud Services for Everyone has a Catch
We all know what large technology companies do with people’s data: They use it to their advantage, they sell it to the highest bidder, they use to spy on users. As most readers already know, there is no free lunch when it comes to using social media or ‘free’ cloud services. Even paid cloud or email services come at a high cost for users. Somehow, however, Amazon is in ...Read full article...
Data Management is a double-edged Sword
Data management has become a social debate; unnecessarily so. Data belongs to users and that should be obvious. Companies should get it, governments should get it. No one should be able to do anything with private data unless it was first informed to the user and data exchanges should only happen with expressed user approval. The Facebook scandal has uncovered errors and attitudes of dubious morality, such as gathering ...Read full article...
Welcome to the world of ‘Smart Borders’
Have you ever heard the term ‘smart borders’? Probably not, until now; and it is about time you know what it is and what it is being used for. Travelers arriving from outside the European Union to the borders of Hungary, Greece or Latvia will be greeted by a new computer system that analyzes their physical behavior and facial gestures in search of imperceptible clues of lies or ‘strange ...Read full article...
Is Facebook dying or are social media morphing?
It seems that the use of Facebook by teenagers decreases faster among rich teenagers in the US. For years, the size and influence of Facebook increased at an amazing rate. But some recent studies indicate that its strength may be declining. The number of Facebook users continues to increase steadily as more people connect in the developing world. In the US, two out of every three adults use Facebook, ...Read full article...
