Amazon recently won patents for wristbands that could be used as part of an inventory system, communicating with equipment in warehouses and nudging employees via vibrations if, for example, they were about to place items in the wrong bins. But in a world where the legal limits on gathering and using people’s data remain largely undefined,… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Ethical issues
Huawei: A simple guide to why the company is in so much trouble
A lot of people are talking about Huawei – and not just because they make really well reviewed, top-end phones. The Chinese company is in pretty hot water in various places, because certain people believe they are using their tech to spy on people – something the company totally denies. There’s a court case against… Read more »
Facebook ‘struck secret deals over user data’
Emails written by Facebook’s chief and his deputies show the firm struck secret deals to give some developers special access to user data while refusing others, according to MPs. A cache of internal documents has been published online by a parliamentary committee. It said the files also showed Facebook had deliberately made it “as hard as possible”… Read more »
What It Takes to Make Instagram Influencing a Full-Time Career
Meghan Young is a professional Instagram star. She gets paid to climb beautiful mountains, photograph their glittering summits and post about her adventures to her fans. “My job is to make it look effortless, to look like it’s the most fun ever and it’s never a job,” she says. “But it is a job.” Young,… Read more »
The Brutal Fight to Mine Your Data and Sell It to Your Boss
HiQ is a “people analytics” firm that creates software tools for corporate human resources departments. Its Skill Mapper graphically represents the credentials and abilities of a workforce; its Keeper service identifies when employees are at risk of leaving for another job. Both draw the overwhelming majority of their data from a single trove: the material that is… Read more »
Now computers are writing perfectly acceptable pop songs
Taryn Southern, a YouTube star and content creator, has just released a song she wrote with the help of artificial intelligence. Called Break Free, it’s a brooding ballad that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Hunger Games soundtrack. Southern wrote the lyrics and melody, but the backing track was built by her laptop, after she punched in… Read more »
Amazon HQ2 process highlights the company’s data obsession
Amazon’s search for a second headquarters was never just about finding a new home. Throughout the process, Amazon skillfully obtained data from 238 cities and metro areas in North America for free, including proprietary information about real estate sites under development, details about their talent pool, local labor cost and what incentives cities and states were willing… Read more »
Facebook promised to fix political ads on its platform. It hasn’t
Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, pledged to fix how it handles political and issue ads in the wake of Russian meddling in 2016. But just days before the midterm elections, a key part of Facebook’s effort is broken, and it’s unclear if the company is doing anything to fix it. The company has touted new rules for political… Read more »
Why robots will build the cities of the future
Shinichi Sakamoto is 57, and works for Shimizu, one of Japan’s biggest construction companies. He is part of a greying, and dwindling, workforce. “The thing is, statistics show a third of [Japanese construction] labourers are over 54 years old, and they are considering retiring so soon,” says Mr Sakamoto, who is deputy head of Shimizu’s… Read more »
Climate change: Is your Netflix habit bad for the environment?
Watching your favourite show or listening to your playlist has never been easier. A virtually endless supply of film, music and TV can be streamed and downloaded almost instantly. But at what cost to the environment? Vast amounts of energy are needed to keep data flowing on the internet and demand will only increase as… Read more »
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