This week's edition is a fire-hose, a tsunami of topics related to technology and society. Happy week
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February 3 · Issue #109 · View online
Articles/posts that for some reason created a spark in my memory.
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This week’s edition is a fire-hose, a tsunami of topics related to technology and society. Happy week-end reading ;-)
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The Future of the Mind | Edge.org
About power and responsibility in creating alternate synthetic minds. A philosophical take by Susan Schneider.
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Purpose Washing, Hustle Culture, and Automation: Business at a Crossroads
About the wrestle of business leaders to stay honest with themselves or to give in to greed and growth. By Business Romantic Tim Leberecht
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We need disagreeable people to fix our dishonest institutions
About fighting “embedded growth obligation" and the "Intellectual Dark Web”. By Eric Weinstein, managing director of Thiel Capital.
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What is work? Deloitte Review, issue 24
About a redefinition of work in the age of artificial intelligence. A very good report with @jhagel Deloitte Centre for the Edge.
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The Era of “Move Fast and Break Things” Is Over
One more about responsibility and anticipating what could go wrong and the role for VCs and entrepreneurs.
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Jennifer Buscemi is the deepfake that should seriously frighten you
About Deepfakes: getting undistinguishable from real video and more.
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Google’s Sidewalk Labs Plans to Package and Sell Location Data on Millions of Cellphones
Google’s sibling company Sidewalk Labs offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city’s patterns of movement.
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Big Brother Nation: The Case for Ubiquitous, Open-Sourced Surveillance in Smart Cities
We should use technology to address the problem with modern surveillance: a power imbalance between those who control the cameras and those who don’t.
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The Everything versus the Everyone Store: how Amazon and Alibaba model their business differently Laurence Van Elegem - January 29, 2019
Though Amazon and Alibaba seem quite similar at first glance, they have very different approaches and business models.
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Douglas Rushkoff's last-ditch attempt to reclaim humanity from tech
In “Team Human,” media theorist and veteran cyberpunk Douglas Rushkoff reminds us why we wanted progress in the first place.
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A new book argues that peace—not war—will inspire biotech’s biggest breakthroughs
Some of the major problems humanity faces today—how to generate clean energy and potable water for example—will be solved with biology … and peace.
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Forget Darwinian Evolution. Humanity May Soon Evolve Itself Through A.I.
Now putting aside moral and ethical issues, it’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, but when
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Safe Spaces for you, your groups, and your work · Intense Minimalism
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Anti-social social media — euansemple.com
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Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Feel the Fear
I perceive that fear is becoming pervasive and increasingly intense around the world. When I share this perception with others, I often get the response: “What fear? I don’t know many people who are afraid.” That’s part of the problem….
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Digital Dangers to Democracy by Laura Chinchilla - Project Syndicate
While we may see the dangers that digital technologies pose to the political system, others see new opportunities to influence election outcomes. Managing and containing these threats must now be an urgent priority for democrats everywhere.
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The design school of the future is nothing like the one you went to
The Royal College of Art is expanding its curriculum to include more science and technology. Expect other schools to do the same.
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TED Announces 2019 Fellows - COOL HUNTING
Celebrating its 10th class, the 2019 TED Fellows program welcomes a fleet of artists, inventors and entrepreneurs from a dozen countries and four continents. The honorees work across several industries and mediums, ranging from documentary photography and investigative journalism to urban astrophysics and space environmentalism—they come in to the program with work in progress and unanswered…
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Future Hype: The Myths of Technological Change – Predict – Medium
A couple years ago a friend shared with me an interesting article that argued that one of our basic notions of how the brain works is completely wrong. The article, titled The Empty Brain, begins…
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The next big tech trend is humanity, not blockchain or AI
The next big tech trend is humanity, not blockchain or AI,
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Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition | Technology | The Guardian
In 2004, the social network site was set up to connect people. But now, with lives increasingly played out online, have we forgotten how to be alone?
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Facebook’s provocations of the week – Monday Note
It was a intense communication week for Facebook. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, the company chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg stated the 87th iteration of the company’s “we are sorry”…
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Facebook sidesteps Apple ban by paying teens to harvest data from their phones
Facebook’s use of its “Research” app may violate Apple’s developer rules.
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Japanese Government Will Hack Citizens' IoT Devices - Schneier on Security
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Hackers Are Passing Around a Megaleak of 2.2 Billion Records | WIRED
The so-called Collections #1-5 represent a gargantuan, patched-together Frankenstein of rotting personal data.
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'F*ck ethics. Money is everything': Facebook employees react to scandal on gossip app
Facebook employees are fuming after Apple revoked the company’s enterprise certificates.
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Lawmakers are furious with Facebook: ‘wiretapping teens is not research’ - The Verge
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are lashing out at the Facebook over its teen data project, raising new questions about how the company might fare in future privacy legislation.
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After Facebook, Google apologizes for running a user data collection program on iOS
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San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city - The Verge
A San Francisco lawmaker is introducing legislation that would make the city the first in the nation to ban the government use of facial recognition technology.
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There is a reason apps make it so fun to track your health | The Outline
Health data is valuable: Your employer wants it, your insurers want it, and you’re only too happy to give it away to apps for free.
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff review – we are the pawns | Books | The Guardian
ure, is that such utopian schemes are destined to fail. As experience has shown, the world – life itself – is cloudy, contingent and defined by change. As horrifying as the surveillance capitalists’ view of a totally controlled, perfectly articulated and error-free future might be, the inevitable failure of its vision, and the resultant violence – already evident in our fractured worldviews, competing fundamentalisms, weakening of social
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The Next Privacy War Will Happen in Our Homes – Member Feature Stories – Medium
As Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri become more “human,” more ambient noise in our homes is turned over to tech companies as data. What happens when every noise in our lives is a search prompt?
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The best 10-Year Challenge yet belongs to humanity - Vox
We’ve come a long way in the past decade.
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Genes linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in Arctic | Society | The Guardian
Discovery of genes, possibly carried by birds or humans, shows rapid spread of crisis
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Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Be Your Ghost Writer – New York Times Opinion – Medium
I can tell the people what it is you’re really trying to say. “Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Be Your Ghost Writer” is published by New York Times Opinion in New York Times Opinion
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Facebook Hires Up Three of Its Biggest Privacy Critics | WIRED
Can a trio of privacy advocates effect change from within Facebook—or will they be stifled by corporate bureaucracy?
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Continuations by Albert Wenger : Apple’s Excessive Power
Apple’s Excessive Power In the last few days Apple suspended the enterprise certificates for first Facebook and then Google, rendering internal iOS apps instantly useless. Apple did so in response to…
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Belgian data tech scale-up Collibra turns unicorn after raising $100 million from CapitalG, Google's investment arm - Tech.eu
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New Iphone, Ipad in 2019 and 2020: What to Expect from Apple - Bloomberg
Apple Inc. plans to launch iPhones with a more-powerful 3-D camera as soon as next year, stepping up the company’s push into augmented reality, according to people familiar with the plans.
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Digital Transformation Is Human Transformation – Greg Satell – Medium
A decade ago, many still questioned the relevance of digital technology. While Internet penetration was already significant, e-commerce made up less than 4% of retail sales. Mobile and cloud…
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Automation Anywhere Introduces the New Digital Worker - DATAVERSITY
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Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work? - The New York Times
I saw the greatest minds of my generation log 18-hour days — and then boast about #hustle on Instagram. When did performative workaholism become a lifestyle?
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Why A.I. and Automation Are Not the Death of the American Workforce | Observer
The American workforce has seen the tidal wave of artificial intelligence coming for decades, yet we still have preparation to do. Those who do not, their professions will not survive. Those who embrace the evolution will strive and own the future.
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To Fix the Web, Give It Back to the Users – Fast Company – Medium
To Fix the Web, Give It Back to the Users. Letting people control the data they create and make informed decisions about privacy would shift the balance of power from platforms to…
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One Of The Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working With The FBI
The move is sure to raise privacy concerns as law enforcement gains the ability to match DNA from crime scenes to a vast library of possible relatives.
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Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes | GQ
A Q+A with computer scientist Cal Newport about his new book “Digital Minimalism,” how Facebook is poised to fail, why workplaces may go email-free, and why the tech backlash is about to go mainstream.
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Fintech Finance presents: The FIntech Magazine Issue 11 by ADVERTAINMENT MEDIA - Issuu
Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get them in front of Issuu’s millions of monthly readers. Title: Fintech Finance presents: The FIntech Magazine Issue 11, Author: ADVERTAINMENT MEDIA, Name: ff11_combined_singles, Length: undefined pages, Page: 01, Published: 2019-01-28
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Top Fintech Influencers That All Financial Executives Should Follow
The list of top fintech and banking influencers is a who’s who of people to follow. List creator Jay Palter explains how the list is compiled.
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The mistake that led to a £1.2bn business - BBC News
How two Estonian friends built popular money transfer business TransferWise.
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Millions of bank loan and mortgage documents have leaked online – TechCrunch
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Davos: IMF's Lagarde Says Fintech Will Shake The System - Bitcoinist.com
International Monetary Fund Head, Christine Lagarde, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, “fintech is going to shake the system.” She also urged International Monetary Fund Head, Christine Lagarde, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, ‘fintech is going to shake the system’.
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Chief Innovation Officer, Neal Cross Bids Farewell to DBS Bank in Heartfelt Post | Fintech Singapore
Neal Cross bids farewell to DBS Bank, and resigns his role as Chief Innovation Officer. Now, he focuses on PictureWealth and Orangutan conservation.
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Motiv ring will be able to make payments and verify identity with a heartbeat
US tech company Motiv has revealed its smart ring will soon use its wearer’s unique heartbeat to verify their identity and make payments.
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And now for something completely different
Well after nearly 5 years at DBS Bank it’s time to say goodbye and I must admit it was an incredibly hard decision for me to make. I think the playwright Thomas Meehan says it best – “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
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Ripple Challenging SWIFT for Cross-Border Payment Dominance, But What Does it Mean for XRP?
XRP and Ripple have always proved divisive among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, as they are seen by many as being representative of the very financial system which they regard Bitcoin’s primary goal of defeating.
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Article : Top 5 Trends in the Insurance Industry
Top 5 Trends in the Insurance Industry
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Very risky business: the pros and cons of insurance companies embracing artificial intelligence
Three-quarters of insurance executives believe artificial intelligence will revolutionise the industry within a few years. It promises lower premiums, but brings ethical risks too.
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JPMorgan Notes Marginal Improvements to Payment System With Blockchain Technology
A recent report from JPMorgan reportedly notes the potential for blockchain technology in banking and payments.
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SWIFT Chief Announces Integration With R3 At Paris Fintech Forum - CoinDesk
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SWIFT to bring benefits of gpi to DLT and trade ecosystems | SWIFT
Initial proof of concept to connect gpi with blockchain enterprise software firm R3
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China’s Ant Financial raised almost as much money as all US and European fintech firms combined
When it comes to financial technology companies, Ant is in it own league.
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Enterprise Adoption of AI in the Insurance Sector – An Overview | Emerj - Artificial Intelligence Research and Insight
AI will continue to disrupt the insurance sector. Find out how large insurance firms can look to adopting AI into their company’s workflows.
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Stripe raises $100M from Tiger Global for international expansion, operations | Mobile Payments Today
Stripe, a San Francisco-based electronic payments firm, has raised $100 million in funding from Tiger Global Management, putting the company’s valuation at $22.5 billion, according to Stripe spokesman Ted Ladd. Ladd confirmed that the funds will be used to accelerate…
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European FinTech Hub Report 2018 - By B-Hive (PDF)
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Humanity’s Search for Meaning in the Age of AI and Automation
In 2013, Oxford University professors Carl Frey and Michael Osborne published a now-seminal study on the likelihood that various professions would be automated. In that study, medical doctors were…
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Efforts to Acknowledge the Risks of New AI Technology
Efforts to Acknowledge the Risks of New AI Technology. A group called the Future of Computing Academy wants scientists to explain both the good and the bad potential of their research.
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From Parkour to Surgery, Here Are the Top 10 Recent Advancements in Robotics
Robotics doesn’t only borrow from biology—sometimes it gives back to it, too. A new flapping-winged robot that mimics the fruit fly has done just that.
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The robot revolution will be worse for men - Recode
Demographics will determine who gets hit worst by automation. Policy will help curb the damage.
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Biohacker Josiah Zayner wants to teach everyone DIY genetic engineering
He sells kits to help anyone modify organisms for as little as $30.
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Listen: Brain-Reading Computers Recorded Words Inside People's Heads
The technology could help people with diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) speak via a brain-computer interface.
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Why Robots Will Never Take Over the World – Member Feature Stories – Medium
Many leading intellectuals see a future where A.I. “superintelligence” will take over humanity. But this theory overlooks the reality of evolution and our nonprogressive world.
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Accenture Launches SynOps, a Human-Machine Operating Engine - DATAVERSITY
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Walgreens Tests New Smart Coolers - The Atlantic
Walgreens is exploring new tech that turns your purchases, your movements, even your gaze, into data.
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5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Already Changing Government
It’s cutting costs and freeing up public workers to do things humans do best.
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Algorithms Tell Us How to Think, and This is Changing Us
AI may be shaping our lives and taking over the world. Are we giving computers too much power and decision-making authority?
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Recent events highlight an unpleasant scientific practice: ethics dumping - Scientific ethics
THE ANNOUNCEMENT in November of the editing of the genomes of two embryos that are now baby girls, by He Jiankui, a Chinese DNA-sequencing expert—brought much righteous, and rightful, condemnation.
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The unnatural ethics of AI could be its undoing | The Outline
Algorithms are so good at racism that it will hopefully become impossible to ignore.
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Tackling the Ethical Challenges of Slippery Technology
The release of Google’s AI principles last week are promising. It is hard to imagine how these principles will be baked into the DNA of the company and how their implementation will play out in terms…
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Immortality or Bust: On the road to the future with Zoltan Istvan
I watched a preview of the feature documentary “Immortality or Bust,” which follows Zoltan Istvan and his Immortality Bus on the roads of America. The film, directed by Daniel Sollinger, has won the…
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Real Facebook Oversight Requires More Than a 40-Expert Board | WIRED
A new draft charter provides details about how an independent “Supreme Court” for Facebook’s content decisions might work, but crucial questions remain.
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The ethics of artificial intelligence | McKinsey
Executives and companies should take note of the ethics of artificial intelligence and work to mitigate the potential negative effects.
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The DIY designer baby project funded with Bitcoin - MIT Technology Review
Cryptocurrency, biohacking, and the fantastic plan for transgenic humans.
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Security Isn't Enough. Silicon Valley Needs 'Abusability' Testing | WIRED
Former FTC chief technologist Ashkan Soltani argues it’s time for Silicon Valley companies to formalize and test not just their products’ security, but its “abusability.”
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Machine learning — Is the emperor wearing clothes? – Hacker Noon
Machine learning uses patterns in data to label things. Sounds magical? The core concepts are actually embarrassingly simple. I say “embarrassingly” because if someone made you think it’s mystical…
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How to protect humans in a fully automated society - The Verge
As technology develops, we’re not automating individual jobs but entire industries, as we meet more of our needs through massively scalable software. It’s a huge shift in the way society works, and it doesn’t have to be a bad one.
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Apple is a Hypocrite on Data Privacy - The Atlantic
The company enables the surveillance that supposedly offends its values.
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How Genome Sequencing and Senolytics Can Help Us Live Healthier, Longer
In recent years, researchers have identified or designed a handful of senolytic compounds that can curb aging by regulating senescent cells.
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Taking ethical action in identity: 5 steps for better biometrics | Ned Hayes
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Police stop people for covering their faces from facial recognition camera then fine man £90 after he protested | The Independent
A man has been fined after refusing to be scanned by controversial facial recognition cameras being trialled by the Metropolitan Police. The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.
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Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men use to track them and stop them from running away
Men in Saudi Arabia have near-total control where women travel. INSIDER investigated the government’s Absher website, which can help them do it.
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When governments turn to AI: Algorithms, trade-offs, and trust
AI in public sector: Artificial intelligence can help government agencies solve complex issues. For those that are new at it, here are five factors that can affect the benefits and risks.
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‘Merging man and machine doesn’t come without consequences’. Gerd Leonhard comments – Futurist Gerd Leonhard
“Google’s director of engineering Ray Kurzweil is aligned with Mr Musk on this issue, and regularly enthuses about the possibility of man and machine combining to optimise our skills and extend our lifespans. Mr Leonhard, however, does not share…
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Do You Believe In Ethical Wealth? – Personal Growth – Medium
In Germany, we have a saying: “Money doesn’t stink.” But you don’t believe that, do you? Well, you’re not alone — and it’s keeping us from getting rich.
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Financial Capitalism: The Endgame - Renegade Inc
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T N T : The Network Thinkers: Paths to Putin
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Bodies Flip, Dance, and Stack in Gravity-Defying Images by Rob Woodcox | Colossal
Colossal | Art, design, and visual culture
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Storaro's Eye
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fresh meat: plastic wrapped and ready to deconstruct beauty standards in the age of selfies
it’s disturbing to some. it’s gorgeous to others. it’s a new series for schön! magazine. fresh meat is SHSadler’s latest commentary on beauty standards. an interview with ‘it’s nice that’ explains the photographers’ proccess in creating their…
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A Science Journal Funded by Peter Thiel Is Running Articles Dismissing Climate Change and Evolution – Mother Jones
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BBC - Future - A Japanese company is making eerily hyper-realistic masks
Watch the video above and see if can you tell the masks from a human face
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sophia the robot now has a baby sister, little sophia
like sophia the robot, her younger sibling little sophia can walk, talk, sing, play games and, tell jokes - all with creepily life like expression.
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