Frankly, I’d be more interested if they focused more on their ideological and religious diversity instead of assuming that race is the only difference between people.
A new report from Google has revealed that little has changed despite a commitment to increasing diversity among staff employed by the tech giant.
Overall nearly 70% of Google staff were men, as has been the case since 2014.
In the US almost 90% were white or Asian, 2.5% were black and 3.6% Latin American.
The figures also showed that black and Latin American employees had the highest attrition rate in 2017 – those choosing to leave.
“….despite significant effort, and some pockets of success, we need to do more to achieve our desired diversity and inclusion outcomes,” wrote Danielle Brown, diversity vice-president, in the report.
Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea off Orkney to investigate whether it can boost energy efficiency.
The data centre, a white cylinder containing computers, could sit on the sea floor for up to five years.
An undersea cable brings the data centre power and takes its data to the shore and the wider internet – but if the computers onboard break, they cannot be repaired.
Orkney was chosen because it is a major centre for renewable energy research.
The theory is that the cost of cooling the computers will be cut by placing them underwater.
“We think we actually get much better cooling underwater than on land,” says Ben Cutler, who is in charge of what Microsoft has dubbed Project Natick.
“Additionally because there are no people, we can take all the oxygen and most of the water vapour out of the atmosphere which reduces corrosion, which is a significant problem in data centres.”
It will not be possible to repair the computers if they fail, but the hope is that there will be a lower failure rate than on land.
This is a tiny data centre compared with the giant sheds that now store so much of the world’s information, just 12 racks of servers but with enough room to store five million movies.
Microsoft’s first experimental underwater data centre, sunk for five months in 2015, was dubbed Leona Philpot after a character in an XBox game.
If Project Natick proves a success, Microsoft envisages sinking groups of five of these cylinders and being able to deploy a data centre offshore in 90 days, whereas it could take years on land.
The Google of China, Baidu, has just released a white paper showing its latest development in artificial intelligence (AI): a program that can clone voices after analyzing even a seconds-long clip, using a neural network. Not only can the software mimic an input voice, but it can also change it to reflect another gender or even a different accent.
Previous iterations of this technology have allowed voice cloning after systems analyzed longer voice samples. In 2017, the Baidu Deep Voice research team introduced technology that could clone voices with 30 minutes of training material. Adobe has a program called VoCo which could mimic a voice with only 20 minutes of audio. One Canadian startup, called Lyrebird, can clone a voice with only one minute of audio. Baidu’s innovation has further cut that time into mere seconds.
While at first this may seem like an upgrade to tech that became popular in the 90s, with the help of “Home Alone 2” and the “Scream” franchise, there are actually some noble applications for this technology. For example: imagine your child being read to in your voice when you’re far away, or having a duplicate voice created for a person who has lost the ability to talk. This tech could also be used to create personalized digital assistants and more natural-sounding speech translation services.
However, as with many technologies, voice cloning also comes with the risk of being abused. New Scientist reports that the program was able to produce one voice that fooled voice recognition software with greater than 95 percent accuracy in tests. Humans even rated the cloned voice a score of 3.16 out of 4. This could open up the possibility of AI-assisted fraud.
Eh… I get the goal and I’m sure the imagery is fine, but I wonder if people will miss the natural light and experience of seeing the view “for real.” Then again, if they can enhance the images with infrared, zoom, and other features, it could end up being really cool.
Emirates Airline has unveiled a new First Class Suite on board its latest aircraft that features virtual windows.
Instead of being able to see directly outside, passengers view images projected in from outside the aircraft using fibre-optic cameras.
The airline says it paves the way for removing all windows from future planes, making them lighter and faster.
Airline president Sir Tim Clark said: “The quality of the imagery is so good, it’s better than with the natural eye.”
The virtual windows can be seen in the first class cabin of Emirates’ newest Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
Sir Tim told the BBC that the ultimate aim was to have planes with no windows at all.
SAN FRANCISCO – A Portland family’s private conversations were recorded by their Amazon Echo smart speaker and emailed to a random phone contact of the father, they told a local TV station.
Amazon explained that an unforseen combination of random words in a conversation the family didn’t realize was being overheard by Alexa trigged an action no one expected, least of all Amazon, which is now working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The Oregon family contacted Amazon to investigate after a private conversation in their home was recorded by their Amazon Echo — the voice-controlled smart speaker — and the recorded audio was sent to the phone of someone in Seattle who was in the father’s contact list.
“My husband and I would joke and say I’d bet these devices are listening to what we’re saying,” Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name, told KIRO TV in Seattle.
Mark me down in favor of better security – even at the expense of hampering law enforcement efforts. I would rather sacrifice one possible tool of some criminal investigations instead of leaving security holes one everyone’s devices for anyone to exploit.
The encryption that secures your phone doesn’t come with a backup key. That may make you nervous if you’re prone to forgetting your passcodes — but it makes many law-enforcement and national-security types even more anxious when they contemplate permanently losing access to valuable evidence.
They use the phrase “going dark” to describe the spread of hardware and software that can only be unlocked by their owners — even if a court orders the companies behind those products to allow police access.
Privacy advocates, however, see “strong crypto” — without any extra keys or back doors — as vital when both commercial and government attackers may want into your devices and the immense stores of data on them.
Meanwhile, companies like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) increasingly treat strong encryption as a standard feature. As this debate escalates — and as many observers think the Trump administration may try to move a bill mandating what’s sometimes called “exceptional access” — they continue to ship encrypted devices and apps that can’t be whisked out of existence by any such bill.
(Reuters) – The United States and Britain on Monday accused Russia of launching cyber attacks on computer routers, firewalls and other networking equipment used by government agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure operators around the globe.
Washington and London issued a joint alert saying the campaign by Russian government-backed hackers was intended to advance spying, intellectual property theft and other “malicious” activities and could be escalated to launch offensive attacks.
It followed a series of warnings by Western governments that Moscow is behind a string of cyber attacks. The United States, Britain and other nations in February accused Russia of releasing the “NotPetya” virus, which in 2017 crippled parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure and damaged computers across the globe, costing companies billions of dollars.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Russia’s embassy in London issued a statement citing British accusations of cyber threats from Moscow as “striking examples of a reckless, provocative and unfounded policy against Russia.”
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online. Here you go:
There is a lesson that I have preached to my children for years when it comes to using free services on the internet — if you are not paying for it, you are the product being sold. The recent revelations regarding Facebook confirm that lesson, but also highlight just how much of an illusion privacy has become in modern society.
The most recent privacy breach by Facebook garnered so much media attention because there is a connection to President Donald Trump, but it is hardly a new revelation. Facebook collects data about the people who use it and sells that information to anyone who can afford it. Facebook’s entire business model is predicated on collecting, shaping and selling its users’ information. Facebook’s customers are not the people who use it to share pictures of their meals and pets. Facebook’s customers are the people who buy information about Facebook users.
Facebook is hardly the only company that operates this way. They have merely become one of the largest and most popular because they created an application that people enjoy using. There are plenty of other companies with similar business models. Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Pandora, Tinder and on and on. Even many websites for which you pay will sell any information they collect about you to anyone with a credit card. And since many people access their favorite sites on their mobile devices, location and other information can also be collected.
Then there are the data brokers who amalgamate information from many sources to create incredibly detailed and accurate profiles of people. They collect information about your buying habits, internet search activity, medical information, income, address, what guns you own, what movies you like, who your friends are and much more. These companies know more about people than their families or neighbors.
All of this collecting, buying and selling of information is legal. Then there is the illegal activity. All of this information is stored somewhere and people want it. Every week there is another story about some company being hacked and people’s information being stolen. Any information you keep on a computer will eventually be stolen. It is a matter of when, not if.
Worried yet? There is more. The next wave in breaking down privacy barriers is already here. The popularity of voice-driven technology like Siri, Alexa, Google Home and others has opened the door to a new way for businesses or hackers to collect information about you. Each of these devices is constantly listening to everything you say as it waits for you to say the key words to activate it. When a person uses these devices, their words are recorded and sent into the gigantic data processing hubs where they can be stored and used for anything.
Now people are sending their DNA to businesses through the mail to get a report back on what their ethnic heritage is or what diseases and disorders they are genetically predisposed to. These companies are creating massive databases of DNA that can be sold and used for everything from marketing products to redirecting government programs to something nefarious.
The fascinating aspect of the collapse of privacy is that it is almost entirely voluntary. People are willingly sharing incredibly personal information about themselves all over the internet. In an odd quirk of human nature, people who are unwilling to share details about themselves to their friends at church are more than willing to share their most intimate details on a digital platform that the entire world can access.
Why?
There are some legitimate and positive reasons for people to share personal information online. Having detailed information about people allows some companies to deliver a more personalized service. By knowing more about their customers, retailers, airlines, banks and many other companies can customize their offerings to the individual consumer. Consumers love it.
All of that information is also being used for more general societal benefits. For example, Google has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control to track flu outbreaks in real time based on spikes in the use of certain search terms. This allows the CDC to better allocate resources to where and when they are needed most.
People also enjoy the convenience of technology. Of course it is easy enough for you to use a remote to turn off the television, get up and adjust the thermostat, close the garage door, set an alarm, and turn on the radio. But it is even easier to just say, “hey Siri” and let it do the rest. The price of that convenience is that Apple, which provides Siri, now knows what channel you were on when you turned the television off, what temperature you like at that time of day, what kind of garage door opener you have, when you plan to get up and what music you like. What will Apple do with that information? That is none of your business. It is theirs.
Of course, there is a darker reason for people being willing to abandon any notion of privacy. The vile parts of human nature like vanity, greed and pride drive people to want to share things that were considered private 30 years ago. For every picture of a silly cat on one site, there is a picture of some guy’s private parts somewhere else.
Our culture has certainly crossed into a post-privacy era. It was a threshold we sprinted across willingly and without hesitation. There are many benefits, but also great risks. It will take a while for our laws and expectations to catch up.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it has observed “anomalous activity” consistent with the use of so-called stingrays.
They could be used by foreign spies or criminals, although the DHS said it did not know who was using them.
It added that such devices pose a “growing risk”.
Stingrays, a brand name for a type of International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher (IMSI), are mobile phone surveillance devices that mimic mobile phone towers.
The size of a briefcase, the devices send out signals to trick mobile phones into transmitting their location and identifying information.
As well as tracking the mobile phone of a suspect, the devices also gather information about phones of bystanders who are nearby.
It is believed to be the first time the US government has acknowledged the use of rogue spying devices in Washington.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has said he will not appear before MPs investigating fake news, but will send one of his senior executives instead.
The tech giant and data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica are at the centre of a dispute over harvesting personal data and whether it was used in Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign.
Mr Zuckerberg has apologised for a “breach of trust”.
His stand-in will give evidence to MPs after the Easter Parliamentary break.
Chairman of the Department for Culture Media and Sport select committee Damian Collins said Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, who reports directly to Mr Zuckerberg, would give evidence in the first week after the Easter break but he still hoped Mr Zuckerberg would do so too.
There’s something I’ve taught my kids for years… if you aren’t paying for it, you ARE the product. How did people think Facebook made money?
Facebook is facing a crescendo of questions about how its user data came to be harvested for political purposes as investors continue to take fright at the risk the scandal poses to its business.
Claims by the New York Times and UK media that Cambridge Analytica tried to influence how Americans voted using information improperly gleaned from 50 million Facebook users have already seriously hurt its brand.
The London-based data analysis firm worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign. It has denied the claims and says it did not use Facebook data in the 2016 campaign.
Washington (CNN)Rather than ditch the International Space Station when its funding through 2024 ends, the Trump administration is looking to turn it over to the private sector, the Washington Post reports.
The Post reported Sunday that an internal NASA document it obtained says, “It is possible that industry could continue to operate certain elements or capabilities of the ISS as part of a future commercial platform.”
It continues, “NASA will expand international and commercial partnerships over the next seven years in order to ensure continued human access to and presence in low Earth orbit.”
US entrepreneur Elon Musk has launched his new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The mammoth vehicle – the most powerful since the shuttle system – lifted clear of its pad without incident to soar high over the Atlantic Ocean.
It was billed as a risky test flight in advance of the lift-off.
The SpaceX CEO said the challenges of developing the new rocket meant the chances of a successful first outing might be only 50-50.
“I had this image of just a giant explosion on the pad, a wheel bouncing down the road. But fortunately that’s not what happened,” he told reporters after the event.
With this debut, the Falcon Heavy aims to become the most capable launch vehicle available.
Military personnel around the world have been publicly sharing their exercise routes online – including those inside or near military bases.
Online fitness tracker Strava has published a “heatmap” showing the paths its users log as they run or cycle.
It appears to show the structure of foreign military bases in countries like Syria and Afghanistan, as soldiers move around inside.
The US military is examining the heatmap, a spokesman said.
Air Force Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, told the Washington Post that the US military was reviewing the implications.
Strava said it had excluded activities marked as private from the map.
Users who record their exercise data on Strava have the option of making their movements public or private. Private data, the company said, has never been included.
The appearance of military bases on the heatmap suggests that large numbers of military personnel across the globe have been publicly sharing their location data.
Against my wishes, I had to transact some business at my local Walmart today and experienced their new Scan and Go system. Walmart, with a massive labor force and a frequent target of labor activists, is usually at the forefront of technology innovations that seek to mitigate their labor costs. As a secondary goal, they are trying to improve the customer experience. Here’s how it went for me:
Upon entering the store, a guy explained the system to me. Here’s the process:
Get one of their scanners or download their scanning app on your phone.
As you go through the store, scan the items as you put them in the cart. The carts also have packs of plastic bags mounted in the front, or you can buy their reusable bags.
When it’s time to check out, use the same scanner to scan a bar code on the self-checkout machine. That transfers all of the items to the self-checkout machine.
Pay.
Return the scanner to a charging station on the way out.
Overall, I really liked the process. It was easy to use. I could see the running tally of my purchases and verify the scanned price matched the posted price. I spent less than a minute actually checking out. I was buying some heavy stuff and I didn’t have to lift anything out of my cart. It was a quick, easy process.
It might be a different experience if you are buying produce or anything else that needs to be weighed. But for the vast majority of things, I preferred this process to a human cashier or a traditional self-checkout station.
There is a lesson here. A free market will constantly evolve and respond to pressures. In this case, the upward pressure on wages – both artificial and real – coupled with the increasing desire of customers to be empowered by technology in their consumer experience, is driving innovation like Walmart’s Scan & Go system. I doubt it’s the last incarnation of the technology-enabled purchasing process, but it’s a good system so far.
It is thought to be the headquarters of a radio station, “MDZhB”, that no-one has ever claimed to run. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, monotonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues.
Once or twice a week, a man or woman will read out some words in Russian, such as “dinghy” or “farming specialist”. And that’s it. Anyone, anywhere in the world can listen in, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz.
[…]
There’s no shortage of theories to explain what the Buzzer might be for – ranging from keeping in touch with submarines to communing with aliens. One such idea is that it’s acting as a “Dead Hand” signal; in the event Russia is hit by a nuclear attack, the drone will stop and automatically trigger a retaliation. No questions asked, just total nuclear obliteration on both sides.
