The Great Firewall of the West is advancing - and it is as shitty as the Chinese one, if not worse.
tag > Technology
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Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet (nytimes)
"Nearly half of Google’s search traffic now comes from Apple devices, according to the Justice Department, and the prospect of losing the Apple deal has been described as a “code red” scenario inside the company."
"Apple now receives an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion in annual payments — up from $1 billion a year in 2014 — in exchange for building Google’s search engine into its products. It is probably the single biggest payment that Google makes to anyone and accounts for 14 to 21 percent of Apple’s annual profits."
“If we just sort of merged the two companies, we could just call them AppleGoo,” joked Mr. Schmidt, who was also on Apple’s board of directors. With Google search on the iPhone, he added, “you can actually merge without merging.”
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The information catastrophe featured
50-fold growth of the amount of digital data from 2010 to 2020 [IDC12]. Currently, we produce ∼1021 digital bits of information annually on Earth. Assuming a 20% annual growth rate, we estimate that after ∼350 years from now, the number of bits produced will exceed the number of all atoms on Earth, ∼1050. After ∼300 years, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed 18.5 × 1015 W, i.e., the total planetary power consumption today, and after ∼500 years from now, the digital content will account for more than half Earth’s mass, according to the mass-energy–information equivalence principle. Besides the existing global challenges such as climate, environment, population, food, health, energy, and security, our estimates point to another singular event for our planet, called information catastrophe.
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#Comment: Those who scream "future!" the loudest, support the past the hardest. Once they are done, all left of this planet will be rubble and a few shitty robots. But the leaders of such corporations are too busy to notice, as they are having fun with their child-slavery friends.
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Amazon's Project Kuiper gets FCC approval; half of its 3,236 satellites to go up by 2026
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given Amazon unanimous approval to launch and operate a constellation of 3,236 internet-providing satellites as part of its 'Project Kuiper' – a codename that is said to be changed once the project begins commercial operations.
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Android is becoming a worldwide earthquake detection network
Google is creating a worldwide, Android phone-powered earthquake alert system. The first part of that system is rolling out today. If you opt in, the accelerometer in your Android phone will become one data point for an algorithm designed to detect earthquakes. Eventually, that system will automatically send warnings to people who could be impacted.
#Technology #ML #Augmentation #HCI #FFHCI #CrowdIntelligence #Military
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Elon Musk’s New Baby’s Name Is Actually Less Absurd Than His Anti-Democratic, Quasi-Eugenicist Views (jacobinmag) (archived version)
Elon Musk drew attention recently for announcing the name of his and Grimes's new baby, X Æ A-12. But what’s more disturbing about Musk is the anti-democratic, quasi-eugenicist views that he and other tech elites espouse.
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All Dogs in Shenzhen, China Will Get Microchipped By 2020
In May, China's southern city Shenzhen announced that all dogs must be implanted with a chip, joining the rank of the U.K., Japan, Australia and a growing number of countries to make microchips mandatory for dogs. This week, city regulators began to set up injection stations across their partnering pet clinics, according to social media posts from the Shenzhen Urban Management Bureau. The chip, which is said to last for at least 15 years and comes in the size of a grain of rice, is implanted under the skin of a dog's neck. Each chip, when scanned by authorized personnel, reveals a unique 15-digit number matching the dog's name and breed, as well as its owner's identity and contact information -- which will help reduce strays.
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Solar-driven membrane distillation technology that can double drinking water production
A joint research team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), led by Dr. Kyung-guen Song from the KIST Water Cycle Research Center and Dr. Won-jun Choi from the KIST Center for Opto-Electronic Materials and Devices, has used solar energy technology to develop a highly efficient membrane distillation technology that can produce drinking water from seawater or wastewater.
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New battery breakthrough paves way for 100% silicon batteries with higher energy density
LeydenJar Technologies, a Dutch spin-out of TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for applied scientific research, has developed a new anode which it believes will “drastically change the battery industry,” allowing lithium-ion batteries to be made from 100% silicon, boosting energy density by 70%.
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Google Promises Privacy With Virus App But Can Still Collection Location Data
Some government agencies that use the software said they were surprised that Google may pick up the locations of certain app users. Others said they had unsuccessfully pushed Google to make a change.
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'Erasure' - from Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression
Documenting the exclusion zone surrounding the stricken power plant of Fukushima Daiichi
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The FBI doesn't necessarily have to rely on spy databases or phone records to collect vast amounts of information about suspects — it might just have to ask a travel company for help. Forbes understands the FBI is using info from Sabre, the world's largest travel data holder, to conduct surveillance around the world. Officials have reportedly asked the company to "actively spy" on targets, even while they're in the midst of travelling.
#Comment: While the westerns keep screaming "China bad! China-Tech very bad!" like silly spoiled kids, their own total surveillance apparatus keeps spiralling out of control. Just when they seemingly achieved their age old "full-spectrum dominance" through "total information awareness" vision, "full spectrum insanity" through "total information corruption" are taking down the entire house of cards in record time.
Related: The Known Traveller: Unlocking the potential of digital identity for secure and seamless travel - by World Economics Forum & Accenture
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People who are easily hypnotized are more likely to be addicted to their smartphones
New research published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that being absorbed by your smartphone might bear some resemblance to a hypnotic trance. A hypnosis experiment found that students with heightened smartphone addiction scores followed more hypnotic suggestions than their counterparts.
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Fuckcars: Your Car Is Spewing Microplastics That Blow Around the Word
When you drive, tiny bits of plastic fly off your tires and brakes. Now scientists have shown how all that road muck is blowing into “pristine” environments like the Arctic. Today in the journal Nature, researchers model how microplastics from our cars are travelling from densely populated regions into the environment.
