Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 00:01 (eight years ago) link
not sure if this is the best thread for it, but this is an interesting conundrum:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/technology/apple-timothy-cook-fbi-san-bernardino.html
Apple said on Wednesday that it would oppose and challenge a federal court order to help the F.B.I. unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December....The F.B.I. said that its experts had been unable to access data on Mr. Farook’s iPhone, and that only Apple could bypass its security features. F.B.I. experts have said they risk losing the data permanently after 10 failed attempts to enter the password because of the phone’s security features....Mr. Cook said the order would amount to creating a “back door” to bypass Apple’s strong encryption standards — “something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create.”In 2014, Apple and Google — whose operating systems are used in 96 percent of smartphones worldwide — announced that they had re-engineered their software with “full disk” encryption, and could no longer unlock their own products as a result.That set up a confrontation with police and prosecutors, who want the companies to build, in essence, a master key that can be used to get around the encryption. The technology companies say that creating such a key would have disastrous consequences for privacy.
...The F.B.I. said that its experts had been unable to access data on Mr. Farook’s iPhone, and that only Apple could bypass its security features. F.B.I. experts have said they risk losing the data permanently after 10 failed attempts to enter the password because of the phone’s security features.
...Mr. Cook said the order would amount to creating a “back door” to bypass Apple’s strong encryption standards — “something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create.”
In 2014, Apple and Google — whose operating systems are used in 96 percent of smartphones worldwide — announced that they had re-engineered their software with “full disk” encryption, and could no longer unlock their own products as a result.
That set up a confrontation with police and prosecutors, who want the companies to build, in essence, a master key that can be used to get around the encryption. The technology companies say that creating such a key would have disastrous consequences for privacy.
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 17 February 2016 15:12 (eight years ago) link
@mimsEmployers can now get alerts when their female employees stop filling their birth control prescriptions http://www.wsj.com/articles/bosses-harness-big-data-to-predict-which-workers-might-get-sick-1455664940
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 17 February 2016 16:50 (eight years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbxZMZlXIAAJaPR.jpg
― Karl Malone, Monday, 22 February 2016 19:31 (eight years ago) link
facebook's plan for the next 10 years
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/570d2caa52bcd01a008bc210-997-419/screen%20shot%202016-04-12%20at%201.10.45%20pm.png
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-f8-ten-year-roadmap-2016-4
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 19:55 (eight years ago) link
cant' wait for FB lasers
― akm, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 19:57 (eight years ago) link
by what metric are people casting amazon as the worst tech co?
for me it's been facebook for a long time
zuckerberg wants to pull a wechat-style monopoly on the western world/english speaking market
fb/messenger will be the "one app to rule them all"
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 20:08 (eight years ago) link
some dude was operating a drone outside my house last night
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 20:12 (eight years ago) link
should have FP'd him
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 20:13 (eight years ago) link
if you want a picture of the future, imagine amazon.com stopwatching your frantic retrieval of consumer goods from airless warehouses, forever
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 20:14 (eight years ago) link
i'm not putting a vr headset on until i don't have to take it off
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 20:17 (eight years ago) link
It's not just the western world Facebook is after, the whole controversy around Free Basics in India has been interesting. Essentially offering the Internet for free to tens or hundreds of millions of people but acting as a gatekeeper for that free content:
http://www.thenational.ae/business/technology/india-says-no-to-facebook-founder-mark-zuckerbergs-free-basics-initiative
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Wednesday, 13 April 2016 12:47 (eight years ago) link
smart move, india
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Wednesday, 13 April 2016 17:26 (eight years ago) link
the smile.amazon.com thing seems kind of cool, i don't really know how it works but apparently when i buy stuff they donate to NARAL now
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 4 May 2016 21:04 (eight years ago) link
Trending:"Facebook Trending: Leaked Documents Show Guidelines for Maintenance of Facebook Feature"
― iatee, Thursday, 12 May 2016 22:40 (eight years ago) link
Write-in vote for Comcast. Fuck you, Comcast.
So I moved recently. At the old place I had AT&T internet but I heard the new place is a Comcast building. I call them on 6/22 to set up service and opt for the self-install.
Kit shows up with my name completely mis-spelled. Need I mention I was a customer less than 3 years ago, and had been several times over the past decade. Need I mention I spelled my name out letter-by-letter when I set up service, and that they somehow have my correct name for my email account. FFS.
Anyways I spend 2 days (w customer service on the phone) trying to get it to work. At the end of the second day they say "it looks like the problem is w the building. We're going to need to schedule a technician to come out". I say okay, great, we pick out Saturday July 3, and in the meantime I start working from Starbucks.
Saturday comes and I got a bill in the mail, with my name mis-spelled of course, due on July 18th. I am waiting for my technician and nobody shows up. About an hour and a half into the technician's window I call them up to ask what is taking so long, and what do you know, there isn't any appointment at all! So right now I am pissed. I am going from manager to manager asking them to put someone on who can send somebody out. They can't do it. It's a holiday weekend. "Would you liked to schedule an appointment?" Fuck lot of good that did the first time!
Eventually I calm down and schedule an appointment. It is for July 19th. Nearly one month after I signed up for service, a day after my first bill is due, they are going to send someone to TRY and get it working. FFS.
When I mention that I have a bill and am not going to pay for service that I have been denied, they tell me I CAN APPLY FOR CREDIT. FFS.
Luckily I found another company to go with, turns out AT&T could do it after all. They set up an appointment 3 days from when I called. I actually got txts on my phone about the upcoming appointment. It was incredible, the concept of customer service having something to do with common courtesy, with valuing my time and investment in their service. Comcast's customer service was DISMAL.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 21:53 (seven years ago) link
Comcast has been valiantly rebranding as Xfinity, because the very name Comcast now stirs such deep hatred among tens of millions of people who have dealt with them over the decades that mobs of peasants bearing torches and pitchforks spontaneously gather whenever the name "Comcast" is spoken aloud.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, 14 July 2016 03:08 (seven years ago) link
Last year, in a fit of pique while recording a payment check to Comcast in our check register, under the name of the check recipient I wrote the notation "Bloodsuckers!" A week later while I was writing another entry in the register I noticed my wife had added the notation "Too right!"
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, 14 July 2016 03:16 (seven years ago) link
lol nice
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 14 July 2016 10:47 (seven years ago) link
http://m.globallegalpost.com/corporate-counsel/hyperloop-one-faces-colossal-lawsuit-from-co-founder-37202632/
― Half-baked profundities. Self-referential smirkiness (Bob Six), Thursday, 14 July 2016 11:23 (seven years ago) link
Not the worst tech company but it's interesting and idk where to put this:
It's paywalled but the gist is that one of Germany's big success stories in online travel bookings, Unister, which apparently had revenues in the hundreds of millions of Euro, got into financial trouble and the founder started moving money between subsidiaries to avoid creditors and insolvency proceedings. As a last ditch effort to save the company, he agreed to get a €10m loan from an "Israeli diamond dealer" on the understanding that he'd offer €1.5m to cover fees and insurance. The €1.5m was handed over but the first tranche of the loan, which was paid in a hotel lobby in cash, turned out to be made up almost entirely of counterfeit notes. Having discovered this, he chartered a small plane to fly back from Venice to Germany - which crashed in Slovenia, killing everyone on board.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e47a376e-5f04-11e6-ae3f-77baadeb1c93.html#axzz4HNqGAtB3
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Tuesday, 16 August 2016 07:44 (seven years ago) link
Not enormous but there was just a story in the news about Instacart -- it basically decided to start keeping its shoppers' tips as a "service fee" or something, but then there was so much outcry they backed down.
It's so obvious that their business model makes no fucking sense whatsoever -- paying a personal shopper even a minimal wage to pick up and deliver your groceries on demand is always going to be too expensive to be anything but a niche service, and it's never going to scale to the point of something like Uber. There's already this thing called Fresh Direct which is hugely more efficient and sells groceries at competitive prices, only difference being you need to have your shit together enough to order like 1 day in advance. Latest attempt to take more money out of workers' pockets seems like probably evidence of that.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 4 November 2016 13:10 (seven years ago) link
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/adobe-voco-photoshop-for-audio-speech-editing/
Adobe has demonstrated tech that lets you edit recorded speech so that you can alter what that person said or create an entirely new sentence from their voice. It seems inevitable that it will eventually be referred to as "photoshop but for audio."
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 00:38 (seven years ago) link
want
― I look forward to hearing from you shortly, (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 01:57 (seven years ago) link
adobe is the pits
― The times they are a changing, perhaps (map), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 02:36 (seven years ago) link
from the pinboard guy: http://idlewords.com/talks/robot_armies.htm
― mookieproof, Thursday, 24 November 2016 00:26 (seven years ago) link
We're now several generations in to this technology, and soldiers now have smaller, portable UAVs they can throw like a paper airplane. You launch them in the field, and they buzz around and give you a safe way to do reconaissance.
The topic in general is pretty depressing to me (like a lot of news these days I guess) but I really do want to play with one of these. Some of that stuff is really headed to the uncanny valley. The guy just goes on and on tho. Bullet points, dude.
― viborg, Thursday, 24 November 2016 01:14 (seven years ago) link
Funny how much weirder some of this stuff is than the fictional universe of say Westworld.
― viborg, Thursday, 24 November 2016 01:17 (seven years ago) link
"Nothing gives you peace of mind like connecting something inside your body to the outside of your clothing."
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Thursday, 24 November 2016 01:20 (seven years ago) link
gallows lol @ Chad and Brad. Move fast, Chad! Break things, Brad! Ship it ship it ship it now!
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 24 November 2016 04:56 (seven years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/aKPPKki.jpg
― r|t|c, Monday, 5 December 2016 14:52 (seven years ago) link
Google omits to say that trusting such a machine requires one to trust the experts who constructed it, hold it in their custody, and would be able to alter it without us non-experts understanding what they did or how they did it.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Monday, 5 December 2016 20:06 (seven years ago) link
xp only if it looks like that sexy ex machina machine amirite
― johnny crunch, Monday, 5 December 2016 20:12 (seven years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/gkXp5ST.gif
― r|t|c, Monday, 5 December 2016 21:32 (seven years ago) link
game changer! innovation! the world is a better place thanks to: http://nyti.ms/2h8fXB5
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 6 December 2016 13:14 (seven years ago) link
This seems like a dumb business idea:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-takes-on-techs-white-whale-grocery-shopping-2016-12-05
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 6 December 2016 14:52 (seven years ago) link
I mean, IDK, the RFID checkout thing is neat, but the lack of human presence could creep people out and it seems like there will be ways of gaming it for shoplifting, just like with self-checkout. Also, just sounds like Amazon going outside its wheelhouse by getting into expensive long-term leases in prime RE shopping centers.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 6 December 2016 15:00 (seven years ago) link
I support this.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 6 December 2016 15:04 (seven years ago) link
For example, I'm guessing you could have a few grocery bags and just have one of them be made of RFID blocking material. Put the most expensive stuff in there, pay for the other stuff. Boom.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 6 December 2016 15:09 (seven years ago) link
I support this
You Jeffs, always sticking together.
― nashwan, Tuesday, 6 December 2016 15:19 (seven years ago) link
Also just feels a little too much like a double-down on a failure, i.e. Amazon Fresh
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 6 December 2016 15:20 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA2-iMz479o
i hate the future so much
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 23 December 2016 21:26 (seven years ago) link
same
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 23 December 2016 21:36 (seven years ago) link
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/044/247/297.png
An AWS cloud.
― Jeff, Friday, 23 December 2016 21:41 (seven years ago) link
I just don't think that replacing what is one of the last refuges for the non-educated worker with automation is going to help our already dire situation wrt wealth inequality and social safety, especially it is a kind of automation we have no need for.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 23 December 2016 23:45 (seven years ago) link
like at this point it's not even disruption or innovation, it's just trying to go back to the early 20th centuries level of disdain for low wages worker.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 23 December 2016 23:47 (seven years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate
what a dick!
― 龜, Tuesday, 24 January 2017 15:40 (seven years ago) link
as neoimperialist symbols go if we can't have "anything built on oahu in the last decade" i much prefer zuck's driveway to the mauna kea summit access road
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 24 January 2017 16:57 (seven years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post-obama-era-aggressively-woos-republicans.html
― j., Friday, 27 January 2017 21:44 (seven years ago) link
otoh
Patrick O'Neill @HowellONeill 30m30 minutes ago
Google founder Sergey Brin is at the SFO protest against Trump's order.
― j., Sunday, 29 January 2017 03:43 (seven years ago) link
google has useful products though (search engine, mail, drive, docs)
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 07:13 (six years ago) link
wave
― Scatperson (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-whore.) (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 29 December 2017 15:58 (six years ago) link
orkut
― maura, Friday, 29 December 2017 16:23 (six years ago) link
google has one useful product
then bought another useful product
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 16:54 (six years ago) link
I thought they developed maps, mail, docs, drive themselves?
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:42 (six years ago) link
o i forgot abt maps
thats true, but i feel like apple maps is better imo
the rest i feel are not that great, like gmail steals all yr info and sells it while something like hotmail/microsoft weirdly enough feels safer
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 17:48 (six years ago) link
Apple maps is not better.
― DJI, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:48 (six years ago) link
Apple maps is horrible.
― pplains, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:49 (six years ago) link
gmail, the useless product used by more than 1 billion people
― Karl Malone, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:50 (six years ago) link
the way google has insinuated itself into so many enterprise situations should be causing people to scream holy hell
― maura, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:51 (six years ago) link
i do scream holy hell maura rly i do
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 17:53 (six years ago) link
google docs is a great free platform imo, use sheets quite a lot too - better than excel by now, imo
I've no idea why hotmail, which is terrible to use, would be "safer" than gmail, tbh unless you only send encrypted mails (or only send emails to people using encrypted email servers) I don't see the difference (apart from gmail basically being faster and better than outlook
drive also my goto, prefer it to dropbox, great syncing and indexing
I would never use any other maps service than google maps
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:54 (six years ago) link
otm
but somehow i know that i won't literally scream holy hell until one of these companies (google, amazon, facebook, apple, microsoft) merges with another.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:54 (six years ago) link
Android also much better than iOS imo, at least I can do anything faster on an Android device and really enjoy that it's customizable
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:55 (six years ago) link
I hate every google product and do my best not to use any of them
― .oO (silby), Friday, 29 December 2017 17:57 (six years ago) link
so yeah, the hegemony of google is bad, but their products are simply the best atm imo (unlike FB which is horrible, they're leading the market by chance/being there first)
if only Google paid taxes and didn't have their servers in USA where apparently NSA has a claim to look into any data transfer
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 17:57 (six years ago) link
why is apple maps bad? i kno they got bad press w the australians who almost went off a cliff or whatever but google maps takes me into dangerous ways all the time in the city
apple takes me through major roadways and it feels easier to drive on those streets
wasnt gmail hacked before? i dont remember hotmail ever being hacked
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:01 (six years ago) link
why is apple maps bad, I dunno, cause it's clumsier, slower and just not as powerful as gmaps, kinda like why is Libre Office not as good as Microsoft Office
― niels, Friday, 29 December 2017 18:09 (six years ago) link
Here is a great link why Apple Maps is way behind Google Map:
https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-apple-maps
― Lyudmila Pavlichenko (dandydonweiner), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:14 (six years ago) link
all i see there is google overoptimizing probably to gather more data for whatever evil way they want to take over the usa then the world
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:17 (six years ago) link
Google is gathering data at a significantly faster rate than Apple is with regards to Maps. Their machine learning capabilities are significantly above Apple's, which means that Google's is not only gathering more data but able to do more with it.
― Lyudmila Pavlichenko (dandydonweiner), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:21 (six years ago) link
specifically, more able to sell advertisements against your behavior patterns
― .oO (silby), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:22 (six years ago) link
are they able to do more w it though? how many people actually use all those little functionalities? its the same w all their failed products
https://www.computerworlduk.com/galleries/it-vendors/google-graveyard-3508070/
― infinity (∞), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:23 (six years ago) link
machine learning is a fake idea
― .oO (silby), Friday, 29 December 2017 18:26 (six years ago) link
that google has an absurdly ubiquitous reach or that they have an insatiable thirst for data isn't what's evil about them -- it's their abdication of responsibility of using that power explicitly for the public good. if anything, they should get more data and beef up their ability to analyze such data.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 29 December 2017 19:21 (six years ago) link
some real fuckin challops itt atm
― Dan I., Friday, 29 December 2017 20:40 (six years ago) link
xp so what's evil about Google is that they are a for-profit corporation and not the state?
― .oO (silby), Friday, 29 December 2017 21:13 (six years ago) link
they're a de-facto public utility with a duty of care that people looking up cures for tummy aches and global warming don't end up at flat-earth homeopathy sites
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 29 December 2017 21:20 (six years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/18/facebook-to-restrict-australian-users-sharing-news-content"> https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/18/facebook-to-restrict-australian-users-sharing-news-content
― the least famous person you were surprised to discover (emsworth), Wednesday, 17 February 2021 22:33 (three years ago) link
I think I’ve learned some valuable lessons today about posting on a phone while walking in the city
― the least famous person you were surprised to discover (emsworth), Wednesday, 17 February 2021 22:34 (three years ago) link
Does Facebook expect a critical mass of late Xers and Boomers to riot because they can’t see news links on Facebook?
― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Wednesday, 17 February 2021 22:36 (three years ago) link
i think they expect news sites will see a drop in traffic
― micah, Wednesday, 17 February 2021 23:41 (three years ago) link
I don’t know if this is just starry-eyed Utopianism but if feels that this move coooould really turn public opinion (here) against the Zuck - which given FBs seeming impregnability thus far is actually an exciting prospect
― the least famous person you were surprised to discover (emsworth), Wednesday, 17 February 2021 23:53 (three years ago) link