the site of record for silicon valley
http://pando.com
0 | 20
-
-
Facebook rachète une start-up de reconnaissance vocale
▻http://www.romandie.com/news/551582.romWit.ai cherche à concevoir des logiciels permettant d’utiliser la #reconnaissance_vocale pour contrôler entièrement son téléphone portable, régler la température dans son logement ou servir d’interface avec les objets connectés à Internet.
Nous avons mis en ligne une plateforme ouverte facilitant le travail des développeurs pour concevoir des produits destinés aux utilisateurs, écrit l’équipe de Wit.ai dans son message.
Plus de 6.000 développeurs auraient rejoint cette structure et des centaines d’applications sont déjà fonctionnelles, ajoute la société.
Mais nous en sommes encore aux premiers pas, poursuit la start-up, ajoutant que #Facebook a les ressources pour passer à la prochaine étape.
-
Et maintenant QuickFire :
The company has reportedly acquired QuickFire Networks, a startup focused on allowing high-quality video streams without requiring a lot of bandwidth, for an undisclosed sum. Some “key members” of QuickFire’s team will join Facebook; others will be moving on.
▻http://pando.com/2015/01/09/facebook-acquires-quickfire-to-stop-being-such-a-menace-to-consumers-wireless
-
-
#Uber, la start-up annonciatrice d’une crise morale dans la #Silicon_Valley - Atelier des médias
▻http://atelier.rfi.fr/profiles/blogs/uber-crise-morale-silicon-valleyLe Wall Street Journal estime qu’Uber est « le point d’aboutissement logique de la transformation progressive du secteur TIC ». Les entreprises d’hier se voulaient « une force permettant d’améliorer la vie et, peut-être, de changer le monde ». Celles d’aujourd’hui se demandent :
« Qui devons-nous détruire pour nous enrichir nous et nos investisseurs, et quel est le meilleur moyen de créer un besoin des consommateurs qui facilitera cette quête ? »
Dans un billet publié par le New York Times le jour de Thanksgiving, Nick Bilton écrit : "Je ne crois pas que la plupart des start-ups essaient d’être malveillantes et mauvaises (le fameux « evil », « malveillant » que Google ne voulait pas être). Mais je pense qu’elles ont tellement soif de gagner qu’elles sont parfois prêtes à contourner les règles éthiques et à oublier que de vraies personnes sont affectées par leurs actions".
-
-
L’auteur de RFI cite sa source : il s’agit de Sarah Lacy. Dans son blog Pandodaily elle écrit :
The horrific trickle down of Asshole culture : Why I’ve just deleted Uber from my phone
▻http://pando.com/2014/10/22/the-horrific-trickle-down-of-asshole-culture-at-a-company-like-uberWomen drive Ubers and ride in them. I don’t know how many more signals we need that the company simply doesn’t respect us or prioritize our safety.
Avec ce billet elle continue à développer une idée précédente :
Venture capital and the great big Silicon Valley asshole game
▻http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-big-silicon-valley-asshole-gameA senior partner at a top firm recounted a partner meeting at breakfast recently.
“Why are we backing this guy?” he said to a younger rainmaker at the firm. “He’s an asshole.”
His partner replied: “Hey, you gotta get over it. It’s no longer about whether someone is an asshole it’s about can he make money.”
That conversation happened a year ago. Said this multi-decade veteran of the business: “It didn’t use to be that way.”
Si les grands patrons des jeunes hyènes commencent à être dégoûtés de leur propre rejetons, quelle attitude dois-je adopter moi par rapport à cette - disons - racaille ?
-
-
The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women | PandoDaily
▻http://pando.com/2014/11/17/the-moment-i-learned-just-how-far-uber-will-go-to-silence-journalists-and-attA big debate among the Pando staff for the past two years has been over just how morally bankrupt Uber is. Earlier this evening, a bombshell story by Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith proves the reality is way worse than anyone on our team could have expected.
And that’s saying something.
Back in 2012, Paul Carr first raised serious concerns about the company’s view that both riders and drivers are disposable commodities in an all-out Randian battle to maximize profits. He uninstalled the app when he wrote that piece, and he started a drumbeat of press around these concerns.
Then, in 2014, Carmel DeAmicis exposed that an Uber driver accused of assault had a criminal record that should have been uncovered by the background checks Uber claimed to do. She further documented a “blame the passenger” culture at the company when such complaints came up.
It started to snowball: An investigation at The Verge exposed cut throat competitive tactics that the company has taken against its primary competitor Lyft.
Then, a few weeks ago, I wrote a story about the outrageous sexism woven deeply into the culture of the company. We’ve seen it in the company’s PR team discrediting female passengers who accuse drivers of attacking them by whispering that they were “drunk” or “dressed provocatively.”
We’ve seen it in CEO Travis Kalanick’s comments that he calls the company “boober” because of all the tail he gets since running it.
And on October 22, we saw it again with an offensive campaign in Lyon that encouraged riders to get picked up by hot female drivers, essentially a scary invitation to objectify (or worse) any woman working for the company.
-
Code Club cofounder resigns after being ordered not to criticize Google
▻http://pando.com/2014/08/27/code-club-cofounder-resigns-after-being-ordered-not-to-criticize-googleOne of the founding members of Code Club, a volunteer-led organization that teaches programming to kids in the UK, has resigned after being told by its board not to criticize Google or any of the group’s sponsors."
"“This is institutional corruption,” he said. “This is the danger posed by the monopoly of companies like Google. And it is affecting every aspect of society, including education.”
C’est fascinant comment le numérique réuni souvent sous la même bannière des gens qui s’opposent parfaitement.
Ici quelqu’un qui défend l’éducation au code pour une émancipation numérique contre quelqu’un qui veut de la main d’oeuvre en quantité et des consommateurs pas trop critiques. -
New San Francisco billboard warns workers they’ll be replaced by iPads if they demand a fair wage | PandoDaily
▻http://pando.com/2014/07/17/new-san-francisco-billboard-warns-workers-theyll-be-replaced-by-ipads-if-they
▻http://pandodaily.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/imag0016.jpg?w=1000&h=829So who the hell pays for billboards threatening waitstaff with redundancy if they demand a living wage? A bit of digging and clicking reveals that the campaign is backed by Employment Policies Institute, the conservative lobbying group which regularly campaigns on behalf of the restaurant industry.
#travail #salaire #californie #ipad #robotisation (vu sur nettime-l)
-
« [Striking] Gaza is like kicking aimlessly at somebody tied up at your feet »
▻http://pando.com/2014/07/12/lessons-from-gaza-the-combat-power-of-any-high-tech-military-is-way-less-than -
The revolving door between #Google and the Department of Defense
▻http://pando.com/2014/04/23/the-revolving-door-between-google-and-the-department-of-defenseMany of Google Federal’s top managers come from the biggest and baddest military and intel outfits: US Army, Air Force Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, USAID, SAIC, Lockheed… the list keeps going on and on.
Take Michele R. Weslander Quaid, Google’s Chief Technology Officer of Public Sector and “Innovation Evangelist.”
Chances are you’ve never heard of her. Neither had I. But Weslander Quaid took the top spot in Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of the seven most powerful women to watch in 2014.
The reason?
She helped bring the Google mindset to federal intelligence agencies.
(...)
-
-
The Washington Post recently exposed Google’s increasing role in DC’s influence-peddling machine — from partnering with Koch thinktanks to beefing up its rightwing lobby power.
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transforming-power-and-politicsgoogle-once-disdainful-of-lobbying-now-a-master-of-washington-influence/2014/04/12/51648b92-b4d3-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.htmlStaffing Google’s public-sector division with connected intel and military insiders is just another component of the this larger effort to grab the levers of power. How else can you expect Google to stave off anti-trust investigations and avoid paying for its massive privacy violations — all while expanding its business into the bottomless pit of federal government contracting?
Je découvre à cette occasion que Pando a son propre tag #silicon_army, eux ils disent #surveillance_valley…
▻https://pando.com/tag/surveillance-valley… et ce sera même le titre d’un bouquin d’un de leurs journalistes, kickstarté, à paraître :
▻http://surveillancevalley.net
-
-
Steve Case : dans la troisième vague de l’internet, les startups vont devoir apprendre à travailler avec les gouvernements - PandoDaily
▻http://pando.com/2014/04/03/steve-case-in-the-third-wave-of-the-internet-startups-will-need-to-work-with-David Holmes pour PandoDaily revient sur les propos tenus par Steve Case, l’ancien PDG d’AOL, qui expliquait que l’internet 3.0 serait l’intégration de l’internet dans notre vie quotidienne d’une manière que cela soit sans faille. Pour cela, il va falloir plus de compétences pour comprendre la politique et le fonctionnement des institutions. « Pour avoir un impact significatif », lance-t-il aux startups, « vous devez comprendre que les gouvernements vont jouer un rôle, plus que vous ne le souhaitez ». Et de faire référence à AirBNB qui a finalement accepté de payer à la ville de San Francisco une taxe de séjour... Un grand changement dans l’attitude d’AirBNB face à la fiscalité et aux institutions. Cf. (...)
-
Oculus rises to a $2B exit while its Kickstarter backers are left with cheap swag | PandoDaily BY NATHANIEL MOTT ON MARCH 26, 2014
▻http://pando.com/2014/03/26/oculus-rises-to-a-2b-exit-while-its-kickstarter-backers-are-left-with-cheap-sDespite the general bunk of Kickstarter’s claim that it isn’t a store, it’s clear that Oculus’ backers were contributing to the company’s campaign because they believe in a future where virtual reality is viable, not because they wanted to pre-order a shirt. Oculus was well on its way to making that future a reality — its headset is expected to best similar products from Sony and Microsoft — without having to sell to a social network-turned-Silicon Valley behemoth.
#crowdfunding #oculus_rift #réalité_virtuelle #monde_virtuel #facebook
-
Un exemple qui montre bien toute la limite du crowfunding. Des milliers de gens ont investi dans Occulus, participant au développement de la société (qui a empoché bien plus qu’elle demandait) et de son produit, sans que sa vente ne leur profite.
Tout ce qu’ils ont obtenu est de savoir que leur argent contribué à un tas de gros bonnets de la Silicon Valley qui sont devenus un peu plus riches, tandis que la technologie dans laquelle ils plaçaient leurs espoirs est tombée dans les mains d’une entreprise, qui, pour beaucoup d’entre eux, leur inspire surtout la méfiance.
Kickstarter se défend d’être un magasin et pourtant nul n’y achète de part dans les sociétés qu’ils soutiennent. Les Gentils financeurs ne sont que des consommateurs.
-
-
Le financeur de Kickstarter paie pour des contreparties et il sait qu’il n’aura pas de part dans l’entreprise. Il est effectivement un consommateur qui prend un risque, mais les règles sont transparentes. Kickstarter est un magasin.
-
L’intéressant c’est comment une entreprise a pu se retrouver valorisée à $2 milliards en se finançant à la base par le crowdfunding.
L’autre question est : les vaut-elle ? -
Les jeux de capital dans la silicon valley ne s’analysent pas tant sur la question de la valeur dollar que de la valeur pouvoir/contrôle. Le premier sur le marché, s’il ne merde pas, prend tout. Il semble donc que la question qui justifie ces acquisitions se pose comme suit : est-ce le moment où la VR va devenir un marché de masse ? (Idem, pour Google, avec la robotique/domotique…). Car avec 2 zillions de $ et les bonnes personnes, la probabilité que l’entreprise X parvienne à capter ces marchés est assez élevée. Tous les géants actuel de l’Internet ou presque sont là parce qu’ils ont fait (et gagné) ce type de pari (il y a donc un biais de sélection d’entrepreneurs qui se pensent comme des « visionnaires » capables de détecter les bonnes tendances).
-
Le jeune homme fait alors le tour des enchères de l’armée, d’entreprises ou encore d’hôpitaux. Ils liquident leurs technologies mises au point quelques années plus tôt. Une aubaine pour M. Luckey. Très vite, son trésor de guerre s’étoffe. « Je pense avoir la plus importante collection au monde de casque de réalité virtuelle », assure-t-il aujourd’hui. Il en possède plus d’une cinquantaine.
▻http://siliconvalley.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/03/27/palmer-luckey-le-petit-genie-de-21-ans-qui-a-converti-facLe jeune homme a un nouvel ami, Mark :
The future of VR : oculus
▻http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vrFacebook is run in an open way that’s aligned with Oculus’ culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they’ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that’s used to making bold bets on the future.
Drôle, sinon :
If you cannot purchase the real thing why not buy something that sounds similar? Two relatively unknown companies appear to be benefiting from such thinking thanks to name association with Oculus VR (...) Oculus VisionTech, a Vancouver-based company that has developed invisible forensic video watermarking technology (...) Oculus Innovative Sciences, a Nasdaq-listed healthcare company
What’s in the name Oculus? FT.com by John Aglion 26/03/14
▻http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3bf7b056-b4f9-11e3-9166-00144feabdc0.html -
« Je n’ai pas mis 10 000 dollars lors d’un premier tour de table pour créer de la valeur en faveur de Facebook », a publiquement déclaré Markus Persson, le créateur de Minecraft, qui était en négociation avec Oculus pour y développer une version de son jeu. « Beaucoup d’autres dans l’industrie du jeu vidéo se sentent trahis, même s’il ne savent pas vraiment pourquoi ; et en dépit du fait qu’aucune promesse n’a en fait été cassée », écrit le New Yorker.
▻http://lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2014/03/27/vente-d-oculus-a-facebook-une-honte-pour-les-internautes_4390834_651865.html
-
-
synthèse radiophonique #shameless_autopromo : ▻http://www.fluxetfixe.org/Horizon-Oculus-Rift
-
-
Apple and Google’s wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees
PandoDaily, 22/03/2014
▻http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-Suites de : ►http://seenthis.net/messages/221953
-
The Google-Military-Surveillance Complex
FireWorks via Pando Daily | By Yasha Levine on March 7, 2014
▻http://fireworksbayarea.com/newswire/oakland-emails-give-another-glimpse-into-the-google-military-surve
▻http://pando.com/2014/03/07/the-google-military-surveillance-complexIt was a rowdy crowd, and there was a heavy police presence. Some people carried “State Surveillance No!” signs. A few had their faces covered in rags, and taunted and provoked city officials by jamming smartphones in their faces and snapping photos.
Main item on the agenda that night: The “Domain Awareness Center” (DAC) — a federally funded project that, if built as planned, would link up real time audio and video feeds from thousands of sensors across the city — including CCTV cameras in public schools and public housing projects, as well as Oakland Police Department mobile license plate scanners — into one high-tech control hub, where analysts could pipe the data through face recognition software, surveil the city by location and enrich its intelligence with data coming in from local, state and federal government and law enforcement agencies.
#ville #smart_city #surveillance
The details of Google’s business relationships with the intelligence community — even the existence of these deals — are not always easy to come by. The earliest concrete example I could dig up goes back to 2003, when Google secured a $2.07-million gig to outfit the National Security Agency (NSA) with Google’s search tech.
“The #NSA paid #Google for a search appliance capable of searching 15 million documents in twenty-four languages,” according to Consumer Watchdog, which obtained contract documents outlining the NSA-Google partnership.
▻http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GOOGGovfinal012411.pdf
The contract was to last only a year and apparently was never renewed by the NSA, nonetheless Google kept providing its search services for two full years — free of charge.At exactly the same time that Google was trying to improve the NSA’s internal search capabilities, the company was in negotiations with two other intelligence agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), a close cousin of the NSA that primarily deals with geospatial/satellite intel for both combat and civilian operations.
These negotiations had to do with Google’s purchase of Keyhole, a tiny tech startup that developed 3-D mapping technology. The company’s main product was an application called EarthViewer, which allowed users to fly and move around a virtual globe as if they were in a video game. Google purchased Keyhole in 2004 for an undisclosed sum, and folded its technology into what later became known as Google Earth.
At the time, Google’s acquisition of Keyhole raised serious privacy concerns. The reason was simple: In 2003, just a year before Google bought Keyhole, the company was saved from bankruptcy by #In-Q-Tel
2010 was a heady year for Google. Aside from its #NGA contract and close collaboration with the NSA, the company secured its first major non-intelligence/non-classified contract with the federal government.
The General Service Administration awarded Google a five-year contract worth $6.7 million to provide the agency with “cloud-based” email services.
▻https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/9f70277e-1073-4a6b-9e27-4382f4018276/0b2f3c0f23cf6be600a11a57a62db5fdEven more valuable than the contract was the fact that Google became the first “cloud-based” services provider to get federal security certification for non-classified data.
With the certification, Google got the drop on its competition — mainly Microsoft and Salesforce — and now had a much needed stamp of approval that opened the door for Google to aggressively pursue other government contracts for hosting services for non-classified purposes.
By the end of 2013, Google had racked up contracts to provide IT services to a long list of federal agencies.
In February 2013, U.S. Naval Academy signed up for Google Apps…
▻http://googleenterprise.blogspot.fr/2013/02/us-naval-academy-goes-mobile-with.htmlIn October 2013, the U.S. Army tapped Google Apps for a pilot program involving 50,000 “Army and Department of Defense (DoD) personnel”…
▻http://googleenterprise.blogspot.fr/2013/10/us-army-to-cut-costs-improve.htmlIn 2012, Idaho’s nuclear lab went Google…
▻http://googleenterprise.blogspot.fr/2012/09/idaho-national-lab-has-gone-google.htmlIn 2012, Department of the Interior awarded Google with a seven-year contract to provide email services for $35 million…
In 2011, U.S. Coast Guard Academy went with Google, too…
▻http://googleenterprise.blogspot.fr/2011/12/us-coast-guard-academy-becomes-first.htmlAt same time, Google began racking up a good number of state and municipal governments, including law enforcement: Los Angeles, Lake Havasu Police Department, State of Wyoming, City of North Las Vegas, Boston and 40 other agencies went over to Google Apps as of this writing.
Hell, it even launched a creepy Soviet-style “Government Transformers” page paying tribute to government heroes who’ve made the switch to Google.
▻http://www.govtransformers.com -
#Boeing ’s $13.2 billion in state and local #subsidies is more than its pretax profits for the last two years:
▻http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/corporate-welfaresubsidiesboeingalcoa.html
#too_big_to_fail #lobbying-
▻http://pando.com/2014/02/26/fortune-500-companies-receive-63-billion-in-subsidies
The true beneficiaries of subsidies are often hidden under layers of holding companies, shell firms and complex ownership agreements. But Good Jobs First did the tedious work of connecting the subsidies to the parent firms.
In the process, the group discovered that a whopping $110 billion — or 75 percent of cumulative disclosed subsidy dollars — are going to these 965 large companies.
Fortune 500 firms alone receive more than 16,000 subsidies at a total cost of $63 billion. Additionally, eight out of the top 20 firms receiving U.S. taxpayer subsidies are not even U.S. companies, meaning American taxpayers are being forced to directly subsidize foreign firms.
-
-
Bienvenue dans un monde de service - PandoDaily.com
▻http://pando.com/2014/01/24/its-a-services-world-how-1-99-a-month-can-help-a-company-reap-millionsGoogle a pour habitude de prendre un produit cher et de le transformer en service gratuit ou presque. Arrivera-t-il demain à Nest ce qui est arrivé à Microsoft, quand Google a lancé GoogleDrive ? Pour Manu Rekhi, ces exemples illustrent le changement en cours, le passage du produit au service. Bienvenue dans l’âge de la location. Les #services d’abonnement prennent le relai des produits que l’on achetait. Et la consommation instantanée qu’ils promettent est la force motrice de ces services. Et Manu Rekhi d’égrainer une liste de services par abonnement existants dans tous les domaines possibles et imaginables... et ce pour quelques dollars par mois. Tags : internetactu fing internetactu2net (...)
-
Et même pas une mention de « The Age of Access » de #Rifkin publié 14 ans plus tôt ? Gonflé l’auteur de l’article...
▻http://www.foet.org/books/age-access.html
▻http://www.techsoc.com/access.htm
-
-
Footage released of #Guardian editors destroying #Snowden hard drives
▻http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq#GCHQ technicians watched as journalists took angle grinders and drills to computers after weeks of tense negotiations
-
-
Guardian publishes video of GCHQ harddrive destruction, and an amazingly racist quote from Edward Snowden
▻http://pando.com/2014/01/31/guardian-publishes-video-of-gchq-harddrive-destruction-and-an-amazingly-racis[Snowden] said he was unimpressed by east London’s multiracial neighbourhoods, telling one British user of the forum: “It’s where all of your Muslims live. I didn’t want to get out of the car…”
(The quote continued: “I mean it wasn’t like, ‘Hi, we’re your friendly neighborhood Muslim community. welcome to our main street,” he wrote. “It was more like, ‘SUBMIT TO THE WILL OF ALLAH. SHARIAH REGULATIONS POSTED AT ALL CORNERS.’”)
This, remember, is the same Edward Snowden who, after fleeing to Hong Kong, described his disgust at the racism shown by members of the US armed forces. “Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,” he said.
I suppose those same Arabs can rest assured that, even had Snowden completed his special forces training, he would have been too scared to get out of his jeep to actually kill any of them.
-
fouiller de vieux logs pour trouver une « amazingly racist quote » ça porte un nom : character assassination. C’était déjà là chez Fox News en juin dernier, avec d’autres « amazing quotes », notamment « leakers should be shot in the balls » :
▻http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/27/snowden-thought-leakers-should-be-shot-in-200-chat-logs-reveal -
Ce qui est incompréhensible, c’est pourquoi les sbires de Cameron ont exigé la destructions des disques durs alors que le redchef du Guardian avait clairement expliqué qu’il y avait des copies ailleurs. Je ne vois pas l’intérêt pour les services secrets anglais (ou américains) de perdre leur temps a regarder les journalistes du Guardian s’acharner sur les ordi. Ça dépasse mon entendement.
-
-
Des preuves d’entente accablent Steve Jobs et Eric Schmidt
▻http://www.numerama.com/magazine/28179-des-preuves-d-entente-accablent-steve-jobs-et-eric-schmidt.htmlDans les années 2000, plusieurs grandes d’entreprises de la Silicon Valley se sont entendues pour ne pas démarcher leurs salariés en vue de les recruter, afin de ne pas faire monter les prix des salaires. Les preuves révélées par la justice américaines accablent en particulier Steve Jobs, l’ancien patron d’Apple, et le président de Google, Eric Schmidt.
-
Ah justement je voulais partager cette enquête détaillée et assez marrante
▻http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-dow -
-
-
-
-
Accord amiable dans le procès des emplois dans la Silicon Valley
▻http://fr.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idFRKBN0E405Z20140524 -
Court Rejects Deal on Hiring in Silicon Valley
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/technology/settlement-rejected-in-silicon-valley-hiring-case.htmlJudge Lucy H. Koh of the United States District Court in San Jose rejected as insufficient a proposed $324 million settlement in a class-action antitrust case that accused leading tech companies of agreeing not to poach one another’s engineers.
-
-
Report: NSA metadata program had “no discernible impact on preventing” terrorism
▻http://pando.com/news/report-nsa-metadata-program-had-no-discernible-impact-on-preventing-terrorismPresident Obama’s own NSA panel has already reported that the programs disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden have not stopped terrorist attacks. Now, a comprehensive new study of 225 terrorism cases by the New America Foundation ►http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/do_nsas_bulk_surveillance_programs_stop_terrorists has concluded that the programs have “had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
-
Le rapport original ▻http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Bergen_NAF_NSA%20Surveillance_1.pdf
Sur les 225 cas étudiés, il y en a 17 où l’activité de la NSA a joué un rôle (cf. dans le texte ou l’infographie ici ►http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis
En annexe, 8 de ces cas sont analysés en détail.
-
-
#Bitcoin has a dark side: its carbon footprint
▻http://pando.com/2013/12/16/bitcoin-has-a-dark-side-its-carbon-footprintBitcoins aren’t mined from the earth’s crust like most physical commodities – although at least that leaves tangible evidence of its environmental impact. Rather, they are “mined” by computers solving a set of complicated computational problems. These problems are designed to get more difficult over time, until the year 2140 when the 21 millionth (and final) bitcoin is mined. Early in bitcoin’s existence, it was feasible to run a successful mining operation with a standard PC. Now the task requires custom mining rigs that can run orders of magnitude more processes per second.
-
What if the Saudis knew exactly what they are doing in Syria ?
►http://pando.com/2013/12/19/the-war-nerd-saudis-syria-and-blowback #Syria #Jihad #blowback #Saudi_Arabia -
What #Surveillance Valley knows about you | PandoDaily
▻http://pando.com/2013/12/22/a-peek-into-surveillance-valleyA recent study showed that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having their online activity tracked and analyzed. Seventy-three percent of people polled for the Pew Internet & American Life Project viewed the tracking of their search history as an invasion of privacy, while 68 percent were against targeted advertising, replying: “I don’t like having my their online behavior tracked and analyzed.”
This isn’t news to companies like Google, which last year warned shareholders: “Privacy concerns relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using our products and services.”
Little wonder then that Google, and the rest of Surveillance Valley, is terrified that the conversation about surveillance could soon broaden to include not only government espionage, but for-profit spying as well.
0 | 20