Unlike a nuclear weapon, which would vaporize people within 100 feet and kill almost everyone within a half-mile, the death toll from a large-scale cyberattack would be slower. People might die from a lack of food, power or gas for heat or from car crashes resulting from a corrupted traffic light system.
Simone Biles is probably one of the biggest names in competitive sport at the moment, and managed to do a world-first triple-double flip that’s taken over the internet.
Silicon Valley companies (and governments) already surreptitiously gather as much data on us as they can and use it in ways we’d rather they didn’t. How sure can we be that our random and personal thoughts won’t be captured and studied alongside the instructions we want to give the technology?
With the rise of internet juggernauts Google, Facebook, Amazon and others, this insight seems obvious now. But over the past two decades, a fundamentally new business model emerged which even Castells had not foreseen – one in which attracting users onto digital platforms takes precedence over everything else, including what the user might say, do, or buy on that platform.
Journalist Eve Livingston’s recent article for The Face examines the many social and cultural features of Scottish Twitter. But the fact it has provided a medium for written Scots language to evolve in a way that wasn’t possible before the advent of social media is equally fascinating.
Apple’s iPhone could be facing some tougher times, based on the newest information from research firm Canalys. According to the company, the tech-maker…
8chan has now reportedly moved to the “dark web”, a network of unindexed sites that require a special browser to access, pushing its content and contributors further underground. This means fewer people could stumble on the site inadvertently and become radicalised by the content – a definite positive. But it also means the content will be far tougher to monitor and police.
Telkom, which has battled copper cable theft for decades, has started transitioning its landline users to it mobile network. Instead of my 91-year-old mother’s phone using wires to connect to the network, it now uses Telkom’s mobile network. It’s been a game changer.
Faceboook-owned Instagram has terminated its relationship with a marketing company called Hyp3r after it was found that the company was ignoring privacy rules and collecting user data it wasn’t supposed to have. What makes this worse is that the company was listed as a preferred Facebook Marketing Partner for the past year.
When it comes to shaping the online conversation around climate change, a new study suggests that deniers and conspiracy theorists might hold an edge over those believing in science. Researchers found evidence that most YouTube videos relating to climate change oppose the scientific consensus that it’s primarily caused by human activities.