Digital platforms, the websites and apps which compete for our precious screen time, have successfully invaded the traditional territory of many sectors of the “old economy”. They have become the preferred – expected, even – domains for many kinds of human behaviour, from banking and property buying, to dating and entertainment.
This week in Light Start – no more loot boxes for Activision, Windows 7 will run out of time, Samsung losing its grip on China, and the ultimae hacker.
Reports of Facebook moderators’ appalling working conditions have been making headlines worldwide. Workers say they are burning out as they moderate vast flows of violent content under pressure, with vague, ever-changing guidelines. They describe unclean, dangerous contractor workplaces. Moderators battle depression, addiction, and even post-traumatic stress disorder from the endless parade of horrors they consume.
Data drives our global digital ecosystem, and AI technologies reveal patterns in data. Smartphones, smart homes, and smart cities influence how we live and interact, and AI systems are increasingly involved in recruitment decisions, medical diagnoses, and judicial verdicts. Whether this scenario is utopian or dystopian depends on your perspective.
Fortnite is gone, RTX is coming to classic games, you can now answer a call on your PC (if you dare), and you cannot answer calls on iOS 13.
Back in June, Google discovered a range of security flaws in iPhone software that injected malicious code into phones. Here’s what happened.
Facebook will take it “to the mat and fight”. This is what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said about any potential legal challenge from the government to break it up.
You may have read about – or already seen, depending on where you are – the latest tweak to Facebook’s interface: the disappearance of the likes counter. Like Instagram (which it owns), Facebook is experimenting with hiding the number of likes that posts receive for users in some areas (Australia for Facebook, and Canada for Instagram).
We’ve already seen a range of apps adopt the new look, like Gmail, WhatsApp, Twitter and Pinterest. Now Instagram has joined the dark forces.
At the close of June’s G20 summit in Japan, a number of developing countries refused to sign an international declaration on data flows – the so-called Osaka Track. Part of the reason why countries such as India, Indonesia and South Africa boycotted the declaration was because they had no opportunity to put their own interests about data into the document.