Showing all posts about technology
Some Australian retailers collect facial recognition data
16 June 2022
Consumer advocate organisation CHOICE has found three major Australian retailers have been collecting facial recognition data, something that is probably news to many of their customers.
CHOICE staff members also visited some of these stores in person as part of the investigation. Bower says the Kmart and Bunnings stores they visited had physical signs at the store entrances informing customers about the use of the technology, but the signs were small, inconspicuous and would have been missed by most shoppers. The collection of biometric data in such a manner may be in breach of the Privacy Act.
We’ve probably all seen the notices at the entrances to the stores advising the practice takes place, but it is doubtful most customers have read them. In their defence, one of the retailers claims the technology is being used to “prevent theft and anti-social behaviour.”
This may be so, and businesses are entitled to protect their revenue, customers, and staff, but it is the clandestine nature of the practice that is alarming customers, some of whom are threatening to shop elsewhere. There are warnings though that more stores will turn to collecting facial recognition data as the technology becomes more accessible, so, unless future legislation says otherwise, it looks like conduct that Australian consumers will have to get used to.
In the meantime, retailers should make notifications more prominent, along with information about how to locate their data retention and privacy policies. For instance how long is such data retained, and who exactly has access to it? Retailers need to remember the vast majority of consumers are after all doing the right thing by them, and are deserving of more respectful treatment.
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Microsoft ends support for Internet Explorer here comes Edge
15 June 2022
There’s good news and there’s bad news.
Microsoft is finally withdrawing support for its aging Internet Explorer (IE) web browser. The software has not been fully updated since the release of IE 11 in 2013, making it the bane of web developers’ lives, who are forced to implement workarounds in their mark-up to make websites at least partially functional in the old browser. Older software may also contain vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit, possibly giving them access to a user’s computer.
But today only sees the end of support for IE on “certain versions of Windows 10”, so Internet Explorer will be with us for some time yet. On to the bad news. Now that IE is no longer being maintained, Microsoft is encouraging users to switch to its newer browser, Edge. But “encouraging” isn’t quite the right word.
Some users of Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS), Windows 11, are reporting efforts by the OS to “discourage” the installation of rival bowsers. For instance some users trying to install Chrome, the Google browser, are seeing a pop-up message advising them “there’s no need to download a new web browser.”
If Edge is as good as its manufacturer claims it to be, what’s with the heavy handed tactics? Won’t consumers — once they’ve “seen the light” — switch to Edge of their own accord? Whether the ploy will be effective remains to be seen. Data from Statcounter reveals about four percent of web users had installed Edge so far this year, putting it slightly ahead of Mozilla Firefox, but still way behind Safari, the Apple browser, and Chrome.
Windows 11 was launched in October 2021, but it is unclear how many users have so far migrated from Windows 10 to 11. Given well over a billion people have either the Windows 10 or 11 OS installed on their computers, with the majority likely still using 10, the “uptake” of Edge can only increase as the rollout of Windows 11 continues.
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Future Superhuman, our transhuman future by Elise Bohan
30 May 2022
Like it or not, as a species we are eventually going to take control of our evolution. Unless we destroy ourselves first, that is. The early steps towards what some call a transhuman future however will doubtless be mired in difficulty and uncertainty.
Still it’s a topic that’s always fascinated me, and while I’m not the biggest reader of non-fiction books, Future Superhuman Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century (published by UNSW Press, May 2022) by Elise Bohan, a senior researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy, at the University of Oxford, is one title I’m looking forward to reading.
We’re hurtling towards a superhuman future – or, if we blunder, extinction. The only way out of our existential crises, from global warming to the risks posed by nuclear weapons, novel and bioengineered pathogens and unaligned AI, is up. We’ll need more technology to safeguard our future – and we’re going to invent and perhaps even merge with some of that technology.
What does that mean for our 20th century life-scripts? Are the robots coming for our jobs? How will human relationships change when AI knows us inside out? Will we still be having human babies by the century’s end? Elise Bohan unflinchingly explores possibilities most of us are afraid to imagine: the impacts of automation on our jobs, livelihoods and dating and mating careers, the stretching out of ‘the-circle-of-life’, the rise of AI friends and lovers, the liberation of women from pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, and the impending global baby-bust – and attendant proliferation of digital minds.
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Elise Bohan, non-fiction, technology
How annoying are some websites today?
21 April 2022
We all know the feeling. You’re literally five seconds into reading article on a website, and a popup screen is asking if you’d like to subscribe to their newsletter. NO THANKS. I just want to read the article and never come back again.
It’s infuriating. That’s why this website is so… boring, people come here looking for information and I serve it up, no fuss, no drama, no damn popups.
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The flight of the drone, Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg
4 April 2022
Go to full screen and take-in this stunning drone fly-through at Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, Tesla’s European manufacturing facility.
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Build, a book by Tony Fadell, co-inventor of the iPhone
3 March 2022
To stoke the collective oblong obsession. American engineer and designer Tony Fadell who invented the iPod, and co-invented the iPhone, has written a book, Build, which is being published in May. This is surely a must read for iPod and iPhone aficionados. The story behind the development of both products, especially the iPhone, is fascinating, especially if this perspective by John Gruber at Daring Fireball is anything to go by.
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A good writer never blames their apps for a lack of productivity
18 December 2021
Can distraction-free devices change the way we write, asks Julian Lucas, writing for the New Yorker. A writing app, a word processor, one that cuts out the clutter, menu bars, formatting options, font choices, and all the impedimenta that might distract us: would we be more productive as writers if that were the case?
But focus mode on an everything device is a meditation room in a casino. What good is it to separate writing from editing, formatting, and cluttered interfaces if you can’t separate it from the Internet? Even a disconnected computer offers plenty of opportunities for distraction: old photographs, downloaded music, or, most treacherous of all, one’s own research. And so, just as savvy entrepreneurs have resuscitated the “dumb” phone as a premium single-tasking communication device, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would revive the stand-alone word processor.
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The metaverse, you can log out anytime, but you can never leave
2 December 2021
The Metaverse as seen by Sydney based writer and musician, Penny Flanagan:
Call me paranoid, but I’m starting to think that Zuckerberg’s end game is to stop all of us from existing physically in the real world. I think he wants to “make the time spent on the internet better” so that he can turn us all into 24/7 flubby, docile sources of advertising revenue. In truth, his ideal for the metaverse is a world where the internet is so satisfying, you won’t want or need to leave it for the real world.
I can see where Flanagan’s coming from, particularly in light of the recent lockdowns that have forced many of us to participate in an elemental iteration of the Metaverse. If you, that is, consider the likes of Zoom, Slack, Facetime, et al, to be a prototype of the virtual environment Meta/Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg proposes creating.
And while there’s little doubt Zuckerberg is eyeing potential revenue, I see benefits in some of the ideas on the table. I’m also not doubting some people could become completely immersed in this new virtual realm in time, but I think we’re some long-way off from seeing the Metaverse eventuate in the way Zuckerberg envisages it.
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Bookseller boss worried by slow post lockdown return to city centre
26 November 2021
John Forsyth, chairman of Dymocks Group, one of Australia’s oldest booksellers, is concerned local government isn’t doing enough to rejuvenate Sydney’s CBD, particularly in the wake of recent pandemic imposed lockdowns. He isn’t alone. Businesses in other commercial centres across Greater Sydney are also feeling the pinch. They’re urging municipal councils, many of whom are facing elections in early December, to do more to bring people back into city centres.
But I’m not sure it’s that simple, and other ways to support struggling businesses may need to be considered. Some workers don’t want to return to central business districts. Having been forced to work from home, many are content to stay there. And who can blame them? Working from home means less time lost to commuting, commuting in the first instance, and more time to spend with the family, and on other things they find important. These people are still supporting small businesses, but ones closer to home, rather than in the city.
It’s long been my thought that advances in technology were always going to bring about this sort of shift in work practises eventually, the pandemic simply hastened the inevitable. What happens in the few months will be pivotal. Many organisations are paying rent on buildings that are virtually unoccupied. How will they respond? By instructing workers to return? Or by scaling down office space? But with some workers looking to relocate to rural regions, and renewed talk of four day working weeks, will we ever see the return of city workers to pre-pandemic levels?
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Twenty-four hours in the 2021 Metaverse
15 November 2021
Wall Street Journal technology columnist Joanna Stern spent twenty-four hours in the Metaverse – such that is presently – and compiled the highlights in this video clip. Though somewhat functional, it’s fair to say the concept as shown to us a few weeks ago by Mark Zuckerberg is some way off.
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