This Week in Tech
If you thought that Europe's GDPR which came into effect in May had an impact on the digital world, well, you ain't seen nothing yet! Article 11 and Article 13. Both are part of a set of copyright reforms that the European Union plans to pass this year. These two articles have the potential to seriously break the internet / WWW. They passed their first hurdle on the process of becoming law by ONE vote this week.
Article 11 requires that if you even link to a news story you need both permission from the publisher and you need to pay a license fee. That means that this blog, for example, would have to pay for every link included in a post (if the link were to a European publisher / web site).
Article 13 requires that anything posted by anyone in Europe be run through a copyright screening process before it could appear on the web. If it contains any part that appears to contain anything from a copyrighted work the post will be blocked.
I'm not going to go into it in detail, but these regulations create great potential for abuse, censorship and misuse - and could effectively transform the internet from a uniquely free medium accessible to all for purposes of publishing back into the bad old days where only those with deep pockets can afford to publish (putting control of news and media back into the hands of the elite few).
Read about it:
What is interesting is that big media in the states (New York Times, Washington post, etc.) is not giving this much coverage.
Social Implications
Hardware
Malware, Hacks, Privacy, etc
Data comms
Robots and robotics
Social Media
That's it for this week. Good luck with marking and reports...
Rain is out of beta and offering flat rate cellular data @ R50 / Gb (no contract, no bundles, only pay for what you use at the end of the month)
Machine learning is a complex topic - difficult to illustrate and explain. What if there was an easy way for your learners to do some machine learning programming for themselves? In Scratch? Using the power of IBM's Watson supercomputer? All online without having to install software? Check out the AI section below for a really exciting and amazing tool....
Light. Radio. X-Rays. Gamma Rays. Infra-red. Ultra-violet. Microwaves. These are all essentially part of the same range of physical phenomena - the Electromagnetic Spectrum. If our eyes had evolved differently we might be able to see radio waves. Maybe there are aliens out there who can actually do this. Thinking outside the box, MIT researchers have tried using radio waves like a less lethal for of X-Rays. They can use the fact that your body interferes with the radio waves sent out by your WiFi router and use that to track your movements - even through walls.
Motherboard has the details.
Fake News
AI
Hacks, Cracks, Malware, Etc...
Social Media
Social implications
Hardware (and Supercomputing)
Software
History...
This week Intel announced a new CPU with 28 cores that runs at 5 Ghz. A day later AMD announced a CPU with 32 cores (no speed specified). Both announcements are a clear indication of the direction CPU development is taking for the future. Though no prices were announced these top of the range CPUs are likely to cost around R20 000 or R30 000 (just for the CPU). Maybe one day when I'm all grown up I'll get me one of those....
Microsoft moves under the sea
If you ever need proof that servers are designed not to be accessed directly by humans (but rather only through the network) then look no further than Microsoft's new data centre. It contains only 864 servers but, to save on energy costs it is submerged beneath the ocean off the Scottish shore. The sea keeps it cool without power hungry air conditioning - and it completely powered by renewable energy. Motherboard has the details.
Buyer beware
Just because you see a 'deal' online don't believe that it's all that it's cracked up to be. MyBroadband investigates 'deals' on Takealot and finds that they come up seriously short... Remember always do some research and price comparisons before you click that 'buy' button.
Apple vs the plunderers of privacy
At its WWDC conference keynote held on Monday, Apple announce that its OS and browser (Safari) will take some serious measures to counter the way that you (the user) are tracked online by data vendors such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. There are TWO main prongs to this defence:
On top of that, law enforcement (and therefore anyone else who can lay their hands on the technology) has been able to 'crack' and log into phones by using a box that connects to the phone by USB cable and brute forces its way through the password. No more. The new version of iOS will allow you to disable USB access if the phone has been inactive for an hour.
Here are some relevant links:
Apple and your digital health
Apple didn't stop with privacy. People have also been complaining that our devices are too addictive and demanding that manufacturers do something about it. Well Apple took these complaints to heart. The new iOS has a feature called Screentime which will allow you to track how much you use your device - in detail. You will be able to see how often you look at your phone or tablet, which apps take up most of your time (precisely measured). More than that, you will be able to set time limits for usage - and even specify these limits by app. So, for example, you can allocate yourself 15 minutes a day for Facebook. The OS will track the time you use (on your phone and tablet together), show you how much tome you have used, how much is left and in the end cut you off (obviously they do allow you to override the cutoff and continue). This could be a shocking eye opener for some of us...
Hacks, cracks and malware
Social media
Hardware
Robots, Drones, etc.
Social implications
That's it for this week....
Every now and then a new development in IT turns what we know and expect on its head. This week such a development was announced. Intel plans to release Optane RAM. Optane is a super fast SSD type of memory chip. Using it in RAM means that two things we take for granted about RAM are no longer valid. RAM will no longer be volatile. It will act just like an SSD type of storage. RAM will also no longer be small in size. It is quite conceivable that you could affordably put hundreds of gigabytes (or even terabytes) or RAM into your computer. Available next year. Welcome to the future of computing...
Ars Technica has the details.
ALSO: Time to rethink your old password rules!
AI
Privacy & GDPR
Bugs and outages
3D Printing / Medicine
Social implications
Hacking and Scams
Resources
That's it for this week. Good luck with exams!
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