Tag Archives: The Internet.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE SHOULD NEVER UNDERESTMATE HUMAN STUPIDITY

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Capitalism, Climate Change., Environment, Evolution, Facebook, Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Nuclear power., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The cloud., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., War, Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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(Five-minute read)

You don’t need me to tell you that we are living through an era of tremendous transition and disruption and whether or not we are comfortable with AI may already be moot:

HOWEVER, THE THREE BIGGEST PROBLEMS FACING THE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE FORM OF PROFIT SEEKING ALGORITHMS, AND NUCLEAR WAR REMAIN VIRTUALLY IGNORED DUE TO OUR STUPIDITY. 

NONE OF THESE PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR ON A NATION BY NATION APPROACH.

THEY ARE GLOBAL AND NEED GLOBAL COOPERATION TO BE SOLVED.

IT MAY BE HARD TO BUY INTO THESE PROBLEMS AFTER HAVING GROWING UP IN THE ERA OF INDUSTRY BUT UNFORTUNATELY GOVERNMENTS, WORLD INSTITUTIONS, AND BUSINESS AND US WILL FIND OURSELVES AT THE HELM OF THE PAST IF WE PERSIST WITH THE BELIEF THAT ECONOMIES, CONSUMPTION, AND PROFIT IS THE HOLY GRAIL OF OUR EXISTENCE.

Unfortunately, human stupidity is perhaps the most powerful force humanity has at its disposal to combat the direction we are going to- Extinction.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of stupidity"

WHEN IT COMES TO IDENTIFYING ITS EFFECTS THERE IS NO PROBLEM FINDING EXAMPLES IN THE PAST.

WE ARE NOW TRANSFERRING STUPITY INTO THE FUTURE IN THE FORM OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS OR WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND.

Remembering that there are no defenses against stupidity. The more pertinent question now is whether we can and ought to build trust in systems that can make decisions beyond human oversight that may have irreversible consequences.

In the internet era, technology is changing at an alarming rate. We, humans, are becoming increasingly reliant on the World Wide Web. This is leading to a decrease in the retention capacity of the human brain and an overall downfall in the intelligence quotient of Homo sapiens.

The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.

If we take a critical look at the three global problems starting with the current global position on climate change:

Reduce carbon emissions on a national promises bases – stupid.

The bottom line is, take action to cool your planet or the planet will take action and cool your life – forever.

The development of AI:

Turn a blind eye by continuing to feed human existence data into algorithms for profit and power thus concentrating both into the hands of a few Clouds- stupid.  

Nuclear Power:

Elect Facebook and Twitter leaders, while Social media feeds us personal recommendations and false News- stupid. 

IS IT TIME TO GET OUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND AND DEMAND SOME GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE TO TACKLE THE GLOBAL PROBLEMS.

RATHER THAN TRADE WARS, PROMISES, NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS, PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE, WARS, INEQUALITY, WE COULD LOOK AFTER EACH OTHER AND THE EARTH WE ALL LIVE ON BY ENSURING THE AI SERVES US ALL EQUALLY NOT THE FEW. 

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of stupidity"

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: Intelligence is whatever machines haven’t done yet.

08 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Evolution, Fake News., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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( A TEN MINUTE READ)

The problem is that the concept of “artificial intelligence” is way too potent for its own good.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "PICTURES of technology in the future"

Ai, Machine learning, Deep learning neural networks have no obvious ways of performing logical inferences all are still a long way from integrating abstract knowledge, such as information about what objects are, what they are for, and how they are typically used.

These are the three terms you’re most likely to have heard lately, and, to be as simple as possible, we can think of them in layers. Neural networks are at the bottom — they’re a type of computer architecture on to which artificial intelligence is built.

Machine learning is next — it’s a program you might run on a neural network, training computers to look for certain answers in pots of data; and

Deep learning is on top — it’s a particular type of machine learning that’s only become popular over the past decade, largely thanks to two new resources: cheap processing power and abundant data (otherwise known as the internet).

The concept of neural networks goes all the way back to the ‘50s and the beginning of AI as a field of research.

In a nutshell, these networks are a way of structuring a computer so that it looks like a cartoon of the brain, comprised of neuron-like nodes connected together in a web. Individually these nodes are dumb, answering extremely basic questions, but collectively they can tackle difficult problems. More importantly, with the right algorithms, they can be taught.

In other words, they don’t have any common sense.

BUT WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EVER DEVELOP IMAGINATION.

In most cases, the systems making claims to artificial intelligence aren’t sentient, self-aware, volitional, or even surprising. They’re just software.

AI platforms should do more than answer simple questions. They should be able to learn at scale, reason with purpose, and naturally, interact with humans TO BE CALLED INTELLIGENT.

THERE IS PRESENTLY A GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE TERM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AMONG THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS WHEN IT COMES TO NOT ONLY IDENTIFYING AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

With Artificial intelligence poised to disrupt everything, it’s time we get on the same page as to what AI is, and perhaps more importantly, what we want it to be so that we can regulate and control the technology.

IF WE DON’T ANYONE LOOKING TO DRAW BUZZ TO THEIR PRODUCTS WILL CONTINUE TO CO-OPT THE PHRASE.

If we don’t we won’t NOTICE WHEN A TRUE REVOLUTIONARY AI SYSTEM DOES ARRIVE.

AND HOW PROBLEMATIC THAT WILL BE.

NOW IS THE TIME THAT WE MUST FULLY ALIGN THE GOAL’S OF AI WITH OURS WHICH IS ALREADY STRICKLING DIFFICULT WITHOUT AN OVERALL GOVERNING WORLD BODY.

IT IS PARAMOUNT FOR WORLD PEACE NOT TO MENTION IN THE COMING YEARS TO REDUCE THE INCREASING GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR THAT EVERY AI PROGRAM SHOULD BE VETTED NOT JUST FOR A SUREFIRE WAY OF PREDICTING HOW IT WILL BEHAVE BUT TO ENSURE IT COMPLIES WITH OUR COMMON HUMAN VALUES.

FOR TRANSPARENCY AND RESPONSIBILITY EVERY AI PROGRAM SHOULD BE REGISTERED WITH THIS WORLD BODY WITH A SHUTDOWN PROGRAM.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "PICTURES OF AI"

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: THE WORLD IS SICK, SICK AND GETTING SICKER.

12 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Big Data., Communication., Democracy, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google it., Google Knowledge., Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A two-minute read)

When we look at the world it is important to recognize that we are looking at the history of different civilizations, however, we all have a common story.

We are born and we die.Free art print of Unfortunate Future of The World

Today the story is the same but with more mobility in-between, however, we’ve not changed a dot and it is certain that we will go on making things that will change or existence.

With to days technology, we are on the threshold of not just a new Industrial revolution but changing how we exist and where we exist.

The outline of a mobile phone as we know has changed not just rural Africa and Asia – putting communities in touch, giving access to information and money it is now also creating Social media platforms which are in the process of disconnecting us from reality.

This week Facebook, Google, and Twitter appeared in front of Congress. After which it is obvious, that we are not asking the right questions yet, or we have not found any good answers just yet as to why our world is getting sicker and sicker and it’s not Einstine science as to why.

When it comes to the world we can not cure just one aspect of the sickness, we must address an array of inherited illness.

Our new technological world is removing the need to think, to read, to imagine, to function, to communicate, to earn respect, to know why is true or a false pleasure, to plan long-term.

In other words, the internet has been infected by the problems that we all suffer.

What is need is that we need to take our existence back, whether it be as consumers, as citizens, and say we actually want to have some say over how all of this technology works, because we’ve really given that over to the tech companies ( outside of China, for the rest of the world, there are five big tech companies who really run everything) that have little or no ethical interest in other than profit

Why?

Because before we become the product for internet service providers, no longer just customers. we need a social movement around this issues to stop us all being run by the same algorithms brains driven by different programs that are incapable of acting for the common good.

Greed, inequality, you name it, our political affiliation, based upon the top-level domain information of websites you visit, your sexual orientation, where you like to shop, your financial status, race, gender can now be figured out based on the information that they collect and use.

If we didn’t have the bullshit movies, TV shows and sports pumping fake feel-good emotions into our systems, we would all feel the great weight of our inaction in an era where we need to get off our fucking asses and take a stand.

All the world’s problems are not on the internet.

We’re not supposed to watch a screen that pumps fake feel-good emotions into us.

It is quite plausible in the not so distant future we will have nothing serious to contribute when the hype – intelligent software supersedes humanity with genomics, nanotechnology, and robotics. New computer chips specialized for AI will power how we engineer genes, proteins, materials. Quantum computing a million times quicker than present-day computers will change the fields of drug development, manufacturing, and material science.

It will all be very murky but the potential is truly staggering.

Its now or never that we harness all this technology for if a day comes that the final decision is left to a Robotic brain rest assured that, Hal 9000 VS Dave will come true. 

https://youtu.be/HwBmPiOmEGQRésultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of sick earth"

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHERE DOES IT END? – GOOGLE.

04 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Communication., Facebook, Google it., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Modern Day Communication., Modern day life., Social Media., Technology, The Future, The Internet., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, WiFi communication.

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( A seven minute read)

Our worldviews are formed by who is shouting louder and more persistently into our ears.

While our Technologic vision is to create more intuitive and human-like interactions between man and machines Google, Facebook, Twitter, the Internet of Everything.  The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.Afficher l'image d'origineAmbiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

There’s has been little consideration of how, exactly, the Internet and these Companies are reprogramming us.

Having said that, I think internet and new media actually can be effective to fight such brainwashing.

However most of the Internet and Social Media is now presenting just superficial information we won’t even remember tomorrow. It is the illusion of knowledge by information.

Just as we coming to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that is being flattened into artificial intelligence.

True reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like. Quantum mechanics is telling us that we have to question the very notions of ‘physical things’ sitting in ‘space.

If you have got this far, you might be wondering where am I going with this post.

Just as there’s a tendency to glorify technological progress, there’s a counter tendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine.

The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well.

The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements.

Last year, Page told a convention of scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large-scale.

Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.

Still, their easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling.

Is it real knowledge? or a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,”

Thanks to the growing power that computer engineers and software coders wield over our intellectual lives,“algorithm,” are beginning to govern the realm of the mind.

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as “knowledge work.”

Google, is “a company that’s founded around the science of measurement,” and it is striving to “systematize everything”

It carries out thousands of experiments a day, according to the Harvard Business Review, and it uses the results to refine the algorithms that increasingly control how people find information and extract meaning from it.

The company has declared that its mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It seeks to develop “the perfect search engine,” which it defines as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.”

In Google’s view, information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can “access” and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.

It would bring about a restructuring not only of industry but of society, creating a utopia of perfect efficiency. “In the past the man has been first,” he declared; “in the future the system must be first.”

An “algorithm world.”

Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today.

Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level.

In the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think, the Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition.

The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.

A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

The Net’s influence doesn’t end at the edges of a computer screen, either.

As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets. “Shortcuts” give harried readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news, sparing them the “less efficient” method of actually turning the pages and reading the articles.

Intellectual technologies —the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.

They are disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.

The conception of the world that emerged from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments “remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.

Skimming activity, hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited.

We are becoming “power browsers”

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice.

But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self, weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace.

We are becoming “mere decoders of information.”

Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings.

It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains.

The circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable.

People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But brain researchers have discovered that that’s not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. “The brain,” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.

I think I know what’s going on.

For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded.

In the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.

Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb.

Having a computer for a brain has its perks, but it has its drawbacks as well. Language is a tough concept for robots, as words can convey the abstract as well as the concrete and robots have trouble knowing the difference (and grasping the abstract).

That makes human-machine interaction less than intuitive for humans and confusing to ‘bots. Thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm.

As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”

Every day of the week new APPS replace thinking, Jobs. Humanoid robots are now able to speak in different languages with voice recognition thanks to the cloud. Robots can also ask one another about where they just came from, and which directions it is from where they currently are.

If one finds itself in an unfamiliar place, it will make up a word to describe it from randomly generated syllables. It communicates that word to other robots it meets there, establishing the name of the locale within the community. From this, a spatial and verbal framework is established to name places on the map. Creating a shared language between them.

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in ourselves but in our culture.

I find myself centered between understanding the necessity for change into the world of technology and mourning the loss of social interpretation and deep thinking.

Don’t stopped reading books altogether.Evolution. Abstract science backrounds with female portrait Stock Photo - 14446448

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE: GIVES THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD SOME ADVICE.

29 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day Hero., Social Media., The Future, The Internet., The Refugees, The world to day., Uncategorized

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With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.Afficher l'image d'origine

It is your world so as far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain or bitter: for there will always be greater and less persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career how ever humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is, many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not freig affection.

Neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the council of the years gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spit to nature you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,on doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with god, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labours or aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

Travel with knowledge. Life is a cup to be filled, not a measure to be drained.

No one else can make you feel inferior. Only you yourself do that.

Beauty fades,dumb is forever.

Never assume anything; assumption is the mother of mistakes. The only constant is change.

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

If you were to ask me what is the greatest thing in the world?

I will answer it is people, it is people, it is people.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S ARE WE ALL GOING TO END UP GOOGLEFIED.

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Google it., Google Knowledge.

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GOOGLE is currently the world’s most visited website but is it destroying the gymnasium of our collective minds? 

Essentially, Google has become our collective mental crutch.

Google is a publicly traded company owned by a group of shareholders.

Founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, own most of the shares of the company.

It’s almost impossible to live without interacting with a Google product in today’s world. Google owns an incredible number of companies and, at times, was even buying a company a week!

As of 2015, Google had 75% market share in searches. People use Google to search nearly 13 billion times per month, which averages to 26 searches per person per year.

There are very few products in the world with this ubiquity and dominance.

Using complete data from the 2014 fiscal year, Google raked in revenues exceeding $66 billion.

With $64.4 billion in cash and having spent almost $5 billion on acquisitions in 2014, Google doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to slow down.

This means Google is richer than pretty much everyone, and everyone includes the majority of the world’s nations such as Iceland, the Bahamas, Guatemala, Bulgaria and Sierra Leone.

This figure does not take into account Google’s expenses for 2014, which bring the company’s total net profit down to a measly $14.44 billion. However, since the gross domestic product, or GDP, of a nation does not incorporate its debt, the revenue figure is the most accurate number to use when comparing the income of corporations to the wealth of nations.

In 2015, Google Incorporated is worth $370 billion.

(Google is not even the richest company. In fact, based on revenue alone, Google trails pretty far down the list. Wal-Mart tops the chart with revenues exceeding $485 billion, and other corporate giants such as BP, Apple (AAPL) and Bank of America (BOA) rank somewhere in between.)

Google wield astonishing power in the United States and around the world.

Google Incorporated is the third largest company, in terms of market capitalization, in the United States; Its market cap is $373.79 billion, only being edged out by Microsoft Corporation and Apple Incorporated.

With most businesses being directly or indirectly controlled by a relatively small number of global mega-companies, almost everything a consumer buys or interacts with is connected in some way to companies such as Google.

Google makes money from searches by selling promoted advertising based on search keywords.

The ads are more powerful than traditional advertising because they can be targeted by interest and geography. Advertisers like the program because they can get real-time feedback on the effectiveness and engagement of their ads. This continues to be the backbone of Google’s business and its major source of revenue.

Google Gmail today has over 425 million MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS.
Afficher l'image d'origine

THE QUESTION IS:

If the Google was a nation and declared sovereignty, issued a currency and joined the United Nations tomorrow, where would it rank on a list of the wealthiest countries?

It turns out Google’s $66 billion revenue plants it squarely at number 70 for the 2014 fiscal year.

Only 69 of the nations of the world outrank the Internet-technology giant.

While economic superpowers such as the United States and China far outstrip Google, for now, the number of countries with GDPs dwarfed by Google’s massive wealth is staggering.

The phrase “to Google” is so popular that the company is actually worried about losing trademark rights if the term becomes generic, like “escalator” and “zipper,” which were once trademarked.

It has changed our brains. Even if we aren’t conscious of it, our brains are primed to think about the Internet as soon as we start trying to recall the answer to a tough trivia question.

It has taken over our cell phones. Since the first Android phone was sold in 2008, Google’s mobile operating system has bulldozed the competition. Today it claims nearly 85% of market share, nearly doubling its hold over the last three years.

It has transformed the way we use e-mail. Gmail was invented a decade ago, before bottomless in boxes were a sine qua non. It’s hard even to remember those dark ages when storage space was sacred—and deleting emails was as tedious-but-necessary as flossing. Today our accounts serve as mausoleums, housing long-forgotten files, links, and even whole relationships. Google itself has touted alternative uses for Gmail, such as setting up a virtual time capsule for your newborn—though in practice accounts can’t be owned by anyone under 13. But even that last point is about to change.

It’s changed how we collaborate. Back in 2006, Google acquired the company behind an online word processor named Writely. With that bet, Google created a world where it’s taken for granted that people can collaborate on virtually any type of document, whether for work, play, or (literally) revolution.

It has allowed us to travel the globe from our desks. Yes, Map Quest was popular first. But Google Maps (and Earth) has become much more than a tool for measuring travel routes and times. Since Google Street View came onto the scene in 2007, it’s been possible to “visit” distant destinations, give friends a virtual tour of your hometown, plan ahead of trips, and waste even more time on the Internet.

Of course, the more popular a tool, the more useful it is to those who’d like to spy on us.

It has influenced the news we read. Ranking high in Google search results is serious business and can have a profound effect on the success of companies, media outlets, and even politicians. When I just Googled “how SEO affects journalism,” this link was at the top of my search results. How is that significant? Well, for one, that story itself has been so successfully search engine optimized that it still tops the list despite being four years old.

It has turned users into commodities. We all love free stuff, but it’s easy to forget that services offered by companies like Google and Facebook aren’t truly “free,” as data expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out. Remember that all of your data (across ALL of the services you use, and that includes Calendar, Maps, and so on) is a valuable good that Google is packaging and selling to its real customers—advertisers.

It’s changed how everyone else sees YOU. Unlike your Facebook profile, the links that turn up when potential employers (or love interests) Google you can be near-impossible to erase. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google uses the fear of embarrassing search results to encourage people to manage their image through Google+ profiles.

Next stop:  

Self-driving cars along with a Google computer that is so artificially intelligent that it could program on its own transmitting, too Google glasses which will surely Googlefie their owners.  

Leaving little room if any for self conscious or search engines? Aren’t they all dead? —

Recent research has confirmed suspicions that 24/7 access to (near) limitless information is not only bad for human discourse— it’s also making us worse at remembering things, regardless of whether we try.

Thanks to Google we now have for lack of a better word the “wisdom of the crowd” or “social proof” (which you can “buy”) which sums up how superficial and shallow our society has really become.

Social Proofing is a phrase that applies particularly well to the large social environment created on the internet and the power of a group to come together and make a decision collectively.

(i.e. other items customers buy after viewing this item’ display or review summaries Booking.com Recommendation engines in shopping sites like Amazon.com rely on other people’s feedback to help drive sales and refer people to products they will like based on the buying behaviours of people like them.)

It doesn’t necessarily always lead to the “wisest” decision, because it can be a blind choice, made because other people made it, not necessarily based on sound rationalisation looking at the facts.

Social proof is everywhere.

Comments are indicators that enough people are paying attention to what you are writing to reply. The same can be said for things like Facebook “like” and Twitter “tweet” buttons.

We are pack animals, no matter how independent we think we are, unless you live in a cave, you are conditioned by other people around you.

Today the very nature of the Internet, being such a social environment, has resulted in social proof becoming by far the greatest force when it comes to buying decisions.

Google has recently reorganized itself into multiple companies, separating its core Internet business from several of its most ambitious projects while continuing to run all of these operations under a new umbrella company called Alphabet.

With the European Union recently beginning an investigation for monopolistic business practices, diversification might be in Google’s best interest.

Using Google to navigate the web remains the preferred method by which most people find information online. However, Google is far from a monopoly in terms of the entire gamut of Internet services. The perception of Google being a monopoly is derived from the fact it happens to have dominance in the most lucrative area of the Internet.

On the other hand.

When Google was just a start-up business in Palo Alto, Calif., it did not have enough money to pay its employees the high wages of today’s Google, so they offered them stock in place of a massive salary. Those original employees, including the head of the culinary staff, now either still own a good chunk of shares or have cashed in and enjoy a life of extreme wealth and prosperity because of Google’s explosive growth.

Google Incorporated now offers some of the best employee benefits and even death benefits. If a Google employee dies, the deceased’s spouse or partner receives half of the deceased employee’s salary for 10 years. Children of the deceased employee also receive $1,000 per month until age 19, or 23 if the children are full-time students.

It has contributed quite a bit of its income to various charities. In 2012, Google reported charitable donations exceeding $144.6 million. In addition, it gave away approximately $1 billion in free products.

Why have any concerns?

Google launched its Google Print division, now known as Google Books, which scans books into its application and website. Google intends to scan all existing books before 2020. To date, Google has scanned over 20 million books.

They are not doing this for the love of books or reading.

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Project Loon proposes to provide internet connectivity from balloons floating at a height of 20 km above the earth’s surface on a pilot basis. The idea is to connect remote areas of the country using LTE or 4G technology through the balloons, which can transmit as far as 40 km from their diameter.

If you believe that this is all they want to achieve with their Balloons you can pull my other leg.

Should we ban the wearing of Google glasses in public places.

  • As a practical act which creates areas free of surveillance or highly intrusive surveillance.
  • As a symbolic act showing concern for privacy.
  • As a way of exerting social pressure to establish norms around usage.
  • As a way of exerting market pressure to discourage people from buying and companies developing these systems.
  • Questions over machine monitored surveillance have existed for decades,

Fears over AI overlords may be groundless, but the use of machine learning to mine personal information is a worrying development, artificial intelligence experts have warned.

There is a broad consensus that technology has the potential to improve education and make it more personalized, but it is never going to come to pass if we don’t set higher standards for student and data security.”

A digital textbook is a textbook that lives on a desktop, laptop or mobile devices and is easily editable to provide educational content that is as timely and relevant as possible.

It wont challenge them to think about the knowledge, skills and abilities they’ll need to solve that problem.

But when does personalized learning get too personal?

Google researchers claim they’re working on a supercomputer that harnesses the power of quantum physics to calculate in one second problems that would take a regular machine 10,000 years to solve.

The change unlocks more computing power, allowing quantum computers to consider untold variables compared to conventional machines.

If they’re right — some people have raised questions about their claims — then the world could be at the dawn of a new age of über-powerful computers.

High-frequency trading helped cause the so-called “flash crash” of 2010, To the extent they can be speeded up even by a microsecond, it will make the problem that much worse.

On February 26th, 2015 Google’s Webmaster Central Blog announced a mobile algorithm update for April 21st, 2015. This is the first time Google has ever given an exact date for an algorithm update, so the digital world was expecting big things, dubbing the event ‘Mobilegeddon’.

Google is in such a dominant market position on mobile, that their decision to ban legitimate apps from Android amounts to Internet censorship.

The message from Google is clear, if your website is not optimised for mobile, it’s likely that your search ranking will suffer. Google cares most of all that people keep coming back to use their search engine.

The choices Google makes about what apps are banned and allowed appear in many cases to be dangerously anti-user.

The update will effectively penalise websites which Google does not deem to be mobile friendly and the impact is expected to be widespread.Google is not one to joke around so it is a definite ‘watch this space’ as the full impact of this algorithm is yet to seen…

Ethics concerns in conjunction with porn viewing and the internet cloud are presently in the news.

THINK WITH GOOGLE. 

New and expecting parents are 2.7x more likely than non-parents to use a smart phone as their primary device. So it’s not surprising  that Mobile searches related to babies and parenting have grown 25% since 2013

Searches about baby development were 72% mobile in Q1 of this year

In fact, views of parenting videos on YouTube were up 329% on mobile this year.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm.

We come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.

If we fill our BRAINS  up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.

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FALLING OUT OF LOVE WITH GOOGLE.

Understand what they’re doing, taking away time we could be using to shape our content in interesting ways.

Google’s increasingly invasive technology WILL BE IT’S DOWNFALL.

Apple’s policy is to collect no personal data, (this is of course apart from your iTunes account details allowing you to make purchases) a surprise from a huge company who aren’t exactly squeaky clean in other areas, like the working conditions for overseas workers for example.And they don’t do search – or do they? Installed on all almost 1 billion Apple devices worldwide,

Search with no ads and no data collection. So those of us with Apple devices can sidestep the issues with Google and still not have to add them to the To Sort Out list!

The fast changing pace of tech companies shows no sign of letting up and can both drive change and perhaps cause their downfall as consumers move with the tides as well.

Who would foresee Google tumbling from their great height? But perhaps this is what we are witnessing as this world of rapid changes throws up other surprises.

We are using these devices every day so we care and influence the battles outcomes.

So what we can do to get Google to re-commit to their mission of doing no evil.

We are letting the opportunity of a lifetime—of our lifetime and theirs—pass us by.

DuckDuckGo who offer search with no data collection.

They are an Open Source company who decided early in their life to offer Search with no personal tracking, no collection or sharing of your personal information. They’re a built-in search page option in Safari and Firefox, but not of course in Google Chrome!

Does any of this matter?

I suppose in the long run nothing will matter, but in the mean time Google which lives off our daily lives has a responsibility away beyond it Billions.

As humanity we will no doubt be reduced to a chip in a AI robot if we are to have any chance of escaping the planet before its demise.  ( Providing we last that long which looking at the current state of affairs it is highly unlikely.)

So perhaps it is for the best that we are all becoming Googlefied.

Google it and see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S, It’s time to redefine our “lifespaces”—the way we live

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in Google Knowledge., Humanity., Social Media., Technology, The Future, The world to day.

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Humans started to separate from the rest of the great apes about 7M years ago and we became modern humans 200k years ago.

Are we now throwing the old blueprint out the window?

So Are we more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond?

Have we moved beyond the paradigm of living in a nuclear family home in the suburbs?

What do the objects we select tell us about the relationships that exist between designer, retailer and consumer?

What is the design thinking behind some of the everyday items that shape our lives?

First we have to look at ourselves and according to the fountain of modern-day knowledge Google it.

An average person.

Spends 25 years sleeping.

10.3 years working.

48 days having sex.

Women spend 17 years of their lives trying to lose weight.

Spends 9.1 years watching TV.

Spends 2 years watching commercials.

Spends 1.1 years cleaning.

Spends 2.5 years cooking.

Spends 3.66 years eating, about 67 minutes a day.

Spends 4.3 years driving a car.

Spends 3 months of our life in traffic, about 38 hours a year.

Spends 1.5 years in the bathroom.

Spends a total of 92 days on the toilet.

Spends 70% of our waking life in front of digital media.

We laugh out loud 290,000 times in your life.

We walk a total of 110,000 miles.

We spend 90% of your time indoors.

We consume. 1 teaspoons of alcohol per day.

We have between 4 and 6 dreams a night for a total of 2,000 a year.

We fart 402,000 times in your lifetime.

We spend 14 days of your life kissing.

We drink 12,000 cups of coffee.

If you’re more into tea, you drink 48 pounds in your lifetime.

Women spend nearly 1 year deciding what to wear.

The average man will spend 1 year staring at women.

Women spend 8 years of their life shopping.

Women spend 1.5 years doing their hair.

An office worker spends 5 years sitting at a desk.

The average employee spends 2 years sitting in work meetings.

The average person swears 2,000,000 times.

Your heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime

Your body has about 5.6 liters (6 quarts) of blood. This 5.6 liters of blood circulates through the body three times every minute. In one day, the blood travels a total of 19,000 km (12,000 miles)

the human body is about 60 percent water.

You pass around 42,759…. Liters of Urine in an average life time.

You are awake 16 to 18 hours a day.

“The New Frugality”

The average adult spends more than 20 hours online a week.

On average, people spend more than 490 minutes of their day with some sort of media,.with global average consumption set to rise to 506 minutes.

The internet accounted for 13% of average daily media use in 2010, but is set to reach nearly 30% in 2017.

Instant messaging use has leaped from 38% of mobile phone users in 2013 to 42% in 2014, driven by services such as Whats App and Facebook Messenger.

The mobile phone is now the primary device used for gaming with a quarter of mobile users playing games at least once a week.

80% of internet users aged between 35 and 44 are now on social media.

70% of internet users say they feel comfortable giving away personal information on the internet, including their home address, and a quarter say they don’t read website terms and conditions or privacy statements at all.

The start of life on Earth?

Are all becoming shut-ins.?

Or are we closer today to a global revolution than ever before. Can you feel it?

Or are we all disappearing into the Cloud.

The Question is how can we ensure that this is not going to happen.

HERE IS A SUGGESTION THAT COULD NOT BRAKE DOWN THE MESS WE SEE THE WORLD IN.

A UNIVERSITY TRAVEL SUBSIDIARITY AIR TICKET AWARDED TO GRADUATES.

THE SUBSIDY COULD BE GRADED ACCORDING TO THE MARKS RECEIVED.  

STUDENTS COULD BE ENCOURAGED TO SAVE THE BALANCE DURING THEIR COURSE.  

THERE IS NOTHING LIKE TRAVEL TO OPEN THE MIND.    

Here below are a few observations to help you make your mind up.

The Beady Eye looks at the Internet. A “real” value or a ‘huge” liability?

07 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Big Data., Humanity., Politics., Technology, The Future, The Internet.

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The Internet’s impact on culture, business, and politics is vast, for sure.

It is becoming a bigger part of our lives everyday, making life more convenient but also taking away the human element of living in the moment and making relationships more superficial.

But where actually is it take us?

To answer that question is difficult, because the Internet is not simply a set of interconnecting links and protocols connecting packet switched networks, but it is also a construct of imagination, an inkblot test into which everybody projects their desires, fears and fantasies. Some see enlightenment and education. Others see pornography and gambling. Some see sharing and collaboration; others see e-commerce and profit.

The purpose of this post however is not to highlight all that the Internet has achieved or all that it will achieve.

 It is to ask the question is it good for a Democratic World.?

We know that it is exposing Capitalism for what it is and Communism for what it wants, along with the comity of Nations. It is making us ask what a well-functioning democratic order requires.

It is creating a world people’s voice that could be manipulated in the extreme.

You might think with all the other problems the world faces this it is of little importance. You would be wrong as it is shaping the Future.

As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of “personalization” that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing.

The growing power of consumers to “filter” what they see and the servers to dish up what they want you to see is from the standpoint of democracy, a mixed blessing.

But in a heterogeneous society, such a system requires something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual choices. Without shared experiences, a heterogeneous society will have a more difficult time addressing social problems and understanding one another.

People should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance.

As a matter of technological feasibility, our communications market is moving rapidly toward this apparently utopian picture which is a far cry from reality.

It is happening on the Internet where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and we the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

We are moving into “Corporatism which is the halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.

Consider this: It is estimated that the 2016 presidential election in the USA could cost as much a $5 billion, more than double what was spent getting Obama re-elected in 2012.

We are allowing ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies, Screen watchers.

The internet is introducing a system of perfect individual control reducing the importance of the “public sphere” and of common spaces in general.  It is increasing people’s ability to wall themselves off from topics and opinions that they would prefer to avoid.

I am sure that if new technologies diminish the number of common spaces, and reduce, for many, the number of unanticipated, unchosen exposures, something important will have been lost.

Because the Internet has changed the quantity and range of information available to citizens, it directly influences how societies evaluate government performance—in all parts of the globe.

It is Changing Democratic Attitudes throughout the World.

It is altered the informational relationship between governments and their citizens.

In how information is packaged, how that information can be physically transmitted and the networks that determine who can send and receive those transmissions. This has meant the largest decentralization in communication capacity and increase in expressive capacity that we have ever seen in human history—particularly in nations where access to political information tended to be very limited, often due to strict government censorship of traditional media.

Thus, the expansion of the Internet has significant ramifications on the amount and type of information that individuals use to evaluate their governments.

The global nature of the Internet opens a larger window for individuals to better view how governments function in other countries, particularly the advanced democracies that are most visible on the Internet. This provides users with a more realistic and globally consistent scale by which to make comparative evaluations about how well their own government functions.

As a result, the Internet is playing a central role in shaping the political evaluations and resultant satisfaction that citizens have toward their governments.

This is significant because the impetus to act politically—from day-to-day civic activities to the more extreme cases of protest and revolution—begins in the minds of men and women.

An understanding of this mix will permit us to obtain a better sense of what makes for a well-functioning system of free expression and to address the serious dangers that are hidden within the Internet.

For example the creation of perfect and splendid isolation, or a process of getting over disagreements, or the undermining our values to the detriment of the all of us.

The reasons why the Internet is supposed to strengthen democracy include the following.

1.The Internet lowers the entry barriers to political participation.

2. It strengthens political dialogue.

3. It creates community.

4. It cannot be controlled by government.

5. It increases voting participation.

6. It permits closer communication with officials.

7. It spreads democracy world-wide.

In contrast, the Internet, far from helping democracy, is a threat to it precisely because the Internet is powerful and revolutionary, it also affects, and even destroys, all traditional institutions–including–democracy.

To deny this potential is to invite a backlash when the ignored problems eventually emerge.

So why will there be problems?

Because more than half of communications traffic is data rather than voice.

Because it has been liberated from the terror of the PC as its gateway into the world of Smart Phones.

Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight.

Because a politically disenfranchised digital underclass is emerging.

Because with the commercialization of the Internet things previously unreachable are now available through our personal computers.

Because cars will be chatting with highways. Suitcases will complain to airlines. Front doors will check in with police departments. Pacemakers will talk to hospitals. Television sets will connect to video servers. Keeping this aggregated information in the cloud allows researchers and developers to examine the data and identify “digital bio markers” to inform prevention, diagnoses and treatment in a constellation of brain and mental disorders that are now mostly defined by subjective symptoms.

Because it is making Politics More Expensive and Raise Entry Barriers.

Because it is making reasoned and informed political dialog more difficult.

Because it disconnects as much as it connects.

With the increase of smartphones in recent years many have all griped about the narcissism of people who spend all their time on social networks, text messaging at a dinner table or taking photos of the food they eat.

Because it is facilitating the International Manipulation of Domestic Politics.

Because it will essentially making the world a global village with vast deserts of highly visible inequalities which would not be possible without the internet.

And this is why ubiquitous, scalable technology such as the Internet must be part of the solution if we are to avoid an information-choked societies.

Because it is creating a mental fog or scrambled thinking in a kind of weird, impersonal cyber way.

Constant multitasking is taking its toll.

Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient. The flow of information can be overwhelming and lead to “paralysis by analysis.” Chronic multi-tasking can make us less productive, not more. Increased choices and uncertainty can lead to increased stress and anxiety.

Because it is causing  fragmentation, increasing cost, and declining value of “hard” information. Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information.

Make no mistake: email-, Facebook- and Twitter-checking constitute a neural addiction.

 

It’s naïve to cling to the image of the early Internet – – nonprofit, cooperative, and free.

You might say that the CONTROVERSY ITSELF is superficial; as the obvious reality is the internet and technology are not only here to stay, but constantly evolving and permeating more of our lives.

The real conversation should be how we can best use the Internet in smarter ways that help us to monitor and enhance the brain, and how can we actively prepare to manage information overload.

“Big Data” applications are becoming available and capable of helping personalize brain health tools at the individual level, based on both past data and information gathered over time. This, in turn, is already changing research and preventive health practices. Tablet-based screenings can be instrumental in diagnoses of Alzheimer’s and MCI.

Mobile devices are already entering the sports world, with cognitive tests for concussions. Institutions like AAA have begun large-scale web-based assessments and cognitive training that works on driver’s cognitive skills in order to become safer (and less expensive to insure) drivers.

Now, every new technology presents a fair set of challenges. It is important to note that these are quasi-universal features of modern life, not the type of conditions of disorders that our medical system is set up to address.

There is talk about how social networks and new devices like the Google Glass visor have diluted privacy, smart phone apps “turning us into sociopaths” and the danger of turning over our daily routines to new technology like Apple’s Siri digital assistant.

The trick will be in properly preparing and guiding people to adapt to the mental demands of a modern society. Fortunately it is us, not the Internet, who have a plastic and resilient brain.

My conclusion is that information does not necessarily weaken Democracy or the state but electronic voting will not strengthen democracy as it will be manipulated by Big data.

So is the internet good for the brain?

If the analytical and collaborative power of the internet is used properly to monitor and enhance brain functionality in a cost-effective, scalable manner the answer can be a resounding “yes”

At the moment it is having a negative impact on our societies having a  polarizing effect on democracies. Although it has the capacity to bring people together, too often the associations formed online comprise self-selecting groups with little diversity of opinion.

Free speech on the Internet is not enough to ensure a healthy democracy. The conception of free speech emerging in today’s communications market emphasizes “an architecture of control…by which each of us can select a [customized] free-speech package.”

Google News feed filters out the information we receive. It is a product of what information we demand.

We should create twenty-first-century equivalents of the kinds of public spaces and institutions where diverse people will congregate.

If we are to avoid western democracy being hobbled by disengagement, falling turnout, and disconnection with citizens we must counter the growing power of consumers to “filter” what they “see” will create information ghettos and isolated citizens.

The Internet changes expectations. The Avaaz 41 million-strong online internet community is a prime example.

It lowers the economic and information cost of group formation and the internet lends itself to this type of direct connection, and hence is likely to create demands for more direct forms of democracy. But the way the Internet empowers people – by giving them huge choice over the information they receive – can make them less likely to engage in a free debate of ideas.

Why?

Because there will be neither leaders nor agendas to make Governments sit down with their detractors.

Citizens can use new media to avoid, rather than embrace, new ideas or common experiences.

The Internet, as a highly democratic and participatory medium, can perform democratic wonders. But the bien pensant e-Democracy consensus is wrong and dangerous if it thinks this will happen automatically.  All of these facets are critical if we are to thrive at a human.

Let us hope the consensus can be remade.

So let’s hear your voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beady Eye looks at the benefits and non benefits of Social Media.

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Social Media., Technology, The Future

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I would like to think you’re here not necessarily because your agree or disagree with what I write, but that you think it is worth hearing and want to learn, interact and debate with me. If you like pressing the like button this is not the place to find the like button.  Lets hear your views.Eyes Robot Cyborg wallpaper background

Social Media a vast and complex subject far to large to cover all aspects.

In this post I am going to try to address some of the more obscure effects it is having on all of us or could have in not the so distant future.

How much do we understand this new dictatorship we’re in?

IF YOU ASKED ME I WOULD SAY: WE DON’T HAVE A CLUE.

Technology has revolutionized the way people go about their daily activities..

Google received over 2 million search queries per minute. The Number of people who use Twitter 302 million monthly active users 28/04/2015. Apple in the last three months turned over 60 billion a 40% profit of 11billion.

Facebook its monthly active users cleared 1.35 billion — roughly equal the population of China, and 9 percent larger than that of India. By these numbers, nearly 20 percent of the world’s population logs into Facebook once a month. And if we just look at the worlds Internet users, roughly half of them — every other person with Internet on the planet — use the site actively. 936 million daily 22/04/2015.

Half of all Internet-users live in “Facebookistan”

In the time it takes you to read this sentence more than 684,478 pieces of content will be shared on Facebook, 100,000 people will tweet, hundreds of thousands more will “like” an Instagram photo…and that’s if you read very quickly.

Access to technology has become an integral part of education, socialisation and industry related requirements, and accordingly Internet usage is evolving and growing rapidly. It is changing the way we shop to the way we drop. It does not care about time or distance. Everyone can be online every time and communicate with everyone everywhere.

The internet is home to millions of sites, representing both commerce and the people who share their thoughts and experiences with anyone who visits. The internet users worldwide now represents 3.17 billion, or in other words half of the current world population.  

The question is whether the effortless, ever-changing world of online social life is in fact one that ultimately undermines the ability to explore narrative, and place people, ideas and events in wider contexts.

There is no argument that it is effecting the way we all live but if we don‟t act to enhance inter generational communication, we risk generating a culture structured by a digital/communication divide between young people, their parents and older members of the community.

Cyber citizenship, if it is to retain relevance and deliver benefits to the community, therefore, is a concept that would more usefully be applied to the community as a whole, rather than as a set of policies that target young people as requiring protecting – or protection from – in a digital landscape.

Our understanding of cyber citizenship must be more holistic, to fully encompass and resonate across all of the settings in which we live our lives – be that home, school, work, our local communities or our communities of interest.

So what effect is Social Media actually having on the world communicates and our life styles.

For example:

The internet is the place to interact with new people and a way to expose yourself to strangers. The partial anonymity available online can be used as a mask for sexual offenders and psychos;

Social media is being used as a tool by movie studios well ahead of a film’s release to help shape the marketing campaign.

Billions of Amateur videos, posted on social media websites.

Americans across the country took to social media to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision making same-sex marriage a right.

Its replacing communication by letter or phone.

Twitter and Facebook are only two of the online connections people use today to stay in contact with friends and family.

The entire purpose of setting up social media networks around the world is to allow and promote the world to communicate and connect with one another. However, the trend that seems to be following this widespread connection and communication is the exact opposite.

It all appears to boil down to you having no way of really knowing what is the truth and what is the lie. 

Someone’s life and personality neatly tucked away in the cyber-universe.

Do the dangers of online networking far outweigh the benefits?

Who knows.

One of the great dangers as far as I am concerned is the establishment of an economic order that would apply to all, everywhere.

No social animal is ever guided by the interest of the entire species to which it belongs.

Social Media allows cooperation with complete strangers who are imagined to be your friends. This could lead to the entire human race becoming a single unit governed by a single set of laws. These days we think of the planet as a single unit but for most of its history it was in fact an entire galaxy of isolated human worlds.

The ever tightening social media links will in the long run destroy individuality.  We are now living in an age of technology where the information contained on these sites is now being used against us.

So the benefits of SNS use are dependent on good internet and media literacy: having the skills to critically understand, analyse and create media content while avoiding addiction.

Young people are consuming, producing, sharing and remixing media.

This has led to the claim that today‟s young people are produsers‟ they actively produce and consume media. The importance of SNS in young people‟s everyday lives is indisputable: 90% of 12 to 17 year olds, and 97% of 16 to 17 year olds, use SNS

Social media has begun to create an unsociable disconnected generation of young adults… they lack awareness of the public nature of the internet. This include the management of personal information and privacy, the risk of predation and cyber bullying.  Can it be minimised?

It is compromising the development and maintenance of supportive friendships and involvement in institutions traditionally understood as the embodiment of “communities‟, namely school, sports clubs, families etc.

Social networking sites have become an important additional arena for politics. It increasingly important for the expression of identity.

What can be done if anything.

Education MUST increased internet and media literacy – ensuring all young people develop the skills to critically understand, analyse and create media content.

With the lack of parental supervision between the ages of fourteen to seventeen, which makes one of largest demographics using social networking sites, these teens ARE subjected to mature elements..

Teenagers are finding their identity in the world, they are the “my space generation” (Livingstone, 2008) the internet has allowed them to connect with people from all over the world but do they choose to do that…

It is presenting mankind with the biggest opportunity to change the course of history.  It is exposing the Inequalities and making the world aware of our common vulnerabilities.

Then there is growing power of Petitions not to mention the job market or trial by Social Media and the greed of the business world which is beginning to be recognized for what it is by targeting Advertising.

As I said don’t press the like button be an individual and leave a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

It is an age of growing information inequality.

24 Friday Apr 2015

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Millions of people are online, millions are not.future of news

The internet is not keeping everyone informed, nor will it.

It is, in fact, magnifying problems of information inequality, misinformation, polarisation and disengagement.

The world is dividing into those who seek the news and a growing number who skim it.

A generational change in the way we consume the news is already well under way.

Who cares?

If you extrapolate from the number of smartphones globally, the total addressable market for news by 2020 is around 5 billion people worldwide.

The future of news will be determined by social media platforms. Citizen reporting and blogging have opened up the world to millions of people.

Thanks to the rise of social media, news is no longer gathered exclusively by reporters and turned into a story but emerges from an ecosystem in which journalists, sources, readers and viewers exchange information.

This is facilitating an easy slide into probabilistic “truth.”

On the Internet, there is no limitation to the number of outlets or voices in the news chorus. Therefore, quality can easily coexist with crap. There is no baseline of reliability or verification of the material that is circulated in Social Networks?

(Verification is vital in order to report accurately and not risk loosing trust and credibility – something that is at stake when faked, manipulated or untrue events or stories are reported by established and generally trusted media brands.)

People say access to the news has never been better. It’s easier than it’s ever been to know what’s going on in the world. It is true that there is ever more data, more opinion, more freedom of expression, but it’s harder to know what’s really going on.

The problem of how to distinguish good information from bad. That problem has been with us since we started communicating.

So even though we have a new technology where information comes to us instantly over the wires… the art and science of journalism is becoming really important to separate the news from the increasing amount of noise generated in the online world, where it can be difficult to know who or what to believe.

It is an environment where unconfirmed information can go viral, where opinions are an increasing part of the news business . . . an environment where anybody can be his or her own journalist, and publish content on the web.

People are increasingly unsure of the facts and unclear what they mean.

Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is the ethical obligation to do everything they can to get the facts right.

For example, the British think 24% of the population are immigrants (almost twice the actual figure of 13%) and believe that nearly 24% of the working age population are unemployed (the real figure is 7%).

As technology continues to evolve faster and faster, the information gap between younger people, poorer people and some ethnic minority groups, on the one hand – and older people, richer people and some groups of white people, on the other – is widening.

In a world where everyone can report on news, the internet is bypassing the professional reporter.  The breaking of news is no longer solely going to be the domain of news organisations. Smartphones, tablets and social media have changed how we consume and share the news.

So the question is should the news medium, as ever, be shaping the message?

Big news organizations turning to algorithms to create content.

The AP — which is an investor in Automated Insights — already uses Wordsmith to generate stories on corporate quarterly earnings reports. Meanwhile, automated content competitor Narrative Science provides similar services to publications such as Fortune and Big Ten Network. A Los Angeles Times journalist used custom software to auto-generate a story minutes after an earthquake hit Los Angeles last year.

But is anyone actually reading any of this machine generated content?

Automated Insights generated over one billion pieces of content in 2014 alone, most of this verbiage isn’t meant for a mass audience but it begs the question— How will news organisations report and tell stories and, what, indeed, will count as a story? What’s really going on. What it really means. What really matters.

There was a time when the news industry could help determine the kind of connected society we are. Not any more. Audience are picking up information in different ways.  IE by Tweeting and Facebook to mention just two.

In a democracy, news is an essential public service but we are well on the way to personalised news services.

Social media and weblogs are becoming more important as additional sources for media coverage.

We are all practicing investigative journalism.

While Television news puts a premium on dramatic pictures, telegenic politicians and snappy soundbites. Computers can do what journalists used to, namely compile the football results, produce travel news bulletins and write-up company results stories.

The coverage of politics, economics, and sports will remain important, however coverage of art and culture is become less important. Google News which offer free access to newspaper headlines, snippets of text, thumbnail pictures and direct links to newspaper articles is engaging in transformative use of the news content.

Nine out of ten of us have no idea of the quality of the news report.

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One day you might even have your own personal robot journalist, filing daily stories just for you on your fitness tracking data and your personal finances.

CNN The 24-hour news network has signed a research agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration that will “advance efforts” to bring more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into its news gathering and reporting process.

The key skill and market of the future will not be in collecting information, it will be in limiting it to what is true.