They Took our Jobs--So we should take their money

We've been reading The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee and it paints a very somber future ahead of us. It discusses the potential of all jobs being replaced by machines and everyone becoming unemployed. And while this has not happened completely yet, it has happened in many industries such as manufacturing and others.

This book actually outlines one of my greatest fears: What if my job is completely replaced and I can't support myself in the future. Fortunately for me I think my future profession (computer programming) will be very difficult to automate. Writing a computer program that writes other computer programs is not exactly the easiest task. It essentially means having to program a human brain. It also involves having to program the ability to take arbitrary input from a human.

One of the most depressing parts about the book is the income inequality that is present in our society today. Workers' productivity has skyrocketed since the 1950s but their wages haven't kept up. The gains in productivity from the working class have basically all gone to the wealthy business owners. According to the book, between 1983 and 2009 Americans became vastly wealthier as the total value of their assets increased. However, the bottom 80% of Americans actually saw a net decrease of their wealth!! And the top 20% saw an increase of over 100%! What this means is that not only did the wealthy take all the gains between 1983 and 2009, they also took from the poorest 80% of Americans and shifted the wealth to themselves.

What this book has done a very effective job of in my mind is showing how disgustingly greedy some people in our society are. The best example of this is the following: The 6 heirs to the Walton family fortune have more money that the bottom 40% of Americans. Think about that for a minute. 6 people have more money than the poor 120 million people in the United States. I think we have a big problem in our society. It's not the impending replacement of all our jobs by machines. I don't really see that as a problem. I see the disgusting income inequality that we allow to exist as the biggest problem in our society. Allowing people to amass such enormous wealth while the majority of Americans struggle to survive is completely disgusting.

I haven't read the last few chapters of the book where the author outlines solutions to the impending second machine age (where all our jobs are replaced) but my solution to it is this: I don't see a problem with all of our jobs being replaced by machines. This however assumes that when that happens we will all equally reap the benefits of complete automization. I don't think this will happen. I think we need to get rid of this disgusting capitalist society we have that allows people to amass these huge fortunes and replace it with something that allows everyone to reap the benefits, not just those that were in the right place and had the right connection that allowed them to start a company and make billions.

I think we need to pass laws preventing people from amassing huge fortunes and take away the ill-gotten gains of the top 0.1%.

Children and Their Use of Electronics

Over the past eight years I have babysat for many families which has given me experience with children of all different ages and abilities. I also have many small cousins whose development and upbringing I am very involved in. One thing that has shocked me over the past few years is how reliant all of these different kids have become on handheld electronics. While some parents see no qualms with allowing their children unlimited access to whatever their hearts desire, I am noticing many parents who are beginning to question if allowing so much time on electronics is detrimental to the development of their children.

A Huffington Post article recently released gives ten reasons as to why children under the age of 12 should not be allowed to use handheld electronics. They give ten reasons with support as to why this should be the case. The first example is how in the first two years of life the brain develops at a very rapid pace and the lack of stimuli from handheld electronics can cause this grown to greatly slow down. This can even cause problems such as attention deficit disorders and impaired learning. The second and third relate to the lack of movement from handheld electronics-delayed development and epidemic obesity. Since the use of handheld electronics causes such little movement the development of the brain and motor skills is delayed and the lack of physical movement is causing an increase in obesity in children.

Electronics have been shown to cause many issues such as sleep deprivation, mental illness and higher aggression in individuals and this is the same for children as well. However, these can be a much greater risk in children since they are still developing their mental and physical skills and attention spans. This can cause many problems down the road as well.  Electronics can also cause a new type of addiction where children continually want to be using their electronics. Children have begun to lost interest in other aspects of life such as sports and friends. Now spending time with friends is often competing with each other on a video game or everyone surrounding an electronic device watching someone else use it.

In one particular family I babysit for I have seen a higher rate of aggression begin to form in the boys when I tell them they are not allowed to use their devices. They often get angry and yell at me and attempt to sneak them past me or come up with excuses to try to use them. I have also begun to see how the younger boy gets distracted very easily and even has a hard time focusing enough to eat breakfast. It became such a problem in school that his teachers sent home notes about his attention problems and the electronics were taken from the boys for an extended period of time. To this day they are very limited in their electronic use and all use is monitored closely by the adult with them. This change brought great improvement in how they have grown and their interest in physical activities and social situations. I personally think it is a great idea to limit and in some situations eliminate the use of hand held electronics by children. I feel that it will better help children to develop and learn vital life skills that cannot be learned by looking into a glowing screen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Drones

In the past few years, the number of drones buzzing around the airspace in the United States has grown significantly. The word “drone” simply means an unmanned aircraft system. As drone technology has advanced, many companies have expressed interest in them. Earlier this year, Amazon was revealed to be experimenting with them. Potentially, they could fly drones to customers' houses with packages they ordered. This would allow several things to happen. First, the customer would be able to receive ordered items within hours, rather than waiting days for them to be delivered. Second, Amazon would be able to cut costs. Although they would have to pay for the initial costs of the drones, they would no longer have to pay FedEx, UPS, or USPS to deliver packages all across the country. Delivery drones would drastically reduce shipping expenses. Lastly, customer satisfaction would likely skyrocket. Having a site where we could order items on demand and have them in our hands within an hour or two would be a great technological achievement. As with many technological advancements, there would be some downside. Amazon using drones would likely result in a significant loss of jobs. Many delivery workers would be put out of work.

Another company recently in the news related to drones is Facebook. Facebook recently posted over a dozen jobs looking for engineers to work on drones. They also acquired Ascenta which is a small aviation company from London. The team is a part of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab which is where the company is researching ways to bring internet to the two-thirds of the world's population who do not have access to the Internet.

Drones have also been in the news lately for almost crashing into planes. Many pilots are reporting encountering drones during their flights. In October alone, there were 41 reported drone sightings by pilots in the United States. No drones have been hit yet, but some planes have had to alter course in order to avoid hitting the drones. In the United States, the use of non-commercial drones is currently mostly unregulated. The FAA recently ruled that commercial drones are banned, therefore making Amazon’s plans impossible for the immediate future. People flying drones as a hobby are advised to avoid noise sensitive areas like schools, hospitals, and churches. Personal drones are supposed to be kept below 400 feet in order to avoid interference with other aircrafts. The FAA also stated that it expects people to fly their drones within visual line of sight. Drones have been becoming significantly more and more popular especially as a hobby for the younger generations (high school and college age). This has caused many states to look into new drone laws and regulations but they are unsure of how to best go about them. Currently it is near impossible to enforce any regulations on drones. There is no way to forcibly impose rules and hold drone owners responsible, since it is very difficult to track down a drone in the air's owner on the ground.

Sources:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/technology/social/facebook-drone-team/index.html

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/26/technology/drones-planes/index.html

A New Alternative to Ads

                On the internet, ads have become a [core] part of the average user experience.  Not only do we see them on almost every website we visit, but companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter collect user information to sell to advertisers.  This business model is hugely profitable, resulting in the massive growth of these companies, along with an increase in the number of advertisements us users encounter on a daily basis.

                Many internet users have not taken kindly to the productization of their personal information, and have taken measures to avoid advertisements.  Some users have chosen to avoid web services that display ads.  Others have chosen to limit that ads that can be showed to them by limiting the amount of information that websites are able to collect on them.  Most importantly, tools such as Adblock have become a popular way to prevent ads from appearing at all.  The tools intercept standard web traffic before it is displayed in your browser and strips advertiser content from the source code, allowing users to visit almost any page ad-free.

                Obviously, because content providers earn money when users see and interact with ads, ad blocking software has cause a decrease in profit for them.  However, Google recently announced a program that would allow users to visit pages ad-free while still allowing content creators to earn money.  The Contributor program allows users to pay a subscription of $1 to $3 a month in exchange for hiding advertisements that Google serve on participating websites.  The program would allow those content creators and hosts to still earn money for the service they provide without interfering with the user’s experience.

                Many web services have embraced this type of ad-alternative in recent years.  Free Android and iOS applications frequently offer paid versions that hide advertisements so that developers can afford to continue updating their applications, and the model has been very successful.  Allowing users the opportunity to change how they view their media, instead of forcing every user to view content that they may not want to see makes a lot of sense.  Music hosting services like Spotify, Songza, and Pandora have proven this with their own subscription services – the majority of users would prefer to pay a monthly subscription to access content instead of pirating the music they are interested in.

                Such a big move away from advertisements, however, hasn’t been tried before.  Google has one of the biggest advertising platforms in the industry, and if websites that use the platform decide to join Google’s program, we could see a huge shift in how internet companies make money.  Giving users the ability to choose will not only improve our own experiences, but allow companies to grow and innovate in ways that they haven’t in the past few years.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/google-launches-subscription-service-for-the-internet-to-replace-ad-revenue-online-9874758.html

Cyber Monday

The modern day shopper is someone who does not scrounge for coupons in newspapers, they do not spend timeless hours clipping offers from a magazine to save some cents here or there. Nowadays, with the advent of the Internet, one of the biggest sale days is almost here - Cyber Monday. According to common belief, tomorrow marks the day where millions of items on the web market are priced ridiculously low and people spend ridiculously high amounts of money to acquire items that are on "sale".

If we look at the numbers, there seems to be a positive change in the market through Cyber Monday. According to an AOL survey, " the average shopper spends $468 on Cyber Monday, compared with $309 on Black Friday". I believe the reasons these deal are so enticing because of the relative easiness of acquiring materials - shoppers are in the relative comforts of their homes and are under no pressure to run and grab the best deals they can get. They have the knowledge that there is an entire day to shop for sales and that the materials that they would like will still be there later on in the night. The rising numbers of online sales also decrease the risks for the retailers - they won't have to worry about shoppers stealing from the store during the rush of Black Friday or other sale days.

However, there is a darker and scarier side to Cyber Monday - since the transactions are mainly conducted on the internet, there is always the lingering issue of credit card fraud and identity theft. With major retailers like Walmart being hacked and the credit card information of thousands of customers being leaked, the need for the security of information has heightened. With the number of online shoppers constantly increasing, it is easier for people to steal information - we are working towards better online safety but there are always risks associated. Bottom line, be careful where you shop.

Drone License

Personal drones in the form of multi-rotor aircrafts or autonomous model planes are becoming cheaper and easier to obtain. As drones become more popular, more people are beginning to fear their permanent presence in the sky and some have called for stricter laws and regulations to help ban drones. This article mentions one piece of legislation that would require hobbyist and drone enthusiast to obtain a pilot license and get their drone certified before they would be allowed to fly in designated areas. The drone pilot license would be similar to a real pilot license in that it would require an examination and test to verify the would-be pilot is capable of flying his or her drone in a safe manor. In addition to the license test, the drone would need to be inspected and certified before it could be flown by a licensed pilot. The pilot license would cost some amount of money, not to mention the cost of any training or lessons to aid in passing the test. Additionally the certification would likely require a drone enthusiast to ship off their drone to get certified, the cost associated with this could be enormous considering the size of some drones and will likely take some time. These added expenses are outrageous especially considering drones are not cheap to begin with.

               The more disturbing issue is the lack of knowledge those who are proposing such regulations have about drones. The article mentions one legislator who was shocked to see her rose garden on the internet curtesy of Google maps, and believes the images where actually taken by drones. The fact that people with little knowledge of the science and operation of drones are in positions to pass legislation and regulations on drones is bad news for hobbyist.

               Drone companies like DJI are willing to cooperate with laws and regulations. DJI’s new firmware update includes a list of restricted flight areas, the autopilot system uses this list and GPS technology to automatically avoid flying in restricted areas. DJI has also implemented various failsafe features into their drones and auto pilots systems that aid the pilot in emergency situations.

               For many this is not enough, they still believe their safety and privacy is being compromised by drones. I do not understand why drones are being singled out, it is much easier and cheaper to use a camera and fancy lens to invade someone’s privacy rather than a noisy drone. As for safety, you are more likely to be killed by a commercial airliner falling from the sky, than by a drone. Passing regulations and laws against drones just makes it more expensive for hobbyist to fly. Are these laws fair to those who already own drones, are they expected to go out and pay money to obtain a license and get their drone certified. Perhaps the largest issue with this is the classification of the word ‘Drone’. Is a kid who receives a $20 toy helicopter on Christmas expected to go out and get it certified, the concept is simply outrageous.

Don't Do Drones, Kids

                Drones have been an up and coming technology for some time now. With the increase of drones in people’s homes, however, it has been raising some concerns. There are many different types of people who use drones. There are the people who fly them for fun, pranksters, and all sorts of people. The rising popularity of drones may start to cause issues. There have been many cases of drones flying too close to sports stadiums. Due to the nature of such a thing, it raises concerns about security. “With security concerns mounting among stadium operators, the F.A.A. recently updated a policy originally created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The policy now explicitly prohibits drones from flying near major sporting events.” Now the interesting thing is that, the pilot of the drone does not have to be doing anything wrong. Just the act of flying a drone too close to one of these locations will be considered a crime.

                Amazon was looking into ways to get drones to deliver their packages for same-day delivery, but it looks like it will be a while before that happens. Not only is the government limiting private use of drones, but also commercial use of them. “Commercial use of drones is also largely prohibited in the United States, largely because of the perceived risks of unleashing swarms of them into the skies. “ Now the F.A.A. is looking into ways to change this, but it is still strange that the American government has this fear of drones, when they constantly are in use overseas. If there’s any organization who knows a lot about drones, it is the U.S. government, and they are clearly pretty scared.  

                It’s interesting to note the extreme hesitation about private and commercial use of drones. I think that there is a lot of good to be done with drones, far more good than bad. Thing is that we have not even seen a lot of things accomplished with drones, outside of bombing (which is a bad thing). If Amazon is allowed to get their delivery program off the ground, it would be a huge improvement in their infrastructure. Same-day delivery could finally be achieved consistently with this technology. There are countless alternatives that one could do with drones. What if there was a hospital in desperate need of a replacement heart? Send it over on a drone. The government needs to start overlooking their own actions and start allowing this good to come to fruition. I do not have a problem with certain restrictions, as I think they are definitely needed. In the article they also note the problem drones could pose with other manned aircraft, and I think that it is a valid concern. But there are many ways to solve these problems. All we can do is wait for the F.A.A. to finally get their regulations in place. I think that drones have nowhere to go but up, and that private use of drones will be going up as well. 

Source

dream pad

Trouble sleeping at night? You may need to try out the dream pad. It is basically a pillow that you can pump sound into through any device with a normal audio jack. The pillow keeps the sound low enough so that only the person on that pillow can hear it, and it will not affect the person you’re sharing the bed with.  There are certain ways to sleep though, as you can feel some of the electronics in the pillow. It’s essentially aimed for the side sleeper, however, you get the best sound quality lying face down, and the least sound from laying face up.

The pillow costs 179 dollars, which seems pricey to me for a pillow, but I guess for the people who really struggle to fall asleep and need some other form of aid, I guess it’s worth it in the long run. Me personally, I would not buy a pillow for that much money, that’s absurd, I would just stick with my old habits of alcohol to help me pass out. But everyone’s different and not everyone drinks alcohol, and wouldn’t mind spending 179 dollars for a pillow.

There are also some android and iOS apps that work with the pillow as well. Basically, there are five different music programs that are designed to guide you into a slumber. The sound programs repeat for two hours, but that can be overridden so you can play them as long as you want.

I don’t think this will catch on with a ton of people. I know people value their sleep, but of the older generation of people (my parents ages), I would say most don’t own smart phone or technology that would work with this pillow. I know my parents don’t, my dad doesn’t even have a cell phone. So if the target market isn’t older generation, I doubt the youth will buy a lot of these, because we barely sleep (or at least I do), since we are always out partying or doing work. I’ll go on record and say I absolutely will not be buying this product, and can’t see much success stemming from it.

Electrical 3D Printing

While many rich people often spend their money on things such as tennis courts and large house, technology “geeks” often spend their fortunes on ways to help develop technology. One father in Prague decided to build a plastics lab in his home in order to create a type of plastic that could conduct electrical currents that can be fed into a basic home 3D printer. He came up with the idea when his teenage son was trying to do a science project by printing a 3D rocket and realizing that there was no way to print it to work with only the types of plastics that are available. This challenge started a new idea and a new venture for this retired Microsoft employee. It took about two years to develop and now upon its completion he has been able to create his own start up to continue to develop useful plastics for 3D printers. This new plastic now allows for circuits and wires to be printed-all without the need for soldering!

This random decision to create such a product shows how those few technology minded people that make it into the top 1% of society tend to use their wealth towards more beneficial aspects of society such as development of more useful and applicable technologies-even if they are very far off in the future. Other technological top 1%ers have developed things such as building a food lab to test certain foods, commercial aircrafts and other outlandish adventures. These all aim to help society at some point instead of just lavishing in wealth in ways that do not benefit other humans.

3D printers have been taking off in popularity in recent years. Home 3D printers have become more affordable in recent years but the materials for the printers are very limited. For years the main focus on 3D printers was on the development of the technology behind the printers and not what exactly went into the product of the printers. With this new development in the materials for the printers there are many more opportunities in what can be developed from these printers. This also helps to define the shift between technological development to production development.

I thought this was a really interesting venture. Having many family members and friends who are very interested in 3D printing but upset with the limits of what can be printed I can only imagine that this will help to develop the field even further. This can also be a great way to benefit society with easier to develop medical devices and trackers that can help with information gathering. I was also very interested in his reasoning behind developing such a product. In this day so many people just give up on an idea because it is deemed “impossible” but it was great to see a father pushing forth with an idea and showing his son that anything is possible. I am very excited to see what Functionalize will come up with next and to see how this will change the 3D printing industry.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-20/printable-rockets-brought-to-you-by-geeks-with-deep-pockets.html 

Uber: Will It be a Disruptive Technology?

                Uber is a simple car service which is growing in popularity around the world especially in US as a new means of transportation. Convenience, cleanliness of the car, relatively low fair, and many other reasons make Uber an attraction amongst people in mass transportation hubs such as New York, San Francisco, and many others. Uber is a great example of a disruptive technology or at least it will be soon given the rate at which its expanding.

            Uber is growing in business because of its ingenious business model to drive the market. It hires regular people as part-time or full-time per needs of individuals. It pays them well, but requires that individuals use their own cars. The cars are covered through the individuals insurance, but if need be Uber also pitches in for certain parts of the coverage. The main attraction why regular people consider working for Uber is first a great pay for only few hours of work; second, if the individuals used to be cab drivers who lost their jobs because of so and so reason, they now have an opportunity to continue their work and make more money than at the Yellow Taxi service. The schedule flexibility and the area coverage is another plus why people consider working for Uber.

            What about the costumers? Why are they so attracted to this service? First, Uber provides a convenient service to people whereever they need the service from and to without any restriction on location. All they need to do is simply call the service via I-phone or Android app or phone-call and the dispatcher will send the nearest driver to the location as quickly as possible. This works well because there are so many of them working in many areas around the country. Second, all the money is paid upon reserving the service via credit cards meaning that it also reflects people’s standards while eliminating the bad area coverage since only certain people would be able to afford credit cards. Third, because of the condition of the cars, it might be looked at highly in reputation if people going to functions exit from Uber cars which sometimes are branded cars as opposed to Yellow Taxi, etc.  

          Why is Uber growing in popularity? Well, as mentioned above, it is spread out across the country, covering all the major transportation hubs. The service it’s providing has made everyone happy and due to that the word is spreading everywhere. Uber is publicized across all platforms for ads such as radio, TV, social media, and many more. That is how it’s able to reach too many people across the country. Well, this has been about the Uber and its usefulness. Now, lets’ talk a bit about controversy surrounding it.

            To begin, Uber is car service which is only legal in certain states in US and in others it is not such as Hoboken. Hoboken is one of the states which is trying to eliminate Uber in support of its licensed Yellow Taxi service. The authorities are trying all possible legal ways to stop Uber from running in Hoboken. However, even with no license to drive in Hoboken, Uber doesn’t seem to care. It’s fighting the system by encouraging drivers and providing all the support. If they get tickets, they pay the tickets easily since they are making so much money that those tickets (violations) don’t event create a dent in their business. Though, there is a risk attached for the drivers if caught by the authorities; though, the payoff is much bigger that the drivers are willing to overlook the risks of driving cars without proper licenses. There are additional controversy with Uber such as the one mentioned in Computers and Society class where the vice president of Uber made a speech in a room filled with reputable people about how they plan to investigate media reporters writing against Uber to use their personal/professional lives as leverage to stop writing negative reviews about Uber. Unfortunately, a reporter from Buzzfeed was in the audience by mistake who then reported about this ill Uber agenda.  

            In short, Uber is definitely making its mark on the transportation business. Despite many legal issues, people are dragged toward the service and that is why Uber is expanding rapidly. Let's see if it succeeds in becoming the disruptive technology that everyone is anticipating it might.

AR Glasses--the next tool for social media, or something more?

This week, castAR began shipping its new augmented reality glasses, which raised over $1 million on Kickstarter last year.  Augmented reality involves digitally overlaying the image of the real world with a virtual display.  The glasses were developed by Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, former engineers at Valve, the video game development company.  If their background is any indication, the glasses are expected to be an innovative, top-tier product.  The glasses are active shutter and feature a camera for input and projector for 3D images.  They have even added a virtual reality component, which is accessible via a clip-on to the normal glasses.

After seeing this, I began to wonder how glasses such as these will affect modern society.  Two years ago, Google released this video about its new Google Glass.  As cool as the video was/is and as excited as people got about the concept, Google did not release the first Google Glasses commercially until months later, and unfortunately, Google Glass has yet to live up to the concept video.  So, can castAR's new glasses reach the potential of Google's original release video?  If so, how will these glasses be received by the public?

The earliest ideas of application of these devices was typically for things like video games and movies.  Virtual reality helmets would allow users to place themselves directly inside the games they were playing.  Similarly, audiences could truly experience being inside the movie they were watching.  The ideas of reading and responding to emails may have been thought up, but were not nearly as relevant twenty five years ago why.en the earliest virtual reality devices were being discussed.  Today, however, augmented reality has become a much more realistic, and, in some ways more desirable, concept than virtual reality.

As the Frontline documentary showed us last week, social media has become an increasingly important pinnacle of society, especially among teens and young adults.  The ability to check one's email at every second of the day, and be notified immediately upon receiving a new message, has become a necessity for most businessmen.  Interacting with others online, whether through email or social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, is now required for teenagers to be socially accepted by their peers, celebrities to reach the widest audience possible, politicians to stay up to date on the latest news, and businessmen to monitor the desires of the market.

The age of the smartphone has already increased the outreach of social media exponentially.  So, will a device such as the castAR glasses increase this further, or give way to an entirely new form of social media or interaction?  Personally, I don't believe that social media as we currently know it will change very much over the next several years.  However, the way it is used and viewed, definitely might be.  I fully expect these glasses, or maybe even the Google Glass, to become just as popular as the iPhone within the next ten years.  They will allow users to be notified even more quickly, almost instantaneously, of tweets, status updates, and instagram posts, because instead of missing your phone's ringtone or vibrate go off, a person would literally have to have their eyes closed the entire time a notification was present.

This, of course, presents many other issues, such as the idea of "Google Glass-ing and Driving," detecting when someone may be taking photographs illegally, etc.  It is clear that devices such as these have the potential to revolutionize the world of social media and digital interactivity, but also the laws we have in place and the general organization and functioning of our government and way of life.


Article:
castAR team ships out first pair of AR glasses, more to follow soon

Why "The Currency of Likes" Is Where We Don't Want to be Going

Something I can't help but notice during our in-class discussions is how much we, as Stevens students, forget one very important fact. Most people aren't as tech-savvy as us. It's one of the reasons we came to Stevens - to be around people we could easily chat with about our technological interests without having to explain every little detail. The problem, however, is when we're talking to people who don't necessarily know everything we do. These are the people who don't religiously follow certain channels on YouTube, or don't post everything they do on Twitter or Instagram, or buy a physical album rather than buy it on iTunes (I still buy physical albums, so maybe it's not that archaic). These are the people who still get physical newspapers, and watch the evening news, rather than check the headlines online.

This thought comes up when I hear people talking about how "people need to secure their data better," or "people shouldn't use AdBlock." It can be easy for us to forget that to a lot of people, technology is still something of a mystery, left for the nerds to understand so that the general population doesn't have to. Words like "cloud" and "encryption" aren't everyday terms. Telling someone who just got their first smartphone that they need better security for their passwords is like telling a five-year old he needs to better plan his 401K.

But one thing that can be especially hard for the average person to understand is the currency of likes. That is, the idea that someone like Tyler Oakley could make a living based solely on getting people to listen to him talk about some product on YouTube, and then have that product's makers pay him. To these people, the idea that YouTube could be a community rather than just a service is absurd.

To someone like Tyler Oakley, having 5+ million subscribers seems like a lot, and it certainly seems to be to the companies sponsoring him. But Tyler Oakley is an outlier, with the kind of success many people on YouTube aspire to; however, very few even come close. This is due to the inherent flaw in this business model. Why should companies sponsor 100 people who each have 50,000 subscribers, when they can just sponsor one person with 5 million subscribers? The fact is, Tyler Oakley got there first, and in this kind of market, there really doesn't need to be more than a handful of people in it.

In fact, one might call someone like Tyler Oakley an "outlier's outlier," since he holds his position within a minority. He's one of a few that are popular within a comparatively small group, since outside of the YouTube community, hardly anyone in the average population will have any clue who he is. Companies that advertise with him know that their target audience is on YouTube, but other companies, such as W.B. Mason, wouldn't even dream of dropping money on someone like Tyler, since their target audience isn't on YouTube.

While it can be easy for people like Stevens students to assume that the world around us is exactly as it is everywhere else across America, that assumption doesn't make it so. Things like YouTube and personal security simply aren't as important to the average person as they are to us, which is why I can't help but feel our in-class discussions are always lacking. With a class full of tech-y people, maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a couple people who don't follow YouTube channels, or double-encrypt every password they use. It can be easy for us to assume that "the Currency of Likes" is the way of the future, but we need a reminder every once in awhile that we're the minority, and that the currency of the rest of the world isn't going anywhere for quite some time.

Speaking of currency, though, how about Russia, eh?

Here's what I know. #Russia is buying 100s of tons of #gold. China buying 1000s. Americans could care less. Someone's right, someone's wrong
— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) November 21, 2014

Keep Calm and Do Not Reign On

Keep calm and do not Reign on. Reign is a malware which was originally found in 2008 to 2011, disappeared, then reappeared recently. Unlike regular malware this has extreme sophistication and complexity. Similar to the older Flam malware Reign is deemed to by a nation-state created spying malware. With extreme covertness it allows those who infect to collect data from what it infect for long periods of time without being discovered on the infected device. Other malware similar to Flame was found around the same time and was determined to have originated from the US and Israel backed agencies, though the creators of Reign have not been determined it seems that it may have similar backers.

Ever since project PRISM was released to the public by Snowden the US has been the go to blame for many extremely sophisticated spying programs, which would not be surprising that the US could be behind Reign. These sophisticated malwares have been known for a few years now but were generally not cared about, much how PRISM had murmurs much before it was announced to the public, but unlike PRISM was a very broad and unsophisticated mechanism for collecting data. Reign has the ability to target specific machines or users and collect data from those that may be the people who a nation-state has deemed a threat (what is a threat to a nation-state? Not a person, usually a group or another nation-state). From early information on this malware it is known that industries within Russia and Saudi Arabia have been heavily targeted by Reign. It has not been specific people but infrastructure such as ISP backbones.

Reign is newly announced so it has not been determined how exactly it works, but since the older Flame malware does contain similarities it could be compared and used as a source to know how Reign works. First off, Flame has modular, so this means that when a machine is infected it does not contain all the hacks that the full repository of Reign contains. This may mean that there are different versions Reign, being modular, out in the wild affected hosts differently based on what industry the machine is used in. The method on how Reign spreads is currently undetermined, but Flame was spread through USB drives, since back when it was heavily in the wild there was a USB exploit for autorun and .lnk which would spread the malware without permissions between machines. Flame had the ability to turn this feature on and off so that it could control the spread of the malware. Flame has the ability to take screen shots and send them back to the remote servers of those who created the malware, the rate which the screen shots were taken differed by which programs were being used on the infected machine. This is the basics of how Reign could be potentially working, though at a much more complex level since it is a newer malware.

The continues the mantra that battles will not be fought human to human but will move towards the cat and mouse games of cyber attacks. The biggest danger that comes from this form of war is that anyone has the potential to be a participant, sometimes without their willingness, or a threat, this is mainly due to the fact that all you need is the know how and a computer to conduct these attacks. Battles of the past require huge amounts of man power, infrastructure and money to fight, but these new wars will be cheap, fast and deadly. At any point it is possible that a rogue hacker with exploits of security software could shut down the entire electrical grid of Eastern America. This would decimate the country, imagine the nukes dropped on Japan without the death and destruction. It could be possible to send countries back decades in one foul swoop.

http://techaeris.com/2014/11/23/regin-elusive-data-harvesting-malware-program/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/23/uk-symantec-malware-regin-idUKKCN0J70S920141123

http://www.wired.com/2012/05/flame/all/

PS
Here is a new link which goes much more in depth and factual than the previous link:
https://securelist.com/blog/research/67741/regin-nation-state-ownage-of-gsm-networks/
ENJOY!

PPS
SCREW WINDOWS

Medical technology advancements

Technology has been improving our medical knowledge more and more each year for a very long time now and it doesn't plan on stopping. We have come very far in our medical field curing diseases, which were incurable before. Millions of people cured of seemed fatal diseases, which makes me wonder what’s going to be next big revelation in the medical field, which could potentially change our lives once again.

One of the recent examples to the medical technology advancements is the cancer and heart attack detector wristband that is currently being developed by Google. Its purpose is to detect any kinds of symptoms of cancers or upcoming heart attacks, strokes and other diseases. It will be achieved by giving the patient a pill with disease-detecting nanoparticles and tracking their activity with a sensor in a wristband. These nanoparticles will detect diseases even before the physical symptoms appear. Sometimes early diagnosis is the only way to get treated properly, because some of the cancers, such as pancreatic are detected only after curable stage when they are untreatable and fatal. Google wants to create nanoparticles for various medical conditions; some would haunt cancerous cells or DNA, others would keep track of chemicals in the blood, and many more. Nanoparticles are magnetic, so when requested they collect in one location and transfer data to the wristband, which detects any abnormalities. They are also very tiny, two thousand times smaller than a red blood cell, which allows them to circulate in a bloodstream and attach to cells freely.

Nanoparticle project is very risky and requires a lot of development and testing, before becoming public. It is still in its early development and no one even knows if it will ever be put in the market. The biggest risk is that it could lead to patient anxiety and unnecessary treatment if nanoparticles malfunction in any way. It is always very hard to implement something new without any flows in its system, same goes to the nanoparticle project. Even Google researchers, who are working on the project, are not fully sure if this type of blood monitoring will go beyond their lab. The only reason why Google is announcing their project is because they are seeking to establish partnership. The whole project is a long shot, but even if it is destined to fail, it is worth a try.

Nanoparticle project by Google is the next big thing in the modern medicine. Even if it is a so called “moonshot” it is very promising and I believe that it is worth all the risks to try. I think that the project can’t be considered failed, even if it fails, because it will bring a lot of useful data to the world whether it succeeds or not. And if Google manages to succeed, it will change our lives as we know them; advancing medical field yet one step further.

article

What I learned while turning off cellular data

Every month, I am one of the big players of data consumption in my family’s data plan on the Verizon network. It is common for the family to purchase the extra gig or two of data for the month because the parents and the four kids use so much of it so often. I was perplexed by this because I assumed that I was almost always connected to WiFi, whether it’s in my apartment or on campus. To determine what was taking up my family’s data (and to help lessen the pain my family feels when paying the bill), I decided to turn off cellular usage. This means that I cannot connect to the Internet, or use Internet-based apps, unless I am connected to WiFi. This experiment taught me a lot about how phones companies trap you into using cellular data and how WiFi networks are easy to come by, but difficult to connect to.

The first thing I noticed during my time off from cellular data usage, was that I didn’t receive certain messages until I was connected to WiFi, and some messages I didn’t receive at all! In the settings menu, there is an option to avoid sending text messages from iPhone to iPhone and wait until you can send iMessages again. This option allows people who have a limited amount of texts to send free texts through the Internet. With cellular off, I can’t receive those messages sent from people with that option enabled until I am connected. For iPhone users to always send and receive iMessages that do not affect the limited number of messages they can send, they must be connected to a cellular 3G, 4G or LTE network. In this specific example, if a customer doesn’t want to pay for unlimited texts, they must pay for data.

Some messages I didn’t receive at all, connected or not. These messages included group SMS text messages. Before smartphones, it wasn’t difficult to receive group messages. Sure, you couldn’t see it whether it was a group message or not or reply all, but you at least got the message. I found this problem pretty inconvenient, especially when the group SMS messages I receive are about the rent check and bills, group projects, and plans over Thanksgiving. After this went on for a week or two, I decided to turn on cellular, but individually turn off cellular usage for every option I could except for phone calls. Even if you don’t internationally use cellular data, you are still practically required to use it to receive certain messages.

Turning off cellular coerced me into searching harder for WiFi that I could connect to if I’m not in my apartment or on campus. This became especially “necessary” while on road trips with the team. The Academy coach buses we take come equipped with Internet capabilities, but it is usually much slower than 3G and was much stricter in terms of which sites connected devices could access. When trying to connect to other WiFi networks, it is surprising how many networks are in close proximity. However, most of these websites are password protected, and the ones that aren’t ask for a password anyways once you try to open up your browser. An example of this is at Port Authority in the city. Restaurants use this tactic of browser passwords too, but that makes more sense because they don’t just want anyone connecting to their network. It is simple to ask for the WiFi password from the staff. Port Authority, however, is a public institution, so I was surprised when the NJT network asked for a password. If you didn’t input one, it allowed you access to two websites: Twitter and the NJT website.

After a month, I am comfortably sitting in last for most data used in the cycle. I do have cellular turned on in order to receive group SMS messages and prevent others from paying for sending regular text messages instead of iMessages, but other than that, that’s it, except for the occasional messing with the setting so I can see what’s happening on Facebook if I’m exceptionally bored. Some smaller things I’ve noticed during the past month is that I can receive notifications from apps such as GroupMe and Snapchat saying that I’ve gotten a message or snap, but I can’t open them. I’m not sure if this uses cellular data, but I’m sure it does. Also, my phone constantly reminds me that I have cellular turned off for every app I use, whether I’m connected to the WiFi network or not. Verizon, if not all cell phones companies that have iPhones, make it difficult to use my phone without giving up and just turning cellular back on. They need more families like mine that won’t hesitate to purchase the extra gig of data. 

Cellphone surveillance by police departments

A judge in Charlotte North Carolina has unsealed around 500 court documents that detail the use of stingray used by local police in criminal cases. The records suggest that the judges did not fully understand what stingray was and how it exactly worked. There has been much secrecy by government agencies recently around the use of this technology. Prosecutors in a robbery case decided to drop key evidence rather than disclosing how stingray works. The detectives involved in the case were told not to disclose the use of this device to the judge, perhaps by the FBI or the company that develops this technology.

Little is known about this technology; it is not clear how stingray is used by law enforcement nationwide and if its usage requires a judge’s approval in all cases. Stingray is used to intercept cell tower traffic in a small area. It can be used to determine a phone’s location, listen in on phone calls and read text messages. The technology sweeps up cell data of others who are nearby to the device. According to the unsealed document, stingray was used about twice a week since 2010. Furthermore, judges rarely denied the authorization to use equipment to collect cell phone information from criminal suspects (and innocents who happen to be nearby). The documents include “boilerplate language connected to phone data” but do not specifically mention the technology, what it is capable of or how it works.

There have been other instances where federal judges attempted to reveal how these surveillance devices are used. However, the government has tried to keep the use of this devices and its information hidden from the public by silencing these judges. I think only with more public knowledge on how this technology works and how it is used by police departments nationwide, we can then be sure that this technology is not being misused. There has to be more transparency and oversight on the use of this technology. Police officers should not use it without a warrant and they should be transparent with the judges. It is difficult for this to happen if larger government agencies try to keep the technology a secret.

The company that develops these devices (Harris Corporation) has been very secretive about its capabilities and deployments, it doesn’t talk to the press. There has been leaks detailing small cities paying around $70,000 to this corporation for one of these devices. Filings with SEC show that Harris makes about $533 million per year. The corporation works with U.S and foreign governments to sell its products. Furthermore, the company forces its clients to sign non-disclosure agreements. It is unclear if these devices can also be installed on cell towers to surveil a larger area.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/local-judge-unseals-hundreds-of-highly-secret-cell-tracking-court-records/