Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory
January 16th, 2012Update: Apple’s Chinese iPhone Plants Employ Forced Interns, Claim Campaigners Via: Guardian: Apple’s factories in China are employing tens of thousands of students, some of them on forced internships, according to campaigners lobbying for better labour conditions at Foxconn plants, which assemble iPhones. Some students could be as young as 16. The Foxconn chairman, Terry […]
Bay Area Company Creating Massive Vehicle Location Database from Police License Plate Scanning
January 12th, 2012Here’s one for your Retroactive Surveillance file folder. Via: San Francisco Chronicle: Capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing trends in law enforcement, a private company in Livermore has compiled a database bulging with more than 550 million bits of information that let police know when and where specific license plates of both innocent and criminal […]
Who Is Operating Unmanned Aircraft in the U.S.? EFF Files Suit to Try to Find Out
January 12th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), demanding data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for the operation of unmanned aircraft, also known as drones. Drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment – including video cameras, infrared cameras and heat sensors, […]
Homeland Security Watches Twitter, Social Media, Blogs
January 12th, 2012Cryptogon readers yawn even more deeply than usual… Via: Reuters: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document. A “privacy compliance review” issued by DHS last November […]
U.S. Army Routinely Monitors Social Media and Prepares Sentiment Briefs for Public Affairs Personnel
January 11th, 2012Via: Politico: News coverage of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s legal hearing last month on charges of being a key source for WikiLeaks was generally ‘negative’ but ‘balanced and factual,’ according to daily summaries of the proceedings prepared by Army public affairs personnel. The Army flacks also took a keen interest in news coverage of former Lt. […]
Mass Suicide Threats at Foxconn Xbox 360 Plant
January 11th, 2012Foxconn has a plan to deal with these pesky meatsacks, and I don’t mean suicide prevention nets. Foxconn Wants to Build “Intelligent Robotics Kingdom” to Replace Human Workers with Robots Foxconn: 1 Million Robots in 3 Years Via: Kotaku: On Jan. 2, over 300 employees at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China threatened to throw […]
McDonald’s Restaurants in Australia Will Spray Synthetic DNA on Robbers
January 9th, 2012Via: news.com.au: McDONALD’S restaurants are fighting back against thieves by blasting suspected robbers with an invisible DNA spray as they attempt to flee. The spray, which remains on the suspect’s skin for two weeks and on clothes for up to six months, has been introduced in some of the chain’s busiest NSW stores, including those […]
Google Backing Original Shows for YouTube — Lots of Them
January 8th, 2012Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram. This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a […]
Paypal Founder Backs Blueseed, ‘Googleplex of the Sea’
January 7th, 2012Will there be… Plasmids? BioShock is set during 1960, in Rapture, a fictional underwater dystopian city; its history is revealed to the player through in-game audio recordings scattered throughout the game. Rapture was envisioned by the Objectivist business magnate, Andrew Ryan, as a laissez-faire utopia for society’s cultural and scientific elite to avoid the oppression […]
Japan ‘Dream Project’: 600 Acre Farm with Autonomous Robot Workers
January 7th, 2012Does anyone understand how LEDs are supposed to replace pesticides? Under an agriculture ministry plan, unmanned tractors will work fields where pesticides will have been replaced by LEDs keeping rice, wheat, soybeans, fruit and vegetables safe until robots can put them in boxes. Anyway, this sounds like it could have been lifted right out of […]
