Month: October 2017
Russia is using facial recognition to spy on its citizens
While you’ll soon be using facial recognition to unlock your smartphone, Russia is using the technology to spy on its citizens. Moscow is adding facial recognition software to 170,000 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras positioned throughout the capital. The city has worked on the system for close to a year alongside NTechLabs, a Russian startup that released […]
Fury at ‘Bodega’ tech startup that aims to put corner shops out of business
Bodega, which markets glorified vending machines where users can buy groceries, boasts: “Eventually, centralized shopping locations won’t be necessary.” A tech startup called Bodega that hopes to replace mom-and-pop shops with unmanned boxes that rely on an app and artificial intelligence is facing a massive backlash from immigrant business owners and skeptics across Silicon […]
Instagram thinks sharing your friend’s rape threat will get you back on the app
An Instagram post of friends walking through the crystal-clear waves of Ibiza might get someone to check in with the photo-sharing app, but a screenshot of a rape threat? Not so much. On Thursday, Guardian reporter Olivia Solon shared on Twitter that Instagram had tried to do such a thing with one of her posts—it shared […]
How secure is Apple’s Face ID, really?
In its latest product event, Apple confidently moved to convince consumers that face recognition is the most convenient way to secure your phone and the sensitive information you store in it. Face ID, the company’s face recognition technology, which will be replacing its fingerprint scanner in the new iPhone X, requires you to only show […]
Should we ban sex robots while we have the chance? | Jenny Kleeman
“AI sex dolls are on their way, with potentially sinister social consequences. So before they hit the market, we must ask whether they should,” writes robotics expert Jenny Kleeman. People are blowing a fuse about sex robots or rather, rape robots. Journalists from the New Statesman and the New York Times among others have […]