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Monday Morning: Synthesized Brain

When you need a break this hectic Monday morning, take five minutes and watch ANA from Factory Fifteen. I’m intrigued by the props and set — how much is CGI, and how much is actual production line? What company allowed this production company access to their equipment?

Though snappy and visually engaging, the story’s not realistic — yet. But much of the equipment on the production line is very close to that used in manufacturing today. And just as depicted in this short film, the weakest link is the human.

Worth keeping in mind this week as we plow deeper into the conflict at the intersection of humans and devices. Speaking of which…

Apple-heavy week ahead

  • Hearing in California tomorrow in front of Judge Sheri Pym over the San Bernardino’s shooter’s iPhone. Be sure to read Marcy’s take on the hearing and witnesses.
  • WLTX of Columbia SC posted a timeline of #AppleVsFBI events — unfortunately, it starts on February 16 with Judge Pym’s order to Apple.
  • NYT reported last week that Apple employees may quit if Apple is ordered to cooperate and write security-undermining code. But is this a deliverable in itself? The article offered an incredible amount of detail about Apple’s operations; if employees quit, any entities observing the technology company will know even more. Has this shakedown been designed to yield information about Apple’s operations, while risking corporate and personal security?
  • Apple will release information about new products today at a media event. The buzz may be less about the new products than the hearing tomorrow.
  • An iPhone 6 bursting into flames during a flight to Hawaii didn’t help Apple. One might wonder why this particular phone flamed out so spectacularly as it’s a relatively new device.

HEADS UP TECH USERS

  • Kindle users: Amazon is forcing a mandatory update across all its older Kindle reader devices. Deadline: TOMORROW MARCH 22 — after that date, users will have to manually update devices and download books via PC and not over the internet.
  • Tweetdeck users: Owner Twitter will kill the Windows app on April 15th. After that time, Windows-based users will need to use a browser. Can’t blame Twitter–it’s ridiculously expensive to write and service so many apps when the same devices usually have a browser.
  • Android users: 1) Protect your privacy and security by checking these settings; 2) Check this setting, stat, to prevent unauthorized access.
  • Nexus users: Make sure you have the latest patch issued last week. All other Android users should nag their equipment makers for their version of the same patch.

Before the machines complete their occupation of our world…

  • Nice read on law emerging with the rise of robots. Too bad none of them really incorporate Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. (The Atlantic)
  • Want to bet the overlords will argue workers should be paid less because they don’t have to work as hard wearing an exoskeleton — like these at Panasonic? (By the way, DARPA, that’s yet another commercially-developed exoskeleton near release; where’s yours/ours?) (Mashable)
  • Artificial intelligence already pitted against humans by those bloody banksters. Watch this video and ask yourself if this guy from Global Capital Acquisitions realizes there are humans at the nodes of the investment network whose lives are affected by his blah-blah-blah-babbling about artificial intelligence. STG he could be a machine himself. (Bloomberg)
  • Myths about AI busted – another solid read. Combined with the preceding Bloomberg bankster video it reinforces AI threat awareness. (Gizmodo)

After watching that video at Bloomberg, I think we’re a lot closer to ANA than we realized. Watch your backs — Monday is certainly gaining on you, if robots aren’t.

Friday Morning: The Political is Musical

It’s Friday, and that means more jazz. Today’s genre is Afrobeat, which emerged in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Nigerian musician Fela Kuti is credited as the genre’s progenitor, though Fela maintained drummer Tony Allen was essential to style, saying, “[w]ithout Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.”

Afrobeat fuses a number of different types of music with jazz, including funk, highlife, rock, and folk music from West African cultures. In this video, Beasts of No Nation, it’s easy to hear the different styles of music added as layers underpinned and unified by drums.

The lyrics of many Afrobeat tunes are very political; the album of the same name, Beasts of No Nation, was an anti-apartheid statement released in 1989.

Recommended read to accompany today’s musical selection: The Wealth of Nations by Emmanuel Iduma (Guernica magazine).

Let’s move…

Not far from the Apple tree
Lots of developments yesterday in the  #AppleVsFBI story.

  • In support of Apple, big names in tech file amicus briefs to meet deadline. The two most powerful briefs constituted a who’s who of Silicon Valley. Amazon, Box, Cisco, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nest, Pinterest, Slack, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Yahoo filed one joint brief. AirbNb, atlassian, Automattic, Cloudflare, EBay, Github, Kickstarter, LinkedIN, Mapbox, Medium, Meetup, Reddit, Square, SquareSpace, Twilio, Twitter, Wickr filed the second. There were several other pro-Apple briefs filed, but none with the economic clout of these two briefs.
  • Cato’s Julian Sanchez may have the best take on yesterday’s filings.
  • UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said forcing Apple to write code for the FBI “could have extremely damaging implications for the human rights of many millions of people, including their physical and financial security,” constituting a “a gift to authoritarian regimes.”
  • Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County DA, exposed his lack of technology prowess in an ex parte application to participate as Amicus Curiae.

    “The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure…”

    Emphasis mine. WHAT. EVEN. Dude just screwed law enforcement, making the case (using a made-up term) for the iPhone to never be opened.

Brazil’s former president Lula held for questioning as home raided
The investigation into state-run oil company Petrobras now reaches deeply into the highest levels of Brazil’s government. Investigators are looking into former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s role in Petrobras’ corruption, including kickbacks and influence peddling. The investigation’s discoveries threaten the viability of current president Dilma Rousseff’s ruling coalition. Wonder if the NSA was following this when they were spying on Petrobras?

Quick licks

  • Absolute insanity: Amazon’s Kindle devices no longer encrypted (Motherboard) — Well, nobody in this household is getting a Kindle any time soon.
  • Nope, not hackers, not squirrels: bird droppings suspected in shutdown of Indian Point nuke plant last December (Phys.org)
  • Joint US-UK college hacking competition this weekend (Phys.org) — Wanna’ bet some of these students will be asked about hacking Apple iPhones?
  • Connecticut wants to ban weaponization of drones, thanks to stupid teenager’s home project (Naked Security) — Seems like a federal issue, IMO, but let me guess the gun lobby will step and whine about gun-enabled drones as a Second Amendment right. Surely our forefathers anticipated flying, cellphone-controlled privately-owned gun drones.

Ugh. That’s a wrap on this week, stopping now before this really devolves though I can’t see any distance between here and absolute bottom. Have a good weekend!