By Brett Wilkins The Chinese army has deployed an “improved” killer robot designed for ground combat. The People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) recently announced that the Sharp Claw I unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), manufactured by China North Industries Corporation (Norinco), entered service on April 13. This was first reported Read more…
Amazon is the most customer-centric company in the world! But who is the customer? By Vahid Razavi Everyone is familiar with Amazon retail business and how small merchants that participate in its marketplace are leveraged to build Amazon’s own retail endeavors. This article is not about the merchants, but rather Read more…
If you use Zoom — and who doesn’t these days? — you’re surely familiar with at least some of all the headline-grabbing privacy issues plaguing the popular video conferencing app. And if you, like countless millions of internet users around the world, have a single password for most, if not all, of Read more…
By Brett Wilkins In times of great crisis, it is often necessary for governments to curtail civil liberties for the sake of security. This is especially true when the crisis at hand is a global pandemic in which swiftly identifying and isolating disease carriers saves countless lives. Conversely, failure to Read more…
By Brett Wilkins I’m a journalist, so you can be assured that if I post a news link on Facebook, it’s legit. No fake news here. And so you can imagine my reaction when I checked my Facebook notifications Tuesday afternoon and saw that almost every one of my COVID-19-related Read more…
Even as Amazon works out how to best protect its massive workforce from the rapidly-spreading coronavirus pandemic, the tech titan is taking measures to deal with price-gouging and fake cures being offered for sale on its site by unscrupulous sellers looking to make a quick buck from the crisis. Last Read more…
By Brett Wilkins The US military is adopting new principles for what it calls the ethical use of artificial intelligence technology in warfare, sparking widespread skepticism from ethics advocates and other critics. Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the new AI ethics guidelines in a memo released on February 24 in Read more…
By Brett Wilkins Many journalists and digital rights activists in Pakistan and beyond are decrying a new social media law passed by the government that critics say could be used to crack down on free speech and dissent. The Pakistani federal cabinet recently passed the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Read more…
By Brett Wilkins After years of unexplained delays, the United Nations this week released a list of over 100 companies with ties to illegal Israeli settler colonies in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. In a statement released on Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Office identified 112 businesses profiting from Read more…
By Brett Wilkins A Brazilian judge has declined to proceed with cybercrime charges against Glenn Greenwald, the American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist whose work uncovering corruption in the South American nation’s judicial system has infuriated top officials in President Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration. The Intercept reports Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite ruled on Read more…