How Tech Companies Stake Out Hackathons for Future Stars
Tech companies face a harsh reality: You're only as good
as your latest product. The scramble to
identify and lure the best talent has taken recruiters to unusual places. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Lizette
Chapman visits a recent hackathon, where high school and college students
code through the night. All the while,
corporate representatives and investors are watching, eying the kids who will
become future stars.
(Related). Perhaps
my Computer Forensics students would rather build a lab?
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/csi-walmart/521565/?google_editors_picks=true
CSI: Walmart
A highly secured digital-forensics laboratory sits tucked
inside an enormous complex of low, boxy buildings in Bentonville, Arkansas. To get in, analysts have to scan their hands and enter
a unique password. Inside, they comb
through video-surveillance records and spirit data out of devices that have
seen better days, like a hard drive that had
been crushed with a hammer and dropped from a third-story window.
Despite the sensitive nature of their jobs, these
investigators aren’t high-level FBI agents or foreign spies. They’re Walmart employees.
Walmart is one of six companies in the United States that
run digital-forensics laboratories accredited by the
American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. American Express has an accredited lab; Target
has two of them.
… In-house
forensics allows companies to work faster, cheaper, and potentially better than
law enforcement. Labs at large companies
are more likely than police labs to have high-tech tools and the latest
forensics software, said Seigfried-Spellar. Forensics equipment is expensive, and is
quickly and constantly surpassed by new technology. Methods for extracting data from mobile
devices, for example, have to be rethought every time a new smartphone with
improved security protocols is released.
This will have to change.
The customer is always wrong: Tesla lets out self-driving car
data – when it suits
Luxury car maker Tesla is
throwing some drivers’ privacy under the wheels following accidents in order to
defend its hi-tech self-driving car technology.
And while the company has handed data to media following
crashes, it won’t provide its customers’ data logs to the drivers themselves,
according to interviews conducted by the Guardian.
… The Guardian
could not find a single case in which Tesla had sought the permission of a
customer who had been involved in an accident before sharing detailed
information from the customer’s car with the press when its self-driving
software was called into question.
The value of intelligence.
The rise of reading analytics and emerging calculus of reader
privacy in digital world
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Apr 3, 2017
First Monday – The rise of reading analytics and the
emerging calculus of reader privacy in the digital world
“This
paper studies emerging technologies for tracking reading behaviors (“reading
analytics”) and their implications for reader privacy, attempting to place them
in a historical context. It discusses
what data is being collected, to whom it is available, and how it might be used
by various interested parties. The paper
includes two case studies — mass-market e-books and scholarly journals — and illustrates a shift from government to commercial
surveillance.”
It’s the hypodemic nerdle that keeps me from getting
chipped.
Swedish employees agree to free microchip implants designed
for office work
A Swedish firm in Stockholm — Epicenter — has offered to
inject its staff with microchips for free, and around 150 of the company's
young workforce have so far taken up the offer.
The RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips are
roughly the size of a grain of rice, and are implanted using a syringe into the
fleshy part of the recipient's hand.
At the moment the chip gives Epicenter's workers access to
doors and photocopiers, but with the promise that further down the track it
will include the ability to pay in the cafe.
Perspective. Phones
vs. Computers. Follow-up to Android
being the most installed Operating System.
Report: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used
operating system
Mobile is today as important, if not more important, than
desktops when it comes to the internet and apps. A clear reminder of that comes with news of a
report claiming that Google’s Android has overtaken Windows as
the internet’s most used operating system.
Research from web analytics company StatCounter found
Android now accounts for a larger share of internet usage than Windows for the
first time. During March 2017, Android
users represented 37.93 percent of activity on StatCounter’s network versus
37.91 percent for the Microsoft operating system. It’s a small gap for sure — and it
refers to usage not necessary users — but it marks a notable tipping point that has been
inevitable for the past couple of years.
Perspective. This
may explain why the ‘traditional’ car companies are scrambling to adopt new
technologies.
Tesla zooms past Ford's market value
Shares of Tesla stock surged to about $292 on Monday — a
roughly 5 percent increase — bringing the electric car company’s market
capitalization to $47.08 billion. Ford’s
current market cap is $44.91 billion.
… Tesla’s “book
value,” or value after its total liabilities are subtracted from its assets, is
$5 billion. Ford’s is almost $30
billion. And while Tesla generated $7
billion in revenue in 2016, Ford generated $15 billion.
The electric carmaker also has yet to turn a profit in its
14-year history.
“Mmmm! Beer!”
PicoBrew meets Kickstarter goal for smaller brewing device in
just 7 hours
Seattle company PicoBrew launched its fourth Kickstarter
campaign Monday, this time to make a smaller, less expensive home brewing
machine called the Pico C. In just seven
hours, the campaign had topped its $350,000 goal with more than 1,100 backers.
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