Why Jaron Lanier killed Akibo dog? – 16th of August 2015

Our data is being collected. But how is it being used? Is it just innocent advertising or are we facing an invasion of our privacy without even realising?

Also this week: how and what tools do we use? Wendy Grossman discusses how our way of using the internet and its tools has changed.

And a video from 2007 about Robotics anxiety and why Jaron Lanier killed Niki’s Aibo.

Read on for this week’s updates.

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Wendy Grossman analyses how we use technology and the tools internet provides us with today and how it is reflecting on our society. Will it be the same in the future? Read here.

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Oops! Facebook fired an intern who exposed their user tracking system

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You call it “socially intelligent” brands – we call it “creepy”. Should Domino Pizza track your  data not just for the pizza you actually bought, but on one you are only planning to buy? Welcome to “research of intent”. Read here

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Don’t miss from Bruce Schneier!

There seems to be no access controls at all restricting how NSA surveillance analysts can use XKEYSCORE. Link

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Early days but we welcome a Royalty Free Video Codec project named Thor (link)  – a new contribution from Cisco to open source video (code here  http://thor-codec.org.)

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Are you a civic technologist or data journalist? Apply for Fellowship at the new African civic journalism initiative! Click here.

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AI and Robotics anxiety is not a new thing – see our video from 2007 on why  Jaron Lanier killed Niki’s Aibo

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Your confidential med data will now be shared with Boots and High Street pharmacies –opt out now if you don’t want your medical history to be used to sell you stuff. Read here