Introducing Spot. Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google. Google: the unelected superpower (no paywall) The revolving door between Google and the Department of Defense. By Yasha Levine On April 23, 2014 So, Google continues to try to distance itself from the military-industrial complex.
Last month, the company made a big stink about refusing a tiny bit of DARPA funding for two robotics companies it purchased, hoping that people already forgot that the companies had been financed by the Department of Defense. And a few weeks ago, Google’s PR team insisted the company had nothing to do with the U.S. Air Force testing out Google Glass for battlefield use: “The Glass Explorer program includes people from all walks of life, including doctors, firefighters, and parents. Right. Oakland emails give another glimpse into the Google-Military-Surveillance Complex. By Yasha Levine On March 7, 2014 OAKLAND—On February 18, several hundred privacy, labor, civil rights activists and Black Bloc anarchists packed Oakland’s city hall.
They were there to protest the construction of a citywide surveillance center that would turn a firehouse in downtown Oakland into a high-tech intelligence hub straight outta Mission Impossible. Exclusive: Emails reveal close Google relationship with NSA. Adam Berry / Getty Images Two weeks after the “60 Minutes” broadcast, the German magazine Der Spiegel, citing documents obtained by Snowden, reported that the NSA inserted back doors into BIOS, doing exactly what Plunkett accused a nation-state of doing during her interview.
Google’s Schmidt was unable to attend to the mobility security meeting in San Jose in August 2012. “General Keith.. so great to see you.. !” Schmidt wrote. “I’m unlikely to be in California that week so I’m sorry I can’t attend (will be on the east coast). Army Gen. A week after the gathering, Dempsey said during a Pentagon press briefing, “I was in Silicon Valley recently, for about a week, to discuss vulnerabilities and opportunities in cyber with industry leaders … They agreed — we all agreed on the need to share threat information at network speed.” Official Google Blog: A new approach to China. Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis.
In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different. Google and the World Brain. Google Now now SLURPS data from third party apps so YOU don't have to. Google has inked deals with 40 third party app makers, allowing the ad giant to rifle through data from the likes of Airbnb and Lyft to serve up "relevant information" to its Android users.
The firm said in a blog post on Friday that it would begin slurping the data from inside a number of apps for its Google Now service – a creepy, predictive search tech that Mountain View first unveiled in 2012. Google has become increasingly aware of the rich info locked away in other apps that – up until now – the data-scraping firm has been unable to deeply mine for its multi-billion dollar search and ad biz. Terms of the financial deals struck with the likes of Airbnb, Lyft, Duolingo, Pandora and the Guardian newspaper were kept secret. Are Governor Malloy’s new Google Chromebooks data mining our kids? Feb 15 jonpeltoCommon Core, Education Reform, Malloy, Smarter Balanced Assessment Test, Stefan Pryor Common Core, Malloy, Smarter Balanced Assessment Test, Stefan Pryor “Google explicitly admits for the first time that it scans the email of Google Apps for Education users for ad-serving purposes even when ad serving is turned off.” – Safegov.org 1/31/14 Late last year, Governor Dannel P.
Malloy and Commissioner Stefan Pryor, like governors and education commissioner across the country, proudly announced that they were charging an additional $24 million to the state’s credit card to buy computers and expand internet capabilities so that Connecticut’s public school students could take the inappropriate and absurd Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Test. Google stung by Canada’s privacy commissioner for ads linked to personal health history. TORONTO — Google has been caught afoul of the law by displaying web ads linked to a person’s health history, according to Canada’s interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier.
An investigation by her office backed up a man’s complaints that he was seeing so-called behavioural advertisements based on his web browsing history. After searching for information about devices to treat sleep apnea, he began to see ads for those devices as he browsed the web. While behavioural advertising is not illegal, Canada’s privacy law does not allow consumers to be targeted based on “sensitive personal information,” including their health. Google’s privacy policy outlaws displaying advertisements based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health. But the Mountain View, Calif. Google Is Making A Land Grab For The Internet Of Things. Before this past December, when Google acquired seven robotics companies back-to-back, the company’s ambitions in the “Internet of Things” space looked as detailed as a freshly started jigsaw puzzle.
But with its last three acquisitions — Boston Dynamics, Nest and DeepMind — it seems like Google is rapidly collecting the individual pieces to put together a “real life Internet,” a network of AI-driven robots and objects that could improve transportation, manufacturing and even day-to-day consumer life. Google’s “real life Internet,” a business that reaches far beyond web search and online advertising, may look like a General Electric on the Internet of Things side, and an IBM on the software side — where artificial intelligence is at the core of products like Watson. Google Nest Parody Protest Site Holds A Funhouse Mirror Up To The Search Giant. Google acquired Nest Labs last year, bringing the Nest intelligent thermostat to the search giant, and rumor has it they’re now working on a range of hardware projects.
Can We All Just Admit Google Is An Evil Empire? Google is kicking off 2014 with some good old-fashioned privacy infringement.
The search giant’s recent decision to link Gmail addresses to Google+ was met with considerable backlash among users who don't want their inboxes exposed to spam. But according to former Tumblr lead developer Marco Arment on his blog, we really shouldn’t be surprised at all: What's Driving Google's Obsession With Artificial Intelligence And Robots? Google Adds to Its Menagerie of Robots. Boston Dynamics Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot named WildCat can gallop at high speeds. Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The company, based in Waltham, Mass., has gained an international reputation for machines that walk with an uncanny sense of balance and even — cheetahlike — run faster than the fastest humans.
Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android. Jim Wilson/The New York Times Andy Rubin is the engineer heading Google’s robotics effort. He is the man who built the Android software for smartphones. Google’s Robots and Creeping Militarization. Google CEO Larry Page has rapidly positioned Google to become an indispensable U.S. military contractor. Google recently purchased Boston Dynamics, a robotics pioneer that produces amazing humanoid robots for the U.S.
Defense Department. This development invites attention to Google’s broader military contracting ambitions — especially since Boston Dynamics is the eighth robotics company that Google has bought in the last six months. Just like drones are the future of air warfare, humanoid robots and self-driving vehicles will be the future of ground warfare according to U.S. defense plans.
Shooting for the Moon, Google Hopes to Own the Future. Boston DynamicsLast year Google purchased Boston Dynamics, maker of the Atlas robot, is a high-mobility humanoid robot designed to negotiate rough terrain. Look at the technology landscape today and what do you see? A few companies — Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, Twitter and Google — competing for the same sorts of revenue: advertising, search, location and some mobile hardware. Now look into the future of the technology landscape and what do you see?