Notes From The Electronic Cottage – Page 24 – WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/16/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Ensuring the privacy of Americans’ communications and information is a real challenge on the web these days, as recent breaches of federal offices have shown. Some companies are beginning to make encrypted messages between people possible. Law enforcement says a way is needed to break that encryption. Security experts say that’s a very bad idea. It’s a big issue – here’s a look at what’s at stake.

The url for the “Imagine” video mentioned is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyPbgqggqo

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/9/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Humans are very good at identifying human faces. These days, computers are just as good, or even better, even when the person isn’t facing a camera. Most of us have a photo of ourselves somewhere on the web, even if we didn’t put it there ourselves. Facial recognition software can compare a picture taken in a store or gas station or even on the street with photos taken from the web and all the sudden our online and offline lives come together for retailers, marketers, and government agencies. For over a year, trade associations and privacy advocates have been meeting to try to come up with a voluntary set of guidelines for using facial recognition technology. Recently all nine privacy advocate organizations walked out of those meetings. Here’s why.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 6/11/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Got some great old analog vinyl around that you want to get digitized so you can put those classics on your phone or other digital device? Here are some hints from a former broadcast that you can use to get great sound from those old great sounds.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 6/4/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Think robots are just good for vacuuming floors while the owner sits in a chair and sips iced tea? Think again. The DARPA Robotic Challenge puts semi-autonomous robots through their paces – and points to a future in which robots will be doing a lot of the work that humans do now.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/28/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Many of us have become accustomed to being on surveillance cameras pretty much everyday in grocery stores, at gas stations, in banks, and in a lot of other places where we might not even notice them. Ever wonder what becomes of the images those cameras capture, and according to what rules those images can be used, and by whom? The answers may be a bit surprising.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/21/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Seen the movie Ex Machina? It raises, in a gentle way, big questions about the relationship of humans to the artificial intelligences we are trying to create. People such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk are warning that we are not thinking deeply enough about creating artificial intelligence agents and that our AI creations could, someday down the road, mean the end of the human race. Might be worth considering that possibility now while there is still time.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/14/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

A bit of an update today of interesting news items dealing with realms electronic that may have slipped past our radar ranging from a new digital cane for the sight-impaired, to a court ruling on the NSA’s bulk data gathering of phone records.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/7/15

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

The great promise of possibilities offered by the web are increasingly constrained by governments, including our own. Congress is now considering several bills which have the potential to affect our use of the web – and beyond – in terms of privacy and civil liberties. Here’s where the Protecting Cyber Networks Act and renewal of Section 215 of the Patriot Act stand at the moment.