WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
A weekly feature on electronic technology as it affects everyday life with Jim Campbell. Broadcast on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, ME every Thursday at 7:30 AM.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are wonders of digital technology. They are becoming more and more important in our everyday lives from deciding who will get a mortgage to deciding who will get bail if someone is arrested. But there is a sort of dirty little secret here: we don’t actually know how AI systems reach the decisions they make, or even if those decisions are right or wrong. Let’s think about this for a moment…
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
As we enter 2018, let’s take a moment to look at some recent research in Artificial Intelligence that may be becoming part of everyday life before too long: a poker bot that can win big at Texas Hold-em; another big step in making it possible for computers to read minds; and a bot that can tell if someone is lying better than humans. Tomorrow is becoming today…
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Best of 2017
In the spirit of the turning year, we thought we’d join in the “best of 2017” trend underway and choose the most important Electronic Cottage program from 2017. Turns out, it might wind up being the most important Electronic Cottage program of 2018 as well. The renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been pushed into 2018 and will now expire if not renewed by Congress by January 19, 2018. Here’s why what happens around that renewal will affect not only our digital lives but out lives in general.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Today, let’s take a look at URL shorteners and how to make sure they are safe before we click on them. Three sites that can help with that are:
safeweb.norton.com/
urlvoid.com/
scanurl.net/
Let’s also take a peek at Google Drive’s Terms of Service (TOS). If you use Google Drive, what you’ve agreed to may surprise you.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
2017 Year in Review
A lot happened in the tech world and the world that tech affects in 2017. Here’s a idiosyncratic review of some of what happened in the past year. Happy New Year to all, and hopes for a positive 2018!
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
There are lots of swell digital devices that will probably appear in people’s house this holiday season but these devices, especially toys, are very different from teddy bears or wooden horses. They require a much higher level of attention and monitoring. Here’s why, and here’s a link to the FBI’s suggestions on the subject.
https://www.ic3.gov/media/2017/170717.aspx
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Three of the five FCC commissioners are voting to do away with a constellation of rules referred to as Net Neutrality, rules that protect users of the web from all sorts of use discrimination. These commissioners, none of whom are engineers or technologists, feel this is the best thing for the Internet. The people who invented the Internet and the World Wide Web have a very different opinion: “Internet Pioneers and Leaders Tell the FCC: you Don’t Understand How the Internet Works.” The link to their letter to Congress is at: https://pioneersfornetneutrality.tumblr.com. Now only Congress can protect Internet users – if their constituents tell them to.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
We’ve all been hearing a lot about the tax bill that is still wending its way through Congress but that is not the only thing going on these days. Two other events in Washington promise to have a huge impact on our digital lives, and, of course, technology has not stopped moving at a breathtaking pace, including when digital tech is used in ways that its inventors didn’t anticipate. For example, watch here as thieves steal a newer car simply by reading the signal that the fancy car’s key emits – from inside the house.
RFID repeater used to steal Mercedes with keys locked inside a house