Tag: Technology

Facial recognition: technology and privacy

Quick bibliographies

Quick bibliography: Reviews/recent articles on facial recognition–the technology and privacy concerns. Classic reviews: Bowyer, K. W. (2004). Face recognition technology: security versus privacy. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 23(1), 9-19. [Cited by] “Video surveillance and face recognition systems have become the subject of increased interest and controversy after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. In favor of face recognition technology, there is…

See more

Save money, do good–change your light bulbs (quick post)

Quick posts

Switching light bulbs in your home to LED is a simple, relatively inexpensive way to cut your energy bill (the amount of electricity used with LED bulbs is 80+% less compared to traditional incandescent bulbs). The increasingly wide use of more efficient light bulbs has helped electricity use by Americans to decline since 2010–after rising steeply for decades. The current U.S. Administration may not like…

See more

Misinformation and trust

News

News: “Social media has facilitated the proliferation of false belief at an unprecedented scale.” Why? Humans are social learners. “We develop most of our beliefs from the testimony of trusted others”–parents, friends, relatives, clergy, politicians, work colleagues, etc. And, sometimes, the ideas and information that they pass on to us are just plain wrong. But, we hear it from a friend, we believe it, we…

See more

Advances in solar water purification

News

News: Here is some potentially very positive news … It’s estimated that nearly 800 million people globally today lack access to safe drinking water–that’s not positive; it’s a huge, dangerous problem. Existing technologies “for purifying contaminated water and desalinating seawater” often are very expensive and use large amounts of energy–beyond the ability of many communities to put into place. Solar stills are an existing lower-tech…

See more

There is no privacy any more (quick post)

Quick posts

News: Would you let an employee from Walmart or Amazon come inside your home (while you’re not there) to deliver packages or put groceries in your fridge? Are you concerned about privacy, hacked data, sensitive data being made available to law enforcement, yet more waves of online tailored ads, or other electronic intrusions besides the possibility of just plain bad behavior by people in your…

See more

Is there any privacy left in America?

News

Connections: 9/11 was a big turning point in sacrificing privacy for national security. While there are differing opinions on whether this was the best decision or not, being completely off the grid identity-wise is a thing of the past. Google tracks the locations of cellphone users across the United States. Law enforcement increasingly uses this database (called “Sensorvault”) as part of trying to solve crimes….

See more
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.