Showing 1 - 4 of 4
Fact checkers get it wrong
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/09/2023
» First off, I have some follow-up news on an earlier story. The Australian fact checking group I mentioned being paid by Meta has been suspended for providing a series of "false" fact checks that turned out to be actually true. As I pointed out, many of the so-called fact checkers don't have any experience in the field they are apparently providing the check for. This will be particularly true in any politically charged area.
Who checks the fact checkers?
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/08/2023
» The information landscape has changed a great deal over the past five years. Back in the 1990s, information exchange was mostly between academics and IT people. The majority of the information was accurate and typically scientific or technical in nature. The communication was polite and debates were just that, debates. It was an inclusive community, though in some cases you were required to stick to the topic at hand. Then came the social media platforms.
The reality of AI is less scary than the movies
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/08/2022
» I was talking to someone at work recently and mentioned the Palm Pilot. He never heard of it. Some of us remember it being released in 1996 before the smartphone and social media, and in the early days of the internet. It drove the creation of the smartphone, though the people at Intel at the time didn't see how a portable, hand-held device like this could become common. One of the founders and inventors was Jeff Hawkins who also founded Handspring and worked on the Treo that evolved into a very early smartphone with a camera, which this brings us to today's topic, artificial intelligence.
Transpacific cable is cut, for now
Life, James Hein, Published on 16/09/2020
» In light of the problems between the USA and China, and that those in power in Beijing want to grab data from US networks, Google and Facebook have dropped plans to build an undersea cable between the US and Hong Kong. The new target limits the landing points to the Philippines and Taiwan and now excludes Hong Kong. The HK section of the cable is built but will not now be activated due to a national security agreement between the US and Google and Facebook. I will predict that if Joe Biden wins the next US election this decision will be revisited.