Saturday, April 20

Tag: calls

Despite Calls For A Moratorium – Feds Are Increasing Use Of Facial Recognition Systems
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TECHNOLOGY

Despite Calls For A Moratorium – Feds Are Increasing Use Of Facial Recognition Systems

TECHNOLOGY James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Despite growing opposition, the U.S. government is on track to increase its use of controversial facial recognition technology. The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on Aug. 24, 2021, detailing current and planned use of facial recognition technology by federal agencies. The GAO surveyed 24 departments and agencies – from the Department of Defense to the Small Business Administration – and found that 18 reported using the technology and 10 reported plans to expand their use of it. The report comes more than a year after the U.S. Technology Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, called for an immediate halt to virtually ...
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During The Pandemic Domestic Violence Calls For Help Increased But Answers Haven’t Gotten Any Easier
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SOCIETY

During The Pandemic Domestic Violence Calls For Help Increased But Answers Haven’t Gotten Any Easier

Domestic violence rose globally in 2020 – so much so that doctors have called it “a pandemic within a pandemic.” The National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, a team of national experts tasked with assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the justice system, recently estimated that in the United States, domestic violence incidents increased 8.1% on average following stay-at-home orders. Worldwide, the United Nations estimates there was a 20% increase in domestic violence incidents across its 193 member states during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. We are criminologists with expertise in domestic violence and policing, respectively. To understand whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted calls for help for domestic violence in the U.S., we examined short- and long-term trends in ...
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Echoing A History Of Calls For Companies To Chip In When Times Are Tough, Biden Wants Corporations To Pay For His $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plans
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BUSINESS

Echoing A History Of Calls For Companies To Chip In When Times Are Tough, Biden Wants Corporations To Pay For His $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plans

President Joe Biden just proposed a roughly US$2 trillion infrastructure plan, which he ambitiously compared to the interstate highway system and the space race. He aims to pay for it solely by taxing companies more, including the first increase in the corporate tax rate since the 1960s. Biden said he wants to increase the rate from 21% to 28% – which would still be below the 35% level it was at before the 2017 tax cut – and strengthen the global minimum tax to discourage multinational corporations from using tax havens. Together, he estimates it would raise the necessary funds to finance his plan over 15 years. “No one should be able to complain about” raising the rate to 28%, Biden said in a speech announcing the plan. “It’s still lower than what that rate was between World War II and ...
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New Recordings Of Ultrasonic Seal Calls Hint At Sonar-Like Abilities
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IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

New Recordings Of Ultrasonic Seal Calls Hint At Sonar-Like Abilities

I’m sitting on the edge of a hole drilled through 15 feet of Antarctic sea ice, about to descend into the frigid ocean of the southernmost dive site in the world. Scientist and seal, under the Antarctic ice. I wear nearly 100 pounds of gear – a drysuit and gloves, multiple layers of insulation, scuba tank and regulators, lights, equipment, fins and over 40 pounds of lead to counteract all that added buoyancy. Divers inside the shelter hut prepare to drop into the ocean. McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory, CC BY-ND   I do a final check with my dive buddies: Air? Hoses? Weights? Then, one by one, we put in our mouthpieces, plop into the hole and sink out of sight into the dark. As we frog-kick along, following our lights toward the work site, a Weddell seal glides by with a few effor...
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Experts In Online Communications Weigh In – Does ‘Deplatforming’ Work To Curb Hate Speech And Calls For Violence?
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Experts In Online Communications Weigh In – Does ‘Deplatforming’ Work To Curb Hate Speech And Calls For Violence?

In the wake of the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s personal account, and Google, Apple and Amazon shunned Parler, which at least temporarily shut down the social media platform favored by the far right. Dubbed “deplatforming,” these actions restrict the ability of individuals and communities to communicate with each other and the public. Deplatforming raises ethical and legal questions, but foremost is the question of whether it’s an effective strategy to reduce hate speech and calls for violence on social media. The Conversation U.S. asked three experts in online communications whether deplatforming works and what happens when technology companies attempt it. Sort of, but it’s not a long-term solution Jeremy Blackburn, assistant profes...
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Finding endless video calls exhausting? You’re not alone
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WORK

Finding endless video calls exhausting? You’re not alone

With much of the world in lockdown, our time spent on video calls has risen rapidly. Video conferencing has expanded from being a tool for business meetings to something we use to socialise, worship, and even date on. There is no doubt that platforms like Zoom are very useful. But all this time spent on video calls has its problems. We rely on it connect with people, yet it can leave us feeling tired and empty. It has given us some semblance of normal life during lockdown, but it can make relationships seem unreal. This feeling has spurred talk of a new psychological affliction: “Zoom fatigue.” When we interact with another person through the screen, our brains have to work much harder. We miss many of the other cues we’d have during a real-life conversation like the smell of the room or...
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Government cybersecurity commission calls for international cooperation, resilience and retaliation
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TECHNOLOGY

Government cybersecurity commission calls for international cooperation, resilience and retaliation

The global commons are under assault in cyberspace. Ransomware attacks, including North Korea’s WannaCry and Russia’s NotPetya, have disrupted vital medical services and global transportation systems, costing billions of dollars. Iran and China have engaged in similar actions. Real-time cyberattacks on a display at the 175th Cyberspace Operations Group of the Maryland Air National Guard. U.S. Air Force photo by J.M. Eddins Jr., CC BY-NC These cyberattacks are carried out by states and nonstate actors that seek to undermine global connectivity for their own interests. But like a pandemic, these attacks affect all of society. The world needs a new approach to combating how nations use cyberspace to advance their interests at the expense of people around the world. The U.S. Cyberspace Solar...
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Trump calls on black voters to reject Democrats, says impeachment ‘failing fast’
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POLITICS

Trump calls on black voters to reject Democrats, says impeachment ‘failing fast’

President Trump appealed to black voters Friday to support his reelection campaign, saying that Democrats in Congress are wasting their time on an impeachment effort that’s “failing fast” instead of working to improve black communities. “Imagine if Democrats just put 10% of the energy they devote to attacking me and my administration to instead making this a better country for African American citizens,” Mr. Trump told a largely black audience in Atlanta. The president said Democrats and the media are pushing “the deranged, hyper-partisan impeachment witch hunt, a sinister effort to nullify the ballots of 63 million patriotic Americans.” “It’s not happening, by the way, that’s failing,” Mr. Trump said of impeachment. “It’s failing fast, it’s all a hoax.” Mr. Trump spoke to the largely ...
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VIDEO REELS

Trump calls ex-White House aide ‘wacky’ and a ‘lowlife’

US president's comments on Omarosa Manigault Newman come in response to the former aide's tell-all book. US President Donald Trump has called a former White House aide "wacky" and a "lowlife" after she accused him of racism. Omarosa Manigault Newman was fired in December and secretly recorded conversations she had while working in the White House. She has also written a book about her time there. by Kimberly Halkett Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reports from Washington, DC.
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