What happens if your Government unfriends you

Sounds crazy right? Perhaps not if youre Chinese. China is launching a system that gives a score to every citizen. This is partially similar to the credit scoring systems that Western nations have used for years, but it also includes a component that measures the political trustworthiness of citizens. If you are a political critic of the Government your score will go down. But, whats really sinister is that if your friends have low ratings, your rating will be reduced. This social network may encourage people to "unfriend" any friends that show dissent. We in the west are perhaps used to, and certainly aware of the fact, that our spy masters have access to our social media accounts. China is taking this a step further by building a social network into the states functioning. Read this article from the American Civil Liberties Union for more on this story. Thanks to my colleague Mark Wilson for this story.

from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

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Call for Research Proposals to participate in the Open Web of Things Expedition

Posted Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Roy Want and Max Senges, Google Research

Imagine a world in which access to networked technology defies the constraints of desktops, laptops or smartphones. A future where we work seamlessly with connected systems, services, devices and “things” to support work practices, education, and daily interactions. While the Internet of Things (IoT) conjures a vision of “anytime, any place” connectivity for all things, the realization is complex given the need to work across interconnected and heterogeneous systems, and the special considerations needed for security, privacy, and safety.

Google is excited about the opportunities the IoT presents for future products and services. To further the development of open standards, facilitate ease of use, and ensure that privacy and security are fundamental values throughout the evolution of the field, we are in the process of establishing an open innovation and research program around the IoT. We plan to bring together a community of academics, Google experts and potentially other parties to pursue an open and shared mission in this area.

As a first step, we are announcing an open call for research proposals for the Open Web of Things:

• Researchers interested in the Expedition Lead Grant should build a team of PIs and put forward a proposal outlining a draft research roadmap both for their team(s), as well as how they propose to integrate related research that is implemented outside their labs (e.g., Individual Project Grants).
• For the Individual Project Grants we are seeking research proposals relating to the IoT in the following areas (1) user interface and application development, (2) privacy & security, and (3) systems & protocols research.

Importantly, we are open to new and unorthodox solutions in all three of these areas, for example, novel interactions, usable security models, and new approaches for open standards and evolution of protocols.

Additionally, to facilitate hands-on research supporting our mission driven research, we plan to provide participating faculty access to hardware, software and systems from Google. We look forward to your submission by January 21, 2015 and expect to select proposals early Spring. Selected PIs will be invited to participate in a kick-off workshop at Google shortly after.

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Does Call of Duty Black Ops 3 predict the future

A recent article in the Guardian by Keith Stuart titled "Does Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 predict the terrifying future of warfare?" is well worth a read. It doesnt matter if youre not a player of combat games, because this isnt about games but about how the future of warfare is looksingincreasingly like scenes from The Terminator. The article even points to a Japanese company called Cyberdyne, that has created a "Robot Suit HAL® for the benefits of humankind in the field of medicine, caregiving, welfare, labor, heavy works, entertainment and so on." However, the military are developing similar systems to support troops. Youve been warned!

from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

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