Category: News and Views

Bitcoin could change the game for foreign aid | CNN

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Today’s humanitarian aid model is fundamentally broken. Whether you’re a foundation making a donation to a nonprofit abroad, a government distributing aid to another government, or an individual sending emergency funds to family members across borders, your money only gets to where it needs to go after passing through intermediaries. Even in the simplest payment scenario, there’s your bank; a coordination network; and the aid recipient’s bank. But often, there are even more middlemen, with money moving along complex chains of third parties.

Such a system has obvious flaws. One is that each intermediary between you and the person or organization you are trying to help can delay, surveil, censor or steal your funds. In 2012, the UN’s then-secretary general Ban Ki-moon said that “corruption prevented 30% of all development assistance from reaching its final destination.”

Read More

Here’s How Many US Cancer Cases Are Tied to Unhealthy Diets | Live Science

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

More than 80,000 cancer cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. may be tied to an unhealthy diet, according to a new study.

The study researchers used a mathematical model to estimate the number of U.S. cancer cases tied to suboptimal intake of seven dietary components known to be related to cancer risk. These included diets low in whole grains, dairy, fruits and vegetables; and diets high in processed meats, red meats and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Read More

Survey Finds Mixed Feelings on Location-Based Ads | Business News Daily

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Every day, millions of miniature computers ride along in our pockets and purses as we go about our daily tasks. From the grocery store to the office and back home, our smartphones are little beacons that track our movements, whether we like it or not. According to a recent survey conducted by The Manifest, our phones help marketers get their location-based ads to nearly everyone.

More than 720 U.S. residents participated in The Manifest’s survey after admitting they allow various applications on their iOS and Android devices to track their real-time locations. Of those respondents, just 15% said they “rarely or never see ads” that reference their location.

Read More

Walmart sued for sale of “nonsense” homeopathic remedies | Fast Company

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Walmart is being sued for selling questionable alternative remedies.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI), a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that “pseudoscience is prevented from harming society,” filed a complaint Monday on behalf of residents in Washington, D.C., against the giant retailer. The organization claims the superstore deliberately “creates a false and misleading impression in customers regarding homeopathic products, presenting them as an equal alternative to science and evidence-based medication.”

Source: Walmart sued for sale of “nonsense” homeopathic remedies

Avengers: Endgame beats box office records with $1.2bn debut | BBC News

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Avengers: Endgame has made box office history by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£929m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.

The Disney blockbuster has become the fastest film ever to break the $1bn barrier, doing so in just five days.

Endgame is the 22nd offering in the Marvel Studios superhero franchise.

Its opening takings smashed the previous global debut record of $640m set by last year’s Avengers: Infinity War.

Read More

Trying to Make Your Product a Hit? Don’t Sell It on Amazon | Inc.com

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Jules Pieri is the godmother of startup manufacturers. A former industrial designer, she and her business partner Joanne Domeniconi launched The Grommet 10 years ago to introduce novel consumer products to a community of quality- and values-minded consumers. The company evaluates 300 submissions a week, chooses the top 3 percent, and launches them into the market with videos about their origin stories and long chats between makers and customers. Products receiving early visibility from The Grommet include Fitbit, GoldieBlox, and SodaStream. The company also advises entrepreneurs on subjects like packaging and helps them develop distribution.

Read More

The demise and rebirth of the ethical engineer | TechCrunch

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Whatever happened to the ethics of engineering? We’ve seen just one disastrous news story after another these past few years, almost all knowable and preventable. Planes falling out of the sky. Nuclear power plants melting down. Foreign powers engorging on user data. Environmental testing thrashed. Electrical grids burning states to the ground.

The patterns are not centered around discipline or nationality, nor do these events share an obvious social structure. Facebook machine learning programmers mostly don’t hang with German VW automotive engineers or Japanese nuclear plant designers. They weren’t taught at the same schools, nor share the same textbooks, nor read the same journals.

Read More

Will Artificial Intelligence Enhance or Hack Humanity? | WIRED

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

THIS WEEK, I interviewed Yuval Noah Harari, the author of three best-selling books about the history and future of our species, and Fei-Fei Li, one of the pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence. The event was hosted by the Stanford Center for Ethics and Society, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and the Stanford Humanities Center. A transcript of the event follows, and a video is posted below.

Read More

Sprint, T-Mobile merger ‘unlikely’ to be approved by DOJ: report | Mashable

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Things aren’t looking good for the big merger between Sprint and T-Mobile.

The Department of Justice antitrust enforcement has informed Sprint and T-Mobile that the merger is “unlikely” to receive approval, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Speaking to sources familiar with the merger, the report states that the $26 billion deal is concerns from the Justice Department’s antitrust division over threats the merger poses to competition. Sprint and T-Mobile are the third and fourth biggest mobile carriers in the country.

Further complicating matters, several U.S. states are considering taking legal action against the two companies if the DOJ decides not to challenge the merger.

Read More