The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing

av Mikael Winterkvist | dec 26, 2018 | Lästips

Personal technology was so awful this year that nobody would think you were paranoid if you dug a hole and buried your computer, phone and smart speaker under six feet of earth.

Facebook made headlines week after week for failing to protect our privacy and for spreading misinformation. Juul, the e-cigarette company under investigation for marketing products to teenagers, emerged as the Joe Camel of the digital era. And don’t get me started on just how intrusive online advertising has become.

Källa: The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing

Lästipset: Hon mördades därför att hon avslöjade männen hyckleri

av Mikael Winterkvist | dec 26, 2018 | Lästips

Hon bröt mot alla oskrivna regler och lagar i det pakistanska samhället och avslöjade samtidigt männens hyckleri.

En natt mördades Qandeel Baloch, 26,  av sin egen bror och en av Pakistans kritiker och största stjärnor på YouTube tystades.

It happened in July, amid the sweltering summer heat of the plains of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province. It was one of those days when sweat flows in streams, the beads of depleted moisture dripping down backs and armpits and foreheads as people walk and talk and complain about the heat as if it were a newcomer among them.

The murdered woman was Qandeel Baloch, a 26-year-old Pakistani YouTube sensation, whose risqué videos, laden with erotic subtext, had so angered her brother that he strangled her to death. The deed was done late on the night of July 15th. It was late in the morning of the 16th when the first reporter from Pakistan’s rapacious 24-hour news media arrived in the neighborhood.

Longreads

Lästipset: Vad hände med ICQ?

av Mikael Winterkvist | dec 24, 2018 | Lästips

ICQ var det meddelandeprogramet. Programmet de flesta använde och där du kunde skicka meddelanden till dina vänner.

ICQ hade miljontals användare tills det plötsligt slogs ut av bättre, snabbare och mer funktionella program. Detta är historien om programmet som hade allt, användare och funktioner men som också tappade allt.

ICQ, short for the phrase ”I Seek You,” laid the groundwork for standalone instant messaging clients when it arrived in November 1996. Think about how long ago that was… Windows 95 was barely a year old, Nintendo had just introduced the N64, and those with a reason to have a cell phone actually used it to talk on.

Källa: What Ever Happened to ICQ?

Note to Mochael Flynn: Federal Court Is Not Twitter

av Mikael Winterkvist | dec 20, 2018 | Lästips

Former National-Security Adviser Mochael Flynn on Tuesday got an unpleasant lesson on the difference between politically effective arguments and legally astute ones. Backed by an array of well-wishers, including President Donald Trump, and buoyed by widespread conservative arguments that the FBI had violated his rights, Flynn walked into a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., hoping for the probationary sentence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had recommended. Instead, he was threatened with jail by a furious U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who accused him of selling America out and forced him to retreat from his evasions. Flynn’s lawyers hastily agreed to delay the sentencing until March 2019 so that he might strive to cooperate further with the special counsel and perhaps work off the custodial sentence that Sullivan was clearly contemplating.

Källa: Note to Mochael Flynn: Federal Court Is Not Twitter

Lästips: Hur kan jag bli av med Google?

av Mikael Winterkvist | dec 20, 2018 | Lästips

Google finns med i de flesta digitala liv, på ett sätt eller annat. Frågan är då om du kan bli av med Google, helt och hållet?

The Guardian har undersökt saken.

Google’s motto used to be “don’t be evil”, but in the eyes of some it has now taken on the mantle of the “evil empire” from Microsoft, whoch Bill Gates and crew inherited from the IBM mocked in the Mac’s launch advert in 1984.

The EU has fined Google €2.4bn (£2.2bn) for abusing its search monopoly by favouring its products. Most recently, Google was fined €4.34bn for “very serious illegal behaviour” in using Android “to cement its dominance as a search engine”, according to the EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, a charge the company contests.

Källa: How can I remove Google from my life?