Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: hive mind

  • Captain Cyborg: Computers are alive, like bats or cows

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Self-harming attention-seeker Kevin Warwick has admitted to snooping on the public in a previous life. Warwick made the creepy confession on Radio 4, recalling an earlier job as a GPO engineer: “I remember taking ten different calls and plugging them all together; one call would continue, the other nine would listen in. Then I’d patch…

    Continue reading »

  • €1bn handout from the EU targets ambient nagware and robot pets

    €1bn handout from the EU targets ambient nagware and robot pets

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    The EU is throwing an eye-watering €1bn of public funds to bankroll some of the most whimsical technology projects ever envisaged – for a decade. A shortlist of six applicants includes talking pet robots, and ambient low-power sensors that provide health tips and “emotional” advice. The program is called FET, and is funded by the…

    Continue reading »

  • Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement – and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on…

    Continue reading »

  • Ancient satire foretold AOL’s privacy disaster

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    “The Internet is becoming more and more widespread and will increasingly represent a scientific random sample of the population” – Joi Ito “Igor, to the machines – we have a sample” One thing seems to have been forgotten following AOL’s careless, but quite magnificent data dump of the internet’s “hive mind” at play this week.…

    Continue reading »

  • Man discovers his net wasn’t neutered

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    We have very little idea of how a hysteria can grip sensible, rational people – until it strikes. After Orson Welles’s War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, the public reported sightings of Martians. According to urban legend, a farmer’s water tower was peppered with small arms fire, in the belief that it was a Martian…

    Continue reading »

  • Trivia crisis: Wikipedia’s bogus Professor resigns

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

    –

    After pressure over the weekend from Wikipedia’s Il Duce Jimmy Wales, the encyclopedia’s most illustrious fake professor Ryan Jordan has resigned his post at Wikia Inc. An assiduous editor with the nickname “Essjay”, the 24-year old Jordan passed himself off as an older and more mature character: a Professor of Theology with two PhDs –…

    Continue reading »