Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: hive mind

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

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    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 everything back again.”

    In a 30-minute interview with Michael Buerk, Warwick compared his cat-chipping operation a decade ago to Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight. They … Read More

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

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

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    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 European Commission (which means it is funded by member states – although they can also fritter contribute even more money through matching funds) Lucky beneficiaries … Read More

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  • Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Image from Google's 2006 analyst presentation

    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 at Google News, where we are assured that:

    The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.

    A … Read More

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  • Ancient satire foretold AOL’s privacy disaster

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    “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.

    AOL’s assiduous documentation of the private thoughts of over 600,000 web searchers has certainly added some much needed sparkle to a public internet that of … Read More

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  • Man discovers his net wasn’t neutered

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Hanging the monkey

    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 spaceship. During the McCarthyite Red Scare, the FBI’s snitch lines rang red hot with reports of suspected un-American activity. And in Hartlepool 200 years ago, … Read More

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  • Trivia crisis: Wikipedia’s bogus Professor resigns

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The essential reference?

    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 – these impressive credentials even winning him fame in a New Yorker feature. The deception did little to stop Jordan’s meteoric ascent. Wales appointed Jordan to … Read More

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