Smart home products used by landlords to spy on tenants
Smart locks and cameras are celebrated for their roles in fighting crime. In NYC, however, a company called Teman is promoting smart home technology as a way to evict renters who are illegally subletting, and as a way to combine apartments in order to circumvent rent control laws. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Again, we must struggle with the consequences of law enforcement better enabled by technology. If cameras make it easy for a landlord to enforce an agreement prohibiting a tenant from operating an AirBnB, is that a bad thing? Of course, it is a matter of perspective and the more technology enables law enforcement, the more carefully we must craft our laws.
Wireless carriers unite to control Android text messaging
The four major U.S. wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint announced) this week announced CCMI, or the “Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative” for Android. The initiative seeks to build a common application for business and consumer text messaging on Android phones, providing an alternative to SMS. TheVerge
dis-rup-shun: If you have ever switched universes from iPhone to Android or vice versa, you have experienced the fact that text messaging is one of the largest differences between the two mobile OSes. Open standards, where many companies can play together, is the technology equivalent of a Utopian society. History shows, however, that most every vendor seeks to implement open standards with a slightly unique twist to provide more value to its customers resulting in what is affectionately termed “bloatware” or useless baggage bringing no value. Google has let the carriers take over messaging on Android and hence risks third-party interests interfering with what Google is known for — simplicity.
New study suggests Gaming Disorder not caused by gaming
The confusing conclusion of a study by the Oxford Internet Institute of 1,004 adolescents, half of whom played online games for over 3 hours per day, is that “problem gamers” would be problem teens even if they didn’t play games. Wired
dis-rup-shun: So another observation from the study is that of 525 heavy gamers, most appear to socialize “normally.” The study offers some relief to the gaming industry that is often accused of ruining its best enthusiasts and warping their minds. Before video games, the same population were often called bookworms or introverts. The study adds credence to the many studies that suggest that the human personality is mostly full formed by age seven.
What’s all the buzz about quantum computing?
The tech news has been abuzz all week with Google’s assertion that its Sycamore quantum computer has completed in 200 seconds a computational task that would take an ordinary supercomputer 10,000 years to complete. IBM didn’t like the news and has tried to discredit the achievement. CNET
dis-rup-shun: What do mortals need to understand about all of this? Here are a few takeaways. Google has some serious R&D chops and the microprocessor kings, such as Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung and others may have a new competitor. Quantum computers are a few years from being generally available, but they can do all the things we say computers will do in the future much better and faster: artificial intelligence, complex logistics planning, super-fast and accurate facial recognition, etc. Given their high cost and complex power and cooling needs, quantum computers will be available from cloud providers who will rent cycles (like the early mainframe days). Combined with 5G networks, super fast computers located in data centers many states away will offer instantaneous results to highly complex tasks faster than the blink of the eye.