I’ve always suspected Google of “weighting” their searches so left/socialist leaning sites come up first. It’s always interesting to look at the Google ads on any given web page; I always notice that whatever the topic is, the Google ad will be for an organization or link that is on the liberal/socialist side of the view. It looks like it’s more than just a suspicion, now.
Al Gore recounted a conversation he had with [co-founder Sergey] Brin and [co-founder Larry] Page several years ago in the conference room near their office. Gore raised specific concerns about aspects of search quality. “They had to go to another meeting,” Gore recalled, “and said, ‘If you can stay, Al, we’d like to bring in the search-quality researchers and specialists in charge of this part of the business.’ Ten of them came in. Larry and Sergey left. I spent another three hours. And then, when it was over, I gave Larry and Sergey an oral report.” -via NewsBusters
Privacy is a major issue in the tech world, with Google, of course, being one of the major offenders. I doubt many people realize just how much information Google has on each and every person in the US, they even try to rate your intelligence based on your typing skills, the types of things you ask for, and then they weight your responses on their estimate of your intelligence. But Google is just the database, there must be sources of data to put into the database, as well.
In Michigan, they’re tagging trash with RFID devices, to determine how much each household recycles and reuses, rather than discarding. The prize for giving up your privacy is, as always, money; in this case discounts at local restaurants, and shopping outlets. Scientist are trying to peer into the human mind through computers and sensors in public places, as well. As Bruce Schneier reports, there is now a system that promises to figure out who’s a terrorist by reading facial expressions. Don’t have a bad day at work, of the police will chase you down and throw you in jail. Cisco has just rewarded a prize in a contest to develop an “integrated surveillance system,” using the microphones on desktop telephones to “listen for unusual sounds,” so police or safety officials can be called. Efficiency is defined by using every possible sensor in every possible room to track people.
Technology often enables major changes in culture, as well. Whiskey and Gunpowder argues that easily available information is making us lazy. Instead of really researching a subject, we’re all too prone to simply do a Google search, and accept the first response we get as the full facts of the story. This shows up in our propensity to believe anything a newscaster tells us on the nightly news, or anything Mr. Obama says in a speech.
The Wall Street Journal says the email era is over.
Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.
In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.
Let’s be honest: Email is a throwback to letter writing, in the same way blogs are. Writing is suffering a total collapse as people migrate towards “snappier” and “richer” forms of communication. If Satan can take the word out of the world, he will have gone a long way towards taking the Word out of the world, as well. The end of email is driven by cultural change, not by technological change.
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