Technology

Is Intellectual Property Turning Into A Knowledge Monopoly?

September 21, 2023 Prabir Purkayastha, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Capitalism, Corporations, Intellectual Property, Monopoly, Privatization, Technology

The twentieth century saw the emergence of public funded universities and technical institutions, while technology development was concentrated in the R&D laboratories of large corporations. The age of the lone inventor Edison, Siemens, Westinghouse, Graham Bell had ended with the nineteenth century. The twentieth century was more about industry-based R&D laboratories, where corporations gathered together leading scientists and technologists to create the technologies of the future. In this phase, capital was still expanding production. Even though finance capital was already dominant over productive capital, the major capitalist countries still had a strong manufacturing base.

Project Provides Housing And Tech Training For Young Women Of Color

September 10, 2023 Punnya Kalapurakkel, Next City. Create! Boston, Employment, Technology, Women

The quaint, Victorian-style house where social entrepreneur Bridgette Wallace chose to bring her vision to life looks like any other home in Boston’s historic Garrison Trotter neighborhood. Built in 1900 and nestled in the heart of Roxbury, this unassuming property on Boston’s Hutchings Street houses an innovative co-living and co-learning model to curb the effects of tech industry-driven gentrification. Welcome to G{Code} House, a place where women and nonbinary people of color ages 18-24 can reside as they complete a two year coding course that prepares them to enter the workforce.

Civic Innovation Is Flourishing In Cities Right Now

July 30, 2023 Hollie Russon Gilman and Grace Levin, Next City. Create! Governance, Participatory Democracy, Technology, Urban Planning

This summer, cities around the world are unveiling and expanding new tools and initiatives in the name of civic engagement and digital innovation. From Los Angeles to Lisbon, local governments are testing different models of outreach and participation with the promise of increasing trust and equity in civic processes and institutions. Ranging from online portals to citizen assemblies, the wave of experimentation in policy and design responds to historic levels of distrust and disengagement in government at all levels. The question remains whether these new tools deliver on their promises to effectively bring underrepresented communities into decision-making processes and increase transparency and equity in bureaucratic systems.

Human Suffering Worsens In DRC, The Heart Of Africa

June 28, 2023 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Capitalism, DRC, Elections, Human Rights, Resources, Technology

It’s easy to think that the human suffering in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) couldn’t get worse until it does, and it always does. How much more Black life will have to be sacrificed to fuel the industrial world’s hunger for Congolese resource riches, meaning most of all the minerals essential to high-tech manufacturing, including state of the art weaponry? Black Africans fight one another in DRC, but all those of us on our phones, sitting in front of our laptops or in the seats of commercial and military aircraft, and in every other way wired to modern technology should know that this is our war, our highly complex and catastrophic proxy war.

To Counter AI Risk, We Must Develop An Integrated Intelligence

June 28, 2023 Jeremy Lent, Resilience. Strategize! Artificial Intelligence, Humanity, Intelligence, Technology

The recent explosion in the stunning power of artificial intelligence is likely to transform virtually every domain of human life in the near future, with effects that no-one can yet predict. The breakneck rate at which AI is developing is such that its potential impact is almost impossible to grasp. As Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, demonstrate in their landmark presentation, The AI Dilemma, AI accomplishments are beginning to read like science fiction. After just three seconds of hearing a human voice, for example, an AI system can autocomplete the sentence being spoken with a voice so perfectly matched that no-one can distinguish it from the real thing.

New Digital Legal Tool Helps Immigrant Workers Reclaim Stolen Wages

May 27, 2023 Emily Nonko, Next City. Create! Immigration, Technology, Wage Theft, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the fall of 2018, Rodrigo Camarena caught an article in El Diario La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, detailing the increase of wage theft for immigrant workers. One worker told the paper their employer threatened to call immigration services if they complained about not getting paid. Camarena is director of Justicia Lab, which develops technology to support immigrants and advocates. “It made me really mad, knowing the problem got so much worse under the Trump administration,” recalls Camarena. He reached out to Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy organization quoted in the article: “I basically asked: how can we help?”

Can The Global South Build A New World Information And Communication Order?

May 19, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Create! Communication, Global South, Media, Technology

It is remarkable how the media in a select few countries is able to set the record on matters around the world. The European and North American countries enjoy a near-global monopoly over information, their media houses vested with a credibility and authority inherited from their status during colonial times (BBC, for instance) as well as their command of the neocolonial structure of our times (CNN, for instance). In the 1950s, the post-colonial nations identified the West’s monopoly over media and information and sought to ‘promote the free flow of ideas by word and by image’, as the 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) put it.

Havana Congress Plans Technological Sovereignty For Global South

February 12, 2023 Progressive International. Create! Cuba, Global South, Havana Congress, Technology

The Congress brought together over 50 delegates - scholars, diplomats, parliamentarians, and policymakers from 26 countries across all six inhabited continents, including Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Following deliberations over two days on geopolitics, climate, finance, technology and trade through panels and keynote speeches, including from Andres Arauz, Clara Lopez and Yanis Varoufakis, the Congress agreed to focus on science, technology and innovation in the next 18 months. The Congress, part of the Progressive International’s project for a New International Economic Order, is held as Cuba assumes the presidency of the G77 bloc of 134 Global South countries.

Amazon Wants Surveillance Robots In Every Home

October 11, 2022 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Amazon, Surveillance, Technology

Exciting news guys! Amazon has created a new robot, the Astro, to spy on people in their homes – and this one is smarter and sneakier than the Alexa. Tanya Basu of MIT Technology Review reports, “Amazon has a new plan for its home robot Astro: to guard your life … The cute home assistant could be the most powerful, invasive home robot we’ve seen thus far.” It might be cute, but you have to ignore the fact that it’s watching you while you’re on the toilet and zapping your dog for getting in the way. “Amazon announced Wednesday that its home robot, Astro, will be getting a slew of major updates aimed at further embedding it in homes – and in our daily lives,” Basu continues. That’s not cute, it’s terrifying! Why does it have its own drones? Nothing that comes with drones is your friend. I don’t care if it’s a Dunkin’ Donuts Rainbow Cupcake. It shouldn’t have drones!

The Alternative To Cash Bail Is A Simple Reminder

September 8, 2022 Ramenda Cyrus, The American Prospect. Create! Bail Reform, Legal System, Mass Incarceration, Technology

Last March, the California Supreme Court ruled that low-income individuals were not to be subject to cash bail, stating that “conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional.” This came four months after a widely scrutinized bail reform law subject to a referendum was defeated by California voters in 2020. Other states have moved even further to eliminate cash bail, part of the growing national concern with how a de facto for-profit element of the criminal justice system jails and immiserates people by the millions, the vast majority of whom have not been convicted of a crime. An Illinois bill from 2021 eliminates cash bail starting in 2023.

Albany Passes ‘Right To Repair’ Law For Electronics

June 7, 2022 Jake Offenhartz, Gothamist. Create! Monopoly, New York, Right to Repair, Technology

It may soon be easier to get your busted iPhone fixed. Under a bill passed by the state legislature last week, digital electronics manufacturers – such as Apple or Samsung – will be required to make repair instructions and parts available to both consumers and independent technicians. The “right to repair” legislation, which still needs to be signed into law by the governor, is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States. It follows a year-long campaign by tech and environmental activists, who accused manufacturers of intentionally restricting the ability to repair their products – a strategy known as planned obsolescence. “This legislation ends what is a monopoly on the repair market by corporate actors and incentivizes competition within the industry,” said Assemblymember Patricia Fahy, the bill’s sponsor.

Venezuela Launches Tech Platform To Quickly Improve Public Services

May 30, 2022 José Luis Granados Ceja, Venezuela Analysis. Create! Democracy, Infrastructure, Technology, Venezuela

The Venezuelan government launched a new app-based initiative to address deteriorated public services that will facilitate a more direct means of communication between the citizenry and the government. President Nicolás Maduro toured the headquarters of a newly-opened rapid-response center, located inside the presidential palace of Miraflores on Saturday, saying the new system would “show the complaint, show the process and show the result, so that people can see processes and results.” Maduro said the aim was to break with the bureaucracy that often serves to delay a quick resolution, adding that issues related to water, education, and healthcare would be given priority.

The Border-Industrial Complex In The Biden Era

May 8, 2022 Todd Miller, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Biden administration, Border Patrol, Immigration, Technology

First, it was the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles speeding along on the road in front of our campsite. Then it was the Border Patrol’s all-terrain vehicles moving swiftly on a ridge above us. I was about 10 miles north of the border with Mexico, near Peña Blanca Lake in southern Arizona, camping with my six-year-old son and some other families. Like fire trucks racing to a blaze, the Border Patrol mobilization around me was growing so large I could only imagine an emergency situation developing. I started climbing to get a better look and soon found myself alone on a golden hill dotted with alligator junipers and mesquite. Brilliant vermilion flycatchers fluttered between the branches. The road, though, was Border Patrol all the way.

The New York Times Tech Guild Wins Union Vote

March 4, 2022 Rose Lemlich, Left Voice. Organize! New York Times (NYT), Technology, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

The New York Times Tech Guild has won their union vote, making them the largest majority union of software workers in the United States so far. The Tech Guild went public with their unionization efforts in April 2021, and faced an enormous amount of union-busting from New York Times management. At time of writing, the Tech Guild had counted an overwhelming majority of “yes” votes, with over 80% of the bargaining unit voting yes.

Putting Technology (And Billionaires) In Its Place

February 7, 2022 Helena Norberg-Hodge, Counter Punch. Create! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Globalization, Technology

The most recent topic explored by the thinkers and activists who make up the Great Transition Network was “Technology and the Future”. As writer after writer posted their thoughts, it was heartening to see that almost all recognize that technology cannot provide real solutions to the many crises we face. I was also happy that Professor William Robinson, author of a number of books on the global economy, highlighted the clear connection between computer technologies and the further entrenchment of globalization today. As anyone who has followed my work will know, globalization is of particular interest to me: for more than 40 years I’ve been studying its impacts on different cultures and societies around the world.

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