Monthly Archives: February 2022

Joe Rogan & Spotify & Covid-19 / welcome to the world of fake-news…

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Business, Technology, Miasto, Line, Telefon, Mobile
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Accessed: 06-02-2022.

In the time Of Covid-19 (to be honest: always, but in this difficult times especially) people spreading misinformation are quite dengerous. Specially when these people responsible for creating / sharing fake news are celebrities and therefore they are enjoying the respect of other members of specific social group. Celebrities & misinformation = it’s kind of never ending story… This topic may be discussed over and over again. But when important matters such as public health of many people is at stake, we should be really worried about this harmful practices (fake news).

No matter whether the person (star or normal guy) spreading misinformation among others is doing it on purpose or not, a result is clear. Some misleading information is in the air. Then this message reaches the audience. And audience in most cases (unfortunately) believes undoubtfully what has read.
Sometimes fake news may hurt us and other people badly, specially when we take (or in the reference to pandemic: if we choose not to vaccinate) actions based on false Informations. Let’s say it loudly: Sometimes fake news may make people die (Covid-19 case), Sorry, this is reality.

Taking above mentioned into consideration, I do believe that Spotify has done good thing (the only right in this context): “Some 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast were removed from Spotify as musicians protest the streaming service for allowing the controversial podcaster to amplify falsehoods about the coronavirus and object to his use of a racial slur.” (Source: “Washington Post” – the links has been provided below).
Generally speaking, we as society have to get rid of fake news (so much as we can). If there is misleading source, we have to limit the range of spreading the news. Here: removing the podcasts. Or better make (other word: convince) the platform (here: Spotify) remove them on our behalf.I am rooting for freedom of speech, but in this case public health (lives of others) is important. This is my personal opinion…

The content sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-deletes-70-joe-rogan-podcast-episodes-including-alex-jones-2022-2?IR=T. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-joe-rogan-censor-moral-police-controversy-2022-2&inline-endstory-related-recommendations?IR=T. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

https://wapo.st/3B02l5g. The Washington Post Article mentioned above. Accessed: 06-02-2022.

The image source:
https://pixabay.com/pl/photos/business-technology-miasto-line-5475661/. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

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Rogue rocket

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Most of us are aware of what SpaceX is. This new and exciting company with charismatic and famous Elon Musk as their representative, figurehead, and leader has made major leaps in technology in the previous decade.

SpaceX is known for stunts like shooting a Tesla car straight into space and leaving it to wander the cosmos forever or creating the first re-usable rockets. They are, however about to be remembered for another reason. Their rocket is about to crash into the moon.

Yes, that is right. Bill Grey, an astronomer who is behind the development of Project Pluto (Software that allows for calculating the trajectory of asteroids and other objects in space and is used in NASA-financed space observation programmes) has recently calculated that one of the boosters from a SpaceX rocket that was launched 2015 will crash into the moon at almost 10 000 kilometers per hour on precisely March 4th.

When Bill first made this discovery, he invited the community of amateur astronomers to check his findings and they have all agreed that the booster will impact the moon on Match 4th.

While the impact itself will NOT be noticeable from Earth, it will be able to be observed by scientists to learn more about the geology of the moon. This might be about time we start being responsible for the trash we leave in the orbit. The US and China are the two biggest producers of space trash yet almost no one is there to pick it all up! With all the plans humanity has for the vast reaches of space we are definitely not putting a lot of care into maintaining it in a clean state.

Future of the art? Say hi to NFT (ang. non-fungible token). Update: The Seattle NFT Museum!

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Niezamienny Żeton, Nft, Blockchain, Technologia, Znak
Simplified Pixabay License
https://pixabay.com/pl/service/license/.
Accessed: 05-02-2022.

Los Angeles Times reports: “By contrast, bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies are fungible tokens; like a U.S. dollar, any bitcoin is equal to any other, while NFTs are one-of-a-kind. Most NFT sales to date have been transacted in cryptocurrencies such as ether and registered on the associated ethereum blockchain, though that’s not a requirement of the form.”

But this quote above is only a introduction “sentence”. The topic, which will be discussed, isn’t NTF itself. But to be honest, real issue of the article is somehow connected to this modern “invention”

First thing You should know: The Seattle NFT Museum has been opened recently. What a news. The world’s first NFT art museum. As we can read on the museum’s website: “Art on exhibit at the Seattle NFT Museum lives on the blockchain, and is displayed on loan from artists, creators, galleries, and collectors. You can expect our exhibition calendar to be packed full of influential works from around the world and local to Seattle.”

It was Polish magazine entitled Puls Biznesu, where I ve read about this remarkable place. At first glance I was sure this fact (a kind of revolution) is something I want write in Techblog about, with the goal in mind to bring this topic (NFT / museum) closer to our fellow readers.

This is a trend, we may observe for quite long time: the museums have changed as the society has changed as well. “Old – fashioned”(in a good way) galleries such as Louvre – it is said to be the biggest museum in the world – still exist, presenting various masterpieces (but generally speaking such places are operating with much more online activity then they used to.). Additionally, new places (for example: mentioned above NFT museum) are open for the those, who are looking for new experiences. Some people don’t think this whole process (possible market developments) is a move in the right direction. They are afraid of the every new, unknown thing. An imbalance.

To be honest, I do believe the diversity is a keyword to understand current times. The larger the product range is, the more possibilities exist for us (customers). In other words, there would be more chances that we would find something living up to our high expectations. The motto of the Union is ‘united in diversity’. There is enough space in world for both: Louvre and the new NFT museum’s Seattle, “designed to bring together artists, creators, collectors, and the broader blockchain community.” And for sure: NFT is a very cool thing (with a big growth potential)!

The content sources:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-03-11/nft-explainer-crypto-trading-collectible. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

https://www.pb.pl/w-usa-otwarto-muzeum-nft-1140276. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

https://www.seattlenftmuseum.com. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

https://www.cvce.eu/en/education/unit-content/-/unit/eeacde09-add1-4ba1-ba5b-dcd2597a81d0/fefea7bf-b49d-49db-b06e-a32a06ff1538. Accessed: 06-02-2022.

The image source:

https://pixabay.com/pl/illustrations/niezamienny-żeton-nft-blockchain-6850539/. Accessed: 05-02-2022.

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No Man Fights Alone. Tagline, Call of Duty (CoD)

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… This article has been published in the reference to: the first interview since acquisition given by Satya Nadella.

Minecraft, Gra Wideo, Bloki, Blok, Gra Komputerowa
Simplified Pixabay License
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Accessed: 05-02-2022.

You may wonder: why the screenshot of Minecraft has been used as the illustration for this article? Answer for this question is quite easy? Microsoft is its owner. Let us play this little game. Have You played Skyrim (TES: V)? That time (10 ago – premiere on 11.11.2011) was a really a game changer that time.

“Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin,

naal ok zin los vahriin,

Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!”

(Skyrim theme song.)

Despite the passages of years, this track always keeps me awake (and gives me chills too). To be honest, it wasn’t then (and it still isn’t) a perfect game (many bugs…),but, for sure, has been futured on the personal gaming wall of fame of many players all over the world. And to whom belong ZeniMax Media Inc. (the parent company of Bethesda)? You may be surprised: Microsoft. And recently the whole gaming world has been amassed by the fact, that Microsoft, led by Mr. Satya Nadella, has taken over other big player (producer) Activision, well-known for example for its high grossing series: “Call of duty”.

According to the Financial Time’s article: “Speaking in his first interview since Microsoft’s agreement last month to pay $75bn for games maker Activision Blizzard, Nadella sought to paint the world’s biggest-ever tech deal as central to the future of online interaction as people spend more time in what has become known as the metaverse.”

It’s worth noting: Activision Blizzard deal is the largest in Microsoft’s history. Place nr 2 – on the list “Microsoft’s five largest acquisitions”) : LinkedIn (purchased for $28.1bn in 2016 Year) and finally nr 3 – Nuance Communications ($19.4bn in 2021 Year).

”While Nadella painted the acquisition as an important step in the race to build the next version of the internet, it has sent shockwaves through the current games industry, where Microsoft is in a pitched battle with Sony for dominance of console gaming.”

What is He referring to? It’s obvious. PlayStation vs. Xbox competition. This move (welcoming ZeniMax in Microsoft’s family) will undoubtedly help the creator of Windows to make a difference on the market. Online gaming (such as MMO RPG – Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) might be according to me a future of gaming, so the decision of taking over the “parent” of CoD is understandable.

As a summery, let me use the quote from the breathtaking franchise “Spiderman”: “With great power comes great responsibility”. I do hope, that such power in the Microsoft’s hand will not make them forget about us (the clients / players). They should take our needs into account while developing new games / services. In other words: mentioned acquisition – big hope / big risk. Let’s see what the future will hold…

The content sources:

https://on.ft.com/3Gw2ONA. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVy7YPNP_zI. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

The image source:

https://pixabay.com/pl/illustrations/minecraft-gra-wideo-bloki-blok-1106261/ . Accessed: 04-02-2022.

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“You win some, you lose some …”

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… a quote taken from the post published by Ice Cube on Twitter in 2014.

Business, Chart, Graph, Graphic, Diagram, Success
Simplified Pixabay License
https://pixabay.com/pl/service/license/.
Accessed: 07-02-2022.

On the one hand it’s an article about Meta (new “mother” of Facebook portal) and its lose in value – more than 250 bn dollars down, on the other hand, in bigger picture, about the changes in social media market that can been observed recently.

Let’s start with facts.

Financial Times reports: “Investors wiped more than $220bn from the market valuation of Facebook owner Meta as it warned that users were spending more time on newer rivals such as ByteDance’s TikTok.” You can say: it’s quite normal situation. Little did we know, whether Mr. Cube’s post was about stock fluctuations, probably not, but as it has been said, sometimes share price go up and at other times they go down. We have to use to it.

More interesting (and crucial) is question regarding reason for that. On the market there are only few things that are accidental. This case is not one of such things. Let us think:  What shareholders / analytics guys, economists and other people that have impact on the market, are so afraid of regarding FB? Hard to say, but in this social media business we, the people, aren’t very loyal. So we are moving from one portal to another. The quicker apps like TikTok are growing, the more worried about the condition of Mata are the its share holders and others group of interest.

“People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly – Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive, quoted by Financial Times in the mentioned article.

Sure thing, our world isn’t “monolith” anymore. There isn’t only FB (as it used to be in the past) being role model as a social platform and nothing more. Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok to mentioned the most well-known platforms. But out of three rivals of FB the last is the most dangerous (because of its potential to growth and the ability to attract, especially, young people). The youngers do enjoy posting “funny” (some of the them more / some – less) short films. In the meantime FB is a concerned by the this age group as “archaic tool for the elders”. No doubt it easy to find Your parents on FB, some Grandparents are to found on the platform too.

I do believe FB will be nr 1 (at least in the near future) social media platform, bringing people together. Simultaneously, I were responsible for FB, I would implement changes faster in order to adopt to new conditions – social awareness regarding data privacy policy. As I observe actions made by FB I am still having the feeling this is old fashioned organization which hasn’t learned by its own mistakes. Of course, Cambridge Analytica has impacted the FB’s altitude towards “our” data. But still the FB (Mata) business model is still based on ads. And as we know well. Ads depend on information (user’s tracking etc.). So I do think, that eventually FB has to change its philosophy in order to keep the users. Otherwise, according to me its future would be not so bright.

The content sources:

https://on.ft.com/3Gpoafx. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

https://twitter.com/icecube/status/530819499344535552. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

The image source:

https://pixabay.com/pl/illustrations/business-chart-graph-graphic-5475658/. Accessed: 07-02-2022.

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Into to The sky: all over again.

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Przestrzeń, Rakieta, Noc, Kreskówka, Wszechświat
Simplified Pixabay License
https://pixabay.com/pl/service/license/.
Accessed: 05-02-2022.

Rihanna sung: “…Diamonds in the sky”. More relevant to the present would be saying: “Rockets in the sky”. According to the article published in Business Insider and based on Elon Musk’s Tweets, Falcon 9, most well-known rocket in the world developed by SpaceX, will by fly into the orbit every week in 2022. It’s worth to mention that this only a plan. As we know from the motion-picture “Forest Gump”: “Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know  what’s you’re going to get”. In other words: You never know that will happen next. However, You may agree that the plan itself sounds amazing / incredible.

Something like that this vison of the such intensive schedule of launches would be unthinkable. But now it’s about to be seen. To make this whole case more interesting let me quote another Tweet by Musk (he does like this social medium, isn’t he?): “If things go well, Falcon will launch about once a week on average in 2022, delivering ~2/3 of all Earth payload to orbit”. Can You imagine that? Achieving this high – level goal might me possible thanks to predicted record 52 in 2022. Falcon’s achievements in the begging of this year make an impression. There is still second month of the year, and the mentioned rocket has flown already 9 times (so far). Only in February we may have noticed 2 launches (including Starlink satellites delivery). Generally speaking, according to Ars Technica reporter tweet from the third of February: “The Falcon 9 rocket has now flown more consecutive successful missions, 111, than any orbital rocket in history.”

Any flaws? C02 pollution (rockets, in contradistinction to cars by Tesla aren’t eco friendly), the growing treat of monopoly (Space X is becoming more and more powerful…). I do believe in the benefits of diversity – also regarding the market).

The content sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-launch-every-week-payload-2022-2. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1489274659367530511. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1489351220628230147?cxt=HHwWhsC4terCnqspAAAA. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

The image source:

https://pixabay.com/pl/illustrations/przestrzeń-rakieta-noc-kreskówka-3262811/. Accessed: 04-02-2022.

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New updates for GPT-3

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OpenAI flag product – GPT-3 – was known to have problems with toxic and unwanted pieces of text. Unfortunately, systems like GPT-3 are being trained on the content found internet. That includes the misinformation, hate and toxic messages that people put out there. The result is that text generators may produce pieces that are biased, misogynistic, racist, or harmful in other ways. This is a problem not only for language models but also for chatbots, translators and other tool to generate text.

To deal with these issues, OpenAI has built a newer version that is called InstructGPT. It is said to be better at following users’ instructions as well as better adjustment of the content to the user. It is also said that InstructGPT does not make up facts as often as the previous version. As the diagrams below show, InstructGPT is showing a slight decrease in toxic outputs and improvements in ‘truthful’ area and is also more appropriate for the users.

Source: (https://openai.com/blog/instruction-following/)

To create an updated model the company added another layer of testing to their existing GPT-3. They used reinforcement learning to teach the model which pieces they should and should not include in the generated output. Because on the internet there is less content form minority groups, they could not train the model from scratch as it will result in a worse performing algorithm.

OpenAI however did not get rid of GPT- 3, it is still available to users, but it is not being advised to use. Also, InstructGPT is a default model for users.

Sources:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/01/27/1044398/new-gpt3-openai-chatbot-language-model-ai-toxic-misinformation/

https://openai.com/blog/instruction-following/

Block-chain Youtube?

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A lot of us watch Youtube everyday. Money people because of youtube became millionairs. It has become an inseparable platform from our daily life. Creators get their money from the views they get and “clients” get their favourite content. Youtube has killed any other video platforms, but there are some who want to try different angle.

Odysee

Odysee is a crypto video sharing platform. Based on LBRY framework, that holds METADATA of actual files. Kind of like a torrent. The files are somwhere in cloud and block-chain notices down where are they. Odysee then let’s viewers watch content, but it runs a small code that makes them pay for that in tokens. Content creators recieve tokens of Odysee and viewer can watch the content whenevr he wants. Content’s fee is added only by creator, so they pick how much money they want to earn. Most of the videos are free tho.

What distinguishes Odysee from Youtube? Mainly the fact that Odysee censors only terroristic, abusive and torture content. Which let’s creators to put in stuff thay aren’t allowed on youtube. Many people find it a relief.

Odysee still has some flaws. Upscalling isn’t working propely. Which you can see by entering any video. Another thing is that it’s not popular yet and not many creators are there to be found. Hopefully we will se some improvement in future.

Sources:

https://odysee.com/

https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_b876c8b8-e537-4446-a27c-9ac6c3c7d0de

The Dark web – Will it get any brighter?

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A timeline

First of all, what is known as the dark web?

“The dark web is the hidden collective of internet sites only accessible by a specialized web browser. It is used for keeping internet activity anonymous and private, which can be helpful in both legal and illegal applications.” (Kaspersky.com)

The first concept started in the 1960s with the conception of what was known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). The main idea of this invention was the ability to share information on a long-distance without any connection to the internet. The 1960s also being the period of great tension amongst countries, ARPANET became a tool to share intel during the cold war. 

Only a decade after the first illegal transaction was made at Stanford University. Allegedly, students would’ve used ARPANET accounts to pay for marijuana with MIT students. This was part of the many experiences that researchers led. Of course, having such potential, the government wanted to be a part of it, which led founders to divide ARPANET into two parts: MILNET and the civilian version of ARPANET. MILNET was the governmental-owned part, which was used for military and secret agencies, while ARPANET was what will later become the internet.

The true beginning started in the 1990s when the onion router (Tor), a private Internet browsing network would connect dark websites. Initially, Tor didn’t take off right away, it had to wait an extra 10 years. In 2002, people looking for free speech and a way to escape oppressive governments would start using Tor. Unfortunately, Tor wasn’t easily accessible and was therefore mostly used by the tech-savvies. 

In 2008, the design was remodeled, and its popularity raised, making access easier to anyone who would want to get involved. The major turning point was in 2009 with the arrival of Bitcoin. The first cryptocurrency would allow making transactions possible while being anonymous. At this point, the dark web was discovered its true underground market potential.

What about today? 

According to CSO, the dark web is said to account for less than 5% of the internet, knowing that the surface web (visible and clear part) accounts for between 1 to 4%. Furthermore, according to ID Agent, “over 133,00 C-level Fortune 1000 executives had their credentials available and accessible on the dark web.”. Finally, probably the most traumatizing fact is that 80% of the traffic is linked to “illegal porn, abuse images and/or child sex abuse material” (theconversation.com)

The dark web will probably remain a place for deviant people to retrieve and share information or illicit items. There is no getting “brighter”, and it will probably remain the same if not worst. Yet with major involvement in cybersecurity, one can hope that the dark web will undergo some regulation.

How to stop the Dark Web?

Unfortunately, dismantling Tor wouldn’t help anything, as it is not the only dark web browser. Firefox and Opera can also be used to access its database.

Since accessibility can’t be stopped, one of the solutions is to prevent data from being leaked. On the big company scale, this means investing in cybersecurity experts, but on the individual level, it is as easy as turning off the light when leaving a room. What I mean is that you have to activate two-step authentication when it is possible, beware of phishing messages and use a different robust password for each of your accounts.

Now in terms of solutions to regulate the flow of illegal information such as child pornography, there isn’t much an individual can do. Unless you are a cybersecurity expert and manage to breach someone’s ID through a VPN ( which is close to impossible), government spending in cybersecurity is the only solution today.

Sources used: 

–      https://www.soscanhelp.com/blog/history-of-the-dark-web#:~:text=ARPANET%2C%20also%20known%20as%20the,later%20on%2C%20the%20dark%20web.&text=This%20can%20be%20seen%20in,ARPANET%20in%20the%20early%201970’s.

–      https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/deep-web

–      https://techjury.net/blog/how-much-of-the-internet-is-the-dark-web/#:~:text=Dark%20web%20statistics%20in%202021,than%205%25%20of%20the%20internet.&text=Besides%2C%20the%20dark%20web%20is,for%201%20to%204%20percent

–      https://theconversation.com/how-the-worlds-biggest-dark-web-platform-spreads-millions-of-items-of-child-sex-abuse-material-and-why-its-hard-to-stop-167107 

–      https://www.cashify.in/top-5-dark-web-browser-for-anonymous-browsing 

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UK startup is building a taxis of the future

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Hyundai declared that people will be riding in flying vehicles by 2030 and recently they took first big step in order to fulfill this mission. The company invested in british startup called Urban-Air Port that has plan to build over 200 flying taxi hubs in 65 diffrent countries , in the next 5 years.

But vechincles are not the only factor to consider in on-demand taxi buiness. The success of this companies like Uber are built around the simplicity and accesability of reserving a ride. The customer just needs to select where he wanna be drop-off and in the matter of minute he can be there. It’s easy with cars because everywhere we have architecture built for this kind of travel. On the contrary many cities are not designed for any kind of flying vechicles so the adaptation of the technology can be a difficult proccess

Resources: