Tag: advertising

Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate

An anonymous reader writes “An article at FiveThirtyEight looks at the likelihood of various occupations being replaced by automation. It mentions President Obama’s proposed increase to the federal minimum wage, saying big leaps in automation could reshape that debate. ‘[The wage increase] from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour could make it worthwhile for employers to adopt emerging technologies to do the work of their low-wage workers. But can a robot really do a janitor’s job? Can software fully replace a fast-food worker? Economists have long considered these low-skilled, non-routine jobs as less vulnerable to technological replacement, but until now, quantitative estimates of a job’s vulnerability have been missing from the debate.’ Many minimum-wage jobs are reportedly at high risk, including restaurant workers, cashiers, and telemarketers. A study rated the probability of computerization within 20 years (PDF): 92% for retail salespeople, 97% for cashiers, and 94% for waitstaff. There are other jobs with a high likelihood, but they employ fewer people and generally have a higher pay rate: tax preparers (99%), freight workers (99%), and legal secretaries (98%).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate

Microsoft Word Zero-Day Used In Targeted Attacks

wiredmikey (1824622) writes “Microsoft warned on Monday of a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2014-1761) in Microsoft Word 2010 that is being actively exploited in targeted attacks. If successfully exploited, an attacker could gain the same user rights as the current user, Microsoft said, noting that users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than accounts with administrative privileges. ‘The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted RTF file using an affected version of Microsoft Word, or previews or opens a specially crafted RTF email message in Microsoft Outlook while using Microsoft Word as the email viewer, ‘ Microsoft explained Microsoft did not share any details on the attacks that leveraged the vulnerability, but did credit Drew Hintz, Shane Huntley, and Matty Pellegrino of the Google Security Team for reporting it to Microsoft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Word Zero-Day Used In Targeted Attacks

Blackmail DDOS Attack Takes Out Major Online Chat Service Campfire

The popular group chat system Campfire is currently being nailed with a DDoS attack. Turns out some blackmailing hackers are trying to extort money from the provider. They’re refusing to negotiate. Read more…        

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Blackmail DDOS Attack Takes Out Major Online Chat Service Campfire

Unless companies pay, their Facebook updates reach 6 percent of followers

Facebook continues to tighten the screws on the businesses that use the service to market to their customers. Independent research shows that new updates from businesses reach about six percent of the people who follow those businesses. It is rumored that Facebook intends to reduce this number to “between one and two percent” over time. Businesses that want to reach the people who follow them at higher rates will have to pay Facebook to reach them through paid advertisements. If you’re building your business’s marketing and customer relations strategy atop Facebook, take note — and remember that if you have a real website, all your readers see your posts, even if you don’t pay Facebook! Facebook declined to comment on the percentage of fans that see posts from a typical Facebook page (the last publicly disclosed figure was 16 percent in the summer of 2012), but the company admitted in December that posts from Pages are reaching less users. Facebook attributes this change to increased competition as more people and companies join its service. The typical user is inundated with 1,500 posts per day from friends and Pages, and Facebook picks 300 to present in the News Feed. Getting squeezed out are both posts from Pages and meme photos as Facebook shifts its focus to what it deems “high quality” content. The solution for brands with declining engagement, according to Facebook, is to buy ads. “Like many mediums, if businesses want to make sure that people see their content, the best strategy is, and always has been, paid advertising,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. The Free Marketing Gravy Train Is Over on Facebook [Victor Luckerson/Time] ( Image: flaming LIKE , a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from zaigee’s photostream )        

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Unless companies pay, their Facebook updates reach 6 percent of followers

L.A. Police: All Cars In L.A. Are Under Investigation

An anonymous reader writes with a link to an article by the EFF’s Jennifer Lynch, carried by Gizmodo, which reports that the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff’s Department “took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California’s California Public Records Act lawsuit seeking a week’s worth of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) data. They have argued that ‘All [license plate] data is investigatory.’ The fact that it may never be associated with a specific crime doesn’t matter. This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution exactly to prevent law enforcement from conducting mass, suspicionless investigations under “general warrants” that targeted no specific person or place and never expired. ALPR systems operate in just this way. The cameras are not triggered by any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; instead, they automatically and indiscriminately photograph all license plates (and cars) that come into view. … Taken to an extreme, the agencies’ arguments would allow law enforcement to conduct around-the-clock surveillance on every aspect of our lives and store those records indefinitely on the off-chance they may aid in solving a crime at some previously undetermined date in the future. If the court accepts their arguments, the agencies would then be able to hide all this data from the public.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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L.A. Police: All Cars In L.A. Are Under Investigation

Navy Database Tracks Civilians’ Parking Tickets, Fender-Benders

schwit1 (797399) writes with this excerpt from the Washington Examiner: “A parking ticket, traffic citation or involvement in a minor fender-bender are enough to get a person’s name and other personal information logged into a massive, obscure federal database run by the U.S. military. The Law Enforcement Information Exchange, or LinX, has already amassed 506.3 million law enforcement records ranging from criminal histories and arrest reports to field information cards filled out by cops on the beat even when no crime has occurred.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Navy Database Tracks Civilians’ Parking Tickets, Fender-Benders

Holy crap, watch a ball breaking glass at 10 million frames per second

Check out the incredible footage of a ball breaking a glass filmed at an uncanny 10 million frames per second by the HyperVision HPV-X Camera of Shimadzu, a Japanese corporation that makes precision instruments, measuring instruments and medical equipment. Read more…        

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Holy crap, watch a ball breaking glass at 10 million frames per second

Amazing Aerogel: Eight Looks at the Ghostly Supermaterial in Action

Aerogel must be one of the strangest supermaterials to ever exist. Ghostly and shimmering in appearance, it’s insanely light, incredibly strong, and an amazing thermal insulator. And its tricks look absolutely impossible when you see them up close. Read more…        

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Amazing Aerogel: Eight Looks at the Ghostly Supermaterial in Action

Amazing Aerogel: Eight Looks at the Ghostly Supermaterial in Action

Aerogel must be one of the strangest supermaterials to ever exist. Ghostly and shimmering in appearance, it’s insanely light, incredibly strong, and an amazing thermal insulator. And its tricks look absolutely impossible when you see them up close. Read more…        

See the article here:
Amazing Aerogel: Eight Looks at the Ghostly Supermaterial in Action