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This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license.
Authors:
(1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;
(2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;
(3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Biographies Abstract Network neutrality (net neutrality) is the principle of treating equally all Internet traffic regardless of its source, destination, content, application or other related distinguishing metrics. Under net neutrality, ISPs are compelled to charge all content providers (CPs) the same per Gbps rate despite the growing profit achieved by CPs. In this paper, we study the impact of the repeal of net neutrality on communication networks by developing a techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to maximize the potential profit ISPs can achieve by offering their services to CPs. We focus on video delivery as video traffic accounts for 78% of the cloud traffic. We consider an ISP that offers CPs different classes of service representing typical video content qualities including standard definition (SD), high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) video. The MILP model maximizes the ISP profit by optimizing the prices of the different classes according to the users demand sensitivity to the change in price, referred to as Price Elasticity of Demand (PED). We analyze how PED impacts the profit in different CP delivery scenarios in cloud-fog architectures. The results show that the repeal of net neutrality can potentially increase ISPs profit by a factor of 8 with a pricing scheme that discriminates against data intensive content. Also, the repeal of net neutrality positively impacts the network energy efficiency by reducing the core network power consumption by 55% as a result of suppressing data intensive content compared to the net neutrality scenario. Index Terms— Net neutrality, AT&T, IP over WDM networks, profit, power consumption. I. INTRODUCTION Network (net) neutrality regulations prohibit ISPs from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation. Net neutrality, which was scrapped by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017, has been the subject of remarkable debate in recent years between ISPs and CPs with each side trying to exploit their assets and expand their profit and influence. The debate is fueled by the rapidly escalating demand for CPs services as a result of the interconnection between Internet and broadcasting markets. Cisco forecasts [1] that by 2021, annual global Internet traffic will hit 2.2 Zettabytes per month and CPs datacenters will be the source of 71% of this traffic. Online video services are the primary cause of this accelerated growth in Internet traffic. Video streaming is poised to consume 78% of the total CPs bandwidth with 75% of Internet video traffic originating from higher video services quality (HD and UHD). Proponents of preferential treatment of Internet traffic complain that the increasing demand for data-intensive content creates a significant burden on the communication network. They argue that removing net neutrality will give ISPs further control of their infrastructure, which is crucial in order to improve QoS and reduce security threats. Another argument is that a significant fraction of the profit of this tremendously growing market is seized by CPs whereas ISPs act as a transit or transport medium into CPs customers. In the US, the quarterly profit margin of AT&T (an ISP) has been almost stable over the last six years whereas Netflix (a CP) profit margin has risen up in rapid pace from 0.7% to 9.8% within the same period [2], [3]. In contrast, advocates warn that removing net neutrality will slow down the innovation in the Internet and its content and will limit the content competition by disadvantaging small businesses, and subsequently, diminish online services. Deploying traffic discrimination in video delivery services has many challenges, e.g. detecting video packets and enforcing a policy on a certain video quality. Traffic discrimination in IP communication networks has been surveyed intensively in the literature. Several traffic management practices have been surveyed in [4]. The authors highlighted that traffic discrimination taxonomy has four features: (i) characteristics or condition of the traffic (e.g. based on content, protocol or source/destination); (ii) traffic classification (e.g. based on flow rate, header information or routing); (iii) mechanism of discrimination (e.g. modify, delay, drop or block); and (iv) perceived discrimination by end-users. Video traffic can be analyzed using two mechanisms; deep packet inspection (DPI) [5], [6] or traffic profiling [7], [8]. DPI examines the data packets that are sent over the network and traffic profiling detects abnormal network traffic by comparing new traffic against previous traffic profile. For example, an alarm can be triggered if the data rate transmitted over the network (measured in bps) spikes above the desired data rate, which could indicate an increase in data rate. QoS for video services delivery can be applied either by reserving network bandwidth for video packets (e.g. using IntServ) or labelling video content as high priority e.g. by applying Differentiated Services (e.g. using DiffServ) [9]. The Internet ecosystem is complex with many stakeholders. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the main stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem are; ISPs, CPs, content delivery networks (CDNs) and end-users. Users pay ISPs a subscription fee to get Internet access and subscribe to CPs (if required) to access their content. CPs subscribe to a CDN to access storage and processing capacity and to deliver their content to customers. CDNs are responsible for sending CPs content at large scale over ISPs network infrastructure, e.g. the CP Netflix collaborates with the CDN Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reach their customers [10]. ISPs play as the key intermediary in the delivery process as they provide the required connectivity between users and content. Most ISPs such as AT&T [11] and Comcast [12] are now providing CDN services in additional to networking services. To simplify our analysis, we consider a direct relationship between ISP and CPs. Due to net neutrality regulations, current pricing policy of ISP networking services applies a fixed charge which is not linked with bitrate usage. For example, in the US, AT&T uses a fixed pricing model by charging CPs $3,282 per 10 Gbps per month [13] regardless of the content type transferred to users (either UHD video content or a simple text message). The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II briefly summarizes related work. We describe the pricing scheme we used in this paper and the profit-driven model we adopted in Section III. Our results are presented in Section IV. In Section V, we provide concluding remarks. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Related Works Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Conclusions & References Biographies Biographies Abstract Network neutrality (net neutrality) is the principle of treating equally all Internet traffic regardless of its source, destination, content, application or other related distinguishing metrics. Under net neutrality, ISPs are compelled to charge all content providers (CPs) the same per Gbps rate despite the growing profit achieved by CPs. In this paper, we study the impact of the repeal of net neutrality on communication networks by developing a techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to maximize the potential profit ISPs can achieve by offering their services to CPs. We focus on video delivery as video traffic accounts for 78% of the cloud traffic. We consider an ISP that offers CPs different classes of service representing typical video content qualities including standard definition (SD), high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) video. The MILP model maximizes the ISP profit by optimizing the prices of the different classes according to the users demand sensitivity to the change in price, referred to as Price Elasticity of Demand (PED). We analyze how PED impacts the profit in different CP delivery scenarios in cloud-fog architectures. The results show that the repeal of net neutrality can potentially increase ISPs profit by a factor of 8 with a pricing scheme that discriminates against data intensive content. Also, the repeal of net neutrality positively impacts the network energy efficiency by reducing the core network power consumption by 55% as a result of suppressing data intensive content compared to the net neutrality scenario. Index Terms — Net neutrality, AT&T, IP over WDM networks, profit, power consumption. Index Terms I. INTRODUCTION Network (net) neutrality regulations prohibit ISPs from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation. Net neutrality, which was scrapped by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017, has been the subject of remarkable debate in recent years between ISPs and CPs with each side trying to exploit their assets and expand their profit and influence. The debate is fueled by the rapidly escalating demand for CPs services as a result of the interconnection between Internet and broadcasting markets. Cisco forecasts [1] that by 2021, annual global Internet traffic will hit 2.2 Zettabytes per month and CPs datacenters will be the source of 71% of this traffic. Online video services are the primary cause of this accelerated growth in Internet traffic. Video streaming is poised to consume 78% of the total CPs bandwidth with 75% of Internet video traffic originating from higher video services quality (HD and UHD). Proponents of preferential treatment of Internet traffic complain that the increasing demand for data-intensive content creates a significant burden on the communication network. They argue that removing net neutrality will give ISPs further control of their infrastructure, which is crucial in order to improve QoS and reduce security threats. Another argument is that a significant fraction of the profit of this tremendously growing market is seized by CPs whereas ISPs act as a transit or transport medium into CPs customers. In the US, the quarterly profit margin of AT&T (an ISP) has been almost stable over the last six years whereas Netflix (a CP) profit margin has risen up in rapid pace from 0.7% to 9.8% within the same period [2], [3]. In contrast, advocates warn that removing net neutrality will slow down the innovation in the Internet and its content and will limit the content competition by disadvantaging small businesses, and subsequently, diminish online services. Deploying traffic discrimination in video delivery services has many challenges, e.g. detecting video packets and enforcing a policy on a certain video quality. Traffic discrimination in IP communication networks has been surveyed intensively in the literature. Several traffic management practices have been surveyed in [4]. The authors highlighted that traffic discrimination taxonomy has four features: (i) characteristics or condition of the traffic (e.g. based on content, protocol or source/destination); (ii) traffic classification (e.g. based on flow rate, header information or routing); (iii) mechanism of discrimination (e.g. modify, delay, drop or block); and (iv) perceived discrimination by end-users. Video traffic can be analyzed using two mechanisms; deep packet inspection (DPI) [5], [6] or traffic profiling [7], [8]. DPI examines the data packets that are sent over the network and traffic profiling detects abnormal network traffic by comparing new traffic against previous traffic profile. For example, an alarm can be triggered if the data rate transmitted over the network (measured in bps) spikes above the desired data rate, which could indicate an increase in data rate. QoS for video services delivery can be applied either by reserving network bandwidth for video packets (e.g. using IntServ) or labelling video content as high priority e.g. by applying Differentiated Services (e.g. using DiffServ) [9]. The Internet ecosystem is complex with many stakeholders. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the main stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem are; ISPs, CPs, content delivery networks (CDNs) and end-users. Users pay ISPs a subscription fee to get Internet access and subscribe to CPs (if required) to access their content. CPs subscribe to a CDN to access storage and processing capacity and to deliver their content to customers. CDNs are responsible for sending CPs content at large scale over ISPs network infrastructure, e.g. the CP Netflix collaborates with the CDN Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reach their customers [10]. ISPs play as the key intermediary in the delivery process as they provide the required connectivity between users and content. Most ISPs such as AT&T [11] and Comcast [12] are now providing CDN services in additional to networking services. To simplify our analysis, we consider a direct relationship between ISP and CPs. Due to net neutrality regulations, current pricing policy of ISP networking services applies a fixed charge which is not linked with bitrate usage. For example, in the US, AT&T uses a fixed pricing model by charging CPs $3,282 per 10 Gbps per month [13] regardless of the content type transferred to users (either UHD video content or a simple text message). The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II briefly summarizes related work. We describe the pricing scheme we used in this paper and the profit-driven model we adopted in Section III. Our results are presented in Section IV. In Section V, we provide concluding remarks.

Impact of the Net Neutrality Repeal on Communication Networks: Abstract & Introduction

Leveraging AI in Learning Management Systems ChatGPT and its counterparts had an extraordinary impact on many industries, including the education sector. All of a sudden, instructors had an effective way to make engaging learning materials, quizzes, and tests with no extra costs. OpenAI’s solution has shown a glimpse into the world where no geographical, language, or financial barriers prevent students from getting a quality education. And they’re putting the new tools to good use. Currently, 21% of educators , with 4% building entire lesson plans with its help. While those numbers are modest, they show just that AI solutions are becoming a part of the learning experience. Content creation isn’t the only area where this technology has found a good footing. use the chatbot to make assignment prompts Artificial intelligence solutions are gaining momentum in easing the administrative work of educational organizations. The most prominent example of integration can be seen in new AI-based learning management systems. Let’s take a look at the use of this advanced technology in LMS products and what the future holds for this partnership. Overview of Learning Management Systems (LMS) Private companies and learning institutions need a straightforward way to store and work with educational data. Being able to quickly access personal information, academic progress, reports, and tasks is crucial for successful training. Learning management system features let organizations handle these operations without installing additional software. The market for these solutions is always on the rise. Between 2025 and 2030, it's from $28,1 billion to $70 billion. This year, the number of LMS users has reportedly reached 73,8 million, with this figure showing to signs of stopping. expected to grow What makes these products particularly useful is the number of features they possess, but we’ll talk about those a bit later. Of course, LMS products can’t actually provide education on their own. They require hardware, people who know the ins and outs of educational theory, and software products like Skype or Google Meet to teach learners. The basic setup looks like this: a laptop, an LMS like Blackboard, and an instructor. These components help private companies and educational institutions to manage the learning process successfully. Modern learning management systems can be roughly divided into two types: corporate and institutional. Depending on how sophisticated these programs are, they support the following features: . Learning management systems help educators build the course content. In addition to texts and interactive tests, these materials can include charts, graphs, and videos. Course management . Many LLMs have a dashboard showing how well students or company employees handle their courses. They provide data on attendance, likelihood of success, and completion rates. These metrics identify potentially failing individuals and offer aid with their academic pursuits, ala something out of Minority Report. Academic performance tracking . Modern LMS products automate learner assessment through online tasks and exams. With their help, it's possible to submit assignments and complete online quizzes. Online grading . Advanced systems allow students to share feedback with their peers and teachers. This information helps educators adjust their approach and point out areas where students need to improve. Feedback . Some LMSs use collective and individual content, such as slideshows, online lectures, live discussions, pre-recorded videos, and reading assignments, offering a more comprehensive educational experience. Asynchronous and synchronous learning Common Types of LMS Currently, there are seven types of learning management systems organizations can use. Their choice depends on the end goal of the educational process and the requirements of individual companies and institutions. products offer a more laid-back approach when it comes to maintenance and updates. The organization pays for the solution, and its developers handle the rest. This lets educators focus on their academic goals. Closed-source LMS Their counterpart, the , are a shoo-in for institutions that know their way around code. These are highly customizable, with engineers being able to add or remove some of their features. In extreme examples, it's possible to tailor products to individual needs and requirements. open-source LMSs Organizations with 500+ employees on their staff can work with . Such products often come with additional features. These include a discussion board, gamification elements, team learning tools, an analytical suite, and multi-user access to study materials. enterprise systems Additionally, organizations can work with . These are perfect for adopters with zero technical expertise. It’s also a wise choice when institutions require courses built from the ground up, using their practices as a major element of the learning process. solutions offering authoring tools The safest, but probably the hardest to integrate types, has to be . Organizations need to add those on their servers and within the confines of their physical locations. These products make up for the complicated installation and updating process thanks to their high customizability and privacy measures. installed LMS The last two types on our list are and LMS solutions. As their names suggest, one of these products can be paired with other pieces of software, while the others don’t support this feature. compatible non-compatible In the first case, the LMSs can be paired with apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and BambooHR. In the second, applications usually provide all of the basic features but cannot integrate with other solutions. Understanding AI in Learning Management Systems Modern-day LMS solutions help educators organize and deliver course materials. But, they mostly offer the same learning path for all students, which may not be the optimal approach for educators. Luckily, the rise of artificial intelligence means there’s an alternative to one-size-fits-all products. LMS products now have the capacity to think on a level close to humans instead of being mindless information repositories. While this isn’t replicant-level intelligence, it lets LMS solutions understand and analyze information, make predictions, and answer requests. In the edtech environment, AI-based solutions handle daily operations and aid in improving the learning processes. Here’s how standard LMS products compare to AI-based solutions. Basic LMS AI-based LMS . All students learn the same type of content together. Standardized learning . The experience evolves and adapts based on individual progress. Dynamic learning . Access to standard analysis information. Basic analytics . Give deep insights that lead to more accurate decisions. Deep insights . Provide the same content with no regard for individual learning styles. Static content . Offer tailored materials that are unique to individual style and pace. Personalized content . No engagement outside of standard learning content. Limited interactivity . Student education aligns with individual requirements. Interactive environment AI Components Used In LMS Solutions Advanced learning management systems don’t use all types of AI under the sun. Several artificial intelligence components allow applications to perform specific tasks. . LMS products use this tech to extract information from large data sets. This provides insights into student learning patterns, performance, and engagement. Data mining . With deep learning, these systems analyze vast amounts of information to recommend relevant content, convert spoken language to text, and describe images for the visually impaired. Deel learning . This technology allows LMS products to learn and improve from experience. These features lead to tailored content recommendations and analysis patterns in student data that predict academic outcomes. Machine learning . The NLP area of comprehend, interpret, and produce human speech. LMS programs use it to provide answers, guidance, feedback, and grades. Natural language processing artificial intelligence lets educational solutions . This technology helps systems interpret and classify emotions in textual data. They tell if students are happy, confused, or frustrated with the course materials. Instructors use this information to improve the educational process. Sentiment analysis Top AI Applications And Benefits in LMS Solutions have several applications that enhance the learning experience for educators and students alike. AI-based edtech solutions . AI components used in LMS products streamline student enrollment, schedule management, and reporting. This lets educators focus on more pressing tasks like improving the learning content. Administrative automation . Artificial intelligence algorithms evaluate written essays, responses, and tests in mere seconds. They provide personal feedback, pointing out areas where the individual’s knowledge can be improved. Automated grading and feedback . LMS solutions based on AI adapt content to people with disabilities. For example, by turning text into audio files for those with poor eyesight. Better accessibility . These products improve the work between students and educators. For example, they offer discussion topics or moderate them to keep the collaborations respectful and productive. Enhanced collaboration . With AI-based LMSs, it's possible to provide one-on-one study assistance. Instead of waiting for instructors, students receive guidance on problem-solving, notions, and subjects. Intelligent tutoring . AI algorithms analyze academic performance, preferences, and pace to create individual content. This keeps students engaged and helps them better comprehend the learning materials. Personalized learning . In LMS products, artificial intelligence components predict outcomes based on student performance, engagement, attendance rates, and other factors. This analysis helps identify people at risk of failing courses or dropping out. Predictive analytics . Finally, AI-enhanced learning management systems allow for making unique materials, tests, quizzes, and study objectives based on a person’s current understanding of courses. Tailored content creation What The Future Holds For AI in LMS Currently, learning management systems are heavily influenced by advancements in various artificial intelligence sectors. In addition to this progress, several technological trends will dictate the next steps in these solutions. In the future, AI-based LMS products will use gamification techniques to offer a more immersive, motivational, and engaging learning experience. They will make education more effective and enjoyable through competition, rewards, and collaboration. Apps like Duolingo, Kahoot, and Quizlet already use these techniques and show their merit. The use of AI in LMS solutions will drive further cooperation among students. LMS products will be able to recommend peers and study groups for a more productive education process. Learning management systems will also use social features like real-time messaging, discussion forums, and video talks, making the learning environment more interconnected. Finally, the widespread integration of AI tech into LMS products will lead to an extremely tailored educational experience for all participants. This is going to improve academic outcomes and higher graduation rates. The best part is that the solutions will provide a tailored education process and adjust it without additional expenses on the part of the organizations. Conclusion The advancements shown by the modern examples of AI-based LMS products uncover the potential for high-quality education that isn’t only practical but affordable and streamlined for students and organizations involved in the learning process. An adaptable learning process will help deal with the rigid educational system and open learning for people with all kinds of needs and preferences. Would you like to take a stab at answering some of these questions? The link for the template is . Interested in reading the content from all of our writing prompts? Click . HERE HERE

How to Leverage AI in Learning Management Systems

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Xamarin.Forms is a powerful toolkit to build cross-platform mobile apps in the .NET ecosystem. It’s fast, stable, and relies on a mature development stack. Unfortunately, it’s only a toolkit and not a full-featured framework. This can make it tough to start a new app or to keep an existing app maintainable as there’s no “correct” way to organize your code. Thankfully using some common .NET packages and techniques, it’s easy to build a simple, extendable, and unit-testable MVVM setup in Xamarin.Forms. AWH Xamarin Flow is the setup we’ve developed at AWH to make it easy to build an app from the ground up and to keep it maintainable as you go. The Sample App I’ve created a using the AWH Xamarin Flow setup and have put the code in a public repo so you can follow along with this post. I recommend really digging through the code as I won’t be covering every aspect of the Flow. Instead, I’m going to call attention to some key pieces, look at why they are important, and how you may want to adapt the Flow to suit your app’s needs. sample Xamarin.Forms app Startup and HostBuilder The heart of the Flow is the Startup class. Normally, in a Xamarin.Forms app each platform would initialize a new instance of the App class. On Android, this is done in MainActivity.cs and on iOS this is done in AppDelegate.cs. In the Flow, we have created an Initialize method on the static Startup class. This method will create a new HostBuilder (from the Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting NuGet package), that will do things like register services and configuration, then return an instance of the App class. We can then call this method in each platform’s project in place of creating the App instance directly. Using the HostBuilder lets us take advantage of features used in other .NET applications like dependency injection. It also takes an Action parameter which will let each platform-specific project register services that can use native platform APIs. If your app doesn’t need native services, then you can simply remove the parameter from Initialize and remove the .ConfigureServices() line which uses that parameter. Let’s look at two of the main advantages of using HostBuilder: configuration and dependency injection. Configuration One of the main advantages to using HostBuilder in the Flow is the ability to use familiar appsettings.*.json files for configuration. We can load JSON files embedded in the shared project and register them as sources of configuration values. These values can then be injected using an IConfiguration instance into whatever class will need them (though you will likely want to create a wrapper service to make your values strongly-typed). assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); environment = Constants.Environment.Current; appSettingsStream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream( ); appSettingsEnvironmentStream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream( );
​ host = HostBuilder() .ConfigureHostConfiguration(config =>
    {
        config.AddJsonStream(appSettingsStream);
        config.AddJsonStream(appSettingsEnvironmentStream);
    }) // The GetManifestResourceStream functions cannot be executed from within the // ConfigureHostConfiguration's configureDelegate because that causes a "Stream // was not readable" ArgumentException. var var using var "XamSample.appsettings.json" using var $"XamSample.appsettings. .json" {environment} var new // (Removed some code for brevity) // (Removed some code for brevity) Using a Constants.Environment class lets change what files are included based on the project's current build configuration. For instance, in an API-driven app we may have different URLs for the dev, test, UAT, and production APIs. Having each of those as different build configurations will let us build the app so it can pull in the correct settings to connect to the correct API. Your app may not need configuration files like this, or it may not need environment-specific files. You can customize what files are loaded and even how they are loaded. There are for loading configurations, but we prefer using appsettings.json as it is the most common pattern. many options available Dependency Injection The other main advantage of using HostBuilder in the Flow is that we can use dependency injection. ASP.NET Core popularized a style of constructor injection that should be very familiar to any experienced .NET developer. By using the ConfigureServices method on the HostBuilder instance, we can register all of our application's services, views, and view models so they can receive dependencies and so they can be dependencies. We even register our App class so it can receive an instance of the NavigatorService (more on that later). public static ( < , > configureNativeServices)
{ host = App Initialize Action HostBuilderContext IServiceCollection // (Removed some code for brevity) var () . (configureNativeServices)
        . ( ) . ();
​ . = . ;
​ . . < >()
        ?? (" service provider isn't set up properly.");
}
​ ( context, services)
{ . < , >(); . < , >();
​ . < >(); . < >(); . < >(); . < >();
​ . < >();
} new HostBuilder // (Removed some code for brevity) ConfigureServices ConfigureServices ConfigureServices // (Removed some code for brevity) Build App ServiceProvider host Services return App ServiceProvider GetService App throw new Exception The App private static void ConfigureServices HostBuilderContext IServiceCollection // Custom services for this app. Each service should have a matching // interface so it can be mocked for unit tests. services AddSingleton IPageService PageService services AddSingleton INavigatorService NavigatorService // Add Pages and their ViewModels as transients so they can be retrieved using DI services AddTransient ItemListPage services AddTransient ItemListViewModel services AddTransient ItemDetailPage services AddTransient ItemDetailViewModel // Finally register the App so it can access the NavigatorService services AddSingleton App One notable thing we do is to set the static ServiceProvider property of the App class to the finished collection of registered services. This is useful when we need to dynamically pull pages and view models in the PageService and in rare cases where we don’t have access to normal constructor injection. We also use that to retrieve the singleton instance of the App class we registered which will be returned to the platform projects to be loaded on application start. A note about service lifetimes: normally, we have to choose from (singleton, scoped, and transient) but since we are not in a request/response environment (like a web application or API), we can’t use a scoped service so only singletons or transients should be registered. three registration types Having a solid dependency injection setup in the AWH Xamarin Flow helps keep our services, view models, and other classes loosely-coupled. This in turn, makes unit testing a lot easier since we can more readily mock dependencies. As a bonus, you can include the package which includes generated interfaces for the device features included in the Xamarin.Essentials package. That package makes it even easier to make your code testable. Xamarin.Essentials.Interfaces View-View Model Relationship One of the key aspects of any MVVM setup is the relationship between the view and view model. You need to make sure they are paired up correctly and with the correct separation between them. This is typically done using a “View Model Locator” class which maps views to view models. In the AWH Xamarin Flow, we use the PageService (detailed in the next section) to load pages and find the correct view model. But the service only receives the type of page and not the view model type. In order to keep them linked, we use an interface called IPageWithViewModel which every page should implement: public IPageWithViewModel
{ ViewModelType { get; }
} interface Type Then each page implements the interface in the code-behind class and set’s what view model it requires: public partial class ItemDetailPage : ContentPage, IPageWithViewModel
{
    public ViewModelType => typeof(ItemDetailViewModel);
​
    public ItemDetailPage() => InitializeComponent();
} Type This ensures that we can easily get the correct view model for the page while keeping the view and view model loosely-coupled. We want the view to not directly deal with the view model but to know only what view model it requires. For the view model, it should know nothing about the view where it is used. Base View Models If you're digging through the code, you may notice something strange in the ViewModels folder: there are two base view models. We have separated out BaseViewModel and BasePageViewModel. The BaseViewModel class contains our implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged which is necessary for our bindings in XAML to work. The BasePageViewModel class contains a NavigatorService instance and two lifecycle methods: InitializeAsync and RefreshAsync. The benefit of separating these comes when you have view models that represent smaller visual data objects than a whole page. This could be a view model that represents an item in a ListView where you still need the INotifyPropertyChanged goodness, but don't need the NavigatorService. The lifecycle methods are incredibly useful for correctly calling async methods when the page is loaded (or returned to). You don't need to use any trickery to call an async method from the constructor and you should never need to use an async void method. This is a particularly difficult problem, especially for new Xamarin developers, and these methods are an extremely valuable aspect of the Flow. Also noteworthy is how we've implemented INotifyPropertyChanged. The SetProperty method is the cleanest and simplest way to handle a property with a backing field while still invoking the PropertyChanged event as needed. This implementation requires the least amount of boilerplate code for any given property on a view model: _title = .Empty;
public Title
{ _title; ;
} private string string string => get => set SetProperty( , ) ref _title value The Page and Navigator Services The PageService mentioned earlier takes the role of the “View Model Locator” in the AWH Xamarin Flow. It’s responsible for getting an instance of a page by type, getting an instance of the page’s view model, and setting the view model as the binding context of the page. It does all of this using the ServiceProvider property of the App class so it leans on the dependency injection we set up in Startup.cs. public GetPage<PageType>()
{ (App.ServiceProvider == )
        throw new InvalidOperationException( );
​
    var = App.ServiceProvider.GetService<PageType>() as ​ (page == )
        throw new ArgumentException( , nameof(PageType));
​ (page is IPageWithViewModel pageWithViewModel)
    {
        var viewModel = App.ServiceProvider.GetService(pageWithViewModel.ViewModelType) as BasePageViewModel;
​ (viewModel == )
            throw new ArgumentException( , pageWithViewModel.ViewModelType.Name);
​
        page.BindingContext = viewModel;
    }
​
    return } Page if null "App.ServiceProvider is null and has not been set up correctly" page Page; if null "Unable to locate page in ServiceProvider" if if null "Unable to locate page view model in ServiceProvider" page; Most of the time your app will not (and should not) deal with the PageService directly and instead will interact with the NavigatorService. The NavigatorService relies heavily on the PageService and acts as a wrapper around a Xamarin.Forms NavigationPage instance. It provides the methods you may need for basic app navigation like pushing and popping pages to and from the navigation stack, as well as similar methods for modal pages. Depending on your app’s UI, though, the NavigatorService may not be a perfect fit as is. You may need a different service that serves a similar role but wraps a TabbedPage or a FlyoutPage. Of all the pieces in the AWH Xamarin Flow, this one may require the most changes for any particular app. The AWH Xamarin Flow makes it easy to build and maintain a Xamarin.Forms app using techniques similar to other .NET applications. There are other frameworks out there, but this setup achieves much of the same functionality while reducing the number of “black-box” libraries you have to handle. By using some standard packages, we have pieced together a solid and extendible framework of our own. This setup was created by Tommy Elliott, a Software Developer Team Lead at AWH. A huge thank you to him for putting the setup together, helping me create the sample project, and generally helping me get my head around Xamarin. He also coined the name, which is far better than constantly calling it “our setup”. Author Andrew Moscardino is a Software Developer at AWH and has worked on websites, APIs, data structures, and software architecture since 2013. He has experience in full-stack development with an interest in modern front-end technologies. Andrew has worked on projects for a wide range of industries, including healthcare, libraries, maintenance, and nonprofits.

How to Build an App with Xamarin.Forms

. Springtime for slimy thugs and slugs — fascism, information terrorism, bioweapons and corporate abuse — rotting civilization’s core ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to the jungle — “[T]he murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi…[is] departure of the United States as a restraining force against evil actors…[because] no Saudi leader would…[make] such a brazen move without confidence [U.S.]…would do nothing_…._ …. [Similarly] China’s arrest of the head of Interpol; the Burmese…genocide against the Rohingya…slaughter of civilians in Syria…by outlawed chemical weapons; the Russian invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea…[or] rise of right-wing nationalist forces in Europe So welcome to the breakdown of the liberal world order…[though] just the beginning_…._ ….[ [There’s] always dangerous people…[that] can be suppressed by a reasonably stable international order When] order breaks down…[and] rocks are overturned…the darkest elements of the human spirit, crawl out….[like] Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini….Today the rocks are being overturned again …. [Those] arguing that we should pull back…grew up inside the bubble of…the liberal world order…in which other nations were forced to adjust their behavior to those realities of power …. …. .” [Today’s] Hitlers and Stalins are all around us, waiting ….[Putin] has grand ambitions…[and] a more powerful China is abandoning…cautious foreign policies ’Gradually and then suddenly’…[is] how the world order collapsed before the two world wars…. Welcome to the jungle https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-jungle/2018/10/09/0f8ffb58-cbc5-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.234c71d9d87f _Beyond accumulated scientific knowledge. art and magical technological artifacts, we humans remain primates with…_medium.com Our Human Stain Rick Gates sought plans to use fake online identities in Trump’s 2016 campaign — “ …. Former Trump campaign adviser…[who] pleaded guilty in…special counsel investigation, sought proposals…in 2016 to create fake online identities…[for] ’s campaign…[using] social media manipulation and to gather intelligence…[on] opponents in the Republican primary…[and] Trump Hillary Clinton [A] company staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers, Psy-Group…[planned] to create thousands of different identities…on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera’…. ’ ” [Targeting] delegates based on a psychological profile that the company built…[using] avatars, bots, et cetera to spread messages…to influence their votes…[for] Trump…[and] ‘by using social media to help expose or amplify division among rival campaigns and factions ….[Group] met in August 2016…with Donald Trump, Jr. https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/410486-nyt-rick-gates-sought-plans-to-use-fake-online-identities-in-trumps-2016 Information Terrorists Trying to Reshape America — “[Since] Trump’s candidacy…[the] people who often initiate…far-right disinformation [include]…Roger Stone, his…protégés … …[Infowars] Alex Jones…and white nationalist Chuck Johnson**….** Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec Cassandra Fairbanks fund-raiser [This] cadre…starting in 2014 with Gamergate …promoted toxic conspiracies like Pizzagate and QAnon , and was ever-present around…Unite the Right…and exonerate Kavanaugh…[with] hundreds of thousands of followers…[on] social media…[and] mainstream partisan media outlets that will subscribe to any argument that suits their current agenda…[inspired] a form of radicalization and extremism…. …. [A] culture of digital violence…bleeding into real life…seeing themselves as a new kind of [insurgent] — … ….Infowars …. Gamergate an internet culture war sparked when a group of women exposed what they saw as inherent misogyny in the production and culture of videogaming….The women were doxxed and threatened in graphic terms with rape and death…[by] Milo Yiannopoulos, then a writer for Breitbart, and blogger Mike Cernovich amplifying the theory of white-male identity politics jumped on [ …. So] Gamergate…[was] a bunker mentality that Trump would mobilize…[as] themes of censorship, false accusations…resurgent masculinity…[and] a magnet for other internet fringe elements, including white nationalists, anti-feminists, neo-Nazis . Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter in July 2016 (as Chuck Johnson had been in May 2015) after directing racist hate-trolling …[but] found common purpose with Roger Stone …[and] National Enquirer ]…. The America First Unity Rally…was sponsored by Infowars and cohosted by Roger Stone…[to] harass and intimidate…anyone who wasn’t a fervid enough supporter of [Trump Richard Spencer , Ricky Vaughn , Tim Gionet, Andrew Auernheimer — would congeal near the core cadre …. …. [At] convention, GOP delegates were intimidated via twitter…by Vaughn, who targeted threats of violence to certain delegates…. Collectively, this group dominated the media surrounding the GOP convention…with Trump as ringmaster …. They all played a central role in amplifying Wikileaks, along with the parallel conspiracy theory that the DNC hack was actually a leak from murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich September 2016, Johnson claims he helped the teenage girl sexting with disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner…[and] baited Weiner into the [relationship]…[and] became the pretext for the FBI’s access to Weiner’s computer…[that] impacted the Clinton campaign in the final months…. … [T]he stories Johnson helped spin on Weiner were…the origin of the fabricated…child sex trafficking ring…known as Pizzagate heavily promoted by Infowars and other right-wing disinformation sites…[and] by Stone himself , plus…array of foreign-hosted botnets …. …. [Infowars] next iteration of this elaborate contrivance — QAnon …[claimed] Trump is saving the world from a vast Soros/Clinton/Podesta child sex trafficking ring ….[Trump] hosted one of its promoters in the Oval Office and praised and defended celebrities who champion Q….[But] Q got out of control…[with] domestic terrorism and conflicts with law enforcement As with the previous toxic conspiracies, once they…[spark] violent events, their promoters pretended…[they] had their doubts…[yet] prepared for the next iteration…[with] the audience waiting…[as] amplifiers, both organic and automated…backed by hackers and coders …. …. [So] small number of…[actors] drive the system…[to] elicit an intense emotional response…[against] a secret cabal of elite…pedophiles and predators…[and] normalize racism — referring to blacks and Muslims as serial rapists and to migrants ] Stone helped deflect a series of assault allegations made against candidate Trump by bringing all of Clinton’s accusers to a debate.…[knowing] exactly what to do when the allegations made against Kavanaugh…[using] Mark Judge [who] …has a long history of interaction with this [network …. …. [Judge] authored a positive review of alt-right backer David Horowitz’s book. (…that the real race war is being waged against white people and that the coverage of Charlottesville was ‘fake news.’ ) The narrative was set long ago…men (especially white men) are oppressed, the people who stand against you are corrupt perverts…and everything that is the America you know will fall apart if you don’t fight for some notion of the way things were and should be again. And the best way to achieve this, since the system will fight back, is viciousness…. …. [W]hat the Stone cadre has done for years: push a lie, entrench it, later disavow, thus minimizing the damage all while presumably knowing that it’s still there, colonizing the target population [ …. Kavanaugh] deployed this narrative by…implying conspiracies in his red-faced attacks on the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Radicalization is relatively simple to accomplish using social networks and other media, but de-radicalization is not. Pizzagate believers still believe …. [It’s] the system the cadre built — a network hungry for the next hit of disinformation to inflame confirmation bias, moving content so swiftly that stories can jump from radio to twitter to MSM in 12 hours flat. The landscape is prepared. The participants know what to do. When it comes to the psychology that shapes mass movements, there are two fundamental rules: Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and everybody wants someone to tell them what to do so that things will turn out OK…. Conspiracy theories…are something that people who want to believe in something latch on to…particularly in times of rapid change…[as] framework for making things that don’t make any sense somehow understandable…. So prepared is this landscape for new conspiracies…that naked absurdities are liked and reposted without much thought…[for] misogyny and white nationalism and intimidation …. . [T]he chaos god of Roger Stone…cultivated the narrative to make it acceptable to a wider lane of conservatives This is triggering violence and…extremism that we can no longer ignore…. …. [It’s] Trump’s America….Whatever it takes to win is fair game…[as] the president himself has amplified conspiracy and demonized ‘the media’ — even while elevating a new ecosystem of far-right media groups and personalities….This has transformed the way conservative Americans consume information, altering how they make judgments on truth and reality It is clear that foreign powers seeking to manipulate Americans with these asymmetric tools of information warfare must pay a price for doing so. But what about domestic forces that use the same tools and tactics…to spark frenzy and fear, intimidation and violence? What price should they pay?…. Cognitive warfare is a dark, seductive rabbit hole…[that’s] powerful and unregulated…[so] small groups, like the cadre…can achieve significant outcomes when the network effects kick in…. .” The immediate costs are already visible…[but] long-term costs will be devastating. One need only look to Stalin’s…internal psychological terror…to understand the price can be inconceivably high https://www.wired.com/story/information-terrorists-trying-to-reshape-america/ The Trump Circus — “How did we as a country…accept Trump’s corrosion of our culture and our discourse_….[T]o be sure: racism, xenophobia, ethnic hostility, Islamophobia, nationalism, Fox News….[Two] are much more basic: entertainment and ownership_ …. entire Trump presidency is a show…[with] Trump as its antihero…their entrée to power, a personification…of anger and anti-intellectualism, a way to wrap their hatreds in humor… …. part tent revival, part circus…[where] it is perfectly admissible to surrender any remaining morality to the mob….[He’s] their Frankenstein…to fight for white power and its privileges and purity….[A] symbiotic last-ditch shot at survival ….There is nowhere that Trump goes, in policy or rhetoric, that they won’t follow, because they have no way back from how far they’ve already gone. They’ve burned all the bridges they’ve crossed…[and] are now part of his circus .” In this world, the aberrant and…monstrous don’t offend but entertain https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/opinion/the-trump-circus.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront The Pentagon is studying an insect army to defend crops. Critics fear a bioweapon — “Pentagon is studying whether insects can…carry genetically engineered viruses that could be deployed rapidly…[with] a warm and fuzzy name: ‘Insect Allies’…[but] technology that ‘may be widely perceived as…biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery’ …. …. [Plan] envisions three types of pestiferous insects as allies: aphids, leafhoppers and whiteflies…[that] routinely spread viruses among plants [ CRISPR] allows researchers to customize viruses to achieve a specific goal in the infected plant.[and] could switch on or off certain genes that, for example, control a plant’s growth rate …. …. [DARPA] said there are multiple layers of protection to ensure that this technology does not have unintended ecological effects…[and] is not targeting the germline cells of plants and thus would not lead to heritable traits ’National security can be quickly jeopardized by naturally occurring threats to the crop system…but especially by threats introduced by state or non-state actors…[and] the use of insects…could be deployed cheaply and surreptitiously by malevolent actors…. ’” [Using] insects as a vector to spread diseases is a classical bioweapon…. If this technology works…national governments will not be able to control its spread. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/04/pentagon-is-studying-an-insect-army-defend-crops-critics-fear-bioweapon/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.63c3047d2c17 Google+ to shut down after cover-up of data breach — “[Google’s] Cambridge Analytica moment…[when] security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until…patched it in March, but decided not to inform the world**….** [Bug] let those developers pull their and their friends’ non-public profile fields…users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status…. …. [Google] decided against informing the public because it would lead to ‘us coming into the spotlight alongside or even instead of Facebook… Cambridge Analytica scandal’ according to an internal memo Google made that announcement about the findings…[only] after the WSJ report was published…. … [Google] could still face class-action lawsuits and public backlash casts doubt on whether Google is being transparent on tons of other controversial questions about its practices …[and] increasingly calls for [regulation].” https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-hack/ World economy at risk of another financial crash, says IMF — “[A] dramatic rise in lending by… and…failure to impose tough restrictions on insurance companies and asset managers, which handle trillions…causes for concern_…._ shadow banks in China …. [Also] backlash against international agreements, especially [Trump’s]…has undermined efforts to prepare for another downturn ’ …. [W]e are in a leaderless world’…[where] global debt, in both the public and private sectors, has rocketed by 60%…since the financial crisis to reach an all-time high of $182tn…[making] developing world governments and companies more vulnerable to higher US interest rates , which could trigger a flight of funds and destabilize their economies Increased cybersecurity risks…for financial institutions, financial infrastructure, and supervisors…[and] ‘risks tend to rise during…period of low interest rates and subdued volatility, and those risks can always migrate to new areas’…. [Finally] huge rise in borrowing by corporates and government at cheap interest rates…not shown up in higher levels of…[R&D] or more general investment in infrastructure …. .” [Today] the median general government debt-GDP ratio stands at 52%, up from 36% before the crisis; central bank balance sheets, particularly in advanced economies, are several multiples of the size they were before the crisis; and emerging market and developing economies now account for 60% of global GDP in purchasing-power-parity terms…compared with 44%…before the crisis https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-hack/ Find more of my ideas on Medium at, . A Passion to Evolve Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed. Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me with “add me” in the subject line. dochuston1@gmail.com May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 10/13

While technology keeps evolving — — U.S. political system — — keeps devolving. software, surveillance, DNA, gig economy racism & liberalism ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If Software Is Eating the World, What Will Come Out the Other End? So far, it’s mostly shit. — “[10%] of investors own 84 percent of the stock market…[so] society simply isn’t benefiting from this trend of software eating the world**….** [We’ve] have turned the world to data…to change the world…[but w]hat have we become?…. [Most] of technology’s leadership…are puzzled by these newfound demands from…[Congress] and Europeans…. The world is still real. Software hasn’t eaten it as much as bound it in a spell….Software — data, code, algorithms, processing…dressed the world in new infrastructure. But this is a conversation…between the physical and the digital, a synthesis we must master if we are to avoid terrible fates, and continue to embrace fantastic ones.” https://battellemedia.com/archives/2018/09/if-software-is-eating-the-world-what-will-come-out-the-other-end Just Don’t Call It Privacy — “[After] data-mining scandals — including Russian-sponsored ads on Facebook…[Congress] now rallying behind…a new federal consumer privacy law…[asking] companies to explain ‘what Congress can do…without hurting innovation’…. [But] issue at hand isn’t privacy…[rather] unfettered data exploitation and its…deleterious consequences…[like] unequal consumer treatment, financial fraud, identity theft, manipulative marketing and discrimination…. [So] asking companies whose business models revolve around exploiting data-based consumer-influence techniques to explain their privacy policies…[is] as useful as asking sharks to hold forth on veganism…. [Congress] should be examining how these firms collect and use the personal data of [users]…[and] that might merit government oversight…. Companies are sending their [lawyers]…not the engineering folks who actually understand these systems…and can talk through alternatives…. California recently passed a new privacy law …[companies] hope to defang…by pushing Congress to pass federal privacy legislation that would overrule state laws…. [Issue’s] the right not to be observed…. [The] revelations about Russian election interference …[show] data-driven influence campaigns can scale quickly and cause societal harm…. [There’s] often gulf between the innocuous ways companies explain their data practices to consumers and the details they divulge about their targeting techniques to advertisers…. [So] consumer advocates hope senators will press…[for] details on their consumer-profiling practices….’and how they’re categorizing, ranking, rating and scoring us’…. [EU] data protection law…requires companies to obtain explicit permission from…users before collecting personal details on sensitive subjects like their religion, health or sex life…[giving] users the right to see all of the information companies hold about them — including any algorithmic scores or inferences…. [They] also have the right not to be subject to completely automated decisions that could significantly affect them, such as credit algorithms…. [Congress] could force companies to give consumers…rights over [their] data.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/sunday-review/privacy-hearing-amazon-google.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront _What’s Yours is Mine and What’s Mine is Mine_medium.com My Data Is My Property — Pay Me If You Use It The Dangers of DNA Testing — “74 out of 108 crime laboratories implicated an innocent person in a hypothetical bank robbery…. Tube swaps are easy to understand…[but] hard to interpret DNA mixtures from three or more people…[common] from anyone who may have lightly touched an object. The result is that DNA mixtures have…match statistics varied over 100 trillion-fold. That’s like the difference between soda change and the United States’ gross domestic product…. The good news is that there are methods to reanalyze old DNA mixture data using computer programs that can help analysts correct errors, without any new lab testing…and should easily go back…to correct tragic mistakes.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/opinion/the-dangers-of-dna-testing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront Uber drivers and other gig economy workers are earning half what they did five years ago — ort people (Uber or Lyft) or things (Uber Eats or Postmates)…made 53 percent less in 2017 than they did in 2013**….** “On average, drivers who transp …. [People] who worked for a transportation app in a given month declined to $783 from $1,469…[but] population that has participated in the online gig economy…rose from less than 2 percent in 2013 to nearly 5 percent in 2018 .” 50 % of drivers work less than 10 hours a week…[to] supplement regular nine-to-five jobs rather than serve as full-time employment… to make ends meet https://www.recode.net/2018/9/24/17884608/uber-driver-gig-economy-money-pay-lyft-postmates ‘Robotics Skins’ turn everyday objects into robots (2 min video) — NASA-inspired robotic skins enable users to turn soft objects — a stuffed animal or a foam tube, for instance — into robots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=106&v=uuAY5Y_INYQ Legislators struggle with tech. That’s why we need the Office of Technology Assessment. — “CONGRESS NEEDS…the resurrection of the Office of Technology Assessment, which from 1972 to its 1995 defunding provided representatives with nonpartisan analysis of science and technical issues_…._ …. [New] legislation requires the Congressional Research Service to examine the need for an…entity to dispense technological guidance…[and] Government Accountability Office…to evaluate how to give its tech assessment program more prominence …. OTA was established in recognition of technology’s ‘increasingly extensive, pervasive, and critical’ impact on all of us …. [GAO’s] culture centers on audits and investigations, and it lacks the [talents]…[to supply] careful analysis of the toughest tech issues…and the policy options to address them .” [Democrats] struggle to secure Republican buy-in…[but] knowing what one is talking about should not be a partisan issue https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/legislators-struggle-with-tech-thats-why-we-need-the-office-of-technology-assessment/2018/09/17/bb7c30c6-b860-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.f7210959b879 Why do all these racists keep joining the GOP? — “[No] candidate can’t be responsible for everything any supporter [says]…. But you know who doesn’t have to worry about getting endorsed by neo-Nazis, white nationalists and racists? People who don’t give neo-Nazis, white nationals and racists any reason to believe that they share their views…. ….Trump doesn’t get on white nationalist websites because they’re laboring under some misimpression_…._ Republicans in 2018 [are] being lumped in with racists…[since] favored news outlets are… saturated with white nationalist rhetoric…[and] party is led by a man who is…an obvious bigot …[and] ran a presidential campaign built on xenophobia and racial resentment celebrated [T]he vast majority of conservatives…[say] they strongly believe in racial equality…[and] unfairly accused of being racists…claiming that Democrats are the real racists…[ convinced ] white people are the last legitimate victims of racism…regularly held back…by a system that distributes spoils to minorities while leaving them to struggle….This requires no small measure of self-persuasion, as does arguing for policies that have obvious racial motivations …. .’ [Republican’s] broad range of voter suppression laws…specifically designed to fall…heavily on minority voters….[T]hey make a political issue out of the murder…[by] an immigrant, but ignore a nearly identical case when the alleged murderer is a white man…[or] responding to the shooting of a black teenager by police by saying he was probably a thug who had it coming, but responding to an allegation of attempted rape by a white…[as] just ‘ horseplay But you know who doesn’t have any doubt? The unapologetic racists**….** [So] people of goodwill might ask…. .” Why is it that all these racists are so supportive of my party?….Why is it that every white nationalist thinks they can find a home in the GOP?…. [S]o far, we’ve heard pretty much nothing https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/20/why-do-all-these-racists-keep-joining-the-gop/?utm_term=.f8849aa0c6be _History teaches men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. [Eban]_medium.com Quicksand of Our Past Liberalism 3.0? — “The Economist [magazine]…sees itself as occupying a middle ground between the old liberalism…[emphasizing] economic and political freedom, and the new, with its faith that collective actions can bring collective good…. The problem is not the past. It’s the future…[with] a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people …. ’ [The] 25-year shift towards freedom and open markets has gone into reverse….[China] shows that dictatorships can thrive …. [Three] trends increasingly define politics. . …. Economic integration has outrun political integration The explosion of trade, migration and cross-border money flows have made it harder for nation-states to shape their domestic economic and social conditions…[and] slower economic growth has stoked nationalistic and cultural differences . Massive welfare states have discredited governments and established leaders Efforts to rein in large government deficits are inherently unpopular…[yet] aging of most wealthy societies compounds the pressure on [states]…. …. …. 3. Technology isn’t always benign Global warming is a product, at least partially, of industrialization. The Internet exposes us to cyberattacks. Expensive health-care advances add to costs, often with little therapeutic gain .” The basic purpose of politics is to resolve conflicts, but the…political systems of many advanced countries have broken down….Politicians prefer stalemate to the hard work of constructing a Liberalism 3.0. That’s not the message the Economist intended, but it is the one it sent https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-hard-work-of-constructing-a-liberalism-30/2018/09/23/58cd8c96-bdf0-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html?utm_term=.2004bfbeffd6 Find more of my ideas on Medium at, . A Passion to Evolve Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed. Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me with “add me” in the subject line. dochuston1@gmail.com May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 9/29

A bridge too far — facial recognition, undemocratic system & bad faith behavior — places us at the edge of a dangerous precipice. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As facial recognition technology becomes pervasive, Microsoft issues a call for regulation — “Technology companies have a privacy problem[:]…good at invading ours and…negligent at protecting their own…[thus] for government to…oversee the facial recognition…. call from Microsoft President Brad Smith ….[ Imagine a government tracking everywhere you walked…[or] a database of everyone who attended a political rally…like ‘Minority Report,’ ‘Enemy of the State’ and even ‘1984’… on the verge of becoming possible Globally] governments are deploying these tools…to control their populations…. ’The more powerful the tool, the greater the benefit or damage it can cause’ …. …[ …. [T]he industry’s not-so-secret huge problem. Facial recognition…used in the identification of suspects, negatively affects people of color and] government surveillance is an extraordinary invasion of [privacy]….[and] control of our identities altogether Facial recognition…[and] AI technologies…have some rate of error even when they operate in an unbiased way’ …. ’” [Need] technology companies to slow… ‘the deployment of…facial recognition technology…[because] people’s fundamental rights are being broken. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/as-facial-recognition-technology-becomes-pervasive-microsoft-yes-microsoft-issues-a-call-for-regulation/ American democracy’s built-in bias towards rural Republicans — “[T]he only democratic vice more troubling than the tyranny of the majority: tyranny of the minority**….** [U.S.] electoral system…gives rural voters more clout than urban ones…[and] Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban…. …. [I]n the three elections in 2012–16 [Republican] candidates got just 46% of the…vote for the Senate, and…won the presidential vote in 2016 with 49% …. In no other two-party system does the party that receives the most votes routinely find itself out of power . Every president…in the 20th century…won the popular vote In two of the five elections for 21st-century presidents, the minority won the electoral college…. [Since] elected politicians appoint federal judges…this rural bias in the courts…[with] a conservative court…[from] a president and Senate…elected with less than half the…vote may end up litigating the fairness of the voting system ….[A] dangerous new twist in the tribalism and political dysfunction that is poisoning politics …. [T]he built-in bias is obviously bad… for America as a whole …[with] lawmaking is paralyzed…[beyond] party-line votes …[so] most divisive political issues often falls to the courts …. . [In] rancorous political disputes…guns, abortion and climate change — split…along urban-rural lines…[so] voters increasingly sort themselves into urban-rural tribes. Gerrymandering and party primaries reward extremists…partisanship, ineffective federal government and electoral bias…and are hard to fix … Changing the constitution is [impossible]…[but] the voting system for Congress is easier to reform could make both parties competitive in rural and urban areas again, helping to restore majority rule. … One option…is ‘ranked-choice voting’ in which voters list candidates in order of preference. After a first count, the candidate with the least support is eliminated, and his or her ballots are reallocated to those voters’ second choice. This continues until someone has a majority. Candidates need second- and third-choice votes from their rivals’ supporters…[and] look for common ground with…opponents. …. .” Another option is multi-member districts …[that] aggregate groups of voters To maintain the trust…democracy needs to reform itself https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21745753-its-elections-no-longer-convert-popular-will-control-government-american-democracys _Voting is suppose to guarantee you are “represented.” So, if you are over 18 and a citizen you can vote. But, why is…_medium.com One Story the Media Ignores Completely For Trump, Failure Is the Only Option — “[Trump] insulted our allies…[because] disrupting NATO…[is] an end in itself…[like] the escalating trade war…[with] no indication what any of the countries…could do to satisfy him…[and] just wants a trade war**….** [T]hey’re all in evident bad faith…[just] to tear things down_…_making bullying great again …. ….[ [I]f Trump isn’t literally a Russian agent, he certainly behaves like one…[and] obviously dislikes anything that smacks of rule of law H]e pardons criminal bigots while ripping children away from their parents…consistently praises brutal strongmen while heaping scorn on democratic leaders…. .” [He] wants negotiations with our allies and trading partners…to fail. And by the time everyone realizes this, the damage may be irreversible https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/opinion/trump-nato-failure.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront Find more of my ideas on Medium at, . A Passion to Evolve Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed. Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me with “add me” in the subject line. dochuston1@gmail.com May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 7/21

Shape of the near future — multi-assistant world, data slavery, justice and drones — depends on the resolution of some hard choices. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If Duplex is the future, then Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana should start working together — “[ …[is] conversational AI that makes phone calls to schedule appointments or make restaurant reservations**….** Google] Duplex …. [Since] bot-to-bot communication will soon be critical…makers of assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant need to work together Amazon and Microsoft are planning to provide [this [because] we will come to live in a multi-assistant world ]… …. An example of how this could function is the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) format made available last year for interoperability of Microsoft’s Cognitive Toolkit, Facebook’s Caffe2, and PyTorch…[with] an ecosystem of engines and frameworks to train and deploy AI …. .” [This] would also boost the entire conversational computing space…to entrust more tasks…[and] make room…for specialized assistants…[to] do their job more effectively or accomplish other goals….[A] very different world from the one we live in today https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/06/ai-weekly-if-duplex-is-the-future-then-google-assistant-alexa-and-cortana-should-start-working-together/ _Is the Content Worth the Price?_medium.com Virtual Assistants — Where’s the Beef? What if people were paid for their data? — “‘DATA SLAVERY’…is the state in which most people now live…[and] something is rotten in the data economy…. …. …. Germany’s chancellor, recently called for a price to be put on personal data [If] people really controlled their data — and the tech giants were required to pay for access…[w]hat would such a data economy look like? Unlike physical resources, personal data are…‘non-rival’ goods, meaning…the more they are used, the better for society…. [Since] most AI algorithms need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples…[it’s] a form of labor which powers AI …[mostly] passive, as people engage in all kinds of activities….[Some’s] more active, as they make decisions (such as labelling images or steering a car through a busy city …. [Still] few people will have the time or inclination to keep track of all the information they generate, or estimate its value…[and] lack the bargaining power to get a good deal from AI firms…. … [Expect] rise of…‘data-labor unions’…[to] serve as gatekeepers of people’s data [though] so far failed to make much headway…. …. [The] tech giants already pay for data…through outsourcing…armies of raters and moderators to check the quality of their algorithms and take down content that is illegal or offensive. Other firms use crowd-working platforms [ ….[But] to happen…. I]f AI lives up to the hype, it will lead to demand for more and better data…which people may only provide if they get paid [ First] legal framework will be needed to encourage the emergence of a new data economy…. Second, the technology to keep track of data flows needs to become much more capable. Research to calculate the value of particular data to an AI service is in its infancy…. .…. , [Third] people will have to develop a ‘class consciousness’ as data workers 90% of Americans think being in control of who can get data on them is important according to the Pew Research …. .” [Societies] have to find a mechanism to distribute the wealth created by AI. As things stand, most of it accrues to the big data distilleries. Unless this changes, social inequality could revert to medieval levels https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2018/07/07/what-if-people-were-paid-for-their-data _What’s Yours is Mine and What’s Mine is Mine_medium.com My Data Is My Property — Pay Me If You Use It If the Supreme Court is Nakedly Political, Can It Be Just? — “[W]e wonder whether a Supreme Court that has come to be rigidly divided by both ideology and party can sustain public confidence for much longer….[in] era of partisan division…. …[and in] The trend is extreme — and alarming. In the 1950s and 1960s, the ideological biases…appointees were relatively modest. The gap…has steadily grown past 10 years…[and] justices have hardly ever voted against the ideology of the president who appointed them…. …[ …. [It’s] impossible to regard the court as anything but a partisan institution and] will be seen by the public as one whose votes on controversial issues are essentially determined by the party affiliation of recent presidents ” Assaults on judicial independence are…easier when the public comes to view the judiciary as a political body. This risk…should be at the center of public attention. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/opinion/supreme-court-nominee-trump.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront Tomorrow’s squadron leaders will be accompanied by drones - “ is about the size of a small jet fighter…shaped like a flying wing….[is] an unmanned, stealthy combat drone…[operated] by a pilot sitting in a control center on the ground…. [ Taranis] [When] using artificially intelligent [systems]… can take off, find its way to a combat zone, select a target, attack said target with missiles and then find its way home and land…. … … …. [A] single pilot could fly with a number of combat drones…as his ‘wingbots’… might be used to reconnoiter an area or attack it, permitting the manned aircraft to hold back….[They can] undertake defensive…turns at g-forces so high that a human being could not withstand to divert incoming missiles away from a manned fighter and issuing orders to accompanying combat drones [ Many] countries are now exploring…unmanned military planes to carry cargo and as refueling tankers ….[Airbus] looking at single-pilot operation…[with] a ground-based pilot to take control of an aircraft in the event of a problem.” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/07/05/tomorrows-squadron-leaders-will-be-accompanied-by-drones Find more of my ideas on Medium at, . A Passion to Evolve Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed. Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me with “add me” in the subject line. dochuston1@gmail.com May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 7/14

Good future developments — privacy law, autonomous drones, AI’s periodic table — for a better tomorrow. Bad future developments — U.S. fratricide, mass surveillance, AI & developing economies, education — all point to a dystopian tomorrow. Ugly future developments — U.S. tech problems, China and search problems — challenge our ingenuity now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Good future developments California passes landmark data privacy bill — “[Law’s] improvements are:…. Businesses must disclose what information it collects Businesses must disclose what business purpose it does so for Businesses must disclose any third parties it shares that data with… Businesses required to comply with official consumer requests to delete that data Consumers can opt out of their data being sold Businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service Businesses can…offer ‘financial incentives’…to collect data …. California authorities are empowered to fine companies for violations Facebook and Google…aligned with others in opposition…[like] internet providers like AT&T and Verizon …. ” [California’s] influential and populous state…where a great deal of tech companies are based…[so] law will have more than merely a local effect. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/landmark-california-privacy-bill-heads-to-governors-desk/ Drones Just Learned to Fly Solo, Which Means Pro Racers May Soon Meet Their Match — “[New] system that allows drones to autonomously navigate an obstacle course of gates with 100 percent accuracy…[so] won’t crash into something and…can adapt if…move a gate mid-run, completing a course that looks different than when they started…using its onboard camera…and the neural network outputs**….** …. [Since] drone isn’t just relying on a static map of its environment, it’s better equipped to react to the unexpected…doing it all onboard[and] will only get more powerful .” Our skies are about to fill up with drones, delivery drones in particular , which will have to avoid…one another [and]…the many obstacles of the big city https://www.wired.com/story/watch-out-pro-racers-these-drones-just-learned-to-fly-solo/ AI recreates chemistry’s periodic table of elements — “[T]he periodic table of elements, arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements in chemistry…[yet] artificial intelligence (AI) program… accomplished the same feat in just a few hours…[unsupervised] using concepts borrowed from…natural language processing…to discover the on its own…. periodic table [ Wanted] ‘to see if we can design an AI that can beat humans in…[remaking] some of the greatest discoveries already made by humans’ …[Plan’s] to discover and design new materials …. [Now] will focus on cracking an intractable problem in medical research: designing just the right antibody to attack antigens…that are specific to cancer cells …. [Humans] produce more than 10 million unique antibodies, each…a different combination of about 50 genes …. ’” ‘[If] map these building block genes onto a mathematical vector…can organize all antibodies into something similar to a periodic table. https://phys.org/news/2018-06-ai-recreates-chemistry-periodic-table.html Bad future developments Trump Remakes America — “[Trump] has attacked American institutions that seek truth and justice… shunned and denigrated…traditional allies and cozied up to…traditional enemies…[and] solidify the court’s conservative majority for a generation_…._ …. [For] person who believes in…equality, respecting choice and identity and civil rights, your vision of America is in jeopardy Conservative strategic thinkers…[think] in terms of generations…[see] demographic tide is moving against them and will soon wash away much of their power…[so] strategy is to slow that progress…[and] restrict immigration, both illegal and legal… push for voter restrictions, suppression and disenfranchisement… mass incarceration. Conservatives want to arrest America’s development…[and] courts are an insurance policy…[using] religion as a weapon, to control…people’s bodies and…full participation in [America]…because of whom they love, how they identify, where they are from or which God they worship…[protecting] ‘American culture,’ which is…white culture. No matter how advantage was gained, no matter how privilege was acquired, it is… scrubbed clean of blood and tears…[and] must be preserved…. …. [Obamacare] asked those with more to help support the health…of those with less…[and] precisely why conservatives hate it…[preferring] Darwinian ecosystem…in which health corresponds directly with wealth To [conservatives] shifting wealth was shifting power…[in] battle over what America was, is and can be ….[It’s] reason that Trump’s base will never abandon him …. .” [So] a man whose candidacy was a joke, whose election was a fluke tainted by fraud… s how a country’s progress can be crippled…right now in large part because too many people thought that it could not https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/opinion/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront A Better Reason to Delay Kennedy’s Replacement — “Mr. McConnell’s blatantly anti-democratic ploy stole a judicial appointment from a popularly elected president and gave it to one who lost the popular vote by millions…[and] should not be permitted to appoint a new Supreme Court justice until after the special counsel investigation is over, and we know [if]…there is evidence of wrongdoing…[since] a court that may one day stand between him and impeach…[can] provide an effective bulwark against autocratic [rule] …. [There’s] several knotty constitutional questions…. Can the president pardon himself or others…to extricate himself from criminal investigation? Can the president be compelled to testify before a grand jury? Can a sitting president be criminally indicted?…. Can a president ever obstruct justice? What is the proper legal remedy for…violations of the Emoluments Clause ?…. [N]ever before has the selection of a Supreme Court nominee been so thoroughly compromised by the president’s profound personal interest in appointing a judge …. …. [President] has surveillance capacities never before seen, vast power to conduct drone strikes and…lethal military operations abroad…to set immigration and law enforcement priorities and…to regulate enormous areas of economic and personal life This is the perfect recipe for autocracy …[so] the importance of checks and balances has never been greater . … .” [Trump] by his own admission, already taken steps to thwart an investigation into his…potential criminality…[and] makes the present moment all the more frightening https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/a-better-reason-to-delay-kennedys-replacement.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront The ACLU’s Biggest Roadblock to Fighting Mass Surveillance — “[ACLU] lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a type of [NSA]…bulk monitoring known as ‘upstream’ surveillance…[but] mired in procedural and bureaucratic limbo…. …. NSA passively monitors and collects…communications by combing international internet traffic as it moves across service providers’ [infrastructure]…[and] suit alleges that this tactic violates the First and Fourth Amendment, along with other laws Now, the government is using…the ‘state secrets privilege,’ which protects classified information from the discovery process in a lawsuit, to resist cooperating…. ’No public court has ever addressed the lawfulness of this surveillance…[and] government has put up a series of obstacles to having…courts fairly and openly litigate the big legal questions at stake here’ …. …. The intelligence community has argued that…[it’s] investigating targets of interest to national security…[but] ACLU points out that this list…recently ballooned to include about 129,000 people…[with] surveillance dragnet is ever-expanding…[it] can sweep up countless people’s irrelevant personal data .” ’It is critical that the federal courts have the information they need to effectively oversee these…unchecked surveillance activities’…[and] measurable chilling effect https://www.wired.com/story/wikimedia-nsa-surveillance-privacy-lawsuit/ The Rise of the Robot Reserve Army: Automation and the Future of Economic Development, Work, and Wages in Developing Countries “[The] emerging economies face a…challenge to traditional…employment generation: automation, digitalization, and labor-saving technologies. …. 1.8 billion jobs — or two-thirds of the current labor force of developing countries…[are] susceptible to automation…particularly in the agricultural and industrial sectors…leading to a bloating of service-sector employment and wage stagnation…which implies socio-political consequences [ Strong] skepticism about…skills-based development strategies alone. Social safety nets…offer one strategy; yet, to the extent that they raise the cost of labor, could…[accelerate] technological substitution…. …. [The] discussions about a living-wage level universal basic income (UBI) somewhat smack of a ‘first-world problem’ Protectionist trade policy in the North could…accelerate reshoring, and…[impact] the developing world …. In the long term, utopian as it may seem…the moral case for a global UBI…[though] difficult to see how such a framework would be politically enacted …. [Thus] three points. automation is challenging the competitive advantage of low-cost labor…. many developing countries have a vulnerable labor force in terms of wage stagnation and premature deindustrialization…. .” we need to ask different policy and research questions and be concerned about the jobs impact of technology and the political economy of automation https://www.cgdev.org/publication/rise-robot-reserve-army-automation-and-future-economic-development-work-and-wages Trump to rescind race guidelines in college admissions — “[Guidelines] Trump officials contend ‘mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows…. Supreme Court has ruled universities may use affirmative action to help minority applicants get into college. …. Conservatives have said such programs can hurt white people and Asian-Americans ” ’The law on this hasn’t changed, and the Supreme Court has twice ruled reaffirming the importance of diversity….This is a purely political attack’ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-education-race/trump-to-rescind-race-guidelines-in-college-admissions-wsj-reports-idUSKBN1JT1HO _Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart & Virtual Assistants_medium.com Reducing Education &Knowledge Gaps Ugly future developments Tech in a time of travesties — “[Today] …as software eats the world, and everything is networked together…[so] the networks controls everything…[and] most valuable public companies in the world…[are] dominated by tech…. technology concentrates power …. Democracy has long been prone to lies and manipulation, but technology’s…ability to concentrate power over elections in the hands of a few is…new and horrifying The idiotic hatred aimed at Central Americans and Maghrebians today is…identical to that which targeted Irish and German immigrants in 19th century…[but] prospect of enforcing that hatred wholesale…[with] a police-state dystopia ‘wall’ of drones and automatic facial-recognition checkpoints…[is] entirely new and terrible …. …. [Finally] employees begin to uneasily realize that what they do is often a…source of anxiety and bullying, and that…[they] may have created space for a new kind of centralized power…which subtly, maliciously manipulates users’ beliefs, and/or…a consensus reality .[ Maybe the centralization of power by technology has become profound enough that the whole Valley / startup mentality…has become dangerous and wrong… Maybe] centralized tech companies has become problematic…. . [Blockchain] permissionlessness is a genuine dissipation of power …[though] concentration of crypto wealth is anything but ….[Still] at least it’s a new mindset… ripe with possibility and the promise of emergent properties .” Too much of the tech industry keeps grimly trying to work the…levers of that increasingly rusted engine https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/01/tech-in-a-time-of-travesties/ _According to The Economist, total spending for the 2016 presidential election will exceed $5 billion — double the 2012…_medium.com Is Silicon Valley Politically Brain Dead? How to fix what has gone wrong with the internet — “The internet was…to make the world a less centralized…but the opposite has happened…[and] failed to deliver the positive, constructive society [hoped]…[hoovering] up everybody’s data and empowers malicious trolls and hackers…. [ …. It’s] dominated by a few giants, from Facebook to Tencent… [in] a new hierarchy…[with] strictly controlled…’walled gardens’…hardly more exciting than television…through their app stores…[and] cloud computing Meanwhile governments…[use] big internet firms as willing enforcers…[to] block unwelcome content …. [Now] a vast collection of data silos with big pipes between them, connected to all kinds of devices which both deliver services and collect more data …. …. [Some] argue that to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI)…online giants should be treated as utilities….[They’re] a source of much invention…[but] dampen it elsewhere, so that fewer new ideas are being tried_._ Venture capitalists now talk about ‘kill zones’, areas they will not invest in because one of the big players may squeeze the life out of startups or buy them up at a low price Walled gardens often limit free speech…[and] makes it easier for Russian trolls and their Western counterparts to meddle in elections by spreading misinformation. …. The concentration of…personal data in one place makes serious leaks more likely….[and] handy for spooks, as shown by…Edward Snowden …. And online giants have plenty of cash to influence offline politics A sense of a new beginning is also in the air…based on blockchain technology …. .” [Others] argue that without the free services…by companies such as Google and Facebook, far fewer people would be using the internet…[and] make the case against regulation…[as is] thriving in China https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/06/28/how-to-fix-what-has-gone-wrong-with-the-internet _Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely_medium.com Curated Knowledge is THE Future of All Power How China Is Trying to Invent the Future as a Science Superpower “Genetic engineering…dark matter, quantum computing…artificial intelligence, brain science…[have] significant implications for future industries, defense technologies and…understandings of what it means to be human…. [ Increasingly] achievements in these fields are coming…[from] China’s extensive research system …[where] spending has grown rapidly over the past two decades…second only to [U.S.]…largely conducted in five institutional sectors…. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)… Universities… company-based R&D, especially in information and communications technology fields… Government research institutes under civilian ministries…for agriculture, public health, environmental protection, natural resources and so on… military …. [All] driven by its top political leaders who see China’s future wealth and power being derived from its research and innovation capabilities…[and] defined by a top-down design process … [It’s] also found in the initiatives of local governments , many of which have become major funders of R&D….[Still] China’s technological progress…[as] a surveillance state…[leaves] little room for privacy and dissent.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-china-is-trying-to-invent-the-future-as-a-science-superpower/ The Complexity of Simply Searching for Medical Advice — “Babies are born with very low stores of vitamin K, and without the Vitamin K shot…they do not have enough Vitamin K in their blood to form a clot,’ the CDC says on its website . But new parents who turn to search engines to understand the practice will find an aberrant — and dangerous — strain of thinking…. …. [It’s] example of a keyword void, or search void…[where] answers about a keyword returns content…by a niche group with a particular agenda ….[O]n Facebook are anti-vax…[articles] reaching an audience of millions. YouTube results are no better…[with] very little counter-content to surface because it simply doesn’t occur to regular people (or…actual medical experts) that there’s a need to produce counter-content [Since] the first few pages of search results repeats these claims, the message looks like it represents a widely-held point of view. . …. But it doesn’t It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, and it’s potentially deadly . Social reinforcement from trusted friends is [important]…when trust in authorities is in crisis … Snopes and FactCheck.org, devoting more resources to combating misinformation. But it’s hard to make corrections go viral…. [T]o answer questions that have a profound impact…especially where health is concerned, this difficulty in discerning, and surfacing, sound science from pseudo-science has alarming consequences …. [W]ill the tech platforms…understand that giving legitimacy to health misinformation via high search and social rankings is profoundly harmful? . Getting high-quality, fact-based health information shouldn’t be dependent on the outcome of SEO games, or on who has more resources for pay-to-play content promotion .’” Ultimately, the question is, how do we incorporate factual accuracy into rankings when no one is willing to be the ‘arbiter of truth https://www.wired.com/story/the-complexity-of-simply-searching-for-medical-advice/ _In the past, street maps on paper were often unwieldy, origami-like traveling companions. While these maps had all the…_medium.com Doc’s — Where Search Ends and Knowledge Begins! Find more of my ideas on Medium at, . A Passion to Evolve Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed. Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me with “add me” in the subject line. dochuston1@gmail.com May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

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