Tuesday 29 July 2014

Links for the next meeting - The Circle by Dave Eggars



Wikipedia - the plot and more

A Q&A with Dave Eggars

"I wanted the Circle technology to seem logical and likely in the not-distant future. More than a few times, though, I had to make adjustments when I thought I’d invented some scary new product or feature, only to find it already existed or was on its way."

A review on the tech site Xeconomy

"At the Circle, one disillusioned character comments, there’s “enough money to make any dumb idea real.” The fictional company’s silly side projects, like counting every grain of sand in the Sahara, come off as valid parodies in a decade when Google has sunk untold sums into moonshot ideas like space elevators, jetpacks, hoverboards, teleportation, wireless Internet access via balloons, power from high-altitude kites, and, of course, Google Glass."

Some reasons why people should have privacy

"People hide many things from even their closest friends and family: the fact that they are gay, the fact that they are sick, the fact that they are pregnant, the fact that they are in love with someone else. Though your private life may be especially straightforward, that should not lead you to support policies that would intrude on the more complicated lives of others. There’s a reason we call it private life."

Want to see something really scary?  This is how Google tracks your movements (if you're logged in to a Google account on your smartphone)