Technology
Deepening Dependency on Technology Raises Risk of Breakdowns
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Hong Kong’s main stock index plummeted as much as 8.5 percent on Wednesday as a sell-off in mainland Chinese shares accelerated despite new measures to support the market; U.S. stocks were poised to open lower. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writers
BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writers
Technology has become so indispensable that when it breaks down, people’s lives go haywire, too.
Computer outages at United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday delivered a reminder about our growing dependence on interconnected networks to get through each day.
For the most part, technology has worked smoothly while hatching innovations and conveniences that have made our lives easier and our jobs more productive. Computers, though, could bring more frequent headaches as they link together with billions of other electronic devices and household appliances— a phenomenon that has become known as the “Internet of things.”
This technological daisy chain will increase the complexity of the systems and raise the risks of massive breakdowns, either through an inadvertent glitch or a malicious attack.
“The problem is humans can’t keep up with all the technology they have created,” said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner. “It’s becoming unmanageable by the human brain. Our best hope may be that computers eventually will become smart enough to maintain themselves.”
Technology already is controlling critical systems such as airline routes, electricity grids, financial markets, military weapons, commuter trains, street traffic lights and our lines of communications.
Now, computers are taking other aspects of our lives as we depend on smartphones to wake us up in the morning before an app turns on the coffee pot in the kitchen for a caffeine fix that can be enjoyed in a the comfort of a home kept at an ideal temperature by an Internet-connected thermostat designed to learn the occupant’s preferences.
Within the next few years, we may even be unlocking our doors with high-tech watches after being chauffeured home in robotic cars.
Technology’s relentless march demands better security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into system and more rigid programming standards to reduce the chances of crippling outages, said Lillian Ablon, a technology researcher for the Rand Corp.
“Instead of just letting the technology rush ahead of us and then trying to catch up in terms of privacy and security, we should be baking those things into the systems from the start,” she said. “We need to be a little smarter on how we are coding things.”
The sequence of Wednesday’s outages appears to have been a fluke. Sabotage isn’t suspected, FBI Director James Comey said during an appearance before Congress.
But a domino effect may have contributed to The Wall Street Journal’s outage. Comey believes the newspaper’s website buckled after the New York Stock Exchange’s problems caused alarmed investors looking for information to swamp the Journal’s website.
The length of Wednesday’s outages also is disconcerting, Gartner’s Litan said.
It took the New York Stock Exchange more than three-and-half hours to resume trading, slowing Wall Street’s usually furious pace. A “router issue” at United Airlines grounded its planes for nearly two hours, leading to 800 flight delays and 60 cancellations.
“Everyone needs to assume technology is going to go down sometimes, but you should be resilient enough to quickly recover from the outage within a half hour, if not a few minutes,” Litan said.
Wednesday’s breakdowns were minor inconveniences compared with what might happen if better security measures aren’t imposed to keep out intruders bent on wreaking havoc, said Jeff Williams, chief technology officer for Contrast Security.
Too often, the technology industry’s focus is on creating something cool and worrying about security later, Williams said. He said the lackadaisical attitude breeds a mindset like this: “Oh, we’ll just put your blender on the Internet, there are no security issues there. And hackers figure out a way to turn on your blender in the middle of the night and set your house on fire.”
Computers may get smarter through a combination of better programming, machine learning and more sophisticated chips. If computers can reach the still far-off goal of becoming artificially intelligent, they could be better equipped to prevent problems and fend off unauthorized users. Self-reliant and self-aware computers would still confront humans with a scary question, Litan said: “Are the computers going to be nice to us or are they going to take us out?”
___
Liedtke reported from San Francisco and Ortutay reported from New York. Jon Fahey in New York and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this story.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Community
Attorney General Rob Bonta, Oakland Lawmakers, Introduce Legislation to Protect Youth Online
At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.
By Magaly Muñoz
At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online.
The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.
Skinner authored SB 976, which addresses online addiction affecting teenage users, while Wicks’s bill, AB 1949, takes on big tech by proposing data privacy and children rights protections.
“Social media companies unfortunately show us time and time again that they are all too willing to ignore the detriment to our children, the pain to our children, the mental health and physical challenges they face, in order to pursue profits,” Bonta said.
SB 976 would allow parents to control the nature and frequency of the content their under-18-year-old children see on social media. Notifications from social media platforms would also be paused from midnight to 6 am and controls would allow parents to set time limits on their children’s usage based on their discretion.
Skinner stated that the longer that kids are on their phones during the day, the higher the risk for depression, anxiety and other related issues.
The bill would also push to get rid of addictive media that is harmful for young women and girls, specifically image filters that mimic cosmetic plastic surgery.
Bonta and 33 other attorney generals had previously filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the popular social media applications Instagram and Facebook. The filing claims that the company purposefully uses algorithmized content that harms younger audiences.
“Social media companies have the ability to protect our kids, they could act, but they do not,” Skinner said.
The Child Data Privacy Act would strengthen existing protections for data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The lawmakers argue that the law does not have effective protection for those under 18 years old.
Wicks stated that the bill would forbid businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone underage unless they receive informed consent, or it becomes necessary for the purpose of the business.
Wicks added that the acts would make it so that a search on the internet like “How do I lose weight?” would not result in dieting pill advertisements targeting youth, which, some experts report, could be harmful to their mental and physical health.
“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind, our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” Wicks said.
Supporters of the two acts say they have gained bipartisan support issue, but the authors and Bonta expect them to be met with pushback from the affected companies.
#NNPA BlackPress
Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible
Performance & Handling Powered by a robust 5.0 Liter Supercharged 8 Cylinder Gas Engine, the F-Type R75 doesn’t just purr; it roars with a mighty 575 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque. Coupled with an 8-speed Automatic Transmission, the car offers an exhilarating drive that is both fast and smooth. The All-Wheel Drive system ensures […]
The post Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
Performance & Handling
Powered by a robust 5.0 Liter Supercharged 8 Cylinder Gas Engine, the F-Type R75 doesn’t just purr; it roars with a mighty 575 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque. Coupled with an 8-speed Automatic Transmission, the car offers an exhilarating drive that is both fast and smooth. The All-Wheel Drive system ensures excellent traction and stability, making it a joy to handle in various driving conditions. The Electric Power Assisted Steering and JaguarDrive Control
with Selectable Driving Modes add to the car’s agility, providing a driving experience that is as intuitive as it is thrilling. Additionally, the Adaptive Dynamics and Electronic Active Differential with Torque Vectoring by Braking enhance the car’s responsiveness, making every turn a testament to its engineering prowess. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.
Like us on and share https://www.facebook.com/autonetwork
#AutoNetwork
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The post Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
#NNPA BlackPress
Elevate Your Ride…
Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes […]
The post Elevate Your Ride… first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes the F-TYPE AWD convertible stand out on the road. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.
Like us on and share https://www.facebook.com/autonetwork
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Subscribe to our channel now for more videos.
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The post Elevate Your Ride… first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
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Technology
Deepening Dependency on Technology Raises Risk of Breakdowns
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Hong Kong’s main stock index plummeted as much as 8.5 percent on Wednesday as a sell-off in mainland Chinese shares accelerated despite new measures to support the market; U.S. stocks were poised to open lower. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writers
BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writers
Technology has become so indispensable that when it breaks down, people’s lives go haywire, too.
Computer outages at United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday delivered a reminder about our growing dependence on interconnected networks to get through each day.
For the most part, technology has worked smoothly while hatching innovations and conveniences that have made our lives easier and our jobs more productive. Computers, though, could bring more frequent headaches as they link together with billions of other electronic devices and household appliances— a phenomenon that has become known as the “Internet of things.”
This technological daisy chain will increase the complexity of the systems and raise the risks of massive breakdowns, either through an inadvertent glitch or a malicious attack.
“The problem is humans can’t keep up with all the technology they have created,” said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner. “It’s becoming unmanageable by the human brain. Our best hope may be that computers eventually will become smart enough to maintain themselves.”
Technology already is controlling critical systems such as airline routes, electricity grids, financial markets, military weapons, commuter trains, street traffic lights and our lines of communications.
Now, computers are taking other aspects of our lives as we depend on smartphones to wake us up in the morning before an app turns on the coffee pot in the kitchen for a caffeine fix that can be enjoyed in a the comfort of a home kept at an ideal temperature by an Internet-connected thermostat designed to learn the occupant’s preferences.
Within the next few years, we may even be unlocking our doors with high-tech watches after being chauffeured home in robotic cars.
Technology’s relentless march demands better security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into system and more rigid programming standards to reduce the chances of crippling outages, said Lillian Ablon, a technology researcher for the Rand Corp.
“Instead of just letting the technology rush ahead of us and then trying to catch up in terms of privacy and security, we should be baking those things into the systems from the start,” she said. “We need to be a little smarter on how we are coding things.”
The sequence of Wednesday’s outages appears to have been a fluke. Sabotage isn’t suspected, FBI Director James Comey said during an appearance before Congress.
But a domino effect may have contributed to The Wall Street Journal’s outage. Comey believes the newspaper’s website buckled after the New York Stock Exchange’s problems caused alarmed investors looking for information to swamp the Journal’s website.
The length of Wednesday’s outages also is disconcerting, Gartner’s Litan said.
It took the New York Stock Exchange more than three-and-half hours to resume trading, slowing Wall Street’s usually furious pace. A “router issue” at United Airlines grounded its planes for nearly two hours, leading to 800 flight delays and 60 cancellations.
“Everyone needs to assume technology is going to go down sometimes, but you should be resilient enough to quickly recover from the outage within a half hour, if not a few minutes,” Litan said.
Wednesday’s breakdowns were minor inconveniences compared with what might happen if better security measures aren’t imposed to keep out intruders bent on wreaking havoc, said Jeff Williams, chief technology officer for Contrast Security.
Too often, the technology industry’s focus is on creating something cool and worrying about security later, Williams said. He said the lackadaisical attitude breeds a mindset like this: “Oh, we’ll just put your blender on the Internet, there are no security issues there. And hackers figure out a way to turn on your blender in the middle of the night and set your house on fire.”
Computers may get smarter through a combination of better programming, machine learning and more sophisticated chips. If computers can reach the still far-off goal of becoming artificially intelligent, they could be better equipped to prevent problems and fend off unauthorized users. Self-reliant and self-aware computers would still confront humans with a scary question, Litan said: “Are the computers going to be nice to us or are they going to take us out?”
___
Liedtke reported from San Francisco and Ortutay reported from New York. Jon Fahey in New York and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this story.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Community
Attorney General Rob Bonta, Oakland Lawmakers, Introduce Legislation to Protect Youth Online
At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.
By Magaly Muñoz
At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online.
The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.
Skinner authored SB 976, which addresses online addiction affecting teenage users, while Wicks’s bill, AB 1949, takes on big tech by proposing data privacy and children rights protections.
“Social media companies unfortunately show us time and time again that they are all too willing to ignore the detriment to our children, the pain to our children, the mental health and physical challenges they face, in order to pursue profits,” Bonta said.
SB 976 would allow parents to control the nature and frequency of the content their under-18-year-old children see on social media. Notifications from social media platforms would also be paused from midnight to 6 am and controls would allow parents to set time limits on their children’s usage based on their discretion.
Skinner stated that the longer that kids are on their phones during the day, the higher the risk for depression, anxiety and other related issues.
The bill would also push to get rid of addictive media that is harmful for young women and girls, specifically image filters that mimic cosmetic plastic surgery.
Bonta and 33 other attorney generals had previously filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the popular social media applications Instagram and Facebook. The filing claims that the company purposefully uses algorithmized content that harms younger audiences.
“Social media companies have the ability to protect our kids, they could act, but they do not,” Skinner said.
The Child Data Privacy Act would strengthen existing protections for data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The lawmakers argue that the law does not have effective protection for those under 18 years old.
Wicks stated that the bill would forbid businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone underage unless they receive informed consent, or it becomes necessary for the purpose of the business.
Wicks added that the acts would make it so that a search on the internet like “How do I lose weight?” would not result in dieting pill advertisements targeting youth, which, some experts report, could be harmful to their mental and physical health.
“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind, our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” Wicks said.
Supporters of the two acts say they have gained bipartisan support issue, but the authors and Bonta expect them to be met with pushback from the affected companies.
#NNPA BlackPress
Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible
Performance & Handling Powered by a robust 5.0 Liter Supercharged 8 Cylinder Gas Engine, the F-Type R75 doesn’t just purr; it roars with a mighty 575 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque. Coupled with an 8-speed Automatic Transmission, the car offers an exhilarating drive that is both fast and smooth. The All-Wheel Drive system ensures […]
The post Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
Performance & Handling
Powered by a robust 5.0 Liter Supercharged 8 Cylinder Gas Engine, the F-Type R75 doesn’t just purr; it roars with a mighty 575 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque. Coupled with an 8-speed Automatic Transmission, the car offers an exhilarating drive that is both fast and smooth. The All-Wheel Drive system ensures excellent traction and stability, making it a joy to handle in various driving conditions. The Electric Power Assisted Steering and JaguarDrive Control with Selectable Driving Modes add to the car’s agility, providing a driving experience that is as intuitive as it is thrilling. Additionally, the Adaptive Dynamics and Electronic Active Differential with Torque Vectoring by Braking enhance the car’s responsiveness, making every turn a testament to its engineering prowess. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.
Like us on and share https://www.facebook.com/autonetwork
#AutoNetwork
#AutoNetworkReports
Subscribe to our channel now for more videos.
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/liveautos
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/autonetwork
Coupons Offers and Deals https://www.couponsoffersanddeals.com/
The post Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
#NNPA BlackPress
Elevate Your Ride…
Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes […]
The post Elevate Your Ride… first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes the F-TYPE AWD convertible stand out on the road. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.
Like us on and share https://www.facebook.com/autonetwork
#AutoNetwork
#AutoNetworkReports
Subscribe to our channel now for more videos.
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/liveautos
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/autonetwork
Coupons Offers and Deals https://www.couponsoffersanddeals.com/
The post Elevate Your Ride… first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
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