Practical Ethics: Enlightened Surveillance?

Surrendering on surveillance might be the least bad option – of all likely civil liberty encroachments, this seemed the less damaging and hardest to resist. But that’s an overly defensive way of phrasing it – if ubiquitous surveillance and lack of privacy are the trends of the future, we shouldn’t just begrudgingly accept them, but demand that society gets the most possible out of them.

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posted by the man of twists and turns on Apr 18, 2013 - 23 comments

Dr Steve Mann, the inventor of wearable computing, relates his computer-vision-aggravated assault by McDonald's employees.
posted by gilrain on Jul 16, 2012 - 287 comments

Redefining the keyboard. CPUs have gotten smaller, monitors have gotten wider, chairs have gotten ergonomic. Technology has resized our machines to fit our lifestyles, business needs, and personal comfort. But for the past 128 years, the mechanics by which we input text into machines has been dictated not by technology, but by the limitations of our hands. Soon, this era may be over if retired engineer John McKown gets his way. McKown has invented a palm-size one-handed wearable keyboard. Should we embrace this giant leap into mobile computing? Or are we not able to part with a century of QWERTY? (Via NYTimes. Similar ideas have also been discussed here previously.)
posted by PrinceValium on Aug 12, 2002 - 19 comments