This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Tehran for a summit of the guarantors of the so-called Astana process, which aims to find a political settlement in Syria. Apart from a joint session with the other two participants, Iran’s Ibrahim Raisi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin will hold …
Read More »Facebook’s new ‘smart glasses’ could be American spying tool, Russian security agency says, warning of potential ban in country
In a statement published on Monday, officials said that the American-designed ‘smart glasses’ “have design features that mean they can be classified as a special tool intended for secretly obtaining information.” The decision opens the door to a potential ban not only on their sale, but on their use in …
Read More »Majority of Russians didn’t even know Navalny’s ‘Smart Voting’ election app existed, despite Western media focus & legal ban
That’s according to Moscow’s Levada Center, which polled people across the country to determine what, if anything, influenced their preference. The initiative aimed to maximize anti-government ballots by offering tactical voting recommendations, and was banned by the authorities over its links to Navalny’s prohibited network of campaigning groups, which have …
Read More »Navalny allies say Google demanding they delete ‘Smart Voting’ list, as Moscow accuses American firm of ‘election interference’
Navalny’s team posted on its Telegram account what it said was a notice from the US-based tech giant, informing them about a complaint from the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN). The complaint said materials hosted on Google servers were in breach of Russian law, according to the screenshot. Unless the …
Read More »Apple & Google delete Navalny’s ‘Smart Voting’ app after top Russian officials accuse US tech giants of ‘election interference’
The opposition figure’s team confirmed on Friday that the ‘Smart Voting’ platform had been taken down from both Apple’s AppStore and Google Play services after the country’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, called on the American tech firms to implement a government-ordered block. Officials had previously threatened the US firms with hefty …
Read More »Facebook’s smart glasses are an attempt to profit from our narcissistic culture, and also a cause for privacy concern
It is always necessary and valuable to ask what problem is being solved when confronted with a new technology or innovation. Facebook’s ‘Ray-Ban Stories’ smart sunglasses – which can take photos, record video, answer phone calls, and play podcasts – need such interrogation. According to Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook …
Read More »LifeLog 2.0.? Facebook summons the ghost of Google Glass with Ray-Ban ‘smart glasses’ capable of stealthily recording uninitiated
The first product of a reported multi-year device partnership with Facebook, Ray-Ban ‘Stories’ sunglasses are almost indistinguishable from normal eyewear – except they sync up with a companion app called Facebook View on the user’s phone and require a Facebook account to use, according to Alex Heath, who tested them …
Read More »$750mn in artillery gear & smart bomb kits: Biden’s first arms sale to Taiwan gets State Department approval
Announced Wednesday, the proposed sale involves 40 155mm self-propelled artillery guns and related gear, a number of vehicles and machine guns, as well as nearly 1,700 precision guidance kits used to convert ‘dumb’ projectiles into GPS-guided munitions, according to a State Department notice to Congress. The administration claimed the sale …
Read More »‘America: The Motion Picture’ is so stupid it actually thinks it’s smart… just like the country it parodies
‘America: The Motion Picture’ is a new animated feature film on Netflix that parodies the founding fathers and the American revolution. The movie, directed by Matt Thompson and written by Dave Callahan, boasts a stellar voice cast of Channing Tatum, Bobby Moynihan, Will Forte, Olivia Munn, Simon Pegg and Andy …
Read More »Majority of Ukrainians ‘smart’ to reject NATO, they know it’s Russian ‘red line’ & US only wants them as ‘cannon fodder’ – Putin
“At least 50% of Ukrainians do not want the country to join NATO,” Putin said in an interview with the Russia 1 news channel on Wednesday, “and these are smart people.” “I am speaking without irony, and not because the others are stupid,” the president added, “but because those people …
Read More »