Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (April 2023)

a close up portrait photo of a cyberpunk woman under neon lights
Midjourney prompt : a close up portrait photo of a cyberpunk woman under neon lights, cyan and orange highlights, street photography, lifestyle, wet street –ar 16:9 –testp –upbeta

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing AI generated images fooling so many, OpenAI’s CEO a bit worried about the risks of AI and the cropping bug popping up everywhere.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

You are seeing aspects of this with the FTC banning better health. Content protections to identify fake/modified media and Solar tech being deployed in new and huge ways.


Mozilla takes a bite of the trustworthy AI emerging market?

Ian thinks: During the busy Mozilla Festival, was the announcement Mozilla was investing in the emerging market of trustworthy AI. We all want it but is Mozilla too early or will we look back and say it was perfect time? According to Jaron Lanier maybe Mozilla is perfectly timed.

Everything apps are all about control

Ian thinks: Twitter’s plans to be yet another everything app is painful enough, but if you look deeper into the idea of everything apps. Its super clear the reasons to be the one app to rule them all.

Whats happening in Europe?

Ian thinks: A good summary of the key concerns in Europe explained to an american audience.

The Quantum Revolution

Ian thinks: The FT’s series of podcasts about quantum is enlightening. Although quite dry its still a good listen for those like myself who know a surface level of information.

Why care about Silicon Valley Bank?

Ian thinks: I found this Rocket podcast episode, the most clear reasons why the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank actually matters. Its easy to ignore but looking at the long tail of startups and the people who rely on them, was eye opening.

Making the emerging Fediverse

Ian thinks: There is so much happening in this space of the fediverse its almost like the Metaverse has been forgotten? But I found this panel at the recent Mozilla Festival hit the tone perfectly for a workshop titled designing the future fediverse, run by myself the next day. I also recommend this indepth interview with Mastodon CEO.

Do you know what that public camera is doing?

Ian thinks:I found this Mozilla Festival session, answered one of those questions I wonder about. A QR alongside signs of surveillance, link to a human and machine readable datachain explaining its capability, who is involved, storage, etc. Best of all is the whole project is Apache 2 and CC licensed.

Sites go under but communities stay strong

Ian thinks: Timely reminder in the wake of Twitter, social sites which have gone, been archived and the rich community which stay strong.

Robots and elder care is a mess and needs work

Ian thinks: Japan for me was always the future. However this critical view of robots in elder care really brought a number of technical and cultural concerns into clear view.


Find the archive here

Exploiting technology or exploited by technology?

Mobile payments

In my Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Oct 2019) I wrote brief bit about the curious tale.

Exploiting technology or exploited by technology?
https://www.ft.com/content/e8a177d4-dfae-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc
ian thinks: curious tale, but it does raise a question about digital access and backups. Least we forget about power and when things go technically wrong.

The FT puts things behind the paywall, so here’s a copy I made on wallabag.

Its a number of mistakes which leads to £476.50 fine and a wrongful conviction. This made me reflect on my own usage..

I personally don’t use my phone to pay for things and like the idea of the Curve card because although the mobile app is useful, it can be used without my phone. I do have a card attached to my phone but never use it.

When using mobile tickets for flights and planes, I put them into google drive meaning if my phone is dead, broken or stolen I can still get the tickets with my other devices or another persons device. For this reason I avoid all apps which only display the ticket in side of it. For example the trainline app’s eticket isn’t ideal, hence why I tend to get paper tickets still. When travelling via a plane, I find most of the airlines have a copy you can get via PDF with the 3D barcode included. This goes straight into Gdrive and synced with dropbox on all my systems.
This is also why I prefer services which work offline because mobile/wifi access can be patchy and I don’t want to be reliant on network access to get into my password store or for the 2nd factor. Google maps offline has been a massive help in the past and I haven’t had a bill like I got in America in over 10 years. Shame it doesn’t sync the offline maps to my other devices

I always tend to carry around a battery pack and have a stash of cables in my laptop bag and try and keep the phone charged enough. Especially when going somewhere for a while. Everyone use to follow the ABCs (always be charging) but we all know that’d not great for lithium ion batteries.

Seems a lot to think about but so far its served me well…