Hackers – the perenial cyberpunk protagonist are usually cast in the hero role, fighting against the megacorps. Not so in the real world. In the real world, hackers have just become directly responible for vast quantities of illegal deforestation.
In what has come as a shocking revelation, it appears that hi-tech hackers have played an instrumental role in the illegal deforestation of 1.7million cubic meters of the Amazon rain forest.
According to reports from environmental organization Greenpeace, the hackers were hired by at least 107 different companies to access and alter timber export records held by the Brazilian government. As a result, it’s estimated that an area of forest the size of 780 Olympic swimming pools has been cleared illegally.
Federal prosecutor Daniel Avelino is currently mounting a law suit against the companies involved in the scam, with 202 individuals facing prosecution at this stage.
Brilliant. They hacked the gibson and destroyed the planet just that little bit more. LINK (Money.co.uk)
The robots are coming! The robots are coming! We must flee! Or something to that effect. A paper by Antonio Lopez Pelaez, a professor of sociology at Spain’s National Distance Learning University is predicting a Digital Divide – those with a future that involves being killed by technology, and those who are doomed by less shiny methods.
The International Federation of Robotics predicts the next three years will see significant growth in robot use, particularly in the home and for personal use.
A fourfold increase in robots for entertainment and leisure technology is foreseen for 2011, through a convergence of robotics, computers and home entertainment. The Spanish study concurs, even suggesting many people could become reliant on robotic companions over time.
“A robot might be a more effective partner and a better person than the humans we actually have in our immediate lives,” said Pelaez. “Just as you can see dog owners talking to their pets today, soon we will be talking to robots.”
Thats how they do it. Move into our homes – then kill us all!
Thanks to the Emergency And Disaster Information Service we now have a handy way to track the multitude of crapola being showered on the planet. The map dynamicly updates when a new disater strikes, pretty much any disaster. (No godzilla Alerts yet though) For example, I now know that at the time of writing one person in Dorset, England was killed in flash flooding, and many, many volcanoes are erupting. Amazing.
Well, it had to happen eventually. Finally an answer to the postmodern eternal question – who would win in a fight between a squid and a robot? Nice to see that the clanky future rulers of mankind still have nothing that can compare with the Cthonic denizens of the deep.
