Category Archives: IT

March 13, 2019 · 11:24

Comprehension amok

We get it, some games are flawed, and some games go for the image of coolness and fail. We heard it well over 12,324 times, through articles and YouTube videos. Anthem, a game that is not bad is a failure. Some have a deeper idea, was this due to EA, or to Bioware? The issue is that the makers were no beginners. Bioware, the people behind the Mass Effect series, Dragon Age and a few more had a great track record. Even now, Mass Effect 2 is still one of the very best games to make it to any console ever, which is some achievement, and it remains a factor, even today.

Some give the decent feedback ‘a cool looking game that is not bad, but it is not getting us where we want to be‘. I can get along with it. Then I got a hold of a slide which is more important than you might ever realise. Another quote that matters is: ‘Anthem is an example of EA’s monetisation plans in action‘, we now have two settings that can easily make a game go from acceptable to really really bad. This matters when it is not merely a game you buy, but when it becomes Gaming As A Service. The issue is not how much you pump into it; it is how right you need to get it the first time over. They dropped one optional solution to it (not part of this conversation) and focussed on the artificially created Hype called Anthem.

I had seen issues with Destiny, so I was giving this game a wide birth until the game had proven itself and within 24 hours, the massive amount of complaints starting to hit the internet in close to every way possible. I was actually decently amazed how neutral and how considerate some reviewers were. the AngryJoeShow was its usual self, but for mere entertainment watching it is still the first step to consider, I do to see where haters come from, and he does not disappoint (a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AJsKyh0x7w). When we see the statement (supported by evidence of sorts) that the loading of the game took longer than the actual gameplay, we see just how far Bioware had fallen of the wagon, or was that EA? Angry Joe gives a list that does not screw around. This does not merely indicate that there is a core issue, there are other parts linked to the core that give strong indication that EA failed on too many levels, optionally Bioware also failed on several levels, yet in all this we need to take a look at a screenshot.

When you make a game where jet packs are central in the gameplay, the makers need to consider that some people think outside of the box. So when we are in a cave and we see a large opening, large enough to fly through, so when you try and you get slapped back for no good reason, we see the first larger failing, the tactical side that was not thought through. Levels made on cosmetic states where the state of consideration should only ever have been tactical, so either remove the good looking hole giving you ambient feelings of lighting, or make sure we can use it as an escape cover. The second screenshot was early art work I was able to find. Now, I do not know whether that is in the game, but it seems to me that it is a clear sign of copyright violation and an optionally downright stage of plagiarism.

For some reason the stage reminded me of Alien 1979 and Aliens 1986, but then I might be wrong. If that is set as early concept art, it should have been a huge wake up call for both Bioware and EA, right there is where people had to consider the danger they were walking into.

Yet, for me this is not about those failings, for me there is another side, there are actually two sides. We see that with the GAAS image. The two elements that were there above all others were Player Centric and Lifetime value. Al the indications shown by so many people give us that these two were not merely ignored, they were not comprehended by the people trying to sell the idea, and they added catchwords to sell the money maker, without comprehending the impact it had, that is how I see it.

Player Centric comes from Customer centric. Yet there we see in one place: “Customer centric is a way of doing business with your customer in a way that provides a positive customer experience before and after the sale in order to drive repeat business, customer loyalty and profits. But, a customer-centric company is more than a company that offers good service. A place like Amazon is a prime examples of brands that are customer centric and have spent years creating a culture around the customer and their needs“, and when we consider that part, we see that Anthem would not have passed the Alpha stage at present before August 2019, that alone means that of the 6 elements, one is a 80% failure, making the game 17% less effective right of the bat. The additional testing and reconnaissance of the game in real live server environment would have shown 4 essential elements to be too far below par. The load screens, the loot, the tactical setting of the map(s) and the story-lines, storytelling as well as the interactive parts (those three all count towards the story dimension).

Here we see the failing of the presented Player Centric part. This also impacts the second element, namely ‘Lifetime Value’. The moment the player centric parts were hit, ‘Litetime Value’ was equally hit, but to a much larger extent. It is clear that proper testing would have ousted many of the elements, as such it stands to reason that either the makers BE-A (my optimistic version of this merger) never cared, or did not properly do the essential testing and fixing. All what I have seen (console versions only) indicates that it could have become a nice game when it gets to the beta stage; the game is nowhere near that ready. The graphics look good, but good graphics on a failed core is still a failed game.

Say What?

that is where the issue starts, a game that does not look bad and has potential is in the GAAS (Gaming As A Service) still a failed project when it does not meet certain expectations and Anthem fails a few of them. Even as I was never a fan of this genre, I see issues that I should never have noticed and those are really badly managed issues.

Still we should acknowledge that it is a failed, but not a bad game, which also implies that what went wrong, could optionally be fixed, yet when we get to the loot part, we see just how far the model failed. The loot is mentioned by several to be massively repetitive, in the stage of this game where the weapons are shown we see too much repetition making the loot way too bland, so when we look at this part against ‘High User Engagement‘, over a period of 6 years, we see that the third part fails too, at least when we consider player expectation. In all this when we see that other elements can only be bought, we see the drive towards Recurring Revenue Business, a side that will not be successful as three elements have already failed for too much. At that point the game has gone from 83% to a mere 41% effective as a GAAS experiment, a stage that could have been avoided to a much larger extent if it had only been tested better, stronger and with more diligence.

They did get the graphics right, and it looks cool, but there again we see that a real GAAS solution is so much more and the fact that one of their alleged slides show the failures to this degree, we see that gamers should be upset. A game like this could not be sold in any other way than an open BETA, optionally an open BETA that is for those who have pre-ordered (and pre-paid the game) offering these people unique gear and weapons, for their effort, that might have worked, giving them additional options would have made things even better and it would all have been in support of ‘Recurring Revenue Business‘, as well as ‘Multi-Platform Business‘, gamers love that shit. To be regarded as official beta testers upping the game to such an extent? Gamers would buy the game for the mere notion (as long as it comes with actual unique gear).

So as we see this game and the game maker we see that comprehension went amok on a few levels, in this I would point the finger at EA (for the most) yet the stage of whomever let this game slip towards the ‘approved for release’ that person should never ever be allowed anywhere near the gaming industry ever.

In the end I wonder if they have seen the Single Player GAAS opportunity that Mass Effect Andromeda would enable for. That is if they ever get a visionary to call the shots on that part of the equation, because if they fix up that game, they could have the stage of ‘High User Engagement‘ that surpasses 110%, which would be a legendary achievement to say the least.

If there is one accomplishment that does stand out beyond the graphics then it is the person who decided that hiring Sarah Schachner was a good idea. She created two pieces, AC: Origin and Anthem both soundtracks that make you wonder if they were even made by the same person and she hits the ball straight out of Fenway Park, twice in a row mind you. Two soundtracks that were utterly amazing, yes, the Music of Anthem does exceed all human expectations (merely my view, but I stand by it); as such I expect to see more great work from her in the future. If EA and Bioware can get the rest right, they might have a chance to survive this expensive overpriced, wrongly focussed ordeal called Anthem.

The EA shareholders would definitely be appreciative of that notion.

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Tagged as AC Origin, Alien, Aliens, Angry Joe Show, Anthem, Beta testing, Bioware, Customer centric, Destiny, EA, Electronic Arts, Fenway Park, GAAS, Mass Effect, Mass Effect Andromeda, Player Centric, Ridley Scott, Sarah Schachner

March 12, 2019 · 11:31

The assassin’s methodology

In the intelligence world methodology matters, it is actually a game maker in that setting. We seem to think that some parts were fabrication, we seem to hide behind the slogan ‘If it looks like Hollywood, it is fake‘, yet that premise is not quite accurate. In the 90’s there was a time where the Wetwork business had a massive shortage of recruits and volunteers. That all changed when someone decided to park a 747 in a building in New York, but before that there was a shortage. Those people worked all over Europe, usually in construction, often well-educated with a focus to be placed all over the EMEA region. They were often called Technical Account Managers (or Technical Consultants). Often not linked to a company, self-employed short term hires that got in did what needed to be done and left. It is that era where the strategic sense of segregation, isolation, assassination comes from.

To make another leap, some might remember the Austrian raid on its own intelligence service in 2018, if it was only that simple. When Reuters gave somewhere in May 2018 “That led some allied countries to fear that intelligence they had given to Austria might have been compromised“, if it was only that simple, the raid was 24 years late. The independent had part of it in 1994. It took me a while to find it, yet (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-mafia-summit-in-austria-1425805.html) we merely see: “Russia’s crime bosses held an unusual mob summit in Austria last month to discuss gambling, contract killings and other shady business back home, AP reports. The daily newspaper Izvestia reported that ‘Participants (also) enjoyed an extensive cultural programme. They even went skiing in the Alps.’“, there were two additional participants, two elements that would be speaking to a few only; they were one senior plus one additional representative from the FSB. It was not what they did and where they went, those bosses got a clear message where not to go and who not to bother. They already had a spread system in place, from Katendrecht (Rotterdam harbour district) to Antwerp and Monchengladbach Germany, they had channels in place and they were making a bundle (read: serious amounts of cash). So for these Wetwork TAM’s to stay under the radar was quite the challenge over there. The Russians were almost everywhere. Yet it changed, somehow in 1997/1998 the Germans got the upper hand in Germany and cleaned the place up by a lot. Some of the Russians went underground, some merely changed positions; there was an impact. One of these moments was seen in the Dutch newspapers (at https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/1997/07/29/man-ontvluchtte-moskou-politie-voert-onderzoek-uit-7362317-a714933), the case is larger than shown. What was not widely known was that there was some kind of an agreement between the FSB (read: former KGB people) and the Russian mafia itself. Germany got a handle on it somehow and even as the ‘evidence’ was staring them in the face, it was ignored. The firm Lorit was quite literally Tirol (his Moscow office) backwards. The newspapers at that point mentioned “Rozenbaoum kocht het huis in 1993 voor acht ton. Op het dak staan twee satellietantennes. Daarmee hield hij contact met zijn vrachtwagenchauffeurs die door Europa reden” which translates to: “Rozenbaoum bought the house in 1993 for 800K. There are two satellite antennas on the roof. He kept in touch with his truck drivers who drove through Europe“, it was 60Km from the German border and 92Km from the German base monitoring a lot of traffic. A lot more was going on, even then and as some issues were buried into miscommunication and a considerable amount of cases linked to the response: ‘I am unable to recall the precise details of those events‘, there were several indirect links to Austria, yet those were seemingly never proven.

How does this relate to today?

This relates to an article in ‘The Hill’ (at https://thehill.com/policy/technology/433497-trump-admin-threatens-to-withhold-intelligence-from-germany-unless-it-drops) 4 hours ago when we were introduced to: ‘Trump admin threatens to withhold intelligence from Germany unless it drops Huawei‘, so not only is the Trump Administration dumb and ignorant. not only have they not ever found, or produced any evidence that Huawei equipment was an actual security danger (not since 2012 have they given anything). They are now ready to alienate the one nation in Europe that had success against Russian operatives as well as against Russian organised crime (often linked to FSB priorities) and we are introduced to “The Wall Street Journal obtained a letter dated Friday from U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell to Germany’s economics minister saying that intelligence sharing would be limited if Huawei or other Chinese vendors are allowed to participate in building Germany’s 5G network“, so in that one place where the CIA has been useless for the longest of times (an exaggeration, read: a little too often), they are now biting the hand that has been feeding THEM intelligence. So when I presented: ‘segregation, isolation, assassination‘, I did so for a reason, I have never seen a target do this to their own survival chances, which is a novel experience to read. Even as the Germans offer: “Germany says it has seen no evidence that Huawei had or could use its equipment to spy on its users and that it should be allowed to bid for the country’s 5G network if it meets security criteria“, we see clear evidence of the Americans remaining utterly stupid. If only they had adopted the speech Alex Younger (MI-6) had. We can argue against that, but the premise was at least sound, the Americans did not even bother with that part, they have not bothered with that part of the equation since 2012. This is what I would call the result of taking intelligence out of ‘intelligence services‘, it merely becomes a speaking stage of services to whoever is a competitor of Huawei (they must be a non-Chinese or Russian player though).

We have seen several actual experts on 5G voice the issue that leaving out Huawei will delay true 5G for years that is what is in play and the Americans need to wise up fast. This seemingly implies that America has additional losses to register, not only in technology, not only in cloud issues, the German intelligence data that is a lot more important than anyone gives it credit to is likely to stop flowing to the US and to other players, which is not a good turn of events. In addition, the collected information on lone wolves, intelligence France needs might end up in a holding pattern if wrong pressure is applied. If quality intelligence equates to time, what else will France (or the Dutch) lose out on? There is no way to tell, I cannot even speculate on that. The issue will however become a lot more clear if both nations will have to deal with successful actions by extremist groups, as well as lost revenue by certain ‘entrepreneurial Russian entities’, something that was always going to happen, but perhaps not to the degree these places might see in 2019-2020.

So whilst we give consideration of ‘U.S. officials are increasingly sounding the alarm over the potential for Chinese spying‘, all whilst Facebook is giving away the data for free, we see a loaded cannon and the US is aiming it at their own needs. The US has had almost 7 years to collect evidence and present this, it was never done. In addition some of the true top ranking experts in that field have not been able to present any evidence, and finally, the US credibility is just too low. Perhaps some remember US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his silver briefcase giving evidence behind closed doors on the evidence of WMD’s in Iraq. How did that end? Does anyone remember? So when it is merely ‘adaptable’ telecom equipment, they better show the goods. The Americans has thus far not done that and the utter complacency of US tech corporations have become a joke to say the least. In this age of re-engineering, to end up 3 years behind China requires a truly new level of stupidity (read: short coming) and it is time for the people to realise that. Once the evidence comes out that there is no evidence, make sure that people making bold statements (like former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull) get their honours stripped, they facilitated directly against the needs of the Australian people and that should come at a price. Of course the US could clearly present the evidence and get that same former Prime Minister off the hook mind you.

I see merely cogs that are greased through nepotism, facilitation and the need for greed by some tech companies who could not get their ducks in a row in time. We really need to put the spotlights on those people too. In the end methodology is a simple approach, it goes from evidence, what we know, where someone will be, where something will appear and we act on that. The US fictive side in all this tends to go via the cloud solution called ‘delusion’ it has no grasp of evidence, it has no stage of reality and is merely the stage for people on what they desire whilst the do not have what the consumer needed in the first place, how was that ever an acceptable pasture to place your herd of needs?

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Tagged as 5G, Alex Younger, Amex Younger, Antwerp, Austrian Intelligence, CIA, Colin Powell, Dutch, Facebook, FSB, Germany, Huawei, Independent, Katendrecht, Lorit, Malcolm Turnbull, MI-6, Monchengladbach, NRC, reuters, Richard Grenell, Rotterdam, Rotterdam harbour, Rozenbaoum, Russian Mafia, The Hill, Tirol, US Secretary of State, Vienna, Wall Street Journal

March 1, 2019 · 11:38

The BS of Software and hardware

We all have that moment where we wonder where ethical boundaries are. Where is the boundary of deceptive conduct, where is the boundary of profiteering and who knows what a moral centre is?

From my point of view Microsoft skates on every boundary not really giving a damn, especially giving a damn and regards towards their consumers.

The consumer has been deceived for a long time, Microsoft will never call it that, but Computerworld (at https://www.computerworld.com/article/3342416/new-non-security-win10-patches-fix-numerous-bugs-but-wheres-version-1809.html) gives us: “you’ll only get them if you manually download and install them or if, in Windows Update, you click Check for Updates. That’s a deception I’ve railed against for months, but apparently somebody at Microsoft thinks that being a seeker – clicking Check for Updates – gives the updater permission to install these lurking patches, without notification or consent.”

In addition Variety gives us in part more with “New hardware sales dropped 6.1%. That drop, GameStop says, was because of 2017’s strong Xbox One X sales, but was also offset by strong growth in Nintendo Switch sales. New video game sales dropped 8.3%“, with an added “Microsoft has seen the following growth as a result of Xbox Game Pass“, which is in all honesty an awesome deal for any gamer, especially as the price would be great at twice the amount, there is no denying that. Yet every indication I have seen gives me the clear indication that the 8.3% drop might be including the Game Pass offer as that is also new video game sales. You see all those new mighty titles that were added with the launch day premise is part of new software sales making the hardship of Microsoft a lot harder than we thought it was. Tech Central adds to this with ‘Microsoft’s Surface sales edge $2bn despite chip shortage‘, you might think it is good, Yet as a surface is set to $1350, the math gives us less than 1.5 million surface pro systems sold, which on a global scale is really bad news. When I expect my own IP to do at least twice that amount, the entire stage of Microsoft is just faltering on too many levels.

Their approach to gamer exploitation (too much advertisement on the console home page, leaving much less space for game icons to start, the never ending pushed Microsoft advertisement on our consoles without the option to switch it off, the news giving us Nintendo Switch Sales Pass 32 Million in under two years, whilst the estimated lifetime sales of the Xbox One is now around 41 million (in 6+ years), that so called ‘strongest console in the world‘ equaled now by the weakest console, exact numbers are unknown as Microsoft is no longer giving us exact console sales numbers.

We saw only two weeks ago on how all surface laptops and tablets are getting massive discounts, sales are not good. From my point of view, Microsoft played a very dangerous game and comes up short. The short selling of hardware, below essential needs to push for accessories, consoles that are too shallow, with a mere 1 TB whilst the going need for basic use passed the 2 TB point two years ago, no corrections were ever made. When we take a critical look at the Financial Express article (at https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/satya-nadella-bullish-on-microsoft-surface-sales/1472634/), and consider “Revenue in personal computing was $13 billion and Surface is now almost a $2 billion business for Microsoft” most will ignore the hidden parts of too few Surface systems sold, the increased discounts making revenue interesting, yet profits would decrease to almost zero. It is the stage of badly expecting the needs of the consumers. It goes from bad to worse when we see VentureBeat giving us: ‘Microsoft really doesn’t want you to buy Office 2019‘, with the added “Microsoft today launched a marketing campaign pitting Office 2019 and Office 365 against each other. The goal? To prove Office 2019 isn’t worth buying — you and your company should go with Office 365 instead.” It is product versus SaaS, and they want Software as a Service to win (likely for tax reasons which is purely speculative from my side). There is also the need of more and more commitment, subscription versus one off sales. So when we see: “Office 365 includes fully-installed Office applications — the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. But those apps keep getting better over time, with new capabilities delivered every month“, it would initially make sense to get the subscription. Yet I do not want to be online all the time, having to connect is just too much of an inconvenience when I travel and all the excuses that Microsoft hands us are not getting accepted by yours truly. As for the bugs, we need to be fair here, MS Office is so huge, a bug free version is pretty much out of the question, the issue is, does it actually impact you? The few bugs that bug me only happen in extreme situations and I have for the most used Office 2012 without any hitches. If there are ugly bugs, I never really stumbled on them, another reality we need to accept, but it is not about acceptance.

You see, all this got started with ‘‘We won’t be war profiteers’: Microsoft workers protest $480m army contract‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/22/microsoft-protest-us-army-augmented-reality-headsets ), you short change consumers, mislead people on a global scale through carefully phrased words and you have an issue with a defence contract? It is even worse when we see “Workers say augmented reality headsets provided to US army risk ‘turning warfare into a simulated video game’“, it is from my point of view that these people have no or almost no comprehension of warfare. The images are those of warfare and terrorism, if we can diminish that impact on US soldiers, why would the Microsoft employees resist? In addition, in the shown concept image, if the mini-map keeps them alive, for Zen’s sake give it to them. When I see the lack of ethics that Microsoft has shown with their concept of what is perfectly acceptable and legal, the response ““We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” reads a petition being circulated inside the company, a copy of which was published on Twitter on Friday afternoon. More than 50 employees had signed the letter as of Friday afternoon, according to an employee“.

The response fails on two levels. In the first the augmented lenses are not a weapon, it is a tool and we can go as far as calling it a tactical tool that could give an edge on military and police. Consider the chance that these glasses prevent any innocent person to get shot as they were unlucky enough to get in the middle of it all. In the second part as we accept ‘how our work is used‘, we need to also accept that these employees knowingly and willingly were involved in exploiting consumers; you cannot get it both ways. And if they accept that then they have to be willing to go out and state: “We knowingly exploited consumers as this is part of our income and optionally our bonus!” If that would be the case and whilst the architectural flaws remain in the Xbox One, the lack of connectivity in the Surface devices, I really believe they should shut up or get out. It is their choice which of the two they select.

Now, I will accept that for some civilians the expression: “Under the terms of the army contract, however, the devices will be used to “increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy”” is awkward and harsh. The Pentagon sat on a live grenade a little too eagerly. The tactical setting should have been: “Under the terms of the army contract, however, the devices will be used to create increased awareness of the area, to be able to see hostile actions before they could have normally been aware of them and to decrease the chance of civilian casualties through people caught in that area without any feasible option to avoid harm.” Basically the same setting yet phrased a little different (Microsoft knows all about phrasing, do they not? In addition, the entire quote “The application of HoloLens within the IVAS system is designed to help people kill. It will be deployed on the battlefield, and works by turning warfare into a simulated ‘video game’, further distancing soldiers from the grim stakes of war and the reality of bloodshed” is open for debate. When you fire and actual firearm, the noise, the blow back of the weapon, it will not feel like a video game, not in the least. I also have an issue with ‘is designed to help people kill‘, the device does not give you skills to kill, it does give the imagery that could avoid one getting killed in the process and that is still an important factor. Add to this the need to keep civilian casualties at zero whenever possible, the part that this enables if a clear stage that a better equipped soldier gets a better chance in keeping 100% of the civilians out of harm’s way. Interesting that these so called ethically high ground Microsoft employees never gave that much thought. Although, seeing my Xbox One icon bar where 50% is used for advertisement as well as the push for more subscriptions is also an ethical debate, especially when the person who paid for a gaming console has no way of switching that part off. In that frame of mind, the Microsoft employees are actively promoting psychic assault, did they consider that part?

I wonder just how convoluted a person needs to be to walk away from half a billion dollars, a device that could save lives, it is interesting that that was a side that no one gave any attention to (media wise that is).

I am not stating that there is a negative side to this device that would be ludicrous as well. Yet if DARPA had not gone to the length it did to get us in 1970 ‘ARPANET, a pioneering network for sharing digital resources among geographically separated computers‘, we would not have the internet and we would not have e-commerce, did they consider that?

These Holo-Lenses might start in defence, yet they can go so much further. Rescue operations (finding life signs in natural or unnatural disasters), medical solutions that give surgeons direct layered information during an operation. In a large hospital not a big thing, but in small rural places, it will be a life saver. All issues that cannot come because these places do not have the billions needed to fund it, the military does and the visionary on these projects can see what else it can be used for. So when we get a couple of Microsoft sissies cry for a ‘ethics review board‘, they should consider the millions that do not want to face forced advertisement on the device they bought, or a diminished device that requires all kinds of accessories and storage to be regarded as actually functional. Their consumers have rights too, but that is apparently not in their frame of mind.

It seems to me that Microsoft has two filters, one for when things are really good and when for when that is not the case. It does fit the style of the military (making them a good match) where clothing is only available in two sizes, too large and too small. Go figure!

Have a great Friday! (60 hours until Monday morning)

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Tagged as army contract, ARPANET, Computer world, DARPA, Holo Lenses, Microsoft, Surface Laptop, Surface Pro, the Guardian, Venturebeat, Windows, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One

February 24, 2019 · 15:01

Future through the sub line

That was the first thought I had when the Guardian treated us all to: ‘Folding tablet hybrid shows Asia, not US or Europe, is leading the way in innovation‘, I was already aware of this through the submitted patents well over a year ago, yet the Americans remained in denial on just how far behind they were falling, ego does that, iteration does that and denial does that. Now I see that the innovations would optionally give added value to my own outstanding patent on a ‘dumb smart device‘, and it goes on beyond that. Some of the innovations I had planned for are now on par with what Huawei will need soon enough.

Their foldable Mate X, which is allegedly 5G shows that not only is Huawei ahead of the game, I see that they might be more and more interested in my IP, giving me the retirement funds I really really desire. The Mate X billboard that was getting placed for the grand opening in 10 hours in Barcelona gives us the initial view, instead of hiding it in the middle like Samsung does, the outside fold might have additional powers and abilities that we have not considered yet and could optionally have the implementations that Android 10 will offer. Even as we expect the 5,000 mAh battery to be the power driver pushing Huawei all along towards to pole position, the device would have plenty of business needs for options like a potential Dark Mode, as well as DeX-like docking support for a new Desktop mode and a revamp of privacy options. Giving us that Apple is now falling behind and they are falling behind fast. In addition we see the escalations that are hitting Facebook will enable a much larger push towards the WeChat future that is now being considered more and more outside of China.

Barcelona has more, even as the SanDisk 400GB is truly expensive (as well as superfast) as its 128GB is 75% cheaper at present, but that is the reality of larger memory when it is initially released. More important, when I look at the implementation of my IP, I see that the market for SanDisk would grow close to exponential from previous terms and I am sure that SanDisk will not object at all. And the news is not done yet. One source gives us; ‘After Samsung unveils Galaxy Fold, Apple submits blueprint for foldable iPhone‘, implying that they are losing grounds and are getting left behind by both Samsung and Huawei. Even as we are almost conned with: “Apple has submitted a blueprint of a bendable smartphone at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), indicating Apple’s progressive development towards building a foldable device” we see the issue that if the patent is submitted now, Apple would be optionally 2 years behind Huawei, the loss has been that much for America. As we see the news from CNet and ZDNet and a few others, we see quotes like: “Samsung has gotten the jump on the competition; companies like Huawei and Xiaomi could have the last laugh. While the Galaxy Fold wowed audiences with its demo, Samsung opted not to let anyone get too close to it, and the phone was MIA when the demo area opened up. Another company could steal the spotlight by offering people a closer hands-on with their foldable devices” and none of the articles had given any notion towards Apple implying that with the absence of ‘leaked reports‘ Apple is a no show to the degree that it matters. It was only through Forbes that we see: “In a perfect demonstration of the macro/micro concept in practice, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Apple is shifting its leadership. The company is also changing priorities throughout its multiple divisions (retail, hardware, artificial intelligence and services).” All these group interview drives for their shops and now we see a massive division shift. It is not only that, they also confirm what I have been telling everyone for almost a year. With: “It’s like paying an even higher price for a bigger plate of the same food“, the part that the plate only seems bigger is left out (it is in the eye of the beholder) and when we consider the $2365 (Apple) versus $899 (Huawei), with a close contender (Huawei too) at $499 we see that there is a consumer group that is taking value into considerations making the technology of Apple slide even faster.

So whilst their marketing division is trying to make sense of the premise of ‘Apple under fire as it admits some iPads ship with a ‘bendy chassis’ – but says the flaw in the $799 product is ‘normal’‘, all whilst the consumers wonders how stupid their train of thought is, and as we were treated to “This 400 micron variance is less than half a millimeter (or the width of fewer than four sheets of paper at most) and this level of flatness won’t change during normal use over the lifetime of the product. Note, these slight variations do not affect the function of the device in any way“, whilst the images (at https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ipad-pro-2018-bending-issue/) shows a “Bendgate” issue that is a lot bigger than their statement. As we are treated to issues a lot more severe, we optionally see an issue where Apple did not merely drop the ball, they went about it wrongly to address the issue and it is not going away any day soon. When we push this forward, is the fear that people with an optional future folded iPhone greeting the ladies in social events with an folded iPhone shaped like a giant ‘V’ that they are not happy to see them, they merely have an iPhone bendy in their pocket, and lets be fair, are you really willing to pay $2900 for an iPad that can’t stay straight?

This part matters as Apple will try to take the 5G path growing its market share as we would expect Apple to do, yet at present Apple is losing speed and making less and less headway, it needs to realise that the Chinese path of innovation is taking steam out of the others and drowning whatever others consider to be innovation to the be a mere marketing exercise. Huawei started showing that clearly well over a year ago and now that 5G is here, the playing field is dominated by China to a much larger degree than anyone is comfortable with. In addition, what was laughed away by many a year ago when I showed that Saudi Arabia was making headway in 5G, is now given by the media as: ‘Huawei to help Saudi Arabia become world’s top 5G country‘, I was more conservative claiming that they would surpass the US in 5G, not that they would become number one, but the Global Times is more progressive here and with “his company will support Saudi Arabia in its drive, and Huawei is ready to invest $20 million per year in its three local research centers, cooperate closely with 140 local suppliers, procure $500 million worth of local equipment annually and add 10,000 local jobs in Saudi Arabia in the future.” The quote (at http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1139737.shtml) gives a few issues to debate, but behind all this is still the Vision 2030 drive and Neom City the drive that Saudi Arabia has had from the beginning and as I stated many months ago, their need for 5G would be well received, a city that will in the end be well over 20 times the size of New York, all 5G and all innovation driven. That was seemingly just the beginning, because Huawei sees what I saw, Saudi Arabia is important and in the end the biggest springboard towards places like Egypt and a consumer base 300% the size of Saudi Arabia. From there several more markets will open up in several ways. In the end I have been proven correct five times over on this issue alone. Barcelona and their MWC2019 (Mobile World Congress) will show me to be correct in a few more ways. At this point, I merely wonder how often Microsoft will drop the ball there. I am supposed to remain objective, but how can I when we have seen this world where Microsoft innovation is merely limited to their marketing. Whatever we get to see at the MWC2019 this year, it is clear that when it comes to innovation, it will be the Chinese companies that have the last laugh, especially as President Trump announced: “I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind“, and the fact that AT&T is hiding behind 5G Evolution (which is not even 5G) should be a clear indication how far the US is lagging behind, all the way to the White House. It is also the one moment where I clearly oppose Business Review who gives us: ‘Trump’s tweet won’t have much impact‘, you see, entertainment is priceless and that is what President Trump offers, 6G when they are still not grasping the options that 5G brings, and the ‘small’ fact that Saudi Arabia will soon pass them by in the 5G mobile field does not help the US either, there is no telling at present how far behind the US will be when 6G arrives in 5-10 years, but we can giggle on the sidelines whilst we watch it happen, can we not?

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Tagged as 5G, 5G Evolution, 6G, Apple, AT&T, Barcelona, Bendgate, Business Review, Egypt, Forbes, Huawei, iPad Pro, Mate X, Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, MWC2019, New York, Patents, President Trump, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian, USPTO, Vision 2030, Wall Street Journal, WeChat, Xiaomi

February 23, 2019 · 11:35

The Facebook conviction

I have been on the fence for Facebook a few times. They were never innocent, but they were to a larger degree guilty of certain events. Now it is time to add to those events.

You see, Facebook has been guilty of both deceptive conduct and harassment in a few ways, in ways they will never see it as such, and they are also accused to some degree by Bloomberg through ‘Facebook Grew Too Big to Care‘, which is a clear coffin nail in their upcoming casket.

Yet I digress, first the accusations from me. Those who rely on the mobile Facebook experience can relate to these issues.

The first is the messaging icon with a big fat 6 there (6 in my case), when I look on my PC, there are no messages there. It is there idea of harassment through curiosity. ‘Did I miss a message?‘ ‘Perhaps it was important?‘ all done hoping that Facebook messenger gets installed. It is time for Facebook to wake the fuck up and fix it right quick. People lost confidence in Facebook messenger for a reason, or in less emotional terms, as some sources gave us: ‘How Facebook and Messenger Apps Drain Phone’s Battery‘, battery power is the holy grail of mobile ability and Facebook messenger was a direct threat to it, so to keep messenger of our systems is a good call, the fact that I get an indication that there are messages waiting does give a push to check and for two years it has been a bogus stage. The fact that this is one of a few paths that are pissing us off is actually a concern to consider removing Facebook from my mobile environment and merely check on it once a day in the evening. I might miss out, but I see no chance that Facebook will actually amend its current path, forcing us to find another avenue, which is a little upsetting as Google+ is already leaving us, an app that is perceived as much more reliable.

The second issue is another pressure point forced upon us. As Facebook is losing value, it is pushing for more and more connections, even when we do not want it. Whenever I go to notifications, I get a ‘people you may know‘, I did not bloody want that, I wanted my notifications. I see the suggestion list when I look into the friends tag, yet growth is not fast enough for Facebook, so they push it onto us in notifications as well. That is until you realise that the newsfeed is a forced stage of top stories, some people require it to be chronological (whilst the home button always resorts to top stories), for international reasons and it is there that we see that Facebook has lost the plot, it does whatever they need to do to force flamed stories and clicked articles and reduce our genuine need for social interaction to something close to zero, it is there that we see that the only solution for Facebook is to actually fully fail so that we can evolve social media into something that actually serves a purpose.

Yet in the same setting it is important to take heed of ‘Facebook’s controversies now extend to health and medicine issues‘ (at https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/20/facebook-health-medicine/). We can argue it in several ways, you see having an interest in “journalists reported that Facebook allows advertisers to target users who have demonstrated interest in anti-vaccine information — and that anti-vaccine ads promoted on the site has been viewed millions of times. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California also sent a letter to the company urging it to stem the flow of vaccine misinformation“. It goes beyond the standard setting of interest, and with: “A complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission last month and made public Tuesday accuses Facebook of improperly disclosing information about its users who joined these groups with the expectation of privacy. Facebook took heat on this one, too, from federal lawmakers who want the company to brief them on the matter by the end of this month“.

We see that Facebook sets interest aside and pushes for awareness and engagement in that very same act, where a person might merely be trying to find out the truth and viewing the other side (opposed to those not against vaccinations), having an open mind and looking into information offered is not the same thing of being an interested party. So when the excuse “a spokesperson said that the site isn’t fundamentally about anonymity and makes clear to users what information is visible to other members of a given group” is given, the fact that the view of the people was not tested beforehand is a much larger no-no than one might expect. If the page was on their profile, we see the danger that an insurance company might make an assumption driving health premiums up and that assumption might in my humble opinion make Facebook liable for those additional costs, so take that times 325 million and smoke those shares reducing them to a value of $1.61 (a mere 99% drop).

So even as excuse number two “Facebook also told Bloomberg that it’s considering demoting such content in search results and blocking it from being recommended to users” is offered, the notion of “Facebook’s raging health-related headaches highlight the deep sense of distrust with which many people now regard the site” might give a first indication that Facebook is up for another trophy, the one of being the first commercially driven anti-social site is not entirely out of reach for consideration.

All this, whilst only an hour ago, we got treated to: ‘Another Facebook privacy scandal, this time involving its mobile analytics SDK‘ (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/another-facebook-privacy-scandal-this-time-involving-its-mobile-analytics-sdk/). We are treated to the quote: “the Wall Street Journal revealed that 11 popular mobile apps are sending data to Facebook servers, data that for some apps contains sensitive information such as heartbeat rates, blood pressure, menstrual cycles, and even pregnancy statuses. This data isn’t collected by Facebook intentionally, but app developers use Facebook’s mobile software development kit (SDK) to collect metrics and analytics of how users are engaging with their apps“, ZDNet gives the clear warning ‘this time the social network may not be as guilty as some people might think’, and that is fine. The people have however moved to a ‘guilty until proven innocent‘ stage in the Facebook setting, which is much more pressing; the fact that credibility is gone is a huge issue for Facebook. The fact that we see (mostly in Universities) a growing interest in Tencent’s social network, WeChat in non-Chinese people is an interesting rise. Of course most students are interactively hormone driven in the desire for Asian companionship, but it is a growing wave, and we have seen how Chinese entrepreneurs have been eagerly willing to embrace a multi lingual population, Russia seemingly tried that with OK.ru in the past, yet dropped the ball, and for now it is uncertain whether they can undo the damage done (by a unmentioned source).

A situation that was unimaginable 5 years ago, is now becoming an element to the forefront of it all, if they are losing members into the other directions they will also lose the open part they desperately that they have been trying to hang on to: Advertisement Money! We can agree that Americans will always select Facebook for advertisement, yet in Europe and Scandinavia it is a lot less clear, as the visibility of OK.ru grows, so will the optional effort to push cash that way. The advertiser might be swayed by the high numbers from Facebook. The clear stage of distrust, fake accounts and scandal after scandal makes Facebook not as great a consideration as it was a few years ago and that is one part Google Ads will love, for the most Facebook did this to themselves, they decided on revenue driven actions without taking moments to consider the long term impact and half a dozen impacts later Facebook is no longer the great advertisement opportunity it was a mere 36 months ago.

And all this before Buzzfeed News gives us a mere 11 hours ago: ‘Mark Zuckerberg Promised A Clear History Tool Almost A Year Ago. Where Is It?‘ Perception of unreliability, and a growing concern of unkept promises will haunt Facebook through 2019, is the question: ‘Will they still be here in 2020?‘ too far fetched? I do believe that they will be around long after that, yet the consideration that they will record more losses over the board is decently clear and reliable. The second part that this relates to is that when it comes to 5G innovation, Facebook is least likely to be a banner party to that presentation, and seemingly the only way at present to get there is by breaking even more promises.

We can accept the Facebook defence that is given with: “Facebook was in no way involved with the data collection, nor do they store the data in usable form (they’re stored as bucketed ‘events’, so the developer can sort user actions, per whatever internal analytics philosophy they have),” Martínez said. “Facebook is basically a bean counter here“, yet the SDK allowed programmers to get a hold of data that should not have been available and that is still a matter that is up for debate. The SDK did not have a link to limited data access, it seemingly gives access to close to everything. It is like screaming that the development kit does not allow for a nuclear weapon to be made, the fact that it gets its fingers on the uranium making for a dirty bomb is not to be ignored. So even as we can to the smallest degree agree with: “This is blaming the ruler for what gets measured“, the issue that the ruler gets to measure privacy driven issues by people who were unaware that there was a ruler measuring them (yes that was a simple penis joke) is still up for debate. The connection at Facebook fails when we see that this is not merely about measuring, but that every person is a collection of EVERY measurement that the SDK asks the maker ‘Which measurements would you like to have?‘ So it is very much up to Facebook at present (as I personally see it).

Should you think that it is not as bad as I make it out to be, consider the article 6 weeks ago (at https://piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/growing-popularity-chinese-social-media-outside-china-poses-new-risks) where we see not only ‘The Growing Popularity of Chinese Social Media Outside China Poses New Risks in the West‘ with the quote: “The overseas penetration of Chinese social media poses a substantial security problem, however. Social apps gather a lot of data on users; if this information is sent to China, it can be easily accessed by the government and leveraged, say, to make Beijing’s surveillance software better at recognizing Western faces, or at extracting intelligence on Western military activities. US and EU authorities have not paid sufficient attention to these risks“, even as we need to partially invalidate the fear mongering by Claudia Biancotti, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. We need to add to this that the one rule everyone forgets is that the power of social media is with the users, Facebook is about to learn that the hard way and consumer driven solutions will always win when it takes the highroad of the needs of the user, Facebook forgot about that path, in China it will cause a massive slide towards opening western markets to Chinese solutions and consumer goods. Do you think that Beijing surveillance software needs this solution? They have well over a dozen other methods at present, and more than one was implied to have been facilitated for by Facebook. The Chinese options can steer clear and watch their economy grow whilst Facebook driven solution merely start breaking even over the next two years, a consumer slide that we have not seen since 2007-2009.

It is my view that Facebook faces several convictions and the largest issues are not in any court, it will be from the people seeking another social media platform, the media has been pointing at too many smoke stacks for that not to happen.

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Tagged as 5G, Adam Schiff, Beijing surveillance software, bloomberg, Buzzfeed News, California, China, Claudia Biancotti, Facebook, FTC, Google Ads, Mark Zuckerberg, Mobile Facebook, OK.RU, Peterson Institute for International Economics, StatNews, Tencent Social Network, Wall Street Journal, WeChat, ZDNet

February 19, 2019 · 11:59

Gangsters of tomorrow?

I was alerted to an article regarding ‘Facebook labelled ‘digital gangsters’ by report on fake news‘ on LinkedIn. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/18/facebook-fake-news-investigation-report-regulation-privacy-law-dcms) is an interesting read, but there are issues (they always are). First of all Facebook is not innocent, Facebook has bungled a few items and they have done so several times, we have all seen that. Yet the report (at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf) has a few issues too and it starts in the summary. It starts with “We have always experienced propaganda and politically-aligned bias, which purports to be news, but this activity has taken on new forms and has been hugely magnified by information technology and the ubiquity of social media. In this environment, people are able to accept and give credence to information that reinforces their views, no matter how distorted or inaccurate, while dismissing content with which they do not agree as ‘fake news’. This has a polarising effect and reduces the common ground on which reasoned debate, based on objective facts, can take place“, the issues here are:

Magnified by information technology and the ubiquity of social media.
People are able to accept and give credence to information that reinforces their views.
Dismissing content with which they do not agree as ‘fake news’.
Reduces the common ground on which reasoned debate, based on objective facts, can take place.

First of all, these are not lies, they are correct as elements. Yet we need to take another look at these issues. In the first the common side of social media is the part that makes all people talk to one another, even as we agree that when it comes to the display of news people do not really tend to talk, they often merely voice an opinion or a thought. Having an actual conversation in mobile distance based events is as rare of finding a £10 in the jeans you just took out of the washing machine. The second is obvious, it always has been so even before the age of social media, and the difference is that they now voice it to thousands of people at the same time, exposing millions of people to millions of voiced views. When it comes to item three, try to find an accepted labour idea in a conservative house of commons and vice versa, debunking each other’s views is a state of active mind and the non-elected get to have a lot more attention than the elected one (a weird logical truth), it has been the clear path of exposure since even before WW2, the fact that the loudest voice gets the room is not new, it is merely the fact that we get to hear twenty thousand loud mouthing opinions. It is number 4 that is the one issue that gives additional rise to the first three. When I search ‘News’ in Facebook I get the BBC, Nine News, ABC News, News.com.au, and several more. Yet the issue is not that they are there, it is what they state is very much the issue and the report is seemingly interestingly ignoring that part.

For News.com.au I get ‘Kate Ritchie smokin’ undies shoot‘ linking to: ‘Nova radio host Kate Ritchie stars in sexy underwear campaign‘, ‘Woolworths to axe $1-a-litre fresh milk but Coles refusing to follow’, and ‘Sailor from World War II kissing photo dies at age 95’, so as ‘news value’ goes, the value of news is very much a discussion a well, these organisation use social media to the max as to increase exposure to self, which is what it is supposed to do, the committee seems to have forgotten that part. The BBC is all about news, even as ’50 Cent: Claims police told to ‘shoot’ rapper investigated’ stands out a bit (it is still news). 9 News gets the attention with: “Human remains have been found during the search for a woman who went missing more than 300km away, with two people in custody over her suspicious disappearance“, it is all about the clicks as the article (on their site) gives us from the beginning “Human remains have been found in Victoria’s east“, the news themselves are exploiting social media to improve circulation (clicks are everything), yet that part is missing in all this. When it comes to ‘fake news’ the media is equally to blame, yet that part was clearly missed by the committee.

And as we see the news “There’s nothing new about personalised number plates, but soon drivers will be able to go a step further and add emojis!“, all this 2 hours ago whilst,

‘Hamas enlists female participation in border riots‘
‘London social housing block residents warn of ‘death trap’ conditions‘
‘Terror expert warns Sweden against repatriating Syria jihadists‘

They are merely three out of a whole range of news items that do not make it to social media. The issue of ‘the common ground on which reasoned debate‘ requires a much wider base and the media is not using social media for that, it makes the media equally to blame, a part that has not been put under the spotlight either. The media uses social media as it is supposed to be used and it seems that the committee is a little too much in the dark there.

On page 10 we get: “In our Interim Report, we disregarded the term ‘fake news’ as it had “taken on a variety of meanings, including a description of any statement that is not liked or agreed with by the reader” and instead recommended the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. With those terms come “clear guidelines for companies, organisations and the Government to follow” linked with “a shared consistency of meaning across the platforms, which can be used as the basis of regulation and enforcement”.” You see ‘fake news’ is at the heart of the matter and when we see ‘disregarded’, as well as ‘a variety of meanings’ we get the first part that this is about slamming Facebook (always entertaining mind you), yet the media is at the heart of the matter and they too need to be held to account in all this. It is enhanced by statement 16 on the next page: “proliferation of online harms is made more dangerous by focussing specific messages on individuals as a result of ‘micro-targeted messaging’“, it sounds nice until you realise that the media themselves are doing this too, so the overall view gets to be skewed by the media from the start. So consider ‘Start-up founder says employees should only work six-hour days’, whilst in the text we see (amongst more) “Next, we should cut down or get rid of tasks that “don’t add value” such as slashing wasteful meetings in half and switching off distracting notifications. For process-oriented jobs, Mr Glaveski said it was a good idea to automate where possible, and where it wasn’t, the option of outsourcing should be explored“, which largely impedes the existence of places like IBM, Microsoft, and a few other large players. Yet the idea is concept based and the optional loss of 25% income is not expressed as to the stage of who can afford to continue on that premise.

In all this, the media has its own need for ‘micro-targeted messaging’, where that ends is not a given and that part does not matter, it does matter that the message micro and macro is enhanced by the media themselves, yet where is their part mentioned in all that?

When the reports finally makes it to Data use and Data targeting we get: “We have instigated criminal proceedings and referred issues to other regulators and law enforcement agencies as appropriate. And, where we have found no evidence of illegality, we have shared those findings openly. Our investigation uncovered significant issues, negligence and contraventions of the law“, which we wold expect, yet in light of the larger issue where we see: “the use of data analytics for political purposes, which started in May 2017. It states that it “had little idea of what was to come. Eighteen months later, multiple jurisdictions are struggling to retain fundamental democratic principles in the fact of opaque digital technologies”“, I taught it 20 years ago, although not in a political setting, yet the use of data analysis was used in political fields as early as the mid 80’s, so the confusion is a little weird, especially when the footnote linked to the report (at https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2260271/investigation-into-the-use-of-data-analytics-in-political-campaigns-final-20181105.pdf) gives us on page 8: “Particular concerns include the purchasing of marketing lists and lifestyle information from data brokers without sufficient due diligence, a lack of fair processing and the use of third party data analytics companies, with insufficient checks around consent“, the issue not given is that marketing lists have been available for 20 years, laws had the option of being adjusted for well over 15 years, yet the players only realised too late (some never did) how affordable Facebook and other social media players made this route towards creating awareness, as well as using media to adjust a person’s view became a cheap solution for political players that had little or no budget. The paths were there for well over a decade and nothing was done, now Facebook is lashed at whilst the lists of Dunnhumby and like-minded owners (Dutch Airmiles) and several others are ignored to a larger degree, a path that has been open to adjustment for decades. The law could have been adjusted, but no one bothered, now we see the impact and the lashing out at Facebook, whilst the players were clueless to the largest extent, the 2015 evidence seen as we see: ‘dunnhumby: how Tesco destroyed £1.3bn of value in 9 months‘, the initial moment already showed the failing of insight (as I saw the entire Tesco disaster unfold when it happened in 2015), and with:

In haste to ready Dunnhumby for sale, Tesco made two critical errors that left the company unsellable:

First, Tesco terminated its 50/50 joint venture with Kroger, instead restructuring in such a way that Kroger bought out Tesco and formed a new wholly-owned data company called 84.51°. In this new arrangement, Dunnhumby USA retained its other clients and was now free to pursue new business with Kroger competitors, but no lost its access to Kroger’s customer data.

Second, Tesco capped the length of time that Dunnhumby would have exclusive rights to use the data from the 16 million Tesco Clubcard users. As outlined above, Dunnhumby relies on this data not only to derive profits from its partnership with Tesco but also from reselling this data to the manufacturers.

(source: https://digit.hbs.org/submission/dunnhumby-how-tesco-destroyed-1-3bn-of-value-in-9-months/) we see just how clueless the larger players have been and there are additional questions that this committee should be able to answer, yet they cannot and as you can read they decided not to address any of it.

Its members:

Damian Collins MP (Conservative, Folkestone and Hythe) (Chair)
Clive Efford MP (Labour, Eltham)
Julie Elliott MP (Labour, Sunderland Central)
Paul Farrelly MP (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Simon Hart MP (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)
Julian Knight MP (Conservative, Solihull)
Ian C. Lucas MP (Labour, Wrexham)
Brendan O’Hara MP (Scottish National Party, Argyll and Bute)
Rebecca Pow MP (Conservative, Taunton Deane)
Jo Stevens MP (Labour, Cardiff Central)
Giles Watling MP (Conservative, Clacton)

They should also be held to a much higher account, as I personally see this situation. Not that they have done anything wrong officially. Yet the consideration that we see on page 87 where we are treated to: “As we wrote in our Interim Report, digital literacy should be a fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths. In its response, the Government did not comment on our recommendation of a social media company levy, to be used, in part, to finance a comprehensive educational framework“, the fact that digital literacy is missing on a global scale is a much larger concern, one that political players on both sides of the isle in the House of Commons seem to have been ignoring to the largest extent. It should be part of primary school education nowadays, yet it is not.

We see supporting evidence in the ‘Impact of social media and screen-use on young people’s health‘ publication. When we read: “In 2017, however, the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, reported that children were “not being equipped with adequate skills to negotiate their lives online” and that they needed help from adults to “develop resilience and the ability to interact critically with the world”“, we see one part, it comes from oral evidence Q566, which gives us the question by Stephen Metcalfe ‘There is a lot of emphasis on preparing children and young people for a digital life—on making them digitally literate. What do you think digital literacy actually means? What are the boundaries? What should we be teaching them, and at what age should we start?‘, the response is “A report I put out earlier this year, “Life in Likes,” which dealt with eight to 12-year-olds, focused heavily on emotional literacy. Schools seem to have done a decent job in looking at safety online. Children will now tell you that you should not put out a photograph of you wearing your uniform. People go to great lengths to trace you. Safety within school has really progressed, but the emotional resilience to be able to deal with it is not there yet. The key age for me is about year six and year seven. Beyond that, it is to do with the mechanics: how it works and algorithms. You do get targeted with stuff. It is not just everyone getting this. There are things coming your way because the machine is set up to work out what interests you. There are things around terms and conditions and knowing what you are signing up to. We did a big piece of work last year with lawyers that reduced and simplified terms and conditions from 17 pages to one. Of course, when people read it and it says, “We own all your stuff and we’ll do what we like with it,” it gets a different response. That is probably not the thing that will make us all turn off, but it might make us think twice about what we are doing.” Longfield gives us a good, yet in this case incorrect (read; incomplete) answer.

From my point of view through the abilities within Facebook we forget that ‘There are things coming your way because the machine is set up to work out what interests you‘, yet the numbers do not add up, you see the bigger issue behind it is that people can buy likes and some do, so the person clicks on something that has 50,000 likes, yet if they knew that 45,000 likes were bought they might not have clicked on it. It becomes the consideration of likes versus engagement. That elementary lack is important. Engagement is everything and in the consideration of item 4 earlier where we saw ‘reasoned debate, based on objective facts‘, we might seem to think that clicks are an objective fact, yet they are not. The amount of people engaged in the conversation is a subjective fact, yet an actual fact, bought clicks are not and that is an important failure in all this. So when we are confronted with upcoming 2% digital services tax, which is merely a cost of doing business, whilst the lack of digital literacy that is spawned from a lack of education is a difference that most are not made aware of.

When we finally get to the Conclusions and recommendations we might focus on: “Social media companies cannot hide behind the claim of being merely a ‘platform’ and maintain that they have no responsibility themselves in regulating the content of their sites. We repeat the recommendation from our Interim Report that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher’. This approach would see the tech companies assume legal liability for content identified as harmful after it has been posted by users. We ask the Government to consider this new category of tech company in its forthcoming White Paper” we do see a truth, yet again an incomplete one. The media is equally to blame and not holding them to account, letting them focus on populist views and pressures (apart from the authentic news bringers like the BBC, Washington Post and the Guardian), we are pushed into a skewed view from the very beginning, that part was equally important and avoided throughout the report. For example the Daily Mail gives us ‘amazing footage‘ of ‘Heartwarming moment Syria’s White Helmets rescue two puppies from being crushed to death by rubble after a building was torn apart by heavy shelling‘, yet the news given several hours ago ‘Saudi Arabia has provided more than $13 billion in support to Yemen since 2014‘ never made it did it? The Daily mail was all about on how to not open a beer keg (by making a hole in the side using a spigot and a piece of wood) and ignoring ‘UK-based man charged with inciting attack in Germany‘ (source: Washington Post). So when it comes to the entire matter of social media and their ability of being merely a ‘platform’ (which they are) the accountability of the media as a whole is a much larger failure and the fact that the committee decided to leave that on the side invalidates the report to a much larger degree (not completely though) as I personally see it.

Facebook might not be innocent, yet the media as a whole is just as guilty. They have made the consideration of what is ‘fake news’ a much larger issue. The few that do a good job are filtered into silence by the hundreds of media outlets that do what social media is supposed to do, create awareness of self through promotion of ‘self’ on a granular population, as granular as possible.

The fact that the word ‘engagement‘ is only seen three times in the report, ‘click‘ is only seen twice, ‘filter‘ (like: filtering, filtered) is seen once and so is ‘selected‘, yet the last word is not see in regards to what the user of a social media account chose to observe.

All elements at the very foundation of: ‘Disinformation and ‘fake news’‘, in that light, just how valid is that report and what else are the people not made aware of? So in light of the members of that committee and the amount of money they made (and the costs that they gave the taxpayers) through lunches, travel expenses and all other forms of remunerations: Can we get that back please?

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Tagged as 9 News, BBC, Brendan O’Hara MP, Clive Efford MP, Damian Collins MP, Dunnhumby, Facebook, Giles Watling MP, House of Commons, Ian C. Lucas MP, Jo Stevens MP, Julian Knight MP, Julie Elliott MP, longfield, news.com.au, Parliament, Paul Farrelly MP, Rebecca Pow MP, Simon Hart MP, Stephen Metcalfe, Tesco, the Guardian, UK, Washington Post

February 11, 2019 · 12:34

The Australian Catastrophic Colliding Canine

I tend to keep my eyes on Europe, mainly because what impacts the UK today will have an impact on Australia a week later; in addition to that, what happens in Japan today when it comes to consumer electronics and mobile events will get to Australia 3-5 years later. In that respect having a larger view on matters is essential to keep an eye on what could become an impact tomorrow.

Yesterday was different, with ‘Regulation needed to save Australian journalism from Facebook and Google, watchdog says‘ we see the impact for Australia now and to be honest, I can’t stop laughing at present. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/11/regulation-needed-to-curb-facebook-and-google-competition-watchdog-says)

When I read: “Rod Sims, said the digital platforms inquiry, which delivered its preliminary report in December, reveals that the market power enjoyed by the digital behemoths is weakening Australian media“, the giggles increase. Especially when we consider ‘the platforms are not creating any original, quality Australian news’, well we could consider that the Australian media is for the most not doing that either. For the most Australian media is weakening Australian media plain and simple. To name but a one issue, October 2012, I alerted the media to an issue impacting 30 million gamers within the commonwealth. I directly alerted Channel 7, Channel 9 and the Sydney Morning Herald; the all ignored it to the largest degree. There were clear screenshots on how the impact was given, yet the left it on the left of what was important. A change by Sony for their gaming community 3 weeks before the PS4 was released, they all (except for the Australian Guardian) ignored it for the most, and perhaps it was not news? What they (as I personally see it) intentionally ignored is that the Sony Terms of Service is a legally binding contract, the mention of a memo is merely a piece of paper that could be ignored the very next directors meeting. The press needed advertisement dollars and Sony is high on that list of needs, PlayStation 4 was big bucks, plain and simple. In addition there were debatable reviews of Microsoft for the period of two years and the least said about Apple the better, as I see it Australian Media is its own worst enemy. It is my personally view to size up global media as a collection of prostitutes with a priority towards the shareholders, the stake holders and the advertisers, the audience comes in 4^th position at best. So when I see: “However, while taking the lion’s share of advertising revenue, the platforms are not creating any original, quality Australian news“, we need to wonder where Australian quality news is found. I will agree that this is found at SBS and ABC, but they are the two exceptions to all this.

When the British Daily Mail gives us on the 9th of February “Respected Channel 7 news reporter Emily Angwin (pictured) was said to be furious at a number of work emails questioning the integrity of the newsroom in Melbourne” is anyone actually surprised? Is it true? We cannot tell because in many ways most of the Australian media is no longer that reliable. And from my vantage point it becomes worse when we go to https://au.news.yahoo.com/. Here we see above the fold ‘Hero pitbull breaks out of home to find help for owner during gas leak‘, ‘Restaurant blames waitress for ‘incredibly racist’ receipt‘, and ‘‘Whoah!’ Man’s breath test returns ‘biologically impossible’ result‘. This is the kind of emotional reporting that gives news a bad name. Compare that to abc.net.au where we see: ‘Global drug trafficking operation run out of Villawood detention centre, phone taps reveal‘, ‘Missing persons expert slams investigation of young mother’s suspected homicide‘, as well as ‘Why the AWU wants to question Michaelia Cash in court over union raids‘. So one is clearly about news, the other is about creating emotional events. I let you decide which is which, and as we take notice of: “Given all this, it is also vital that media businesses are not disadvantaged through the exercise of market power or other mechanisms that make it difficult for them to compete on their merits” We see that the there is another case in dispute. The dispute is ‘media businesses‘ versus ‘journalism‘, so I hope that the ACCC realises that not only are they not the same, they are at present mere dimensions apart.

And questions need to be asked at the Channel 9 address as well. We can agree that the headlines are better than those of Channel 7 when we see: ‘Exclusive: Vampire Killer Tracey Wigginton’s disturbing new posts‘, ‘Man found with gunshot wound to his stomach in Melbourne’s north-west‘, as well as ‘Snorkeller found dead on sea floor off Mornington Peninsula‘, yet there too we have issues as every news item gives us headers and banners of advertisement. News is news and the main players have resorted to self-indulgence of advertising, reloading at every page. The journalism is merely second best at best.

It becomes a different puppy when we look at the mention “The financial viability of these businesses is also not assured as demonstrated by BuzzFeed and Vice recently announcing redundancies in Australia, as well as worldwide“, you see from my point of visibility, we see the Wikipage part (for mere illustration) where the visible information is: “Originally known for online quizzes, “listicles”, and pop culture articles, the company has grown into a global media and technology company, providing coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals, and business.” Now, I have seen those buzzfeeds on my Facebook page and I decided not to give them any consideration (as a news source). Even as we now see (I was honestly not aware) “In late 2011, Buzzfeed hired Ben Smith of Politico as editor-in-chief, to expand the site into serious journalism, long-form journalism, and reportage.” We can accept and appreciate that Buzzfeed was taking a serious gander into journalism, yet when people are not aware (or another part of them has created more awareness), we get the impact of consideration versus awareness and non-awareness loses clicks, it is that simple, and the same applies for Australian sources. For the most, the only Australian sources I give consideration to are: ABC, SBS, the Guardian (Australian edition) and that is pretty much it; the rest is too often a waste of time. When we are serious about news, we go to the places where they offer it, not where they claim to offer it. That is how I personally see it and I use the Guardian as a source (as it is free) and I neglect the Times (most often) as I am not a paid subscriber and I feel it is money not greatly spend when I am, like most others on a budget, as such it is not money I have available to do that. It is an important factor as I am merely one of many that need to get by on a budget, that too impacts the news and the ACCC is a little ignorant on that part as well.

They might want to strike out at Google and Facebook. Yet Google News gives us ALL the headlines, from almost every source and that links to the local news articles. So when we see “The preliminary report recommended a powerful new authority to oversee the commercial activities of Google and Facebook” My question becomes ‘How is that going to make a difference?‘ In the end this is not about journalism, but about media and they are not the same, if the ACCC wants to make an actual impact, looking at the quality of journalism we will see that Australia will be left with the Guardian, ABC and SBS. When we were introduced to: “The Turnbull government has announced a funding freeze for the ABC but a boost for the Special Broadcasting Service“, whilst the boost is a mere $14.6 million over two years, when we realise that this all reads like a joke, how useless is the ACCC in all this and whilst we see the decimated pool of journalists, what are they doing (apart from wasting our time on something that the seemingly see as a waste of effort and budget), it is from my point of view a mere article on the foundation that reads: “Australian media is seen as irrelevant, we do not know what to do“, and it is shown against the likes of Facebook and Google, where we need to realise that they are also two different dimensions. Facebook is a mass advertisement channel, a channel that assumes that they know what their granular population wants through scripted likes and the scripted likes of the connections of that person, and Google shows the news in directions that the people searched in, or searched for. One is budget based, the other is user keywords based and the ACCC is seemingly in the dark on the fact that for the most people no longer see Australian media as relevant. That is shown a mere 34 seconds ago when I searched for “Channel 7 News” in the News tab, I was treated to: ‘Channel 7 presenter makes heartbreaking plea‘, ‘Ripped bodybuilder ends TV interview on a wild note‘, as well as ‘Caesarean birth to be broadcast live on Channel 7‘. As I see it, when it comes to visibility is seems to me that Channel 7 has a lot to learn as to the bidding on keywords as well as their methodology on how to properly position news, as well as their approach on how they want to present the ‘news’ (https://7plus.com.au/seven-news-sydney), for most people a 44 minute newscast is not the way to go (having one is still important for many though).

In the end, as I see it, the ACCC is up against the image of certain channels, their digital policies, as well as the approach they have towards news and advertisers. It is becoming less about journalism and merely about the positioning of media which is done tremendously below average. If you want to see how it should be done, watch The Guardian (UK) and BBC News (also UK), for those with language skills, the Dutch Volkskrant (at https://www.volkskrant.nl/), as well as The Swedish SVT (at https://www.svt.se/). As I personally see it Australian media has a lot to learn and that lacking part is not up to the ACCC, apart from them bashing the Australian media from drowning people in advertisements to a level that is just making them irrelevant. It is merely my point of view and I might be wrong, yet I personally do not think so. The foreign amount of visitors to the Guardian, the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the French Le Monde (at https://www.lemonde.fr/) are indicative of my views.

So in all that, how are regulations going to solve anything in any near future?

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Tagged as ABC, ACCC, Australian media, Ben Smith, Buzzfeed, Channel 7, Channel 9, Facebook, google, LA Times, Le Monde, NY Times, Politico, SBS, Special Broadcasting Service, SVT, the Guardian, UK, Volkskrant, Washington Post

February 9, 2019 · 12:55

Moby’s Dick

5G is the phrase and the bad part is that the media is shouting what others say and they are not very informative, they are all about bashing Huawei. What is interesting is how bad the situation is in the USA. If 5G is a huge white sperm whale, we need to realise that most people in the telecom retail field are no more than a subversion of some Ahabraham and they are not even holding a spear, merely sucking its dick.

Lifewire however (at https://www.lifewire.com/5g-availability-us-4155914) gives us two elemental parts that most cannot see through all given BS online. I made mention of this setting before (last week at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/02/03/facebook-folly-and-5g/) in the article called ‘Facebook Folly and 5G‘ where I mentioned the news by VentureBeat: “So as we are given: “As reported by VentureBeat, Verizon has detailed that it won’t have true 5G hardware for its 5G Home service ready until later this year. That means expansion to more markets beyond Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Houston won’t be likely until the second half of 2019“, how many people have figured out that ‘expansion to more markets beyond Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Houston‘ implies the largest part of the USA and they are not up for anything before 2020 (and that is me being optimistic)” We see Lifewire giving us both: “It’s also possible that other larger cities like New York City and Chicago will have access to Verizon’s 5G service in 2019“, as well as “However, because the company won’t have standards-based 5G hardware until late 2019, 5G service might stay within the four cities mentioned above — at least for now“. So it is not exactly news, but it is more revealing than most are giving us. Australia added to all with the article in the WA Today. There we see (at https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/western-australia/it-was-a-strange-approach-ex-navy-admiral-opens-up-over-huawei-job-20190208-p50wja.html) ““The purpose within Huawei is to oversight the way that we manage our people, look after them, etc., that’s the role it plays with Huawei,” Mr Lord said. “Everything in Huawei is done for the benefit of the people and the shareholders.” Mr Lord said he referred allegations about Huawei to the parent company in China. “Most of the allegations just don’t come with any proof,” he said. “Whenever there’s a doubt, an allegation made, I query it, I get a solid response. “I don’t from the people making the allegations. I don’t get any proof.”” With this we see a real solid response from former rear admiral John Lord, an actual person with established credibility.

In the last 2 years none of the American claims held any water, yet the press has been too reluctant to assault that part. The truth of the matter is that all media for the most merely adheres to the needs of the shareholders, the stake holders and the advertisers. America is still big business when it comes to advertisement.

So when it comes to dubious people like Rob Strayer (the US State Department’s top cyber official), when we see: “allowing Huawei and other Chinese companies into their next-generation telecommunications networks would allow Beijing to expand its surveillance state around much of the globe“, it comes lacking evidence, lacking up to the amount of 97.5% of evidence. America has become about fear, fear because they played the iterative game or a decade and when a true step forward was required the US could no longer keep up, they were lazy and complacent for too long. In addition to the previous statement we see in addition “A country that uses data in the way China has – to surveil its citizens, to set up credit scores and to imprison more than 1 million people for their ethnic and religious background – should give us pause about the way that country might use data in the future,” this is given to us whilst the US has been doing something similar to its citizens? They do not call it ‘imprisonment’, they merely set unbearable premiums to essential services and cost of living, they hand over data to third parties and let the mess run itself, limiting people and what they have access to more and more and that has been seen for a decade. Bloomberg gave us merely two days ago: “Trade should be free. The gold standard is archaic. Antitrust should protect consumers rather than punish bigness. Tax rates should be (modestly) higher for the rich. Government should run big deficits during recessions to support growth but get frugal during good times to reduce debt.” It sounds nice in theory, yet this requires commitment and Americans have no clue what commitment is, unless it is linked to the need for greed. This America is so polarised we see the protectionism of President Trump versus the socialism of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and neither path is a great one, they both have flaws and neither will consent to the golden path in the middle, because the gold in that path needs to be sold to pay for the outstanding interest payment due on the American debt for June 2019, and every month it takes 5 weeks to acquire enough just to make the monthly interest payment, so the entire 5G part is essential for America to stay afloat, a plan that is set to fail. It is the plan behind what some call ‘fixing American capitalism‘ because the capitalists are calling the shots and they who made it into that club do not give a hoot for those outside of that club.

This is an important element, because even now, as America is on their ‘European Tour’ for the 5G anti-Huawei wave, we saw only yesterday the Bloomberg News ‘German Government Rules Out Huawei Ban in 5G Expansion, Official Says‘, you see when it is about BS (read: cow manure) versus results, results always win and Huawei has the goods, they have the result advantage and that is where the USA gets themselves into trouble. There is of course the example 2 decades ago of some Colin Powell with a silver briefcase giving us the ‘WMD presence presentation in Iraq‘, you all remember how that ended, right?

As Germany and others adapt the “subjecting all potential service providers to stringent security standards”, America sees that they are in another presentation war and they are about to lose that one. If they had only stopped being complacent about their technology remaining in an iterative field! So when I am all about selling my IP to either Google or Huawei, I am no longer in a place where I am certain that Google is the best solution of the two, it is after all in America. Even as a global company that will optionally bite for them down the road. In addition we see: “Telecommunication companies have warned about costs that would arise if Huawei were cut out of supplying 5G equipment. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG has warned that Europe would fall behind the U.S. and China in 5G with such a move” a stage that the Australians are already watching becoming a reality, there only Telstra wins and that is fine by too many people who are seat holders in the capitalist game, for them the playing field is never allowed to be plain and level.

And there we get to the true issue, the issue that Bloomberg (one of the few) gave proper light to (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/huawei-stokes-u-s-fear-with-low-cost-networking-gear-that-works) : ‘Another Reason U.S. Fears Huawei: Its Gear Works and It’s Cheap‘, marketing can hide behind levels of deception the AT&T issue) relabelling 4G LTE ‘5G Evolution’ an event that is gaining momentum in the news, especially as Sprint is suing AT&T now over deceptive conduct. Lifewire and others are showing that outside of a few cities there will be no actual functional 5G until at least 2020 and that whilst we now see that Zain Saudi is using Nokia for their: ‘Zain Saudi, Nokia conduct 4.9G pilot to boost capacity and customer experience with 5G-ready massive MIMO active antenna on 2.6 GHz‘, they are clear it is not 5G, it is 4.9G, yet the infrastructure is set now to run the pilot, it gives users above 700 Mbps, which is extreme broadband whilst the hardware will need replacement to make it true 5G, we see that parts of the infrastructure are now actively being tested. They are merely one step away from the stat that was given last year august, the then given claim “Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) is expected to commercially launch the fifth generation (5G) network by mid-2019” is now almost there, on time and with the 3GGPS specs. America is not merely falling behind; it is starting to trail the entire stage at best. With their non-actions on AT&T for too long, for their claims on national security that have not been met with ANY evidence on all this. They are all hiding behind the claim makers with pretty degrees and actual evidence did not present itself in any way, shape or form.

When the Saudi even is the success, we will see the EU making a very sharp turn in another direction, they cannot afford another American fuck up. After the Iraq WMD, 2004 and 2008 collapses, America is playing with a strike three against them. And it gets to be worse. Reuters confirmed only a few hours ago (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-hungary-pompeo/pompeo-visit-to-focus-on-us-concerns-over-huawei-in-central-europe-idUSKCN1PX1RS): ‘Pompeo visit to focus on U.S. concerns over Huawei in central Europe‘ with “U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will voice concerns about the growing presence of China’s Huawei Technologies in central Europe when he visits Hungary, Slovakia and Poland next week, a senior U.S. official said on Friday as Washington tries to bolster ties with a region it acknowledges it has neglected“, America has resorted to playing its political game. Going to places with beads and baubles trying to impress the people they can still impress with a suit, another silver case presentation, yet this time around without the silver briefcase. They hope to get discord in the EU by playing the individual members against one another, from my personal point of view it will be because the US is soon out of options to pay their interest on the 21 trillion debt they have no way of dealing with. Their greatest option would have been to dispose of their iterative play, but the capitalists in charge decided that it would cost them too much, now it will optionally cost them everything.

So even as Moby’s dick is out in front, the players know that is expected, they do not need to grab their ankles, they merely have to swallow whatever comes next, there will be an aftertaste, but that is what they signed up for, if that is not what they wanted, they should have embraced innovation a lot more than they did. So, now we will (optionally) get to watch the people in Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Dammam watch their 5G connection, making it one third of the Saudi population with optional mobile access to 5G, consider that stage where Huawei, Samsung and Nokia being the only three options in 5G mobiles, now see that in the earlier light where the US will only have partial 5G in less than a dozen cities. They can cry ‘we are larger’ for all they want, yet the stage is not that they are larger, they were surpassed by what Americans describe as ‘a third world nation’, so how is that as an achievement?

So as Americans hide behind “The United States was particularly worried about Huawei’s influence in small eastern and central European countries where it was easy for China to penetrate state systems, the U.S. official said” without any supporting evidence, we are merely watching that nation lose footing, a nation that merely embraced greed and the need for greed without the consideration that a greed game is one sided and never ever goes the way of anyone but a small group that merely cares about self above everything else.

It fits the bill rather nicely, Ahab and his obsession, willing to sacrifice everyone else, willing to set reason aside in all this. That is what we see with the 5G whale, we see accusations without proof, without proper vetting of evidence, and the media to a larger extent is just as guilty, eager to get the goods from all without properly vetting the stage, and as papers basically repeated what they were given, like the T-Mobile case, whilst it is out in the open that “In a 2017 civil lawsuit, Huawei was ordered to pay T-Mobile $4.8 million in damages. The two companies later reached a private settlement. In a statement, Huawei, which denies wrongdoing, says allegations in the Tappy case were “already the subject of a civil suit that was settled by the parties after a Seattle jury found neither damages nor willful and malicious conduct on the trade secret claim.”” America has become that desperate. So how does it help anyone to feed that machine of desperate stupidity, even as it was decided that: ‘a Seattle jury found neither damages nor willful and malicious conduct on the trade secret claim‘.

When we give weight to the elements, how obsessed has America become in regards to their White Whale? Why is the media not properly looking at that part or the equation?

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January 29, 2019 · 10:56

Does smoke mean fire?

We have all heard the expression before: ‘Where there is smoke, there is fire‘, yet what happens when no fire is found, what happens when certain involved parties are all combined in the need for deception?

That is the question; it is not a direct accusation, as I am not aware of all the facts. I am merely in possession of a whole heap of doubt. The latest is given with: “On Thursday, communications giant Vodafone said it is pausing the deployment of new Huawei equipment in its core networks across the globe. The core networks are particularly sensitive as if they are compromised, mass spying can be conducted across them“, the operative part is ‘if they are compromised‘, there is no evidence, there is no case, it is merely Vodafone sucking the proverbial addendum of America. This comes with the addition of “the University of California at Berkeley and UC San Diego — are removing Huawei equipment and shunning its cash. They apparently don’t want to lose funding under the terms of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which banned federal funding recipients from using certain products and services“. The mess is increasing and the whole fiasco is all connected to the fact that there is no evidence. At least with Alex Younger (MI6), the premise was that no government should be allowed to be in an optional point of weakness through foreign technology. I do not believe that was the cleverest step to make, but we can argue that it should be seen as a valid national reason, which is fair enough.

There is of course concern in opposition and the Guardian gives is (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/27/huaweis-problems-deepen-as-western-suspicions-mount) with: “Critics say Huawei’s rapid expansion is suspicious. Founded in 1987 and focused on selling telecom equipment in rural areas of China, it has grown into the world’s largest supplier of telecoms equipment and second largest smartphone maker. It operates in more than 170 countries, employing about 180,000 people“. OK, I am willing to give that thought, because there is suspicion on that level, yet there is also Facebook, it grew to a multibillion dollar behemoth in less than a decade. At least with technology there are supporting investors when they comprehend the technology and it has been clear in the last 10 years that Huawei was ahead of the curve. My initial assessment in 2014 was that Huawei would soon have at least 20% of the mobile market. I was laughed at by several people, now when I remember them of their short sightedness, they seem to react in denial with statements like ‘I don’t know what you mean‘ and ‘Well, you should have communicated it better‘. Although I did state that ‘Huawei will soon have well over 20% of the mobile market‘ seems to have been clear enough. Now they surpass that with a comfortable distance, and they are not done growing. When I initially discussed my $2B IP idea there were only two players. Google and Huawei, now my benefit to only consider Huawei will have a few more tactical benefits as well as leaving me with a larger slice of that cake which I find appealing as well. that is beside the point of me sticking it to Microsoft and Apple to show them how stupid their path of iterative technology was, in addition, if Huawei pulls it off, it will create a very new cloud technology based growth system. they will do so because all these jokers who are hiding behind ‘security concerns‘ will soon learn that evidence is still adamant and the people are finding out that getting sold short for the benefit of specific Telecom operators come with a massive price tag.

So I found a way around it and create a second system that avoids them altogether, that also means that these players will lost on terabytes of data per day making their losses increasingly uncomfortable. I do have an issue with the quote: “Ren went on a media blitz, breaking years of silence to say the company has never engaged in espionage on behalf of Beijing. “China’s ministry of foreign affairs has officially clarified that no law in China requires any company to install mandatory back doors. Huawei and me personally have never received any request from any government to provide improper information,” he said” I have no doubt that Ren Zhengfei is speaking the truth, yet I am also aware that someone like Chen Wenqing will never knock on the door of Ren Zhengfei, he will find a way around it and get what he needs in another way. By the way that same picture applies to Gina Cheri Haspel and General Paul Nakasone and their links to Microsoft, IBM, Facebook and Apple. You better believe that they are very much on the same page when it comes to their national security, your rights be damned (when National security is discussed).

So let’s not have that pot, kettle and black conversation, shall we?

Then we get to the trade secret part of it all. Oh, and before you get any crazy idea’s. Perhaps you have heard of how in the mid 60’s Israel, through Mossad acquired (read borrowed) the blueprints from the French and when the ban for Israel was clear, they producing an uncanny identical likeness of the Mirage 5, I believe it was called the Nesher, with technical specifications for several main parts to be as perfectly identical as a fingerprint. We were not really that surprised when it happened, yet what was less known was that some documents in the mid 90’s implied that the CIA was very aware of it all before the operation was completed, which shines a light on their need of what they regard to be a trade secret.

This part is important when we realise that the accusation reads: ‘conspiring to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile US Inc.‘. The question is: ‘What Trade Secrets?‘ You see Huawei is a lot more advanced than T-Mobile. Perhaps it is what BGR Media LLC claimed with: “unscrupulous T-Mobile sales reps lie to customers and open lines on their accounts without permission, all to meet unrealistic sales goals“, which is interesting as this is not a think Huawei does, they merely sell hardware and services to companies, not to individuals. Or perhaps the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) findings with: ‘EFF Confirms: T-Mobile’s Binge on Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately to All Video‘, so how is any of that interesting to Huawei? So what exactly is the formal brief for the case? You see, the media does not divulge that, they give us all the innuendo but not the facts. And when it comes to the accusation ”Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment in violation of the US sanctions in Iran“, which might hold water (I actually do not know), yet if the US is unwilling to set that stage by “The U.S. has agreed to let eight countries — including Japan, India and South Korea” to let the Iran sanctions be waived, why are they so specific? Is it merely because their financial and economic setting demands it? How is that proper sanctioning? All that, whilst the media at large is not making any mention of the other 5, we need to see that the entire Iran Sanction is to be seen as a cloak of corruption, if that was not allowed, the oil price would suddenly soar and at that point the US economy would be in deep drenching goo, is that not an interesting side as well? Or perhaps a better clue on how Cisco, Sun and HP equipment makes it to Iran without any hassle, an event that has been going on since 2012, so in all this, the entire Huawei discrimination debacle reads like a joke.

to be quite honest, if there was an actual security issue, I would go after Huawei without a moment’s hesitation, I know I can best Director Igor Kostyukov (GRU), yet going after Chen Wenqing, a man who eats, dreams and lives by the Art of War and optionally one of the few people on the planet whose eyes have seen the actual original version, he would be a lovely challenge for the likes of me. I am no Steinitz, Karpov, Kasparov or Carlsen, but I could be a crazy Bobby Fischer, he’ll never see me coming! (OK, that was my ego talking for a second).

You see, I look beyond the data, beyond what people and politicians hide behind and the entire Huawei mess is a political play of nepotism and fear, because those getting momentum in 5G will set the pace and win the race, that is what America fears it was that simple all along. That truth is easily found, the orchestration (read: rigging) of what would be global 5G rules and the FCC of setting a different stage, the non-accountability of AT&T in all this and that list is growing almost on a daily basis, it gets to be more interesting now that the Democrats from the “Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission today demanding information concerning possible coordination between FCC officials and carriers in an ongoing legal fight” (source: the Verge) and a few more like them. In the last 15 days we have seen more orchestration and the setting of the stage with specific judges, to get a more appealing situation, when we see that part, we see that the technology gap in America is a lot larger than we think and it is setting the stage of fear against an advanced players like Huawei on an almost exponential growing path. America has seemingly no other optional left. That is why I saw from the beginning that places like Saudi Arabia could fuel exponential growth in 5G and making Huawei larger by the day. It also fuels the growth path back to Europe, because the moment Huawei proves that they have the good stuff, the EU will chose profit over short sighted American policies, because those policies do not pay the bills, profit does and the EU is desperate for any profit it can get.

Consider the billions of value of those networks and the billions of revenue that these networks make in addition through information, advertisement and data collection. America is starting to lose out because they were asleep at the wheel for close to 3 years, it is enough to miss out on an entire technology generation. That is the danger that iterative technology brings. For now I merely wonder what Google can do to stay ahead of it all, because their lives depend on the technologies that Huawei has, when Google search becomes less and less at the point of the spear, merely to be laughingly called Bing v2.1, how do you think Google will react? They optionally have the path to equal Huawei in a new network facilitating stream giving them additional revenue in a new dimension. We might initially think Saudi Arabia and Neom city in the pilot stage, yet that could so one thereafter evolve towards London, Paris and other places to grow strong and fast, because in the end all these policies sound nice, but they all forget the number one clause required. It all requires users and that is the part both Google and Huawei figured out a decade before the sheep (read: IBM and Microsoft) started to get a proper clue.

Too many intelligence wannabe’s focussed on Mark Lowenthal’s Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, which is an awesome book, and when you consider the simple: “on how the intelligence community’s history, structure, procedures, and functions affect policy decisions“, which is also an absolute truth, yet behind what you would like to have, these people all forgot about the consumers and what they demanded to be their right, that is where their gravy train became another Titanic and the greed driven path went not by one iceberg, but it steered towards one every other hour making it a wreck in the making, the entire 5G debacle in the US is no difference in that regard and I will be around to laugh at those in denial thinking and parroting ‘security concern‘ on all the media without any proper cause or evidence to show for it. Oh, and I am not the only one, a whole score of cyber experts are on that same path, so I am not alone in seeing through the media stupidity, merely seeing on how much bigger experts like me are totally ignored on several levels giving merely the rise and early expectation to someone screaming in some policy department ‘Iceberg dead ahead‘, whilst none of them are qualified or sanctioned to alter course, going straight for the natural Whiskey coolant.

Life can be exceedingly entertaining at time, but for all the tea (and Huawei mobiles) in China, I never expected them to be this hilarious. Sometimes smoke is not fire, it is the steam of a ship striking an iceberg and going down. For those on that ship do not worry, the direct path to land is only 3800 meters away (straight down).

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Tagged as 5G, Alex Younger, Apple, Beijing, Bobby Fischer, Carlsen, Chen Wenqing, China, CIA, Cisco, Facebook, FCC, FCC officials, General Paul Nakasone, Gina Cheri Haspel, google, GRU, Hong Kong, Huawei, IBM, Igor Kostyukov, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Iran, Israel, Karpov, Kasparov, Mark Lowenthal, MI-6, Microsoft, Mirage, Mossad, Nesher, NSA, Ren Zhengfei, Skycom, Steinitz, T-Mobile, T-Mobile US Inc., UK, USA

January 26, 2019 · 12:24

A Congressional Country Club Neighbour

There is a problem when you are the neighbour of the Congressional Country Club. It is not on the CCC mind you, they did nothing wrong. No, it is all about their neighbour Bethesda. Yes, you guessed it; the slamming of software developer Bethesda is just escalating and escalating. The latest one (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-kIlMPoYY) gives a rise too blunders on many levels, all made by Bethesda. The tweets are off the wall; Bethesda is in actual problems at this point.

I believe that in part the mockery is deserved, apart from the fact that Fallout 76 was an error, or published way too early, the clarity of failure on how the entire mess was dealt with, the lack of communication, shallow party lines and bad response to an even worse situation is what is strangling Bethesda, and to some degree, deserved or not. It is unfair.

Until Fallout 76 the bulk worshipped Bethesda, consider that a game like Skyrim, released on 11.11.11 is still played today, that requires true vision. Many (like me) became fans of Bethesda as ES: Oblivion was released. There is another view (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kRRYgf54oM) that takes itr into another direction. I believe that he is wrong, but I get the point of view. You see, what we call puzzles are basically locking systems in the game. That locking system was staged in those days and these places were filled with soldiers in those days, so the ‘puzzles’ were actually merely locks for those without keys. It is not a hard core puzzle and should not be seen as such. Yet the same person also makes a point with the Fallout 4 references in RPG, the gutting of the Special perks part. He has a point, there was regression, making it too much like an action game with RPG elements. Was it a mistake? It never bothered me whilst playing Fallout 4 over and over again, but that is just me, the story itself did not suffer to the larger degree, if that was the case, my reaction might have been different.

He makes a good point, New Vegas is actually superior in a few ways and that is a shame, even as we loved the ability to make our place more specific, we lost in other ways and that was a shame. When I decided to design ESVI: Restoration, I added from Oblivion, added to Skyrim and made two additional sidesteps, that is progress; that is game evolution.

So there was additional challenge, new options and additional lines to complete. More important, I realised that not everything is in your hands, so I added a side quest where you can influence, but not control it all, that is a part of life. That question will move like a red line through the entire game and in some cases that project will not be completed by the end of the game, time had become a factor as well, an element often ignored in RPG. In my view, you can influence time in the project, yet the end is almost predetermined as you find the elements.

So how is that better?

The fact that there are several choices and you can only commit to one, is the part that matters, it makes for replayability. Also, the end result will influence the economy in play and more important, ass certain choices were obtained/found the place will also open up another set of NPC’s in the game giving another feel and optionally other quests and optionally another achievement. That is merely one place.

I set the stage for 23 side quests that are not the same, require a choice to be made (to some extent) and in addition, would optionally change the favour you get in return, that is something that had not been done before. Although based on previous games, the entire main storyline is set in the past, in the past you played before (to some degree) making the entire line of ES games a historical part of what had happened, optionally what you had played before, that is a side we have not seen before (as far as I know).

What else could there be?

Well, that was my initial thought when I started Restoration and what if we get to choose? What if it is not as shallow as the legion versus the storm cloaks? What if the choice is a fundamental one? What if we select progress of now versus the return to the old age? That is an RPG, it is your choice, it is something given to us in the very beginning of Oblivion.
This is exactly why I considered what I did and I believe that it has the merit of giving the gamers optionally over a hundred hours of gameplay, more than that, they can replay and get a partially different game out of it all, something a lot more than merely manic versus mania; more than Elf versus Imperial. What if we take this to a new level and realise that the light cannot exist without the dark. When we accept that there are no clean solutions and that we have to live with choices and see the impact around us, that is when vanilla RPG transforms into something we seemingly have not seen before (implied as I never played all the games that there are).

And what happens when this is translated to an entire new level of Fallout later on? My ideas are new and partially unique, but the evolution I have in mind is not something that is unheard of. the question becomes is Bethesda (or any other serious RPG developer) willing to take the gamer into a different direction, adding to the need of a lot more graphics and a lot more changes, but that will in the end entice people to replay a game like that again and again. Skyrim opened many eyes, I am merely offering the part where a place like that becomes your universe and you can actually tinker it through gameplay into something more, it has been seen before, but it is really really rare as it requires the software maker to be truly committed to a product for the long term and those in charge now are all about the full time hit, as fast as possible and make it the next profit treasure. Ubisoft showed us that in Assassins Creed, the Division (version 2 more so), Far Cry and Watchdogs. I need to start with the clarity that this is never about the graphics; the graphics from Ubisoft are close to sublime on all these games they really worked it out. The long term part is missed (especially in the Division) as this is about non-stop action. Now, that part seems natural, but it is not. When you have been in a warzone you will get it. You see, it is about stamina. Not fictive but actual stamina. We might think that this does not apply, but it does. It is so much clearer in Division 2, as we see the game to be a much better game, we see the failure on how a person does what they do with 30 Kg of backpack and weapons and do the stuff they do. Stamina should have intervened to some degree; in addition it was ignored as a reward. When you play more, your character will have a better level of stamina, have you ever run for your life holding onto a 7.62mm FN MAG? I have and trust me it is intense, when stamina leaves you for the moment. Things become a little blurry, motor skills diminish a little and you really need 5 seconds to get a hold of yourself. Now, this is a game and I get that, but it is the ignored element, which is a shame. We see Stamina in Skyrim and there it makes sense, yet Skyrim missed a little as well, not intentionally and perhaps not even noticeable and it does not matter to the degree it might, but the internal blocks have not been addressed in any RPG game as far as I can tell, which is a shame. It does not make the Division (1 and 2) a bad game, not at all. I am not a great fan of online gaming and plenty are, yet there is a side of me that looks at the game and whilst there is nothing to say about the first division (we all have to start somewhere) we see that the second one needs to be a step forward and that is clearly the case. It is a large leap forward, anyone telling you different is merely insincere on it all (not lying, merely not seeing it all correctly) Now, there I might be wrong, even as i am not much of an online player, others are and they hold a much larger candle towards the quality of such a game. They will look at other elements. I merely noticed that Stamina is a missed opportunity in the Division both one and two), but in the end it is merely one element of plenty of elements that might be improved on. Stamina is the most visible one as it equally impacts Assassins Creed, Far Cry and Watchdogs. Consider, when was the last time when you had to climb up a tower with gear, let alone the pyramids?

We see to leap forwards in many areas except debilitation (like Stamina). So what happens when you do need to get from place to place and also rest at spots to regain stamina? We played Fallout 4 and Skyrim, yet how many took time to sleep and eat? What if that becomes the foundation in the game for the character? What if we see that the Khajiit needs sugar and meat at least once a day? What if the High Elf needs little food, but will require fresh clean water every day? What more can we get out of the game when we focus beyond the story and make sure that our time in the elements are properly addressed? I believe that plenty of games will end up with an added level of game play and satisfaction when the elements become actual elements to take heed of. Fallout New Vegas had so much of the added elements in its game that the consideration that Fallout 4 was a step back is not that big a leap and that is such a shame.

It is a shame because future games will be measured in different ways, the growing demand for survival games is showing us that path and RPG’s need to catch up fast, or better stated Bethesda needs to up their game in several ways. They do not have the luxury they had in January 2012 (after the first Skyrim wave). They now need not merely a good game, they need a landslide rating to get the people aboard and enthusiastic again, they dropped the ball that often in the last year alone. If they do not, we will see the RPG community moving to other shores and perhaps that is what Obsidian Entertainment will deliver with the Outer Limits. Time will tell, and the gamer has time to go from game to game, Bethesda no longer has that benefit, they squandered too much of it internally, and externally towards their fans, the gamers and their marketing will need to learn that merchandising is not a solution, it is not a stop gap. Every piece of merchandising is another piece of evidence to hold Bethesda as a company up to scrutiny, did they not realise that?

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Tagged as Assassins Creed, Bethesda, Congressional Country Club, Fallout, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Far Cry, FN MAG, gaming, Khajiit, Oblivion, Obsidian Entertainment, RPG, RPG Gaming, Skyrim, The Division, The Division 2, the outer limits, Ubisoft, Watchdogs

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