Tech 9: Stories From the Week You Need To Read Right Now

Image via Complex Original

Ever since Horse_ebooks bedazzled the Twitter-verse, bots have been a constant obsession, nonsensical palette cleansers between hashtag political arguments and new product announcements. Writing for Medium, Mark Sample investigates the idea of turning bots into politically productive forces for use in protest, termed "bots of conviction." According to Sample, protest bots would flood Twitter with topical, data-based, cumulative and oppositional messages that interrupt the flow of news that's otherwise determined by viral distraction and paid-for sponsorships with dire political messages that try and put infotainment stories back into perspective. 

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Once-beloved taxi apps Uber and Lyft were given another legal obstacle to clear this week. Viriginia's DMV issued cease-and-desist letters to both companies for operating without appropriate permits, something for which the state previously fined the companies $35,000. The DMV also said it would issue civil penalties to individual drivers for operating without permits. Uber and Lyft argue Virginia law doesn't apply to them because they're "sharing" applications, but according to Richard Holcomb, commissioner of the Virginia DMV, that doesn't matter because both companies receive compensation for their services. 

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Columbia Psychiatrist Paul Applebaum published an essay, picked up by The Verge's Arielle Duhaime-Ross, exploring how genetics have been used as the basis for issuing lesser sentences to violent criminals based on the presence of genes that have a significant correlation with violent behavior. In 2009 an Italian murderer had his sentence reduced by one year after his lawyers argued the presence of a particular gene, called MAOA, reduced his ability to premeditate any of his actions. The idea is still widely contested by both lawyers and scientists, but with at least one case precedent on the books it will likely be a legal tactic that many will try moving forward. 

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After bringing the Internet to its knees with the revelation of Google's chibi-eyed self-driving car, it seems like Michigan is trying to follow suit with a fake town used to test automated cars. Overseen by the University of Michigan, the town simulates a four-lane highway, city intersections with working stoplights, and will be filled with "stationary and mechanized" pedestrians to simulate real townsfolk. "We'll be able to trigger tricky traffic signal timings, or a pedestrian stepping into the intersection at just the wrong time, for example," assistant professor Edwin Olson wrote in a statement about the project. 

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Everyone wants to be green, but most people's eco-friendly habits end up limited to shopping in the right kinds of ways. Dutch designer Dave Hakkens has built a concept for an open source plastic recycling machine for home use, effectively allowing anyone with an interest in curbing their carbon footprint to be proactive about it. "It sort of all started when I noticed we have a lot of plastic waste," Hakkens told Wired. "For a lot of reasons, we can't do anything with plastic. With wood, you have a carpenter. I heard that less than 10% is recycled. Which is weird-it's easy to recycle, and you only need low temperatures." Hakkens machine shreds old plastic goods and melts them at low temperature, creating a base material that can be used to make any number of new items, like a wood shop for plastics enthusiasts. 

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Facebook's descent into creepy exploitation continues unabated with a new feature that allows the mobile app to turn on users' cell phone mics. The social network says the feature will allow the app to append tags to users posts, identifying certain shows or songs they're listening to by recording a few seconds of background noise while entering a status update. Critics say that feature allows Facebook unchecked ability to control its users phones and record them at their most intimate moments. Almost immediately a petition protesting the new feature was circulated, gathering more than 542,000 signatures in a matter of days. Facebook argues the feature does not actually store audio files but simply scans their data for pattern matches with known shows or songs. 

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This week Suzi LeVine became the first U.S. ambassador to be sworn in to office with an e-reader. Following in the footsteps of some New Jersey firefighters who'd been sworn in using iPad versions of the bible, LeVine, who will serve in Switzerland, placed her hand over a Kindle loaded with the US Constitution during her swearing-in ceremony. How much longer will it take before a president is sworn in on a tablet? 

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The promise that computers would make human life more efficient in all aspects has come under greater scrutiny in recent years. A new study picked up by Vox's Joseph Stromberg suggests that students who use laptops in class perform more poorly than those who use the antiquated pen and paper method. Factual comprehension was equal between both parties but conceptual understanding of lecture subjects was dramatically worse for students taking notes on laptops. One of contributing factors is how distracting computers can be, even without Internet connections the presence of games, apps, and other busy work can divert a major portion of a student's focus. 

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Two playful Edinburgh residents decided to pull a prank on Google's Street View car by staging an axe murder on the street just as it was driving by. After seeing the Google van driving slowly down the street, the pair came up with the fake murder scenario in a matter of seconds. The prank was pulled in 2012 and the duo soon forgot about it, but eventually some Google Maps users discovered the scene and called police who tracked down the duo. It turns out the seeming murder victim was the owner of a parking garage, who had to explain the whole scenario when police arrived almost two years to inquire about the event. No charges were filed against the pair, but the images remain live on Google Maps for your amusement.

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