TechPlus+ | Technology & Development Redux
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A Glance at Carbon Dioxide Emissions Data
Read more: A Glance at Carbon Dioxide Emissions DataLack of data is certainly not one of the issues at the table when discussing energy production and carbon emissions. Well-known sources for the former include the UN Statistics Division, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and British Petroleum (BP). The latter publishes an annual report while IEA data is…
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Blockchains and Food Safety
Read more: Blockchains and Food SafetyTrade is one of the main trademarks of the globalization process. Nowadays, most countries exchange products and services regularly and use local comparative advantages to specialize in specific trade sectors and/or commodities. Food and agricultural products are important components of this process. Within countries, rapid urbanization has increased the demand for food. Simultaneously, the number…
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Measuring Artificial Intelligence Development
Read more: Measuring Artificial Intelligence DevelopmentIn the last decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI), including siblings machine learning and deep learning, has been growing by leaps and bounds. More importantly, the technology has been deployed effectively in a wide range of traditional sectors bringing real transformational change while raising fundamental socio-economic (joblessness, more inequality, etc.) and ethical (bias, discrimination, etc.) issues along…
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Blockchains and Digital ID, II
Read more: Blockchains and Digital ID, IIThe Evolution of Digital identity The emergence of digital technologies provided the ground to shift from traditional systems based on physical identity. In the past, both foundational and functional identity mechanisms were centralized, with individuals getting a physical document containing relevant personal attributes required by the issuing entity. Document management was totally in the hands…
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Blockchains and Digital ID, I
Read more: Blockchains and Digital ID, IOverview Like previous technologies, such as the Internet, blockchains have been driven by a high degree of techno-optimism not yet backed up by on the ground impact or reliable evidence. Undoubtedly, the technology, which is still rapidly evolving, has enormous potential in many sectors and could promote human development if harnessed strategically. One of the…
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E-government Development II
Read more: E-government Development IIIn this sequel post, I will look at the various components of the UNDESA e-government index and then introduce the EIU democracy index to explore potential interlinks between the two, Components The e-government development index (EGDI) comprises three distinct components 1. Online services. 2. Telecom infrastructure. And 3. Human capital. While the last two are…
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E-government Development I
Read more: E-government Development IBirth Running on the coattails of the now infamous dot-com bubble, e-government first saw the light of day before the end of the last Millennium. At that time, where hype overtook the tech scene yet again, adding ‘e’ (as in electronic) to almost any theme became quite fashionable. First in the scene was e-commerce (and…
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On Blockchains Research
Read more: On Blockchains ResearchBlockchain technology development has been accompanied by a substantial increase in related research. The latter usually trails new technology innovations, but it does tend to catch up in the short-term. Ten years after the emergence of blockchains, there is plenty of ongoing academic and other research. Keeping track of its volume requires some sort of…
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Powering the Internet
Read more: Powering the InternetInfrastructure development has been one of the main concerns of Internet promoters. It is usually posited as one of the key obstacles impeding universal access to the global network. Digital divide concerns and calls to connect the next billion are perhaps the best-known examples of such worldview. For the record, this is not an Internet-only…
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Biased Artificial Intelligence
Read more: Biased Artificial IntelligenceA recent piece in MIT’s Technology Review nicely summarizes the issue of bias in AI/ML (AI) algorithms used in production to make decisions or predictions. The usual suspects make a cameo appearance, including data, design and implicit fairness assumptions. But the article falls a bit short as it does not distinguish between bias in general…
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The Global Centralization of (Dis)Intermediation
Read more: The Global Centralization of (Dis)IntermediationMerchants are perhaps the most famous image of an intermediary, the not-so-loved “middleman” that buys cheap, sells dear, and becomes rich doing little work. Even in the supposedly dark Middle Ages, merchants could openly operate creating Merchant Guilds that promoted regional trade while protecting members from potential abuses by powerful landlords and countervailing the staunch opposition…
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Best Films – 2018
Read more: Best Films – 2018While I managed to watch a film every 2.5 days on average, online sources were instrumental in making this a reality. The astounding public library system of the US county where I happen to live at the moment also played a significant role. In addition to facilitating access to academic books (usually on the expensive side)…
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Algorithms and Algocracy – II
Read more: Algorithms and Algocracy – IIIn the previous post, I provided a simple definition of an algorithm to then explore its use in the digital world. While algorithms live from the inputs they are feed, digital programs such as mobile apps and web platforms are comprised of a series of algorithms that, working in sync, deliver the desired output(s). Algorithms…
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Algorithms and Algocracy – I
Read more: Algorithms and Algocracy – IWhile the concept of algorithms has been around for centuries, the same cannot be said about algocracy. The latter has recently gained notoriety thanks partly to the renaissance of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) and is frequently used to describe the increased use of algorithms in decision-making and governance processes. Indeed, the so-called Singularity…
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Smart contracts are not that smart
Read more: Smart contracts are not that smartSmart contracts are perhaps one of the most touted features of blockchain technology. While the idea itself dates from the end of the last century, blockchains provided the platform for actual implementation in the Internet era. Undoubtedly, Ethereum was the real disruptive innovator by enhancing the original but limited Bitcoin architecture with a plethora of…