D I S N O V A T I O N

A communications officer with a government ministry has reportedly warned people against posting pictures of themselves on social media, lest they be used in black magic rituals.

Just over a century ago, an electric company in Minnesota took out a full-page newspaper advertisement and listed 1,000 uses for electricity...

Apple is rightly getting some adulation for its new robot that can autonomously disassemble new iPhones so that their components can be recycled. The company could instead use a much simpler move to signal that it’s actually dedicated to reducing its environmental impact: Apple should start selling screwdrivers.

If we ever needed persuading that animals are smarter than technology, we should take heed of the drone-fighting eagles. Scotland Yard is examining the deployment of bald eagles by Dutch police after a private security firm demonstrated how the mighty birds can deftly pluck a drone out of the sky.

A day after Microsoft introduced an innocent Artificial Intelligence chat robot to Twitter it has had to delete it after it transformed into an evil Hitler-loving, incestual sex-promoting, 'Bush did 9/11'-proclaiming robot.

We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and terrifying – it will leave its legacy for millennia. Politicians and scientists have had their say, but how are writers and artists responding to this crisis?

Destructables.org is a DIY repository of projects of protest and creative dissent. The site features user generated step-by-step video and photo/text based instructions for a wide range of dissenting actions, including art actions, billboard alterations, shop-dropping, protest strategies, protest props, methods of civil disobedience, stencil work, and many other forms of public dissent – from the practical and tactical to the creative and illegal. It is a living archive and resource for the art and activist communities.

Wayan Sumardana, a 31-year-old welder in a small village in Bali, claims that he has created a mind-controlled bionic arm/exoskeleton out of scrap parts, to assist him in carrying out his day-to-day duties after he woke up with a paralysed arm some six months ago.

Today’s Apple press event played out pretty much exactly like they always do. A few new products, a few promotional videos, and a lot of talk about changing the world. But amidst all that was an interesting and perhaps revealing moment.

INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’

Supercargo depicts pre-existing objects, that are in some way objects of desire. Commodities, tech products, artworks. In terms of “art” that would mean a way of “speculative realism”, reflecting on global conditions. This is necessary because it is neither subjective nor relative. As this introduction by Jack Self states: “Postmodernism is increasingly complicit with the contradiction of late capitalist labour markets: it looks like we have infinite choice of lifestyle and career paths; in reality we are all subjects of a catastrophic restructuring of labour and forms of life to a homogenous, polarised, neo-feudalism.” This new realism mimics a material world of trade and consumption, which simply became uncertain, nervous in the informational age. We live in an era in which form is now only time-based, think of 3D printing, disappearing industries, entire workplaces now immaterial programs. How would a simple human, omitting globalisation make this object? The materials used should always reflect socio-economic realities: This poorsumer is rich of high speed internet, but poor of material possessions. Thepoorsumer makes use of free materials like waste and stone. ... more on the SuperCargo Website ...

Angolans have found a clever way to share files using Wikipedia Zero and Facebook’s Free Basics, but what happens to the existing Wikipedia community?

What is technical object? Stages of evolution of technical object; What are the essential properties of technical object? What is wrong with our attitude towards technical objects? What is the level of technical development of the civilization that we live in? Is it possible to be poetic when discussing technical objects, whether it is necessary or not?

Boston Dynamics pioneered walking robots, on both two legs and four (see video). BD's early demonstrated success led Google (aka Alphabet) to acquire them for their robotics mashup, Replicant, in December of 2013. However, Google has changed their minds. 

Les technologies, entre magie et perte de contrôle (french only).

Les entreprises n’ont pas le choix : soit elles innovent, soit elles disparaissent. Mais ce discours sur l’innovation ne finit-il pas par nous éloigner de l’idée de progrès ? (French only)