Cloud Empires
Cloud Empires

Author: Vili Lehdonvirta

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-02-06

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0262548380

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The rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over the lives of entrepreneurs, users, and workers. The early Internet was a lawless place, populated by scam artists who made buying or selling anything online risky business. Then Amazon, eBay, Upwork, and Apple established secure digital platforms for selling physical goods, crowdsourcing labor, and downloading apps. These tech giants have gone on to rule the Internet like autocrats. How did this happen? How did users and workers become the hapless subjects of online economic empires? The Internet was supposed to liberate us from powerful institutions. In Cloud Empires, digital economy expert Vili Lehdonvirta explores the rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over our lives and proposes a new way forward. Digital platforms create new marketplaces and prosperity on the Internet, Lehdonvirta explains, but they are ruled by Silicon Valley despots with little or no accountability. Neither workers nor users can “vote with their feet” and find another platform because in most cases there isn’t one. And yet using antitrust law and decentralization to rein in the big tech companies has proven difficult. Lehdonvirta tells the stories of pioneers who helped create—or resist—the new social order established by digital platform companies. The protagonists include the usual suspects—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Travis Kalanick of Uber, and Bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto—as well as Kristy Milland, labor organizer of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform that has emerged as an ersatz stand-in for the welfare state. Only if we understand digital platforms for what they are—institutions as powerful as the state—can we begin the work of democratizing them.

Cloud Empires
Cloud Empires

Author: Vili Lehdonvirta

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2022-09-13

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0262371103

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The rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over the lives of entrepreneurs, users, and workers. The early Internet was a lawless place, populated by scam artists who made buying or selling anything online risky business. Then Amazon, eBay, Upwork, and Apple established secure digital platforms for selling physical goods, crowdsourcing labor, and downloading apps. These tech giants have gone on to rule the Internet like autocrats. How did this happen? How did users and workers become the hapless subjects of online economic empires? The Internet was supposed to liberate us from powerful institutions. In Cloud Empires, digital economy expert Vili Lehdonvirta explores the rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over our lives and proposes a new way forward. Digital platforms create new marketplaces and prosperity on the Internet, Lehdonvirta explains, but they are ruled by Silicon Valley despots with little or no accountability. Neither workers nor users can “vote with their feet” and find another platform because in most cases there isn’t one. And yet using antitrust law and decentralization to rein in the big tech companies has proven difficult. Lehdonvirta tells the stories of pioneers who helped create—or resist—the new social order established by digital platform companies. The protagonists include the usual suspects—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Travis Kalanick of Uber, and Bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto—as well as Kristy Milland, labor organizer of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform that has emerged as an ersatz stand-in for the welfare state. Only if we understand digital platforms for what they are—institutions as powerful as the state—can we begin the work of democratizing them.

Ludotopia
Ludotopia

Author: Espen Aarseth

Publisher: transcript Verlag

Published: 2019-08-31

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 3839447305

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Where do computer games »happen«? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of »space«, »place« and »territory« featuring in most general theories of space to lay the groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these.

Cloud Computing and Security
Cloud Computing and Security

Author: Xingming Sun

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 764

ISBN-13: 3030000214

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This six volume set LNCS 11063 – 11068 constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Security, ICCCS 2018, held in Haikou, China, in June 2018. The 386 full papers of these six volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 1743 submissions. The papers cover ideas and achievements in the theory and practice of all areas of inventive systems which includes control, artificial intelligence, automation systems, computing systems, electrical and informative systems. The six volumes are arranged according to the subject areas as follows: cloud computing, cloud security, encryption, information hiding, IoT security, multimedia forensics

The Costs of Connection
The Costs of Connection

Author: Nick Couldry

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-08-20

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1503609758

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Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free—it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Colonialism might seem like a thing of the past, but this book shows that the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication. Apps, platforms, and smart objects capture and translate our lives into data, and then extract information that is fed into capitalist enterprises and sold back to us. The authors argue that this development foreshadows the creation of a new social order emerging globally—and it must be challenged. Confronting the alarming degree of surveillance already tolerated, they offer a stirring call to decolonize the internet and emancipate our desire for connection.

Blood Spirit World
Blood Spirit World

Author: You Jingtang

Publisher: Funstory

Published: 2020-01-08

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1647963621

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This was a continent filled with mysticality, this was a continent that made people's souls tremble, in this place, strength was revered, with powerful strength, you could command the heavens, and those who did not have power, could only be reduced to ants, to be trampled on by others, he, was originally a man with extraordinary talent, yet he lost all his cultivation for no reason, he, was originally a gifted genius, yet he almost lost his life because of offending a villain, he, was humiliated, he, coincidentally obtained the ultimate Cultivation Methods, can't rule over this continent, couldn't he? Whether or not he will be able to reach the summit of the road and command the firmament will all be in the Blood Soul Continent. Carrying your curiosity, follow me into this mysterious continent to explore this exciting story.

The New Empire of Debt
The New Empire of Debt

Author: William Bonner

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-07-30

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0470528710

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An updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil In The New Empire of Debt, financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the financial crisis that has plagued the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire. Throughout the book, the authors offer an updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil, and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system-combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption-has ravaged the business environment, devastated consumer confidence, and pushed the global economy to the brink. Along the way, Bonner and Wiggin cast a wide angle lens that looks back in history and ahead to the coming century: showing how dramatic changes in the economic power of the United States will inevitably impact every American. Reveals the financial realities the United States currently faces and what the ultimate outcome may be Weaves together the worlds of politics, economics, and personal finance in a way that underscores the severity of the situation Addresses the events leading up to the implosion of the U.S. financial system Looks ahead to help you avoid the pitfalls presented by a weaker United States Other titles by Bonner: Empire of Debt, Financial Reckoning Day, and Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets Other titles by Wiggin: I.O.U.S.A., Demise of the Dollar, and Financial Reckoning Day The United States is heading down a difficult path. The New Empire of Debt clearly shows how this has happened and discusses what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.

The Privacy Fallacy
The Privacy Fallacy

Author: Ignacio Cofone

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-11-30

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1009002546

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Our privacy is besieged by tech companies. Companies can do this because our laws are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and courts into wrong assumptions about privacy, resulting in ineffective legal remedies to one of the most pressing concerns of our generation. Drawing on behavioral science, sociology, and economics, Ignacio Cofone challenges existing laws and reform proposals and dispels enduring misconceptions about data-driven interactions. This exploration offers readers a holistic view of why current laws and regulations fail to protect us against corporate digital harms, particularly those created by AI. Cofone then proposes a better response: meaningful accountability for the consequences of corporate data practices, which ultimately entails creating a new type of liability that recognizes the value of privacy.

The New Empire of AI
The New Empire of AI

Author: Rachel Adams

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-11-05

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 1509553118

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As AI takes hold across the planet and wealthy nations seek to position themselves as global leaders of this new technology, the gap is widening between those who benefit from it and those who are subjugated by it. As Rachel Adams shows in this hard-hitting book, growing inequality is the single biggest threat to the transformative potential of AI. Not only is AI built on an unequal global system of power, it stands poised to entrench existing inequities, further consolidating a new age of empire. AI’s impact on inequality will not be experienced in poorer countries only: it will be felt everywhere. The effects will be seen in intensified international migration as opportunities become increasingly concentrated in wealthier nations; in heightened political instability and populist politics; and in climate-related disasters caused by an industry blind to its environmental impact across supply chains. We need to act now to address these issues. Only if the current inequitable trajectory of AI is halted, the incentives changed and the production and use of AI decentralized from wealthier nations will AI be able to deliver on its promise to build a better world for all.