E-SPEAIT

  source: https://www.scewo.com/en/product/# This week’s topic is about accessibility and assistive technology. I’m writing about a real-life case of the principle "if a person has control over any function, it can also be used to control the computer". The example I chose is the smart wheelchair than can climb stairs. The case started with a man from Switzerland, Jose Di Felice. He had a major motorcycle accident in 2016 that resulted in a disability to move both legs and one arm. He found out during his new life on a wheelchair, that stairs are his biggest challenge in his day-to-day life. So, he started to look for a solution [1]. In his research he found the small startup Scewo from Switzerland. The startup has built a wheelchair that can be controlled through a smartphone. It can tackle a range of terrains and has special rubber tracks for climbing stairs. Di Felice asked for a test drive and climbed up successfully the stairs of the local town hall. The wheelchair ca...

source: Pixabay This week’s topic is about the history of Hackers and the hacker-culture. I’m writing a short opinion piece about the practical applicability of the ideals of Hackers in the modern world. One thing up front: I don’t know much about hacker culture and therefore I don’t really feel in the position to really critique it. I will just throw in some thoughts. Over the time there has been some different hacker work ethics. Especially the hacker ethic of the nineties stuck out to me. Eric S. Raymond wrote a “How to become a Hacker” article. There are some good and basic recommendations in it, like learning a programming language and learn speak English fluently. But his “points for style” (basically how to become an even better hacker) seem weird to me. He suggests aspiring hackers to go to science fiction conventions and read science fiction. That makes it look like he wants his community to separate themselves from the “outer world” and join this very specific circle. He ...

  This week’s topic is about Censorship, Privacy, and the Internet. I will talk about two examples: One about censorship and one about privacy. Online censorship source: pixabay When it comes to online censorship, China immediately comes to mind. The country is known for strict laws and strict censorship. One interesting example is the popular app WeChat. The app company is based in China and counts over 1.1 billion global users. It is one of the world’s most advanced and popular apps.  It reaches into many corners of a Chinese person’s life: the way much of the country chats, pays, plays, moves, and much more [1]. “The all-encompassing ambition of WeChat includes some of the most cutting-edge, quick-acting, and far-reaching censorship technology on earth.” [1] The app can censor text and images in real-time. One example of WeChat censoring a certain word happened in 2015. The app seemed to censor the word “Uber” [2]. Users who posted about Uber could see their own posts...