Tag Archives: government contracts

10% of Amplify Tablets Broke in Their First Month, One North Carolina School District Reports

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This tablet was always intended to go into schools, and that is why it was supposed to have been built with a layer of Gorilla Glass over the screen. This was in the contract that GCS signed, and it was also mentioned prominently in the early news coverage of this tablet. According to the school district, none of the Amplify tablets that they bought had that protective layer, which might help explain why so many tablets broke.

Or to put it another way, the absence of Gorilla Glass is a sign that someone cut corners on the build quality for this production run. Given that there were also complaints about misfitted cases and defective power supplies,  I am not terribly surprised.

via 10% of Amplify Tablets Broke in Their First Month, One North Carolina School District Reports – The Digital Reader.

As I reported when the Amplify tablet debuted in March of this year, this tablet is NewsCorp’s “solution” to the “problem” of education:

Matchstick-sized sensor can record your private chats

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Conventional microphones work when sound waves make a diaphragm move, creating an electrical signal. Microflown’s sensor has no moving parts. It consists of two parallel platinum strips, each just 200 nanometres deep, that are heated to 200 °C. Air molecules flowing across the strips cause temperature differences between the pair. Microflown’s software counts the air molecules that pass through the gap between the strips to gauge sound intensity: the more air molecules in a sound wave, the louder the sound. At the same time, it analyses the temperature change in the strips to work out the movement of the air and calculate the coordinates of whatever generated the sound.

via Matchstick-sized sensor can record your private chats – 26 September 2013 – New Scientist.

Confessions of a cyber warrior

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I’ve been a longtime friend to one cyber warrior. On condition of anonymity, he agreed to be interviewed about what he does for a living and allowed me to record our conversation on a device he controlled, from which I transcribed our conversation. I was able to ask clarifying questions the next day.

via In his own words: Confessions of a cyber warrior | Security – InfoWorld.

US agency baffled by modern technology, destroys mice to get rid of viruses

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EDA’s CIO, fearing that the agency was under attack from a nation-state, insisted instead on a policy of physical destruction. The EDA destroyed not only (uninfected) desktop computers but also printers, cameras, keyboards, and even mice. The destruction only stopped—sparing $3 million of equipment—because the agency had run out of money to pay for destroying the hardware.

via US agency baffled by modern technology, destroys mice to get rid of viruses | Ars Technica.

And you want these people in charge of economic development?

Defense Companies Cash in on Gov’t Hyped ‘Cyber-Security’ Threat

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Bloomberg News reports that within the past two weeks security contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have signed an agreement under the Department of Homeland Security’s Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program providing new revenue streams and, more notably, unparalleled access to personal information classified as “U.S. government data.”

via Defense Companies Cash in on Gov’t Hyped ‘Cyber-Security’ Threat | Common Dreams.