Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 17
Posts 1 - 10

Auf die Bombe folgten die Explosionen

(The bomb was followed by explosions)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 10.12.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, politics, privacy
Summary | Recently the news story about a company called Cambridge Analytica made waves: they claimed to have extracted an accurate psychological profile of all adult US citizens based on their Facebook likes. The company uses those profiles to target very specific audiences with political advertising. Such rigorous profiling based on data that was not willingly given for the purposes of such analysis would be illegal in Europe.
Image Description | Bloomberg image of a woman with glasses (only eyes portion of face visible), the glasses reflecting a screen showing the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), logo

Von Rubinbergs Super-Duden

(Von Rubinger super dictionary)

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Newspaper | die Weltwoche
Date | 13.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | privacy, texting, translation, WhatsApp
Summary | An entrepreneur in Switzerland wants to release a new messaging app called Drotr. It is comparable to WhatsApp in its basic functions but it can translate all messages into over 100 languages. Also the messages are better protected against privacy breaches and the servers are located in Switzerland.
Image Description | N/A

Ignoranz ist Stärke

(Ignorance is strength)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 3.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Kellyanne Conways term "alternative facts" remind of Orwell's fictional language Newspeak which also changes meanings by renaming. Many facts of contemporary life (especially under the Trump administration) remind of dystopian novels "1984" by G. Orwell and "Brave New World" by A. Huxley. We all carry smartphones with us at all times with which we can send information but which also receive and document information about us like our location, who else is in that location, our communications, purchases, and so on. Privacy has become impossible in the digital age.
Image Description | Images and videos of the film "1984" and George Orwell as well as the news clip where Kellyanne Conway mentions "alternative facts".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), TV

Facebook will Gedanken lesen, hat dafür aber noch keine Technologie

(Facebook wants to read minds but lacks the technology for it)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 21.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, research/study, translation
Summary | Facebook wants to read minds. A team of 60 researchers are working on technologies to make this possible. The goal is for users to be able to send a message through Facebook without even taking their smartphone out of their pockets. A further goal is for people to be able to send messages in a language they do not speak.
Image Description | N/A

Diese Technik soll uns den Alltag erleichtern

(This technology should make our daily lives easier)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 5.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, privacy, research/study, smartphone, translation
Summary | Computer are becoming more and more intertwined in our daily lives. Some smartphones can already translate real-time conversations with imitating the speakers voice thanks to advances in voice recognition. Image recognition has also advanced substantially to being able to "read" moods, age, and attractiveness of the photographed individuals. Research is being done for smartphones and other devices to monitor body odor, sweat (to allet to dehydration), or tear liquid (for diabetics).
Image Description | Various simple visualizations of smartphones/devices interacting with people (depicted by emojis), body parts, et cetera.
Image Tags | chart, emojis, female(s), smartphone

IQ ist nicht alles

(IQ is not everything)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 1.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, brain
Summary | Intelligence and expecially at the level of the gifted individuals can only blossom when it is nurtured, i.e. when learning is encouraged. For this, concentration is required and in this day and age the distractions of digital devices can hinder the development of one's intellectual potential. Multi-tasking as such is a myth. one might wonder whether artificial intelligence will lead to the demise of human intelligence.
Image Description | An EP image of Orson Welles (film director), a Getty image of Anne-Sophie Mutter (violinist), and an EPA image of Stephen Hawking (physicist).
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

43 plus E-Mail plus 58 plus SMS gleich Problem statt Lösung

(43 plus email plus 58 plus text message equals problem instead of solution)

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Newspaper | Bilanz
Date | 27.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | brain, email, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | Professionals nowadays frequently abstain from checking their emails. Automatic email notifications stating that the desired person is unavailable for a few weeks due to email abstinence have become more frequent. This is unsurprising because the interruptions caused by emails and other notifications take up a lot of our cognitive capacity so that we become less efficient in our work. We check our smartphones for new notifications 85 times a day on average.
Image Description | N/A

Schweizer Firmen setzen auf Bots

(Swiss firms put their money on bots)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 27.12.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, privacy
Summary | Many companies in Switzerland are testing out chatbots to replace their telephone customer service. Many company chatbots can be contacted via the Facebook messenger. They are quite useful because they can organize tasks according to content and delegate them to the appropriate departments or help the customers themselves. Experts demand full transparency about what happens to customer data created in chatbot uses.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman's torso holding a smartphone, some chatbot chat screenshots and graphs.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text

Hilfe, wo sind meine Whatsapp-Freunde hin!

(Help, where did all of my WhatsApp friends go!)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 26.2.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, privacy, social media, WhatsApp
Summary | After Facebook has bought WhatsApp, many users are worried about their data privacy so waves of users are switching on to safer alternatives to WhatsApp such as Telegram, MyEnigma, or the Swiss app Threema. The large majority however is staying on WhatsApp, which causes more people to stay or return to WhatsApp. When Facebook replaced older social media platforms such as the German SchülerVZ, all users moved because a social media platform is only valuable when enough people use it.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with social media different icons.
Image Tags | logo, smartphone, social media

Keine Chance für WhatsApp-Konkurrenz

(No chance for WhatsApp competition)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 16.2.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, privacy, WhatsApp
Summary | When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $22 mio in 2014, many users feared that their data privacy would be exploited. App store sales for secure messaging apps increased, particularly the Swiss app Threema. Now, Facebook and WhatsApp still have the highest user numbers which shows that people do not seem to care very much about their data privacy in the long run. While WhatsApp did introduce end-to-end encryption, Facebook also broke their promise of never connecting WhatsApp and Facebook user data.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with different icons.
Image Tags | logo, smartphone

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