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Latest stories of our network
AI tech lets disabled gamers smash access barriers
Gamers are using their voice to overcome accessibility problems
By 2023, there could be over three billion gamers worldwide. But for some people with disabilities, taking part in this wildly popular passion can be frustrating to impossible. Now, one piece of tech is out to make slaying dragons and building civilizations accessible to all. Will it change the future of gaming?
The AI-powered voice of a generation’s gamers
<p>Since the world's first video game 'Pong' appeared in 1958, gaming has evolved in ways never imagined. But game accessibility is still a problem for as many as 30 million people in the US, because they have an impairment that means they come up against accessibility barriers when gaming. </p><p><a href="https://hellofridai.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fridai</a> is changing all that. The voice-activated, AI-powered assistant gives advice on anything gamers with disabilities may need, from hands-free options to being reminded of the game's objective. In Defenders of Digital series two, episode four, Mark Engelhardt, Fridai's Co-founder and CEO, talks about how the technology uses AI to create a new interface between humans and machines.</p>Fighting police for openness on cell tracking
Chicago's tiny not-for-profit taking on powerful institutions.
The history of surveillance is one of control. As monitoring technologies accelerate, one not-for-profit noticed a concerning rise in unethical police cell phone observation. Their objections led to new, stronger digital rights legislation.
Stingrays and cell phones: Is your pocket private?
<p>Smartphones have improved our lives more than we could have imagined. We work on them, use them to take and store private photos and they know where we are at any moment. But with advanced surveillance techniques, phones have become a powerful way for law enforcement to observe and identify us, ethically or not.</p><p>One Chicago not-for-profit, <a href="https://lucyparsonslabs.com/" target="_blank">Lucy Parsons Labs</a>, is demanding government agencies like the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be more transparent about how and why they track people through their phones. Defenders of Digital episode three speaks with Lucy Parsons Labs' Executive Director Freddy Martinez about how law enforcement use technologies to covertly observe people, what it means for digital rights and how his team made US legal history.</p>- Tomorrow Unlocked > Defenders of Digital ›
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Online child abuse is a growing issue ›
This NGO believes an online privacy utopia is worth fighting for
The world of digital privacy is changing.
Algorithms are everywhere, but they are trained based on the beliefs of their developer. In episode two of our second season of Defenders of Digital, we learn about Homo Digitalis' work to expose algorithm bias that impedes digital rights for millions. The first corporate they catch might surprise you.