Adafruit furniture [ 18-Feb-26 5:10am ]Adafruit furniture
# [ 03-Feb-26 4:00am ]
Fury as Amazon Ring Cameras Are Hooked Up to ICE System
As US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wreak havoc on American communities, big tech companies have been making themselves indispensable to the increasingly tyrannical state.
Among them is Amazon subsidiary Ring, the company behind those AI doorbell cameras that have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Back in October, Ring announced that its devices would soon be looped into a network of Flock AI surveillance cameras. That network, an investigation by 404 Media found, has been available to local and federal police and enforcement agencies like ICE — leaving many worried that their Ring doorbell cams are now feeding into a government panopticon.
Sure enough, as anti-ICE protests ramp up throughout the US, activists are pushing a grassroots campaign to convince Ring users to smash their devices. Doing so, they say, could help deprive the federal government of footage it's using to enact a campaign of harassment, arrests, and deportation.
"Smash your Ring doorbells," progressive activist Guy Christensen urged his 3.5 million followers on TikTok. "You need to smash your Ring doorbells. Amazon owns Ring, and they've decided to begin sharing surveillance collected from your front step with ICE and Flock Safety, weaponing surveillance against the American people."
"If you have home surveillance or something, make sure that you know, 100 percent, the footage being recorded of you and your family in your home, or wherever, is only and can only be seen and shared with you," Christensen implored….
The Seven Properties of Highly Secured Devices (2nd Edition)
*According to Microsoft in 2020
"RoomDiffusion," a proposed AI scheme that might act as your interior designer for your home,
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.03198v1
In this report, we introduce RoomDiffusion, an industry model applied to interior decoration design scenarios, which outperforms all existing open-source models.
Our report details the construction process of the RoomDiffusion model, the evaluation methods used, and the performance comparison with open-source models. We also hope that our technical report can provide a reference for the open-source community and foster more rapid and valuable development in the field of interior decoration design.
#Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst on Artificial Psychedelia
*Starmirror AI public space installation. I reckon that's gonna be hard to beat for weird.
Timber structures built by pre-humans
Dear ThingsCon friends,
In just four weeks, we'll kick off TH/NGS 2025, our annual gathering exploring this year's theme: Resize < Remix < Regen.
This week brings exciting updates: our closing keynote speaker, three new workshops, exhibition details, and a final reminder that early bird tickets end this Sunday, November 16.
Closing keynote: Matt JonesWe're delighted to announce Matt Jones as our closing keynote speaker. Throughout his career—from BERG to Google, Lunar Energy, and now as Head of Design - AI at Miro—Matt has consistently offered playful incisive perspectives on our relationship with technology.
The plenary programAlongside our keynotes, the plenary program will feature:
- Student Project Pitches - Three selected projects presenting their innovative work
- Exhibition Talks - Short presentations diving into the vision and design behind selected exhibited works
New Workshops AnnouncedOur program continues to take shape with approximately 14 workshops and sessions, plus exhibition talks, student showcases, and more.
Last week we introduced five workshops covering Creating physical manifestations of our digital waste, People's AI infrastructures & Mud batteries, The politics of design, Making AI chairs, and Design artefacts for magic.
Home - a private place for everyone? Seemingly harmless smart home sensors and
their impact on privacy for secondary users
Anticipatory Design: Bringing the power of foresight into everyday practice
by Susan LK Gorbet, Matt Gorbet
Save on your ticket—early bird pricing expires November 16.Secure your spot!
We can't wait to see you at TH/NGS 2025!
Warm regards,
The ThingsCon Team
Inside Ananya Panday's First Home in Mumbai Designed by Gauri Khan
Modern Bollywood celebrity home with an interior designed by the designer wife of a Bollywood celebrity.
#Amazon's surveillance camera maker Ring announced a partnership on Thursday with Flock, a maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras that share footage with law enforcement.
Now, agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."
Flock cameras work by scanning the license plates and other identifying information about cars they see. Flock's government and police customers can also make natural language searches of their video footage to find people who match specific descriptions. However, AI-powered technology used by law enforcement has been proven to exacerbate racial biases.
On the same day that Ring announced this partnership, 404 Media reportedthat ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy had access to Flock's network of cameras. By partnering with Ring, Flock could potentially access footage from millions more cameras.
Ring has long had a poor track record with keeping customers' videos safeand secure. In 2023, the FTC ordered the company to pay $5.8 million over claims that employees and contractors had unrestricted access to customers' videos for years.
North Korean Scammers Are Doing Architectural Design Now
Talented North Korean coders and developers have, for years, been getting hired for remote jobs at Western tech firms. Thousands of these so-called IT workershave earned billions for North Korea's authoritarian regime by developing apps, working on cryptocurrency projects, and infiltrating Fortune 500 companies—when they get paid, they send their earnings home. But the scale and scope of these fraudulent job schemes likely extends beyond most people's understanding.
New analysis of exposed online accounts and files linked to suspected Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) digital laborers shows that at least one group has been working in a very different field: architecture and civil engineering. Over recent years, the cluster of workers has been masquerading as freelance structural engineers and architects, according to a report sharedwith WIRED by cybersecurity firm Kela, which dug into one network it links to North Korea.
Files linked to the alleged North Korean operatives show 2D architectural drawings and some 3D CAD files for properties in the United States, Kela researchers say. In addition to the plans, the scammers were also seen claiming to advertise a range of architectural services and using, or creating, architectural stamps or seals, which can act as legal certification that drawings follow local building regulations.
"These operatives are active not only in technology and cybersecurity but also in industrial design, architecture, and interior design, accessing sensitive infrastructure and client projects under fabricated identities," Kela writes in a blog post. The United Nations estimates that thousands of IT workers raise between $250 million and $600 million for North Korea each year, with money being used to support the country's nuclear weapons programs and sanctions evasion efforts….
An American SAGE nuclear air-defense complex in the height of the Cold War.
