151 research outputs found

    Show Me the (Data About the) Money!

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    Information about consumers, their money, and what they do with it is the lifeblood of the flourishing financial technology (“FinTech”) sector. Historically, highly regulated banks jealously protected this data. However, consumers themselves now share their data with businesses more than ever before. These businesses monetize and use the data for countless prospects, often without the consumers’ actual consent. Understanding the dimensions of this recent phenomenon, more and more consumer groups, scholars, and lawmakers have started advocating for consumers to have the ability to control their data as a modern imperative. This ability is tightly linked to the concept of open banking—an initiative that allows consumers to control and share their banking data with service providers as they see fit. But in the U.S., banks have threatened to block the servers of tech companies and data aggregators—business entities that serve as the middlemen connecting FinTech companies and banks, enabling consumers to get more financial services—from accessing their customers’ data even if the customers agree to it. With no regulation or accepted standards for the ethical gathering and use of data, banks argue that limiting access helps them protect their clients’ privacy, improve their accounts’ safety, and promote consumer protection principles. Banks claim that FinTech apps collect more data than needed, store it insecurely, and sell it to others. But the motivation of the big banks in advocating for such limitations may not be so pure. Banks do not want to relinquish competitive advantages, lose customers, or be held liable for data or fund losses. Witnessing resistance, tech companies are not sitting idly by waiting for banks to limit their data access. Instead, they are working on ways to outsmart banks’ blocking technology and use data aggregation services as a middleman. They also extended the fight into Washington, where regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are noticing how technology impacts consumer data flows and credit reporting issues. Advocating for consumers’ rights to control data, tech companies lobby for open banking

    Social work with airports passengers

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    Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically

    NASA Tech Briefs, May 1997

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    Topics covered include: Advanced Composites, Plastics and Metals; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery/Automation; Manufacturing/Fabrication; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Reports

    Industrial Firm Technology Transfer: The role of marketing

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    Reliance on marketing concepts and frameworks that are out of step with practice in a new economy environment presents a particular problem for industrial marketers intent on extracting revenue from firm technology transfer effort, and is a challenge for marketing scholars seeking to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Using an interpretive methodology and the case study method, the study addresses the question what are the roles that marketing plays in industrial firm technology transfer effort by comparing and contrasting concepts and themes occurring in marketing and technology management theory with empirical data collected from four large scale industrial firms owned by the New Zealand Government. Interpretive analysis of marketing phenomena within and across the Case firms show that meta-patterns exist across marketing theory and the empirical data, and are also reflected in marketing practice. These meta-patterns reveal a role for marketing in firm technology transfer through deployment of resources that promote inter-firm and intra-firm relationships, collaboration, and cooperation, and the development of firm technological knowledge. The analysis facilitated development of a unique conceptual framework for industrial marketing that accommodates the meta-patterns identified in the study. The conceptual framework is significant because, in addition to providing a guide for industrial marketing practice, it challenges the efficacy of the traditional (4Ps) theory of marketing, which at its core relies on concepts that are not reflected in the study’s empirical findings, contemporary marketing theory, and contemporary marketing practice

    Steeped in Rhetoric: Digital Populism and the Tea Party Movement

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    Though politically disparate and hard to quantify, one of the binding elements of the Tea Party Movement is Internet Communication Technology, or new media. Social media, online discussion boards, blogs, and other forms of new media constitute a veritable component of the discourse among its members. From the whispering confederation of conservative bloggers in its beginning stages, to the relatively quick transition into a social media powerhouse, the Tea Party fits into the category of dissident social movements in a new way than movements past, in that web-based communication is a staple of the movement. Also, the Tea Party's "Web 2.0" identity intersects with a tradition of populism, combining new media communication with rhetoric depicting the Tea Party as "common" people pitted against "elitist" enemies of the country. The populist sentiments within the Tea Party reflect a wider understanding about the role of technology in fostering democracy, and "restoring" the republic back to its "core values." Tea Partiers, then, could be described as "Digital Populists," historically situated among the histories of other American populist moments, but understanding new media technology as a new way to shape political discourse. Throughout this project, then, my aim is to link populist rhetoric with technological determinism, using the Tea Party's new media ecology as a case study. The first chapter provides historical examples of populist rhetorical frameworks informing the relationship between technology and society; Chapter 2 is a case study of three Tea Party websites; and Chapter 3 is a theoretical reflection on the data that analyzes how the Tea Party's engagement with new media fits into broader conversations about technology and democracy. At the core of this project is an inquiry into how technology works in our everyday lives. My analysis questions the presumption that new media communication technology fosters a more democratic society. Specifically, I argue that, while steeped in rhetoric of technological liberation, revolution, and democracy, the Tea Party's approach to new media contributes less to a vibrant culture of democratic engagement, and more to a peculiar and unstable technological mythology in American culture

    Cyborg Art: An Explorative and Critical Inquiry into Corporeal Human-Technology Convergence

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    This thesis introduces and examines the undervalued concept of corporeal human-technology interface art, or 'cyborg art', which describes literal, figural and metaphorical representations of increasing body and technology integration. The transforming (post)human being is therefore the focus; who we are today, and who or what we may become as humanity increasingly interfaces with technology. Theoretical analysis of cyborg imagery centres on the science fiction domain, in particular film and television, as opposed to art. Yet a profusion of cyborg art and art practices abound within contemporary society; each differing art form (for example, performance, interactive, digital, sculpture or painting), offering possible 'symbolic function' and 'critical potential' concerning increasing cyborgisation. I therefore argue in this thesis that cyborg art has social value, and reveal throughout the way this artistic focus depicts key ontological and sociological themes of body-technology merger. Seventy-two artworks are examined in total, each demonstrating relevant concerns and aspirations regarding present and envisioned impacts of technoscience. The cyborg-inspired artworks included in this study are primarily situated within four fundamental dimensions of humanity: birth, death, gender and ethnicity; and within three main spheres of corporeal-technological developments: prosthetics, telematics and genetics. Key concepts and themes explored within these realms include ectogenesis, post-genderism, necrotic and ethno-cyborgs, augmentation and reconstruction, tele-erotics and tele-puppets, and transgenics. In addition, three new cyborgian concepts are introduced: the udopian cyborg, which is an aesthetic representing technology's paradoxical dimension - technology as evoking fear and yearning, and having the potential to benefit and harm humanity; the permeative gaze of technoscience, which is a new technologised gaze focusing on how human skin no longer serves as a boundary and barrier to the inner corporeal realm; and lastly, triadic convergence, which denotes the way artists are increasingly creating entities which are a melding of animal, technological and human components. Multimethod research serves as the methodological base for this thesis, as both qualitative and quantitative methods are incorporated into the research design. Hermeneutics is adopted as the analytical/interpretive perspective and approach. The empirical research includes semi-structured in-depth interviews, qualitative (artists') email questionnaires, and structured quantitative questionnaires. Triangulation is employed in order to obtain varied responses to, and perspectives on, technology and the technological epoch, art and cyborg art, and the cyborg. A theory of cyborg art is constructed by interweaving the collated findings with interview participants' responses to a selection of cyborg artworks, and theorists' perspectives on the aforementioned concepts, derived from visual culture, cyborg theory, and critical postmodern theory. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to present the underlying theoretical breadth and creative depth of cyborg art, and to demonstrate that cyborg art can act as a catalyst for increasing societal awareness of, and interest in, corporeal human-technology merger. I analyse the critical relevance of this under-examined artistic focus, and address why cyborg art should be recognised as a new postmodern art genre, and complementary to theoretical discussions of cyborgisation. I argue overall that cyborg art is a valid and critical sphere of inquiry into the increasing integration which exists between humanity and technology
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