Rob Pegoraro<p><strong>Weekly output: video surveillance, privacy vs. security, Facebook listening, universal basic income, intelligent assistants, convenience economy, UberAir, privacy fears</strong></p><p>Once again, I’m at an airport. I got back from <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/web-summit" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Web Summit</a> on Friday, and now I’m headed to San Francisco for the Internet Association’s <a href="https://vc.internetassociation.org" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Virtuous Circle conference</a>. This trip, however, will be a lot shorter than the last one: I fly back Wednesday.</p><p>11/6/2017: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rapid-developments-smart-surveillance-cameras-setting-off-privacy-alarms-184142228.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">‘Smart’ surveillance cameras should set off privacy alarms</a>, Yahoo Finance</p><p>The advances in machine vision I saw demonstrated at the <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/gtc-dc/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Nvidia GPU Tech Conference</a> in D.C. last week both impressed and alarmed me–especially when I heard some of the responses of executives at companies bringing these artificial-intelligence technologies to the market.</p><p><a href="http://robpegoraro.com/2017/11/12/weekly-output-video-surveillance-privacy-vs-security-facebook-listening-universal-basic-income-intelligent-assistants-convenience-economy-uberair-privacy-fears/web-summit-debate-vote/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a>11/7/2017: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1614724841926887/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Debate: We should be prepared to give up our privacy for security</a>, Web Summit</p><p>My first Web Summit panel was a debate between <a href="https://www.threatscape.com/company/our-team/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Threatscape</a> managing director Dermot Williams and <a href="https://www.ftc.gov" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Federal Trade Commission</a> commissioner Terrell McSweeny. I expected a one-sided audience vote at the end in favor of privacy, but Williams changed a few minds. There should be video of this somewhere, but I’ve yet to find it on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Web Summit’s Facebook page</a>.</p> <p>11/8/2017: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/many-people-still-think-facebook-listening-131928180.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Why so many people still think Facebook is listening to them</a>, Yahoo Finance</p><p>I’d had this post in the works for a while, and then <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1594791713920200/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">CNN’s Laurie Segall asked Facebook’s Messenger head Stan Chudnovsky</a> in a Summit panel about the persistent rumor that Facebook’s apps listen surreptitiously to your conversations. Hello, <a href="https://journ101.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/what-is-a-news-peg-again/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">news peg</a>.</p><p>11/8/2017: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1596233690442669/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Double focus: IPO’s & the future of games</a>, Web Summit</p><p>My contribution to Web Summit’s Wednesday programming was this interview of Rovio CEO Kati Levoranta. As you can probably guess from watching the video below, I <a href="http://robpegoraro.com/2017/11/10/panel-clock-management/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">exhausted my questions early on</a> and had to improv a bunch of it.</p> <p>11/9/2017: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1596611470404891/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Why would you oppose Universal Basic Income?</a>, Web Summit</p><p>This panel, held at one of the small stages in Web Summit’s speakers lounge, featured <a href="http://basicincome.org" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Basic Income Earth Network</a> co-president Guy Standing, <a href="http://www.kela.fi/web/en" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Kela</a> change management director Marjukka Turunen, <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">GiveDirectly</a> CEO Michael Faye, and Portuguese foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva. Not having taken part in any extended debate on this topic before, I learned a few things from this conversation.</p> <p>11/9/2017: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1596936943705677/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The next evolution of intelligent assistants</a>, Web Summit</p><p>I quizzed <a href="http://sher.pa/?lang=en" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Sherpa</a> founder Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria about what he thinks the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google miss in the AI-personal-assistant market and how he hopes to carve out a niche with his own app.</p> <p>11/9/2017: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebSummitHQ/videos/1597369170329121/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Demand more: Driving the convenience economy</a>, Web Summit</p><p>The last of Thursday’s three panels had me interviewing <a href="https://www.trivago.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Trivago</a> co-founder and CEO Rolf Schromgens and <a href="https://casper.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Casper</a> co-founder Luke Sherwin about how each is trying to challenge long-established competitors. This panel featured an unexpected technical difficulty: The acoustics made it hard for Schromgens, seated farther away from me on the stage, to hear me.</p> <p>11/9/2017: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubers-grand-plan-flying-cars-faces-major-obstacle-184748625.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Uber’s grand plan for flying cars faces a major obstacle</a>, Yahoo Finance</p><p>One of first thoughts about “UberAir” was something along the lines of “you’re really going to get the FAA to open up the national air system to flocks of new electric-powered air taxis?” A conversation over e-mail with aviation-safety expert Bob Mann led me to believe Uber is being predictably optimistic about the odds of it bending government regulators to its will.</p><p>11/12/2017: <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2017/11/12/web-companies-should-make-easier-make-your-data-portable-ftcs-mcsweeny/856814001/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Web companies should make it easier to make your data portable: FTC’s McSweeny</a>. USA Today</p><p>This column about the privacy discussions that carried on all week long in Lisbon benefited from a little luck: My debate partner from day one was on both of my flights back from Lisbon and even sat a row behind me on the EWR-DCA hop, so we had a quick chat after arriving at National Airport before she headed to the parking garage and I got on Metro.</p><p><em>Updated 11/27/2017 to add an embed of video of my first Web Summit panel.</em></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/ai/" target="_blank">#AI</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/alexa/" target="_blank">#Alexa</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/angry-birds/" target="_blank">#AngryBirds</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/casper/" target="_blank">#Casper</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/facebook-listening/" target="_blank">#FacebookListening</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/facebook-privacy/" target="_blank">#FacebookPrivacy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/facebook-tracking/" target="_blank">#FacebookTracking</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/ftc/" target="_blank">#FTC</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/google-assistant/" target="_blank">#GoogleAssistant</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/internet-association/" target="_blank">#InternetAssociation</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/lisbon/" target="_blank">#Lisbon</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/machine-learning/" target="_blank">#machineLearning</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/machine-vision/" target="_blank">#machineVision</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/nvidia-gpu/" target="_blank">#NvidiaGPU</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/rovio/" target="_blank">#Rovio</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/sherpa/" target="_blank">#Sherpa</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/siri/" target="_blank">#Siri</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/trivago/" target="_blank">#Trivago</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/universal-basic-income/" target="_blank">#universalBasicIncome</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/virtuous-circle/" target="_blank">#VirtuousCircle</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/web-summit/" target="_blank">#WebSummit</a></p>