This isn’t the usual tech news that I cover, but I thought that it was important enough to share.
TELUS has a longstanding commitment to strengthening relationships with Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities, acknowledging that our work spans many Traditional Territories and Treaty areas. Today, they are proudly launching their Reconciliation Commitment, a defining point in their journey that formalizes their commitment to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. This commitment will act as the foundation upon which they develop and implement their inaugural Indigenous Reconciliation Action Plan later this year, and will inform and direct their corporate initiatives related to Reconciliation moving forward.
Corporate Canada has a significant role to play in the journey of Reconciliation, and at TELUS, they have taken — and continue to take — their responsibility very seriously. They recognize that Reconciliation commitments are only as good as the effort they put into building meaningful, productive, long-term relationships and holding themselves accountable to the commitments they make internally and externally. In formalizing their commitment to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples today, they are taking responsibility for constructive, measurable actions throughout their organization and culture in support of Reconciliation.
In partnership with Indigenous Peoples, TELUS is committed to progressing the journey of Reconciliation in a deeply meaningful way and dedicated to fulfilling their role and responsibilities in this regard. Their actions will be informed by:
In alignment with Indigenous Ways of Knowing, they have engaged Indigenous Leaders, Elders, community members, Indigenous professionals, and Indigenous TELUS team members from coast to coast to coast to provide their wisdom in the Reconciliation Commitment.
TELUS is grateful for the traditional Knowledge Keepers and Elders who are with us today, those who have gone before us and the youth that inspire us. As an act of Reconciliation, as recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, they recognize the land and the benefits it provides all of us, and express gratitude to those whose territory we reside on, work on, or are visiting.
We have a collective responsibility to acknowledge our shared history and how it continues to manifest today via ongoing discrimination against First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples. As individuals, leaders and corporations, we must continue to educate ourselves, acknowledge our biases, and actively support Reconciliation.
To learn more about our commitment to Reconciliation visit telus.com/reconciliation.
Leaked Documents Show How Amazon’s Astro Robot Tracks Everything You Do
Posted in Commentary with tags Amazon on September 29, 2021 by itnerdAmazon released a new robot yesterday for your home yesterday. And to nobody’s surprise, it tracks literally everything you do, and it’s far from perfect:
Amazon’s new robot called Astro is designed to track the behavior of everyone in your home to help it perform its surveillance and helper duties, according to leaked internal development documents and video recordings of Astro software development meetings obtained by Motherboard. The system’s person recognition system is heavily flawed, according to two sources who worked on the project. The documents, which largely use Astro’s internal codename “Vesta” for the device, give extensive insight into the robot’s design, Amazon’s philosophy, how the device tracks customer behavior as well as flow charts of how it determines who a “stranger” is and whether it should take any sort of “investigation activity” against them.
The meeting document spells out the process in a much blunter way than Amazon’s cutesy marketing suggests. “[Astro] slowly and intelligently patrols the home when unfamiliar person are around, moving from scan point to scan point (the best location and pose in any given space to look around) looking and listening for unusual activity,” one of the files reads. “Vesta moves to a predetermined scan point and pose to scan any given room, looking past and over obstacles in its way. Vesta completes one complete patrol when it completes scanning all the scan point on the floorplan.” […]
Developers who worked on Astro say the versions of the robot they worked on did not work well. “Astro is terrible and will almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented the opportunity. The person detection is unreliable at best, making the in-home security proposition laughable,” a source who worked on the project said. “The device feels fragile for something with an absurd cost. The mast has broken on several devices, locking itself in the extended or retracted position, and there’s no way to ship it to Amazon when that happens.” “They’re also pushing it as an accessibility device but with the masts breaking and the possibility that at any given moment it’ll commit suicide on a flight of stairs, it’s, at best, absurdist nonsense and marketing and, at worst, potentially dangerous for anyone who’d actually rely on it for accessibility purposes,” the source said.
So we should really spend $1000 for this? I don’t think so. Amazon should really shelve this and go back to the drawing board. This robot is a #Fail.
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