Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, recently sparked controversy after it was announced that it has been pressuring employees to agree to have AI surveillance cameras installed in their homes.

Call center work has been booming during the pandemic, because many businesses started operating online, and many of them preferred relying on outsourced workers from countries with cheap labor costs, like Colombia or the Philippines. The problem is that most of these call-center operators had to work remotely from home, due to pandemic-related restrictions, which has reportedly been making it harder for managers to monitor their activity. Now, one of the world’s largest call center companies, Colombia’s  Teleperformance, is pressuring its employees to accept being monitored in their own homes by artificial intelligence-powered cameras.

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An ultra-realistic underwater drone modelled after the arowana fish has been getting a lot of attention online, after making its debut at a military expo earlier this month.

This year’s Beijing Military Expo opened on June 5th, but it wasn’t the tanks, missiles, and other potentially lethal military equipment that drew reporters’ attention, it was a rather strange arowana fish swimming in a large water tank installed on site. At first glance, it was just a fish that seemed to swim and behave normally. It would swim around normally, and raise its head for a while whenever it reached a wall, then just wing its tail again and swim in another direction. At first glance, its appearance and movements were those of an actual fish, and it was only on close inspection that one realized this was an advanced fish-like robot.

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Wearing pajamas in public may not be a thing in the Western world, but it’s actually pretty popular in some parts of China, including the ultra-developed city of Shanghai, so when authorities in Anhui province decided to publicly shame a number of locals on their social media account for walking on the streets in their sleeping outfits, they received some serious backlash.

In a so called attempt to discourage “uncivilized behavior”, Government officials in Suzhou City, Anhui province, recently released photos of seven people wearing pajamas in public, along with the offender’ surnames, headshots and redacted ID numbers. The seven citizens – six women and one man – were thus shamed for breaking the supposed local dress code. The pictures were originally posted on the local Government’s Weibo account, but were swiftly deleted after receiving criticism from citizens. Eventually, authorities were forced to issue a public apology, claiming the photos had been posted on its social media page after an “inadequate review process”.

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Our online data is already monetized by several technology giants, but one Japanese IT company thinks real-life data could be monetized as well, and it’s willing to pay people to have their everyday life video-recorded and sold to various businesses.

Last month, Tokyo-based Plasma.inc made national news headlines for inviting people to take part in a controversial social experiment called “Project Exograph”. Participants must agree to have their living rooms, bathrooms, changing areas, kitchens and other parts of their homes wired with cameras that would film them continuously for roughly one month. At the end of the experiment, the footage will be edited in a way that would make it impossible to identify protagonists, and then sent to various companies to see if it can be monetized. Believe it or not, hundreds of people have already signed up for a chance to take part in Project Exograph.

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A Michigan man was recently given a surprisingly light prison sentence after being found guilty of repeatedly spiking his wife’s coffee with high doses of sleeping pills.

Therese Kozlowski filed for divorce from her husband, Brian, in June of 2018 but continued living in the same house. In fact, he even made coffee for her every day, which he used as an opportunity to feed her dangerous doses of diphenhydramine, an antihistamine mainly used to treat allergies and insomnia. Of course, Therese only found out after becoming suspicious and installing hidden cameras all over their house to see what Brian was up to. Shocking footage shows the man breaking up several tablets and dumping them in his wife’s coffee before swishing it around to make the drug melt faster.

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An anonymous person known only as “Surveillance Camera Man” is sparking controversy by filming people in public and private spaces without asking for their permission. Clever way of highlighting privacy issues or just intentionally provoking people?

Why is it that hardly anyone minds being on camera wherever they go, but whenever there’s a face attached to the camera, everyone becomes agitated. Whether we’re walking on the street, going into a bank or at school, there are all these cameras watching our every move, and yet we choose to ignore them. But if an actual person is holding the camera, we feel like they’re violating our privacy. This is what Surveillance Camera Man, an anonymous man from Seattle has been proving with his series of videos posted on YouTube. Granted, sometimes he’s actually doing his filming on private property, but even when he’s filming people in parking lots or on the street without saying a word to them, you can see it’s making them very uncomfortable. Most claim he’s violating their privacy, forgetting they’re in public places, and some even lash out at the camera or call the police. However you feel about Surveillance Camera Man and his approach, you have to admit it’s darn interesting project.

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