I was a child when the UK was going through its migration to the metric system. It's all down to what you're used to...

For beverages and food... I know that a pound is 454g (in the UK) and a pint is 568ml, but most importantly I know what an lb and pint does in terms of number of meals / servings. When you start getting into oz and fl. oz, I have no idea. I work better in grams and ml because it's what I'm used to. I can tell you what a healthy amount of juice or soft drinks is (250ml), but you will be able to tell me what a healthy portion is in fl. oz because that's your frame of reference.

For driving and travelling, it's confusing. We never switched to KM, so I work in miles and fractions of a mile. I have no idea how many yards a half mile might be, but I can estimate short distances in feet, and longer distances in metres. We buy gas by the litre but we calculate fuel economy in MPG (4.54l to the gallon of course). And though the car manufacturers are starting to advertise fuel consumption in terms of litres per 100km, it makes zero sense to me.

When I drive in Europe, typical highway speed limits might be 130km/h and I know this is about 80mph. But my disadvantage is that I can't look at the motorway signs which show the number of KM to a particular destination and instinctively convert that into a travel time.

This is precisely part of the point I was trying to get across... I did mention at the top of my post that I am against any of this and have actually moved away from Apple, and I do talk about the slippery slope argument towards the end. I apologise if I wasn't clear enough but the purpose was to try and demonstrate the ease of moving from acceptance of (a), to accepting (b) and eventually realising that we have reached (z).

I'm no marketing expert, but even with the way I described my ideas, I suspect a large proportion of the population would go for them. Why not? We see widespread acceptance of pervasive CCTV, cross-site and cross-app tracking, acceptance of loyalty cards which track our spending habits. The argument goes that we have nothing to hide and so there is nothing to be afraid of.

Now we have the technology to detect specific photos - why wouldn't we push the boundaries of this technology to detect revenge porn? Why shouldn't we use facial recognition in all photos to find missing kids and fugitives of the law? That is the argument that we will be up against.

I'm as horrified as you are about the future I laid out, but special interest groups, governments, campaigners and even decision makers at Apple will see all of these options as being next logical steps in making the world a better place. I worry that it is inevitable.

A bit more sophisticated than looking for flesh tones, but very different than looking for files which have the same hash as known bad content.

Source: Apple.

Like many people, I am very much in the dislike camp. In my case, I have recently acquired a Samsung device (you can take me at my word, or don't..) and am in the process of learning how to use it and will in due course start backing up folders and files directly to my NAS.

With that said, I am curious as to why Apple is so insistent that this won't and can't be expanded to other use cases, as well as why those in favour of the concept aren't in favour of expansion.

Let's start by saying that child sex abuse is a heinous crime. I am in favour of criminalising those who abuse children and subjecting them to the full force of the law. However, child sex abuse is not the only crime that causes harm, and detecting images of such acts after they have taken place only serves to criminalise the viewers; if the images exist then the child has already been abused.

I'd like to explore the ways in which the two technologies which Apple is deploying could be used to great benefit. I may well stray into the use of technologies which aren't in scope of this initiative, but which do or will exist in the near future.

Revenge Porn

The act of sharing nudes or explicit videos after the end of a relationship affects both children and adults. There are also mobile apps such as Snapchat where people share suggestive or nude pictures with the expectation that these will 'self destruct'.

With the neural hashing technology, we could see the process become more secure and eliminate cases of revenge porn. When a relationship ends or when a self destructing message is shared, a hash of 'cancelled' images could be added to iOS devices worldwide and thus preventing the sharing or viewing of these private images.

The same principle could be used for images which present a national security concern. The exact definition would vary for each country, but expected results could well include photos of prisoners in orange jump suits, videos of bombs hitting hospitals or even photographs of tanks parading in city squares.

Missing Children

Child abduction is not a new thing. We have seen photos on milk cartons, AMBER alerts and other such initiatives which have varying rates of success.

Apple says that there are one billion iPhones in use worldwide, so let's do a modern take of what the search for missing children could look like.

We know that the technology to scan for particular faces exists in iOS because the photo gallery helpfully categorises all faces of a person together. We also know that iMessages will acquire this new feature which can scan images for particular content types.

So let's marry the two together: in the minutes after a child abduction, the parent can upload as many photos of the victim. Apple will then push an alert to all the iOS devices around the world. Hopefully someone, somewhere has or will take a photo where the missing child happens to be in the background and boom: we get a time and location for the police to act.

Fugitives

The same principle as outlined for missing children could apply here, except this time with images of criminals uploaded by law enforcement.

Naturally, we would need to trust law enforcement to use this feature correctly, but if we could quickly identify their appearance in the background of images, we could get a location of any and all fugitives including those suspected or convicted of violent crimes or even those who committed a minor crime such as shoplifting or drug use.

Unlawful Protests

The concept of an unlawful protest has started to make its way to the western world. Even the UK, which purports to be a western democracy, has introduced laws around curbing protests and there is even the concept of needing to apply to the police if you wish to march.

The concept of face identification, which does exist today, could be used alongside the technology deployed to the one billion iOS devices out there in the world. Those who dare to protest unlawfully could easily be identified and, through the use of location data, captured.

As an extra step, when photos of the unlawful protest or march start to appear on social media, these could be added to the 'blacklist' of unlawful photos with the aim of disincentivising others to unlawfully protest. After all, why protest if the authorities can make sure no-one hears about it?

Unlawful Gatherings

Over the last 18 months due to coronavirus, there have been varying restrictions on the number of people who can meet together. At one point (in the UK), there was a rule which said you could only meet one other person outside and no people inside.

People in breach of these rules were seen to be potentially contributing to the risk of coronavirus spread.

Again, technology we have already discussed could start looking for photos taken or sent which include a number of people greater than allowed. Automatic reporting could trigger a fine to those concerned (taken from your card on file in iTunes) or a police visit for repeat offenders.

In summary...

Child sex abuse triggers an emotional response. It's natural to be against it and it's also natural to want to criminalise those who make it or view it. That's why the "think of the children" argument works so well.

By creating technology which can be useful in its detection, as well as the secondary technology which detects nudity in iMessage, we do create opportunities which would have much greater benefit to the world and its inhabitants. The small number of examples given above are one view of how we could progress from CSAM detection to other serious items such as revenge porn, finding missing children and fugitives, and general crime detection and prevention.

It is illogical to create this technology and insist that it will only be used for one narrow field, as that would waste its potential.

Some people might call that a slippery slope. I encourage other readers, who are also against this technology, to take their friends, family and co-workers down their own slippery slope - take them on a similar journey as I have described above.

A UK-based organisation called IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) has, for over 10 years, maintained a list of URLs which it alleges contain images of child sex abuse. The list is not public knowledge but we do know that a Wikipedia page containing an album cover as well as the entirety of the Wayback Machine have been blocked at various points.

Most of the consumer & mass-market ISPs in the UK subscribe to this list, but it is not mandatory. It was positioned as something which will help in the fight against child sex abuse and will help to prevent internet users from accessing such material.

In 2011, the MPAA said to BT (probably our biggest ISP): "nice URL blacklist you have there; please add these URLs to it". The matter went all the way to the High Court of Justice which ruled in favour of adding URLs which did not contain images of child sex abuse to the blacklist. There is now an established procedure in which other such sites can be added.

It is very easy to imagine how this ends up several years down the line. Here are a few possibilities which could conceivable trigger an alert to a user's national Government.

- Chinese users with photos of Tiananmen Square on their phone.
- Middle-eastern users with photos from a pride-type event.
- American users with images of drugs.
- British users with images which suggest attendance at unlawful protests.
- Users from a country with photos suggesting opposition of the ruling President or party.

The person who can afford a $350m 'palace on rails' probably has staff to deal with these things. Also, money has historically been found to be quite helping in cutting through red tape.

I'm not entirely sure how this private relay works, but I do wonder if it's possible to detect that a customer is coming from one of its endpoints.

If the websites who use advertising networks are able to get $x per visitor using the private relay, or $x + 5 per visitor not using a private relay, I can well imagine that private relay users may become unsupported and a helpful deactivation guide provided to re-enable access.

With the recent news that one of the widely known "fact checking" sites has walked back its "fact check" that the claim is false, it's probably wise to be cautious about taking what these sites say at face value. Facts do not change and although opinions do, these sites do not market themselves as "opinion checkers".

What is true is that some segments of the population have been supportive of the argument that this virus came from a lab and may even have been man-made, while other segments of the population have taken the position that a pangolin ate a bat, ended up on someone's plate for dinner and we somehow ended up in a pandemic.

There may not be much reliable evidence to back up either position; I certainly didn't read that they found the remains of this rogue pangolin but on the other hand, we haven't seen definitive proof that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in 'gain of function' research.

Dismissing a theory or argument because of who said it or who believes it is quite rightly considered to be foolish by most people. Far better to maintain an open mind.

'Platforms' have long been declared to private entities with the right to moderate as they see fit.

Regardless of the legal reality of this position - as well as the argument that only Governments can censor - I have grown increasingly concerned that we have sleepwalked into a world where a person can be 'cancelled' or 'deplatformed' if they engage in wrongspeak.

My perception - which may or may not be grounded in reality - is that much of the deplatforming takes place with the support of one side of society and affects the other side of the spectrum. I do get that we do not think as a homogenous bunch of people and there are nuances, but I'm comfortable with my assumptions that many people who might be termed as leftist or progressive have been generally quite happy with the erasure of speech that they disagree with.

As someone who is in favour of the argument that all speech is free speech, I don't like the idea of Ofcom getting involved in the moderation process (think sledgehammer and nut analogies), but I've long been resigned to the idea that those in power don't like free speech and have had a great helping hand by those who have sought to censor the arguments they disagree with.

The transfer of deplatforming powers from social platforms to a state agency may well mean that we will start to see a more consistent approach, with 'extreme' content from both sides being assessed equally and with similar consequences. This consistent approach may not be what those who agree with one-sided censorship had in mind as their end game, but it does seem fair and reasonable.

I do quite like some of the protections mentioned in the article:

Under the measures, “category 1” services – the largest and most popular social networks – will need to implement rules that protect “democratically important” content such as posts promoting or opposing government policy or a political party before a vote in parliament, an election or a referendum, or campaigning on a live political issue.

They will also be banned from discriminating against particular political viewpoints and will need to apply protection equally across political opinions.

As an example, the government said a company’s rules against content depicting graphic violence could include exceptions to allow campaign groups to raise awareness about the issue, “but it would need to be upfront about the policy and ensure it is applied consistently”.

Again, my preference would be more towards absolute free speech, but a consistent approach overseen by the state regulator will hopefully be seen as fairer than the perceived one-sided approach we see today.

The music industry's business model has evolved to where it is today and £10 seems to be the expected price for "all you can eat" music. I'm sure this will be subject to inflation over time, but when we consider that the cost of one CD used to be £10 then it's evident that the money isn't what it used to be.

But let's take for a moment the figures quoted in the summary: $3,000 for the artist and $1,200-$1,400 for the songwriter per 1m streams. I researched but found it difficult to get an exact number on how long it takes to write and record a song. Some estimates ranged from 15 minutes to 2 days to years, so let's take 2 weeks as an example.

So I'm wondering if $3,000 (artist) / $1,200-$1,400 (songwriter) is a fair wage for two weeks work. If the artist never breaks the 1m stream barrier and gets to 2m or 3m or higher then it does seem a little on the low side considering they'll have their own healthcare and pension etc to pay, but if the artist and songwriters start to perform better and hit more streams, then it seems like a fair wage for a creative job.

Very few creative jobs - software development / chatbot design / photography / graphic design / etc - benefit from ongoing royalties far in excess of the original cost to perform the work. Is there something particularly different about writing and recording songs?

VR headsets have been around in numerous forms for many years yet they have never taken off.

I have an Oculus Go and there's a skiing game I quite like for a bit of fun some times. The adult video experience is also interesting but I find the accelerometer quite difficult to get quite right if I'm doing anything other than standing up. And of course it is VR for the eyes only, the experience would be significantly enhanced by synced toys.

My friend has the first version of the Oculus Quest. I had a shot at one of these games where the motion controllers act as swords or something similar. I was getting right into it and then I kicked out at the baddy, only to break my toe as I launched it into his coffee table.

I believe augmented reality has more real world applications in the short term. Imagine a normal set of glasses - not heavy, stylish, can be worn anywhere - which imprint different things on the existing environments. I can see use cases ranging from building IKEA furniture (e.g. "that's the right screw, put it where the arrow is") to an interactive instruction manual for engineers working on equipment such as AC units and boilers.

That's not to say that VR's time won't come. It's clear that a good number of people like and use it at the moment, but it's not yet mainstream. The current developments in this space are necessary as we look to a future where something akin to the holodeck evolves from today's VR tech.

Let me preface my comment by stating that I'll take a vaccine when it's offered to me. I'm in the UK so we don't get a choice of which, but I'm hoping this AZ situation is resolved so I can take whichever with confidence.

I think it's more nuanced than simply comparing death rate from vaccine vs covid. I'll use myself as an example: healthy male in 30s with good weight. I'm struggling to find some stats I have complete confidence in but it looks like the CFR for 30-39 is somewhere in the region of 0.3%. IFR for the same age bracket is probably smaller still. It would be interesting to see how the CFR and IFR look for healthy males in my age bracket vs those with underlying conditions or obesity as the healthy number could be even smaller..

All this is to say that someone in my age bracket and with my circumstances does not need to be personally worried about severe illness or death from this particular virus.

So if we can agree that the scenario for my particular circumstances is to consider the very low probability of death from covid - and if we speculate that the AZ vaccine is causing these blood clots - how advantageous is it to me personally to risk the tiny possibility of a rare and severe type of blood clot in the brain, which presents with symptoms I'm unfamiliar with, to stop me from getting an illness that probably won't kill me?

I believe the scenario changes again when we consider the risk/reward for society as a whole. I might not die from covid, but I'm quite capable of transmitting the illness to those who are significantly more at risk. It is advantageous for society as a whole for me to risk this tiny chance of the rare blood clot because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of me.

I'm quite OK with the above scenario, however if we again assume that the AZ vaccine does cause these blood clots and we collectively accept the risk/reward ratio for those who aren't at risk from covid, we have progressed down a path of accepting a small number of deaths to save the many. It seems a straightforward decision if vaccine-related deaths are a fraction of a percentage of those vaccinated. But what if there was a new vaccine-related situation which caused, for example, 0.1% of those vaccinated to die - that still compares very favourably to the overall covid CFR - but would we as society remain accepting of this?

That type of advertising sounds like it’s trying to create brand awareness. I’ll tell you my anecdotal interesting story.

I’d travelled for a weekend break from the UK to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. All my toiletries were with me except I had forgotten to bring antiperspirant (Sure brand).

So I went into the local drugstore and they didn’t have my usual brand. I wasn’t sure which of the alternatives I should get, but then I saw one called L’Oréal MenExpert and I remembered having seen it on TV, so I went ahead and bought it.

I actually really liked it and continue to buy it to this day, but the most interesting part of this story is how I came to buy it for the first time.

Google Play isnâ(TM)t available on iOS yet, so Iâ(TM)m not sure itâ(TM)s necessarily relevant to the conversation.

Why is availability on iOS relevant, you might ask? Because the cost of installing Google Play (switching to a competitor) is over £1,000 (assuming equivalently specâ(TM)d device).

Here in the UK we do have very strong laws around competition. As an example, there are four main mobile phone carriers and the process of switching or retaining your phone number used to involve calling the existing supplier to obtain a switching code.

A year or two back, the process changed because the regulator was not satisfied with this barrier to switching. Customers can now send a text message and theyâ(TM)ll get the code within a few minutes.

So with the regulatory landscape here, barriers to switching to a competitor are seen as very important. If a short phone call is seen as an unacceptable barrier, I can easily see why the regulators are interested in what is a £1,000 cost to switch.

If the credit line is secured on the goods, then yes they can (in theory) repossess the goods. If not, the goods could be seized by any creditor, but not by virtue of being from Macys.