Spread Fake News in Singapore, You Could go to Prison for a Decade

While lawmakers in the UK and U.S. lament fake news, and Mark Zuckerberg promises Facebook will do better, Singapore is taking action. The government there is looking to impose serious fines and even 10-years imprisonment on those who spread fake news. While users may be pleased something is being done, Bloomberg News reported that tech firms raised some concerns.

The new measures will require online sites to show corrections to false or misleading claims and take down falsehoods, according to a bill put forward in Parliament on Monday by the government…The bill also intends to impose criminal sanctions — including fines of up to S$1 million ($740,000) and 10 years in prison — against those who spread an online falsehood with intent to prejudice the public interest, and those who make a bot to spread an online falsehood. The sanctions will also apply to anyone providing services for the purpose of spreading falsehoods in return for a reward.

UX Designers Need to Read and Watch Marie Kondo

I think there is much to learn from Marie Kondo. Her Netflix series was an absolute favorite, and her book, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, is a global bestseller. Indeed, her KonMari method is sneaking into various aspects of life.  Writing for The Next Web, Leona Henryson explained how relevant it is to UX design.

In her book, Kondo calls for questioning a thing’s purpose and establishing whether its purpose has been fulfilled since it has been bought. I feel it’s safe to say this inquisitive attitude towards an object’s place in the grand scheme of things is very similar to how UX designers make decisions. Excess is a problem in any interface out there, and a cluttered flow always damages the user experience…Kondo’s book teaches us to be straightforward about the purpose of certain things in our designs and to be brave about editing out the things our users won’t need.

Mark Zuckerberg Ruined the Internet. Now He Pretends to Care About It

Mark Zuckerberg is at it again with another essay. This time he says that the internet needs to be regulated and thinks Congress should focus on four areas first. Roger McNamee gives his thoughts on it.

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post is a monument to insincerity and misdirection. The essay offers proposals to address four important issues – harmful content, election protection, privacy and data protection, and data portability – but each proposal is transparently self-serving.

Latest Advances in Law Enforcement

We aren’t posting any April Fool’s Day stories, but I had to highlight one of the more amusing attempts made, as it was near my native land. As of this morning, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office has announced a new division, the Hot Air High Altitude Team, which includes a new hot air balloon. There’s a whole press release to read which hits all the right notes and makes it very clear at the end that they are in fact joking. (When you live in Portland, hot air balloon police don’t sound all that odd, so it’s good they were very clear about the announcement.)

TMO Background Mode Interview #2 with Producer Rod Roddenberry

Rod Roddenberry is a media producer. The son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, he’s following in his father’s footsteps. Today, Rod is carrying on his father’s work as a producer, the chief executive of Roddenberry Entertainment and the founder of the Roddenberry Foundation.

We chatted about how Star Trek: The Next Generation was his first-love version of the show, the Star Trek philosophy, the show’s split between CBS (TV) and Paramount (movies), what a producer actually does behind the scenes, extraterrestrial intelligence first contact protocols, the future of Star Trek with Sir Patrick Stewart, his previous work in preserving the oceans, and his foundation’s mission. We also chatted about Rod’s reaction to Apple’s March 25 event and his current feelings about Apple.

Introducing the Animal-AI Olympics to Test AI Smarts

In the Animal-AI Olympics, AI will be given tests originally designed to test animal cognition in a US$10,000 competition.

The Animal-AI Olympics is the creation of a team of researchers at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Cambridge, England, along with GoodAI, a Prague-based research institute. The competition is part of a bigger project at the Leverhulme Centre called Kinds of Intelligence, which brings together an interdisciplinary team of animal cognition researchers, computer scientists, and philosophers to consider the differences and similarities between human, animal, and mechanical ways of thinking.