‘Project Kuiper’, also known as ‘The Bezos Belt’ is picking up pace. Not content with already owning a majority stake in the Western Worlds commerce. Jeff Bezos now wants to wrap the entire planet in a neat Amazon bow made of satellites.
Amazon have made forays into all kinds of things you would not expect an online retailer to move into. Some might say that this is what defines monopoly, others may tell you that this is natural progress. Hmm, lets find a comfortable fence.
Project Kuiper
Considering that Amazon are not only into state surveillance and AI, does anyone find it a little concerning they wish to cover the planet in satellites under the guise of internet for all?
The idea is a network of satellites ringing the globe offering free internet to those that do not have any and improved internet for those that have. If you consider that your personal data is priceless then this is not a free service.
Jeff Bezos has been all over the press recently, specifically due to having his privacy threatened. Of course, nobody should have their privacy threatened. The irony though is that Jeff has made a lot of money by monitoring what people do.
Regarding the subject of monitoring.
Rekognition
So, Amazon are currently a monolithic multi-national, one of their main sellers currently are AI listening devices for the home. The corporation in discussion here uses algorithms to predict what a consumer will do before they do it. One of the cherrys lining the surface of this current global cake is Rekognition.
Rekognition will find anyone it wants to in a crowd of a 100 faces. It can also be sold as a product to whoever wants to purchase it. This could be attributed to staff-less Amazon stores. It could be, though not really a valid reason. RFID is good enough for this process. Each item in a store would be RFID tagged and removing from store would automatically deduct payment from the consumers device wirelessly. No face needs to be recorded to do this either.
The general public are probably not the customers that Amazon are aiming for here.
Amazon’s complex is growing exponentially, over time, maybe even to the point of all encompassing. All that is needed to link it all together seamlessly would be a ring of satellites in space…
The overarching goal of these ventures looks to be pointing squarely towards a global surveillance system. Unfortunately the general public may well continue marching along happily. Just as long as there is grass to chew and Alexa can play tunes while they swallow.
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