1 World Bank cuts Indonesia growth forecast (Straits
Times) The World Bank has trimmed its 2016 growth forecast for Indonesia,
saying a miss on the government's revenue target will constrain state spending.
In a quarterly review of Indonesia's economy, the lender revised the growth
outlook to 5.1 per cent from 5.3 per cent in December.
The International Monetary Fund also issued its annual
Indonesia policy review, in which it forecast growth of 4.9 per cent this year,
up from 4.7 per cent in 2015. The World Bank said its downward revision stemmed
from weaker-than-expected global conditions and constraints the government
faces on spending, meaning that growth will depend more on private sector
spending.
According to the bank, the government "has two
policy options: expand the deficit within the fiscal rule of 3 per cent of GDP
and reduce non-priority spending". Assuming Jakarta takes both options,
the World Bank expects 2016 expenditure disbursement to be limited to 91 per
cent at 1,906 trillion rupiah, and the fiscal deficit to reach 2.8 per cent of
GDP. The government's original plan was for 2.2 per cent.
President Joko Widodo initially wanted to boost revenue
by relying on a tax amnesty programme that his finance minister said would
bring in about 100 trillion rupiah. But the plan has sparked controversy and
Parliament has delayed debate on a Bill backing the amnesty programme until at
least April.
Statistics showed exports contracted for the 17th
straight month, falling 7.8 per cent from a year ago to $11.3 billion. Imports,
however, were slightly weaker than the poll forecast, declining 11.71 per cent
from a year earlier to $10.16 billion.
2 Google encrypts 77% of online traffic (San Francisco
Chronicle) Google is disclosing how much of the traffic to its search engine
and other services is being protected from hackers as part of its push to
encrypt all online activity. Encryption shields 77 percent of the requests sent
from around the world to Google's data centers, up from 52 percent at the end
of 2013, according to company statistics.
The numbers cover all Google services expect its
YouTube video site, which has more than 1 billion users. Google plans to add
YouTube to its encryption breakdown by the end of this year. Encryption is a
security measure that scrambles transmitted information so it's unintelligible
if it's intercepted by a third party.
Google began emphasizing the need to encrypt people's
online activities after confidential documents leaked in 2013 by former
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the US
government had been vacuuming up personal data transferred over the Internet.
The surveillance programs exploited gaping holes in unencrypted websites.
While rolling out more encryption on its services,
Google has been trying to use the clout of its influential search engine to
prod other websites to strengthen their security. Google is highlighting its
own progress on digital security while the FBI and Apple Inc. are locked in a
court battle over access to an encrypted iPhone used by one of the two
extremist killers behind the mass shootings in San Bernardino, California, in
December.
Google's next most frequently encrypted services are
maps (83 percent of traffic) and advertising (77 percent, up from just 9
percent at the end of 2013). Encryption frequency falls off for Google's news
service (60 percent) and finance (58 percent).
3 The prospect of us all being reviewed (Arwa Mahdawi
in The Guardian) You’re at a job interview and your prospective boss pulls out
their phone to check your Employee Obedience score: 4.5. OK. When you get the
job, your new colleagues use an app to see how previous colleagues have
reviewed you. Your Overall Likability score is 3.2. They learn that you play
Rihanna on repeat and hoard pens. Nevertheless, a girl in sales thinks you’re
kind of hot, so uses an app to look up your Relationship score: 3.4. She reads
reviews from former partners that cover everything from your table manners to
your bedroom manners. It seems you always serve yourself first.
Welcome to the future in which every aspect of our
personalities and behaviour is assigned a star rating, available for all to
see. Think this sounds crazy? Your Suspension of Disbelief score is probably
low. Bear with me. You can rate my Credibility Quotient at the end.
Rating systems are integral to the new digital world.
The so-called sharing economy requires trust to function, and that trust is
based on user ratings; they’re the confidence-lubricant that keep the likes of
Airbnb, Uber and eBay running. User ratings also have a massive impact on our
purchasing decisions – a study of Seattle restaurants found that a one-star
increase on Yelp leads to a 5-9% increase in revenue.
Today, everyone is a critic. You might not be posting
2,000-word rants on TripAdvisor, but you’re probably taking part in more
regular, subtler rating behaviour you barely even notice. From rating your Uber
driver and the programme you just watched on Netflix, to your experience with a
customer service rep, rating has become part of our daily lives.
Ratings might not seem like a big deal; they’re
nothing more than a helpful way to figure out where to go for brunch, right?
However, there is an insidious side to those stars. Rating culture is forging
new power structures and behaviours that are paving the way to a future you
might not like.
First, there’s the fact that rating systems can
severely skew social power dynamics. That Employment Obedience score, for example?
It basically exists in the form of Uber driver ratings. Uber passengers are
essentially unpaid supervisors of the company, monitoring drivers’ behaviour so
Uber can manage its workforce.
It seems likely that plenty more apps will pop up to
rate ever more personal aspects of our lives. Last week, for example, was the
relaunch of Peeple: an app that lets you rate people you know within three
different spheres: personal, professional and dating. So you might want to
think twice if you do play Rihanna on repeat and hoard the pens. Your
frustrated colleagues now have a convenient way to, quite literally, settle the
score.
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