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Congress Demands to Know if Google Glass Will Violate Your Privacy
May 17, 2013 Google has just under a month to respond to a congressional letter questioning CEO Larry Page about the privacy implications of Google Glass. The letter, filed Thursday by the bipartisan privacy caucus, lays out eight questions for Schmidt. They range from the atmospheric (Does Google plan to update its privacy ...
What the AP Subpoena Scandal Means for Your Electronic Privacy
May 15, 2013 The Justice Department’s snooping on journalists working for the Associated Press is an abuse of power in the broadest sense. But one reason the whole episode is controversial at all is because the Obama administration technically broke no rules. By law, companies that cooperate with government investigations—such as the telecom ...
Can Cellphone Metadata Hurt Your Privacy and Save America?
May 13, 2013 When Stone Librande took breaks from playtesting the new SimCity, he noticed something mesmerizing. Pausing from the construction frenzy that defines the rest of the game, SimCity’s lead designer discovered that his citizens’ schedules often created beautiful, shifting patterns of motion. “These flows of Sims build up at certain times ...
How Do You Protect Undersea Internet Cables, Anyway?
May 9, 2013 If you've been following the events in Syria over the past few days, you know the country’s Internet is now back from the dead after a 19-hour outage that the government blamed on “terrorist” sabotage—an explanation bought by approximately zero people. But just because destroying the cables would be logistically ...
Commentary: The Diminishing Returns of Big-Data Campaigning
May 8, 2013 What if we were all wrong about the Obama campaign’s vaunted technological advantage? That’s what two Harvard researchers are suggesting. In a new head-to-head comparison of voter turnout in battleground states, what many believe gave President Obama an edge—his data-driven efforts at getting out the vote—might not have mattered much ...
Meet Nicole Wong, Obama's New Internet Privacy Czar
May 8, 2013 President Obama has tapped a former Googler nicknamed "the Decider" to handle the administration's approach to Internet privacy. Nicole Wong, who's spent the last six months as Twitter's legal director, will report to White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, according to CNET. While she won't be the nation's chief ...
If the Internet Sales Tax Fails, Expect Higher Gas Prices
May 7, 2013 Legislation allowing states to collect sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet—approved by the Senate in a 69-27 vote Monday evening—faces an uncertain future in the House. What would happen if the push for Internet sales taxes falls apart? In at least a couple of states—Maryland and Virginia—it could ...
Obama's FCC Pick Has Some Surprising Allies
May 2, 2013 It's official: Obama has just nominated Tom Wheeler to be America's next top telecom regulator. Wheeler, a former wireless and cable lobbyist, might on paper be seen as a boon to industry and a blow to public-interest groups. The fear among critics is that Wheeler's ties to big business could ...
Six Revealing Quotes From Obama's New FCC Nominee, Tom Wheeler
April 30, 2013 President Obama is said to be preparing to nominate Tom Wheeler to chair the Federal Communications Commission. According to The Wall Street Journal's Danny Yadron, the nod could come by as early as tomorrow afternoon. Wheeler's a noted venture capitalist and a top former lobbyist for both the wireless industry ...
Somebody Is Fixing Twitter's Misinformation Problem
April 30, 2013 Even worse than the pornbots and trolls, one of Twitter's enduring drawbacks is that there's no reliable way to issue corrections with the service. The flaw drew a truckload of attention in the wake of the Boston bombings as self-appointed detectives -- fueled by Reddit -- made all kinds of ...
