Google Glass seems to no longer require a tethering plan to share data with a smartphone—which, uh, saves a tiny proportion of the cost of the device as it stands. Great!
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It’s no secret that the United States and Israel have a very special relationship, but it might come as an unpleasant surprise that the NSA’s intelligence-sharing agreement has so few strings attached. Today’s edition of What-Has-the-NSA-Done-This-Time is brought to you by The Guardian, which revealed that the US government has handed over information intercepted through the agency’s shady surveillance programs with no legally binding limits on how the data could be utilized. While we can’t be sure of the exact nature of the raw intelligence shared with Israel, it’s likely that the information contained phone calls and emails of American citizens. Considering that only yesterday, we learned that the NSA had violated its own privacy protections between 2006 and 2009, blaming confusion about how the system actually worked, today’s development raises a few important questions about what information is being shared across borders and how exactly it’s being used. For more information, check out The Guardian‘s report, linked below.
Filed under: Misc
Source: The Guardian
Back in the 1990s, Ben Shneiderman invented the treemap as a means of visualizing the hierarchical contents of his hard drive. Now, he’s taking inspiration from famous artists to make his data look pretty. Really, very pretty.
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We’ve seen plenty of analysis of NBA games from Kirk Goldsberry
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Scientific research is published by the bucketload every single week—to the extent that it’s virtually impossible to keep up with. So this neat way of visualizing published papers as growing galaxies is particularly fun—and useful.
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The Wall Street Journal published an important investigation last week, reporting that the National Security Agency (NSA) has direct access to many key telecommunications switches around the country and “has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans.” Notably, NSA officials repeatedly refused to talk about this story on theirconference call with reporters the next day. Instead the Director of National Intelligence and the NSA released a statement about the story later that evening.
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To make sure Google’s Project Loon is more internet via balloon than pie in the sky, the search giant turned to data simulations. Loon Rapid Evaluator Dan Piponi’s goal was to determine the possibility of a “nicely spaced flock of balloons” to provide reliable airborne internet. Proper spacing is key for this because if the gaps are too wide, coverage will be spotty — the opposite of what the initiative is hoping to achieve. He iterated “hundreds” of times using publicly available wind info to visualize how different stratospheric factors would affect balloon travel and found that yes, they could indeed be evenly distributed. Piponi posited that in the future, the balloons could have information about what other balloons are doing around them and adjust spacing on their own, accordingly. If you ask us, that sounds like the internet of things is taking to the clouds.
Source: Project Loon (Google+)
Facebook made some changes to its data use policy late last year (in addition to some changes to its actual process for making changes), and it’s now back with another set of updates. As Facebook’s Chief Privacy Office Erin Egan explains, the new changes affect two of its key documents — its Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities — and they come as a result of a settlement in a court case concerning its use of personal data in advertising. Among the changes are a revised explanation of “how things like your name, profile picture and content may be used in connection with ads or commercial content,” which Facebook says will now “make it clear that you are granting Facebook permission for this use when you use our services.”
The data use policy also encompasses data retention by third parties, who Facebook says you must contact directly if you wish to have your personal data deleted, even if you have deleted the third-party application itself. As AllThingsD notes, your profile picture will also now figure more prominently in Facebook’s facial-recognition system for photo tagging, although you can still opt out of that if you like. These are also all still just proposed changes for the time being; under its new process, Facebook users have seven days to offer their comments, but no vote will take place.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Facebook
How far away is your nearest grocery store? If you live out west, probably much further than the rest of the country, as shown by this visualization of America’s "food deserts," where the closest grocery is miles away.
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Data compression isn’t the sexiest of subjects, but after Facebook pledged to slim down its digital footprint, it’s suddenly hot news. You might be interested to know, then, that Apple has reportedly snapped up Swedish startup AlgoTrim, which specializes in lossless compression algorithms. TechCrunch believes that AlgoTrim’s know-how will slim down iOS device data usage — as the outfit’s JPEG files are apparently six times smaller than the average. CultOfMac, however, believes that the deal may hint at a move towards computational photography — hinting that we may see Apple’s version of Nokia’s pixel oversampling tech pop up in future devices. While the thought of a PureView iPhone would set plenty of hearts aflutter, there’s probably more chance that Elon Musk will build you your own private Hyperloop.
Update: Yup, an Apple spokesperson has confirmed the deal to AllThingsD.
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Software, Mobile, Apple
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Rapidus
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