Hasta La Gadget!

If you have seen the movie Minority Report starring Tom Cruise, you might remember several scenes in the movie where a camera scans the eye of the person and will display advertisements that are relevant to said person. Well it looks like something similar will be happening over in the UK at Tesco, and if you’re planning on shopping at Tesco anytime in the near future, this is an interesting feature you might want to check out. Basically these ads are similar to those found in the movie, where a screen with a built-in camera will be placed at Tesco’s gas stations where it will have the ability to identify users bby their gender, approximate age, and will be able to customize its ads accordingly.

The ads will come from a UK digital media company, Amscreen, who will utilize face-tracking technology made by French company, Quividi that will help identify the traits mentioned above. On top of being able to detect the age and gender of a person, it will also act as a data collection device where it will be able to record how long a person is looking at the ad, allowing companies to modify their ads to make them more effective, although presumably at the start people will be looking at the ads longer due to the novelty of having ads customized to them. It sounds pretty cool and Amscreen is hoping to introduce these screens to Tesco’s supermarket outlets in the future as well. What do you guys think?

Tesco To Start Introducing Face-Scanning Customized Ads At Its Gas Stations original content from Ubergizmo.

This article was written on August 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

How would you feel if your personal data was sold, (along with thousands of others) on eBay, for around 64 dollars? When we say personal data, we are talking about names, addresses, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, mothers’ maiden names, scans of signatures, and more. It’s very personal information that could easily be used to steal an identity and doesn’t belong in the hands of just anybody.

Recently, a man by the name of Andrew Chapman purchased a used computer on eBay for around 64 U.S. dollars. To his surprise, it came with more than he expected. Along with the computer came a hard drive loaded with the personal data of thousands and thousands of people. The data he received belonged to those with American Express, Natawest, and Royal Bank of Scotland accounts.

Luckily Chapman was an honest guy and reported his find, but what about the person who sold the computer? Apparently the computer was sold by a former employee of an archiving firm called Graphic Data. Graphic Data was questioned on the situation and said, “Certain pieces of IT equipment has been moved from a secure area. We are seeking to recover this equipment, which apparently contained customer data. We take customer privacy and data security very seriously.” Talk about a security breach!

This just goes to show that you never really know what you’re going to end-up with when you buy something on eBay.

Source: The Register

Image Source

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

If there’s one product that Microsoft is probably known for, apart from the Windows operating system, would be its gaming console, the Xbox. Without doubt that is probably one of Microsoft’s more popular consumer products to date but interestingly enough, Microsoft’s co-founder, Paul Allen, seems to think that perhaps Microsoft should spin off the Xbox franchise along with their Bing search engine, and instead focus more on the B2B (business to business) side of things. This advice comes from Vulcan Capital chief investment analyst, Paul Ghaffari, whose team helps to manage Paul Allen’s considerable stock in Microsoft.

According to Ghaffari, “The search business and even Xbox, which has been a very successful product, are detracting from [the success of the enterprise unit] […] We would want them to focus on their best competencies. My view is there are some parts of that operation they should probably spin out, get rid of, to focus on the enterprise and focus on the cloud.” Granted Bing isn’t exactly the most popular search engine at the moment, at least compared to Google, but the Xbox is definitely holding its own, especially against the likes of Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Wii efforts. What do you guys think?

Microsoft Co-Founder Wants To Spin Off Xbox And Bing Brands, Focus More On B2B original content from Ubergizmo.

On August 12, 2013 BlackBerry announced that it had formed a special committee to probe “strategic alternatives” to turn the company around, alternatives included seeking investments, forging alliances and even selling off the company. Fairfax Financial Holdings, currently the largest BlackBerry shareholder, submitted a non-binding buyout bid of $4.7 billion soon after that. Fairfax had until November 4th to finalize its bid after it had conducted due diligence, but as it stands right now, Prem Watsa’s outfit is not going to take BlackBerry private. The BlackBerry buyout plan has been shelved and instead of buying it, Fairfax and “other institutional investors” have decided to invest $1 billion in the ailing Canadian manufacturer.

(more…)

BlackBerry Buyout Not Happening, Fairfax To Invest $1 Billion original content from Ubergizmo.

Last week we picked up on two separate reports about mystery barges, one in San Francisco Bay and the other in Casco Bay, Maine, reports that claimed the structures built on top of said barges were connected to Google. The company hasn’t confirmed its involvement as yet, but at one point it was rumored that perhaps its building a “floating marketing center” for Google Glass. Another theory making the rounds is that Google is building a floating data center. A new report from KPIX, CBS’s San Francisco affiliate, claims that the barges are actually going to be invite only showrooms for Google X projects. Google X is the company’s very secretive research unit which has been involved in projects like self-driving cars and Google Glass.

It is said that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has “personally directed” this project, which is believed to be an effort by Google to upstage Apple and its highly popular retail stores. Citing a source who has apparently gone onboard, the structure is said to be made out of interchangeable 40-foot shipping containers which can be put together or taken apart at will, thus effectively being mobile. Three floors will be “dazzling showrooms,” whereas an upper “party deck” will contain bars and a recreational area for the highly exclusive visitors. No word as yet when these structures are going to be opened.

Mystery Google Barges Said To Be Invite Only Google X Showrooms original content from Ubergizmo.