As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
Facebook faces privacy class action
A class action suit against Facebook, brought by 25,000 users who allege violations of European privacy laws, is due to begin in a court in Austria later.
Briefly: Dryft buyout, iOS 8.3 has Wi-Fi calling, Disney TV pressure
Apple apparently bought out software keyboard developer Dryft last September, acquiring one of the co-founders of Swype in the process, according to reports. CEO Randy Marsden changed his job title to Apple’s iOS Keyboard Manager on LinkedIn around the same time as the deal allegedly happened. Apple only rarely confirms acquisitions of small tech companies like Dryft.
VIDEO: Digital bee brain pilots drone
Scientists are aiming to recreate a complete honey bee brain on a computer.
You Can Still Share Your HBO GO Password … For Now
Don’t fret — you’ll still be able to watch “Veep” using your ex-boyfriend’s uncle’s HBO Go account, at least for now.
Richard Plepler, the CEO of HBO, told CNN’s Brian Stelter that the company looks at password sharing “very carefully,” but at the moment, the number of people sharing passwords on HBO Go is “just simply not a big number.”
“Should it become a big number, we will deal with it,” he told Stelter in the interview (above). “We will change the number of concurrent streams that are available. But right now the number really isn’t significant as long as it remains de minimis.”
(HBO and CNN are both part of Time Warner.)
As you may be aware, some people use others’ account information to use HBO Go, the streaming platform that’s available only to people who subscribe to HBO through a television provider.
Some streaming services are meant to be used by multiple people in a household, so that’s why HBO and Netflix both allow multiple people to watch different shows or movies at the same time. HBO Go can be streamed by three people simultaneously, while Netflix has membership plans that range from one to four simultaneous streams.
Home to hits like “Game of Thrones” and “Girls,” HBO is taking a similar approach to password sharing on HBO Now, the company’s new standalone service that launched Tuesday. Three concurrent streams are OK — for the time being.
From the HBO Now FAQ:
The number of videos that you and members of your household can play at the same time with HBO Now is similar to HBO GO. Like the traditional broadcast HBO subscription, we view it as a household subscription. However, if we see a level of sharing that affects our business, there are other tools of enforcement available to us.
HBO Now, which costs $14.99 a month, is meant to appeal to the growing number of people who don’t subscribe to TV. At launch, one can sign up for the new service through Apple — either via an Apple TV or an app on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch — or through Cablevision, if the subscriber lives in an area served by the cable provider. Once the person signs up, he can watch via his Mac or PC at HBONow.com.
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Karlie Kloss Announces #KodeWithKarlie Scholarship So Teen Girls Can Learn To Code
Coding classes have made such an impact on Karlie Kloss’ life that now she wants teen girls to have the chance to take them, too. Thanks to her latest project, a handful of them will get that chance without worrying about the cost.
The model announced on Instagram that she is partnering up with the Flatiron School to offer 20 girls the #KodeWithKarlie Scholarship. According to the scholarship website, the money will cover tuition for recipients to take Flatiron Pre-College Academy’s two-week Intro to Software Engineering course, the same one Kloss took herself a year ago.
I had fun learning how to fly drones with code today at @flatiron school ❤️ thanks @aviflombaum for the lesson, this will simplify the logistics for all future @karlieskookies deliveries!!!
A video posted by @karliekloss on Nov 8, 2014 at 9:15pm PST
During the summer course, students will study a programming language called Ruby and learn how to create an app. Ten of the scholarships are available at the school’s New York City location, while the other 10 are available in locations across the country. Girls 13 to 18 in high school can apply by uploading a video telling Kloss why they want to learn to code.
I am spending the last week of august learning how to program in ruby #girlswhocode #nerdalert
A photo posted by @karliekloss on Aug 25, 2014 at 4:24pm PDT
For Kloss, learning to code is especially important for women. In a video announcement of her scholarship, the healthy cookie expert (and Taylor Swift’s bestie) explains that extending this experience to young girls will impact their lives now as well as help them have a say in their future.
“Code is only going to continue to play a major role in defining our future. I think it’s crucial that young women learn to code as early as possible to ensure that we, as young women, have a voice and a stake in what the world looks like.”
H/T BuzzFeed
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A Ray of Light Shines on Internet Rights
The Internet, by the very nature of its technical architecture, allows individuals and groups of individuals to speak directly to each other and to the world at large without the requirement or necessity of intermediaries moderating their content. The freedom enabled by the Internet to express one’s own ideas, one’s opinion of another’s idea, to advocate or to disassociate with the collective views of other speakers, to associate locally and globally, and to allow for human creativity and innovation is unprecedented in history.
This precious Internet freedom is, however, volatile around the world. The Internet Society has expressed support for our Yemen chapter in asking the Yemeni authorities to restore full and open Internet access for all the people of Yemen. Not only in Yemen, today torn by internal strife, but across the globe, the threat to free expression is growing at an alarming rate. We are witnessing, in far too many places, government intervention on the Internet resulting in pervasive surveillance of users, restrictions to access, outright prohibitions on speech, active censorship, and even the threat of imprisonment for publication of content. The threat to human rights is deeply worrying.
Recently, two rays of light broke through this gloomy scene. The Supreme Court of India struck down, in its entirety, a pernicious law that took direct aim at the heart of Internet freedom. Section s.66A of India’s Information Technology Act of 2000 made it a crime for people to send messages or post information on the Internet that could be construed as “grossly offensive,” “menacing,” or known to be “false” and meant to cause “annoyance”, “inconvenience” or “injury” (for example). Those convicted of violating the law could be fined and imprisoned for up to three years. In finding this section of the law in violation of Indian citizens’ constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression, the Court provided a comprehensive analysis of Indian law upholding an individual’s right to free expression as against the state’s role to “promote the general public interest”. It also referred to, with some elegance, the US Supreme Court Justice Jackson’s statement in American Communications Association v Douds 94 L. Ed.925, namely, that “Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.” While, as others have commented, there is still much work to do, we commend the many civil society organizations in India that filed cases in the past few years challenging the harmful provisions of Section s.66A.
And also recently the UN Human Rights Council decided to establish a new UN Special Rapporteur on “The Right of Privacy in the Digital Age.” It is noteworthy that, in creating this new mandate, the Council recognized that the “exercise of the right to privacy is important for the realization of the right to freedom of expression and to hold opinions without interference and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and is one of the foundations of a democratic society.” The mandate of the Special Rapporteur will include special consideration of issues related to new technologies, including surveillance and consideration of metadata as potential personal information. This mandate will also raise global political awareness about the need to protect the right to privacy in the digital age.
What is particularly important about these developments is an emerging recognition that the denial by governments of users’ Internet freedom cannot be justified by vague and unspecified claims of national security and by unsubstantiated use of the states’ police power for the purported safety of the people of the state.
Indeed, the right to free speech and expression must exist side by side with the need for security on the Internet. We have consistently urged that Internet security can only be achieved through what we call “collaborative security.” Top down, onerous government restrictions on freedom of expression thwart the human spirit; they do not protect it.
The Internet should be open and available to all. The ability to connect, communicate and collaborate is an unchanging ‘invariant’ inherent in the Internet. The right to speak locally and globally, the right of expression and creativity, and the right to form community are rights intrinsic to our humanity.
Within the Internet’s policy and technical communities, we advocate for the right of users to protect and secure their own data, for ethical data protection by all, and for a collaborative approach to security. Underpinning these technical and policy recommendations is our fundamental belief that human rights online are the same as human rights offline.
We applaud the decision of the Supreme Court of India and the resolution of the Human Rights Council. We urge other governments to speak with authority on behalf of Internet rights. And we urge users, providers and commercial interests around the world to do the same. The Internet is a network of networks — we all have a collective responsibility for its future.
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6 Ways to Spring Clean Your Social Media Presence
If you’re about to spring clean your apartment, or — let’s be real — you’re in bed with a mug of wine, binge-watching crap on Netflix, thinking about hiring some service to spring clean your hovel… chillax, baby, no one’s judging you. HOWEVER, if you’re feeling anxious about the smells and spoors, yet meanwhile your all-too-public social media continues to gather mold and/or issues, I’d suggest that you should first change your priorities.
How likely is it that anyone’s going to wake up on your filthy, hole-ridden sheets or notice that your day begins witha double vodka and Redbull in your “World’s Best Grandpa” mug? Pretty unlikely. But anytime I’m bored, I can visit your Facebook page and see you posting tacky selfies. I can witness your lonely bathroom antics on Instagram. I can be appalled by you listing “eating pizza” or “pole-dancing” as a “skill” on your “professional” LinkedIn account.
Listen, spring cleaning is an actual thing, so whether you’re in the midst of a dead-end job search or you’re just starting to think that 2015 might be a good year to actually experience what it means to wake up in the morning and LOVE your job (it’s pretty awesome, btw) or finally getting serious about grad school or selling your Great American Young Adult manuscript, at some point, you’re going to need to use your social media to promote, instead of actively block, your goals.
Before you look at me like I’m the asshole for believing in the validity of your goals, shut up. Seriously. Why are you so quick to dismiss your ambitions as sleazy or criminal or simply undeserving? Whether or not you want to save the world, or just enjoy your life… what’s wrong with that? Whether you want to find the cure for cancer, “just” be a paralegal or “just” take all those unproduced screenplays from under your bed and get them out in the world… what’s wrong with that? Why are you so quick to disdain yourself and your ambitions?
Here are 6 ways to spring clean your social media presence:
1. Stop following people who just cater to your insecurities.
If they’re not bringing anything positive, insightful or fun to your door, they’re wasting your time — i.e. you’re allowing them to waste your time — and you don’t have time to waste. When I was starting my business, I learned an enormous amount from the social media of people who seemed to have an almost innate instinct for turning gold to shit online. But some of what I learned from those morons was to distrust myself and to fear becoming an idiot like them.
I used to know a woman whose website was a virtual “Scared Straight” compendium of everything you should never do online. Her social media presence was almost preternaturally fascinating for all the spelling mistakes, the arrogance, the bizarre… well, were they choices? Do unconscious arrogant morons make choices? (I worked in TV news for years; I should know this.) I’d wake up at 3 a.m., covered in sweat thinking, does she not understand that most people in North America don’t need translation services of Dinka-to-English? Does she understand what Dinka is, for f**k’s sake? (You think I’m exaggerating. You are incorrect.) I was so mortified by her “website” that when people suggested I upgrade my own blogger self-made web presence, instead of thinking, Oh, that’s a good idea, I could research some successful websites, and look up designers and create a budget, I’d think of this (cough cough) “friend” and nothing would happen. Or, rather, what happened is that I wasted another three years of my life on that nitwit’s issues. Eventually, I broke the hold of her stupidity, and eventually I was able to upgrade my website, meet designers I trusted and kumbaya my lord, kumbaya, after working with three different designers and countless upgrades, I have a website I adore. But think of the years I wasted. You do not have time to waste.
2. Follow the smart people
As you clean up your various news feeds, check out whom the smart people you follow are following. Yes, some people you admire will surprise you by how many parody Kardashian accounts they follow. But some of these people will also open you up to worlds and people and opportunities you didn’t previously know about, because you were too busy falling on your own sword regarding various nemesis’ accounts. I don’t allow myself to have a nemesis because I personally will be damned if I give anyone that much power over my emotions. Again, I don’t have time to waste. I’m running a business, not a hobby, so if you’re not smart or interesting, good luck, Kid.
3. Know why you’re online
If you’re online to promote your legal practice, or alternatively, to get all the latest kickboxing news, each interest should lead you to a different profile. True, you can do both with one profile, but you should be able to articulate your overall concern, and then have a profile that an intelligent stranger would appreciate and understand. If you don’t wish to take the time and responsibility to articulate your goals, hey, do you also believe in magic? Is magic going to do the hard work of transforming your train-wreck of a social media presence into something that will allow you to identify and achieve your goals? If so, awesome. I am jealous because on my planet, I am constantly reminded that the only magic that exists is the magic I create but hey, what the hell do I know, right? Your magical planet sounds genuinely awesome.
Sit down and think about it. Why are you online? Whom are you trying to connect with/impress and why? Why should these people be interested in you? Yes, Hippy, people should value you because you are also a person, but, for example, if you’re a recent law school grad, trying to network with other attorneys and get a job, yet your profile is full of Rick Ross videos and “veiled” comments about smoking up and blowjobs… oh. Tell me how that works out for you. But tell me in my next life when I’m reincarnated as a cat and have plenty of downtime.
Better to identify your ideal audience and their interests. How do you want them to see you? What do you have in common? What specific skills, interests and education do you have to offer? How can you use what you already have to differentiate yourself and interest other people and gain more skills and experience and contacts? Are you following your law school and alumni association and joining in the conversation? With your goals in mind, start revising your online social media presence. This is a process. Ask your smart, trusted friends and colleagues to look at your social media accounts and give their honest opinion. If they didn’t know you, if they just met you online, how you would come across? Don’t ask if these people “like” you, ask if they think you are professionally relevant.
4. Create a strategy
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so understand that you can clean up your social media, you can have the most amazing goals… but if you don’t take repeated, focused steps to build those goals, or if you, for example, get on Twitter once a month, or decide that there’s no point in ever using Facebook again, because only two people liked your stunning new profile photo, welp, as my father used to say, “Carlota, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. I thought you knew better.”
If you’re trying to change your professional life in some way, and you spend the money and time to get gorgeous head shots, or you hire a professional writer to burnish your profiles, but you do not commit to creating a long-term strategy based on your goals… might as well flush that money and ambition down the toilet. Changing your life, i.e. your perspective, does not happen overnight. It takes a plan of repeated, intelligent steps. You’re going to have to commit. If you’re leery of posting stuff on your business Facebook page, for example, because you think you’re a fraud, trust me, you’re not alone. Every smart person feels like a fraud at the beginning, and then, over time, through the process of commitment and learning from your mistakes, through hard choices and hard work, you become what it is you need. Go get started.
Create a strategy based on what you think you can do TODAY, RIGHT NOW, and go do it. Tomorrow do a little bit more. The day after, yes, do even more. It will get easier. If nothing else, go look at the social media of the people and brands you admire and consider what you can emulate based on the resources and ability you have right now. Go create a folder in Google docs or Microsoft Word, and start assembling six weeks’ worth of ideas. Before you tell me all the reasons this won’t work, hey, save it. I know it works. I’ve lived it. And while you’re busy telling yourself all the reasons you’ll fail, that irritating girl from your sorority will be busting her ass. And when, next year, she’s getting attention and opportunities, hey, don’t give me that look, Missy. I’m the one who told you to get started and create a strategy.
5. Be honest with yourself
If your online business is faltering, is that really because there’s no market for whatever you’re selling? Or is it because you insist on interjecting your political/religious views into your commerce and turning people off? Do you, for example, think social media sucks… or is it that you just don’t understand Twitter and feel too insecure to cop to that and take a free class at your local library? I guess you can blame everyone else, since certainly that’s easier than taking any type of personal responsibility, but I’d argue that your self-delusion is going to get very tedious very quickly. I certainly don’t think my social media presence is perfect. I don’t think anything I do is perfect, but then again, I think perfection is a huge waste of time. When I get the chance to learn something, I see it as a blessing, not proof that I’m a schmuck. At the end of the day, I’m a woman with a business, not a hobby and I have zero time to waste. The more I improve my online business, the more people I can help. It took me years of mistakes, of shame, of guilt, to understand that lesson.
6. You’re only human, and this is only social media, for f**k’s sake
At the end of the day, it is just social media. If you truly want to burst into tears and vomit every time you go on Facebook, or Twitter… hey, Sunshine, maybe this, right now, isn’t for you. And that’s OK. Life goes on. There are many people in the world NOT on Twitter. For example, people who are pregnant, taking cruises, writing poetry, getting laid, feeding the hungry, acting in dinner theater, living lives they love and happy as a pig in sh*t. Life’s hard, why would you torture yourself? Maybe the very best thing you can do for yourself in 2015 is to shut down your Facebook page and go for a long walk. Go tell your mom you love her and buy her a drink. Go rescue some cats. Rescue yourself.
I personally didn’t join Facebook till about 2008. I wasn’t ready and I don’t regret it. I now use Facebook all the time, but trust me, there are also plenty of days when I’m enjoying myself and feel no need to ruin my fun with the soul-sucking morass of fear, loneliness and insecurity that is, all-too-frequently, social media.
I trust my gut. You should as well. I became an entrepreneur in 2008 with a very limited “budget,” as in b*tch, I was b-r-o-k-e! Social media was all I had, and so I used it to change the course of my life. On the other hand, there are plenty of people running successful businesses and/or lives without the faintest blush of social media. My way was right for me, I hope your way is right for you.
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San Francisco To Unveil 52 Strange And Incredible Public Art Installations
Several dozen major public art installations will burst onto display this weekend on San Francisco’s main thoroughfare, part of a years-long effort to redesign Market Street in the midst of the city’s tech-driven economic boom.
A jury of artists and community members selected 52 proposed installations to be temporarily exhibited. “Public opinion — as measured by interaction with the art, street surveys, census sensors and social media — will determine which 10 or 12 artworks out of the 52 could return later as long-term public art,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
We’ve highlighted 13 of the most unique and fabulous installations that will be on display beginning Thursday.
1. Life through a toddler’s eyes.
What is it? “3 for Life is an oversized environment in which a typical adult will physically feel like they’re in pre-school again.” The installation hopes to “help adults (and even kids!) remember their compassion, confident and creative 3 year old self. We will design and build to scale an oversized table, oversized chairs, oversized art easel, oversized drawing pad, oversized crayons, oversized hopscotch, etc, in which a ‘grown up’ feels as if they’re just a kid — small, vulnerable, in need of help, and the overall consistent feeling of being in awe!”
2. Art meets disaster preparedness.
What is it? The Neighborhood Preparedness Unit is “a novel public disaster preparedness kit designed to build resiliency at the community level,” organizers say. The safety features work even “when power, water, and communication are lost,” and in non-disaster times, the installation “promotes an infrastructural awareness, while maps and a graphic interface educate about natural hazards such as floods and earthquakes. This unit is also designed to have a double function for performances, storytelling, and human play.”
3. A pop-up public library.
What is it? The San Francisco Public Library is behind this installation, called Bookmark. “The gateway, built out of SF residents’ favorite books, will orient passers-by toward the library. As people walk through the gateway, they will hear an audiobook from the library’s collection, and a sign will encourage them to hear the rest by borrowing an audiobook. ‘Did you know?’-style information about the library will be displayed along with a selection of books for all ages that are free for the taking.”
4. A two-story pile of life-size Jenga blocks.
What is it? “Timber Valley is an installation of interlocking, stacked wooden blocks and platforms that inspires people to linger, interact and perform. The public is able to interact with, rearrange and rotate the blocks when they are unlocked at specific intervals during the duration of the event.”
5. Flowers you control with your mind.
What is it? A set of interactive, solar-powered digital flowers that respond to brain activity, created by interactive tech artist Ashley Newton. “NeuroFlowers is an interactive biofeedback-based art piece. Using EEG to read electrical currents from the surface of the head, we can determine different mental states, which then guide the behavior of illumino-kinetic magic flowers. With NeuroFlowers, the internal becomes external. The mind becomes tangible, shareable. Calming or focusing your thoughts changes the blossoming state and color of the flowers.”
6. A shape-shifting interactive wall.
What is it? MeetWall is a “stunning interactive wall that comes to life and becomes transparent when people approach it.” The installation is “composed of an array of lightweight tiles that rotate about their center in response to sensor input. MeetWall’s Kinect sensors monitor proximity and location of those within range of the wall. As one gets closer to the wall, the tiles are activated, and rotate to 45 degrees to allow some transparency. When two people are aligned at either side of the wall, the panels in the zone of said people rotate to 90 degrees, allowing full visual connection. This sudden and unexpected face to face with a stranger provides a unique experience that strips away the anonymity of the urban street. During phases where no individual is within immediate range, the wall flutters and flirts, inviting people to investigate.”
7. A giant-sized typewriter.
What is it? The installation “It’s News to Me” is a large-scale, audio-enabled replica of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen’s typewriter, with keys for seats. Caen’s columns, which he dubbed “a continuous love letter to San Francisco,” appeared in the city’s main paper for nearly 60 years, and he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize a year before he died in 1997.
8. A revolving doorway that leads to inner peace.
What is it? The Zen Door is “a revolving door inside of a 12 ft. cube that creates a natural and peaceful experience for the people who walk through the door — offering a quick recharge and refresh. When you enter the revolving door, you have your own private space that is covered in plants and flowers, has gentle lighting, with a fresh mist circulating, and relaxing music playing. The air is fresh and full of oxygen, the music and lights are relaxing, and the walkthrough is a delightful break from the Market Street bustle.”
9. Collaborative music driven by facial expressions.
What is it? The Sound of Emotion installation is “designed to encourage collaborative music creation.” It will “incorporate four iPads, configured in a rectangular array. For the selected musical genre, each device will represent a single unique instrument (e.g. World Beat: iPad 1: didgeridoo, iPad 2: bata drum, iPad 3: hand-held percussion, iPad 4: bells). The instruments will be ‘played’ through each iPad’s proprietary emotion detection software. The software recognizes up to seven unique facial expressions – when an individual walks up to the device, their instrument begins to play. Each additional person represents a new instrument with the opportunity to shape the resulting music collectively through their expression.”
10. Funky public ping pong.
What is it? Ping Pong is “the world’s second most popular sport behind soccer,” organizers say, and moving the game “from the privacy of basements, offices and recreation centers into the street can enliven our public places.” The “Public Ping Pong Project” will offer “canvases for local artists as well as provide a fun and interactive setting for all residents.”
11. An urban butterfly habitat.
What is it? Organizers of Habit(At) say San Francisco is the perfect home for the Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly — “the London Plane Trees, tall buildings, warm climate, and dappled sunlight make it ideal” — but that most of the caterpillars eventually fall from branches onto the sidewalks and don’t survive. Their idea is to equip several trees with lighted mesh to catch and protect the caterpillars, “uniting butterfly ecology with human observation and discovery.”
12. A “gym” to strengthen your confidence.
What is it? The “Daily Boost” installation is inspired by a TED talk by Amy Cuddy about the physiological benefits of stress-busting body language and Power Poses (think “Wonder Woman”). “The gym will contain 4-6 pieces of furniture, with attached hand-held props. Each piece of equipment supports a different positive emotional state such as ‘powerful,’ ‘meditative,’ or ‘heroic.’” The organizers write, “Through history, you can find many examples of power poses in civic statues, religious furnishings, and royal accessories. What’s exciting is that this rich history offers ideas for a new genre of ‘outdoor gym equipment.’ Why not ‘be’ the victorious leader on the Pedestal? Why not take a sunshine break and sit on a throne? Why not de-stress on a meditation bench?”
13. A bench meets merry-go-round.
What is it? The Bench-Go-Round is “interactive public seating” that “encourages connection and play between pedestrians” and “promotes a spirit of cooperation and collaboration amongst groups that may not normally interact… One can use the bench alone for seating. But when someone sits on the opposite bench, a surprising and delightful physical relationship between the two people is formed.”
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AT&T Ordered To Pay $25 Million Fine Over Customer Data Breach
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission reached a $25 million settlement with AT&T Inc over a consumer data breach at call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines, the U.S. communications regulator said on Wednesday.
The breaches led to unauthorized disclosure of names and full or partial Social Security numbers and illegal access to account information of about 280,000 U.S customers of AT&T, a senior FCC official told reporters on a conference call.
The data was used by call center employees to request handset-unlock codes for AT&T phones and shared with third parties who seem to have been trafficking stolen cell phones, the official said. The breaches occurred in 2013 and 2014.
AT&T said in a statement: “We are terminating vendor sites as appropriate. We’ve changed our policies and strengthened our operations.”
The $25 million civil penalty levied on the No. 2 wireless carrier is the largest data security enforcement action to date, the FCC official added.
In October, the FCC imposed a $10 million fine on telecom companies TerraCom and YourTel for consumer privacy breaches.
The FCC launched an investigation into improper disclosure of customer information at AT&T’s Mexico call centers in May. Shortly after that AT&T informed the agency of additional data breaches in Colombia and Philippines, the official said.
AT&T has been taking steps to inform affected customers, the company said.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak; editing by Matthew Lewis and Andrew Hay)
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Zynga founder Mark Pincus to return
Troubled game maker Zynga says Mark Pincus will return to lead the company he founded.
Design Is Everything (VIDEO)
When many people think of design, they think of fashion or the appearance of an object. Jonathan Knowles, Senior Advisor at Autodesk, discusses the true importance of design and what the future holds, from efficiencies in architecture and aerospace to designing cancer-eating viruses.
WATCH:
XPRIZE Insights is a video series that highlights the leading thinkers of our time. More here.
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Self-Driving Cars Could Make You Vomit
Self-driving cars could be a lot like carnival rides: fun, but they could make you hurl.
According to a new study from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, 6 to 12 percent of Americans in self-driving cars will experience moderate to severe motion sickness. Nothing like vomiting all over your expensive new ride!
Ever notice that you only get car-sick when you’re a passenger in a car and not the driver? There’s a reason for that. When what your eyes see doesn’t match up with what the rest of your body is feeling, you can suffer from motion sickness. If you don’t have your eyes on the road — and you won’t need to if you’re in a self-driving car — you’re likely to get sick (usually nauseated). So if you’re working or reading or watching TV while sitting in a car, you’re much more likely to feel ill.
To figure out how many people are going to get sick in robot cars of the future, researchers asked 3,255 people in different countries what they expect to do when riding in self-driving cars. Though many said they would watch the road, even if they weren’t driving, a lot of people expected to read, work and do other hurl-inducing activities:
What People Plan To Do In Self-Driving Cars | Create infographics
Americans are the most likely to read in a self-driving car, while people in China are the most likely to text or talk to their friends. People in India are the most likely to work. The one thing they’ll all have in common: ruining those fancy new cars with vomit.
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A Smart Green Explorers Wheel: Empowering Innovative Local Communities
Co-authored by Julian Gresser, MA, JD and Francisco Acuna, MPA MBA, JD
Green technologies are beneficially transforming every aspect of life on Planet Earth in the 21st century. Partners in Prosperity–Strategic Industries for the U.S. and Japan documented how in specific historical times and places certain economically “strategic” technologies and industries served as catalysts to accelerate innovation, raise productivity, stimulate economic growth, and produce jobs. Japan’s global industrial growth in the 1970s and 1980s proved the point in automobiles, household electronics, semiconductors, computers, and robotics. The Green Industrial Revolution describes how “social capital” is being created in the Nordic countries and China through the rapid diffusion of green innovations and technologies originating in the energy and environmental sectors to all areas of society.
People tend to think of green innovation as a matter of systems integration implemented by experts on a technical level. One example is “agile energy systems” that combine power generation, distribution, storage along with the transmission of renewable energy sources at both the central grid and locally on-site or distributed power to communities. Such agile systems are often linked with transportation infrastructure networks based largely on sustainable fuels. But technical solutions, no matter how innovative will not ensure local community engagement, support, and adoption.
An expanded definition of “sustainability” is emerging that explicitly includes human wellbeing, eco-services of natural assets, resilience of material systems, integrity of institutions, and community knowledge. A new conception of “capital” is also replacing outdated notions of energy and materials utilization that have focused to date on slowing rates of consumption. The real challenge for advanced and developing economies alike is to find a way to engage local communities creatively in the design and implementation of these green and now “smart” systems, so that the resulting prosperity is more widely and equitably shared.
A major success story is unfolding in Mexico which possesses a vast treasure of untapped solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel, and ocean wave energy resources. During the past several years a consortium has been formed by InTrust in cooperation with Harvard’s Center for Global Health and the Environment. It includes 300 professors from 120 universities who are training young entrepreneurs to work together on 100 high priority projects with support from Mexico’s Ministry of Energy. The consortium is precedent-setting in that local communities, including many rural and indigenous peoples, are themselves owners of the green energy projects, rather than being the passive observers of “artificial bubbles” of economic development happening on their incredibly rich lands.
Yet a central challenge remains: how most effectively to promote a creative dialogue among all stakeholders that will catalyze new discoveries, inventions, and innovations? As in advanced industrialized economies Mexico is searching for a new collaborative architecture that can capture the benefits of green innovation, while financially rewarding cooperation through recognizing mega-patents, patent pools, and other legal innovations. Creating incentives for international smart green technology transfers to Mexico is also critical, especially through alternatives that replace the old colonial model of foreign ownership of natural resources in exchange for patronage.
One useful tool that can help Mexico meet these challenges is a “Smart Green Explorers Wheel.” The Wheel introduces a new way of connecting diverse domains of knowledge and people that are currently fragmented in vertical silos as a result of increasing professional specialization. The process begins by the explorers posing a central innovation challenge at the hub which they then investigate from eight perspectives: the Past, Wisdom, Beauty, Life Force, Innovation, Humanity, the Networked Brain, and the Future. This way of exploring trains the mind to perceive the world differently and to discover its deeper patterns. Important breakthroughs can often be found at the “intertidal” connections among conventional fields which reflect the eight realms. The Explorers Wheel can be designed as an online intelligent aide, which continuously learns along with the participants and provides useful feedback on their core innovation challenges.
A Smart Green Explorers Wheel can help provide the connective tissue for Mexico’s green innovation initiative. How might it work? A Visual Matching Engine will first identify and display the optimal linkages of people, places, and resources for each high priority project. The resulting team and supporting network would then formulate the core innovation challenge. The challenge serves as the integrating focal point. An example: how can the available wind and solar energy in this location be optimally harvested to generate significant revenues for the community as whole as well as the developers and financiers? Through the Wheel participants gain access to the leading collaborative invention methodologies they can directly apply to solving the challenge. Together they then design and implement a plan to commercialize the resulting IP portfolio. The Wheel will also provide a venue for the stakeholders to record their personal stories — their dreams and struggles, victories and defeats, and the lessons drawn from the expedition. The resulting “visionary community narrative” will provide coherence and build momentum. By being showcased on the Wheel the local wind/solar project will attract foreign sources of capital, talent, and new technologies which will benefit the overall program.
For the Green Industrial Revolution to succeed it must become a force of convergence for a broad segment of society. Although strategic technologies and industries have historically been the engines of accelerated economic growth, the vitality and exuberance of local communities have always been its heart, brains, and fire. By engaging people around purposeful, vitalizing, and compassionate activities a Smart Green Explorers Wheel may provide one essential resource in a world that is increasingly isolated, lonely, suspicious, and despairing of viable alternatives.
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Woodrow W. Clark II, Managing Director, Clark Strategic Partners; Julian Gresser, Chairman, Alliances for Discovery, Francisco Acuna, CEO InTrust Global Investments, LLC
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Don't Send New Emoji To Someone Who Doesn't Have Them Yet
New emoji are here for iPhones, but don’t get too excited yet. Just because you have the new emoji doesn’t mean the person you’re texting does, and that can cause some confusion.
I wanted to see what would happen if I sent some newly diverse emoji to my coworker who hadn’t updated his iOS yet.
Here’s what I sent:
And here’s what my coworker saw:
Rather than showing up as a black box, the way emoji often do when sent between iPhones and Androids, my coworker’s iPhone tried to translate the new emoji using the old ones. It worked in a few instances and was problematic in others.
When I sent him a family of four male emoji, he received two male emoji with mustaches and two boy emoji. That’s not too dissimilar from a family with two male adults and two male children.
When I sent him two different races of male face emoji, he received a white male emoji face and an alien face both times. That doesn’t seem okay at all. It’s not clear how Apple decided to translate the emoji between operating systems, but using an alien face to signify people of different races was not a good idea.
Others aren’t so bad, though. When I sent my coworker two male emoji kissing he got a male emoji, a heart emoji, a kiss emoji and another male emoji. That works.
The key might be to wait a few days before sending any of these new emoji to your friends, in order to avoid any confusion or offense.
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Grilled Cheese Lovers Have More Sex And Are Better People, According To Survey
If you love grilled cheese you may have more sex than people who do not love grilled cheese.
In fact, your grilled cheese preferences can reveal a lot about how often you get busy. According to a new survey by the dating social network site Skout, cheese heads get more action. Skout surveyed a total of 4,600 people. Thirty-two percent of grilled cheese lovers reported having sex at least six times a month, whereas only 27 percent of grilled cheese haters said they have sex that often.
Sexy.
The findings also discovered that grilled cheese fans are more generous and adventurous than their sandwich-skipping counterparts. Eighty one percent of pro-cheesers have donated their time, money or food to those in need. By comparison, only 66 percent of those who dislike grilled cheese report helping the needy.
Here’s what the ultimate grilled cheese would look like, at least according to the survey: A mix of American and cheddar cheese without toppings, sandwiched between white bread with the crust left on. Perhaps including the crust allows more time for other kinds of activity (wink, wink).
If you want to learn how to throw the most epic grilled cheese party (which may just be a synonym for an orgy), tap here.
H/T: LA Times
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Clinical Sense App lets you play doctor on your phone
For many providers, medical applications are primarily about finding answers to clinical questions as rapidly as possible. However, a number of developers are exploring medical applications that resemble games. Games theory and gamification of medical education is still in its infancy, but more and more apps are being developed especially as the mobile technology platform […]
The post Clinical Sense App lets you play doctor on your phone appeared first on iMedicalApps.
Apple releases OS X 10.10.3, Photos for Mac, iOS 8.3
With today’s release of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, Apple is officially releasing its iPhoto replacement program Photos for the Mac. While the program has already been in use on iOS for some time, the new program sits alongside existing iPhoto or Aperture libraries with its own copy, and adds new abilities and features we have previously reported on. The update, leaked earlier today, also brings a non-beta version of iCloud Photo Library and new emoji, while the iOS 8.3 release shares the emoji improvements and adds wireless CarPlay support, along with new Siri accents and languages.
VIDEO: New drones fly with 4K video cams
Bestselling drone-maker DJI unveils new quadcopters capable of filming in the 4K ultra high definition video format.
Stunning 'Einstein Ring' Seen In Photo Of Faraway Galaxy
A brilliant “ring of fire” has been spotted in deep space, giving astronomers a rare glimpse of a galaxy 12 billion light-years away.
The near-perfect “Einstein ring” was captured at a super-high resolution of 23 milliarcseconds by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a ground telescope in the Atacama desert in Northe