By STEVE LOHR
If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address?
Probably not.
Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae — birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched.
Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number.
“Technology has rendered the conventional definition of personally identifiable information obsolete,” said Maneesha Mithal, associate director of the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy division. “You can find out who an individual is without it.”
In a class project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that received some attention last year, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree analyzed more than 4,000 Facebook profiles of students, including links to friends who said they were gay. The pair was able to predict, with 78 percent accuracy, whether a profile belonged to a gay male.
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]]>Here's among what Bray had to say about Apple in his blog post announcing his Google gig:
...
The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.
I hate it.
I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.
The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.
Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.
I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.
...
]]>Phillip A. Laplante, "IT Predictions, 2010," IT Professional, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 53-56, Jan./Feb. 2010, doi:10.1109/MITP.2010.27. Subscription required; Dartmouth and Dartmouth-Hitchcock folks, go here.
2010 predictions concern
2009's concerned
Tech & You February 25, 2010
Chrome, Safari, IE 8, Firefox, Opera...there's never been a better time to explore your options
By Rich Jaroslovsky
For the first time in years, energy and resources are being poured into browsers, the ubiquitous programs for accessing content on the Web. Credit for this trend—a boon to consumers—goes to two parties. The first is Google (GOOG), whose big plans for the Chrome browser have shaken Microsoft out of its competitive torpor and forced the software giant to pay fresh attention to its own browser, Internet Explorer. Microsoft all but ceased efforts to enhance IE after it triumphed in the last browser war, sending Netscape to its doom. Now it's back in gear.
There's also the European Union to thank. Starting this month, Brussels will require PC makers to give customers who buy new computers in Europe more freedom to choose. Under this plan, part of an antitrust settlement with Microsoft, purchasers will be presented with a screen at startup listing a dozen browsers in random order.
You don't have to be European, or even to have just purchased a new PC, to download these free programs and start exploring. When you do, there a few things you should keep in mind, especially regarding security and privacy.
Every company trumpets its strengths in security, but the term "secure browser" is a bit like "safe cigarette." Just months after releasing the latest version of Internet Explorer with a heavy emphasis on its security features, for example, Microsoft acknowledged that the hackers in China who targeted Google made use of an IE 6 security lapse.
Privacy is no more dependable. All browsers offer "inprivate" or "incognito" modes, but for the most part such settings only seek to prevent people who might look at your computer from seeing the sites you have browsed; they don't stop those sites from keeping records of your visits.
It's important to keep in mind why companies give their browsers away for free. Chrome, for instance, is a key part of Google's strategy to get computer users comfortable with so-called cloud computing. The idea is for everyone to spend less money and time on programs they license from software companies (Microsoft, say), and rely more on data and services such as Google Docs, which reside on servers and storage systems on the Net.
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]]>I dunno. For me, "less is less" and "more is more."
The iPad paradox: Less is more
A new trend has emerged where gadget limitations are touted as features
Mike Elgan
March 14, 2010 (Computerworld) The introduction of Apple's iPad predictably divided gadget fans into "love it" and "hate it" camps.
The haters say iPad lacks multitasking, a webcam, Flash support, a USB port, massive storage, a removable battery, CD and DVD support, RAM upgradability, multiple OS support and other features.
The lovers are less clear about why they want one. So allow me to propose the same list as above. It works just as well. The iPad is desirable for what it doesn't do -- can't do -- as much as for what it can do.
A strange trend has emerged that violates the more-is-better ethos of American consumer culture. Some products and services are touting limitations as desirable "features." And consumers are loving it.
This strikes some as Orwellian doublespeak: "War is peace." "Freedom is slavery." "Less is more."
But the truth is that people don't buy consumer electronics for the quantity of features. They buy it for the quality of experience.
For technical users, having more features means a better experience. So-called power users are harassed and annoyed by limitations, by the inability to do something they want to do. They feel a thrill when they're empowered to do some useful new thing.
But for most users, having more features degrades experience. People suffer information overload and its ugly cousin, runaway gadget complexity. They're harassed and annoyed, not by limitations, but by features they can't find or figure out, and by problems they don't understand. They feel a thrill when gadgets perform basic tasks without fail or hassle.
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]]>March 12, 2010
A Battle for the Future Is Getting Personal
By BRAD STONE and MIGUEL HELFT
IT looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Three years ago, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, jogged onto a San Francisco stage to shake hands with Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, to help him unveil a transformational wonder gadget — the iPhone — before throngs of journalists and adoring fans at the annual MacWorld Expo.
Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google’s search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Mr. Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo.”
“Steve, my congratulations to you,” Mr. Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot.” Mr. Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.
Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.
In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have taken shots at each other’s companies in the media and in private exchanges with employees.
This month, Apple sued HTC, the Taiwanese maker of mobile phones that run Google’s Android operating system, contending that HTC had violated iPhone patents. The move was widely seen as the beginning of a legal assault by Apple on Google itself, as well as an attempt to slow Google’s plans to extend its dominion to mobile devices.
Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple’s own App Store.
Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web. Google’s promotion of Android is, essentially, an effort to control its destiny in the mobile world.
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]]>From The New York Times:
March 10, 2010
Gadgets in Emergency Vehicles Seen as Peril
By MATT RICHTEL
They are the most wired vehicles on the road, with dashboard computers, sophisticated radios, navigation systems and cellphones.
While such gadgets are widely seen as distractions to be avoided behind the wheel, there are hundreds of thousands of drivers — police officers and paramedics — who are required to use them, sometimes at high speeds, while weaving through traffic, sirens blaring.
The drivers say the technology is a huge boon for their jobs, saving valuable seconds and providing instant access to essential information. But it also presents a clear risk — even the potential to take a life while they are trying to save one.
Philip Macaluso, a New York paramedic, recalled a moment recently when he was rushing to the hospital while keying information into his dashboard computer. At the last second, he looked up from the control panel and slammed on his brakes to avoid a woman who stepped into the street.
“There is a potential for disaster here,” Mr. Macaluso said. Data does not exist about crashes caused by police officers or medics distracted by their devices. But there are tragic anecdotes.
In April 2008, an emergency medical technician in West Nyack, N.Y., looked at his GPS screen, swerved and hit a parked flatbed truck. The crash sheared off the side of the ambulance and left his partner, who was in the passenger seat, paralyzed.
In June 2007, a sheriff’s deputy in St. Clair County, Ill., was driving 35 miles per hour when a dispatcher radioed with an assignment. He entered the address into the mapping system and then looked up, too late to avoid hitting a sedan stopped in traffic. Its driver was seriously injured.
Ambulances and police cars are becoming increasingly wired. Some 75 percent of police cruisers have on-board computers, a figure that has doubled over the last decade, says David Krebs, an industry analyst with the VDC Research Group. He estimates about 30 percent of ambulances have such technology.
The use of such technology by so-called first responders comes as regulators, legislators and safety advocates seek to limit the use of gadgets by most drivers. Police officers, medics and others who study the field say they are searching to find the right balance between technology’s risks and benefits.
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]]>]]>Opinion
Nature 463, 26-32 (7 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/463026a; Published online 6 January 2010
For the first issue of the new decade, Nature asked a selection of leading researchers and policy-makers where their fields will be ten years from now. We invited them to identify the key questions their disciplines face, the major roadblocks and the pressing next steps.
Contributions include:
- Peter Norvig on search,
Director of research at Google
Internet search as we know it is just one decade old; by 2020 it will have evolved far beyond its current bounds. Content will be a mix of text, speech, still and video images, histories of interactions with colleagues, friends, information sources and their automated proxies, and tracks of sensor readings from Global Positioning System devices, medical devices and other embedded sensors in our environment.
The majority of search queries will be spoken, not typed, and an experimental minority will be through direct monitoring of brain signals. Users will decide how much of their lives they want to share with search engines, and in what ways.
The results we get back will be a synthesis, not just a list. For example, today if I ask 'compare approaches to nuclear fusion', the major search engines agree that a general encyclopaedia article on fusion power comes first, followed by other similar articles. A decade from now, the result will summarize the major approaches, contrast their differences, automatically translate any foreign documents into my language, and then rank the results by efficacy or place them in a table or chart as appropriate. If I then ask for 'background mathematics for fusion theory', I will get an outline for an impromptu course concentrating on the necessary complex analysis, customized to specific applications in fusion and to my level of mathematical understanding. If I stumble, the course will be readjusted to fit my needs, or perhaps the search engine will connect me to a tutor or another student in a similar plight. Interaction with search engines will be an ongoing conversation; one that is integrated with the other ongoing tasks of our lives.
Con't- David A. Relman on the microbiome,
- David B. Goldstein on personalized medicine,
- Daniel M. Kammen on energy,
- Daniel R. Weinberger on mental health,
- Leslie C. Aiello on hominin palaeontology,
- George Church on synthetic biology,
- John L. Hennessey on universities,
President, Stanford University
The world faces increasingly complex challenges, such as maintaining our ecosystem while supporting 9 billion to 10 billion people, reducing poverty, increasing peace and security, and improving human health in both the developed and developing world. Universities must have a role in seeking solutions for these problems and in educating the next generation of leaders to tackle them.
Perhaps the largest threat to our research universities over the next decade is the financial challenge facing governments. In the United States, for example, budget deficits have caused many states to reduce their funding for public universities, and at the federal level, there is likely to be no growth or a cut in funding for research programmes.
To address these financial and intellectual challenges, universities need to be willing to change how they see their research and teaching mission. The scale and complexity of today's global problems demand a more collaborative, multidisciplinary approach.
Con't- Jeffrey Sachs on global governance,
- Adam Burrows on astronomy,
- Gary P. Pisano on drug discovery,
- Joshua R. Goldstein on demographics,
- Paul Anastas on chemistry,
- Richard Klausner and David Baltimore on the National Institutes of Health,
- David R. Montgomery on soil,
- Thomas M. Baer and Nicholas P. Bigelow on lasers,
- Robert D. Holt on ecology,
- Jeremy K. Nicholson on metabolomics.
Getting Older Without Getting Old
By RANDALL STROSS
FACEBOOK now has more than 400 million active users, up from only 50 million as recently as 2007. If social networking still resembled a young, hip downtown nightclub scene — one day a site is hot, the next it’s not — we might expect the crowds to decamp soon. Facebook would become another Friendster, still around but ghostly, forgotten by most.
Facebook, however, isn’t likely to have such a fate. For one thing, it has attracted many “olds,” and they tend to stay put. (Consider AOL.) More than 50 percent of Facebook’s members in the United States are 35 or older, and only 26.8 percent are 24 or under, according to an analysis of December visitors by comScore Media Metrix.
More than demographic stability favors Facebook. The site has shrewdly emulated the “network effects” strategy used by another brand that has long held a dominant position in the computer industry: Microsoft Windows.
Economists use the term network effects to refer to the way the value of a product or service increases in tandem with the number of people who use it. If you’re one of only 10 people in the world with an e-mail account, its usefulness is limited; add a billion more, and the practical value of yours increases apace.
A Facebook member enjoys immediate benefits when each friend joins — these are direct network effects. But the average user already has 130 friends, so unless the user is unusually gregarious, the direct effects won’t increase drastically beyond a certain point.
For an individual member, the most powerful network effects may be indirect ones that come from the huge number of unknown other people in the Facebook world. Their mass attracts, in turn, suppliers of complementary products and services.
For Windows, the enormous installed base attracted third-party software developers, which in turn drew more users. Apple’s iPhone has had a similar virtuous cycle. So, too, on Facebook, developers of applications like FamilyLink, Marketplace and iLike’s Music create a software universe with seemingly infinite choices. And that attracts more users — and still more developers.
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