The Telegraph newspaper this week suggested new powers to be outlined in the Bill will require companies like Google
and Facebook to give U k. intelligence agencies access to the encrypted conversations of suspected terrorists and criminals.
That scenario presupposes Internet companies have the ability to access their usersencrypted messages. While that is certainly true for some digital services with a sloppy attitude to security (or with business models that rely on data mining their users), others,
the Communications Data Bill widely criticized as a nooperscharter on the grounds that it would have required ISPS to retain detailed data on web usage failed to pass through Parliament owing to the lack of support from the Conservative Lib dem coalition partners.
and we agreed to doone was about requiring ISPS to keep track of web logs, effectively.
So a list of every website you go to, and things like that. And the third thing was to have a power to require ISPS to keep track of third party information so
what you do on Facebook, what you do on any other site, says Huppert. hose were the three things they said they wanted.
The IP ADDRESS matching basically was the only thing they had any evidence for. And it doesn involve any significant privacy intrusions
but has huge advantages. Whereas I think the concept of keeping track of every website everybody ever goes to,
or of requiring ISPS to keep track of what you do on Facebook all the time are deeply intrusive.
And actually they couldn come up with any significant evidence of why it was useful.?There should be a clear piece of legislation that sets out
and privacy intrusion of having the state require systematic logging of citizensweb browsing habits and social media activity,
he argues. o unlike IP ADDRESS matching where there really was a strong case, there isn a clear case here.
but also if you look at some of the things that Commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance David Omand has argued saidhe for full public
Speaking at an Internet festival taking place in London this week he asked of politicians:
of which will ripple out to affect both U k. web users and their online behavior, and global companies doing business in the U k. The U k. is referred often to as the most surveilled country in the world typically a reference to the pervasive use of CCTV.
this same outsourcing modus operandi used with CCTV is being applied by governments to Internet companies with the U k. government now preparing to push one of the most hawkish data retention agendas in the Western world,
the phone companies, not government agencies, would hold American phone records. The NSA could only access these records after receiving permission from a Foreign Intelligence surveillance act court.
It only addresses the bulk collection of American phone records and does nothing to rein in many of the gross oversteps we have seen from the Snowden revelations.
what telephone and Internet data the government can collect. Today was a step in the right direction
or Portable Eye Examination Kit app, is based a smartphone system for diagnosing eye problems. It uses a 3d printed add-on that can allow ophthalmologists to give detailed and complete eye exams in the field using an app and a small camera overlay.
The Peek can view the retina using a smart phones high-quality camera, see cataracts, and offer visual acuity tests as well as color
By pairing a piece of plastic with an inexpensive smartphone ophthalmologists are able to address eye care problems anywhere in the world.
The Elgato Eve is a set of connected wireless sensors that monitor key factors like indoor air quality, temperature, humidity as well as conditions outside, like temperature, humidity and air pressure.
The Caséta Smart Bridge is a wireless lighting hub that makes up a core part of the Caséta Wireless Lighting Starter Kit from the company.
The new Hub is available at Amazon com and Smarthome. com right now for $149. 99
when youe outside of your home Wi-fi network. Apple had told us the first Homekit accessories were coming in June,
#Hands-On With Thync Mood-Altering Headset Thync is launching its mood-altering headset today,
or boost your energy with controls on your smartphone. As we reported back in October, the Los Gatos-based startup has raised $13 million to change your mood using electrical stimulation.
Unfortunately, we weren able to try on the headset (or even see it) when the startup was ready to talk about its financing.
Thync gadget is more of a module than a headset. It small, plastic, and contains a Bluetooth radio for connecting to your phone.
You attach it to a disposable adhesive strip, which you apply to your temple and neck.
plagued by an infrastructure that can handle cell phone location data and that can repeatedly drop emergency calls.
The system was developed by AT&T in the late 1960s to centralize access to public safety services such as fire, police,
Given AT&T monopoly then, it developed a system compatible with its network of landline phones.
Unfortunately, telecom technology has grown far more complex than when our 911 infrastructure was deployed first. The rise of mobile phones has posed a massive challenge to the 911 dispatch system,
since physical location can no longer be derived from the network topology of the landline PSTN network.
Since most 911 calls today are from mobile phones location data that could be crucial for saving a life
In Oakland, 911 calls from a cell phone will end up in Vallejo, so the city recommends storing a special city emergency number.
video, and microphone capabilities of smartphones. Compared to a simple voice call, that greater context can provide an operator with the information needed to properly direct first responders.
either tap their phone to the new Square reader, dip the chip on their credit card,
or even beads and shells, the only way to get them to pay for anything is through their smartphone.
and customers. he system works with any phone and requires no hardware. The system can also text you a list of Rhombus-enabled businesses. ustomers don have to signup to chat with businesses, it like texting anyone on your contact list.
#Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Team up To Launch Webassembly, A New Binary Format For The Web Google, Microsoft,
Mozilla and the engineers on the Webkit project today announced that they have teamed up to launch Webassembly, a new binary format for compiling applications for the web.
The web thrives on standards and, for better or worse, Javascript is its programming language. Over the years,
Webassembly can be decoded significantly faster The idea is that Webassembly will provide developers with a single compilation target for the web that will,
eventually, become a web standard that implemented in all browsers. By default Javascript files are simple text files that are downloaded from the server
Mozilla asm. js has aimed long to bring near-native speeds to the web. Google Native Client project for running native code in the browser had similar aims
but got relatively little traction. It looks like Webassemly may be able to bring the best of these projects to the browser now.
but to allow many more languages to be compiled for the Web. Indeed, chances are that both Javascript
It a piece of hardware that attaches to an iphone to provide mobile vision exams.
from Verizon (the new owner of Aol, which is the parent company of Techcrunch. Hi bosses!.
#Google New Health Wearable Delivers Constant Patient Monitoring Often when we think of the wearable tech category,
Google has unveiled a new niche device that designed to do serious work in a specific setting,
is the product of Google X, the experimental group within the search giant that is responsible for some of its more noteworthy oon shotprojects,
Testing for the medical band begins this summer, according to Google, and it going to pursue regulatory approval for its use in medical contexts in partnership with academic institutions and drug companies, per Bloomberg.
This isn Google first move in building medical hardware; Google X is also creating contact lenses that can monitor blood glucose level to help in managing conditions like diabetes.
The competition is also eager to contribute to the medical research community pple has introduced Researchkit,
which allows studies to use iphones and ipads to gather participant data from a wider potential user pool, for instance o
#A Look at The Tech That Could Mean We Never Have To Charge Our Phones Again Technology that can wirelessly power our devices on the go could change our world.
and other battery-enabled devices on the go using something that is already abundantly flowing all around us radio waves.
Nikola Labs presented at Techcrunch Disrupt a couple years back with the same idea turning radio frequency signals into battery power.
like on their site or in retail stores. Other attempts at name-your-price ecommerce typically don aggregate demand,
while being the CMO of paper invitations site Storkie. In 2014 after seeing no true evolution from in the janky Groupon model
Gudai began to work full-time on bootstrapping Compelation, and recruited dev shop Cybergroup Nicholas Babb as CTO.
All you need is a computer, smartphone, Wi-fi and 25 minutes to take its test about
which lines look blurrier. Within 24 hours, Opternative will review your results and send you back a prescription you can use to get glasses or contacts anywhere,
With enough awareness and the partnerships its working on with big Internet retailers, it could earn a fortune undercutting standard $50 to $100 ophthalmologist visits
and mobile phones had to offer an alternative to traditional autorefractor machines used for vision tests.
you just go to Opternative website and answer some eligibility questions regarding when you were last tested
and sync your phone as a remote control for your computer over Wi-fi and an SMS confirmation.
and answer corresponding visual acuity questions on your phone. How many lines are in a symbol? Which of these symbols is a different shape from the rest?
While Opternative reviews the results before issuing a prescription through its HIPAA-compliant site, it takes more faith that the test won be botched by some bad answers.
or expensive smartphone dongles like one made by Smart Vision Labs. Eyenetra is working on a VR headset-based test,
so if a glasses site potential customers haven been to an eye doctor lately, they can get the right specs.
#Google Straps Aclima Sensors To Street view Cars To Map Air pollution If a city knows what intersections are full of smog,
Google earth Outreach program that equips nonprofits and public-benefit organizations with data wants to give the world these insights.
So today, Google revealed that it been working with SF startup Aclima for the last year
Literally piggybacking on Google could let Aclima produce the data necessary to make urban areas easier on the lungs.
Google has agreed now to purchase more of Aclima outdoor sensors for a bigger rollout to map air quality.
The first project it announced was using indoor sensors to help Google measure air quality in its offices to optimize productivity.
by tracking conference rooms throughout the day, Google could determine if CO2 levels climbed high enough to degrade brain function.
With productivity of its huge elite workforce translating into billions in earned or lost revenue for Google,
Google earth Outreach will help organizations use the data to visualize air-quality problems in cities,
The Google partnership will allow it to rapidly scale the deployment of its sensors. This way, Aclima can pursue its mission to make a business out of improving human health through environmental protection.
There plenty more Google could potentially do with the data, though. It could allow Google maps to route cars
or pedestrians away from high-pollution areas to avoid exacerbating condensed pollution or breathing it in.
Ie asked Google for a comment on these possibilities and am waiting to hear back.
which is thought often of as just equipping homes with Wi-fi-connected appliances. She tells me,
#Subway Teams Up With Paypal On Mobile payments Ordering your food or beverages by smartphone and then paying for it via an app is quickly becoming the new normal.
The app will allow Subway customers to build their sandwiches using their smartphones pay ahead of time (or while in line), then pick up their bag
and the online ordering function on Subway website. e do anticipate this hockey stick will continue to happen as we put more resources to it,
#Google Loon To Cover Entire Country Of Sri lanka With Internet Google is working on many things,
and that includes balloons that fly high in the sky to bring Internet infrastructure to locations that can be wired for it easily.
Today, Sri lanka announced that it the first country to ever get universal Internet access from Google Project Loon.
Thanks to a partnership with Google, the country promises ffordable high-speed Internetfor all of its residents.
Google Loon was announced in 2013, with only incremental and anecdotal information hitting the presses up until now.
#Google s Brain-Inspired Software Describes What It Sees in Complex Images Experimental Google software that can describe a complex scene could lead to better image search
Researchers at Google have created software that can use complete sentences to accurately describe scenes shown in photos significant advance in the field of computer vision.
a research scientist at Google. sure there are going to be some potential applications coming out of this.
The new software is the latest product of Google research into using large collections of simulated neurons to process data (see 0 Breakthrough Technologies 2013:
No one at Google programmed the new software with rules for how to interpret scenes. Instead, its networks earnedby consuming data.
he and others at Google have begun already to think about how it could be used to enhance image search
Google researchers created the software through a kind of digital brain surgery, plugging together two neural networks developed separately for different tasks.
Google software posted scores in the 60s on a 100-point scale. Humans doing the test typically score in 70s,
That result suggests Google is far ahead of other researchers working to create scene-describing software.
However, Vinyals notes that researchers at Google and elsewhere are still in the early stages of understanding how to create
When Google asked humans to rate its software descriptions of images on a scale of 1 to 4
Google used COCO in its new research, but it is still relatively small. hope other parties will chip in
By 2015##next year##at least 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using health-related apps says Tighe who recently spoke#at MIT Technology Review s Emtech conference in Cambridge Massachusetts.
Smartphone technology is promising for use in remote patient monitoring for several reasons. David Pettigrew Sagentia s Vice president of Connected Health sums up the advantages:#
But the regulatory pathway for the use of smartphones and data aggregation has recently become much clearer.
and allow the smartphone to act as a##dumb-user interface or a##data pipe to the cloud Pettigrew adds.
and are moving towards using the smartphone/tablet hardware and software to perform more advanced functions.
By 2015##next year##at least 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using health-related apps says Tighe who recently spoke#at MIT Technology Review s Emtech conference in Cambridge Massachusetts.
Smartphone technology is promising for use in remote patient monitoring for several reasons. David Pettigrew Sagentia s Vice president of Connected Health sums up the advantages:#
But the regulatory pathway for the use of smartphones and data aggregation has recently become much clearer.
and allow the smartphone to act as a##dumb-user interface or a##data pipe to the cloud Pettigrew adds.
and are moving towards using the smartphone/tablet hardware and software to perform more advanced functions.
A key challenge for any marketer is deciding what mix of media TV Internet direct mail radio print will best promote a product or service.
Then the same algorithms can find similar audiences on other websites and present the ads to them.
Sometimes though such events will cause a spike in discussion on social media here they are monitored
or impressions) to avoid fraud David Perez Convertro s chief marketing officer wrote in a recent blog post.
#Laser-Radio links Upgrade the Internet The rise of Wi-fi and cellular data services made Internet access more convenient and ubiquitous.
Now some of the high-speed backhaul data that powers Internet services looks set to go wireless, too.
in wireless hops of up to 10 kilometers at a time, is in trials with three of the largest U s. Internet carriers.
It is also being rolled out by one telecommunications provider in Mexico, and is helping build out the Internet infrastructure of Nigeria,
a country that was connected to a new high-capacity submarine cable from Europe last year. AOPTIX, the company behind the technology, pitches it as a cheaper and more practical alternative to laying new fiber optic cables.
Efforts to dig trenches to install fiber in urban areas face significant bureaucratic and physical challenges.
says Chandra Pusarla, senior vice president of products and technology at AOPTIX. He says a faster way to install new capacity is to use his company wireless transmission towers to move data at two gigabits per second.
AOPTIX technology takes the form of a box roughly the size of a coffee table with an infrared laser peering out of a small window on the front,
AOPTIX teamed up the laser and radio links to compensate for weaknesses with either technology used alone.
while millimeter wave radio signals are absorbed by rain. Routing data over both simultaneously provides redundancy that allows an AOPTIX link to guarantee a rate of two gigabits per second with only five minutes or less downtime in a year,
whatever the weather conditions, says Pusarla. A typical fiber connection might be 10 or more times faster than that, due to the limitations of the radio frequency link.
But AOPTIX says the convenience of its technology makes up for that and it could be increased to four gigabits or more in the future.
The radio and laser equipment inside an AOPTIX device move automatically to compensate for the swaying of a cell tower caused by wind.
AOPTIX originally developed its laser technology for the Pentagon, designing systems that actively steer laser beams to keep data moving between ground stations, drones, and fighter jets.
Pursala declined to identify the three U s. carriers that have been testing AOPTIX technology over the past year or so,
or its Nigerian customer. Other early customers are being more open. The Mexican telecommunications company Car-sa recently switched on the first of several links it plans to use to link up cellular towers
and provide Internet to corporate customers. And before the end of the year, Anova Technologies, a networking company that specializes in the financial industry,
will use AOPTIX technology in New jersey to shave nanoseconds off the time it takes data to travel between the computers of Nasdaq Stock market and the New york stock exchange e
#A Battery to Prop up Renewable Power Hits the Market A new kind of battery that stores energy from solar
and transmits data over a cellphone network connection. The data transmitted includes the location of a gun
or viewed on a smartphone. Founded in 2013 Yardarm started out making a consumer product for monitoring a firearm location.
and devices to come with Internet connectivity. The gun industry is gradually taking notice of these trends.
#Google's Secretive Deepmind Startup Unveils a Neural Turing Machine""One of the great challenges of neuroscience is to understand the short-term working memory in the human brain.
Today Google s secretive Deepmind startup which it bought for $400 million earlier this year unveils a prototype computer that attempts to mimic some of the properties of the human brain s short-term working memory.
Google s Deepmind has stated that its goal is solving intelligence. If this solution is anything like human intelligence a good test would be to see
#A Credit card Terminal That Takes Apps Last year Osama Bedier then the head of Google Wallet decided he was on the wrong side of the payments business.
Google s digital payment app Google Wallet offers consumers a number of payment-related features including a quick way to pay at stores by tapping a phone that contains a near-field
Although adoption of Google Wallet has been slow NFC technology is gaining in popularity and that is likely to accelerate with the introduction of a similar system from Apple called Apple Pay (see With Apple Pay Forget Cash Just Pull out Your Phone).
Meanwhile the U s s major credit-card companies are mandating a shift to more secure credit cards that eschew the familiar magnetic strip for a chip that uses a unique string of numbers for each transaction (a standard known as EMV
Bedier a former Paypal executive who came to Google in 2011 saw an opportunity to switch his focus from the gadgets we can use to make payments to the ones used to handle the transactions:
It accepts payments via NFC (used by services such as Google Wallet and Apple s new Apple Pay) and QR code.
It includes Bluetooth as well. Bedier showed me how it works during an interview conducted via Skype video.
and make a purchase using Apple Pay on an iphone: Bedier typed in the amount due
and the colleague tapped the terminal with his iphone while placing his finger on the iphone s home button
which on newer models is also a fingerprint reader to validate his identity. The Poynt terminal weighs a little over a pound
#Internet-Connected Battery Could Bring Smoke alarms Online A startup has come up with a simple way to make smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors more useful:
a nine-volt battery with built-in Wi-fi. The battery can alert you on your smartphone
We were approaching the Internet-of-things space not from a perspective of##How can we build a whizzy new device that does something?
and meant to last for more than five years contain a Wi-fi chip and sensors for audio detection and voltage monitoring.
To get one working with a smoke alarm you d set it up with a forthcoming Roost smartphone app.
or kids bedroom) and connect it to your home Wi-fi and then insert it in the battery compartment of the alarm.
But the technology also offers a cheap way to pick up just about anythingabric, bags of chips, 50-pound boxes of paper, single pieces of paper, mobile phones.
#How Magic Leap s Augmented reality Works A Florida startup called Magic Leap announced Tuesday that it had received $542 million in funding from major Silicon valley investors led by Google to develop hardware
Headsets like the Oculus Rift trick your brain into perceiving depth by showing different images to each eye,
light would be delivered to that array via optical fiber, and each of the tiny elements would reflect some of that light to create the light field for a particular point in 3-D space.
Indeed, people are stoning buses transporting Google employees to work from their homes in San francisco. The anger in Northern California
Why use a search engine that is almost as good as Google? Such economic logic now rules a growing share of the marketplace;
and building a business becomes less capital-intensiveou don need a printing plant to produce an online news site,
and such high-profile technologies as Google driverless car are happening more slowly than some people may think.
Whereas brain-machine interfaces would require invasive surgery for brain implants he wants to connect electronic devices to the peripheral nerves at the site of the injury allowing people to control bionic limbs with their existing nerves
Using a low-budget Web service called Promethease she paid $5 to upload her raw 23andme data.
they are loading their DNA data into several little-known websites like Promethease that have become, by default, the largest purveyors of consumer genetic health services in the United Statesnd the next possible targets for nervous
consumers complained angrily about the FDA on the company Facebook page, where they also uploaded links to the Promethease website,
calling it a orkaround, a way to get xhaustive medical infoin reports that are imilar,
a professor at Stanford university who helped developed a DNA interpretation site called Interpretome as part of a class he teaches on genetics. s it going to be concentrated by medical associations,
or out there on the Internet so people can interact? Now a question is whether Promethease and sites like it could,
or should, be the next target of regulators. Lennon believes his service is outside the FDA reach,
and you have to shut down Webmd and Wikipedia, too. Reached by MIT Technology Review, the FDA said it has authority to regulate software that interprets genomes,
MIT Technology Review tested several interpretation-only sites using DNA data of anonymous donors posted publicly by the Personal Genome Project,
All the sites quickly reported gene variants contained in the files although the number of variants reported varied, from as few as 35 to as many as 17,667 for Promethease.
Two of the sites appeared designed to steer users toward alternative medicine. Genetic Genie, a free service that carries ads for vitamins,
That site, however, directed users to get an xplanationof the results by contacting chiropractors, dieticians,
and mind-body healers whose telephone numbers it provided. The Promethease report was the most detailed
they launched SNPEDIA as a site that would let themnd anyone elseeep tabs on what science was learning about each gene variant.
Lennon says the site was modeled on Wikipedia. hat was the promise of the genome, that it should be for everybody,
Its CEO, Anne Wojcicki, who is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, landed on magazine covers,
and a board member predicted that her startup would ecome the Google of personalized healthcare. It didn happen that way.
traffic to interpretation-only sites jumped. Interpretome maintained by Konrad Karczewski, a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital,
Lennon says the site averages between 50 and 500 reports per day, including a free version and a faster-running paid product.
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