The New York Times: “When you signed up for internet access, you probably got an email address. That’s fine, but you can do better. Here’s how to move to a good one…Just remember that no matter what email service you use, your privacy is only as good as the email service your friends, family and… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2020
How Much Are We Paying for Our Subscription Services? A Lot
The New York Times: “Online subscriptions sure sound cheap, but what do a few bucks a month to watch TV shows, store photos online and stream music add up to? Quite a lot, it turns out. In 2019, we each spent $640 on digital subscriptions like streaming video and music services, cloud storage, dating apps… Continue Reading
Why Public Wi-Fi is a Lot Safer Than You Think
EFF: “If you follow security on the Internet, you may have seen articles warning you to “beware of public Wi-Fi networks” in cafes, airports, hotels, and other public places. But now, due to the widespread deployment of HTTPS encryption on most popular websites, advice to avoid public Wi-Fi is mostly out of date and applicable… Continue Reading
Google’s 3D scans recreate historical sites threatened by climate change
engadget: “Google is no stranger to reproducing historical sites online, but it’s now pushing technical boundaries to recreate those sites at risk of vanishing due to the ravages of climate change. It’s launching a “Heritage on the Edge” collection in Arts & Culture that will include over 50 exhibitions illustrating the effect of an evolving… Continue Reading
In the Race for Cheap Airfare It’s You vs. the Machine
The New York Times – Travel providers now use software to re-price their offerings, sometimes dozens of times a day, putting travelers at a big disadvantage. “For business and leisure travelers, the result is a variation of the cat-and-mouse game, where travel companies are almost always the cat. Traditionally, hotels and airlines priced their offerings… Continue Reading
Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent
Medium: Marian Turski, speech at the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 27th January 2020. “Dear friends, I am one of the few still alive of those who remained in this place almost until the very last moment before liberation. My so-called evacuation from Auschwitz began on the 18th of January. Over the next… Continue Reading
Ring Doorbell App Packed with Third-Party Trackers
EFF: “Ring isn’t just a product that allows users to surveil their neighbors. The company also uses it to surveil its customers. An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information (PII). Four main analytics and… Continue Reading
Facebook privacy tool gives users more info on how they are tracked
USAToday: “It’s been way overdue. But Facebook has finally released a long-promised tool that could give you more control over how the social network traces your path across the web. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the global availability of this “Off-Facebook Activity” tool in a blog post Tuesday on Data Privacy Day. It’s part of an… Continue Reading
Google to translate and transcribe conversations in real time
cnet: ” Google on Tuesday [January 28, 2020] unveiled a feature that’ll let people use their phones to both transcribe and translate a conversation in real time into a language that isn’t being spoken. The tool will be available for the Google Translate app in the coming months, said Bryan Lin, an engineer on the… Continue Reading
The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News
The Atlantic – “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” Jonathan Swift once wrote. It was hyperbole three centuries ago. But it is a factual description of social media, according to an ambitious and first-of-its-kind study published in early 2018. The massive study analyzes every major contested news story in English across the… Continue Reading
Op-ed: Shining light into the dark spaces of chat apps
Columbia Journalism Review OpEd: “News has migrated from print to the web to social platforms to mobile. Now, at the dawn of a new decade, it is heading to a place that presents a whole new set of challenges: the private, hidden spaces of instant messaging apps. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and their ilk are… Continue Reading
The Germany Shock: The Largest Economy Nobody Understands
Conrad Bastable – How Germany Is Able To Run The World’s Second Largest Export Economy In The Post-Industrial Era – “The Germany Shock” describes European growth & the efficiency-maximizing centralization of European manufacturing activity after the launch of the Single Market and the Euro. Two questions sparked this: 1) why did Europe only adopt the… Continue Reading
