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TechRepublic: “…As much as we may resist the idea of being tracked online, we’re often told it’s necessary to give us personalized results. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg disagrees: It’s actually a big myth that search engines need to track your personal search history to make money or deliver quality search results. Almost all of the …
Ars Technica: “Androids: The team that built the Android operating system is a new book from longtime Android engineer Chet Haase. Haase has been on the Android team since 2010, and he interviewed dozens of Googlers for this book, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at early Android development. With Haase’s permission, we’re giving readers a …
EFF: “Facebook recently banned the accounts of several New York University (NYU) researchers who run Ad Observer, an accountability project that tracks paid disinformation, from its platform. This has major implications: not just for transparency, but for user autonomy and the fight for interoperable software. Ad Observer is a free/open source browser extension used to collect …
Neowin: “The pandemic has forced schools to explore teaching using video conferencing and that’s when Zoom has emerged to be a market leader. To make things easier for teachers, Zoom has announced a new feature called Focus mode. Zoom says that the feature is meant to keep students from getting distracted while they’re in a …
“The Delta variant has substantially increased COVID risk, including for vaccinated people. We have adjusted the microCOVID calculator to provide updated numbers. Vaccines still provide substantial protection, but it’s gotten more complicated — read on to learn more about the latest findings, and please consider visiting the calculator to get updated risk numbers for your …
YouTube Official Blog: “Today, we’re announcing additional protections for people under 18 on YouTube and YouTube Kids. Younger people use YouTube every day to discover new interests, learn about the world, and connect with the world through online video. But it’s essential that as they do, they have the options and safeguards to create the …
Gizmodo: “…the average ad blocker leaves tiny traces of data on the websites you visit. When those traces are collected en masse, a bad actor (or tech company) could use these signals to identify your specific browser—a process literally called “fingerprinting” in the ad-targeting industry. And like a fingerprint, these signals are basically impossible to …
The New York Times: “…Coronavirus misinformation has spiked online in recent weeks, misinformation experts say, as people who peddle in falsehoods have seized on the surge of cases from the Delta variant to spread new and recycled unsubstantiated narratives. Mentions of some phrases prone to vaccine misinformation in July jumped as much as five times …
CNET: ” With the release of Firefox 91 on Tuesday, Mozilla has introduced a bigger hammer for smashing the cookies that websites, advertisers and tracking companies can use to record your online behavior. The new feature, called enhanced cookie clearing, is designed to block tracking not just from a website, but also from third parties …
CNET: “Every time there’s a report about an iPhone or iPad exploit being actively distributed and used, it’s unnerving. In July, it was revealed that security researchers discovered evidence of Pegasus spyware being used on the phones of journalists, politicians and activists. The spyware can be remotely installed on a target’s iPhone or iPad without the …
NISO: “We are living in unprecedented times. We walk around with powerful computers in our pockets that can track our every move. We regularly offer up our location and vital information on what we buy, watch, and read to digital global powerhouses such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. This data is, of course, used to …
Vanity Fair – Way back in 1992, author Neal Stephenson published his breakthrough novel, Snow Crash, a cyberpunk exploration of then-futuristic technologies: mobile computing, virtual reality, wireless Internet, digital currency, smartphones, and augmented-reality headsets. The book famously opens with a breakneck car chase as the main character, Hiro Protagonist (it’s something of a satire), races …
