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“Confusion over biometric privacy laws in the U.S. is leading to different outcomes for tech giants embroiled in legal disputes over facial scanning. An Illinois court recently ruled that Google did not flout local laws by using facial-scanning to help people organize photo galleries through its Photos service. Facebook, on the other hand, is appealing …
The New York Times – A.I. that responds to your voice. Next-generation wireless networks. If this year’s biggest consumer technology trends have a familiar ring, there’s a reason for that. “But as is often the case, there will also be plenty of talk in the coming week about overly optimistic tech that you would do …
Fortune: “As for getting your hands (or smartphones, e-readers, etc.) on the works themselves, websites are highlighting some of the best cultural goodies. These include Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, which has a list of prominent 1923 books (such as Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet), films (The Pilgrim by Charlie Chaplin) …
Washington Post: “Men dominate Google image searches for most jobs — even for bartender, probation officer and medical scientist, roles in which women outnumber men. In 57 percent of occupations, image searches indicate the jobs are more male-dominated than they actually are. There’s evidence this skewed picture discourages women from aspiring to dozens of careers …
lifewire – Find out where that picture came from using your PC, Mac, laptop, or tablet – “Using Google to reverse image search is a useful method for researching the origins of a photo found online. Whether it’s a historical picture presented with little context or an image that seems doctored, you can search the …
The New York Times: Our Favorite Facts of 2018. “Each day, our editors collect the most interesting, striking or delightful facts to appear in that day’s stories throughout the paper. Here are 60 of our very favorites.”
The New York Times – Obituary – Overlooked No More: Karen Sparck Jones, Who Established the Basis for Search Engines. A pioneer of computer science for work combining statistics and linguistics, and an advocate for women in the field. “When most scientists were trying to make people use code to talk to computers, Karen Sparck …
Privacy International: “Previous research has shown how 42.55 percent of free apps on the Google Play store could share data with Facebook, making Facebook the second most prevalent third-party tracker after Google’s parent company Alphabet. In this report, Privacy International illustrates what this data sharing looks like in practice, particularly for people who do not …
The New York Times – “The Year in Pictures 2018” – “News photography is often meant to be consumed instantly, on paper, on our screens, in endless scrolling feeds. It tells us what the world looks like right at a given moment. But it can lose much of its power that way — the power …
DuckDuckGo Blog: “Over the years, there has been considerable discussion of Google’s “filter bubble” problem. Put simply, it’s the manipulation of your search results based on your personal data. In practice this means links are moved up or down or added to your Google search results, necessitating the filtering of other search results altogether. These …
Consumer Reports – Having too many digital accounts raises your risk of data being misused or stolen. Here’s how to clean house. By Thomas Germain. December 27, 2018 [h/t Pete Weiss] “Deleting online accounts is one of the best ways to protect your data security and privacy. The less data you have stored on corporate databases …
The New York Times – Dr. Google Is a Liar. Fake news threatens our democracy. Fake medical news threatens our lives: “…While misinformation has been the object of great attention in politics, medical misinformation might have an even greater body count. As is true with fake news in general, medical lies tend to spread further …
