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Submission + - You're Paying Comcast's Electric Bill (speedify.com) 3

Submitted by agizis
agizis writes: We know Comcast is rolling out a new WiFi network that they're installing in customer’s homes, but most articles glossed over the routers' power usage. So using a Kill-A-Watt power meter, I actually measured and Comcast is saving tens of millions per year on the backs of their customers. Sign my change.org petition asking Comcast to compensate its customers.

Submission + - Kickstarter / iFind project is suspended (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As of approximately 9AM PDT, funding for the iFind project at Kickstarter, the one with the bluetooth tags that have no battery and that harvest energy from WiFi and other radio sources, has been suspended. No word yet on how this came about.

Submission + - Some US Hospitals Now Data-Mine Patients' Purchases, Lifestyle

Submitted by Penguinisto
Penguinisto writes: A new article up on Bloomberg shows that in at least two hospital chains, your doctor can know more about you than you may want them to: "Information compiled by data brokers from public records and credit card transactions can reveal where a person shops, the food they buy, and whether they smoke. The largest hospital chain in the Carolinas is plugging data for 2 million people into algorithms designed to identify high-risk patients, while Pennsylvania’s biggest system uses household and demographic data."

Question is, how soon before your health insurance broker demands/contracts and gets that kind of information, and what privacy can you expect in the future?

Submission + - Facial Recognition Might Be Coming To Your Car

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: What if you got into your car and you had to authenticate that it was you behind the wheel? That might be what's coming in the near future as Ford's working with Intel to bring facial recognition to the car. The idea would be to improve safety and in-car tech with this system which is being called Project Mobil. When someone enters a Project Mobil-equipped car the system uses front-facing cameras to authenticate the driver. If the driver can't be authenticated it'll send a photo to the vehicle owner's phone asking for permission for this person to drive the vehicle. Once identified, the car can then automatically adjust certain settings to the driver's preference. This could also theoretically allow parents to control how loud their kids listen to the music while driving, how fast they can drive, and even simply monitor them driving. Obviously this NSA-like surveillance tech is a bit creepy on some levels, but there could be a lot of terrific applications for it. While only an experiment, don't be surprised if your dashboard stares back at you eventually.

Submission + - 'Failed' Piracy Letters Should Escalate to Fines & Jail, MP Says (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: UK ISPs have agreed to send their customers warning letters when they pirate movies, music and TV shows, but before the scheme starts thoughts are turning to its potential failure. The Prime Minister's IP advisor says 'VCAP' needs to be followed by something more enforceable, including disconnections, fines and jail sentences.

Proponents of the Digital Economy Act 2010 believed it had the solutions to deter consumer file-sharing, but four years on and the relevant measures remain dormant. This inactivity led to a new and recently announced solution, the so-called Voluntary Copyright Alerts Program.

Submission + - Intel Putting Cameras In Tablets And PCs That Can Analyze Your Mood (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Intel's RealSense 3D cameras, coming tablets and PCs in the next year or so, can do a number of interesting things, like putting a fake background behind you in a video chat or making kids' books more interactive and fun. But one creepy-sounding feature is that they can analyze your mood based on your facial expression. No word yet on how exactly your computer will react to your anger or sadness.

Submission + - What's Your College Degree Worth? (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: A recent study by economist Douglas Webber calculates the lifetime earnings premium of college degrees in various broad areas, accounting for selection bias--that is, for the fact that people who already are likely to do well are also more likely to go to college. These premiums are not small. Science Careers got exclusive access to major-specific data, and published an article that tells how much more you can expect to earn because you got that college degree--for engineering, physics, computer science, chemistry, and biology majors.

Submission + - Deforestation Depletes Fish Stocks

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: Adding to the well-known fish-killing effects deforestation has in increasing turbidity and temperature in streams, a study published in Nature Communications, (abstract, PDF access), demonstrates deforestation causes a depletion of nutrients in associated lake aquatic ecosystems and, as a consequence, impacted fish stocks. Lead author Andrew Tanentzap is quoted as saying, 'We found fish that had almost 70% of their biomass made from carbon that came from trees and leaves instead of aquatic food chain sources.' This has troubling implications as, 'It's estimated that freshwater fishes make up more than 6% of the world's annual animal protein supplies for humans ...' Additionally, this may have significance in regard to anadromous species, such as salmon, which help power ocean ecosystems. The BBC offers more approachable coverage.

Submission + - IRS lost Lois Lerner's emails in tea party probe (cbsnews.com) 1

Submitted by ABEND
ABEND writes: The IRS claims it cannot access Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division Lois Lerner's email prior to 2011 due to a crash of Ms. Lerner's PC during that year. These emails are considered to be important for the investigation into IRS targeting of specific organizations based on their political affiliations. The specifics of the "crash" have not yet been revealed but, anecdotally, my PC has crashed many times without the loss of any email. What could have caused Ms. Lerner's emails to have been lost?

Submission + - Nominet destroying UK WHOIS privacy, wants ID

Submitted by ktetch-pirate
ktetch-pirate writes: Earlier this week, Nominet launched the .uk domain to great fanfare, but hidden in that activity has been Nominet's new policy of exposing personal domain owners home addresses. Justification is based on a site being judged 'commercial', which can mean anything from a few google ads, an Amazon widget, to an email subscription box or linking to too many commercial sites, according to Nominet reps. In the meantime though, they want your driving license or passport to ensure 'accuracy' because they 'want to make things safe'.

Submission + - FCC Looking Into Paid Peering Deals

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on Friday that it has successfully obtained the details regarding paid peering deals between Netflix and Comcast as well as Verizon and is working to obtain similar information for other video streamers and their respective ISP peers. The FCC's goal is, as they pointed out themselves, not to regulate as yet but to examine these deals with the goal of providing some transparency to the American public regarding the internet services they pay for. Verizon and Comcast issued statements expressing their willingness to be open about their peering activities and stressed that no regulation is required. The peering market 'has functioned effectively and efficiently for over two decades without government intervention,' Comcast claimed at a congressional hearing. The Free Press policy director nevertheless points out that 'when the FCC required reporting from AT&T after the company blocked Skype in 2009 and Google Voice in 2012, the disclosures revealed that AT&T was indeed misleading its customers.'

Submission + - Transforming the web into a transparent 'HTTPA' database (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: MIT researchers believe the solution to misuse and leakage of private data is more transparency and auditability, not adding new layers of security. Traditional approaches make it hard, if not impossible, to share data for useful purposes, such as in healthcare. Enter HTTPA, HTTP with accountability.

Submission + - Google Fit to curate steps, calories, heart rate, other biometric data (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Google is planning to release a new product called Google Fit that will aggregate health data from various devices and apps, according to a report Thursday from Forbes. Fit will use available APIs to pull biometric information together into one place, but it's unclear whether it will be a standalone app or part of the Android OS.

Reports of Fit come on the heels of Apple's announcement of HealthKit in iOS 8, a system that also interacts with apps and APIs to curate and present health data like steps walked, calories consumed, and heart rates logged. Fit also follows the announcement of Sami, Samsung's health platform for culling health-related info.

Submission + - Canadian Supreme Court Delivers Huge Win For Internet Privacy (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the past several months, many Canadians have been debating privacy reform, with the government moving forward on two bills involving Internet surveillance and expanded voluntary, warrantless disclosure of personal information. Today, the Supreme Court of Canada entered the debate and completely changed the discussion, issuing its long-awaited R. v. Spencer decision, which examined the legality of voluntary warrantless disclosure of basic subscriber information to law enforcement. Michael Geist summarizes the findings, noting that the unanimous decision included a strong endorsement of Internet privacy, emphasizing the privacy importance of subscriber information, the right to anonymity, and the need for police to obtain a warrant for subscriber information except in exigent circumstances or under a reasonable law.

Submission + - Cloud Migration and Portability: What VMware and AWS Aren't Telling You (rightscale.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few days ago Amazon announced its new AWS Management Portal for vCenter, which allows VMware users to manage AWS workloads from vCenter and to import VMware golden images to AWS using its VM Import utility. VMware responded with a “Don’t Be Fooled” blog, noting that AWS provided “no easy way to move workloads back to one of your data centers, or to another cloud provider.” The blog went on to suggest that VMware was a better option for cloud migration and portability. The hard truth: migrating an existing virtualized application to a cloud, while definitely possible and often a very smart option, is not a push-button affair — no matter what VM import or image translation tool might exist.

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