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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 + - Man arrested for parodying mayor on Twitter files civil rights lawsuit (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: The Illinois man who made headlines when he was detained for parodying the town's mayor on Twitter sued the Peoria politician and local police, claiming on Thursday that his civil rights were violated.

As part of the April raid, the authorities seized the mobile phone and laptop of the 29-year-old prankster, Jonathan Daniel, and reviewed their contents, which he says was in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Daniel, the operator of the @peoriamayor handle shut down by Twitter after the city threatened a lawsuit, was initially accused of impersonating a public official in violation of Illinois law. The authorities never lodged charges, however.

Submission + - Navy database tracks civilians' parking tickets, fender-benders (washingtonexaminer.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A parking ticket, traffic citation or involvement in a minor fender-bender are enough to get a person's name and other personal information logged into a massive, obscure federal database run by the U.S. military.

The Law Enforcement Information Exchange, or LinX, has already amassed 506.3 million law enforcement records ranging from criminal histories and arrest reports to field information cards filled out by cops on the beat even when no crime has occurred.

Submission + - Mercury Has Shrunk More than Thought (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Measuring just 4880 kilometers across, Mercury is a small world. The planet became slightly smaller as its interior cooled, which caused Mercury to shrink, buckling its surface and creating numerous cliffs and ridges. Now, after studying 5934 of these features, researchers report online today in Nature Geoscience that Mercury's contraction was much greater than previously thought: During the past 4 billion years, the planet's diameter decreased by 7 to 14 kilometers. The greater estimate of shrinkage accords with models that predict how much a rocky planet should contract as its interior cools; the new work may also lend insight into the evolution of extrasolar planets that, like Mercury and unlike Earth, lack any moving continents.

Submission + - The Poor Neglected Gifted Child

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore," explains The Boston Globe's Amy Crawford in The Poor Neglected Gifted Child, "have national laws requiring that children be screened for giftedness, with top scorers funneled into special programs. China is midway through a 10-year 'National Talent Development Plan' to steer bright young people into science, technology, and other in-demand fields." It seems to be working — America's tech leaders are literally going to Washington with demands for "comprehensive immigration reform that allows for the hiring of the best and brightest". But in the U.S., Crawford laments, "we focus on steering all extra money and attention toward kids who are struggling academically, or even just to the average student" and "risk shortchanging the country in a different way." The problem advocates for the gifted must address, Crawford explains, is to "find ways for us to develop our own native talent without exacerbating inequality." And address it we must. "How many people can become an astrophysicist or a PhD in chemistry?" asks David Lubinski, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University. We really have to look for the best — that's what we do in the Olympics, that's what we do in music, and that's what we need to with intellectual capital."

Submission + - Google Pushes Back Against Data Localization (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Boweravid
Boweravid writes: The big tech companies have put forth a united front when it comes to pushing back against the government after revelations of mass surveillance. But their cooperation goes only so far.

Microsoft this week suggested that it would deepen its existing efforts to allow customers to store their data near them and outside the United States. Google, for its part, has been fighting this notion of so-called data localization.

“If data localization and other efforts are successful, then what we will face is the effective Balkanization of the Internet and the creation of a ‘splinternet’ broken up into smaller national and regional pieces, with barriers around each of the splintered Internets to replace the global Internet we know today,” Richard Salgado, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, told a congressional panel in November.

Submission + - Dropbox Does Not Validate Mail Addresses For Accounts

Submitted by DarkSoul42
DarkSoul42 writes: I just stumbled upon a situation quite like the latest xkcd strip ( http://xkcd.com/1279/ ), in having an homonym create a Dropbox account on my own GMail address, mistaking it for his own.

I started receiving out of the blue several notifications of "my Dropbox account" being linked to several devices, none of which I could remember, prompting some doubt since I didn't remember having a Dropbox account in the first place. On reflex, I reinitialized the password and logged in to confirm the contents, realizing quickly that my homonym most likely messed up and would probably end up in a lot of trouble if they lost the data in their account.
I created a "Sorry for the trouble with your Dropbox, please read this" file, containing my whole explanation about what went on, and the matter was solved smoothly with a laugh from both parties ("Okay, so now what was MY GMail address?"), but it is sort of mind-boggling that Dropbox would allow setting an e-mail address, or even the creation of an active account, without requesting confirmation (sending an e-mail with an activation URL, or a code) !

This could even be used to plant Nasty Evidence on someone before tipping off the police and prompting an investigation, and most likely ruining their lives... At the time of writing I have sent a PR to Dropbox about this, hopefully this gets fixed quickly.

Comment ACTUALLY the Ilusion (Score 1) 2

In the present state of things, If you are socially truthful / factual: You cannot. If you are not socially truthful / factual: You have a better chance of it because you are not socially truthful / factual, however, the more you are not out there your chances greatly improve. It is because it hasn’t happened That it will happen Across the net.

Submission + - Google starts sending adverts as emails to Gmail users (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in May, Google rolled out an update to Gmail that it marketed as “a new inbox.” What it did was to split the email you receive into categories and then display them in different tabs. The Gmail redesign wasn’t just to help users, though. It turns out Google has decided to introduce a new form of advertising because of it, one that you could view as being much more intrusive than before.

Some users have started noticing that in the Promotions tab new emails are appearing that they haven’t singed up to receive. These emails as marked as “Ad” under the sender name. A little further investigation reveals they are actually Google adverts packaged as emails.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: what do you ACTUALLY do to protect your online privacy? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After all the media coverage about snooping in the last weeks and after i found out, that employees at my local isp are actually selling the surfing habits of customers, it is time for me to think about changing my setup.

What is the best way to protect your privacy for a pc and a smartphone from google, ad-networks and the isp. What tools are you using? What is the "best"? Is someone here actually running such a setup? What would the costs amount to? What would be involved?

Please be specific. I could not really find anything like "the n00b guide to online privacy"...

Comment the costs of business (Score 1) 1

by cjacobs001 (#39447529) Attached to: Megaupload host wants out
my vote is that if it is not being paid, it should not have to maintain the files; except, of course, unless it is an e-discovery issue. I admit that I am not read-up on all of this story, but nothing reported here or in the article linked, says that it is an e-discovery issue. If a governing body requires it (when it's not for e-discovery), that body should pay. If this was an e-discovery issue, the 3rd party could make a business-loss claim against its insurance company for payment, and that insurance company should have plans in place to mitigate against an extended period of time. . . . I admit that this is probably an issue for those whose data it is, and I think the network should now plan for such occurrences to happen again in the future (data-owners should have redundant systems for the same data, AND\OR The business owners [not the host] should have redundant systems and to auto-enable the data owners to remove their data; and to put clauses in their agreements to enable access-for-the-explicit-purpose-of-determining-contact-for-the-data-owners, in such a situation as this only, to enable a governing body to contact the data owners to notify that there is a small charge required to retrieve their data [for instance]. AND\OR The business owner [the host] should build-in an agreement with its customers for access only under supervision of a governing body [or something like that] to determine contact for the data owners.) For a business to be required by a law\court\rule to maintain the data in a situation that is not insurable, that is actually preventing the host from doing business. my .02

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