The
more you know, the more you want to keep your old car running.
Jesse
Tahirali reports:
Your new car is probably spying on you.
Modern vehicles are powerful data-scraping machines, warns a group of
B.C. privacy advocates, and Canada urgently needs to regulate what
companies can do with the information cars send them.
The British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
(FIPA) published
a 123-page report Wednesday, detailing what your vehicle might
know about you and who can access that information.
In the report, which is the culmination of a year’s worth of
research, the group calls for immediate action in creating standards
for “connected cars” — vehicles equipped with the Internet,
providing features like navigation and parking assistance, in-car
entertainment and a range of safety features.
Read
more on CTV
News.
(Related)
U.S.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) reintroduced
their Driver Privacy Act, legislation that protects a driver’s
personal privacy by making it clear that the owner of a vehicle is
also the owner of any information collected by an Event Data Recorder
(EDR).
An
EDR is an onboard electronic device that has the ability to
continuously collect at
least 43 pieces of information about a vehicle’s
operation. This includes direction, speed, seatbelt usage and other
data. The senators’ legislation would ensure that the vehicle owner
controls the data and their personal privacy is protected.
…
Fifteen states, including North Dakota, have passed laws related to
EDRs. States with laws protecting drivers’ ownership of EDR data
include Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North
Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
As I
understand it, “stories” are investigated by local teams and then
the stars of 60 Minutes swoop in and do the “reporting.” This
would seem to create a real potential for error. If 60 Minutes can't
be held accountable, Bloggers should be untouchable.
Executives
at Lumber Liquidators, the controversial discount floor retailer, are
telling investors they are feeling so emboldened by a recent
regulatory announcement they may sue the news program “60 Minutes”
over its reporting that raised issues about the safety of the
company’s products, the FOX Business Network has learned.
On
Wednesday, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
announced it will conduct an investigation into the company’s
laminate flooring. However, the agency said it would not use the
same “destructive” testing method used by '60 Minutes.'
…
The deconstructive method for testing flooring is conducted by
taking the product apart, and then testing each individual piece for
the toxin. But the safety commission said Wednesday it would be
testing only the finished goods, similar to the methods Lumber
Liquidators uses, and one in which the carcinogen level in the
flooring appears much lower.
We
seem to be heading toward e-Textbooks. I wonder what those
all-in-one printers that “print and bind a book” cost?
For
young readers – print and digital coexist
“A new book called Words
Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World cites surveys
that say that young readers increasingly prefer to read books from
paper, not screens. More than that, though, they find ebooks and
printed books complementary. Printed
books are good for protracted reading and comprehension.
Ebooks are good for
subsequent reference and convenient access. I started
arguing this in 2008, and it certainly reflects my own
experience. The future
composts the past. [What
the hell does that mean? Bob] The advent of films made
it possible for performances that couldn’t work onstage to be born
and it moved all the plays that were uncomfortable fits onstage to
the screen. What it left behind were plays that were more like plays
— and a theater industry that’s still going strong, even if it’s
dwarfed by the screen. By the same token, books are becoming more
booklike. Books that work best as ebooks — for example, big
reference books; but also short works that are too slight to rest
comfortably on their own between covers — are moving to ebook-land.
Things that are produced as printed books have passed a test in
which someone has asked, “Is there an important reason for this to
exist in print, instead of exclusively onscreen?”
How
to become a “Chief Economist?”
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