Looks
like the friendly state of California is already secretly collecting
DNA.
"California lawmakers are
weighing a bill
aimed at protecting their state's citizens from surreptitious
genetic testing but scientists are voicing their growing
concerns that, if passed, such a law would have a costly and damaging
effect on research. The bill, dubbed the Genetic
Information Privacy Act, would require an individual's written
consent for the collection, analysis, retention, and sharing of his
or her genetic information—including DNA, genetic test results, and
even family disease history. The University of California has
submitted a formal
letter objecting to the bill, estimating that the measure could
increase administrative costs by up to $594,000 annually — money
which would come out of the cash-strapped state's General Fund. The
university has also expressed concern that its researchers would
suffer competitive losses in obtaining research grants."
Stalker tech
May 19, 2012
Hearing
on the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act
House Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security - Hearing on
the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act - Statement
for the Record of Professor
Matt Blaze, May 17, 2012
- Re - Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, S. 1212: "GPS is only one technology for cell location, and while it is the most visible to the end user, GPS is neither the most pervasive nor the most generally applicable cellular phone location system, especially in the surveillance context. More ubiquitously available are techniques that (unlike GPS) do not depend on satellites or special hardware in the handset, but rather on radio signal data collected and analyzed at the cellular providers' towers and base stations. These “network-based” location techniques can give the position of virtually every handset active in the network at any time, regardless of whether the mobile devices are equipped with GPS chips and without the explicit knowledge or active cooperation of the phone users."
I
have no comment...
Are
people more honest when they text?
A study at the University of Michigan
suggests not only that we are likely to tell the truth when we let
our fingers do the talking, but that we're also more likely to give
more detailed and precise answers to questions.
This
is fair if Microsoft was paid to add software (e.g. anti-virus) to
the install package for a fee. This allowed them to reduce the cost
of the package. Dropping the extra software raises the price. But,
$99 dollars worth? Perhaps I'll sic my students on an open source
equivalent...
walterbyrd
writes about a program from Microsoft to clean up bloated base
installs, for a price. From the article:
"Microsoft
even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed
crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems
start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and
resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their
crapware-ladened counterparts. (A 'Signature' system is one without
crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity
to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing
it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall
Street Journal."
More
from the “Goodies for Geeks” front. It's not always about the
high end...
Want a cheap computer that runs Android
on an ARM processor and isn’t a Raspberry
Pi? Now you can have it. I’m talking about a new system,
called AllWinner,
that is now shipping out of China.
This tiny, inexpensive Android PC has
impressive specifications. It uses an ARM A10 dual-core running at
1.5 GHz, a Mali 400 GPU and offers 512MB of RAM. This puts it about
on par with last year’s best tablets and today’s best
smartphones.
Perhaps I could use this as a source
for Quiz questions? (Surprise! It has an “English for Business “
quiz)
If you spend a lot of time on your
computer, then you will know quite a lot about how certain programs
and web services operate. If you would like to test your knowledge
of popular services that you normally use, you could make use of a
fun service called Smarterer.
Smarterer is a website where you can go
to test your knowledge of Twitter, Facebook, Google, Photoshop, PHP,
and a bunch of other computer-related services and tools. You start
by signing in with your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account. Once
you are signed in you can pick a service and answer corresponding
questions under a time limit. The more questions you answer
correctly, the higher your score, and the higher your position on the
leaderboards.
For
quoting modern American poetry to my students...
Rap
Genius is a database of hip-hop lyrics that sits somewhere
between Wikipedia
and Urban
Dictionary. Rap tunes, from the most complex to the everyday
radio hits, are indexed on this website and explained by
contributors. Tracks are broken down line by line, and if you think
some of these rap songs are a mouthful then you should really look at
how analytical and precise some of these explanations are.
Similar
tools: TheRapMap,
Lyreach,
TubeOke,
LyricRat,
Lyrics,
Lyrster,
LyricsFly and
few others in recently published top
5 sites to find song lyrics online.
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