Monday, September 22, 2014

Shhh! It's only obvious if you think about it.
Five Things Google Probably Knows About You
When it boils down to it, Google is a business and businesses need to know their customers. This means you’re slotted into a demographic slot: basically, that’s your gender and age.
You don’t need an account for Google to know your interests and hobbies, though. Your computer stores cookies
Google uses this information to get to know you better. It knows what sites you go on (just open up Chrome and your most frequented sites will be listed), how long you spend on each, what links you click on (used to determine an article’s relevance to your search), and even your attention span, factored in by your scrolling and the amount of time you peruse a page.
Google knows where you live from your IP address, a unique code sent from your Internet Service Provider to whatever devices you use to go online through your router. Storing this sort of data means Google can provide location-specific results.
And if you’ve ever used My Location on Google Maps in order to get directions from your home to a shopping centre or holiday hotspot, utilising information like IP addresses, the Internet giant can determine with surprising accuracy where you are in the world.
… If you have Gmail, you’ve already agreed to Google’s Terms of Service, meaning they can automatically scan your emails for keywords in order to, once more, tailor your search results and ads
When You Use The Internet


We like surveillance so much that we'll offer funding to anyone who can make it simple enough for a caveman to do it.” (Asked: €15,000 Received: €113,000+)
3D Pocketcopter - the flying camera
The Pocketcopter itself is powered by a 12V battery (rechargeable or replaceable) and is controlled via the touch screen of your smartphone.
The connection is via WiFi (similar to the remote control of the GoPro) or Bluetooth.
Currently we don’t have a fully working prototype, the photos in campaign are computer renderings of what we envision the device to look like.


It's a digital world.
You Got Served, Via Facebook
Legal papers can now be served via Facebook, with a judge ruling the social network counts as a form of contact. Magistrate Gregory Gliedman accepted that Facebook counts as legal contact in the case of a Staten Island man notifying his wife he was ending child support payments as their son had turned 21. After failing to find her in the real world, Noel Biscocho served his ex-wife via Facebook. So, if you really don’t want to be found, you may want to close your Facebook account as soon as possible.


Something for my Computer Security class to explore.
Google and Dropbox partnered at ‘Simply Secure’ for easy to use security tools
… In a similar direction Google and Dropbox, with the help of Open Technology Fund have partnered up to start an initiative known as Simply Secure. It will transform the security technology in such a way so that it becomes transparent to the end users. The group will collaborate with other open source developers, designers and researchers in order to handle projects like Open Whisper Systems, The Guardian Project, Off-the-Record Messaging and much more.
… Simply Secure initiative will basically work on the following four principles:
1. To provide a positive, accessible and user centered Internet by making a trustworthy security and privacy system.
2. Privacy and security shall be intuitive.
3. The technology should accept the fact that user’s security is its main concern.
4. The security technology shall be made transparent to the end users.


I don't think these are only Windows 8.1 Apps, but you may need to search for earlier versions.
For students and teachers to have a great school year: Top ten Back to School apps for Windows 8.1
We've highlighted the ten apps that are available in Microsoft's Back to School collection, available in the Windows Store.

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