Thursday, April 18, 2019


There’s an App for that!
More Than 100 High-End Cars Were Stolen Using An App In A Possible Chicago Crime Spree
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement Wednesday that the car sharing company, car2go or SHARE NOW, alerted authorities that its vehicles may have been taken through "deceptive" practices through the company's app.
CBS Chicago reported that many of the vehicles were allegedly used to commit other crimes. Police did not provide any details about how the vehicles were used but said the investigation is ongoing.
[From the Car2go website:
Cars are available on the street and in designated lots around the city. A live map is available on our app.




One measure of success?
Game of Thrones’ season 8 premiere was pirated almost 55 million times in the first 24 hours




Over protecting?
GDPR is very protective of children, and like FERPA, can be confusing at times to parents who want to understand what is allowed and what is not. Adrian Weckler reports:
Irish school principals who tell parents they cannot take photos at communions or sports days “because of GDPR” are wrong, says Ireland’s data privacy authority.
The Data Protection Commissioner has issued new guidance because of confusion among parents, teachers and children’s organisations over the matter.
This type of activity falls under the so-called household exemption under the GDPR,” says the DPC’s newly-published guidance.
This provides that the GDPR does not apply when a person processes personal data, for example, a photograph of someone, in the course of a purely personal or household activity.”
The privacy authority also says that GDPR doesn’t strictly prohibit posting photos taken at school events on social media, either.
Read more on Independent.ie.




One Privacy future.
Microsoft denied police facial recognition tech over human rights concerns
Microsoft has said it turned down a request from law enforcement in California to use its facial recognition technology in police body cameras and cars, reports Reuters.
Anytime they pulled anyone over, they wanted to run a face scan,” said Smith of the unnamed law enforcement agency. “We said this technology is not your answer.”




Preparing my students to deal with Big Data, as processors of the data and as (involuntary) providers.
Your car is watching you. Who owns the data?
Roll Call – Computers on wheels raise thorny questions about data privacy: “If you’re driving a late model car or truck, chances are that the vehicle is mostly computers on wheels, collecting and wirelessly transmitting vast quantities of data to the car manufacturer not just on vehicle performance but personal information, too, such as your weight, the restaurants you visit, your music tastes and places you go. A car can generate about 25 gigabytes of data every hour and as much as 4,000 gigabytes a day, according to some estimates. The data trove in the hands of car makers could be worth as much as $750 billion by 2030, the consulting firm McKinsey has estimated. But consumer groups, aftermarket repair shops and privacy advocates say the data belongs to the car’s owners and the information should be subject to data privacy laws…”




My students will need to interface with several Apps. This is just one.
Google Maps Is Ready to Transform the World of Superapps: A Skift Deep Dive
Like Tencent-owned WeChat and, to a lesser extent Meituan in China, as well as Grab in Southeast Asia, many are pointing to Google Maps, with its more than 1 billion users, as the next ubiquitous, all-encompassing superapp. In other words, a superapp can do it all, or nearly everything, relatively speaking, and obviates the need to call up specialty apps to perform specific tasks.
Need your Chicago Transit, Uber, or Yelp apps to see if your train is delayed, book a rideshare, or reserve a table for a Saturday night repast? Not really. The Google Maps app has you basically covered on all these fronts — and many more.
Our reporting finds that Alphabet is already generating several billion dollars annually from Google Maps, an amount that isn’t yet material to the company’s financial results




Another industry not ready for the CCPA?
Joseph Lazzarotti of JacksonLewis writes:
Following recent examinations of SEC-registered investment advisers and broker-dealers, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) published a privacy risk alert on April 16, 2019. OCIE is hoping to remind advisers and broker-dealers about providing compliant privacy and opt-out notices, and adopting and implementing effective policies and procedures for safeguarding customer records and information, under Regulation S-P.
Privacy Notices. During the examinations, OCIE observed advisors and broker-dealers were not providing initial privacy notices, annual privacy notices and opt-out notices to their customers. When these notices were provided, many did not accurately reflect firms’ policies and procedures and/or notify customers of their right to opt out of having their nonpublic personal information shared with nonaffiliated third parties.
Read more on The National Law Review.




When you absolutely, positively have to waste a few hours...
Barnes & Noble is offering free download of the Mueller report




It looks like ransom.
A company in San Diego co-founded by a former Marine has been scooping up the abandoned scooters that litter city streets owned by the startups Bird and Lime for months, giving some of them back to Bird in November in exchange for more than $40,000. Bird and Lime have since called the company’s activities “ransom,” and a legal battle has begun.
The civil complaints—both filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, Lime’s on March 19 and Bird’s a day later—make for good reading, and describe a pattern of scooter confiscations that the companies say started last summer.
The dispute highlights a larger tension in tech, in that it lays bare some pretty fundamental questions about Silicon Valley, i.e. are so-called mobility companies actually helping us solve some of our larger transportation issues? Or is really what we have at the end of the day just a bunch of new trash?
Bird and Lime also say that a lot of scooters are taken from public property, and against normal procedures tow trucks might use when impounding a vehicle.
A court might ultimately decide that, but Scooter Removal, for its part, says on its website that the removals are a noble cause, a reaction to scooters’ increasing presence—some say littering—across the city.




Perspective. ..and a trip to the library. (Podcast)
Don’t Panic: The Digital Revolution Isn’t as Unusual as You Think
Knowledge@Wharton: When new technology is introduced to the masses, is the initial reaction of shock pretty much the same from one century to the next?
Wheeler: Yes, it really is amazing that the original reaction of people when they hear about things is to push back. “Oh my God, this is changing what I’ve been comfortable with.” My favorite example is that when Samuel F. B. Morse went to the Congress to get funding for his first telegraph line, when that bill got to the floor of the House of Representatives, everybody was laughing at it. The idea that you could send messages by sparks was just too much to believe. It literally was a circus on the floor. When the House finally voted, they voted 89 for, 83 against, and 70 abstentions because these members of Congress were afraid to go back and explain to their constituents how they were spending their tax dollars on this crazy idea of messages by sparks.




AI hasn’t arrived at my University, yet.
'It's an educational revolution': how AI is transforming university life
Beacon is unlike any other member of staff at Staffordshire University. It is available 24/7 to answer students’ questions, and deals with a number of queries every day – mostly the same ones over and over again – but always stays incredibly patient.
That patience is perhaps what gives it away: Beacon is an artificial intelligence (AI) education tool, and the first digital assistant of its kind to be operating at a UK university.
… Students can chat with Beacon via text or voice conversation, and as use increases, it becomes smarter. Eventually, it will be able to remind students about classes and deadlines.




For the toolkit.




Dilbert illustrates a problem MY students could solve.



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