Today U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) called on Carrier IQ to reveal exactly what the software records, whether it's being transmitted to Carrier IQ or any third party and if the data is protected against security threats. Because if it's not, the safety and privacy of American consumers is at risk.
Carrier IQ is a diagnostic tool used to help carriers and device manufacturers optimize their networks and hardware. It was not created as some sort of conspiracy theory-toting, Big Brother-esque thing made for the explicit use of evil corporations and lurking government officials. Yet last week when researcher and coder Trevor Eckhart noticed that CIQ has the ability to see everything a user does with his or her phone, things got a little murky.
Let's get one thing straight: Apple's Siri is based on a DARPA-funded military artificial intelligence project. It is indicative of the AI-powered future of search. Siri is not just another voice-powered virtual assistant tool.
Allegations of Siri being pro-life circulated about the Web yesterday, kicked off by a post on Raw Story. Raw reported that if you're in Washington D.C. Siri won't direct you to the Planned Parenthood on 16th St, but it will suggest that you pay a visit to anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Center in Landsdowne, Virginia. Google, RawStory explained, would turn up search results for "seven metro-area abortion clinics, 2 CPCs and a nationwide abortion referral service."
This is poignant, especially considering the fact that Siri does not use Google for search results. If it did, Apple could deny responsibility for the results. But in fact, Siri goes out of its way not to use Google.
Watching the elections in Egypt this week and as one of the few Americans who are planning on voting next week in our off-year election, I am reminded of one of my favorite science fiction stories by the master Isaac Asimov called "Franchise. The story was written in the 1950s and takes place ironically in 2008 on election day. Computers and exiting polling have gotten so accurate in predicting the winner that only one person is needed to actually cast their vote.
Egyptians go to the polls today to vote in the first election since the ouster of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. Egypt was a flashpoint in the so-called Arab Spring this year, a string of popular uprisings in which the Web and mobile technology played crucial and unprecedented roles. Google is celebrating this historic event with an election-day doodle on its Egypt's Google homepage.
Google has also launched an extensive Egyptian elections page full of info on candidates, major issues and polling stations. The information is provided by Egypt's Higher Elections Committee, but Google's page enhances the content with Google News, Maps and its other election tools. Google is building tools and programs to improve elections around the world, and this landmark election in Egypt is a storybook example of Web technology as a force for open and accountable government.
If the "illegal streaming bill" becomes law, kids like Justin Bieber could be convicted of a felony just for singing copyrighted songs and posting them to YouTube. So why does Justin Bieber want to take down FreeBieber.org?
The background is this, if you haven't seen it already. An organization called Fight For the Future is trying to draw attention to Senate Bill 978, commonly known as the "illegal streaming bill." Because trying to draw attention to intellectual property legislation is usually difficult, the group tried a different approach: FreeBieber.org.
American Web tech companies trying to gain a share of the massive Chinese market bend too easily to government authorities, who demand tighter censorship and self-policing on the Internet, say analysts in a new report.
Voluntary attempts to conform to government demands while maintaining the freedom of speech found in their originating culture, have proven unsuccessful for companies like Google, Cisco, Microsoft and Yahoo, who have made the push into China and other rigidly-policed tech environments. The analysts say the problem is getting worse.
British Prime Minister David Cameron joins the long line of powerful men who totally miss the point of social media. In the wake of the London riots, he has threatened to ban people convicted of rioting from social networks. Oh, David.
Banning those convicted of crimes from accessing social networks (the idea being that they used such access to organize criminal activities) is no different than banning the same criminals from accessing goose quills and ink pots! It will have zero effect on crime, aside from criminalizing social media itself.
On March 18, 2009, Omid Reza Mir Sayafi became the first blogger to die in prison. A culture blogger, he was imprisoned in the vicious Evin prison outside Tehran and either killed outright or at least allowed to die. He was followed on April 9 of this year by Bahraini blogger Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri, who perished following a beating.
Now 36-year-old Brazilian blogger Ednaldo Figueira joins these two poor souls. Figueira, however, was not in prison. He was shot down in the streets of his home town, Serra do Mel.
Tomorrow, the State of Alaska is set to release over 24,000 of Sarah Palin's emails, "covering much of her tenure as governor of Alaska." The New York Times is hoping that its readers will pitch in and help them filter this vast cache of new data on the former governor and erstwhile vice presidential candidate. Derek Willis announced the project on the Times's Caucus blog.
"We're asking readers to help us identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight. Interested users can fill out a simple form to describe the nature of the e-mail, and provide a name and e-mail address so we'll know who should get the credit. Join us here on Friday afternoon and into the weekend to participate."
Last week, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave a highly idiosyncratic (read: inaccurate) portrait of American revolutionary figure Paul Revere to the media. Now, a struggle has broken out on Wikipedia over Ms. Palin's version of history.
Her version was that Paul Revere rode through Boston, ringing a bell, to announce to the British that the colonials were preparing to fight. This is not remotely true. He rode silently, to let the revolutionaries know the British were en route.
Update after the jump.
