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Got privacy? If you use Twitter or a smartphone, maybe not so much

The notion of online privacy has been greatly diminished in recent years, and just this week two new studies confirm what to many minds is already a dismal picture.First, a study reported on Monday by Stanford University found that smartphone metadata -- information about calls and text messages, such as time and length -- can reveal a surprising amount of personal detail.To investigate their topic, the researchers built an Android app and used it to retrieve the metadata about previous calls and text messages -- the numbers, times, and lengths of communications -- from more than 800 volunteers’ smartphone logs. In total, participants provided records of more than 250,000 calls and 1.2 million texts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Got privacy? If you use Twitter or a smartphone, maybe not so much

The notion of online privacy has been greatly diminished in recent years, and just this week two new studies confirm what to many minds is already a dismal picture.First, a study reported on Monday by Stanford University found that smartphone metadata -- information about calls and text messages, such as time and length -- can reveal a surprising amount of personal detail.To investigate their topic, the researchers built an Android app and used it to retrieve the metadata about previous calls and text messages -- the numbers, times, and lengths of communications -- from more than 800 volunteers’ smartphone logs. In total, participants provided records of more than 250,000 calls and 1.2 million texts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft releases ‘service pack 2’ for Windows 7

One of the most vexing aspects of a Windows 7 reinstall is that even after you install the operating system and Service Pack 1, you can expect to spend a ridiculous amount of time applying patches that came post-SP1. Service Pack 1 came out in 2011, and there have been dozens and dozens of fixes over the past five years.For the longest time, this was a sore spot among users. That and the fact that Microsoft was reluctant to issue a second service pack with just a rollup of current fixes.Well, that wish has been granted. The company today announced a "convenience rollup" for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that contains all of the security and non-security updates it has issued for the two operating systems since the Windows 7 Service Pack up through April 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google I/O 2016: Android N hits beta, boasts VR and more

Google’s been hard at work under the hood of its Android operating system, announcing performance, security and productivity updates in the new Android N alongside a swanky new suite of VR capabilities called Daydream and version 2.0 of Android Wear.Android N is available for select devices in beta today, and will be released in a stable version this fall. It’s been publicly available as an open alpha for developer use for some time, but Google’s presentation offers the company’s definitive vision for the future of the Android platform.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Microsoft leaves feature-phone business as Nokia moves back in, sort of + ARM acquires Apical to add eyes to IoTTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Twitter location data reveals users’ homes, workplaces

Geographic location stamps transmitted in tweets can provide enough information for people to deduce where a Twitter user lives and works, say researchers. The deduction occurs through the clustering of the posting locations. The assemblage provides location patterns that provide a good guess as to where the poster spends most of his or her time. When that’s coupled with other data, such as the time of day, non-scientists recruited for the study simply picked out the homes and workplaces of the tweeters, said researchers from MIT and Oxford University in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Twitter location data reveals users’ homes, workplaces

Geographic location stamps transmitted in tweets can provide enough information for people to deduce where a Twitter user lives and works, say researchers. The deduction occurs through the clustering of the posting locations. The assemblage provides location patterns that provide a good guess as to where the poster spends most of his or her time. When that’s coupled with other data, such as the time of day, non-scientists recruited for the study simply picked out the homes and workplaces of the tweeters, said researchers from MIT and Oxford University in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google gets smart with Google Assistant and Google Home

Google is launching a smart personal assistant that uses artificial intelligence and search to let people not just get answers to their questions but to even control their devices.Google wants users to be able to do more than ask Google Assistant what the weather will be that day.+ Follow all the stories out of Google I/O 2016 +Google says its new assistant will make movie suggestions based on what films you've liked before. Going to the theater with your kids? Google Assistant will change its recommendations accordingly. It'll offer up moview reviews and buy your tickets for you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s sale of feature phone biz erodes smartphone commitment

Microsoft today continued to undo its disastrous 2014 acquisition of Nokia's phone business, announcing that it is exiting the feature phone market, which it had once trumpeted as a critical component of its mobile strategy.The sale of its feature phone business for $350 million prompted analysts to again question Microsoft's commitment to smartphones. "There won't be any more Lumia [smartphones]," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, in an email reply to Computerworld's questions today. "It does leave the door open for a new, narrower, phone strategy in the future."MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 (FREE!) Microsoft tools to make admins happier In a statement Wednesday, Microsoft said it had sold its remaining Nokia assets, including its factory in Hanoi, Vietnam, to FIH Mobile Ltd., a subsidiary of Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai, better known as Foxconn, and to Finnish firm HMD Global.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Martian author Andy Weir calls for massive new space station to prep humans for Mars trip

When it comes to living on Mars, the human body is simply not suited to living for long periods in zero-g. Until this issue is solved, we have no hope of landing humans on the surface of Mars, nor can we create permanent residences in space.That was the crux of the testimony given to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology today by best-selling author of The Martian, Andy Weir. The hearing, entitled “Next Steps to Mars: Deep Space Habitats,” is exploring what NASA’s plans are for the development of deep space habitation. Weir was among speakers from NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Orbital.+More on Network World: NASA touts real technologies highlighted in 'The Martian' flick+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Martian author Andy Weir calls for massive new space station to prep humans for Mars trip

When it comes to living on Mars, the human body is simply not suited to living for long periods in zero-g. Until this issue is solved, we have no hope of landing humans on the surface of Mars, nor can we create permanent residences in space.That was the crux of the testimony given to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology today by best-selling author of The Martian, Andy Weir. The hearing, entitled “Next Steps to Mars: Deep Space Habitats,” is exploring what NASA’s plans are for the development of deep space habitation. Weir was among speakers from NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Orbital.+More on Network World: NASA touts real technologies highlighted in 'The Martian' flick+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The API fight everyone loses

Attorneys for the Oracle and Google companies presented opening statements this week in a high-stakes copyright case about the use of application-programming interfaces, or APIs. As Oracle eagerly noted, there are potentially billions of dollars on the line; accordingly, each side has brought “world-class attorneys,” as Judge William Alsup noted to the jury. And while each company would prefer to spend their money elsewhere, these are businesses that can afford to spend years and untold resources in the courtroom. -via deeplinks

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Identifying bad ECMP paths

In the talk Move Fast, Unbreak Things! at the recent DevOps Networking Forum,  Petr Lapukhov described how Facebook has tackled the problem of detecting packet loss in Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) networks. At Facebook's scale,  there are many parallel paths and actively probing all the paths generates a lot of data. The active tests generate over 1Terabits/second of measurement data per Facebook data center and a Hadoop cluster with hundreds of compute nodes is required per data center to process the data.

Processing active test data can detect that packets are being lost within approximately 20 seconds, but doesn't provide the precise location where packets are dropped. A custom multi-path traceroute tool (fbtracert) is used to follow up and narrow down the location of the packet loss.

While described as measuring packet loss, the test system is really measuring path loss. For example, if there are 64 ECMP paths in a pod, then the loss of one path would result in a packet loss of approximately 1 in 64 packets in traffic flows that cross the ECMP group.

Black hole detection describes an alternative approach. Industry standard sFlow instrumentation embedded within most vendor's switch hardware provides visibility into the Continue reading

Google’s new tools make it easier to integrate apps with its spreadsheets and slides

Google is updating the developer tools for its Docs productivity suite in an effort to make it easier for companies to integrate third-party applications with its presentation, spreadsheet and word processing software. Software makers can start working with a new tool that lets them sync data between a Google Sheet and their application for easy data compilation and sharing among people who use the online spreadsheet software. In addition, Google also announced a new Slides API that will allow users to automatically populate slide decks with information from outside sources. Software packages like Google Docs don't exist in a vacuum, and offering developers a way to more deeply integrate with the company's products could lead to more companies becoming interested in picking up the productivity suite because of how it works with other software. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google’s new tools make it easier to integrate apps with its spreadsheets and slides

Google is updating the developer tools for its Docs productivity suite in an effort to make it easier for companies to integrate third-party applications with its presentation, spreadsheet and word processing software.  Software makers can start working with a new tool that lets them sync data between a Google Sheet and their application for easy data compilation and sharing among people who use the online spreadsheet software. In addition, Google also announced a new Slides API that will allow users to automatically populate slide decks with information from outside sources.  Software packages like Google Docs don't exist in a vacuum, and offering developers a way to more deeply integrate with the company's products could lead to more companies becoming interested in picking up the productivity suite because of how it works with other software. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Will programmers in health IT have to take the Hippocratic Oath?

In the health IT development hype cycle, a number of novel technologies have been announced and marketed. One example is the Qualcomm Tricorder Xprize, which is a competition designed to encourage developers to build a device that will diagnosis and self-treat a number of chronic conditions without the need for a physician. This prize is from the same organization (Xprise) that tried to encourage suborbital flight from commercial spacecraft companies.Technology is so pervasive in healthcare that books have been written about “The Internet of Health Things” (Kvedar J.C., The Internet of Healthy Things) that describe the wonderful new sensors patients can wear and measure their health every day. Even within older data collection paradigms, the healthcare area is talking about patient-reported outcomes and how we need to incorporate this data with the electronic health record to help improve patient care.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Faced with a bunch of obstacles, this robot got creative and surprised its makers

Dealing with obstacles is an inevitable part of life, and it looks like robots may be surprisingly adept at applying creativity to the challenge.Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University developed software that not only helped a robot deal efficiently with clutter but also revealed considerable creativity in solving problems. Their new study is due to be presented Thursday at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Sweden.A research team led by Siddhartha Srinivasa, CMU associate professor of robotics, challenged HERB -- his lab's two-armed mobile robot -- with a pile of clutter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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