Senate passes bill to rein in NSA phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation intended to rein in the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records, sending the bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act restores a limited telephone records program at the NSA to resume after the old bulk collection program expired Sunday night. After Obama’s signature, the NSA will have six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.The USA Freedom Act, aimed at ending bulk collection of telephone records, was needed after revelations about the program by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013, supporters said. Some digital rights groups have blasted the bill as “fake reform,” but the bill’s limits on the NSA will help restore the U.S. public’s trust in government surveillance efforts, said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and sponsor of the bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Senate passes bill to rein in NSA phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation intended to rein in the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records, sending the bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act restores a limited telephone records program at the NSA to resume after the old bulk collection program expired Sunday night. After Obama’s signature, the NSA will have six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.The USA Freedom Act, aimed at ending bulk collection of telephone records, was needed after revelations about the program by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013, supporters said. Some digital rights groups have blasted the bill as “fake reform,” but the bill’s limits on the NSA will help restore the U.S. public’s trust in government surveillance efforts, said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and sponsor of the bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Faster Wi-Fi is coming soon to a device near you

Wi-Fi in your home or office could get a big speed boost by the end of this year with Qualcomm's newest chip, which reaches new highs in data transfer speeds.The peak wireless data transfer speeds of the QCA9994 and QCA9984 Wi-Fi chips will reach 1.7G bps (bits per second). That speed can be achieved through single or multiple data streams from devices on an 802.11ac Wi-Fi network.MORE: Full speed ahead for 802.11ac WiFiThe speed tops Qualcomm's previous high of around 1Gbps, which it achieved in products released last year. To put the wireless speed in perspective, the data transfer speeds of a wired USB 3.0 connection peaks at 5Gbps, which in most cases is considered adequate for external hard drives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Really smart phones: Now they can predict your GPA

Researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Texas at Austin have developed an Android app that they say can predict students’ grade point averages without prior knowledge of data such as SAT scores, IQ or school track records. What’s more, the technology could have future applications for predicting employee performance.SmartGPA is a cloud-backed app that relies on embedded passive sensors as well as special algorithms that can determine behaviors by the phone user, from studying to partying to face-to-face-communications to sleep. That information can then be crunched to predict students’ GPA within 17 hundreds of a point, according to Andrew T. Campbell, who co-authored paper on the research with colleagues from Dartmouth and the University of Texas at Austin.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Home heating provided by cloud servers is now a reality

One of the problems with traditional data centers has always been that the servers create a lot of heat. And that waste heat needs to be disposed of to prevent server components, switches, and other parts from overheating and malfunctioning.Various solutions have been tried over the years, including building data centers near the sea so cold sea water can be used for cooling. Facebook built a site in Sweden near the Arctic Circle to take advantage of ambient cooing—it's cold up there.And of course, expensive grid-powered air conditioning is the default solution.Data furnaces Dutch company Nerdalize reckons it's got a better answer. It suggests getting rid of data centers, distributing servers throughout communities, and using them to heat homes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to use Google’s new privacy and security tools

Google stores, manages and sometimes sells an astonishingly large and complex amount of user data. Unfortunately, that digital information isn't always kept secure or private, but Google puts some degree of control in the hands of its users. To offer you a little more control, Google this week rolled out an updated online hub designed to help manage privacy settings, called My Account, as well as a pair of tools that streamline the process of safeguarding user data.A brief history of Linux malware The My Account hub gives Google users more context on how and where their information is shared, when they can opt to remain private and the types of ads they see on Google or elsewhere online. Google redesigned My Account to display its many user settings in a more intuitive way, and the Security Checkup and Privacy Checkup tools show users how to control and manage some of the data they share with Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pinterest turns its feed into a store with ‘buyable pins’

Pinterest, whose site is used by many to bookmark desired retail items, will now let its users buy those items directly from its site.Content on Pinterest’s site is organized into visual bookmarks or “pins,” which users can save to their own profiles. Starting later this month, a new type of pin called “Buyable Pins” will arrive in users’ feeds, to let them purchase a variety of items without leaving Pinterest’s site.More than 2 million different products will be sold on Pinterest, through partnerships with major retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as smaller boutique brands like Cole Haan, Kate Spade and Poler Stuff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pinterest turns its feed into a store with ‘buyable pins’

Pinterest, whose site is used by many to bookmark desired retail items, will now let its users buy those items directly from its site.Content on Pinterest’s site is organized into visual bookmarks or “pins,” which users can save to their own profiles. Starting later this month, a new type of pin called “Buyable Pins” will arrive in users’ feeds, to let them purchase a variety of items without leaving Pinterest’s site.More than 2 million different products will be sold on Pinterest, through partnerships with major retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as smaller boutique brands like Cole Haan, Kate Spade and Poler Stuff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What if the iPhone debuted in 1984?

So many of the iPhone 6S or iPhone 7 design concepts we see are wildly futuristic: They boast holograms and shape-shifting and increasing thinness.But Pierre, Cerveau, a Bangkok business development manager with engineering chops, has put forth a throwback iPhone design concept that goes all the way back to 1984, when Apple introduced its second Macintosh computer, the 512K. Gotta love that rotary dial.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks raising $100k bounty for a copy of the Trans-Pacific trade pact

WikiLeaks wants to raise US$100,000 to offer as a reward for whoever leaks the full text of the controversial free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).The news leaks website launched a fund-raising campaign Tuesday to come up with the bounty money. The free trade agreement, involving the U.S., Japan, Canada, Australia and eight other countries, has been negotiated in secret, and just three of its 29 chapters have been leaked.“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DARPA wants to make complex 3D printing trustworthy, dependable, safe

DARPA A laser beam heats a metal powder to additively build a product layer by layer. If additive manufacturing technologies like 3D printing are to become mainstream for complex engineering tasks – think building combat fighter aircraft wings or complete rocket engines – there needs to be a major uptick in the reliability and trustworthiness of such tools.+More on Network World: The hottest 3D printing projects+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Can Community Be Institutionalized?

CommunityPlanning

As technology grows at a faster pace, companies are relying more and more on their users to help spread the word about what they are doing. Why pay exorbitant amounts for marketing when there is a group of folks that will do it for little to nothing? These communities of users develop around any product or company with significant traction in the market. But can they be organized, built, and managed in a traditional manner?

Little Pink Houses

Communities develop when users start talking to each other. They exist in numerous different forms. Whether it be forum posters or sanctioned user groups or even unofficial meetups, people want to get together to talk about things. These communities are built from the idea that knowledge should be shared. Anecdotes, guides, and cautionary tales abound when you put enough people into a room and get them talking about a product.

That’s not to say that all communities can be positive ones. Some communities are even built around the idea of a negative reaction. Look at these groups that formed around simple ideas like getting their old Facebook page back or getting their old MySpace layout returned to them. Imagine the reaction that Continue reading

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