Today’s Tech Sightings: SXSW Cancels Panels on Gaming Harassment, Citing Threats After receiving threats of violence, the South By Southwest Festival Monday canceled two panel discussions focusing on video games and harassment in the gaming community. The festival, scheduled for March 2016, was set to feature panelists who have been publicly vocal about the #Gamergate controversy, […]
Harassment Scrubs SXSW Panels; the Texting Generation
Posted October 27th, 2015 at 12:30 pm (UTC-4)
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Biometrics Have Promise, But Raise Privacy, Security Questions
Posted July 17th, 2015 at 4:02 pm (UTC-4)
More companies are slowly adopting biometrics, a technology sometimes seen as “the” answer to a crumbling cybersecurity regime that has fallen prey to hackers. But the collection of biometric data is raising all kinds of questions about privacy and security. MasterCard, the latest firm to dip its toes into the waters of biometrics, is developing […]
Using Biometrics to Track India’s Tuberculosis Cases
Posted July 3rd, 2015 at 2:15 pm (UTC-4)
Biometrics might be the future of security in cyberspace, but in India, a non-profit is using the technology to help health workers fight tuberculosis (TB). Operation ASHA, a group dedicated to bringing tuberculosis treatment and health services to India’s urban slums and rural villages, has adopted biometrics to ensure that TB patients receive full treatment […]
Hacking to Aid Nepal; ‘Venom’ Bug; Unforgettable Searches; ‘Bleep’ Goes Live
Posted May 13th, 2015 at 2:46 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Nepal’s Aid System Is Broken. So These Lifesavers Hacked It As Nepal’s government and NGOs struggle to cope with the devastation of the country’s second major earthquake in less than a month, a group of young people armed with Facebook, open source mapping technology and a lot of nerve have come together […]
Future of Mobile; Robot Aides; Apple, Google Security Woes
Posted March 4th, 2015 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Will Robots Help the Bedridden See the World? Seven museums are participating in a beta program to test Suitable Technologies’ Beam telepresence robot. The remotely-controlled, camera-equipped mobile robot can be steered from a laptop to help bedridden people explore museums they are otherwise unable to visit in person. Five Keys to Future of […]
3D-Scanning Ethiopia’s History; Lenovo’s Superfish; Indonesia Smartphones
Posted February 24th, 2015 at 2:46 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: 3D Laser Scanner Makes Haunting Works of Art Historians Charles Matz and Jonathan Michael Dillon use 3D Lidar scanning — a technology that uses pulses of light to map 3D structures — to help preserve Ethiopia’s historic sites. Inadvertently, they turned their scanning device into a tool for creating works of art. […]
Tech Sightings, May 20, 2014
Posted May 20th, 2014 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
What is Tech Doing to Children’s Brains? Thousands of UK children are being recruited for the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones, or SCAMP – the world’s largest study on the impact mobile phones have on memory and attention span. The project will examine whether mobiles and other wireless devices affect children’s ability to […]
Is There a Future for Passwords?
Posted April 18th, 2014 at 2:34 pm (UTC-4)
Whether you go online to check your email, use social media, shop or play games, the odds are you have more passwords than you can keep straight in your head and even more scribbled on enough sticky notes to decorate an entire room. And they just keep getting longer and trickier as cyber attacks become […]
Tech Sightings, April 15, 2014
Posted April 15th, 2014 at 2:53 pm (UTC-4)
Are Touchscreens Melting Your Kid’s Brain? Touchscreens continue to proliferate, but researchers know very little about what effect they might have on children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, kids under the age of two should not be using touchscreens, while older kids should limit use to two hours. Heartbleed Heartache: This Was Not […]