Today’s Tech Sightings The Disturbing Consequences of Ultra-Connectivity The meaning of connectivity is taking on a whole new meaning as it extends to everyday gadgets, cars, implants and much more. And that opens up new possibilities for abuse of privacy and security. Mobile World Congress: Huawei Wants to Take on Apple In an interview […]
Connectivity vs. Privacy; Huawei Thinks Big; US-EU Digital Gap
Posted March 3rd, 2015 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
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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. […]
Red Envelopes From China; Superfishy Lenovo; Sony; Bitcoin Auction
Posted February 19th, 2015 at 2:45 pm (UTC-4)
Chinese Usher in Lunar New Year on WeChat With a Billion Virtual Red Envelopes The annual tradition of gifting red envelopes with token money went online yesterday as the Chinese celebrated the new lunar year on the popular messaging app WeChat, also known as Weixin in China. Weixin users, said to number more than 400 million, […]
Apple’s Car Buzz; Robot Ethics; Impossible Malware?
Posted February 17th, 2015 at 2:38 pm (UTC-4)
Google Exec: Digital Media Could Vanish Remember the LP and the cassette player? Or the Floppy Disk? Looking back, it seems as if these gadgets became obsolete a very long time ago. With the stunning speed of technological progress, though, even newer gadgets are at risk of becoming passé just as quickly. Google’s Vice President, […]
Japan’s Robot Hotel; Mobile Money; Street View Bangladesh
Posted February 5th, 2015 at 2:17 pm (UTC-4)
Can Mobile Banking Revolutionize the Lives of the Poor? Kenya’s mobile payment system, M-PESA, introduced in 2007, enriched the lives of Kenyans and gradually spread to other countries. M-PESA allows cellphone users to save and transfer money and use SMS to exchange funds over the network. But will mobile money actually transform the lives of […]
Cuba’s Secret Internet; Wickr’s Cats; Twitter New Features
Posted January 27th, 2015 at 2:14 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: How Sensors and Drones Can Combat Global Hunger Author Shawn DuBravac argues that sensors, which have revolutionized mobile devices and are now empowering wearable technology, could potentially help alleviate world hunger. He suggests equipping food-supply wares and storehouses with sensors that raise the alarm once a shortage begins, rather than having a person […]
Apps That Connect, Apps That Help
Posted January 23rd, 2015 at 3:02 pm (UTC-4)
There is a mobile app for everything these days — from chatting to gaming, from learning to health and fitness. More recent apps glean users’ tastes to match them with others like them or parse their language to connect them with people they might be looking for. And then there are apps for emergencies that […]
Internet’s Missing Second; Skeleton Key; Android Exploits; iPhone Addiction
Posted January 13th, 2015 at 2:18 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: ‘Leap Second’ Threatens to Break the Internet According to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service announced, the Earth’s rotation has slowed by a second. That means the planet — and its computer systems that will have to grapple with this issue – need an extra second to catch up. This is […]
2014: A Wearable, Heartbleed, Sony-esque Kind of Year
Posted January 2nd, 2015 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
2014 saw Artificial Intelligence, 3-D printing and wearable technology expanding into new areas and new gadgets. It marked a turning point with increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. It was a year of upheaval that cast doubt on the viability of cryptocurrencies even as new methods of digital payments were born. And 2014 continued the lack of diversity […]
Tracking Santa; the Eyes Have It; Death of Voicemail?
Posted December 24th, 2014 at 2:00 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: It’s Christmas Eve and the Battle of NORAD vs. Google Santa Trackers Has Begun! Santa and his reindeer are traveling somewhere around the world; and Google is racing to track his every movement ahead of Microsoft and its North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) partner. You can find Google’s Santa Tracker here and […]