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INTEREST: CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't reveal much about himself but [his] Google search engine...
by billing 15 Aug '05

15 Aug '05

Google balances privacy, reach Published: July 14, 2005, 4:00 AM PDT By Elinor Mills Staff Writer, CNET News.com Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't reveal much about himself on his home page. But spending 30 minutes on the Google search engine lets one discover that Schmidt, 50, was worth an estimated $1.5 billion last year. Earlier this year, he pulled in almost $90 million from sales of Google stock and made at least another $50 million selling shares in the past two months as the … [View More]stock leaped to more than $300 a share. He and his wife Wendy live in the affluent town of Atherton, Calif., where, at a $10,000-a-plate political fund-raiser five years ago, presidential candidate Al Gore and his wife Tipper danced as Elton John belted out "Bennie and the Jets." Schmidt has also roamed the desert at the Burning Man art festival in Nevada, and is an avid amateur pilot. That such detailed personal information is so readily available on public Web sites makes most people uncomfortable. But it's nothing compared with the information Google collects and doesn't make public. Assuming Schmidt uses his company's services, someone with access to Google's databases could find out what he writes in his e-mails and to whom he sends them, where he shops online or even what restaurants he's located via online maps. Like so many other Google users, his virtual life has been meticulously recorded. The fear, of course, is that hackers, zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics standards could abuse that information. Google, some worry, is amassing a tempting record of personal information, and the onus is on the Mountain View, Calif., company to keep that information under wraps. Privacy advocates say information collected at Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, Amazon.com's A-9 and other search and e-commerce companies poses similar risks. Indeed, many of those companies' business plans tend to mimic what Google is trying to do, and some are less careful with the data they collect. But Google, which has more than a 50 percent share of the U.S. search engine market, according to the latest data from WebSideStory, has become a lightning rod for privacy concerns because of its high profile and its unmatched impact on the Internet community. "Google is poised to trump Microsoft in its potential to invade privacy, and it's very hard for many consumers to get it because the Google brand name has so much trust," said Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "But if you step back and look at the suite of products and how they are used, you realize Google can have a lot of personal information about individuals' Internet habits--e-mail, saving search history, images, personal information from (social network site) Orkut--it represents a significant threat to privacy." Kevin Bankston, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Google is amassing data that could create some of the most detailed individual profiles ever devised. "Your search history shows your associations, beliefs, perhaps your medical problems. The things you Google for define you," Bankston said. The Google record As is typical for search engines, Google retains log files that record search terms used, Web sites visited and the Internet Protocol address and browser type of the computer for every single search conducted through its Web site. In addition, search engines are collecting personally identifiable information in order to offer certain services. For instance, Gmail asks for name and e-mail address. By comparison, Yahoo's registration also asks for address, phone number, birth date, gender and occupation and may ask for home address and Social Security number for financial services. "It's data that's practically a printout of what's going on in your brain: What you are thinking of buying, who you talk to, what you talk about." --Kevin Bankston, staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation If search history, e-mail and registration information were combined, a company could see intimate details about a person's health, sex life, religion, financial status and buying preferences. It's "data that's practically a printout of what's going on in your brain: What you are thinking of buying, who you talk to, what you talk about," Bankston said. "It is an unprecedented amount of personal information, and these third parties (such as Google) have carte blanche control over that information." Google uses the log information to analyze traffic in order to prevent people from rigging search results, for blocking denial-of- service attacks and to improve search services, said Nicole Wong, associate general counsel at Google. Personally identifiable information that is required for consumers to register for and log in to Google services is not shared with any outside companies or used for marketing, according to Google's privacy policy, except with the consent of the user, or if outside "trusted" parties need it to process the data on Google's behalf. What Google knows about you • Gmail -- The e-mail service offers two gigabytes of free storage and scans the content of messages to serve up context-related ads. • Cookies -- Google uses cookies, which are commonly used to link individual users with activities. • Desktop Search -- Google's Desktop Search lets users easily search files stored on their computer. • Web Accelerator -- The application speeds Web surfing by storing cached copies of Web pages you've visited; those page requests can include personal information. ...complete article at: http://news.com.com/Google+balances+privacy,+reach/ 2100-1032_3-5787483.html [View Less]

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INTERST: Ya gotta love convergence.... Google Street Maps, meet Google Satellite maps
by billing 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

> last Friday, Google introduced Google Maps Hybrid which is > "Google Maps Transparancies" on steroids. Just point your web browser > to > > http://maps.google.com/ > > search for something, and then in the upper right corner of the map > click on the "Hybrid" button. Google Maps will show you a satellite > image with street names and points of interests laid on top of that > image. For example, if you go to > > http://tinyurl.com/8tqs7 > > you'… [View More]

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INTEREST: Microsoft drops LongHorn (name) for new VISTA...
by billing 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

I guess so the hype'ing can begin again, Microsoft has changed the code name for it's next version Operating System; it was "LongHorn", it is now "Vista". Microsoft is saying to expect Windows Vista by the holiday season of 2005.... ...from: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5672671.html?tag=nl.e539 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx Getting a handle on Windows Vista By Ina Fried, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: July 22, 2005, 7:30 AM PT Longhorn--now Windows … [View More]

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Well looks like heck has frozen solid ... again
by Doug Hamilton 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

Hey Everyone: First the switch to Intel processors, what could be next. Well, how about a two button mouse from Apple. Here it is: http://www.apple.com/ca/mightymouse/ Regards, Doug

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INTEREST: Canada’s Supreme Court Thursday rejected attempts to levy a special tax on iPods
by billing 01 Aug '05

01 Aug '05

...from: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=12212&Page=1&pagePos=3 http://playlistmag.com/news/2005/07/29/ipodtax/index.php Canadian Supreme Court rejects iPod tax By Macworld.co.uk Staff, Macworld.co.uk Canada’s Supreme Court Thursday rejected attempts to levy a special tax on iPods and other digital music devices. The court refused any further arguments on the matter. There will be no such levy applied in Canada. A local royalty collection body, the Canadian … [View More]

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INTEREST: Microsoft's VISTA OS Beta released on time...
by billing 28 Jul '05

28 Jul '05

...from: http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/update/ 2002/11nov/1102afitrt_illo.htm - in a 2002 article entitled "The Windows Development Timeline (Illustration)", we see the release of VISTA (nee LongHorn) happening around the beginning of 2003. ...from: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/24857/24857.html - also in 2002, "If you were expecting the next major Windows release (code-named Longhorn) sometime next year, you're going to be sorely disappointed. … [View More]Several Microsoft representatives revealed yesterday that Longhorn won't ship until the second half of 2004--at the earliest. " ...from: http://www.osisoft.com/articles/5_822.aspx - a 2004 article entitled "Microsoft Cuts Key Longhorn [NOTE: soon to be VISTA] Feature", we see the following quote from Will Poole, the Microsoft senior vice president in charge of the company's PC Windows business, "The industry would like us to deliver Windows innovation on a regular basis. From our perspective, 2006 is a good time to do that. Longhorn should be on the market in the second half of 2006." ...from: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9590_22-5807061.html Published on ZDNet News: July 27, 2005, 11:16 AM PT Windows chief talks up Vista By Ina Fried, CNET News.com Last week Microsoft said that the operating system known for years as Longhorn would be called Windows Vista and that a beta version would be available by Aug. 3. Then on Wednesday morning--a week ahead of schedule--the software giant said that the beta is ready to go. In the four-year history of Longhorn--Vista's previous code name-- it's arguably the first time Microsoft can claim to be ahead of schedule. Since first discussing Longhorn in 2001, Microsoft has changed the features of the release and pushed out its launch date several times. But there is little room for error now, as Microsoft is trying to have a final version ready by next year's holiday buying season. Microsoft's Jim Allchin, the group vice president managing all Windows development work, spoke to CNET News.com this week about the beta release of Vista, its features and limitations, and hurdles remaining before the software's eventual launch. Q: Microsoft today released the first public test version of Vista. What's the audience for this test release? Allchin: This beta isn't really for even tech enthusiasts. This beta is to test out some of the capabilities that we've got, if you will, in the plumbing. We've got the beginnings for the virtual folders, but really this is plumbing. [...] [View Less]

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Data thief lives on...
by Doug Hamilton 28 Jul '05

28 Jul '05

Hi All: Some of you may remember an old Mac OS 7/8 utility called Data Thief. It was a handy little utility that enabled you to approximate the original data used to generate a chart. You would scan in the chart and then click once on each corner of the graph to define the area of the chart, then input the range of both axis's and lastly you would then click on each point in the chart (obvious not useful for Pie- chart ... but then it would be need for this chart type). Well this … [View More]

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SPSS for OS 10.4 Patch Not Available Yet
by Will Christie 27 Jul '05

27 Jul '05

I've checked SPSS' support site and at present they're still saying that SPSS for OS X is NOT compatible with version 10.4. I'll try contacting one of SPSS' reps to see if they can give me a better idea on when their promised patch will be available. -- Will_Christie(a)UManitoba.CA "You know what you are?" Instructional Software Coordinator "Ruggedly handsome?" Academic Computing & Networking "No! A control freak!" University of Manitoba … [View More]

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INTEREST: SKYPE- VOIP for free, VVOIP coming
by billing 21 Jul '05

21 Jul '05

BACKGROUND: SKYPE is a free VOIP program that runs on Macintosh, Windows, Pocket PC, and LINUX. From the Skype web site: http://www.skype.com SkypeOut Gift Days At Skype, we don’t believe you should have to pay for [VOIP] calls. That’s why Skype-to-Skype calls will always be free. But even we have to charge a little bit for SkypeOut calls (our service for calling landlines and mobile phones). That’s where SkypeOut Gift Days come in. On SkypeOut Gift Days you’ll be able to redeem 10 … [View More]

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SECURITY: survey of 2, 000 Inet users. Survey says: 81% don't open attachments, 25% won't download
by billing 21 Jul '05

21 Jul '05

STATISTICS, STUDIES & SURVEYS --Study Shows Users are Changing Internet Habits to Avoid Spyware (8 July 2005) A Pew Internet Project survey of 2,000 Internet users (http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Spyware_Report_July_05.pdf) found that more than 90% have altered their on line habits in an effort to reduce their exposure to spyware. More than 80% of those surveyed do not open attachments from unknown senders. http://www.cio-today.com/news/Internet-Users-Change-Habits-for- Spyware/… [View More]

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