Technology News

Twitter Forefather Leaves, Aims to Disrupt Banking Next

Source: Michael Ricci
May 17, 2010

Imagine a web-based bank that let you deposit checks by simply photographing them with its mobile app. It lets you make cash withdrawals from ATMs all over the country at no cost, sometimes even re-embursing you for fees you get charged by other companies.

As a social web application, the bank offers you all kinds of recommendations and value-added services based on analyzing your private data.

Does that sound crazy? Perhaps no more crazy than an empty box labeled “What ...

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John and Julie and Julia

Source: Riffs on Jazz by John Anderson
May 17, 2010

Julia Child made me a blogger.

At the beginning of this year, I watched Julie & Julia. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it concerns a young woman in Queens, Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams), who is feeling that her life has stagnated. To break out of her doldrums, she decides to cook her way through Julia Child's tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in the course of a year--524 recipes in 365 days - and ...

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Google Data Admission Angers European Officials

Source: Michael Ricci
May 16, 2010

European privacy regulators and advocates reacted angrily Saturday to the disclosure by Google, the world's largest search engine, that it had systematically collected private data since 2006 while compiling its Street View photo archive.

After being pressed by European officials about the kind of data the company compiled in creating the archive -- and what it did with that information -- Google acknowledged on Friday that it had collected snippets of private data around the world. In a blog post ...

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Search Warrant and Affidavit Detail Apple's Role in Missing-iPhone Investigation

Source: Michael Ricci
May 15, 2010

The search warrant and affidavit unsealed at the request of The Times and other media outlets sheds more light on a case that has generated a great deal of public interest in Apple Inc.'s role in the investigation of its missing prototype iPhone.

According to the search warrant, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contacted technology blog Gizmodo.com editor Brian Lam to ask him to return the prototype that the electronics giant said was stolen after a company engineer lost it in ...

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Apple Factory Worker Kills Himself After Disappearance of iPhone Prototype Last July

Source: All About Jazz
May 15, 2010

An employee at a factory that makes iPhones in China killed himself after his house was raided and he was allegedly beaten up following the disappearance of an iPhone prototype.

Responding to the allegations (Wednesday 22 July 2009), Apple gave a subtle warning to its suppliers, insisting they are required to treat workers with dignity and respect. The dead worker, Sun Danyong, 25, worked in product communications at Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese firm that makes many Apple products at ...

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Wikipedia Goes 3-D

Source: Michael Ricci
May 15, 2010

Only Wikipedia, the massively collaborative online encyclopedia, would want its users to know what's on the other side of its logo...in three dimensions. For those of you who still doubt the ability of Wikipedia to get the facts straight, the latest update should be a case in point for exactly how things work when everyone gets a say about what's wrong, what's right and what's somewhere in-between. Wikipedia announced a number of new changes last March, including a major redesign ...

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Roommates Tip Led Cops to iPhone Finder

Source: All About Jazz
May 15, 2010

Police closed in on the man who found and sold a prototype 4G iPhone after his roommate called an Apple security official and turned him in, according to a newly unsealed document in the ongoing police investigation.

The tip sent police racing to the home of 21-year-old Brian Hogan, and began a strange scavenger hunt for evidence that a friend of Hogans had scattered around this Silicon Valley community. Police recovered a desktop computer stashed inside a church, a thumb ...

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Google Grabs Personal Info off Wi-Fi Networks

Source: All About Jazz
May 15, 2010

Google said its fleet of cars responsible for photographing streets around the world have for several years accidentally collected personal information that consumers send over wireless networks. The company said on Friday that it is currently in touch with regulators in several countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Brazil and Hong Kong, about how to dispose of the data, which Google said it never used. “It's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from ...

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