Virginia Tech Team Develops Laser-equipped Buggy That The Blind Can Drive

A team of Virginia Tech students has created a vehicle that can actually be driven by blind individuals. Equipped with an array of laser range finders, the dirt buggy offers an instant voice command interface and a other related systems that enable drivers to respond to whatever the vehicle "sees." It seems the technology is destined for vehicles for the rest of us but the fact that it has been tested by a non-sighted driver does prove that the technology in fact works.

Canadian Privacy Czar Gives Harsh Assessment Of Facebook

Facebook keeps personal information indefinitely after users deactivate their accounts, contrary to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, according to a report released Thursday by Canada's assistant privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham. 'Although Facebook provides information about privacy issues, it is often confusing or incomplete,' said Denham.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner's report found that Facebook continues to breach the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in four ways and it made recommendations to correct the problem. It found:

• Facebook doesn't have enough safeguards to prevent 950,000 third-party developers around the world from getting unauthorized access to users' personal information, nor does it ensure users have given "meaningful consent" to allow their personal information to be disclosed to the developers. Recommendation: Developers should only get the information needed to run the application. Users would have to specifically consent to the release of that information after being told why it is needed. Information about anyone other than the user would not be disclosed.
• Facebook keeps information from accounts deactivated by users indefinitely. Recommendation: Facebook should have a policy to delete the information after a reasonable length of time, and users should be informed of the policy.
• Facebook keeps the profiles of deceased users for "memorial purposes" but does not make this clear. Recommendation: Information about use for memorial purposes should be in Facebook's privacy policy.
• Facebook allows users to provide personal information about non-users without their consent. For example, it allows them to tag photos and videos of non-users with their names, and provide Facebook with their email addresses to invite them to join the site. It keeps the addresses indefinitely. Recommendation: Facebook should only keep non-users’ email addresses for a reasonable, specific length of time and should make its users aware that they need to seek consent of non-users before posting information about them.

Source: CBC

Twitter Execs Hacked - Secrets Leaked

In what I would call a severe blow to cloud computing, a major breach of Twitter executives e-mail, calendars, and documents was reported yesterday by company officials after the hacker sent documents about Twitters plans and finances, confidential contracts, and job applicants to two tech blogs, TechCrunch and Korben. The breach occurred about a month ago with a simple breach of a password providing access to an administrative employee’s e-mail account from where access was gained to the employee’s Google Apps account, where Twitter shares spreadsheets and documents with business ideas and financial details.

This must have a lot of IT managers saying I told you so!

Source: NYTimes

Tour de France Messages Delivered By Robot

Chalkbot, a robot developed for Nike is helping to send encouraging messages to riders participating in the Tour de France. You can have your message, if it is chosen, written on the roadways of the course in chalk via Twitter or text messages. A truck pulls the robot with it's 48 spray nozzles along the course at low speed, and a person with a laptop sends it commands to tell it which messages to spray onto the road. The project is tied to Lance Armstrong's Livestrong campaign and as the result many of the messages sent thus far are encouraging words for cancer patients or from survivors.

To send a message to the Chalkbot, post a message to @chalkbot on Twitter, followed by the tag #LIVESTRONG, or text LIVESTRONG, followed by a message, to 36453.

Source: CNN

Moon Landing Retraced In Real Time On Anniversary

WeChooseTheMoon.org will go live at 8:02 a.m. ET Thursday, a full 90 minutes before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The site will track the capsule's entire flight from Earth to the Moon, the moon landing and Neil Armstrong's walk — in real time, only 40 years later. “Putting a man on the moon really did unite the globe,” said Thomas Putnam, director of the JFK Library. “We hope to use the Internet to do the same thing.”

The site will include animated recreations and archival footage of the 4 day mission including radio transmissions between the crew. I wonder how many people will be calling in sick on Thursday?

Following Google On Twitter

The folks at Google like to tell us about their every move just like the rest of us Twitter fiends, in fact the Google crew has a number of active Twitter accounts which they've posted links to in the Official Google Blog. If you are a fanboy (or fangirl) of Google and have a particular product that you'd like to keep tabs on check out the list, odds are it's probably covered. According to the OGB "Like lots of you, we've been drawn into Twitter this year. After all, we're all about frequent updates ourselves, and there's lots happening around here that we want to share with you. Of course, we enjoy watching, and contributing to, the tweetstream (we hope you find our tweets useful, too)."

Here are just a few to get you started:

twitter.com/Google - Google's central account
twitter.com/Blogger - for Blogger fans
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar - user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleImages - news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews - latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleReader - from feed reader team
twitter.com/iGoogle - news & notes from Google's personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents - news of interest to students using Google
twitter.com/YouTube - for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES - en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork - solutions for IT and workplace productivity

Retro - Arcade Style Games Not Dead Yet!

Check out this High Def block breaker called Shatter, for the Playstation. It looks like a lot of classic titles from the good ole days of gaming with a modern HD effect.

Video Games - E3 2009 - Video Game Trailers

North Suspected In South Korea / US Denial Of Service Attacks

The South Korean government is warning that about 20,000 computers infected by a virus as part of an alleged denial of service (DOS) attack are expected to have their data destroyed by the vicious code, starting today. The DOS affected high profile sites in both South Korea and the United States including the South Korean Spy Agency, a bank and a top newspaper as well as the US Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department.

According to the CBC "Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think-tank, said the attack could have been done by either North Korea or China, adding that he "heard North Korea has been working hard to hack into" South Korean networks."

Turning To YouTube For Help When United Breaks Guitars

A Halifax, Nova Scotia musician has taken his fight with United Airlines, regarding a guitar which he says the company broke during transit, to the airwaves by posting his music video "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube. With 350,000 views to date and a 5 star rating, perhaps he'll find satisfaction?

Dave Carroll's web site explains the saga "In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise."



Dear United, is this kind of publicity truly worth the $3,500 dollars that it would have cost you to reimburse Mr. Carroll? I think not. I know I'll remember this catchy tune when I'm booking airfare... and I'm likely to visit a Sons of Maxwell show if I get the opportunity.

Google Announces Google Chrome OS

A post on the Official Google Blog introduces Google's latest shot across the bow of Microsoft. "Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google."

Google Chrome OS is said to be able to run on both x86 and ARM chips, and the company is working with OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year saying "... netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010."

It sounds as though this is a cloud computing initiative to rival the efforts of Microsoft and Windows 7. The Chrome OS is said to have a minimal user interface and is made up of "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." Applications for the OS will be developed as web apps and therefore will run on any standards-based browser.