In The News

United Nations: Climate Impacts “Overwhelming”

Matt McGrath March 31, 2014
The impacts of climate change are severe and already underway – with higher risks of flooding, wildfires, food and water shortages, and property damage, suggests a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations. The report is based on more than 12,000 peer-reviewed studies. Researchers anticipate high costs for adaptation and disaster relief. “Humans may be able...

NSA Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat

David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth March 24, 2014
US officials long blocked the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei from business deals for its supposed link with the Chinese military. “But even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors – directly into Huawei’s networks,” report David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth...

Turkey's President Gul Challenges PM's Move to Ban Twitter

Rory Cellan-Jones March 21, 2014
Those who try to shoot messengers often appear guilty, frustrated and infuriated about getting caught. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to wipe out a social-media site and “took action against Twitter after some users had posted documents reportedly showing evidence of corruption relating to his office – a claim he denies,” reports Rory Cellan-Jones for BBC News. “His spokesman said Mr...

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

Kevin Kelly March 20, 2014
Monitoring and surveillance by corporations and government will be the norm by 2060 if not now. “The internet is a tracking machine,” writes Kevin Kelly. “Everything that can be measured is already tracked, and all that was previously [unmeasurable] is becoming quantified, digitized, and trackable.” Kelly argues that human propensity to share trumps privacy. Individuals can improve by learning...

“Netflix for Piracy” Popcorn Time Saved by Fans

Dave Lee March 19, 2014
Consumers can’t resist the lure of free entertainment. The film industry may want to shut down software development that provides easy sharing, but Popcorn Time may have the last laugh. The service that freely streams digital content as BitTorrent files, including movies, has been released as open-source software posted free online and already translated into 32 languages. “This means that anyone...

Jobs Across the Web

Nayan Chanda March 13, 2014
The tech industry is now changing the nature of outsourcing. Employees no longer must leave country or home, and companies can pay for the amount of labor they need. “Online portals linking a job seeker with a global employer is the latest iteration of an evolution of e-commerce involving products,” explains Nayan Chanda , YaleGlobal editor, in his column for Businessworld. “The next phase of the...

You Can Hunt for Flight 370

Lizzie Crocker March 12, 2014
A Malaysian Airlines jet with 239 persons on board vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. “Using high-resolution satellite images and the eyes of any human that’s willing to help, earth imagery company DigitalGlobe launched a campaign to scan the Gulf of Thailand for survivors,” reports Lizzie Crocker for the Daily Beast, about the company that provides imagery for Google Earth and Apple...