Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Facebook conducted secret psychology experiment on users' emotions Facebook has conducted a secret massive psychology experiment on its users to find out how they respond to positive and negative messages - without telling participants By  Harriet Alexander 12:00PM BST 28 Jun 2014 Over 600,000 Facebook users have taken part in a psychological experiment organised by the social media company, without their knowledge. Facebook altered the tone of the users' news feed to highlight either positive or negative posts from their friends, which were seen on their news feed. They then monitored the users' response, to see whether their friends' attitude had an impact on their own. "The results show emotional contagion," wrote a team of Facebook scientists, in a paper published by the PNAS journal - Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists of the United States. "When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer ...

Jun 26, 7:18 AM EDT GOOGLE BEGINS EDITING EUROPEAN SEARCH RESULTS BY TOBY STERLING ASSOCIATED PRESS AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Google has begun deleting some search results at the request of its users, following a court ruling that European Union citizens have a right to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names. Several weeks after the May ruling by the European Court of Justice on the so-called "right to be forgotten," the company set up an online interface for users to register their complaints. The company said Thursday it has begun taking down results this week. But Google's European spokesman Al Verney said there is a significant backlog to work through. At last report, more than 50,000 people from multiple nationalities had filed requests to have information removed. "Each request has to be assessed individually," Verney said. The company is not releasing information on what percenta...

10 Future Technologies You Need to Understand Now By Edward J. Correia on June 25, 2014, 4:35 pm EDT Future Technologies Stay on top or be left behind. That's been the rallying cry for coaches in business, sports and life in general. Technologies have a way of catching up on businesses, which often focus more on keeping up with day-to-day activities and less on staying abreast of what the future might have in store. Take General Electric for a recent cautionary tale. Once the world's biggest, the company recently announced a $1 billion investment in its software business to play catch-up with the likes of IBM. Understanding technologies of the future is key to playing a successful role in it. Here are 10 emerging technologies with the potential to dominate the high-tech landscape in the coming decade. Many relate to the Internet of Things, which for that reason is first on the list. The Internet of Things The so-called "Internet of Things" is ...

Google I/O: Looks Like Android Is Getting Ready For The Internet Of Things By Ramin Edmond on June 25, 2014, 5:00 pm EDT Android, the most widely used OS in mobile devices, is going beyond smartphones and tablets. It’s going to be everywhere, according to the vision outlined at Google’s I/O Developer Conference Wednesday in San Francisco. In front of an audience of more than 6,000 app developers, some wearing Google Glass, Google’s senior vice president, Sundar Pichai, shared the search giant’s vision of Android products having a seamless connection with each other. A network was diagramed on the back of the stage during the event for developers depicting smartphones, smartwatches, laptops, tablets, TVs, cars and homes all being connected to one another. Solution providers do see the growth of the Internet of Things opening opportunities for the channel. “If we’re talking about integrating their cars, appliances in their house and TVs, all that interconnectivity op...

The quantum cryptography arms race has begun By Roger A. Grimes Created 2014-06-24 03:00AM I've been fascinated by quantum computing and quantum cryptography for many years. Quantum computing promises to give us much faster computers, while quantum cryptography promises unbreakable crypto. While the theory of quantum computing has been around since the early 1980s, creating widely usable quantum computers and systems has proven devilishly difficult. Scientists make incremental improvements every year and promise usable quantum systems in a decade's time. The barriers are both technical and market-driven. [ Quantum cryptography is the last, best defense [1] | Build and deploy an effective line of defense against corporate intruders with InfoWorld's Encryption Deep Dive [2] PDF expert guide. Download it today! | Stay up to date on the latest security developments with InfoWorld's Security Central newsletter [3]. ] Quantum obstacles On the techni...

6/25/2014 04:10 PM Eric Zeman Google I/O: A To Z Google reveals new features coming to Android, as well as several platforms for TV, fitness, and connected cars. Google delivered a stream of new announcements over the course of two and a half hours during its I/O keynote address today. Nearly all the news centered on Android and its derivatives, which include a number of new platforms. Here's a quick rundown of everything Google announced: Android Auto Like Apple's CarPlay, Android Auto will let Android owners connect their device to their car and interact with key apps and services. The base functions include the phone, mapping, and music apps, as well as Google Search. Android Auto relies heavily on Google Now, Google's voice-controlled personal assistant. Android Auto will show up in cars from more than two dozen makers beginning late this year. Android L Google played coy with the next version of Android during the I/O keynote, referring to ...

U.S. Supreme Court Pulls the Plug on Aereo's Streaming TV Service By Pete Williams First published June 25th 2014, 7:13 am The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt a potentially fatal blow to Aereo, an Internet service that allows customers to watch broadcast TV programs on mobile devices. Launched a year ago in New York and then extended to 10 other U.S. cities, it allows customers to watch over-the-air TV programs on a smartphone, tablet, or computer for as little as $8 a month. Selections can be viewed live or recorded for later viewing. Shortly after the service was launched, the nation's major broadcast networks filed a lawsuit claiming that Aereo illegally retransmited their programs without paying for them. The court ruled against Aereo by a vote of 6-3. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, stressed that it was a limited decision that will not “discourage the emergence or use of different kinds of technologies.” NBC Universal, the p...

China's 'Sovereign Internet' China is increasingly seeking not just domestic but international influence over cyberspace. By Shannon Tiezzi June 24, 2014 A new report in People’s Daily interviewed five Chinese experts on Internet security and political thought, including Fang Binxing (credited with creating China’s “Great Firewall”). The report focuses on the idea of “Internet sovereignty” — the idea that each country has the right to control its domestic internet space. Yet by moving from a discussion of China’s rights to talk of international law, the report moves beyond a defense of China’s internet censorship to outlining China’s vision for global internet governance. The idea of China’s “Internet sovereignty” is a high-profile resurrection of a concept first rolled out in a 2010 white paper called “The Internet in China.” The white paper explained the “Internet sovereignty of China” as meaning that “within Chinese territory the Internet is under the ju...

Privacy Groups Sound the Alarm Over FBI’s Facial-Recognition TechnologyAdvocates are pushing Attorney General Eric Holder to assess the privacy impact of the FBI's controversial database that is expected to become fully operational later this year.   By Dustin Volz June 24, 2014 More than 30 privacy and civil-liberties groups are asking the Justice Department to complete a long-promised audit of the FBI's facial-recognition database. The groups argue the database, which the FBI says it uses to identify targets, could pose privacy risks to every American citizen because it has not been properly vetted, possesses dubious accuracy benchmarks, and may sweep up images of ordinary people not suspected of wrongdoing. In a joint letter sent Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others warn that an FBI facial-recognition program "has undergone a radical transformation" since its...

Unblinking Eyes Track Employees Workplace Surveillance Sees Good and Bad By STEVE LOHR JUNE 21, 2014 A digital Big Brother is coming to work, for better or worse. Advanced technological tools are beginning to make it possible to measure and monitor employees as never before, with the promise of fundamentally changing how we work — along with raising concerns about privacy and the specter of unchecked surveillance in the workplace. Through these new means, companies have found, for example, that workers are more productive if they have more social interaction. So a bank’s call center introduced a shared 15-minute coffee break, and a pharmaceutical company replaced coffee makers used by a few marketing workers with a larger cafe area. The result? Increased sales and less turnover. Yet the prospect of fine-grained, digital monitoring of workers’ behavior worries privacy advocates. Companies, they say, have few legal obligations other than informing employees. “Whether...

Skybox: Google Maps goes real-time – but would you want a spy in the sky staring into your letter box? Satellite would enable Google Earth to offer live images in much greater detail By James Vincent Saturday 21 June 2014   When planning a road trip or buying a new house, it has become routine to scope out the area on Google Maps. But what if the images you found weren’t blurry, dated snapshots – but live and crystal clear? You could search for traffic jams 50 miles ahead while driving down the motorway – or check whether you left your garden lights on while away on holiday. This may sound like CIA-level surveillance, but it may one day be the future of Google Maps –all thanks to the quiet acquisition of a start-up named Skybox Imaging earlier this month. Founded in 2009, Skybox launched its first satellite into orbit in 2013. In December it beamed back to Earth the first commercial HD video shot from space. For an encore, Skybox’s engineers sent their fridge-sized sate...

Scot Finnie: The continuing evolution of Computerworld By Scot Finnie June 19, 2014 06:30 AM ET Computerworld - On June 23, we will publish the last print issue of Computerworld. It was 47 years ago, almost to the day, that Computerworld ' s very first issue rolled off the presses: June 21, 1967. The newspaper ' s first publisher was the late Patrick J. McGovern, who was the founder and chairman of International Data Group (IDG), Computerworld ' s parent company. It ' s sad to lose anything that has endured so long. But we are merely taking part in the natural evolution of the media industry, like so many great publications before us. Trains, after all, were once powered by coal and steam; Computerworld is moving from paper to electrons. Our talented editors will continue to create all the content that has until now appeared in the print publication, just as they always have. That includes coverage of enterprise technologies, careers and management,...

Google, Microsoft to add smartphone ' kill ' switches AFP 14 hours ago Washington (AFP) - Google and Microsoft plan to join Apple in introducing theft-deterring "kill switches" in their smartphone operating systems, as part of an agreement with mayors and police agencies. The announcement came in a report by the "Secure Our Smartphones Initiative" led by the New York state attorney general with officials from San Francisco and London . The coalition of more than 100 elected leaders and law enforcement officials from major cities said the agreement means the three main smartphone platforms would soon add the feature as part of an effort to curb an epidemic of thefts. The report said Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone would add the feature -- enabling a user to deactivate a stolen handset -- after Apple included this last year. Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "The commitment...

Court renews NSA phone program By Julian Hattem - 06/20/14 05:38 PM EDT The federal court overseeing the country’s spy agencies renewed an order Friday allowing the National Security Agency to collect Americans’ phone records. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s renewal of the contested program, authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, comes as lawmakers continue to debate reform legislation. “Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the Section 215 telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program,” the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a joint statement. The NSA’s bulk collection of phone "metadata" such as which numbers people dial and how long they talk was one of the most controversial programs revealed by Edward Snowden last summer. The program requires renewal ...

Microsoft reveals Office 365 roadmap, offers opt-in previews Gives current and prospective customers a better idea of what's coming By Gregg Keizer June 20, 2014 06:34 AM ET Computerworld - Microsoft on Thursday delivered on a promise made earlier this year to provide a roadmap to future Office 365 enhancements and additions, something both current and potential customers have been clamoring for, an analyst said. "Of the key concerns [about Office 365] in large organizations [is] when will, and how will, Office 365 be upgraded?" Wes Miller, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said Thursday. "[They] want to know when the technology will arrive, both to be aware and to prepare users." Yesterday, Microsoft published a rough roadmap to the Office 365 editions aimed at businesses and educational institutions, not those targeting consumers, like Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal, or government. The road map was not time stamped -- in oth...