Plus paper e-skin that lights up, Microsoft's memo illustrated, Google let off in Korea (but not in the US), and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
*Korea grapples with massive personal data theft, regulatory mess >> The Korea Herald*
IT experts have suggested an array of factors behind those large-scale security lapses, with some blaming government-led overregulation such as the "public key certificate" system that is supposed to prevent such security breaches.
Many Korean websites depend on Internet Explorer's cumbersome "ActiveX" platform, posing another risk factor. KAIST professor Lee Min-hwa said, "ActiveX is a program that momentarily disarms the computer to download codes from an outside source, which can be abused by hackers seeking to plant malicious codes."
Lee, one of the key patrons of President Park Geun-hye's signature science and technology-based "creative economy," said that Korea's dependence on the ActiveX-based public key certificate system created a "black hole" in cyber security.
Between 18.6m and 105m user details have been leaked since January 2008 (it's impossible to know if there's overlap between the largest, Auction in January 2008, and the others). South Korea has a population of 50m - so probably plenty of overlap.
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*How do smartphones reveal shoppers' movements? >> The Economist*
For several months Nordstrom tested a system that tracked the movements of people carrying Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones and other devices as they wandered through 17 of its stores or merely walked by. The firm posted a public notice of the monitoring, prompting a report by a television station in Dallas in May, at which point the retailer pulled the plug. Then the New York Times picked up the story, igniting a privacy debate about passive monitoring via Wi-Fi and other technologies. The system used by Nordstrom and several other firms, provided by Euclid Analytics, can precisely track the movements of individual phones, even though they never actually connect to a Wi-Fi network. How does it work?
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*Helping robots become more touchy-feely, literally: Paper-thin e-skin responds to touch by lighting up >> Science Daily*
A research team led by Ali Javey, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has created the first user-interactive sensor network on flexible plastic. The new electronic skin, or e-skin, responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits.
"We are not just making devices; we are building systems," said Javey, who also has an appointment as a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "With the interactive e-skin, we have demonstrated an elegant system on plastic that can be wrapped around different objects to enable a new form of human-machine interfacing."
…In addition to giving robots a finer sense of touch, the engineers believe the new e-skin technology could also be used to create things like wallpapers that double as touchscreen displays and dashboard laminates that allow drivers to adjust electronic controls with the wave of a hand.
"I could also imagine an e-skin bandage applied to an arm as a health monitor that continuously checks blood pressure and pulse rates," said study co-lead author Chuan Wang, who conducted the work as a post-doctoral researcher in Javey's lab at UC Berkeley.
Should be in mass manufacturing by, oh, 2020 or so. (Thanks @HotSoup for the link.)
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*A lean and concise Microsoft! >> Joy Of Tech*
Need to understand that Ballmer memo? Here you go.
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*Google settles vanity-searcher's class-action lawsuit for $8.5m >> Mediapost*
Google has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it leaked the names of search users via referrer headers, according to court papers filed on Friday in San Jose, Calif.
The settlement agreement calls for Google to donate $8.5m to four schools and nonprofit organizations -- Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law's Center for Internet and Society, the MacArthur Foundation, and AARP.
Google also agreed to revise its privacy policy. The settlement agreement does not appear to require Google to change any of its practices.
Exactly the same lawsuit that Chris Soghoian brought in 2010 on behalf of the ACLU (PDF) to the US FTC.
--------------------
*Remember that girl who got burned by her Galaxy S III? Third party battery to blame >> Android Beat*
Well, the phone was sent in for inspection, the tests have been concluded, and it turns out the girl is at fault. She purchased a third-party battery for her phone, according to the Swiss publication Le Matin. In other words, Samsung is off the hook.
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*Korea's FTC acquits Google of antitrust charges >> Search Engine Watch (#SEW)*
The antitrust charges were originally brought about in 2011 by South Korea's two largest search operators, NHN Corp. and Daum Communications Corp.
The dismissal is no doubt a relief for Google, which said at the time of the complaint that "Android is an open platform, and carriers and partners are free to decide which applications and services to include."
The FTC agreed in this case, stating mobile users can easily find alternatives to the Google search engine through downloadable applications provided by NHN and Daum.
"Before and after Google's push to force the preload of the Android operating system, its domestic market share remains almost unchanged at around 10%, while Naver (the portal of NHN) still maintains more than 70%," an FTC official said. "This does not satisfy the competition-restricting condition, which is one of the major issues of this case."
Wonder if that's domestic market share measured across both desktop and mobile? It's unclear from the story. Or does Samsung preload other search engines on its Android devices in Korea?
--------------------
*Job Description - SR. DIRECTOR INDUSTRIAL DESIGN - WEARABLES >> Motorola Jobs*
Look who's hiring:
Specifically, the Industrial Design Team collaborates closely with our internal work partners to create compelling, usable and innovative products that define our brand with over a million consumers worldwide. The wearables design team will lead the establishment of our brand in the massive competitive and growing space of wearable connected products.
Reporting to the Senior Vice President of CXD, the Senior Director of Industrial Design will define and execute design strategies for all Motorola wearable devices.
Desired skills include "15+ years of work experience in design of tech, consumer product and/or apparel".
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*The Incredible Shrinking Motorola >> Into Mobile*
Useful graphic by Kelly Hodgkins showing how Motorola's headcount has changed since Google acquired it.
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*Foreign game console ban to be lifted >> China Daily*
Sources from China's Ministry of Culture confirmed on Thursday that the country is about to allow foreign game console companies to sell products in China if they register in Shanghai's new free trade zone, but denied lifting a decade-long ban on the video game hardware market in the country anytime soon.
Two officials from the ministry confirmed the accuracy of a South China Morning Post report. The story, which was published on Wednesday, quoted sources that if foreign companies agreed to register in the new free trade zone in Shanghai, they would be allowed to promote and sell their products on the Chinese mainland.
But before they start selling, foreign gaming companies have to seek approval for specific products from related regulators because the Chinese government wants to make sure the content is not too violent or politically sensitive, the SCMP report said.
…Because of fears of the potential harm to the physical and mental development of the young, seven Chinese ministries collectively banned the manufacture, sale and import of game consoles in China in 2000.
--------------------
You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard
To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
*Korea grapples with massive personal data theft, regulatory mess >> The Korea Herald*
IT experts have suggested an array of factors behind those large-scale security lapses, with some blaming government-led overregulation such as the "public key certificate" system that is supposed to prevent such security breaches.
Many Korean websites depend on Internet Explorer's cumbersome "ActiveX" platform, posing another risk factor. KAIST professor Lee Min-hwa said, "ActiveX is a program that momentarily disarms the computer to download codes from an outside source, which can be abused by hackers seeking to plant malicious codes."
Lee, one of the key patrons of President Park Geun-hye's signature science and technology-based "creative economy," said that Korea's dependence on the ActiveX-based public key certificate system created a "black hole" in cyber security.
Between 18.6m and 105m user details have been leaked since January 2008 (it's impossible to know if there's overlap between the largest, Auction in January 2008, and the others). South Korea has a population of 50m - so probably plenty of overlap.
--------------------
*How do smartphones reveal shoppers' movements? >> The Economist*
For several months Nordstrom tested a system that tracked the movements of people carrying Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones and other devices as they wandered through 17 of its stores or merely walked by. The firm posted a public notice of the monitoring, prompting a report by a television station in Dallas in May, at which point the retailer pulled the plug. Then the New York Times picked up the story, igniting a privacy debate about passive monitoring via Wi-Fi and other technologies. The system used by Nordstrom and several other firms, provided by Euclid Analytics, can precisely track the movements of individual phones, even though they never actually connect to a Wi-Fi network. How does it work?
--------------------
*Helping robots become more touchy-feely, literally: Paper-thin e-skin responds to touch by lighting up >> Science Daily*
A research team led by Ali Javey, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has created the first user-interactive sensor network on flexible plastic. The new electronic skin, or e-skin, responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits.
"We are not just making devices; we are building systems," said Javey, who also has an appointment as a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "With the interactive e-skin, we have demonstrated an elegant system on plastic that can be wrapped around different objects to enable a new form of human-machine interfacing."
…In addition to giving robots a finer sense of touch, the engineers believe the new e-skin technology could also be used to create things like wallpapers that double as touchscreen displays and dashboard laminates that allow drivers to adjust electronic controls with the wave of a hand.
"I could also imagine an e-skin bandage applied to an arm as a health monitor that continuously checks blood pressure and pulse rates," said study co-lead author Chuan Wang, who conducted the work as a post-doctoral researcher in Javey's lab at UC Berkeley.
Should be in mass manufacturing by, oh, 2020 or so. (Thanks @HotSoup for the link.)
--------------------
*A lean and concise Microsoft! >> Joy Of Tech*
Need to understand that Ballmer memo? Here you go.
--------------------
*Google settles vanity-searcher's class-action lawsuit for $8.5m >> Mediapost*
Google has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it leaked the names of search users via referrer headers, according to court papers filed on Friday in San Jose, Calif.
The settlement agreement calls for Google to donate $8.5m to four schools and nonprofit organizations -- Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law's Center for Internet and Society, the MacArthur Foundation, and AARP.
Google also agreed to revise its privacy policy. The settlement agreement does not appear to require Google to change any of its practices.
Exactly the same lawsuit that Chris Soghoian brought in 2010 on behalf of the ACLU (PDF) to the US FTC.
--------------------
*Remember that girl who got burned by her Galaxy S III? Third party battery to blame >> Android Beat*
Well, the phone was sent in for inspection, the tests have been concluded, and it turns out the girl is at fault. She purchased a third-party battery for her phone, according to the Swiss publication Le Matin. In other words, Samsung is off the hook.
--------------------
*Korea's FTC acquits Google of antitrust charges >> Search Engine Watch (#SEW)*
The antitrust charges were originally brought about in 2011 by South Korea's two largest search operators, NHN Corp. and Daum Communications Corp.
The dismissal is no doubt a relief for Google, which said at the time of the complaint that "Android is an open platform, and carriers and partners are free to decide which applications and services to include."
The FTC agreed in this case, stating mobile users can easily find alternatives to the Google search engine through downloadable applications provided by NHN and Daum.
"Before and after Google's push to force the preload of the Android operating system, its domestic market share remains almost unchanged at around 10%, while Naver (the portal of NHN) still maintains more than 70%," an FTC official said. "This does not satisfy the competition-restricting condition, which is one of the major issues of this case."
Wonder if that's domestic market share measured across both desktop and mobile? It's unclear from the story. Or does Samsung preload other search engines on its Android devices in Korea?
--------------------
*Job Description - SR. DIRECTOR INDUSTRIAL DESIGN - WEARABLES >> Motorola Jobs*
Look who's hiring:
Specifically, the Industrial Design Team collaborates closely with our internal work partners to create compelling, usable and innovative products that define our brand with over a million consumers worldwide. The wearables design team will lead the establishment of our brand in the massive competitive and growing space of wearable connected products.
Reporting to the Senior Vice President of CXD, the Senior Director of Industrial Design will define and execute design strategies for all Motorola wearable devices.
Desired skills include "15+ years of work experience in design of tech, consumer product and/or apparel".
--------------------
*The Incredible Shrinking Motorola >> Into Mobile*
Useful graphic by Kelly Hodgkins showing how Motorola's headcount has changed since Google acquired it.
--------------------
*Foreign game console ban to be lifted >> China Daily*
Sources from China's Ministry of Culture confirmed on Thursday that the country is about to allow foreign game console companies to sell products in China if they register in Shanghai's new free trade zone, but denied lifting a decade-long ban on the video game hardware market in the country anytime soon.
Two officials from the ministry confirmed the accuracy of a South China Morning Post report. The story, which was published on Wednesday, quoted sources that if foreign companies agreed to register in the new free trade zone in Shanghai, they would be allowed to promote and sell their products on the Chinese mainland.
But before they start selling, foreign gaming companies have to seek approval for specific products from related regulators because the Chinese government wants to make sure the content is not too violent or politically sensitive, the SCMP report said.
…Because of fears of the potential harm to the physical and mental development of the young, seven Chinese ministries collectively banned the manufacture, sale and import of game consoles in China in 2000.
--------------------
You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard
To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.