Originally published on Mon January 21, 2013 5:25 pm
The Presidential Inaugural Committee released a smart phone app this week to help people follow inaugural events in real time. It has maps of the parade route, volunteer opportunities and real-time updates. It also has an invisible feature — the app could be mining data for Democrats.
Originally published on Mon January 21, 2013 5:24 pm
Laura Sydell gives a look ahead to the week in tech news. She covers the launch of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's latest website and the rollout of what Facebook is calling its "graph search."
Originally published on Mon January 21, 2013 5:26 pm
The Presidential Inaugural Committee might have its first-ever smart phone app, but for the hundreds of thousands of onlookers flooding into the National Mall on Monday, there were plenty of other reasons to be clutching a mobile device. Many just wanted to say, "We came."
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Flora Lichtman, filling in for Ira Flatow today. Solar wind, geothermal - now there's a new renewable energy source to add to that list. It's free, completely reliable and totally unlimited: the force of gravity. Two British designers have invented a lamp that runs on gravity alone. Their GravityLight - yes, that's its name, aptly named - uses, you guessed it, the pull of gravity on a weight to generate up to 30 minutes of light.
Car companies are picking up automobile concepts such as this Lexus SL 600 Integrated Safety driverless research vehicle, shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January in Las Vegas.
Originally published on Fri January 18, 2013 10:10 am
"Make Me Asian," a smartphone app that drew the ire of Asian-American activists for what they say are stereotypical depictions, is no longer available on the Google Play Store.
Plugged in, but not at work: Web security personnel were called in to find out how a company's network was being accessed from China. They found that an employee had outsourced his own job.
Originally published on Thu January 17, 2013 6:41 am
What began as a company's suspicion that its infrastructure was being hacked turned into a case of a worker outsourcing his own job to a Chinese consulting firm, according to reports that cite an investigation by Verizon's security team. The man was earning a six-figure salary.
Facebook has launched a new feature that will let its users search for more detailed information across the social network. Soon, you'll be able to find the restaurants and TV shows your friends like or see every picture they've taken at the Grand Canyon.
As much as users may like the new features, the company hasn't exactly been a Wall Street darling. So, the new feature may be less about you and me and more about Facebook's bottom line.
"It's about time," Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester Research, said about the new feature. "It should have been there all along."
