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Scarlett Johansson left nude photos of herself on her computer. A hacker grabbed them and sent them to gossip websites. A Pennsylvania high school issued laptop computers to students and then remotely activated the laptops' cameras to watch the students when they were away from school. On my computer, a program called Disconnect reveals that my favorite websites spy on me and track what I like to read, what I browse, what I buy. Privacy is almost a thing of the past. As I explain on my show this week, I follow the advice of "experts." I buy anti-virus software...

'Terminator' coming alive as agency explores humanoids 'for Earth applications'While the federal government’s increased use and advocacy of drones over U.S. skies is widely known, its promotion of another technological advancement has received less attention: the accelerated deployment of “humanoid robots” into American society. WND has discovered that NASA is recruiting help from industry and academia to speed up the commercialization of such robotic humanoids “for Earth applications.” Among the applications is warfare, the agency said. NASA said technical hurdles remain before sending human-like machines into combat operations and other “hazardous and remote environments.” Among the obstacles are “object recognition/detection”...

A week after California State Senator Mark Leno (D-CA) proposed a bill requiring a kill switch for smartphones sold in the state, federal lawmakers have put forward a similar bill. On Thursday, US Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced national legislation to require a way to disable smartphones remotely. The goal is to deter theft and protect consumers, but this defense against thieves might come with greater vulnerability to hackers, according to a mobile industry trade group.

For smartphone fans around the world, things really started to get interesting over the past couple of months. First, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone in late February, revealing a smartphone that was quite impressive and touted a number of great new features, but failed to live up to the hype stirred up by dozens of rumors. Then, HTC unveiled its own flagship phone, the HTC One (M8), and launched it the very same day.

Children's perplexed reactions to a Sony Walkman have been caught on camera, with the majority frustrated at operating clunky buttons over a touch screen. Los Angeles-based filmmakers Benny and Rafi Fine asked volunteers aged six to 13 to guess what the bulky device was, with suggestions including a 'walkie-talkie' or 'boombox'. 'What is this?' one nine-year-old girl quizzed as she investigated the Eighties-era cassette player, while another exclaimed 'I'm not going to give up, I'm a survivor,' as she determinedly tried to figure out how it worked.

Entrepreneurs and investors say Silicon Valley's fast-growing financial ties with Russia's tech sector are being slowed down by current political tensions between the White House and the Kremlin. "It's safe to say a lot of investors here are taking a step back to see how the situation will unfold," said Alexandra Johnson, who manages a $100 million venture fund called DFJ VTP Aurora, a Menlo Park, Calif., branch of Russian bank VTB.

A pair of white jeans is a spring must-have, but it's certainly not the most practical piece of clothing you can own. One small misstep— sitting on a dirty chair, spilling just a couple drops of coffee — and your crisp pants have a huge stain that may not only ruin your day, but could ruin those jeans forever. White jeans are gorgeous, but only when they look flawless. Now, one premium denim brand has a solution to the dirty-jeans dilemma: a specially formulated, stain-resistant coating guaranteed to repel potentially damaging liquids like coffee, soda, and yes, even red wine.

https://startpage.com/eng/top-ten-ways-startpage.html

One of the primary narratives associated with comprehensive immigration reform has nothing to do with the millions of low-skill workers that would be granted an opportunity to compete against Americans for jobs. As a letter sent to the president and Congressional leaders signed by more than 100 chief executives of major tech companies and trade associations indicates, there is a shortage of highly-skilled American labor that drives reform as well. Yet as The Atlantic’s Michael S. Teitelbaum reveals, that narrative is a lie.“A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations...

Surpassing California for the first time, Texas is leading the nation in technology-related exports, according to a new report. State companies that make computers, semiconductors and communications equipment, among other products, exported more than $45 billion in products in 2012, according to the TechAmerica Foundation, a tech industry lobbying firm. That was driven by Texas’ 7 percent growth — about $3 billion — in tech exports from 2011. Tech exports supported nearly 1.5 million jobs nationwide and about 331,000 jobs in Texas, according to the report. California, meanwhile, declined 2.8 percent, to $44.8 billion in technology exports. Technology exports accounted...

The inventor of JavaScript and the Firefox developer's chief technology officer now is running the show. Top agenda items: Firefox OS and Mozilla services.Brendan Eich, the programmer who invented JavaScript in a 10-day burst of activity at Netscape in 1995, now is the chief executive of Mozilla, the nonprofit organization that develops the Firefox browser and Firefox OS mobile operating system. Eich worked on the Netscape Navigator browser and -- after Microsoft won the first browser wars of the 1990s -- on Mozilla's effort to make something useful of the Netscape open-source code base. Although Mozilla succeeded in restoring competition...

"I have more botox in me than any ten people,” Dr. Seth Matarasso told me in an exam room this February. He is a reality-show producer’s idea of a cosmetic surgeon—his demeanor brash, his bone structure preposterous. Over the course of our hour-long conversation, he would periodically fire questions at me, apropos of nothing, in the manner of my young daughter. “What gym do you go to?” “What’s your back look like?” “Who did your nose?” In lieu of bidding me goodbye, he called out, “Love me, mean it,” as he walked away. Twenty years ago, when Matarasso first opened...

Americans now have more computer power in their smart phones than did the Pentagon in all its computer banks just 30 years ago. We board a sophisticated jet and assume that the flight is no more dangerous than crossing the street. The downside of this complete reliance on computer gadgetry is a fundamental ignorance of what technology is. Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver the water of knowledge -- not knowledge itself. What does it matter that millions of American students can communicate across thousands of miles instantly with their iPads and iPhones if a poorly educated generation...

THE FUTURE OF GLASS - "AMAZING"! If you wonder why HP, Dell and other leading computer manufacturers believe the end of the computer as we know it is near, here’s why. It's not the iPad that has them concerned about the future. It is developments like the ones Corning is working on that are game-changers:

In a major setback for innovation in the urban transportation market, the Seattle City Council voted Monday to cap the number of cars that ride-on-demand services like Uber and Lyft may have on the road at any one time. The mayor of Seattle, Ed Murray, has said he will sign it. Under a new ordinance, which is the first of its kind in the United States, companies like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar will be limited to having 150 cars each on the road at a time. This means that ride-on-demand services will collectively have no more than 450 cars on...

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine's acting president on Wednesday said Crimea's separatist leaders had three hours to release the detained head of the ex-Soviet state's navy or face "an adequate response". Acting president Oleksandr Turchynov said in a statement that "unless Admiral (Sergiy) Gayduk and all the other hostages -- both military and civilian ones -- are released, the authorities will carry out an adequate response... of a technical and technological nature."

Periods of industry-redefining regulatory change are hardly new. What is unprecedented is the volume and relentless pace of regulation. Organizations have to ensure they can implement the system code changes and update operating processes to comply with the welter of new legislation, regulatory initiatives and rule amendments. And they have less time in which to react to those changes. To further complicate matters, the regulations are coming from multiple sources, with no consideration of whether the objectives are complementary or conflicting, and what the cumulative impact will be. Two primary objectives are driving the extensive regulatory agenda: a desire for...

The decision was announced nonchalantly, in trademark Washington fashion on a Friday afternoon: The U.S. government will cede its last bit of control over the Internet. The government has maintained that influence through contracts with the organization that administers the Internet, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. But a Commerce Department agency announced Friday that it would relinquish control over ICANN, presumably when its contract expires in September 2015. The office said it wants the group to next convene "global stakeholders" to come up with a transition plan -- a transition...

I can't even place the very first moment I heard of it, but I was in my very early teens when the internet started "happening."By the time I was 20 we didn't know what we'd do without it, and that was before social media like Facebook was even created.I say that because I really try to imagine in my mind living in the world without any of it, which is only possible because the first third of my life was that way. In some ways it seems nice to me, like life would be less...noisy.And then I see something like...

Mobile robots and "smart" computers are threatening to replace up to half the U.S. workforce within the next decade or two, according to a Bloomberg report. The report cites an Oxford University study that identified more than 700 occupations at risk of computer automation. Here are the jobs that are most at risk, based on the study.