There has been much attention paid to Google's newest feature Google Q&A. Google Q&A (Google's response to features already provided by Yahoo & Ask Jeeves) delivers factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page, to save…
Author: Michael Zimmer
What Search Sites Know About You
[via The Unofficial Google Weblog] A Wired piece, "What Search Sites Know About You," discusses privacy issues surrounding search engines that also accept site registration and collect personal information: As operators of the most popular search engines roll out more…
Google Current
[via John Battelle]In an interesting blend of Google's ubiquity as a place people look for information and cable news as a place to see what the nation finds interesting at that particular moment, Al Gore's new Current TV cable channel…
RFID Tags for Cars
[via Freedom to Tinker]Educated Guesswork reports that Texas is considering requiring RFID tags on cars for law enforcement purposes (language of proposed legislation here).This is the continuation of a troubling trend of ways in which the integration of new technologies…
HUMANIST: HUMAN centered design for Information Society Technologies
An ACM TechNews article pointed me to AIDE (Adaptive Integrated Driver-vehicle InterfacE), a European initiative to integrate information and communication technology into cars to improve safety. America's version of this program is the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) initiative, which is…
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PORTIA @ NYU website launched
The PORTIA @ NYU website has launched:PORTIA at NYU focuses on social, political, and ethical aspects of the collection, storage, analysis, and distribution of sensitive information about people.Project Team: Dr. Helen Nissenbaum (director), Timothy Weber, Michael Zimmer, Rachel Aridor, and…
Google adds a (dangerous) Firefox tune-up
Google has announced advanced searching with Firefox:Now Google's faster than ever on Firefox and Mozilla browsers. When you do a search on these browsers, we instruct them to download your top search result in advance, so if you click on…
ChoicePoint to Allow People Access, but Questions Remain
The AP is reporting that ChoicePoint will allow consumers to access and review their personal information on file with the data aggregation company. "You will receive the reports that we have on you," Don McGuffey, the firm's vice president for…
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Problems of Personalized Search
Google Blogoscoped has an interesting post on the potential problems of personalized search, including (a) as users change their behavior, relying on prior behavior becomes less accurate, (b) users don't like to login, (c) users don't always want localized searches,…
Fordham Conference on “Law and the Information Society”
Fordham University School of Law is hosting a conference on "Law and the Information Society" on April 7-8.Date(s): 04.07.05 | Thu -- 04.08.05 | FriTime: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.Location: James B.M. McNally Amphitheatre,…
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