There’s been years of media reports ringing the alarm bell about binge drinking; where’s the horror at the new epidemic of binge working? When friends brag they are pulling all-nighters at work, please don’t laugh. Please tell them to get help. If you haven’t noticed this disturbing trend, I’ll lay [Keep reading]
“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval.” So said U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on Monday, describing the National Security [Keep reading]
Online shopping growth continues to defy gravity, with an estimated $1.7 billion spent on Cyber Monday last week — an 18% jump from 2012. And why not? Digital shoppers beat the crowds, never fight for parking, usually get the best prices, and often escape sales tax. But if you’re going to be [Keep reading]
Let’s make one thing completely clear: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 live as much of a “screen-free” life as possible. Not only does the academy discourage giving kids gadgets to stare at, it also discourages screens as background noise, a bit akin to second-hand smoke. [Keep reading]
This is the latest, “It’s spooky, but is it wrong?” privacy story. Stores listen for customers’ cell phones as they probe for WiFi hot-spots, then use that information to observe foot traffic in the store. Perhaps the data is anonymized, but consumers, I’m sure, won’t be comfortable with it. Earlier [Keep reading]
Of course they did. U.S. spies spent years infiltrating virtual gaming worlds like Worlds of Warcraft, “hunting” for terrorists and vacuuming up oodles of data, according to a report Monday by ProPublica, the N.Y. Times, and The Guardian. In fact, there were so make virtual reality spies bumbling around places [Keep reading]
Some UPS shipping customers are experiencing delivery delays, which have come during what might nearly be the worst time of the year — holiday preparations. There’s a cascade of complaints on the UPS Facebook page from consumers complaining about missing packages. Complaints are spilling out onto other web locations, too. [Keep reading]
Here’s the first of several stories I expect to see like this. A security researcher claims he can hack his way into commercial drones and make them take instructions from him. Think of it as a flying botnet. Now there’s an appetizing idea! (H/T to Threatpost and Dennis Fisher for [Keep reading]
Nearly one-quarter of young Americans bank primarily by smartphone, claims a new survey released by Ally Bank. In a telephone poll taken in September, 23 percent of Americans aged 18-34 said they were “primarily using mobile devices” to do their banking, up from 15 percent last year. Add in other [Keep reading]
The U.K. is aflutter with talk that smartphones might be the reason Britons are having 20 percent less sex than they did a decade ago. The research isn’t as tidy as all that — the 20 percent part is sound, the smartphone part is largely a guess. But then, I’ll [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan