Friday, February 8, 2013

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Startup offers 3D printed objects with embedded NFC

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 03:54 AM PST

A US startup is offering a rather interesting new service. Miami-based Flomio has come up with 3D printed objects with embedded NFC tags, starting at $8 per item.

The outfit allows clients to use standard '.stl' 3D files, with an NFC tag of their choice embedded inside. The only requirement is rather obvious – the printables cannot be smaller than the NFC tag itself. Models up to 15x15x15cm can be produced at a cost of $0.50 per cubic centimeter, along with a $4 handling fee and the cost of an NFC tag.

"We have developed a process by which we embed the tag within the object," Richard Grundy, co-founder and CEO of Flomio, told NFC World. "This is different from simply attaching a sticker tag to the bottom that anyone can remove."

Grundy said the company already made NFC 3D printables for Plow Games, a gaming company that creates marketing campaigns for brands like Audi, Klondike and Hammermill.

Plow Games is already working with several clients and showing off the new technology. Plow Games executive Greg Phillips said the company is very excited about using NFC technology, as it could find a wide range of applications.

"This will allow us to create a secure and truly integrated experience for rewards programs, product branding, and interactive experiences," he said.

NFC has been slow to take off, as the technology was not embraced by a number of big players in the mobile industry. Flomio saw this as an opportunity and it recently raised $96,000 via Kickstarter to produce an NFC add-on for the iPhone. 

Facebook breaks the Internet

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 01:59 AM PST

Facebook briefly broke parts of the internet yesterday as millions of users were unable to access websites.

Facebook plugins found on thousands of web pages, which allow people to share or recommend articles turned out to be broken.

Those visiting websites including Fairfax news sites, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, CNN and more were instead directed to a Facebook error page with a message saying "An error occurred. Please try again later".

According to the Atlantic Wire, Facebook has only offered a cryptic comment about what happened, even though the problem appears to be fixed.

A Facebook spokesman admitted that for a short period of time there was a bug that redirected people logging in with Facebook from third party sites to Facebook.com. The problem was quickly resolved, and Login with Facebook is now working as usual.

The case is being seen as one of the dangers when people relying on other sites for core functions; many sites even use Facebook Connect whereby instead of creating a new user account users can simply log in with their Facebook details. 

Big content wants spyware powers

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 01:57 AM PST

In its continuing attempt to save its failing business model, it appears that Big Content wants everyone to install spyware on their computer to warn the studies if they are pirates.

The move was revealed in a submission made by a number of corporate organisations in the Canadian anti-spam initiative.

According to Freezenet, the groups are demanding that certain kinds of spyware should be exempt from provisions of the anti-spam law. Those are the sorts of spyware which could be used for the purposes of anti-piracy operations on the personal device level.

While the initiative to stop spam was largely seen as a positive Canadian technology and law story, Big Content's move has cast a shadow over the whole thing.

The submission signed by the Coalition of Business and Technology Associations which includes the Canadian Bankers Association, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, Entertainment Software Association of Canada and the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada appears to open the door to allow spyware to installed on a PC for the purposes of blocking websites that major industry types do not approve.

The detail of the law says that the spyware should be acceptable if it is there to prevent, detect, investigate, or terminate activities that the person reasonably believes present a risk or threatens the security, privacy, or unauthorised or fraudulent use, of a computer system, telecommunications facility, or network, or involves the contravention of any law of Canada, of a province or municipality of Canada or of a foreign state.

With wording like that it would be perfectly legal for Big Content to hack into your computer and install Malware which prevents you visiting pirate bay, tells Big Content that you are downloading software, and sends all your key strokes to their legal division.

What is also questionable is who decides what is legal in Canada. The way this is written, the person doing the interpretation would be Big Content and no court order would be needed.

Freezenet claims that it could also be used by a manufacturer to block access to a site that it does not want its customers to visit.

The situation would have made Sony legally safe when it had its rootkit scandal of 2005 because such an exception would legalise such software.

There is a lot that could stop such a law going through. As it is written it might violate PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) because an IP address has been interpreted as personal information. 

Gloves come off in Bing and Google war

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 01:54 AM PST

The battle between Microsoft's Bing, and Google is hotting up with, Redmond launching a particularly nasty advertising campaign.

According to the Washington Post, Microsoft is accusing Google of using bad ad practices on Gmail.

Microsoft has started what has been dubbed a "Scroogled" campaign, hitting out at Google's use of algorithms to scan Gmail users' messages and serve ads based on the keywords they find there. Microsoft sees this as safe territory and has criticised Google for doing this in the past.

Dusting off its old tactics, Microsoft has commissioned a study which claims to show how consumers feel about seeing ads based on what's in their personal inboxes.

The Gfk Roper study of 1,006 participants said that a vast majority, 89 percent, do not think that e-mail services providers should be allowed to scan the content of personal e-mail in order to target advertising.

Stefan Weitz, Microsoft's senior director of online services, said that the survey participants were skewed a bit more to the 18-to-34 age demographic most likely to use e-mail.

Google sighed and dusted off its usual response. It confirmed that it's been scanning e-mails with advertising algorithms since the beginning of the service and that it's made its practices clear.

If users want to get rid of ads, they are free to pay Google $50 for the professional version of its Web mail service, just as Outlook.com users can pay $20 to stop seeing ads on their inboxes. But to keep e-mail free, the company said, advertising has to be part of the equation.

Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith said that advertising keeps Google and many of the Web sites and services Google offers free of charge. Anyway no human reads your email.

As part of its Scroogled campaign, Vole is gathering signatures for a petition titled "Tell Google to stop going through your ads." Weitz said that the company has yet to decide what it will do with the petition, which has a target of 25,000 signatures. So far it has the grand total of 800. 

Boffin claims Google ads are racist

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 01:52 AM PST

A Harvard professor claims that some of Google's ads discriminate, linking "racially associated" names to a possible criminal background.

Government and technology professor Latanya Sweeney looked at 2,184 full names on Google and Reuters.com, which uses Google AdWords advertisements.

She found that names associated with black people were more likely to show ads suggesting arrest, as compared to "white identifying" names.

Names associated with black people, such as DeShawn, Darnell and Jermaine netted criminal ads in 81 to 86 percent of searches on one site, and up to 95 percent on the other.

However Geoffrey, Jill and Emma, more typically associated with white people, resulted in these types of ads 23 to 29 percent of the time on one site and zero to 60 percent on the other, Sweeney's study claimed.

If you did a search on "Latonya Evans" you were more likely to see "Latonya Evans, Arrested?" while the name Laurie Ryan gave a benign result of "Background of Laurie Ryan".

 Google insists that it does not conduct racial profiling in AdWords.

In a statement to ABC News, Google said that it had a policy which forbids ads that advocate against an organisation, person or group of people. It is up to individual advertisers to decide which keywords they want to choose to trigger their ads.

Sweeney claims that more research is needed and suggests possible blame on Google's algorithms and financial interests with advertisers.

Apple shareholders are revolting

Posted: 08 Feb 2013 01:49 AM PST

Jobs' Mob is reporting trouble in the ranks as a key shareholder hedge fund manager David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital has revolted over the piles of cash the outfit is sitting on.

Apple has been following a policy of hardly giving shareholders any dividend but they are being kept happy because the share price has gone up. This has meant that Jobs' Mob is sitting on piles of cash.

That worked while the share price went up, but now that the value of the company has fallen as the reality distortion field about the company has cracked, shareholders are getting antsy.

Einhorn wants the company to dole out a bigger piece of its $137 billion cash pile to investors. We guess he wants some cash back before Apple goes the way of Nokia and has to eat up its cash pile before it dies amid some very tough competition.

What makes the move doubly ironic is that Einhorn is the ultimate Apple gadget fan.

But he told CNBC that the company harboured a "Depression-era" mentality that led it to hoard cash and invest only in the safest, lowest-yielding securities.

Part of the problem is that Apple fears the time that it nearly went broke in the 1990s which has led the company to be exceptionally conservative with its cash, Einhorn said.

Soon after Steve Jobs' death, Apple started a quarterly cash dividend and a share buyback that would pay out $45 billion over three years. At the time, Apple was sitting on $98 billion in cash.

But Einhorn's court case targets a proposal by Apple to eliminate from its charter "blank cheque" preferred stock. The board now has discretion to issue preferred stock but is asking shareholders at its annual meeting on February 27 to vote on a proposal that would first require shareholder approval.

Einhorn had been lobbying Apple shareholders to vote against the plan, and put forward his own proposal for an issuance of preferred stock - which he deems superior to dividends or share buybacks - with a perpetual four percent dividend.

It is expected that this sort of stockholder pressure will get worse as Apple's share price declines and its prospects look grimmer.

Einhorn's company, Greenlight, suffered badly this year because of all the stake he had in Apple. When Apple's late-2012 stock swoon happened he said that Apple needs to fix its "cash problem."

Of course Apple is responding in its traditional way. According to Einhorn, he had gone to Apple's chief financial officer who ignored him. He then went over CFO's Oppenheimer's head to Tim Cook, the chief executive officer, who does not seem to have done much either.

But Apple fired back yesterday saying Einhorn's lawsuit over the shareholder proposal was misguided and that striking the "blank cheque" provision from its charter would not preclude preferred share issuances in future.

But Einhorn seems to have a lot of support for his case that Apple shares are "utterly misvalued" at current levels. 
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