You’re Looking at Someone Whose Employee Data was Lost

My wife says I have the worst luck when it comes to ID theft. I had my ID spoofed about 15 years ago … someone started trying to open up credit cards in my name (failed) and checking accounts (succeeeded). He wrote fraudulent checks and I had to work with Bank of America and a detective to straighten it out … he was finally caught and jailed.

Then probably about 10 years ago someone guessed a password for an online store. It wasn’t a word or number but it was too easy. (Now I use Roboform to generate and store my strong passwords). Once again, they were caught (because I happened to check my online account).

Since then I’ve also had three credit card numbers stolen (somehow, no determination as to how); basically they were used to charge one monthly account which they figured I would miss on the bill (a common practice, I understand), but I’m far too anal about my credit card bill.

Well, I’ve had credit monitoring (that I pay for) for some time now, because of all this. But snakebit as I am, now IBM has lost my employee data. I just found out about it this week, although the story actully broke in mid-May.

They lost tapes with employee data on them … in February. Of course, they waited about 3 months before announcing this. IBM wouldn’t say if the data was encrypted., however, there have been no pings on my credit monitoring service, so that’s good. They’re offering a free year of credit monitoring (whoopee); I’ve heard from some people who worked at IBM at the same time as me that their data was lost as well. Before anyone asks, my wife has never had any incidents like mine, but I do have her covered with her own credit monitoring … in case my bad luck happens to “infect” her.

Kansei has a problem with our President …

All right, before you start getting on my case, I didn’t write the program for this robot. I may find it amusing, but that’s all you can accuse me of … At any rate, Kansei is another Japanese robot (remember CB2, earlier?). But this one has a self-updating online database of 500,000 keywords, and uses it to create up to 36 expressions with 19 movable parts under a silicone mask.

Kansei smiles at sushi, as he likes that … but say “president”, and well … like I said, it depends on the words and the associated keywords.

The English keywords then trigger the most appropriate facial expression, which ranges from happiness to sadness, anger and fear.

“What we are trying to do here is to create a flow of consciousness in robots so that they can make the relevant facial expressions,” said project leader Junichi Takeno, a professor at Meiji University’s School of Science and Technology.

When the robot hears the word “president,” the online database picks up associated words such as “Bush,” “war” and “Iraq” and creates an expression which the researchers said is meant to mix fear and disgust. Source: Yahoo! News

I have to admit … it’s interesting that these Japanese scientists appear to have a sense of humor.

Bono Buys a Piece of Palm

Well, not personally … but still … the private equity firm Elevation Partners LP today bought a 25% stake in Palm, and Bono is one of the 5 partners. This deal happened after all the earlier speculation that Motorola or Nokia were going to acquire Palm.

The recapitalization plan will see Elevation take a 25% equity stake in Palm, valuing the company at $8.50 per share, a premium of around 16% compared with the stock’s performance over the past 10 trading days. Elevation is a $1.9 billion private equity firm, and one of its five partners is Bono, the lead singer of Irish rock band U2. The investment in Palm is by far the largest the firm has made. Source: ComputerWorld

Now, don’t get any ideas about most people’s panning of the Foleo a few days ago after it was introduced having anything to do with this. However, it is notable that Jon Rubenstein, former head of Apple’s iPod division will become executive chairman of Palm’s board, as well as heading up product development. This could be the start of a much brighter future for Palm.

Hugo Chavez Planning His Own PC

I’m sure you’ve heard of the OLPC program, One Laptop Per Child. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s controversial leader wants to produce his own computer, which he will then distribute throughout Latin and South America for little or no cost.

The PCs would be part of Chávez’s strategy of winning friends in the region through gifts paid for through Venezuela’s oil industry. Cuba, Bolivia and other nations have all been recipients of gifts from Chávez. The PCs would likely cost little or could even be given away. Venezuela has been contacting companies in Asia about the project, said sources. Source: News.com

Controversial is probably an understatement for Chavez. Some would even call him comical. But if this works out and helps people, should we criticize? I’ll stay out of that discussion. At any rate, we’re most likely not looking at a potential threat to HP here …

China to Enforce Universal Cell Phone Charger

I’m sure many of you are annoyed by the sheer number of various chargers / adapters you have to use. My Bluetooth headset has one, my cell phone has another, my last cell phone had yet another, my wife’s cell phone, her iPod, and on and on. It’s annoying as well as wasteful. China is taking steps to enforce one charger for all phones designed after June 14th of this year.

All cell phones designed after June 14 must adopt the universal charger interface, based on USB, otherwise they will not be approved for sale in China, according to the Ministry of Information Industry, which is responsible for enforcing the rule.

The goal is to reduce the number of chargers that are thrown away each year because of cell phone upgrades. Nearly 100 million cell phones are replaced every year in China, according to MII. Source: EE Times

I love the idea, but some manufacturers may not … as pointed out in the article this might force them to design different chargers just for China (though I’m not sure why they would just use the China charger all over … unless, of course, other countries mandate their own … which would be a nightmare). It’s also unclear if the “based on USB” charger is mini-USB or yet another new standard. Finally, just because you use the same adapter doesn’t mean the charger itself is the same. I know of at least a few that use mini-USB as the adapter but you can’t swap the actual chargers between them. Hopefully this won’t be the case.

Buy It Now! — iPhone Sold on eBay for $800 (now, about that bridge …)

You may recall my post in late March about eBayers and iPhones … at that time I was willing to sell them a bridge, but now … since we know the iPhone is due out late this month, this isn’t so bad. But wait, the seller said, “this phone is ready to ship”. Eh?

An eBay auction for a brand spanking new Apple iPhone has just ended for $800 dollars. The phone was put on the auction block on May 27th at 11:59 AM PDT and was quickly bought at 3:20 PM for the $800 “Buy it Now” price. Source: TG Daily

Sorry, TG Daily, it appears since you posted your story the auction was pulled. First (as they noted), $800 seems low for something that would be in such high demand. AND, though TG Daily seemed to think the seller was legit because he had a positive feedback of 11, I would say … no way. I would only buy from a seller with an 11 feedback, 100% positive or no, if it was a) an inexpensive item, b) not something hot like this. 11 feedback can be easily faked. Seems like not just the buyer, but TG Daily was scammed.

Minority Report’-type Interface Debuts with Microsoft ‘Surface’

Remember ‘Minority Report’? Tom Cruise movie, based on a Philip K. Dick short story, and one of the cool things was interfacing with a computer using gestures only. It was a vertical interface, and it was virtual. What we have here is a table-top (shades of old-style video games in pizza parlors!) interface, no keyboard, no mouse, dubbed ‘Surface’, and supposedly, opening the doors to ’surface computing.’ Surface will be demoed today at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference.

“With Surface, we are creating more intuitive ways for people to interact with technology,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror. Surface is the first step in realizing that vision.”

In its current form, Surface is incorporated into a 30″ display mounted into a table. This allows user involvement to expand beyond just one person. Surface is capable of recognizing input from not just one finger, but multiple up to dozens of inputs simultaneously. Source: DailyTech

It’s cool that multiple users can interact with the screen at once. Though of course, at about $10K a pop, the price isn’t so cool. But initially the target is places like casinos, hotel lobbies, and restaurants. There is a demo available for viewing here.

MySpace Labels Innocent Woman ‘Sex Offender’, Then Gives No Comment

After reading this, I definitely had to write about this. While it’s true that MySpace is cooperating with states and giving them sex offender data, as well as taking down MySpace pages associated with such offenders, if they make a mistake … they need to admit it. In this case a woman was mistakenly labeled as a sex offender, had her page taken down, and MySpace has yet to respond to her … despite the fact that the security company they outsourced some of the work to has said she is innocent.

It took nearly a week for Jessica Davis to get an explanation about why MySpace had labeled her a sex offender and pulled her profile from the social networking Web site.

And when her name was finally cleared, it wasn’t because of anything MySpace did.

“They have a corporate and a moral responsibility to me as far as coming up and saying, ‘We messed up. This is going on. We’re doing what we can to fix it,’” said the 29-year-old, newly engaged University of Colorado senior, a woman who confessed to losing her driver’s license for careless driving a decade ago but insisted she’d never committed a crime to earn the status of sex offender. Source: ABC News

As I said, Sentinel CEO John Cardillo has come to her defense, but MySpace has yet to apologize, or even contact her directly short of “form emails.” The scariest thing is this sort of thing could happen to anyone, even to you and I, and I personally feel that MySpace should come out with a public apology … and be more careful in the future.

Dell to Sell Desktop PCs in Wal-Mart Stores

It’s been rumored for a while that as part of the “recovery plan” Dell was instituting, to bring itself back to a leadership role in PCs, it would begin selling in retail channels. Well, if you’re gonna do that, how about picking the biggest retailer? Wal-Mart.

Computer maker Dell Inc. plans to start selling personal computers at 3,000 Wal-Mart stores in the United States and Canada as of June 10, launching a major drive to sell its PCs through retailers, a company spokesman said on Thursday. Source: Reuters

The desktop will be the E521, with and without a monitor. More models to come? Who knows, but this isn’t a gamer’s box so I’m still not tempted to go to Wal-Mart.

Seriously though, this disappoints me, as I am not a fan of Wal-Mart and their poor labor practices (both in the U.S. and abroad with their suppliers). This may affect whether or not I buy Dells in the future.

Cell Phone Radiation Protection with Isabodywear Underwear

Last year I wrote about a possible link between cell phone radiation and infertility … well, all your worries could be gone, if you try out this new underwear that purports to protect against cell phone radiation.

The briefs are made with threads of silver which the company claims blocks cell phone rays and reception. The inventor, Andreas Sallmann, explains that when you put a cell phone inside your briefs, then dial your number from another phone, you probably won’t even get a signal. Source: Textually.org

Reading through the article, I found mention of other protective garb by other companies, such as Levi Strauss and anti-radiation lined pockets (but these were announced in 2002 and I haven’t seen anything about them … probably because if you put your phone in your pocket you couldn’t get any calls … kind of an oversight). Despite what Sallmann thinks, however, I usually use voice dialing and leave my phone in its holster, not in my underwear.