From the category archives:
A high-level United Nations panel on global sustainability has just come out with a report outlining a far-reaching sustainable development strategy. Titled “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing“, the report is being described as “a new blueprint for sustainable development and low-carbon prosperity.” Central to the report is a call for a science [...]
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GeoSur, the open access geospatial data sharing site for Latin America and the Caribbean, was discussed as a case model at the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. The site has proved a useful tool for GIS users in the region that want to perform spatial analysis, and it has also assisted [...]
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The question of the drone as a catalyst for revamping the privacy laws in the United States is the topic of a recent article written by M. Ryan Calo, director for privacy and robotics at the Center for Internet & Society, in the Stanford Law Review. The article takes on the subject of our eroded [...]
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The BioWeatherMap initiative looks to uncover insight into the geographic and temporal distribution of microbial life through an distributed and volunteer environmental sensing effort. The intent is to gather environmental samples from around the world that will be DNA sequence for ongoing discovery and surveillance. This effort teamed with Autodesk to explore the visualization aspects [...]
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Over the weekend, NPR highlighted the work of researchers in Baltimore that are following addicts and their behavior very closely to track movement as well as the behaviors that coincide with their drug use. Researchers in the methadone program that serves addicts are studying specifically what makes addicts relapse with a smartphone program that requires [...]
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Prosecutors in South Korea have been after Google for privacy infringements from Street View mapping. A police probe found that in addition to collecting 360-degree images, the camera-equipped vehicles also collected serial numbers on mobile devices, mobile messages, e-mails, passwords, and even credit card details. After getting nowhere by interrogating local Google officials, the prosecutors [...]
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The American Civil Liberties Union accused the FBI today of racial profiling because of their use of U.S. census data and demographic data to map crimes and track individuals. The group raises concerns that the FBI is illegally targeting Americans based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion and political activities that are protected under the [...]
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The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is being terminated as of Jan. 15, 2012, due to a $3.8 million budget cut. As a result, all resources, databases, tools, and applications within the website terminated and no longer available. The site’s blog has already been terminated as of last week, and will be removed completely as [...]
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Kevin Pomfret’s discussion of law and liability as it relates to the smart grid yesterday (see this post) still has me thinking. There are two areas that I think still need further exploration relating to the granularity of in-home sensor readings, and the liability of sensor platform providers for sensors that they may host. In [...]
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