You’re you, right? Of course you are. If you have an Account, Google knows that too and now, with an updated and streamlined Google Terms of Service, you’re even more you than ever before. The company is consolidating most of its more than 70 separate privacy documents into a single Privacy Policy that is so important it gets capitalized. The biggest change? If you have a Google Account, your information will now be shared across the company’s many services. Scary? Don’t fear — the company is taking this time to re-iterate its pledge to never sell your personal information, [...]

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At least one country is taking note, and objecting to, Apple’s now well-known data transparency issues, which made a subtle appearance in the software license every user must agree to before installing iOS 4. That country is Germany, and in remarks made Friday, German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger asked that “users of iPhones and other GPS devices must be aware of what kind of information about them is being collected.” How would that go about, exectly? Like so: Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she expected Apple to “open its databases to German [...]

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Samsung just started showing off a 19-inch AMOLED screen that’s 30% transparent, allowing you to see right through it. It’s super thin and looks straight out of the future. Of course, no one would actually want a TV that was transparent like this. It certainly doesn’t do the picture quality any favors. But for a neat trick that shows off all the stuff their researchers are working on, it sure is impressive. And really, I can imagine this sort of thing being used in public places for advertising and that sort of thing in the not-too-distant future. But unless there’s a way [...]

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When you are using Windows Aero, you can configure the glass color, transparency, and intensity by completing the following steps: Right-click an open area of the desktop and then select Personalize. On the Personalization page in the Control Panel, click Window Color. As shown in Figure Below, select one of the base colors available. Do this to save time even if you want to use the color mixer. To enable transparency, select the “Enable transparency” checkbox. To disable transparency, clear the “Enable transparency” checkbox. Use the “Color intensity” slider to control the intensity [...]

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Michael Geist sez, The New Zealand round of ACTA [ed: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty being negotiated outside of the United Nations] negotiations concluded earlier today with participants promising to release the draft text next week. This obviously represents a major new development that reflects the mounting global pressure for greater transparency that built in the weeks leading up to the negotiations. Since the text has already been leaked, the importance of the official release arises less from revealing what is in ACTA and more from showing how much progress [...]

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The government has teamed up with World Wide Web pioneer, Tim Berners-Lee, for a new website which offers “unprecedented access” to public data held by the government. A veritable one-stop shop of facts and figures, the site features a ‘school finder’ search engine, information on house prices, the locality of your nearest hospital and other tidbits on various amenities. Transparency “Making public data available for re-use is about increasing accountability and transparency and letting people create new, innovative ways of using it, Government data should be a public [...]

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