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Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Weird news - An agency in Germany declares the 'Facebook like' button as illegal

For software companies, especially in the area of web, the different standards followed by Government agencies the world over can make their job very difficult. What works in one area does not work in another area, and these restrictions can cause problems to the companies.
Consider the case of Facebook. It is one of the most widely used platforms in the area of social networks, and one of the most important tools is the 'Like' button that is there in the Facebook page. These allow items to become popular, and get more people access to such news / updates. For Facebook, the Like button is a very important tool, and any restrictions on such a tool can be significant. Well, a data protection agency in Germany is threatening the 'Like' button (link to article):

A German data protection authority is "unliking" Facebook's "Like" button.
The state of Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, on Friday ordered state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the "Like" button from their websites, saying it leads to profiling that violates German and European law.
Facebook insisted on Friday that is in full compliance with European data protection laws.
On Friday, Weichert issued a statement saying technical analysis by his office shows Facebook violated German and European data protection laws by passing content data to the social network's servers in the U.S.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Crushing house based on wrong GPS coordinates

GPS (Global Positioning System) is a satellite based system of providing the coordinates of any point on earth, and is used for a number of different applications such as being able to plot destinations, traffic mapping, city planning, races, etc. GPS is also being used more and more for offensive tactics such as positioning for cruise missiles, bombs, and other targeting. GPS has seen to be seen as a major solution accelerator for many industries, however, the dependence on GPS to the exclusion of any other factor caused this man to lose his house (link to article):

A Georgia man is none too happy that his memory-filled family home, lovingly hand built "brick by brick" by Pop, is now a scene of rubble-strewn desolation after a demolition firm used a GPS to identify its victim and moved in for the kill. Al Byrd of Sandy Springs got a bit of a shock earlier this month when someone called to let him know the Carroll County house was no more. Byrd had lived there with his nine brothers and sisters, and the house still contained precious heirlooms including "mom’s dining room set … her hutch with her dishes in there"
“I said, ‘What address did you have?’ and he said, ‘They sent me some GPS coordinates.’ I said, ‘Don’t you have an address?’ [and] he said, ‘Yes, my GPS coordinates led me right to this address here and this house was described.’”


A great problem, imagine demolishing a house just because the technology used for GPS erred; but this was also true in some cases where drivers have been reported as having been guided down wrong roads while using their GPS trackers. It would have been good for the firm to have got a confirmation for the address before demolishing it.

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