By Chloe Albanesius PCMAG.com

Google’s revamped privacy policy was in the news again Thursday, this time with members of Congress demanding answers and Google taking to its blog todefend the changes.

Privacy was a big issue throughout the day, with news that the FBI was looking for apps that would make it easy to snoop on social networks, and Twitter announcing that it was now able to censor tweets.

Thursday was also a big day for earnings reports, fromNokia to Motorola to Ninendo. But it was AT&T that made the most headlines, thanks to a rant from CEO Randall Stephenson about the way the FCC handled the now-defunct carrier’s efforts to acquire T-Mobile. Read more »

Brandon Turbeville
Prisonplanet.com
January 15, 2012

Fresh on the heels of India’s massive databasing program that is set to encompass all 1.2 billion members of its population, recent announcements by IBM should be drawing the attention of some 300 million Americans.

IBM’s “IBM 5 in 5” predictions reveal part of a goal that has been discussed for some time, yet too often continues to be dismissed as mere conspiracy theory. This goal is for biometric data such as fingerprints, iris scans, and voice recognition to not only become commonplace amongst the general public, but soon to replace all other forms of identification.

Even more startling, the next level of technology is set for release which will link the human brain directly to the digital world, enabling the user to control their reality purely by thought. Read more »

U.S. finds new human infection with swine H3N2 flu 

The Canadian Press

U.S. public health officials have found another case of human infection with a swine-origin H3N2 virus, this time in a child from West Virginia. And they also reported finding a human infection with a new swine influenza virus never before seen in humans, in a person in Wisconsin who had contact with pigs.

The Wisconsin case seems to be a one-off infection, with no signs of further spread. But the investigation into West Virginia case suggests the child was infected by another person, not a pig and that some amount of human-to-human spread of the virus took place in the unnamed community where the child lives, according to details released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The H3N2 case is the 12th — in five states — reported in the U.S. since this new virus was first spotted in July. And the CDC acknowledges there are probably more cases that haven’t been picked up by the country’s flu surveillance systems. Read more »