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IDC 2015 Top 10 Predictions of China ICT Market: 3rd Platform Pursuit of New Growth During Economic Adjustment Period

January 8, 2015February 17, 2016 Staff Writer

Beijing, January 7, 2015 – In 2014, China’s macro economy maintained growth even under enormous pressure. The year also witnessed continuous industrial restructuring, feeble growth of overall real economy, recession of real estate market, and single digit growth of exports. Meanwhile, anti-corruption measures have also affected government spending. China’s GDP growth rate in 2014 was 7.3%, the lowest level in 24 years. Nonetheless, considering the sheer volume of China’s GDP which is the second largest in the world, the growth rate of 7.3% is still substantial compared with those developed…

Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy

May 28, 2014March 3, 2016

In the third chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon gave two reasons why the slavery into which the Romans had tumbled under Augustus and his successors left them more wretched than any previous human slavery. In the first place, Gibbon said, the Romans had carried with them into slavery the culture of a free people: their language and their conception of themselves as human beings presupposed freedom. And thus, says Gibbon, for a long time the Romans preserved the sentiments –…

Facebook’s shot at WhatsApp data gets both companies an FTC complaint

March 7, 2014 Staff Writer

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Facebook’s $16 billion acquisition of WhatsApp based on privacy concerns, according to a document released Thursday. EPIC and CDD’s problems with the acquisition center around the fact that WhatsApp staked its reputation on—that it’s a company keeping a reasonable distance from its customers’ data. Now that it will fall under the aegis of Facebook, its users stand to lose those privacy guarantees, even though WhatsApp told its users nothing…

Spy program gathered Americans’ Internet records

June 28, 2013 Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration gathered U.S. citizens’ Internet data until 2011, continuing a spying program started under President George W. Bush that revealed whom Americans exchanged emails with and the Internet Protocol address of their computer, documents disclosed Thursday show. The National Security Agency ended the program that collected email logs and timing, but not content, in 2011 because it decided it didn’t effectively stop terrorist plots, according to the NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, who also heads the U.S. Cyber Command. He said all data was purged…

Man behind NSA leaks says he did it to safeguard privacy, liberty

June 11, 2013June 11, 2013 Staff Writer

He’s a high school dropout who worked his way into the most secretive computers in U.S. intelligence as a defense contractor — only to blow those secrets wide open by spilling details of classified surveillance programs. Now, Edward Snowden might never live in the United States as a free man again. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Snowden revealed himself as the source of documents outlining a massive effort by the U.S. National Security Agency to track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic…

Interruption-driven Content Consumption

April 16, 2013April 16, 2013 Staff Writer

Where you sit defines what you know I recently moved my desk from a plum spot near the windows with lots of natural light to the other side of the newsroom. I did this for a couple of reasons, but first, let me explain why I sit in the newsroom with the devs, designers, and editors instead of in an office. When I sit an office I feel isolated and it becomes a big ceremony for someone to chat with me. Since communication is the number one problem in any…