databases

License to Know Too Much?

December 15, 2014

in -Cross Currents, 7.4 No Secrets: Computers and Privacy

The digital technology explosion of the last decade has produced many new threats to our privacy, including some unexpected ones. In this short TED talk, Catherine Crump explains how the automatic license plate scanners used by police might have disastrous ramifications for law-abiding citizens.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng/id/2149

Tagged as: databases, law enforcement, optical character recognition, privacy, scanners, TED

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Surfing the Fourth Dimension

January 23, 2014

in -Inventing the Future, 6.3 From Hypertext to Interactive Multimedia, Chapter 7 Database Applications and Privacy Implications

kaplan_tedxIn the last few years we’ve become accustomed to Google Earth and similar apps that give us the power to “go” almost anywhere in a matter of seconds. Massive geographical databases put the world at our fingertips. In this TED talk Frederic Kaplan describes a research project that adds another dimension—time—to our search capabilities. How long will it be before your phone is a digital time machine?
ted.com/talks/frederic_kaplan_how_i_built_an_information_time_machine.html

Tagged as: big data, databases, geographic information systems, history, research

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Singing the Praises of Big Data?

January 8, 2014

Most of us have an uneasy relationship with big databases: We take advantage of the convenience and freedom they bring to us, but we don’t really like the fact that they know so much about us. Singer/songwriter Vienna Teng captures the tension that exists between those contradictory feelings in her beautiful, slightly chilling Hymn of Acxiom.

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Uncovering Secrets in Government and Medicine

October 25, 2012
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The information explosion raises important questions about the free flow of information versus the threat to personal privacy. These two TED Talks present cases for more open information in government and medicine.

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A Big Picture of Big Data

September 27, 2012
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The Internet teems with data waiting to be analyzed by companies, government, and savvy individuals. Big data has become an industry buzzword as more businesses and governments find ways to tap into the mountains of data our digital devices produce every day. Photographer Rick Smolan’s latest project is to make big data—and its impact on us—visible. This Huffington Post article describes this crowdsourced work of art and includes a direct link to The Human Face of Big Data.

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The Big Impact of Big Data

March 10, 2012

One of the biggest buzz words in the computer industry today is actually two words: Big Data. Massive increases in computing power have made mountains of data accessible to businesses and governments. How does big data affect you? A page on the IBM site gives a quick overview of the business world of big data, […]

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