Technology news was dominated by reports of government snooping this week. The Guardian published a top-secret court order forcing Verizon Wireless to turn over “telephony metadata” (i.e. call details) collected on all of its customers making calls to, from, or within the United States. The Obama Administration defended the order as a counter-terrorism measure, and late Thursday, reports began to surface that the data was used to foil a planned terrorist attack.
Individuals used technology to act in ways that could be seen as offensive, discriminatory, or maybe both, depending on the jurisdiction they’re in. A visiting professor at NYU tweeted that obese PhD applicants don’t have the willpower to complete a dissertation, and some companies are now using the website BeautifulPeople.com to hire only good-looking employees.
Additional technology news noted that the pizza you ordered for dinner may make it to your house in record time. Domino’s Pizza is working on perfecting the “DomiCopter,” a drone that can deliver two large pizzas to anywhere within a four-mile radius within ten minutes.
Technology and the Workplace
Visiting NYU Lecturer Makes Waves With Offensive Tweet About Fat People (New York Post)
7 Social Media Tips for CEOs (Mashable)
Domino’s Pizza Testing Pizza-Delivering Drones (FOX)
Fixing Your Online Reputation: There’s an Industry for That (NPR)
Job Site Wants Only Beautiful Candidates (Mashable)
Technology and the Law
Feds Getting Phone Records of All Verizon Customers (CBS) (CNET) (NYT)
Leaked Emails That Led to Exposure of Petraes Affair Violated Socialite’s Privacy, Suit Claims (ABA Journal) (USA Today)
WI Child Porn Suspect Does Not Have to Decrypt Hard Drives — For Now (ARS Technica)
Apple Banned from Selling Some iPhones and iPads After Samsung Patent Win (CNN) (FOSS Patents)
Feds Say They Can Search Your Laptop at the Border But Won’t Say Why (ARS Technica) (Wired)
There’s an App for That
Building Your Own Website, Free (NYT)
App of the Week: Osito (ABC)
5 Apps to Guarantee an Awesome Summer Road Trip (Wired)
Facial-Recognition App Can Help Identify Missing Children (Mashable)