Use Their App, Keep Your Data
A modified version of Android feeds data-snooping apps fake bookmarks and empty contact lists.Ever noticed that so many apps need access to your contact lists, browser history, location, and other...
View ArticleWhat Facebook Knows
The company’s social scientists are hunting for insights about human behavior. What they find could give Facebook new ways to cash in on our data—and remake our view of society.Photographs by Leah Fasten
View ArticleData Dystopia
Facebook’s power over our social lives comes with great responsibility.Dystopias in the 20th century came mostly in two flavors: the imposing surveillance state, as depicted in Orwell’s 1984, and the...
View ArticleYour Laptop Can Now Analyze Big Data
New software makes it possible to do in minutes on a small computer what used to be done by large clusters of computers.Computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have devised a framework for...
View ArticleHow to Share Personal Data While Keeping Secrets Safe
A new technique could help companies like Facebook make money from your data without putting it at risk.Giant stockpiles of personal data, whether Web browsing logs, credit-card purchases, or the...
View ArticleHow Cell-Phone Data Could Slow the Spread of Malaria
Location data suggests a better way to fight a disease that kills a million people a year.Researchers have mapped precisely how human travel affects the spread of malaria in Kenya by using cell-phone...
View ArticleA Startup Finds a Better Way to Mine Your Facebook Past
The Trove search engine feeds on everything you and your friends have shared.It’s common to compare how many friends you have on Facebook with other people. But a more meaningful measure of your...
View ArticleAmazon Woos Advertisers with What It Knows about Consumers
The e-commerce giant has the data that all advertisers want—what millions of people are shopping for—and now it plans to use it.Google built its $38 billion business selling ads based on how people...
View ArticleBrooklyn Developer Offers Up His Personal Data on Kickstarter
A man data mined himself to fund an app that helps others sell their own personal data.Software developer Federico Zannier has data-mined himself, and now he’s raising money on Kickstarter to build an...
View ArticleSeven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending May 24, 2013)
Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.
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