Ewa Nowak’s jewelry: “Incognito” by design A sponsored post popped up on my Instagram last week that captured my obsession with statement jewelry and my periodic check on developments in facial recognition technology: “Artist Designs Metal Jewelry to Block Facial Recognition Software from Tracking You”. Statement jewelry? Check. An indication of how stressed out people are by facial recognition technology? I think so. While an experimental project, it’s not a far stretch to imagine…

What becomes of old (popular) Twitch channels, is Walmart getting into the virtual currency game, could 5G mean safer self-driving vehicles, and more … Based on Twitch’s terms of service, what can the company do with Ninja’s old Twitch channel? (Bhernardo Viana, Dot Esports) Facebook creates an AI assistant for Minecraft. (MIT Technology Review) Virtual reality gets a Major League tryout. (Jack Harris, The Los Angeles Times) The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sues…

In case you don’t know, William Gibson is the prescient science fiction author who effectively coined the terms “the matrix” and “cyberspace” as we currently use them, way back in the early 1980s. He also predicted augmented reality applications. In his 2007 novel, Spook Country, a character has taken to creating “locative art” installations in the real world that can be viewed only through mobile devices that use the GPS grid to create a virtual…

Efforts to regulate cross-device tracking have increased since we last addressed the topic in 2017, following the release of the FTC’s Staff Report. Significant developments include the implementation and enforcement of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and the fast-approaching implementation deadline for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These regulations, while not targeting cross-device tracking specifically, seek to limit the way in which consumer data is tracked and sold. Cross-device tracking refers…