Finding People in a Credit Card Metadata Haystack
Many of us would probably like to think that we can be hidden in a crowd and that without personal information, identifying an individual from a massive database is going to be very difficult. Well, it looks like that is not the case as researchers at MIT have found that they can accurately identify people out of datasets of over one million people, using just three, imprecise, pieces of purchase information.
For this work, the researchers worked with a data set that contained the names and locations of shops, days purchases were made, and the amounts of each purchase. Purchases made with the same credit card were given the same identification number. The researchers then analyzed the data set for any similar purchase patterns, between the identification numbers. They found that with just two data points, without price information, they could identify 40% of the people in the data set of over one million people, and with five points, almost everyone could be identified. They then tried coarsening the data, such as considering ranges of purchase amounts the same and purchases made the same week instead of the same day, and found that just four purchases were needed to identify 70% of the people. This coarsening was in part done to emulate if someone had to guess at the information, like they had looked at a shared pictured and not multiple receipts.
Obviously this shows that in Big Data, it is still possible to find specific people, without specific information. The researchers, as part of separate work, are also working on a system that would give people more control over their information, limiting what third-parties can access to only pertinent data.
Source: MIT
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Steam Beta Client Updated For Better DLC Tracking
An update has been pushed to the Steam Beta client that provides users with an improved system for keeping track of owned and installed DLC. The update provides an easy to use interface that presents all of your DLC in an easy to read scroll box. This new feature could prove to be especially useful for games with a large amount of DLC such as Crusader Kings or Call of Duty.
Source: PC Gamer
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Samsung Will Power The Next iPhone
It is being reported that Samsung will provide the processors for the next generation iPhone, in addition to earlier rumors that it will make the chips for the Apple smartwatch. The processor will be based on the ARM A9 architecture and will be an upgrade from the current A8. Apple relied on both Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor for the iPhone 6, but TSMC is still using the 20nm process while Samsung has moved to 14nm. It was previously rumored that Samsung is planning to use its Exynos chip for the next Galaxy S smartphone rather than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, giving Samsung access to a large portion of upcoming smartphone sales.
Source: Tech Spot
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Social Media Can Cause Depression Depending on How You Use It
Every day I regularly check certain websites when I launch my browser to see the latest, and I suspect many of you do so too. For many of you one of those websites is probably Facebook, so you can see the latest posts from friends and family. Depending on how exactly you use Facebook though, it may be causing symptoms of depression, according to researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The researchers found that these feelings of depression followed feelings of envy after 'surveillance use' of Facebook. This would be using Facebook to gauge how wealthy someone is, or the happiness of their relationship, which if compared against their own situation, causes the envy. Users who use the site for more positive purposes, like just staying connected, did not suffer any of these negative feelings.
Source: University of Missouri-Columbia
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Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Security Breach
Anthem, the second largest health insurer in the United States, has publically revealed that its servers have been hacked. The hacking, which affects the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, email addresses, and employment information of as many as 80 million current and former members and employees, was done through sophisticated means. According to Joseph Swedish, the Anthem CEO, current evidence suggests that credit card numbers and medical records have not been exposed through the security breach. Anthem has stated that it made actions to immediately close the security breach as soon as it was found, and is also working with the FBI to figure out the true extent of the issue. Swedish, who also fell victim to the breach, has revealed that Anthem will contact individuals who are found to be affected by the data breach.
Source: CNET
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YouTube Experimenting with Multi-Angle Videos
YouTube is now experimenting with yet another new feature known as multi-angle videos, which the company hopes its users will enjoy. The multi-angle video experiment allows content creators to upload videos that feature different camera angles, allowing them to focus on different parts of a performance, location, individual, and more. Viewers of these videos can switch between the different video angles on the fly while watching the content, providing YouTube users with a new way to interact with online streaming media. The YouTube multi-angle video experiment is currently only available to users located in the United States and is off-limits elsewhere.
Source: TechHive
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Improving LEDs to Surpass Lasers
Lasers and LEDs are two very common optical technologies that both provide very clear light, but have very different uses. These different uses are because of the different ways the technologies emit light, and their advantages and disadvantages. Now researchers at Berkeley Lab have made a discovery that could erase one of LEDs disadvantages and lead to optical interconnects on chips, and more.
Lasers produce their light by stimulated emission, which is actually what the 's' and 'e' stand for in the word, so energy is pumped into the device and something (a photon) has to trigger the emission of the photons. Light emitting diodes however rely on spontaneous emission, so energy is pumped in and the device naturally emits the light as a result. As lasers are stimulated, they can emit light faster than LEDs, which are limited by the size of the molecules involved. In fact spontaneous emission rates would have to increase by a factor of 200 to surpass stimulated emission, but the Berkeley researchers just managed to reach 115. This was achieved by adding gold optical antennas at half the wavelength of the light to the emitting material, making it easier to emit the photons.
One of the potential applications for such fast LEDs would be for short distance communications, such as on a microchip, where lasers would be too large and draw too much power to be desirable. Considering the researchers believe their optical antenna approach could lead to a 2500-fold increase in emission rate, this research could lead to a tremendous speed boost.
Source: Berkeley Lab
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