New Scientist, 17 October

These two articles in last weekend's New Scientist might be of interest
to people here...

Virtual workforce found in Kenyan refugee camp
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427305.700-refugees-set-to-tap-demand-for-virtual-workforce.html

> Later this month, cellphone users in Kenya will be able to sign up to
> txteagle, another remote-working service that distributes translation
> and image tasks by cellphone. Nathan Eagle, a cellphone technology
> researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and the developer
> of txteagle, estimates that 15 million Kenyans will be interested in
> taking part.

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427301.100-the-pocket-spy-will-your-smartphone-rat-you-out.html

> So just how secure is the data we store on our phones? If we are
> starting to use them as combined diaries and wallets, what happens if
> we lose them or they are stolen? And what if we simply trade in our
> phones for recycling?
> 
> According to the UK government's Design and Technology Alliance
> Against Crime (DTAAC), 80 per cent of us carry information on our
> handsets that could be used to commit fraud - and about 16 per cent of
> us keep our bank details on our phones. I thought my Nokia N96 would
> hold few surprises, though, since I had only been using it for a few
> weeks when I submitted it to DiskLabs. Yet their analysts proved me
> wrong.

-- 
Toby A Inkster
<mailto:mail@tobyinkster.co.uk>
<http://tobyinkster.co.uk>

Received on Thursday, 22 October 2009 15:26:14 UTC