Google Engineer Fired for Spying on Minors

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

A Google sign at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

A Google engineer was fired for spying on the accounts of at least four minors — the second instance of employees violating user privacy, Google confirmed Tuesday.

David Barksdale, 27, met the teens online while working as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google’s Kirkland, Wash., office, reported Gawker.com. The site claims that he exploited his position as a member of an elite technical group to keep tabs on minors of both sexes, though the harassment did not seem to be sexually motivated, sources told the site.

A Google official confirmed the report, explaining that Barksdale was dismissed for breaking the company’s strict internal privacy policies.

“We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls — for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective,” senior vice president of engineering Bill Coughran told TechCrunch.com.

“That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems if we are to operate them properly — which is why we take any breach so seriously,” he said.

Google also acknowledged an earlier case in which an employee was fired for spying, though it didn’t involve minors. TechCrunch reporter Jason Kincaid applauded Google for acknowledging the issue — unlike Facebook, where at least two employees were reportedly fired for accessing user data.

“I asked Facebook about this repeatedly, and they refused to directly answer how many times this had happened, if ever,” Kincaid said.

Barksdale reportedly tapped into the Google Voice call logs of a 15-year-old boy he had befriended after the minor refused to tell him the name of his new girlfriend. Barksdale allegedly retrieved the girl’s name and phone number from the boy’s account and threatened to call her, all while acting as a Site Reliability Engineer for the search firm.

Site Reliability Engineers have access to Google’s most sensitive data and are given full access to users’ accounts they oversee, Gawker reported, citing a former Google Site Reliability Engineer.

Barksdale also purportedly accessed contact lists and chat transcripts and, in one instance, unblocked himself from a teen’s buddy list, reversing the teen’s actions to cut off communication with him.

Barksdale, a self-described hacker, confirmed to Gawker that he had been fired by Google, but refused to discuss the nature of his termination. Google did not immediately respond to requests for additional information.

Japan Hopes To Improve GPS With New Satellite

Japan has launched its first GPS satellite in the hope of improving coverage across the country.

A Mitusbishi-made 174ft-tall rocket blasted off from Japan’s Tanegashime Island and after 28 minutes the satellite broke away into orbit.

The Michibiki ‘showing the way’ satellite is part of a planned improvement on the current GPS system, which was developed by the US.

Currently, radio waves from a satellite can be hampered by skyscrapers or mountains.

Significant errors can be also caused by reflected waves, according to Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa).

Japan’s new Quasi-Zenith system works by placing satellites in multiple orbital planes, so that one satellite always appears near the zenith above the region of Japan.

As the Michibiki will only be above Japan for eight hours a day another two satellites were intended to provide Japan with a permanent strong signal.

But budgetary constraints have stalled plans for the second and third satellites, local media said.

Google Gets Serious About Social Networking: Is Google Me Coming in 2010?

After purchasing handfuls of social networking-centric companies — including socialDeck for online games and Jambool for virtual currency — Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company’s social networking project will debut later this year.

Speaking Tuesday at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, Schmidt said Google will be adding “a social layer” into its suite of search, video and mapping products. These comments are inline with reports that Google is developing a Facebook alternative called Google Me. Despite the fact that Google Me is in direct competition with Facebook, Schmidt has plans to cull Facebook data.

“The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data. Failing that, there are other ways to get that information,” Schmidt said. He declined to elaborate. Sounds sneaky!

Google has also been working with Twitter by developing new tools to integrate Google services with the just-overhauled micro-blogging giant.

Up until now, Google Me sounded like it would be a standalone site, like Facebook. But Schmidt’s comments about layering make it sound as though Google Me might be a cross-platform integration. “We’re trying to take Google’s core products and add a social component,” Schmidt said. “If you think about it, it’s obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better.”

I’m especially fond of the with your permission caveat — it sounds like Google has learned that opt-in services are less likely to raise privacy concerns, like Google Buzz did.

The “layered” approach could work well for Google. Avoiding the pressure of building, marketing and maintaining a brand new site — and instead melding social features into existing products — would be less of a jolt to users, and wouldn’t force some to choose between Facebook, Google Me, or any of the other social sites out there.

Champions League 2010/2011 Results Matchday 1

Matchday 1 : 14-15 September 2010

14 September 2010

A		Twente	2-2	Internazionale		Full time »	Referee: Pedro Proença (POR) Stadium: FC Twente Stadion, Enschede (NED)
A		Bremen	2-2	Tottenham		Full time »	Referee: Massimo Busacca (SUI) Stadium: Weserstadion, Bremen (GER)
B		Lyon	1-0	Schalke		Full time »	Referee: Ivan Bebek (CRO) Stadium: Stade de Gerland, Lyon (FRA)
B		Benfica	2-0	H. Tel-Aviv		Full time »	Referee: Aleksei Nikolaev (RUS) Stadium: Estádio do SL Benfica, Lisbon (POR)
C		Man. United	0-0	Rangers		Full time »	Referee: Olegário Benquerença (POR) Stadium: Old Trafford, Manchester (ENG)
C		Bursaspor	0-4	Valencia		Full time »	Referee: Svein Oddvar Moen (NOR) Stadium: Atatürk Stadyumu, Bursa (TUR)
D		Barcelona	5-1	Panathinaikos		Full time »	Referee: Nicola Rizzoli (ITA) Stadium: Camp Nou, Barcelona (ESP)
D		København	1-0	Rubin		Full time »	Referee: Thomas Einwaller (AUT) Stadium: Parken Stadion, Copenhagen (DEN)

Billboard Hot List #1 Katy Perry Teenage Dream [CD-Quality]

“Teenage Dream” is a song by American recording artist Katy Perry. It was release as the second single from her second mainstream studio album of the same name on July 23, 2010 through digital distribution. Perry and Bonnie McKee wrote many songs with a youthful theme in mind, but they were rejected by producers Benny Blanco and Dr. Luke. Blanco showed them The Teenagers’s single “Homecoming”, and McKee imagined “Teenage Dream” as a throwback song to the euphoric feelings of being in love as a teenager. They met with Max Martin in Perry’s hometown of Santa Barbara, California and started writing the track, which Perry later described as a pure moment for her. After Perry recorded her vocals, McKee presented her idea and the chorus was rewritten. Perry also described the song as reminiscent of her youth while contemplating her future marriage to boyfriend Russell Brand.

“Teenage Dream” is a midtempo pop song with a retro sound. Perry starts singing in a high voice and her vocals grow stronger as the song progresses. Lyrically it talks about being with a lover that makes one feel young again. Critics gave mixed reviews to “Teenage Dream”. While some reviewers praised it for its mature feel, others criticized it for not being as catchy as her previous singles. “Teenage Dream” has topped the charts in United States, New Zealand and Ireland as well reaching the top-ten in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and has charted in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands. A music video for the single, filmed in various locations of Santa Barbara, premiered on August 10, 2010. Perry performed the song at the 2010 Teen Choice Awards. The song gave Perry her third US Hot 100 number-one hit, and her her second consecutive number-one single.

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Hot Song!!!! Cee Lo Green "F**K You" [CD-Quality]

“Fuck You!” is a 2010 single by Cee Lo Green from his planned December 2010 album, The Ladykiller. A music video for the song was released on YouTube on August 19, 2010, featuring the lyrics of the song appearing on different colored backgrounds with film grain overlayed on the video. The video went viral, getting over two million views within a week of its release. The radio edit of the song is called “Forget You!”. The official music video was released on September 1, 2010.A remix features 50 Cent and also has a video similar to the original version of the song.

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Ronaldo just another player at Mourinho's Madrid

Mourinho famously accused Ronaldo of being a “diver” during the days when he was the outspoken Chelsea manager and the winger was a threat to his dreams as Manchester United’s star turn, yet their spats have been forgotten as the Portuguese comrades aim to bring the glory days back to Real Madrid.

Ahead of Wednesday night’s Champions League opener against Martin Jol’s Ajax at the Bernabeu, Mourinho has done his best to take the heat off his £80 million superstar by insisting his newly remodelled Real Madrid team will only succeed if the collective unit work in tandem with their star figure, rather than relying on one man to inspire their glory.

“Too much focus was put onto Cristiano last season and, to his credit, the response he gave was magnificent, but the responsibility of my teams means we have a different attitude at this club now,” believes Mourinho, whose legendary ability to make his players feel as special as he believes himself to be is already coming to the fore in his latest posting.

“When you are looking to one player to win matches for you every week, he will suffer as much along with the team. If the opposition find a way to stop him or he has a bad day, this can be the end and it is no way for a top team to operate.

“My philosophy has always been that we are a group, not individuals trying to win for ourselves. The group effort is more powerful than one star and this mentality worked well with my Porto team, my Chelsea team, my Inter Milan team.

“Real Madrid has often been about the individuals, but I want to bring a different focus, which should help Cristiano. He is not the only match winner in this team and he won’t play in a position where all the expectation is on him. He needs freedom to express himself, not a strict position. He must have freedom to do what he does best.

“The new players we have signed must stand up and make sure they do not wait for their team-mates to make the difference. A squad can only be successful if every part of the machine works and this is the aim at Real Madrid this season.”

Mourinho admits he has been hugely impressed by Ronaldo’s work ethic in his first few weeks as Real Madrid boss, with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson among those he has turned to for advice on how to handle the 2008 World Player of the Year.

“Ferguson told me you cannot find a kid with a better attitude in training and working hard and this has been true as Cristiano has been fantastic since I came to Madrid,” he said. “The boy has had some problems with his ankle in the last couple of weeks, but his effort for the team when he came back without too much training was perfect.

“Overall, his physical conditioning is excellent, but there is so much time for Cristiano to become a better player. He is only 25 and the aim for me and my staff is to make sure he become the best player he can be during our time at this club.

“Cristiano should begin to reach his peak in the next few years. It’s exciting to believe he could improve from what he produced at United and with Real Madrid last season, but he knows it is possible. I have total belief in him.”

Mourinho and Ronaldo are already feeling some early season heat after the Bernabeu faithful reacted negatively to the side’s inspiring 1-0 La Liga win over Osasuna on Saturday night, with abuse from his own fans an unfamiliar obstacle for Mourinho to deal with after years of unbroken success in his extraordinary managerial career.

However, the new Real Madrid boss will know those jeers will be quickly turned around if he pieces together a side capable of ending almost a decade of failure in the Champions League, though the two-time winner of Europe’s elite competition is keen to play down suggestions that his Midas touch will be instantly successful in the Spanish capital.

“There is big pressure at this club as you cannot be like the manager at Arsenal and ask for five years to try and to win one trophy,” he said, failing to resist the temptation of offering another gentle jab at his old foe from his days in London, Gunners boss Arsene Wenger.

GettyImages

Jose Mourinho is taking life in Madrid in his stride

“Can you imagine if I said to Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, please give me five years and I will try to win you one trophy? Or if I arrived at Real Madrid and asked for five years to win something? I don’t think the President or the supporters would accept this idea. The demand at this club is to win from the first season and to keep winning until the day you walk away or you are told to leave.

“The game against Osasuna was not the most exciting and the supporters are entitled to say they did not enjoy it. What everyone needs to understand is we are at the start of a new story, we have yet to concede a goal and we managed to beat Osasuna without giving them any chances. I understand that the supporters at this club like to see exciting football, but my job is to give winning football with excitement.

“The best teams understand what they are best at and use those strengths. My Inter Milan side was not so quick, so we had no option other than to identify our quality and play in a certain way. We needed to work as a unit, to play as a solid block and get the best out of the players in our team.

“This is not negative, this is just sensible. The great teams play with their best asset and by following this idea, Inter beat the champions of England, the champions of Spain and the champions of Germany to win the treble. You cannot have any more than that.”

If Mourinho ends Real Madrid’s long wait for their tenth Champions League crown at Wembley next May, the sceptics, boo-boys and fantasists casting doubts about him right now will all fall neatly in line behind this fascinating manager once again.

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Google sites to add social networking in `layers`

Google Inc plans to gradually introduce social-networking features starting this fall, reviving attempts to compete with Facebook after pulling the plug on its stillborn Wave project.

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters on Tuesday the Internet search leader intends to work in “layers” of social networking to its sites, rather than unveil a flashy product. To propel that effort, he intends to sustain its pace of acquisitions.

“We’re trying to take Google’s core products and add a social component,” Schmidt told a select group of reporters at Zeitgeist, a gathering of business partners and high-profile industry figures.

“If you think about it, it’s obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better.”

Google has struggled to find the right touch in creating the types of social networking services that have become increasingly hot online.

It declared the demise this year of Wave, a high-profile online communications tool launched last year. And Orkut, its early online social network, has failed to catch on outside of Brazil and India.

Media reports now peg Google as developing a new social networking product — dubbed Google ME — in a bid to take on Facebook, which has more than half a billion users worldwide. Others speculate it might be looking for an acquisition to get into social gaming.

“Everybody has convinced themselves that there’s some huge project about to get announced next week. And I can assure you that’s not the case,” Schmidt said.

A FLURRY

Analysts point to recent acquisitions as signs the company is steadily beefing up its social-network capabilities.

The company this year undertook a series of small to mid-sized purchases, including a $182 million deal to take over social networking firm Slide, and a $700 million offer for airline ticketing firm ITA Software Inc.

Schmidt expects the last deal to win regulatory approval. He said the level of scrutiny it has drawn is similar to that for Google’s acquisition of Admob, which won a green light.

Analysts have attributed a recent flurry of tech-sector acquisitions to a perception that valuations remain low, a product of a sputtering economy as well as persistent doubts about the strength of the tech sector recovery.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Schmidt said he did not expect another recession soon, but warned of slow, or even zero, growth over the next few years.

“It’s unlikely we’ll have a double dip for all the reasons people talked about. A much more likely scenario is slow or no growth for a few years,” Schmidt said in the interview.

“High tech is different. High-tech seems to be benefiting from new product cycles, lots of new investments,” he added. “So high tech will probably have a different outcome from the average American (consumer).”

Liquid Body Armor

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MD — Liquid armor for Kevlar vests is one of the newest technologies being developed at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to save Soldiers’ lives.

This type of body armor is light and flexible, which allows soldiers to be more mobile and won’t hinder an individual from running or aiming his or her weapon.

The key component of liquid armor is a shear thickening fluid. STF is composed of hard particles suspended in a liquid. The liquid, polyethylene glycol, is non-toxic, and can withstand a wide range of temperatures. Hard, nano-particles of silica are the other components of STF. This combination of flowable and hard components results in a material with unusual properties.

“During normal handling, the STF is very deformable and flows like a liquid. However, once a bullet or frag hits the vest, it transitions to a rigid material, which prevents the projectile from penetrating the Soldier’s body,” said Dr. Eric Wetzel, a mechanical engineer from the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate who heads the project team.

To make liquid armor, STF is soaked into all layers of the Kevlar vest. The Kevlar fabric holds the STF in place, and also helps to stop the bullet. The saturated fabric can be soaked, draped, and sewn just like any other fabric.

Wetzel and his team have been working on this technology with Dr. Norman J. Wagner and his students from the University of Delaware for three years.

“The goal of the technology is to create a new material that is low cost and lightweight which offers equivalent or superior ballistic properties as compared to current Kevlar fabric, but has more flexibility and less thickness,” said Wetzel. “This technology has a lot of potential.”

Liquid armor is still undergoing laboratory tests, but Wetzel is enthusiastic about other applications that the technology might be applied to.

“The sky’s the limit,” said Wetzel. “We would first like to put this material in a soldier’s sleeves and pants, areas that aren’t protected by ballistic vests but need to remain flexible. We could also use this material for bomb blankets, to cover suspicious packages or unexploded ordnance. Liquid armor could even be applied to jump boots, so that they would stiffen during impact to support Soldiers’ ankles.”

In addition to saving Soldiers’ lives, Wetzel said liquid armor in Kevlar vests could help those who work in law enforcement.

“Prison guards and police officers could also benefit from this technology,” said Wetzel. “Liquid armor is much more stab resistant than conventional body armor. This capability is especially important for prison guards, who are most often attacked with handmade sharp weapons.”

For their work on liquid armor, Wetzel and his team were awarded the 2002 Paul A. Siple Award, the Army’s highest award for scientific achievement, at the Army Science Conference.