The Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus today wrote a letter to CEO Larry Page asking the CEO to clear up once and for all “whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American.” In a bi-partisan manner, Barton’s letter was co-signed by Representative John Barrow (D-GA), Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), Rep. Henry Johnson (D-GA), Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), Rep. Richard Nugent (R-FL), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA).

The law makers are really concerned about 3 main components of Google Glass:

When using Google Glass, is it true that this product would be able to use Facial Recognition Technology to unveil personal information about whomever and even some inanimate objects that the user is viewing? Would a user be able to request such information? Can a non-user or human subject opt out of this collection of personal data? If so, how? If not, why not?

In Google’s privacy policy, it states that the company “may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number).” Would Google Glass collect any data about the user without the user’s knowledge and consent? If so, why? If not, please explain.

Will Google Glass have the capacity to store any data on the device itself? If so, will Google Glass implement some sort of user authentication system to safeguard stored data? If not, why not? If so, please explain.

Google I/O has just finished over the past 3 days  and during one of the Google I/O chats a privacy question was asked to the Google Glass Team. The Glass team indicated that Glass does have facial recognition however there are also indicators on Glass to let people know that they are being recorded.

This post Does Google Glass Infringe on Privacy? originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Just over a week ago we talked about how the US Government was looking to approve devices other than Blackberry for military use. It came as a big shock when the Pentagon approved the use of some Samsung Galaxy phones and there was still uncertainty whether or not Blackberry would be approved. The very next day it was confirmed that Blackberry 10 was approved for use. Now just over a week the Defense Department has approved the use of iOS 6 devices. This was not a surprise to anyone as the Pentagon was already set to approve iOS 6 devices and were in the final stages of doing just that.

The Department previously told The Verge that it has more than 600,000 commercial mobile devices in operational and pilot use. BlackBerry has traditionally dominated with over 470,000 devices distributed within the agency, compared with 41,000 iOS and 8,700 Android smartphones.

Source: Engadget

This post Pentagon approves iOS 6 for military use originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Google is working to make the Play Store reviews system a little more constructive today by expanding the ability to respond to reviews to any developer, rather than just a small testing group. Developers can now respond to complaints, bug reports and general feedback from their Google Play Developer Console, which will show up publicly as a direct threaded response to the original review.

Google has been testing this feature with certain developers for a while now and has received enough good press that they feel ready to roll it out to everyone. Google says that this allows developers to more easily “identify and prioritize bugs, reply constructively to both negative and positive reviews and to get ideas about new improvements or features.”

If you are a developer, check your Google Play Developer Console to find the new reply feature.

This post Google now allows all developers to respond to Google Play reviews originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Reuters reports that a new proposal delivered to French President Francois Hollande today would create a one percent tax on the sale of internet-connected devices, like smartphones and tablets, to fund cultural projects in the country. As The Associated Press reports, the new scheme would bring in about 86 million Euros per year (about $112 million), with revenues distributed for cultural industries creating French content. Reuters notes that the report targets hardware specifically for its revenue potential, indicating that consumers spend more money on hardware than content.

The proposal uses the authority under France’s “cultural exception:” a trade policy that privileges and promotes French-made cultural goods and services designed to insulate the country’s culture from outside markets. The new hardware tax proposal is far from implementation; as Reuters reports, President Hollande has requested legislative review of the proposal by the summer.

This post French to tax smartphones and tablets to fund cultural projects originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Former Google CEO and current chairman Eric Schmidt is known for both a sense of broad techno-utopianism and a willingness to speak out on privacy hot-button issues. Way back when Google first launched, the new company came out with a moral stance that stated “don’t be evil.” A lofty, but noble goal that the company has tried to live by for sure, but in a recent interview Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt said he thought that it was a pretty dumb idea. “When I showed up, I thought this idea was the stupidest rule ever, because there’s no book about evil except, maybe, you know, the Bible or something.”

Eric Schmidt also provided some of his insights about Google:

• On how much Google knows about users: “Well, as much as you’ll let us know. We keep information about your searches for 12 to 18 months, and then we forget everything.”

• On Googlers being able to read your email: “Yes, and I would lose my job, be fired, and be sued to death… Someone would find out, trust me.”

• On keeping things casual at Google: “Well, we actually had to have a rule, we had to have two rules. The first rule – these are both rules I enacted. The first is that you had to wear clothes to work. The second rule is that you have to have fun. You can be serious without wearing a suit, and we wanted to invent the future.”

• On what we’ll be using Google Glass for: “Well, we don’t quite know yet. We have maybe 2,000 of these. We’ve shipped them out to developers, and we’re seeing what they develop. There’s obviously issues, shall we say, of appropriateness of how people are going to use these things. There’s a right time to have Google Glass on, and there’s a right time to have it off, if you take my drift.”

• On ’20-percent time: “Yeah, that’s another one of our ideas is that engineers should spend 20 percent of their time working on whatever they find interesting. Now, before you get too excited, remember, engineers are not that interesting… A lot of the Google inventions came from engineers just screwing around with ideas. And then management would see them, and we’d say, boy, that’s interesting. Let’s add some more engineers.”

This post Eric Schmidt provides his thoughts on Google originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Yes you read that right, the canned IRS head was already on his way out of the organization. A fact the President Obama seemed to “forget” to mention at the press conference on Wednesday.

IRS head was planning on leaving in June

An official close to Miller told Fox News, shortly after Obama’s brief announcement, that the IRS chief was “set to resign the position of acting commission as of early June.” He was planning to leave the IRS entirely a “couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy,” the source said.

These details were not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning. Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew  and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.

Obama said Lew asked for the resignation and Miller agreed, after being on the job since November 2012.

Obama still “cautious” on the IRS scandal

The president has proceeded cautiously since the IRS controversy was made public Friday. While he initially said the accusations were “outrageous,” he also said he wanted to wait until the report was released before addressing what should be done to hold accountable those responsible.

Obama said he would hold a press conference Thursday.

The report lays much of the blame on IRS supervisors in Washington who oversaw a group of specialists in Cincinnati who screened applications for tax-exempt status. It does not indicate that Washington initiated the targeting of conservative groups, but it does say a top supervisor in Washington did not adequately supervise agents in the field even after she learned the agents were acting improperly.

This news certainly could spell some trouble for President Obama but how much is unknown. All I know is it seems like a perfect scapegoat for the bigger issues at hand with the IRS.

Related, Congresman Tom Price M.D. (R-GA) introduced a bill that would stop the IRS from collecting the healthcare data for Obamacare.

This post Fired IRS Head was already leaving the IRS originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Google has an update to its storage solution. Since launching Drive last year, Google has offered users 5GB of free Dropbox-style storage for documents and their Picasa / Google+ photos — but Gmail has long had its own, separate 10GB of storage. Now, Google is unifying storage across its products, something that should automatically make Drive a lot more useful to many users. All Google users now get a combined 15GB of shared storage across Drive, Google+ photos, and Gmail that can be used as they wish. If you’re a light Gmail user, you can devote some (or all) of that 15GB to Drive — immediately making it one of the larger free cloud storage options out there.

As before, you can still upgrade your storage space. Plans range from $4.99 per month for 100GB to $799.99 per month for 16TB. What is most interesting for Gmail users here is that the 25GB upgrade is no longer the limit. Any additional storage you purchase will also apply to Google’s email service.

Google Apps Customers

The Google Apps story is only slightly different: Google is offering its business customers 30GB of unified storage across Drive and Gmail. Storage will also be shared with photos customers upload to Google+ larger than 2048px, and just as before, files created in Docs, Sheets and Slides don’t count against this storage quota.

This unification will help Google market how much storage it offers by default, as well as push its storage plans to existing users. It’s not so much a smart move, as a necessary and obvious one.

This post Google Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos unified to 15GB originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Congressman Tom Price, M.D (R-GA) issued the following statement after introducing the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013 (H.R. 1990) – legislation that would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from implementing or enforcing any provisions of the president’s health care law.

This is the first major push from conservatives in regards to the scandal involving the IRS. While this bill isn’t likely to pass the Senate it will still likely shed greater light on the issue of the IRS collecting healthcare information while selectively targeting groups.

Official Statement on Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act H.R. 1990

“Less than a week ago the American people learned what many had already suspected that the IRS had inappropriately abused its authority to target and intimidate certain individuals and organizations trying to practice their right to free speech,” said Rep. Price. “This comes at the same time that the Obama Administration is rolling out the implementation of its health care law which invests enormous powers in the IRS. The same agency that just committed an appalling violation of the American people’s trust is going to be at the forefront of enforcing the health care law, including the individual mandate which will require every citizen to prove to this agency that they’ve purchased government-dictated health care coverage.

“When it comes to an individual’s personal health care decisions, no American should be required to answer to the IRS – an agency that just forfeited its claim to a reputation of impartiality. It has always been an untenable and unacceptable scenario, and we ought to take this common sense step to take the IRS out of health care.”

Reminder, the head of the IRS was recently fired. He was expected to testify before Congress on Friday May 17th. Now there are many questions on who from the IRS will speak to Congress over this scandal.

This post Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act H.R. 1990 originally appeared on Truth About Bills

Just two days ago we officially announced the new and improved Truth About Bills Mobile website. Now today we have improved it with Google+ recommendations for TAB. So now when you are reading an article on our site and you scroll back up the page you will be presented with a notification at the bottom of the screen. Upon opening the notification you will be presented with other articles on Truth About Bills that are being +1’ed and shared by others on Google+.

How it works

If you are signed into your Google Account you will see recommendations from your friends.

The feature appears as a small bar at the bottom of a given article. Tapping it brings up suggested articles for that site(See top photo right), keying off the author, the topics discussed, or what is being shared on Google+ to generate the suggestions. Users don’t need to be signed into their Google+ account to see the recommendations, but if they are they’ll also see suggestions based upon what those in their Google+ Circles have been sharing.

All recommendations are context-specific, and will vary depending on the page currently being viewed. It’s worth noting, they aren’t pop-ups, so to speak, they only appear when a users ‘taps’ the little button at the bottom to read more. The new mobile recommendations work on iOS and Android, though they aren’t dependent on any particular browser.

We feel as though this will be will be a huge plus for our readers as users will be able to find more stories of interest. So as always point your smartphone to www.TruthAboutBills.com and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

This post Google+ Recommendations for TAB Mobile originally appeared on Truth About Bills

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Rubio on #IRSscandal – "These are the Tactics of the Third World" [VIDEO]

This post Rubio on #IRSscandal – "These are the Tactics of the Third World" [VIDEO] originally appeared on Truth About Bills