Notes from the Electronic Cottage 3/26/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Having our electronic gadgets able to bring us location-based information can be a great convenience but it’s important for us to know just how those gadgets manage that trick, and what implications they have for our personal privacy.

This is WERU’s 20th anniversary year so every once in a while, we go back to see how the information in old Electronic Cottage editions has stood the test of time. This edition was first broadcast in 2002, and it’s just as appropriate today – or even more so – as it was back then.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 3/19/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Just some odds and ends today that might be of interest. Here are the web addresses mentioned in the program:

www.freezeframe.ac.uk – 20,000+ images from the Scott Polar Research Institute, some dating from 1845

www.ipy.org – site of the 2007 International Polar Year

ssd.eff.org – the Self-Defense Surveillance site. Info on what you can do to keep your information secure in this age of ubiquitous surveillance

www.freeebase.com – “an open database of the world’s information”

www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps – a great site for determining what kind of digital television reception you are likely to get over the air at your house.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 2/19/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Topic: Come summer of 2009, if you want to get into the U.S., you’ll need a passport or a passport card. The passport cards differ in some important ways from regular passports. For one thing they are significantly cheaper.  For another, the information on the chips in them can be read from 30 feet away, and that is making some folks nervous. Here’s why.

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