Ewen MacAskill in New York, The Guardian, Thursday 22 August 2013: “The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency’s activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred… Continue Reading
The Australian Public Service Big Data Strategy – Improved understanding through enhanced data-analytics capability, August 2013. “Government policy development and service delivery will benefit from the effective and judicious use of big data analytics. Big data analytics can be used to streamline service delivery, create opportunities for innovation, and identify new service and policy approaches… Continue Reading
“GDELT: Global Data on Events, Location and Tone – GDELT is a new CAMEO-coded data set containing more than 200-million geolocated events with global coverage for 1979 to the present. The primary author is Kalev Leetaru at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The data are based on a variety of international news… Continue Reading
From Cairo to Wall Street to the West Bank, plotting a world of upheaval, by Dana Stuster – “This is what data from a world in turmoil looks like. The Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) tracks news reports and codes them for 58 fields, from where an incident took place to what sort of event it… Continue Reading
“Preliminary estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the number of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year is around 300,000. The preliminary estimates were presented Sunday night in Boston at the 2013 International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis and Other Tick-Borne Diseases. This early estimate is based on findings from… Continue Reading
Health Reform: Seven Things You Need to Know Now. “Consumer Reports has developed this brief guide to help you understand how the changes brought about by health reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, will affect you and your family, now and in the future. Providing easy-to-understand comparative information to help consumers make the… Continue Reading
Desktop and Laptop Software License Management Is Not Being Adequately Performed, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, June 25, 2013. Reference Number: 2013-20-025. “The IRS is not adequately performing software license management and is not adhering to Federal requirements and recommended industry best practices. The IRS does not have enterprisewide or local policies, procedures, and… Continue Reading