Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, will reportedly have to pay $22.5 million to settle charges that it bypassed the privacy settings of consumers using Apple's Safari browser. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the fine would be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission.
Google has been charged for using a special computer code, or ‘cookies,’ to trick Apple's Safari browser. This would enable Google to monitor users that had blocked such tracking, the newspaper reported.
According to Google, tracking of Apple users was inadvertent and did not cause any harm to consumers. Google disabled the code after being contacted by the Journal.
Google also faces potential sanctions from other governments. It is being investigated by the European Union to determine if the company complies with Europe's stricter privacy laws.
Global information provider Elsevier Business Intelligence (EBI) has announced that it will host the 'Investment in Innovation (IN3) Medical Device 360° Summit - San Francisco' conference on October 15-17, 2012, at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins, San Francisco.
Taking place in the hub of device investment and innovation in the Bay Area, the event will seek to bring together a diverse group of medtech's key thought leaders from diverse areas. These include corporate business development, venture capital and strategic investment, start-up entrepreneurs and industry pioneers. The aim is to candidly discuss the critical issues that will define the future of all players in the evolving device space.
Summit-San Francisco will feature presentations by more than 25 early-, mid- and late-stage start-up companies that are seeking funding and/or strategic partnership across the spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic device markets. It will also feature an agenda of expert guest speakers and panels.
The two-day special event is expected to benefit a wide variety of participants in the medical device sector: start-ups seeking investment or strategic partnerships, investment firms, VCs, mid-size and large medical device manufacturers, and service providers. Emerging medtech companies that would like to apply to present in San Francisco should contact Aileen Kell at 949-797-7142, or email k.kell@elsevier.com.
Library information provider OCLC Research, US, has announced that it will host the TAI CHI Webinar on Umlaut on August 1, 2012, at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT (UTC 17:00). All are welcome to attend this free webinar to learn about this open source software that can be used as a front-end for an existing knowledge base.
Umlaut deals with specific known citations and full text from multiple data stores (link resolver, catalog, etc.), Amazon and Google links, ‘cited by’ links from licensed vendors, ‘search inside’ links to Amazon, Google, HathiTrust, or anything else one wants to write a plugin for. It gives users the ability to switch out the underlying knowledge base products with no interruption. It runs as Ruby on Rails application via an engine gem. Umlaut is also a ‘link resolver front-end’ for an existing knowledge base because it accepts requests in OpenURL format but has no knowledge base of its own.
In this webinar, Jonathan Rochkind, Senior Programmer/Analyst at the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University, will demonstrate how Umlaut allows to de-couple your ‘link resolver’ user-facing UI from your underlying knowledge base products - theoretically making it possible to switch out one vendor's knowledge base product for another with no interruption to users. Umlaut is a buffer between your knowledge base product(s) and the world.
This is the thirteenth webinar in the OCLC Research Technical Advances for Innovation in Cultural Heritage Institutions (TAI CHI) Webinar Series developed to highlight specific innovative applications, often locally developed, that libraries, museums and archives may find effective in their own environments, as well as to teach technical staff new technologies and skills. Recordings of these webinars are made available on the OCLC Research website, in iTunes and on YouTube.
Webinar participation is free and open to all but advanced registration is required.
ebrary, a ProQuest business, has announced that it now offers two new subscription products in Employee Development and Human Resources, hand-selected by its on-staff librarians, to assist corporate libraries with strategic e-book acquisition. The new databases - and over 20 others - enable corporate libraries to affordably expand access to a critical mass of e-books to researchers and employees around the world with unlimited, multi-user access and offset any hosting fee for titles acquired under other models.
ebrary's new corporate subscriptions in Employee Development and Human Resources serve as essential tools for supporting career skills and growth. The Employee Development database covers topics such as business communication, strategic thinking, and creativity, while the Human Resources collection encompasses recruitment, retention & remuneration, training & development, and corporate culture & diversity.
ebrary will be demonstrating its solution for corporate libraries in the ProQuest booth #600 at the SLA, scheduled for July 15 - 17 in Chicago, IL.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has announced the launch of a comprehensive, online-only open access journal. With this move, IET is set to become the first engineering, not-for-profit publisher to adopt an open access model.
Open access options will also be added to the Institution’s existing 26 journals. This is part of the IET’s continuing mission to make essential engineering intelligence available to the worldwide engineering community, benefiting researchers who contribute to or use this content.
The IET, which has 150,000 members in 127 countries around the world and has published engineering journals since 1872, will be inviting submissions for its new open access journal from autumn 2012, with the online-only publication expected to launch in 2013.
As a broad-based engineering journal it will accept papers on a wide range of engineering topics, rather than focusing on a single specific field. The title and editor-in-chief of this new publication will be announced later in 2012.
From 2013, authors will also be able to choose to make their research free to view in any of the IET’s 26 existing engineering journals, which include titles such as Electronics Letters and the newly launched IET Biometrics. Currently all research papers published by the IET’s journals are available in print and online to paying subscribers only.
The IET’s decision to adopt the open access model comes after a major global review with over 35,000 engineering researchers from academia and industry to gauge their appetite for open access. This research found that 87 percent of engineering researchers said they would continue to submit articles to a journal if it converted to an open access model, and around a third of them had previously published in an open access journal.
Publishing forecast firm Simba Information, US, has released a report according to which, the PreK-12 market will post a strong compound annual growth rate of 8.8 percent through 2015 for digital courseware, while textbooks prepare for a major shift. The report, Publishing for the PreK-12 Market 2012-2013, provides a segmented overview of the entire PreK-12 publishing industry, covering textbooks, digital courseware, print supplements, state-level tests, modular software, manipulatives, trade books, video and magazines. It provides key metrics for decision makers, including segmented sales estimates through 2015, and state and local funding trends.
Digital Courseware has been leading the growth in the PreK-12 industry and will continue to do so through 2015. Currently, digital holds 30.5 percent of the media used in classroom instruction. According to the report, top industry players Pearson, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw Hill Education are leading the instructional materials market, but the market is opening up to newcomers.
Textbooks, which have been a staple of the PreK-12 learning platform, are expected to undergo significant changes within the next decade, alongside changes in classroom instruction. The report finds the segment will grow slightly as it nears 2015, as schools will tap the core basal textbooks to prepare students for Common Core assessments.
Proceedings of the IEEE, a highly-cited general-interest journal in electrical engineering and computer science, has called for entries for a Future Technology Predictions Competition to identify breakthrough technology ideas for the future. The initiative is in honor of the journal’s centennial celebration.
Entrants have an opportunity to exercise their imaginations to describe the future technological trends and evolutions, as they envision them developing over the next 20, 50 or even 100 years. Deadline for entry submissions is September 1, 2012.
Entrants must submit a written description explaining the anticipated device or innovation they predict will be significant in the future and also provide a roadmap as to how they envision the described breakthrough will be achieved. The written entry must not exceed 1,500 words. All IEEE members are eligible to enter the competition other than those holding official leading positions as either volunteers or staff members.
Winners will be awarded cash honorariums ranging from $500 to $5,000. Predictions deemed most significant will be featured in the December 2012 issue of Proceedings of the IEEE. Winners will be required to sign an IEEE copyright form prior to publication of his or her winning entry.
Proceedings of the IEEE Editorial Board Members will evaluate the entries and the editor-in-chief will have final judging authority. Judging will be based on three key criteria - 50 percent on the technical rationale or roadmaps for achieving the prediction, 25 percent on the basis of originality and creativity and 25 percent on clear expression of the idea. It is anticipated that winners will be notified in September 2012, either by phone or e-mail.
The full official competition rules and submission requirements is available online at http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/proceedings/predictions_competition.html.
Dr. Nehal N. Mehta has been named the inaugural Lasker Clinical Research Scholar, through a joint initiative of the US’ National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Mehta, who was an instructor of cardiovascular medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has joined the intramural programme at the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
The Lasker Clinical Research Scholar initiative seeks to honour the contributions of Mary and Albert Lasker to the NIH and to the overall biomedical community. Through this competitive programme, NIH and Lasker Foundation aim to nurture the next generation of great clinical scientists. The programme will select talented early-stage researchers and provide them with the opportunity to carry out independent clinical and translational research for five to seven years at the NIH campus in Bethesda.
Scholars will have access to NIH resources including the NIH Clinical Center, the largest hospital in the world devoted to clinical research. The Lasker Foundation will provide additional developmental support to Mehta and future scholars while they are working at NIH by funding travel to scientific meetings and providing them with the opportunity to participate in selected foundation activities, including the Lasker Award ceremonies.
After completing their initial tenure, Mehta and subsequent Lasker clinical research scholars will have the opportunity to remain at NIH as tenured investigators or join the faculty of an extramural research institution, where they can receive up to five years more of NIH financial support.
Google may pay $22.5 million fine over Safari privacy breach
