Technology

From Texas Standard:

In May, President Donald Trump’s so-called "zero tolerance" policy led to the separation of hundreds of migrant kids from their parents. The issue dominated headlines. Now, the news seems to have largely moved on, though many families remain separated despite the reversal of that practice.

While many Texans have spent at least some time near the U.S.-Mexico border, most don’t know what it’s like to cross the border as an immigrant. But a Texas video game designer is trying to bridge that gap.

Jan Morgan used to think smartphones were for young people.

"I didn't want a phone smarter than me," she joked.  

She refused to get one. Instead the 66-year-old bought flip phones and pre-paid phone cards. Thirty-three phones later, a store clerk pointed out that she didn't have to buy a new phone to get more minutes.

Human attempts to control the weather go back millennia.

There was fire, of course, for keeping warm when winter's cold takes hold, but taming the sweltering heat of the summer is a much newer pursuit. 

From Texas Standard.

Tech transformations can have such a dramatic effect on the course of your day that it’s hard to remember your life before the latest gadget. When was the last time you used a paper map when your phone died or lost service? Though he admits his own sense of direction is lacking, Bill Kilday, in his new book, Never Lost Again, tells the story of how a small Texas tech startup named Keyhole eventually became Google Maps as we know it.

From Texas Standard.

It probably isn’t a surprise that your cell phone company knows a lot about you, including where you are right now and where you were last night. The phone company doesn’t really care where you were last night. But the police might, if they think you could be involved in a crime, they can scoop up your location data after the fact. But how would it feel to know that phone carriers are passing your location data on to third parties, and that you can’t opt out of that sharing?

From Texas Standard.

Tech companies say the U.S. needs more and more workers with computer coding skills. There’s also a severe unemployment problem among people with disabilities. A program created last year by Apple to encourage all kids to learn to code is now entering the lives of some Texas students with visual disabilities.

Not everyone who learns to program will make a career of doing it, but for a blind kid who gets the coding bug, having an accessible way to write software could be a start toward filling those job gaps.

From Texas Standard.

Multiple school districts in north and northeast Texas were notified by the Texas Department of Agriculture recently that they were likely exposed to a data breach. The warning estimates that personal information of some 700 students across 39 districts could have been leaked when an employee’s state-issued laptop was hit with a ransomware attack.

The federal health insurance marketplace has been a big help to startups in Austin in the past few years. It's giving tech workers the ability to buy health insurance when their fledgling employers are too small to provide benefits.

President Donald Trump is butting heads with the tech industry over his recent actions on immigration. Nearly 100 tech CEOs, including some of the biggest players in Silicon Valley, signed an open letter saying the president’s policies threaten their ability to recruit, hire and retain some of the world’s best employees. How could the president’s policies affect Austin’s tech industry?

Dell completed its merger with EMC Corporation today. The new merged company pushes Dell farther on its trajectory away from its roots as a computer maker in Round Rock.

From Texas Standard:

Thanks to computers and cameras in things we use and wear, there’s more data available about us than ever before. Whatever you’re doing right now, you’re producing data. Whether you’re walking your dog, sitting in traffic, or jogging on the treadmill, you are leaving a trail of data points behind you like bread crumbs.

From Texas Standard:

While police, media, and citizens piece together the details of the shooting of police officers in Dallas last week, we still are left with many questions. One of which surrounds the use of police tactics. In a never-before-seen measure, Dallas Police Negotiators used a robot armed with a bomb to end a prolonged standoff with the shooter. That tactic has now called into question the legality of such weapons and their deployment.

From Texas Standard:

Thousands of migrants continue to pour into Europe daily. Most are headed for Germany; the country leads the European Union in the number of migrants and refugees it has resettled.

In the United States, Texas plays that leading role.

From Texas Standard: A Google-sponsored pitching event gives budding entrepreneurs the platform they need to get start-up capital.

This story comes from Texas Standard.

Remember the movie Minority Report? It’s kind of like that…

Imagine you’re doing a little window shopping and suddenly the ad on a screen in front of you changes… a cold front has blown through, so instead of showing iced coffee, it shows a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

This is the type of advertising that a Dallas Startup is at the forefront of. Glass-Media’s technology also has some ability to recognize you – or at least tell your age and gender.

Daniel Black is the company’s co-founder and CEO.

Next month marks the one-year anniversary of the notorious Target credit card breach, one of the biggest credit card hacks in history.

And with consumers wary about credit security, companies are rolling out new payment options – like Apple Pay.

Omar Gallaga, tech culture reporter for the Austin-American Statesman, tells Texas Standard the original idea behind mobile pay initiatives was to simplify buying.

A courtroom in Marshall, Texas – population 25,000 – is deciding patent cases with implications for some of entertainment's biggest names.

Marshall was the setting for a court case against CBS this week. A small company, Personal Audio, has sued media giants including Apple, Sirius XM, and CBS for damages related to alleged infringement of their podcast patent. (Podcasts are digital files on the Internet that can be downloaded to a computer or media player.)

A jury found CBS did infringe the patent – awarding Personal Audio $1.3 million.

Here’s the scenario: You’re drowning in thousands of unread messages, you're missing meetings and appointments and dreading checking your overloaded inbox. What should you do?

You could declare email bankruptcy by sending a mass-email to all your contacts to inform them of your email insolvency and providing a new email address at which they can reach you.

Or you could take inspiration from Brigid Schulte, the Washington Post reporter who decided to tackle her bloated inbox, which contained 23,736 unread messages, one email at a time.

Everyone has ideas. Machines, inventions, and improvements to everyday products: things that bounce around in everyone's mind. But unless that someone is an engineer, inventor, or tinkerer, those ideas stay just that … ideas.

Until now that is.  

A new, emerging "maker" culture encourages innovators to create as they wish with the help of 3D printers, laser cutters, and many other tools. The Obama Administration even recently hosted a nationwide "Day of Making" for these creators.