Priv-Note: An Explosive Web 2.0 Concept in Service of Privacy

Sooner or later, it had to happen.
You know all those scenes in Mission Impossible where an envelope or tape-recorder has played its vital message and immediately begins to ignite? Ed McMahon or someone gravely intones, “This message will self-destruct in 10 SECONDS. 10, 9, 8….”
That’s the concept behind Priv-Note — notes that self-destruct [...]

Does Google Make Us Stupid? Let me count the ways

Much has been made about a piece in the Atlantic – a good piece, mind you — where Nicholas Carr posits that Google specifically, and search in general, is making us stupid.
Basically, he points out that we are no longer able to handle large blocks of text; we are losing our powers of recall [...]