Last week, Google announced a new, simplified privacy policy. They did a great job of informing users that the privacy policy had been changed through emails and notifications, and several experts (including Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian) have praised the shift toward a simpler, more unified policy. Unfortunately, while the policy might be easier to understand, Google did a less impressive job of publicly explaining what in the policy had actually been changed.

In fact, it took a letter from eight Representatives to persuade them to provide straightforward answers to the public about their new policy.

Here’s what you need to know about the substantive changes in the new policy:

The Cognitive Foundry is a modular Java software library for the research and development of cognitive systems. It contains many reusable components for machine learning, statistics, and cognitive modeling. It is primarily designed to be easy to plug into applications to provide adaptive behaviors.

The Cognitive Foundry's development is led by Sandia National Laboratories and is released under the open source BSD License.

The SavetheInternet.com Coalition is two million everyday people who have banded together with thousands of nonprofit organizations, businesses and bloggers to protect Internet freedom.

The problem with safety guidelines is that they make most playgrounds so uninteresting as to contribute to reduced physical activity.

Playgrounds don't look like they used to. Steep metal slides and wooden towers have given way to slow, plastic slides and carefully penned-in climbing contraptions.

And forget about seesaws -- they're a thing of the past.

When kids are bored by unimaginative (read: safe) playground equipment, they're less active as a result, and with childhood obesity at epidemic proportions, that's a danger, too.

When US-born Dave Aldwinckle became a Japanese citizen named Arudou Debito in 2000, two Japanese officials told him that only now did he have human rights in Japan. Such prejudice galvanized him into becoming a crusader against anti-gaijin (foreigner) discrimination after braving death threats to him and his family. Is Arudou throwing the egg of morality and legality against the rock of ancient bias? In this exclusive interview with Asia Times Online contributor Victor Fic, he sees Japan turning inward.

During January, I created 41 and closed 21 #todo items. Aiming to close at least 25 in February.

In contrast, names these days show that people living in what has become an extremely urbanized society miss their links with nature, Makino says. This can be observed in the proliferation of kanji such as 翔 (shō), meaning "flying," 海 (kai), which means "ocean," and 空 (taka), meaning "sky."

So how do parents decide on names for their babies? Well, there's no shortage of methodologies out there to help with their selection, and many people actually combine two or more of them.

Targeting cinematographers, journalists, scientists and hobbyists, the eye3 isn’t just a toy but packs enough power to hoist weighty (and expensive) 35mm dSLR cameras or even 16mm motion picture cameras with mounts. It has a durable, high precision carbon and glass fiber frame that weighs just half a kilogram. It uses the popular APM2 open source autopilot platform. Each of the six rotors is powered by a 350-watt motor. The six rotor design is a safety measure: two rotors can fail and the copter will still be brought back safely.

ArchBang is a simple GNU/Linux distribution which provides you with a lightweight Arch Linux system combined with the Openbox Window Manager. Suitable for both desktop and portable systems – It is fast, stable, and always up to date.

You can customise your install to suit your needs, and draw on the vast resources & knowledge of the Arch Linux community. The download page has links to both 32 & 64 bit versions, bootable as a live CD / USB – allowing you to easily test it out before doing a full install.

The village of Kawauchi near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant declared an end to evacuation on Tuesday and called on residents to return.

Kawauchi is the first among municipalities located in evacuation zones designated after the nuclear accident to take such a step.

The village will restart administrative services and reopen schools, nurseries and clinics in April, Kawauchi Mayor Yuko Endo said at a press conference.