Sunday, April 10, 2016

Groups call for Privacy Shield to go 'back to drafting table'

Several groups are speaking out against a proposed agreement between the Commerce Department and European Commission that would let companies transfer Europeans' data to the United States.

In a March 16 letter (pdf) to European Union data protection authorities, the EU Parliament and the Dutch Presidency of the EU, 27 organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called for reform of U.S. law and limits on what data can be collected before the agreement, called the Privacy Shield, is enacted.

Open data gets meaningful through new MIT project

A new project aims to make it easier to find interesting and useful data among all the information that federal, state and local government open to the public.

The MIT Media Lab is working on Data USA, a free visualization of U.S. public data, according to a New York Times article. Fitting with the theme of openness, the project's software code is open source.

Hotels Step Up Their Game to Attract Embassy Business

When King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has a birthday, everyone gets to party. The country marks the day — April 27 — with several large events in the Washington, D.C., area that double as National Day celebrations.

Bevy of International Products Expands Our Notions of Beauty

A stroll through the makeup section of a department store can feel like a mini trip around the world. It’s obvious that products with foreign-sounding names take up plenty of counter and shelf space. There’s France’s Chanel, Israel’s Ahava, England’s Burberry, Italy’s Dolce & Gabbana — you get the idea — all enticingly packaged with promises of transformation. And maybe transportation, too.