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Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense brings you the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules. From electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms, Future Tense keeps you up to date on the rapidly changing world of technology.
Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC's As It Happens.
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In a recent story in USA Today, Byron Acohido reports that malicious hackers recently broke into the computer network of a large Houston-based technology company, infecting more than 300 work stations with a virus that harvested company documents, sending the data to a gang of thieves in Turkey.
Acohido says the heist underscores a shift in computer crime, where criminals are going after corporate users instead of individuals.
For years YouTube has championed user-generated videos over Hollywood-style programming, and steadfastly avoided obtrusive advertising.
But recently YouTube announced it will sell search terms as part of an advertising program, and secured the rights to post full-length movies from a major Hollywood studio. And that's probably just a taste of what's to come for a site that's captured the world's imagination but has yet to figure out the money thing, according to Greg Sandoval of CNET News.
Fifteen percent of people who had some piece of technology break down in the previous year were never able to get it repaired, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That figure is even higher for cell phones - as one in four people report an unresolved problem.
Security experts who helped shut down a shadowy Silicon Valley Web hosting company this week say the result is an instant 40 percent drop in spam. But that won't last, according to Paul Ferguson of security firm Trend Micro.
Ferguson is part of an alliance of security researchers called HostExploit.com that's been keeping tabs on Web hosting company McColo for the better part of two years now.
HostExploit's sleuthing helped persuade McColo's Internet service providers to pull the plug on the company.
Popular online classified ad site craigslist has introduced new rules aimed at reducing ads placed by prostitutes and pimps. The San Francisco company is now charging a small fee and requiring credit card verification for postings in the "erotic services" section of the site. Advertisers must also supply a working phone number. Craigslist promises to donate revenue generated from ads to charity.
Guest: Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
During his campaign Barack Obama leveraged the Web, social networks, text messaging and e-mail to amass supporters and money. The question now: Will Obama use his millions of Internet friends to help him run the country and bring change to Washington?
Mobile phone company Nokia and the University of California Berkeley have released software that allows some San Francisco Bay Area drivers to use their GPS-enabled phones to better monitor traffic congestion.
The software turns AT&T and T-Mobile phones into traffic sensing devices that transmit speed and location information to traffic engineers. Drivers can tap into the information collected by other phones in the network to get commute times and find alternate routes.
Environmental activists and more than two dozen recycling companies have created a certification program designed to curtail the export and improper disposal of toxic electronic waste.
e-Stewards is an independently-audited program in which certified recyclers promise that computers, monitors cell phones and other e-waste will not be dumped in local landfills, exported to foreign countries, or handled by prison labor.
Guest: Jim Puckett, Basel Acton Network
This Sunday's 60 Minutes exposes what looks like a ghastly e-waste dismantling facility in Guiyu, China. Thugs overseeing the dump jumped Scott Pelley and his crew, but the newsies managed to get out with their cameras.
The Chinese attackers were trying to protect a lucrative business of mining the e-waste-junked computers, televisions and other old electronic products-for valuable components, including gold. "They're afraid of being found out. This is smuggling. This is illegal," says Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network, a group working to stop the dumping of toxic materials in poor countries that certifies ethical e-waste recyclers in the United States. "A lot of people are turning a blind eye here. And if somebody makes enough noise, they're afraid this is all going to dry up."
