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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released its Secure Messaging Scorecard, evaluating dozens of messaging technologies on a range of security best practices. "The revelations from Edward Snowden confirm that governments are spying on our digital lives, devouring all communications that aren't protected by encryption," said EFF Technology Projects Director Peter Eckersley. "Many new tools claim to protect you, but don't include critical features like end-to-end encryption or secure deletion. This scorecard gives you the facts you need to choose the right technology to send your message."

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Last year, Google invited itself into the living room with the Chromecast, a $35 dongle that plugs into the back of any TV with an HDMI port and lets you play online videos and other content on your television from another device. Now, Google hopes to get even comfier on the couch with the Nexus Player, a $99 black disc with a Bluetooth remote control that turns any TV with an HDMI port into an Internet-connected TV that can stream movies, play music and video games, and run select Android apps.

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Dropbox and Microsoft are partnering to integrate Microsoft Office with the cloud-storage platform more closely than any other save Microsoft’s own OneDrive service. The joint venture brings Dropbox the credibility in the enterprise that it has been fighting for in recent months, while smoothing the sharp edges on Microsoft’s public image, proving that the Redmond-based firm can “play nicely with others”.

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That's not because Apple promises an easier, more secure way of making a smartphone-based retail transaction. Nor is it because CurrentC wants to harvest data on you and provide behavior-bending coupons, incentives and special deals, while cutting out the middleman credit card processing industry. If you think those three sentences are complicated, it gets worse. Paying by smartphone -- which seems like a new and cool convenience -- is just the start of an unavoidable new in-person retail experience.

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One of the great challenges of neuroscience is to understand the short-term working memory in the human brain. At the same time, computer scientists would dearly love to reproduce the same kind of memory in silico.

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