Congress

In today’s pictures, a woman carries flowers in Guatemala, a newborn giraffe is presented to the public in Berlin, a wounded protester is carried away in Cairo, and more

The Art of Walking: a field guide is the first extensive survey of walking in contemporary art. Combining short texts on the subject with a variety of artists work, The Art of Walking provides a new way of looking at this everyday subject continue

In this week’s photos from around New York, Spring arrives in fits and starts, the city prepares for bike-sharing and Anthony Weiner says he’s considering a bid for mayor.

In today’s pictures, men play a traditional game in Sri Lanka, a tree falls on a home in Missouri, a fire burns down buildings in Spain, and more.

This story was co-produced with NPR.

Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes—and for free. You'd open up a prefilled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

It's already a reality in Denmark, Sweden, and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate.

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Malware used to spy on Tibetan activists and other ethnic groups in China is nothing new. But a new Trojan discovered by researchers at Kaspersky Labs has widened the scope of this digital espionage and intimidation. The malware uses a combination of e-mail hacking, "spear phishing," and a Trojan built specifically for Android smartphones. Kaspersky claims this is the first discovery of a targeted attack that uses mobile phone malware.

On March 25, the e-mail account of a Tibetan activist was hacked and then used to distribute Android malware to the activist's contact list. The e-mail's lure was a statement on the recent conference organized by the World Uyghur Congress that brought together Chinese democracy activists and Tibet, Southern Mongolia, and East Turkestan human rights activists. The e-mail claimed to have an attachment that was a joint letter from WUC, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and the Society for Threatened Peoples. If the targets opened the attachment, however, they received malware packaged in an Android APK file.

When opened, the Trojan installs an app called "Conference" on the Android devices' desktops. If the app is launched, it displays a fake message from the chairman of the WUC—while sending back a message to a command and control server to report its successful installation. The malware provides a backdoor to the device via SMS messages sent by the server. On command, it returns the phone's contact lists, call logs, data about the smartphone, its geo-location data, and any SMS messages stored on it to a server via a Web POST upload.

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Today's video is an interview with the Corporate Alliance Director and the Chief Technology Officer of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), a non-profit organization that claims it is "...the largest and most comprehensive global information privacy community and resource, helping practitioners develop and advance their careers and organizations manage and protect their data." In other words, it's not the same as the much-beloved Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), but is -- as its name implies -- a group of people engaged in privacy protection as part of their work or whose work is about privacy full-time, which seems to be the case for more and more IT and Web people lately, what with HIPAA and other privacy-oriented regulations. This is a growing field, well worth learning more about.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“Kodachrome! They give us those nice bright colors, they give us the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day” sang Paul Simon in 1973. These incredible Kodachrome transparencies shot for the Office of War Information date from a few decades earlier. Taken on the home front in the thick of the Second World War, they’ve been adjusted by the Shorpy webmaster from originals held in the Library of Congress to give us those nice bright colours Paul Simon loved.

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Today NPR is streaming the new Youth Lagoon album and tomorrow he does on tour, just going to keep it short, what a great record, enjoy.

TRACKLIST
Through Mind and Back
Mute
Attic Doctor
The Bath
Pelican Man
Dropla
Sleep Paralysis
Third Dystopia
Raspberry Cane
Daisyphobia

TOUR DATES
02-26 Missoula, MT – Badlander
02-27 Bozeman, MT – Filling Station
02-28 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
03-01 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
03-06 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
03-13-16 Austin, TX – SXSW
03-22 Boise, ID – Treefort Music Fest
04-12 Indio, CA – Coachella
04-19 Indio, CA – Coachella
04-21 Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
04-22 Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
04-24 Austin, TX – Mohawk
04-25 Dallas, TX – The Loft
04-26 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s
04-27 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks
04-28 Birmingham, AL – The Bottletree
04-30 Orlando, FL – The Social
05-01 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
05-02 Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
05-03 Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
05-04 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
05-07 Northampton, MA – Pearl St.
05-10 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
05-11 Columbia, MD – Sweet Life Festival
05-13 Toronto, Ontario – Great Hall
05-14 Columbus, OH – A&R Bar
05-15 Chicago, IL – Metro
05-16 Madison, WI – Majestic Theater
05-17 Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
05-22 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
05-23 Vancouver, British Columbia – Venue
05-24 Gorge, WA – Sasquatch! Fest
06-05 Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center *
* with the National

Youth Lagoon’s second album, Wondrous Bughouse, is one of the most arresting headphone records you’ll hear this year. Trevor Powers, the band’s sole member, layers strange but alluring synth textures under quirky melodies and simple pop beats, in the process creating an expansive and endlessly engrossing world of sonic curiosities.

As with Youth Lagoon’s 2011 debut, The Year of Hibernation, the songs on Wondrous Bughouse are moody but not melancholy. Thematically, Powers finds himself in an existential spiral, as he asks grand questions about mortality, the spiritual world and his own mental state — which he describes as “hyperactive.” Weighty subjects ripe for pensive introspection, sure, but the music is uplifting, if a bit dysphoric, like an awkward hug for all that is light and beautiful.

Powers, who says he controls his busy mind with music, offers no illuminating epiphanies or profound discoveries on Wondrous Bughouse, out March 5; he says he hasn’t had any. But the songs allow him to assume the identity of Youth Lagoon and sort through all the emotional and mental baggage he, like so many, carries with him everywhere. The album opens a window into our odd little world, with the understanding that life is a baffling mystery, but also a wonderful ride.

via NPR

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