The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 22

THE 0KLAH0MAN NEWS0K.COM 2C TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 INNOVATIONS 5 things to do to keep NSA from prying into your email A man walks past a mural in an office on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif. AP FILE PHOTO Facebook explains what can get posts disliked' NEW YORK Facebook is trying to clarify what posts, images and other content it allows on its site and why. In an update to its community standards page, the world's largest online social network gave users more guidance on why, for example, it might take down a post that featured sexual violence and exploitation, hate speech, criminal activity or bullying. It also explained why it not only bans terrorist and organized crime groups, but also removes content supporting them. The Menlo Park, Calif-based company said it isn't changing how it regulates the content of posts, and that although some of the guidance for users is new, "it is consistent with how we've applied our standards in the past." In a blog post Monday, Facebook said it is a challenge to maintain one set of standards that meet the needs of its entire community.

More than 80 percent of Facebook users are outside the U.S. and Canada. "People from different backgrounds may have different ideas about what's appropriate to share a video posted as a joke by one person might be upsetting to someone else, but it may not violate our standard," wrote Monika Bickert, head of global policy management, and Chris Sonderby, deputy general counsel, in the post. Facebook users who believe that a particular page or content violates the site's standards can click a "report" link to notify Face-book. The company then considers whether to take it down.

Some content is only removed in some countries. Facebook restricts content in countries where it violates local laws, even if that content does not violate its community standards. Separately, Facebook also released its latest report on requests it gets from governments worldwide, covering the second half of 2014. The report shows that requests from governments for data and to restrict information are both increasing. A student works with a computer and a calculator at Reynoldsburg High School in Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

er collect personal information or track people entering queries on its site. Just 10 percent of those participating in Pew's survey said they use a search engine that doesn't track their searching history. Scramble it Encryption programs such as Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, can make your email appear indecipherable to anyone without the digital key to translate the gibberish. This can help prevent highly sensitive financial and business information from getting swept up by hackers, as well as a government dragnet. Yet only 2 percent of the people surveyed by Pew used PGP or other email encryption programs.

Part of the problem: Encryption isn't easy to use, as email recipients also need to use encryption or leave their regular inboxes to read messages. Browser cloaking A privacy tool called Blur, made by Abine, enables its users to surf the Web without their activities being tracked. It also masks passwords and credit card information entered on computers and mobile devices so they can't be lifted from the databases of the websites that collect them. Blur charges $39 annually for this level of protection. Privacy Badger from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, offers a free way to block tracking of browsing activity.

Drop the Internet It might sound old-school, but if you want to share something really sensitive, meet face to face. The Pew poll found 14 percent of respondents are choosing to speak in person more frequently rather than text, email or talk on the phone because of the Snowden revelations. Get smarter If you're looking to become more literate about the ins and outs of digital privacy, two of the most comprehensive guides can be found through the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense site, https: ssd.eff.org, and https: their data and their personal information," Mary Madden, a senior researcher for Pew, told The Associated Press. "But at the same time, when we asked them if they would like to do more, folks expressed that as an aspira-tional goal." Here are five steps you can take to be more private online. Stealthy searching Don't want a digital dossier of your personal interests to be stored and analyzed? Wean yourself from the most popular search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo.

All of them collect and dissect your queries to learn what kinds of products and services might appeal to you so they can sell advertising targeted to your interests. Just because that trove of data is meant to be used for commercial purposes doesn't mean snoopers such as the NSA couldn't vacuum up the information, too, to find out more about you. A small search engine called DuckDuck-Go has been gaining more fans with its pledge to nev BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO More than half of Americans are worried about the U.S. government's digital spies prying into their emails, texts, search requests and other online information, but few are trying to thwart the surveillance. That's according to a new survey from Pew Research Center, released Monday.

A main reason for the inertia? Pew researchers found that a majority of those surveyed don't know about online shields that could help boost privacy or believe it would be too difficult to avoid the government's espionage. The poll questioned 475 adults from Nov. 26 to Jan. 3 about a year-and-a-half after confidential documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the U.S. government has been monitoring a broad range of online communications for years as part of its efforts to diffuse terrorist threats.

"It all boils down to people sort of feeling like they have lost control over ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW: MACBOOK Laptop shows Apple's still committed to Macs Strong entrepreneurs change to meet needs DID YOU KNOW? Across 2014, of the largest social platforms, Pinterest recorded the highest growth in members (nearly 60 percent) and the biggest growth in active users (97 percent). SOURCE: GLOBALWEBINDEX SAN FRANCISCO -The MacBook Air was revolutionary when Apple started selling it in 2008. Though still thin and light, the Air now feels like a cheap cousin next to more powerful MacBook Pro laptops and Windows laptops known as ultrabooks. So Apple returned to the drawing board and came up with a two pound, energy-efficient, silent machine it's calling, simply, the MacBook. The little time I had with it impressed me.

The MacBook is thinner and lighter than the Air. It feels like an iPad, except with a keyboard and screen. In fact, the MacBook incorporates many of the designs Apple learned from the iPad, including making the laptop work without a fan and squeezing all the electronics onto a small card, known as the logic board. The MacBook, which goes on sale April 10, isn't cheap but it's reasonably priced for a Mac laptop. The $1299 model comes with 256 gigabytes of storage.

That's double what you get on the $899 Air version. It's the same storage you get for the $1099 Air, but Mac-Book's high-resolution screen is much better. For $300 more, you get a MacBook with a faster processor and 512 gigabytes of storage. The MacBook's 12-inch screen is the "Retina" display found in the latest MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPads. The new MacBook's keyboard extends all the way to the left and right side.

Apple kept a full-size keyboard, as smaller keys can be hard to use. The new MacBook also has an improved trackpad. It's designed to feel the same wherever you tap it. The trackpad also enables new controls. If you hover over an icon and press on the trackpad, a preview of the file opens.

What's the catch? Apple has a history of ditching older technologies as it comes out with new designs. The new MacBook drops USB ports, which are common for printers and accessories. Apple's proprietary MagSafe charging port has been replaced with a standardized USB Type-C connection. You'll need to share that port among various chargers and accessories. And there are few that work with Type-C for now, so you'll need adapters.

The MacBook also lacks an SD slot for camera memory. Some people will find the screen too small, and others will still need those ports and SD card slot But it shows Apple isn't giving up on the Mac. ANICK JESDANUN, ASSOCIATED PRESS Brides and weddings are big business just ask any parent who is paying for one. So Tailwind co-founders Danny Maloney and Alex Topiler thought they had a pretty good idea back in 2on with Brides -View, a visual wedding planning platform. BridesView began growing, but the founders soon noticed that a lot of their visitors were coming from a (then) small site called Pinterest.

The pair analyzed traffic data from Pinterest and then focused Brides -View on providing content that matched brides' interests and emerging industry trends on Pinterest. Before long, Maloney and Topiler realized that they were on to something that could apply to any business not just those in the wedding industry. They left BridesView at the altar, started Tailwind and haven't looked back. Continuing change Tailwind began as a Pinterest analytics dashboard. "But once we had members with us for six to months," Maloney Scott Meacham said, "we began hearing that the analytics were interesting, but customers really wanted us to help them apply insights in practice.

After all, most marketers are not data scientists." Tailwind listened and expanded their offering to become an integrated marketing, analytics and management platform that equips subscribers to create, optimize and analyze visual marketing campaigns, all in one tool. Today, Tailwind serves more than 30,000 members from 145 countries, including world-class brands such as Disney, eBay and J.C Penney. Tailwind has helped members generate more than 10 million pins. Not just luck Is it luck that Maloney and Topiler recognized the potential of Pinterest and built a business at the leading edge of the visual marketing wave? hind the Oklahoma Proof of Concept Center, where i2E helps emerging technologies find their path forward. It's the reason for i2E's Immersion Venture Assessment Program with workshops in Tulsa and Oklahoma City designed to help entrepreneurs determine whether they have a product -market match.

It's critically important for Oklahoma entrepreneurs to be able to efficiently and cost-effectively validate potential markets and customers before they ever invest in their first prototype or get too far down the expensive and time-consuming path of trying to launch their company. We supply the tools. Scott Meacham is president and CEO of i2E a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state's technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Contact Meacham at Maybe some.

But we think it's more that these experienced entrepreneurs weren't wedded (excuse the pun) to their original idea. They were willing to listen to the market and were able to recognize that they needed to step back, reconsider and take a different direction than the one they first planned. Most startups make changes willingly or unwillingly especially in their earliest phases. Entrepreneurs have to stand nose to the wind, listen to their customers and prospective customers, remain flexible and be willing to change course. Center offers ideas Experienced entrepreneurs like Maloney and Topiler at Tailwind, understand this; first time entrepreneurs, maybe not so much.

That's the "why" be.