Making Sense of Traffic Data
San Francisco — On the Internet, traffic is easily tracked. Google and Facebook have algorithms that know what users are searching for. Online retailers can monitor what shoppers are buying. Newspapers can see in real-time how many readers are viewing an article. The same hasn’t been true for traffic in the physical world, where data-gathering has been decidedly more low-tech. Want to know how many people are getting on at a certain...
Health Data Collection Limited
Washington — The Supreme Court says state officials can’t force certain health insurers to turn over reams of data revealing how much they pay for medical claims. The justices ruled 6-2 that efforts by Vermont and at least 17 other states to gather and analyze the data conflict with federal law covering reporting requirements for employer health plans. The case involves Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., which operates a self-insured...
IRS Doubles Number of Taxpayers Whose Data May Have Been Stolen
Washington — The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that criminals attacking its website may have stolen sensitive personal information from more than twice as many taxpayers as initially expected. In total, cyber criminals may have accessed tax data for more than 700,000 taxpayers by hacking the agency’s “Get Transcript” tool, which allows taxpayers to obtain copies of previous tax returns, the IRS said. Criminals tried to use the...
Despite the Cloud, Supercomputer Demand Strong
Seattle — For PGS, an oil-imaging company in Oslo, Norway, finding pockets of oil and natural gas in the ground essentially starts by taking a large ultrasound picture of Earth. “It involves huge amounts of data,” said Guillaume Cambois, PGS’ executive vice president of imaging and engineering. “And, of course, time is of the essence.” PGS, short for Petroleum Geo-Services, this year tried to speed up that work by buying a...
Stocks Lose Ground As Jobs Report Disappoints Market
New York — Stocks posted steep losses Friday, ending the week with broad declines, as investors fretted over a report showing that U.S. job creation slowed last month. Technology stocks fell especially hard, and shares of LinkedIn had their worst day in history. Energy and consumer discretionary stocks fell as oil prices declined and investors continued to worry that the risk of the U.S. economy slipping into recession, while low, is...
