Monday Round-Up: When Movies Come True

When "Minority Report" was released, it featured slick-looking, futuristic technology and a psychic police force. But is predictive crime fighting no longer limited to the silver screen? In this week's Monday Round-Up, we look at stories involving policing technology, Yahoo and Apple being hacked, and conferences discussing the importance of ICT, among other items.

• In an effort to deal with budgetary cuts in California, police officers have experimented with PredPol, software that predicts crime locations by combining statistical data with criminology studies. Similarly, Oakland, CA dabbled with using audio to locate gunshots in 2007.
• Yahoo experienced a SQL injection attack, causing the release of over 400,000 user passwords, 117 of which were only 1 character long.
• A Russian hacker has designed a way to make free in-app purchases, demonstrating gaping holes in Apple security.
• Ever heard of M-Pesa, the very successful SMS based money transfer system? While others seek to reproduce M-Pesa's model, GSMA released a report demonstrating the difficulty in replicating M-Pesa in new locations.
• The World Bank and Data.gov wrapped up their International Open Government Data Conference with a presentation summarizing the main points from the event. To see an example of open data being used, watch the Ted x Montreal talk given by the group Data Kind.
• The Technology and Social Change group from the University of Washington releases its Global Impact Survey, which contains data from over 5,000 public access ICT users in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines.
• Amnesty International called the conviction of Ethiopian journalist and blogger Eskinder Nada a "dark day" for freedom of expression.
• Using ICT to improve transparency, health patients in Uganda are reporting poor service provision at their local clinics.
• The times they are a changin': Read one entrepreneur's reflections on how technology and innovation open up new doors for African businesses.
• A group in Russia has created a database of social technology tools to improve social activists technology awareness.

Events:

• The Brookings Institute's Center for Technology Innovation will be hosting an event on distance learning and education technology this Tuesday. 
• The American Foreign Policy Council presents a conference on the Hill this Thursday to discuss the implications of cyberthreats to the U.S.