Looking Forward to ReFuel 2012 Clean Power Motorsports

Will the Scrambls KleenSpeed EV-X11 set a new lap record at Mazda Raceway tomorrow? Remember to follow @scramblsUSA on Twitter for live updates from Laguna Seca.

Google I/O

This year's Google Developer conference has been terrific as always. While there were no earth shattering announcements (though Google Compute Engine is bound to be huge) a lot of promising services have matured significantly. And when things mature at Google it always means richer, deeper and easier API's. Google has done so much for the web by making everything they do programmable. At scrambls we're big adherents to this philosophy of integration, and we have our part to play. Google Plus, Drive, Cloud Storage, Events, Gmail, etc. are all made better when you control the keys to your stuff.

Challenging the Status Quo

We're really excited to have unveiled our new partnership with KleenSpeed and our sponsorship of the EV-X11, the world's fastest electric racecar. Our goal is to work closely with KleenSpeed, leveraging the EV-X11 to maximize our exposure to key audiences including investors, technology partners, and consumers around the globe. We plan to generate a wealth of multimedia assets that we will leverage across both our inbound and outbound marketing campaigns.

Scrambls and KleenSpeed both start with a concept of social responsibility. For scrambls, this means having control of your personal privacy and deciding how your content is shared. For KleenSpeed, it means having smart energy solution to address economic and environmental issues. We have each developed technology that challenges the status quo, and both are pushing conventional boundaries and long-held perceptions in our respective markets.
Working with KleenSpeed will accelerate the growth of scrambls by raising the profile of the scrambls brand and putting us in front of a much larger audience. We are particularly happy to have KleenSpeed's support for our initiative to keep children safe online, and expect the EV-X11 will be an attention-grabbing way to deliver our message to schools later this year.
Scrambls users are welcome to join us for REFUEL 2012, the fourth annual clean power motorsports event, at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Sunday, July 1st, where we hope the EV-X11 will set a new speed record.

KleenSpeed Annouces Scrambls as Sponsor of World's Fastest Electric Race Car

KleenSpeed has announced that scrambls is the primary 2012 sponsor of its record-breaking EV-X11.

Using Scrambls is a Step to Social Media Stardom

Network World reports that "many enterprises have even started to treat social media tools as mission-critical" and recommends seven steps to success. Scrambls is highlighted in step No. 2: Protect your posts. According to the article, "Privacy will probably never be completely fixed on social media networks, but tools are emerging to help you regain control. One of the best is the browser extension Scrambls."

Ready for an Enigmatic Challenge?

Wired is celebrating the work of Alan Turing and has put together an interesting challenge. We know more than a few scrambls users who are pretty hot when it comes to cryptography. Let's see who cracks the code first.

National PTA Convention

We're demonstrating scrambls at the National PTA Convention today and tomorrow in San Jose. We're looking forward to continuing our discussions with PTA members and explaining how scrambls can help keep children safe online. We're located next to the Child Safety Network in booth 634. Scrambls was recently awarded CSN's Safe Family Seal of Approval and was the winner of the 2012 National Child Safety Award.

Children and the Internet: Playing it Safe

Scrambls will be focusing on online child safety again this week when we participate at Intellect's conference: Children and the Internet: Playing it Safe. This is an issue that the scrambls team cares deeply about. Social networks have done great things for communication, but they can be very dangerous places for kids. We'll be posting advice on how to protect your family over the next few weeks.

Apple's New iOS 6 Adds Privacy Control

One of the new features in iOS 6 is Privacy, which lets iPhone and iPad users see which apps are accessing your location, contacts, calendar, reminders, and photos. Users can toggle this access on and off. Following the recent discoveries of privacy violations by popular applications including Path and LinkedIn, this is an important addition. Unfortunately you won't be able to control your privacy for Maps, Apple's new application that uses high definition aerial imagery captured by spy planes. As privacy expert Nick Pickles has points out, "You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures."

Vast Majority Vote Against Facebook Privacy Changes

Despite an 87% vote against updates to its privacy policy, Facebook announced that it has adopted the changes anyway. According to the social network's own rules, unless 30% of its active registered users vote, the results are merely advisory. Requiring such a high level of voter participation safely ensures that Facebook will never be forced to do anything by its user base. In California, where Facebook is headquartered, voter turnout in last week's statewide primary election barely exceeded this level.

The scrambls product team spends as much time as possible listening to feedback from our users. When a significant majority expresses a strong opinion about your product, you should consider the sample size. In this case, "only" 297,883 people told Facebook the changes were a bad idea. Facebook's entire business model is based on gathering and selling data about its members. It's interesting that the company is now choosing to ignore data that its members expressly want to provide.

There's a Business Opportunity for a Company that Wants to Supply Arms to the Rebels Instead of the Empire.

MIT Technology Review investigates The Curious Case of Internet Privacy and concludes that when we trade our privacy in exchange for free Internet services we're making a rather poor bargain. As the article explains, "To understand the kind of deal you make with your privacy a hundred times a day, please read and agree with the following:

By reading this agreement, you give Technology Review and its partners the unlimited right to intercept and examine your reading choices from this day forward, to sell the insights gleaned thereby, and to retain that information in perpetuity and supply it without limitation to any third party."

There is a better bargain to be made. You can start to renegotiate your deal today by installing scrambls.

Online Our Interactions Are Public by Default, Private by Effort

Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd made some smart observations to The New York Times about Rethinking Privacy in an Era of Big Data. Her main point is that "A conversation in the hallway is private by default, public by effort. Online, our interactions become public by default, private by effort." Scrambls was built with exactly this in mind. Our aim is to make privacy instantly available on any website or social network. New privacy regulations may be inevitable, but isn't it better to give everyone simple privacy tools and let them control their own privacy?

Fake Facebook Privacy Notice is Really Just Wishful Thinking

Facebook users are being encouraged to post a supposed Facebook Privacy Notice to protect the privacy of data they have posted on Facebook. According to the fake notice "The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law." Unfortunately the opposite is true. Your Facebook data is subject to the Facebook Privacy and Terms of Use agreements you accepted when you joined the social network. Facebook continues to modify these agreements to increase the amount of personal data it collects from users and expand the ways in which this information is used.

Facebook's New Privacy Policy Spells Out Your Lack of Privacy

Cyber security expert Theresa Payton blogs in The Huffington Post on the changes Facebook is making to its privacy policy and the direction that the social network is heading.

WSJ: Kids Find a Way to Facebook

A year ago Consumer Reports revealed that five million children under the age of ten were on Facebook. Today The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is planning technology to openly signup children under thirteen. Are children that young capable of making informed decisions about what content they share and how it will be used?

Scrambls is Kim Komando's Download of the Day

Kim Komando, America's Digital Goddess, has selected scrambls as her Download of the Day.