Tuesday, 07 September 2010 07:51

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) policy allowing border agents to search laptops or other electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices – including laptops, cameras and cell phones – and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.

“These days, almost...

Read more: ACLU Sues Government Over Border Laptop Searches

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 07:46

Google has a Google Labs project available called Google Scribe. Google Scribe provides text autocompletion as you type. It provides related word or phrase suggestions, using information you've already typed into a document. 

"In addition to saving keystrokes, Google Scribe's suggestions indicate correct or popular phrases to use," says Google.

Google Scribe will show suggestions as you type by default, but that can be changed to "on demand" or my selecting an "on tab" option in the toolbar. Functionality can be toggled on and off with a keyboard shortcut. 

Users can choose if they want suggestions to be sorted by alphabetical order, "Google Scribe Score", which is based on popularity, relevance...

Read more: Google Scribe Predicts What You're Going to Type

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 06:50

Google is now letting Google Voice users get notifications for missed calls. Users can get notified via their Google Voice inbox or they can opt to receive email notifications (or both). 

This would appear to be another step in Google bringing together your different means of communication. Google Voice already gives you a number that when called reaches you through all of your phones. 

Google recently rolled out the ability to make and receive calls from within Gmail. The service attracted over a million calls in just 24 hours. 

Last week, Google highlighted some additional features of calling in Gmail, like call screening, switching calls between Gmail and other phones, recording incoming calls, and a click-to-dial Chrome...

Read more: Google Voice Gives Users Missed Call Notifications