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One blogger from tech site Mashable found this week that Google's Ad Preferences page assume that she was middle-aged - and a man, simply because her interests included technology and computing.  The profile page, called Ad Preferences, is hidden away inside a settings menu in Google Accounts, but can be accessed directly here. This sort of in-depth profiling raises alarm bells with privacy activists. 'Consumers have increasingly digital lives and they are developing an unfathomably large data trail every day,' says Rainey Reitman, activism director for privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'There has never been another time in history where privacy was under the kind of assault it is today.'You can opt out of the tracking, or manually edit your details. Google also  does not store information on controversial subjects such as pornography. The Ad preferences page came to public attention following a sweeping change to 'privacy policy' which comes into effect on March 1, although the preferences page was launched some time ago. YouTube data, Gmail information and search data will all be used to build up ever more accurate advertising profiles and also the company claims it will make searches more personalised.

Indium

Tantalum

Besides the direct environmental impact of mining the Earth, there is a more immediate threat. You’ve no doubt heard about conflict diamonds or ‘blood diamonds‘, which are diamonds mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, invading army’s war efforts or a warlord’s activity. Well, your mobile phone contains a similarly valuable commodity that’s been at the center of controversy in recent times

Tantalum is one of the best superconductors on Earth, and it’s used to coat capacitors to obtain more power from less energy. This basically means that laptops and mobile phones don’t need batteries that are larger than the device itself – so this is one of the chief reasons why you can slip your iPhone in your pocket rather than carting it around in a wheelbarrow. In central African countries such as The Democratic Republic of Congo,the mining of the mineral coltan – from which tantalum is extracted – it has often been argued fuels wars and encourages child slavery. And these arguments are well-founded.

However, the majority of tantalum production shifted to Australia, and Western Australia became the world’s largest source of mined tantalum concentrates. The mine closed in late 2008, and has only recently reopened.

In 2010, major concerns were raised as to the availability of tantalum and the effect this would have on the supply chain. “The impact, the real concern, is actually obtaining the metal,” said Dennis Zogbi, CEO of Paumanok Publications, which researches the component industry and the tantalum markets. If the stockpile of tantalum ever runs out, this could be disastrous for the electronics industry.

Tantalum minerals are also mined in Canada, China, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, and mass reserves were found in Venezuela in 2009, and in Columbia a year later.

Bloomberg reported a couple of weeks ago that the first conflict-free tantalum has recently been certified by The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition and Global e- Sustainability Coalition (EICC/GeSI), an initiative backed by companies such as Apple and Intel.

Ethical electronics

Then there’s Indium, a rare chemical element you may or may not have heard of. Zinc ores are the primary source of indium, which – when isolated – is then used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and touchscreens.

Despite the best efforts of environmentalists, governments, businesses and consumers, there could be another ‘small’ obstacle to contend with if we’re to protect the Earth’s natural resources. And that is China

Last year, 85% of all indium was devoted to making indium tin oxide for use in LCD products, and the demand is predicted to grow at 15% a year over the next few years

A UN report published last month found that there are virtually no recycling initiatives in place for indium, and Thomas Graedel, one of the report’s eight authors, warned that a failure to re-use metals such as Indium doesn’t bode well for the future

“If we do not have these materials readily available at reasonable prices, a lot of modern technology simply cannot happen. We don’t think immediate shortages are likely but we are absolutely unable to make predictions based on the very limited geological exploration currently conducted.

The case for recycling

Your old mobile phone has circuit boards, batteries and an LCD screen – these all contain harmful materials that, when dumped in landfill sites, eventually break down and leak into the environment.

Over time, the likes of lead, cadmium and mercury pollution can be hazardous to the environment and to our health. It was for this reason that, in 2006, California became the first US state to make it mandatory for all mobile phone retailers to establish a collection and recycling program for mobile phones. The law also prevents residents from disposing of old mobile phones.

It’s very difficult to reclaim tantalum once it has been transposed onto an electronic component. For this reason, it’s important that you choose how you dispose of old devices carefully. Some organizations will promise to ‘safely’ recycle your handset, but this is very vague and may not mean the components are being reused. Given the amount of effort and strife that may have gone into producing it, you should ensure that it is actually reused. But this is something governments and industries need to help consumers achiev

The UN report analyzed the recycling rates of 60 metals, and 34 of these have recycling rates of less than 1%. Among the least-recycled metals were tellurium and gallium – which are used in solar cells – and lithium, a key element in your phone and laptop batteries.

China is a leading producer of indium, whilst Canada and Bolivia are also large producers. And Cornwall, England, was also found to hold significant indium deposits earlier this year too, something which could prove massively beneficial to the UK economy

As reported recently in National Geographic, China supplies 97% of the world’s so-called rare earth elements, elements we all rely on for all our high-tech gadgetry, including mobile phones and laptops. And in 2010, China gave a hint of what the future may hold for the rest of us, when it stopped shipments of rare earth elements to Japan for a month following a diplomatic dispute. This had a big impact on the price of rare earths on global markets. China is expected to reduce its rare earth exports to help protect the country’s own rapidly growing industries. Indeed, it’s worth noting that almost two-thirds of rare earth metals produced in China are already consumed ‘in-house’, so to speak.

If China does decide to cut back on its exports, global prices will sky rocket. Dysprosium, for example, is used in hard-drives and it now sells for over $200 a pound (roughly half a kilo), but the disturbing thing is that the price was only about $7 eight years ago

It’s thought that the global demand for many rare earth metals could exceed the supply as soon as the end of this year.

So how serious is this? Well, China has almost half of the planet’s rare earth reserves. The US holds about 13%, whilst Russia, Australia and Canada also has some stockpiles, so we’re not quite at the critical stage yet. But the writing is very much on the wall for many industries, not just electronics.

Apple Stole Its Ideas In the First Place Perhaps. The problem with this line of attack against Apple is that it is irrelevant to the ongoing patent litigation. Whether or not Apple invented the graphical interface, touchscreen, mouse, or anything else has no bearing on the fact that Apple holds hundreds of patents in countries around the world for various technologies and concepts, and it is those patents which Android--or the device manufacturers who rely on Android--are accused of violating. If Xerox, Palm, or any other entity believes that Apple has infringed on its patents, it is incumbent on them to defend those patents and take that up with Apple.