smile for the camera

Scott Lynch

Ban On Selfies In The Voting Booth Is Unconstitutional

With a little more than a month to go before Election Day, we finally have some clarity on that age-old legal question: Am I allowed to take a selfie in the voting booth? [More]

The image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons was taken by a macaque monkey who had briefly snatched away a professional photographer's camera.

Wikimedia: Camera-Owner Doesn’t Hold Copyright To Monkey Selfie

If I take a photo with your camera, who holds the rights to the image? After all, I’m the photographer; you just happened to own the camera. What if I’m a non-human animal who can’t hold copyright — does that automatically mean the copyright defaults to the camera’s owner? Not according to Wikimedia, the organization behind Wikipedia. [More]

NSA Chief Defends Legality Of Facial Recognition Program

NSA Chief Defends Legality Of Facial Recognition Program

As you’ve probably heard, it was recently revealed that the National Security Agency has been scouring online images and using facial-recognition technology to track suspected terrorists, giving rise to justifiable concerns that the NSA has records of your every selfie, headshot, portrait, and drunken mugging. But the agency’s head is now attempting to do some damage control by saying that everything his people do is on the up-and-up. [More]

Would You Use Your Webcam To Pay By Credit Card?

Would You Use Your Webcam To Pay By Credit Card?

We’re going to assume that most of you have made some sort of credit card purchase via an online vendor. We’re also going to assume that most of you did so by typing in your credit card number. But new technology is on the horizon that will let users pay by simply holding up your credit card to your webcam. [More]