In The Mix…predicting the future; releasing healthcare claims; and $1.5 millions awarded to data privacy

Some people out there think they can predict the future by scraping content off the web. Does it work simply because web 2.0 technologies are great at creating echo chambers? Is this just another way of amplifying that echo chamber and generating yet more self-fulfilling trend prophecies? See the Future with a Search (MIT Technology Review)The U.S. Office of Personnel Management wants to create a huge database that contains healthcare claims of millions of. Many are concerned for how the data will be protected and used. More federal health database details coming following privacy alarm (Computer World)Researchers at Purdue were awarded $1.5 million to investigate how well current techniques for anonymizing data are working and whether there's a need for better methods. It would be interesting to know what they think of differential privacy. They  appear to be actually doing the dirty work of figuring out whether theoretical re-identification is more than just a theory. National Science Foundation Funds Purdue Data-Anonymization Project (Threat Post)