5 Startups Improving Society Through Technology

Vagaries of federal surveillance law, enacted in 1968 and updated in 1986, favor lots of e-mail snooping over only a little. [Read more]    

The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board says the bridge collapse in Washington state is a wakeup call for the nation.    

The age of the Internet has not been kind to female movie critics. According to a new study titled "Gender @ the Movies" obtained by TheWrap ahead of its Friday release, film criticism has become even more male-dominated in the age of online news than it was six years ago. Also read: Rex Reed Ripped for Calling Melissa McCarthy 'Tractor-Sized' and 'Hippo' in Review The study tracked review activity by top Rotten Tomatoes critics this spring and found that top male critics wrote 82% of film reviews featured on the aggregator site during a two-month period, with top female critics accounting for less than 20%. By comparison, men wrote 70% of reviews for the top 100 U.S. daily newspapers in 2007. “Film critics appear to have become less, not more gender diverse over the last six years,” Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, wrote in a report accompanying the findings. And that, she added, means that films with male directors and writers get greater exposure to their work. The ratio improved but only barely when considering the actual number of men and women writing reviews today. The center, based at San Diego State U., found that 78% of the top critics this spring were male and 22% female. Also read: Academy Defends Seth MacFarlane Despite Charges of Sexism The center decided to examine the relationship between gender, film critics and movie reviews after veteran critic Rex Reed attacked Melissa McCarthy's appearance in "Identity Thief," and an upstate New York newspaper editor ordered a critic to avoid reviewing films with strong female characters. There were 145 writers designated as top critics on Rotten Tomatoes during the study period. The site designates writers as top critics based on the size of their outlet and length of time practicing their craft; Reed, who writes for the New York Observer, qualifies as a top critic on Rotten Tomatoes, as does chief Wrap critic Alonso Duralde. The ratio was even worse at entertainment magazines and websites such as Entertainment Weekly, which tilted 91% to men and 80% men at general interest magazines and sites. The picture was slightly brighter for women reviewing films at newspaper sites (28% female) and radio (30% female). Also read: Sexist Hollywood?: Women Still Struggle to Find Film Jobs, Study Finds The center also analyzed the more than 2,000 reviews to determine whether film critics tend to gravitate toward movies written or directed by their sex and if their reviews are biased in favor of those sharing their gender. It found that there is some truth to the perception that female critics gravitate toward movies written or directed by women and vice versa. But it did not find evidence of gender bias toward filmmakers in the reviews themselves. According to the report, “neither male nor female critics award substantially higher ratings to films directed and/or written by those of their same sex.” The bottom line?  “Popular film criticism remains a predominantly male activity,” Lauzen writes. The study was to be released on Friday.SEE ALSO: Seth MacFarlane won't host the Oscars next year > Please follow The Wire on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »    

The East Coast cicadas, currently emerging by the billions, have spent the last 17 years underground, making today's world a bit of a shock for them In 1996, Alanis Morissette was just a "Jagged Little Pill" and only 20 million Americans dialed up to the Internet. Clearly, Swarmageddon 2013 is making the bug population feel nostalgic for the '90s SEE ALSO: Prepare for the Cicada Invasion With This Creepy-Crawly Time-Lapse Humans, please try to make the cicadas feel welcome by explaining iPhones and The Real Housewives of New Jersey 1. So much for AOL screen names. Sorry, "Cicaduh6969." Read more 2. Never forget JTTMore about List, Humor, 90s, Watercooler, and Pics

The economic recovery is certainly in full swing and has been for some time now. That, coupled with better habits related to handling debts of all kinds, has led millions of consumers to see significant improvements in their finances over the last few years. Household debt of all kinds slipped some $110 billion in the first three months of the new year alone, bringing total nationwide obligations to just $11.23 trillion, down appreciably from the all-time high of $12.68 trillion observed in the third quarter of 2008. Here are seven signs that household finances got stronger in the first quarter of the year, based on data from the latest Household Debt and Credit Report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Related Article: The First Thing You Must Do Before Paying Off Debt] Only two types of debt -- student and auto loans -- actually increased during the first quarter of the year, as the former rose another $20 billion to a total of $986 billion nationwide, continuing a trend seen over the last several years. The latter, meanwhile, ticked up $11 billion to $794 billion during that time. Home equity lines of credit slipped $11 billion to just $552 billion. Mortgage debt fell $7.93 billion to $8.03 trillion New foreclosure notifications slipped 12.5 percent from the previous quarter to just 184,000 households nationwide, marking the fourth straight three-month period in which there has been a decline in this area. The drop in mortgage debts came even as lenders issued $577 billion in new mortgage credit thanks to the sixth straight quarter of increases in new originations. Credit card balances slipped some $19 billion from January to March, bringing the national total owed on these accounts to just $660 billion. Significantly late payments on every type of credit listed above dropped, bringing the national 90-day delinquency rate to just 6 percent of all balances, down from 6.3 percent the previous quarter and 8.7 percent at the all-time high in the same period three years earlier. Experts have long speculated that rates of delinquency and default must logically bottom out at some point in the near future, but consumers keep defying those expectations. Many borrowers changed their habits as it relates to debt in general as a result of the financial difficulties they faced during and even following the recent recession, during which time default rates skyrocketed and led to consumers having bad credit and other significant financial difficulties. Related Links: Can You Really Get Your Credit Score for Free? The Ultimate Credit Report Cheat Sheet What's Really in Your Credit Report? Please follow Your Money on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »