Internet Use/New Technologies
26 March 2013
Ads That Speak the Language of Social Media New York Times
Madison Avenue is offering consumers a status update on just how pervasive social media have become.
25 March 2013
Is racism in online gaming the fault of the games - or the players? The Guardian
Is the world of online gaming racist? Thursday was the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or, if you prefer, Don't Be Racist Day. But for many black gamers there is unlikely to have been much respite.
24 March 2013
Rise of 44 per cent in British women hooked on online betting Independent on Sunday
Online gambling is becoming more attractive to women than drugs or alcohol, according to the UK's leading female addiction specialist. Liz Karter has warned that work stress is a major cause of gambling addiction for women who are frequently turning to online poker at home rather than winding down with drinks in a wine bar.
21 March 2013
YouTube reaches billion monthly users milestone Financial Times
Google announced that its YouTube video site has hit a billion regular visitors, matching a similar milestone reached by Facebook last October, as mobile devices and global internet growth power web companies to unprecedented scale.
20 March 2013
Tensions Rise Between Facebook, Developers; The Social Network Steps Up Efforts to Curb Spam, But Developers Say It Is Blocking Competing Apps Wall Street Journal
... Facebook has long had a complex relationship with developers as it balances a complicated set of interests. The company says it is stepping up efforts to police the network by curbing spam and restricting apps that aren't adding sufficient value to the network.
14 March 2013
Google keyword advertising is waste of money, says eBay report The Guardian
Businesses may be wasting billions of pounds a year buying up keyword advertising on search engines such as Google, a new report has claimed.
13 March 2013
How Facebook is helping researchers in getting to know you The Guardian
The news that researchers can track down intimate details of your life - your race, politics, sexual orientation or recreational drug habits - simply from which bands, brands and shows you like on Facebook may give some cause for alarm, but could easily induce shrugs from others.
12 March 2013
Facebook users unwittingly revealing intimate secrets, study finds The Guardian
Facebook users are unwittingly revealing intimate secrets - including their sexual orientation, drug use and political beliefs - using only public "like" updates, according to a study of online privacy.
11 March 2013
Two good infrastructure considerations for the internet of things from SXSW GigaOM
We may accept that the internet of things will become commonplace in the next few years, but how do we build out the network and processing required to support it?
10 March 2013
Facebook vs. Twitter: How Do You Like Your Social News Feed, Filtered or Unfiltered? GigaOM
New York Times writer Nick Bilton's complaints this week about how little engagement his content gets on Facebook sparked a debate about whether the network is deliberately hiding certain types of content to promote its paid-reach services -- but it also highlighted how much Facebook controls the feed users see, often in ways they don't understand or may not even be aware of.
09 March 2013
Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds New York Times
Using data drawn from queries entered into Google, Microsoft and Yahoo search engines, scientists at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University have for the first time been able to detect evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before they were found by the Food and Drug Administration's warning system.
08 March 2013
Facebook news feed revamp learns lessons from mobile BBC News
Facebook has revamped its design, making its website look more like its Android and iOS mobile apps.
07 March 2013
Microsoft Is Talking About the Future, a Lot New York Times
There are technology companies that won't say anything about the futuristic inventions they're tinkering with in their labs -- Apple, for instance. Then there are the companies that won't stop talking about them. Think Google and its driverless cars and Google Glass. Microsoft is firmly in the latter camp.
06 March 2013
Pew: Twitter Not an Accurate Measure of Public Opinion CIO
Opinions expressed on Twitter differ from public opinion measured by surveys on key political events and policy issues, reflecting that users of the Internet service are demographically very different from the public, according to a study by Pew Research Center.
As User Interaction on Facebook Drops, Sharing Comes at a Cost New York Times
Early last year, soon after Facebook instituted a feature that let people subscribe to others' feeds without being friends, I quickly amassed a healthy "subscriber" list of about 25,000 people.
05 March 2013
Even Google won't be around for ever, let alone Facebook The Observer
Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitise all of the world's printed books, was getting under way, the two co-founders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google boys noticed that their collaborator had suddenly gone rather quiet. One of them asked him what was the matter. "Well", he replied, "I'm wondering what happens to all this stuff when Google no longer exists." Recounting the conversation to me later, he said: "I've never seen two young people looking so stunned: the idea that Google might not exist one day had never crossed their minds."
04 March 2013
British schoolchildren 'losing the power to concentrate in class' Daily Telegraph [UK]
A generation of internet-obsessed schoolchildren is losing the ability to concentrate in lessons and make proper conversation with friends, according to a leading headmaster.
Chrome hits 17-month low, Windows 8 still only creeping upward Ars Technica
Microsoft's browser did as well as Google's browser did badly in February. Internet Explorer's share is the highest it's been in a year and a half. Chrome's is the lowest it's been in almost as long.
01 March 2013
Twitter in Pyongyang: how North Korea got the mobile internet The Guardian
"Hello world from comms center in #Pyongyang." That Twitter missive, sent Monday from Koryolink's main service centre in downtown Pyongyang using my iPhone, marked a milestone for North Korea: it was believed to be the first tweet sent from a mobile phone using the country's new 3G mobile data service.
27 February 2013
The Enduring Myth of the 'Free' Internet The Atlantic
We somehow have come to believe that information is free, but people with Internet access pay substantial sums to get it -- sums many can't afford.
Facebook asked to take down pages abusing Sandy Hook victims Los Angeles Times
Numerous Facebook "tribute" pages that emerged after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December have turned into a convenient venting vehicle for those who contend the shooting never happened.
Google extends social Web reach to counter Facebook's rise Reuters
Google Inc transformed the Internet by cataloging the Web's countless pages. Now it wants to keep better track of the Web's multitude of users.
25 February 2013
Google Glass? You have to applaud their vision The Observer
A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the university's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, where I work. Afterwards, one of the questions I was most frequently asked by people who hadn't been around for his visit was: "Was he wearing the glasses?"
24 February 2013
Is Smart Making Us Dumb? Wall Street Journal
A revolution in technology is allowing previously inanimate objects -- from cars to trash cans to teapots -- to talk back to us and even guide our behavior. But how much control are we willing to give up?
22 February 2013
Google Searches for Style New York Times
People wearing Google's glasses are transported to a strange new world in which the Internet is always in their line of sight. But for people looking at the people wearing those glasses, the view is even stranger -- someone wearing a computer processor, a battery and a tiny screen on her face.
