Feed aggregator
Google pays $8.5m to settle Buzz privacy invasion suit
The price of a Tweetbookish Gmail mod
Google has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit claiming it violated the privacy of Gmail users when it released Google Buzz, a Gmail bolt-on that turned the email service into a Tweetbookish social networking tool.…
Take Heed, Tech Giants: Edison's Failed Plot to Hijack Hollywood
Take heed, tech giants of today. Some of your companies or services aren’t much older than the Edison Trust Studios was when it collapsed. How much of your current business strategy is based on offering new and original products, and how much of it is based on laws, courts, and the fact that you got there first?
Censored! Craigslist Adult Services Blocked in U.S.
The “Adult Services” listing on Craiglist was removed late Friday on its U.S.-based sites and replaced with the word 'censored.' The change comes as the service faces growing pressure in the U.S. over sex services advertised on its classifieds network, as well as allegations that it abets in human sex trafficking.
Washington Supremes deliver death sentence to betting site
Betcha.com craps out
Washington state's highest court has delivered a fatal blow to a website that billed itself as a person-to-person betting platform that connected people who wanted to make wagers.…
Google faces antitrust investigation in Texas
EU complaint echoed in US
Google is facing an antitrust investigation in Texas over claims the company unfairly manipulated results on its search engine.…
It's alive! Duke Nukem Forever breaks out of vapour trail
Balls of steel, baby, balls of steel!
Duke Nukem Forever is the video games world's equivalent of the flying car: mothballed in the garage.…
Ubuntu 'Maverick Meerkat' erects own App Store
Beta mongoose flaunts new face
Review Ubuntu fans, fire up your virtual machines. The beta release of Ubuntu 10.10 is here. Maverick Meerkat, as this release is known, is actually several weeks ahead of the original schedule, and that means Ubuntu 10.10 is on track for its final release October 10.…
Twitter will help Information Overload?
Reading Stowe Boyd's blog, I saw this GigaOm post about Twitter's Ev Williams talk:
Williams, on stage at a Girls in Tech event at Kicklabs, compared Twitter to email, where information overload can be incapacitating. “The problem with email is that it’s sender-driven, and sender-driven media doesn’t scale,” he said. On the one hand, the recipient hates email for being spammy because “the sender is motivated to send as much stuff as possible because it’s free.” On the other hand, the sender may be dissatisfied because she’s not reaching the right audience for whom she may not even have email addresses.
Blogging (Williams was previously the founder of Blogger) and Tweeting can be different (and better) than email, he said, because people who have something to say can find their audience. That’s a much better situation for both the publisher of the information and the consumer of it. So recipient-based media can scale better “in a world of infinite information,” he said.
That’s also a contrast to Google, said Williams, which serves more purpose-driven needs versus Twitter’s focus on “an interest-based world.”
Stowe's view is that:
I like the recipient- v sender-driven distinction, but I think the reason that stream apps seem to help us cope with a crazy busy world (‘overload’) is that they tap into the flow state in our heads allowing us to multithread, while inboxes are purely linear.
My view is more quantitative - aka volume driven - when you have to rely on Twitter for the heavy lifting email does today, it too will move from interesting but throwaway stuff to royal pain in the arse, mainly because it will shift from recreational to workload adding - and in fact if you look at Twitter clients they are becoming increasingly like email clients in functionality, as my colleague Dave Short predicted they would end up looking like several years ago.
Also, for twitter to really reduce my Information Overload it needs far better filtering (which Mr Williams admitted in the talk).
Williams, on stage at a Girls in Tech event at Kicklabs, compared Twitter to email, where information overload can be incapacitating. “The problem with email is that it’s sender-driven, and sender-driven media doesn’t scale,” he said. On the one hand, the recipient hates email for being spammy because “the sender is motivated to send as much stuff as possible because it’s free.” On the other hand, the sender may be dissatisfied because she’s not reaching the right audience for whom she may not even have email addresses.
Blogging (Williams was previously the founder of Blogger) and Tweeting can be different (and better) than email, he said, because people who have something to say can find their audience. That’s a much better situation for both the publisher of the information and the consumer of it. So recipient-based media can scale better “in a world of infinite information,” he said.
That’s also a contrast to Google, said Williams, which serves more purpose-driven needs versus Twitter’s focus on “an interest-based world.”
Stowe's view is that:
I like the recipient- v sender-driven distinction, but I think the reason that stream apps seem to help us cope with a crazy busy world (‘overload’) is that they tap into the flow state in our heads allowing us to multithread, while inboxes are purely linear.
My view is more quantitative - aka volume driven - when you have to rely on Twitter for the heavy lifting email does today, it too will move from interesting but throwaway stuff to royal pain in the arse, mainly because it will shift from recreational to workload adding - and in fact if you look at Twitter clients they are becoming increasingly like email clients in functionality, as my colleague Dave Short predicted they would end up looking like several years ago.
Also, for twitter to really reduce my Information Overload it needs far better filtering (which Mr Williams admitted in the talk).
Doctor Who goes to the Proms
Music to watch monsters go by
Love Doctor Who, love the theme music - this is hardwired into the DNA of most Brits.…
News from the Datamining Coalface
Good article in The Economist that looks at the wide range of datamining activity on Social Nets - firstly, it breaks marvellously benign new ground:
..broadening data mining to include analysis of social networks makes new things possible. Modelling social relationships is akin to creating an “index of power”, says Stephen Borgatti, a network-analysis expert at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. In some companies, e-mails are analysed automatically to help bosses manage their workers. Employees who are often asked for advice may be good candidates for promotion, for example.
Crime can be reduced....
Ellen Joyner of SAS, an analytics firm based in Cary, North Carolina, notes that more and more financial firms are using the software to uncover fraud. The latest version of SAS’s software identifies risky borrowers by examining their social networks and Internal Revenue Service records, she says. For example, an applicant may be a bad risk, or even a fraudster, if he plans to launch a type of business which has no links to his social network, education, previous business dealings or travel history, which can be pieced together with credit-card records. Ms Joyner says the software can also determine if an applicant has associated with known criminals—perhaps his fiancée has shared an address with a parolee. Some insurers reduce premiums for banks that protect themselves with such software.
The police department of Richmond, Virginia, has pioneered the use of network-analysis software to predict crimes. Police officers know that crime increases at certain times, such as on paydays and when there is a full moon. But the software lets them analyse the social networks around suspects, such as dealings with employers, collection agencies and the Department of Motor Vehicles. The goal, according to Stephen Hollifield, the department’s technology chief, is to “pull together a complete picture” of suspects and their social circle.
Party plans turn out to be a particularly useful part of this picture. Richmond’s police have started monitoring Facebook, MySpace and Twitter messages to determine where the rowdiest festivities will be. On big party nights, the department now saves about $15,000 on overtime pay, because officers are deployed to areas that the software deems ripe for criminal activity. Crime has “dramatically” declined as a result, says Mr Hollifield. Colin Shearer, vice-president of predictive analytics at SPSS, a division of IBM that makes the software in question, says it can largely replace police officers’ reliance on “gut feel”.
Secondly, it finds the real influencers, good and bad:
TELECOMS operators naturally prize mobile-phone subscribers who spend a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns out, are actually more valuable. Known as “influencers”, these subscribers frequently persuade their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to identify such trendsetting subscribers and keep them on board with special discounts and promotions. People at the top of the office or social pecking order often receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling other people late at night and tend to get more calls at times when social events are most often organised, such as Friday afternoons. Influential customers also reveal their clout by making long calls, while the calls they receive are generally short.
................
Network analysis also has a useful role to play in counterterrorism. Terror groups are often decentralised, so mapping their social networks is akin to deciphering “a big spaghetti picture”, says Roy Lindelauf of the Royal Dutch Defence Academy, who develops software for intelligence agencies in the Netherlands. It turns out that the key terrorists in a group are often not the leaders, but rather seemingly low-level people, such as drivers and guides, who keep addresses and phone numbers memorised. Such people tend to stand out in network models because of their high level of connectedness. To find them, analysts map “structural signatures” such as short phone calls placed to the same number just before and after an attack, which may indicate that the beginning and end of an operation has been reported.
Marvellous, I hear you say - what can go wrong? Well, nothing except the amount of data about you that they want, and all the other things they can predict with it - like your infidelities for example (believe me, you can...). But it is not going to go away:
The market for such software is booming. By one estimate there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis. The raw data used may extend far beyond phone records to encompass information available from private and governmental entities, and internet sources such as Facebook. IBM, the supplier of the system used by Bharti Airtel, says its annual sales of such software, now growing at double-digit rates, will exceed $15 billion by 2015. In the past five years IBM has spent more than $11 billion buying makers of network-analysis software. Gartner, a market-research firm, ranks the technology at number two in its list of strategic business operations meriting significant investment this year.
And its getting easier - 5 years ago I needed all I'd learned in an MSc in Engineering doing what what was effectively Stats and Operations Research, but now:
A decade ago IBM employed experts with PhDs in mathematics to study social networks, according to Mark Ramsey, the firm’s head of business analytics for eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Today, college graduates can operate analysis software handling enormous quantities of data. Bharti Airtel employs only about 100 analysts to keep tabs on its 135m subscribers.
I was at an early futurology session on this about 10 years ago, the endgame was succinctly described as being able to predict the "Net Present Value of your Future Spend".
You have been warned........
..broadening data mining to include analysis of social networks makes new things possible. Modelling social relationships is akin to creating an “index of power”, says Stephen Borgatti, a network-analysis expert at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. In some companies, e-mails are analysed automatically to help bosses manage their workers. Employees who are often asked for advice may be good candidates for promotion, for example.
Crime can be reduced....
Ellen Joyner of SAS, an analytics firm based in Cary, North Carolina, notes that more and more financial firms are using the software to uncover fraud. The latest version of SAS’s software identifies risky borrowers by examining their social networks and Internal Revenue Service records, she says. For example, an applicant may be a bad risk, or even a fraudster, if he plans to launch a type of business which has no links to his social network, education, previous business dealings or travel history, which can be pieced together with credit-card records. Ms Joyner says the software can also determine if an applicant has associated with known criminals—perhaps his fiancée has shared an address with a parolee. Some insurers reduce premiums for banks that protect themselves with such software.
The police department of Richmond, Virginia, has pioneered the use of network-analysis software to predict crimes. Police officers know that crime increases at certain times, such as on paydays and when there is a full moon. But the software lets them analyse the social networks around suspects, such as dealings with employers, collection agencies and the Department of Motor Vehicles. The goal, according to Stephen Hollifield, the department’s technology chief, is to “pull together a complete picture” of suspects and their social circle.
Party plans turn out to be a particularly useful part of this picture. Richmond’s police have started monitoring Facebook, MySpace and Twitter messages to determine where the rowdiest festivities will be. On big party nights, the department now saves about $15,000 on overtime pay, because officers are deployed to areas that the software deems ripe for criminal activity. Crime has “dramatically” declined as a result, says Mr Hollifield. Colin Shearer, vice-president of predictive analytics at SPSS, a division of IBM that makes the software in question, says it can largely replace police officers’ reliance on “gut feel”.
Secondly, it finds the real influencers, good and bad:
TELECOMS operators naturally prize mobile-phone subscribers who spend a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns out, are actually more valuable. Known as “influencers”, these subscribers frequently persuade their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to identify such trendsetting subscribers and keep them on board with special discounts and promotions. People at the top of the office or social pecking order often receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling other people late at night and tend to get more calls at times when social events are most often organised, such as Friday afternoons. Influential customers also reveal their clout by making long calls, while the calls they receive are generally short.
................
Network analysis also has a useful role to play in counterterrorism. Terror groups are often decentralised, so mapping their social networks is akin to deciphering “a big spaghetti picture”, says Roy Lindelauf of the Royal Dutch Defence Academy, who develops software for intelligence agencies in the Netherlands. It turns out that the key terrorists in a group are often not the leaders, but rather seemingly low-level people, such as drivers and guides, who keep addresses and phone numbers memorised. Such people tend to stand out in network models because of their high level of connectedness. To find them, analysts map “structural signatures” such as short phone calls placed to the same number just before and after an attack, which may indicate that the beginning and end of an operation has been reported.
Marvellous, I hear you say - what can go wrong? Well, nothing except the amount of data about you that they want, and all the other things they can predict with it - like your infidelities for example (believe me, you can...). But it is not going to go away:
The market for such software is booming. By one estimate there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis. The raw data used may extend far beyond phone records to encompass information available from private and governmental entities, and internet sources such as Facebook. IBM, the supplier of the system used by Bharti Airtel, says its annual sales of such software, now growing at double-digit rates, will exceed $15 billion by 2015. In the past five years IBM has spent more than $11 billion buying makers of network-analysis software. Gartner, a market-research firm, ranks the technology at number two in its list of strategic business operations meriting significant investment this year.
And its getting easier - 5 years ago I needed all I'd learned in an MSc in Engineering doing what what was effectively Stats and Operations Research, but now:
A decade ago IBM employed experts with PhDs in mathematics to study social networks, according to Mark Ramsey, the firm’s head of business analytics for eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Today, college graduates can operate analysis software handling enormous quantities of data. Bharti Airtel employs only about 100 analysts to keep tabs on its 135m subscribers.
I was at an early futurology session on this about 10 years ago, the endgame was succinctly described as being able to predict the "Net Present Value of your Future Spend".
You have been warned........
Unity – iPhone code swap approved by Jobs (for now)
Un-Flash eyes world of Google
Steve Jobs forbids you from building iPhone applications with a language other than Objective C, C, or C++. If that other language is Adobe Flash. What if it's not Adobe Flash? Are you still forbidden?…
