Latest Entries
Dangers of the Internet Echo-Chamber
17 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
The internet echo-chamber is modestly the most important crisis facing the tech world today. Bigger than the storage crisis, bigger than Y2K, the internet echo-chamber, and the perfect analogy, Reddit.
Echo chamber of the Dresden University of Technology. Photo courtesy of Henry Mühlpfordt.
Reddit works on one basic principle, people love people who agree with them, there are various sub-reddits like Coldplay, where everyone loves the band Coldplay, ancientegypt, where everyone loves and finds Ancient Egypt interesting, or existentialism, where everyone is… pretentious.
The point is, this example of Reddit isn’t so different from the internet at large. One graded film on Netflix, one Google search and it all feeds in to giving you the internet that you want to see, an internet with your own opinions shining back to you. And nowhere is this difference so evident than on Facebook, where if you ignore a friend for long enough, their posts start not coming through, and the friends which you do talk to get constantly called to the front.
Want to try an easy experiment one day? Switch computers with a friend and both do the same Google search. It’s the same search, trudging through the same webpages for results, but the results won’t be the same, and the reason is Google doesn’t solely look for accurate or well received data, it looks for data that it knows you’re going to like.
The reason why this is so disconcerting is simple: It feeds into everything. When we type a contentious question into Google, and only one side comes up. We may start to believe that there is no controversy, no difference of opinion, and that’s incorrect. If we only receive one side of an argument, then we only read one side of an argument, and that is intellectual laziness, it decreases debate and restricts our lives to safe little communities.
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Social Media App that Keeps Living
14 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
Ever wonder what happens to social media accounts after you die? It seems rather obvious really, you can’t post on it and it just remains the same way for all eternity, right? Almost, except a bunch of sycophantic people who you probably didn’t even like start posting up all over your wall how much they miss you until nobody can even see that one really funny joke you posted moments before your death. But no longer! Now you can still post, even after your death.
That’s right, with sites like afterIdie.net which will post a social media message after your death and greatgoodbye.com sending people emails you can still communicate with the people that you want to even after your death. The sites work by you imputing a message, and then every 3 months or so, going to the site, or responding to a message from them, which will inform them that you’re still alive. The great thing about these particular sites is, their not even cornering a niche market, the market is, everyone who had a facebook account and will die in the future, that is a colossal target market audience. Just, make sure that you do respond to the messages informing the site that you are still with us, because you don’t want the thing to go off accidentally and for your family to then have an amazing party, which they will insist, was “totally coincidental.”
So, there most useful app, facebook add-on, and general internet device since the modem, now when I die I’ll be safe in the knowledge that whilst my lazy, good-for-nothing physical self is lying in a field somewhere rotting I know that my other self, my real self, my digital self is still keeping up with the social media.
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GOP Candidates with the Worst Tech Credentials
13 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
With the 2012 elections just around the corner, now is the perfect time to point out the GOP candidates that truly botched their tech credentials. So, here is our list in descending order of the least tech savvy GOP candidates.
3. Rick Santorum
Official Congressional Portrait
Rick Santorum, does not drum up any real negative response from the web, if only because he garners no response from the web, or indeed many other places. His only real negative presence comes from his last name and if you don’t know what his last name means on certain sites like spreadingsantorum.com or urban dictionary.com then I probably urge you not to find out. Suffice to say it’s not at all pleasant.
Santorum is the Republican Senator for Pennsylvania, and has stated that he grew up in Winchester, Va., a steel town, and from there learned the value of not outsourcing tech jobs, and voted yes on providing Amtrak with an additional $550 Million dollars of funding. His opinions do however truly run counter to the Green tech movement calling global warming “junk science” and publicly stating on Fox News that “There is no such thing as global warming.”
2. Michelle Bachman
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
Even though Michelle dropped out of the election, she can still be counted as part of the GOP race. Simply typing in the phrase “Michelle Bachmann” draws up a site advertising “Top 10 Craziest Michelle Bachmann Quotes,” a site called “Dump Michelle Bachmann,” and the YouTube video “Michelle Bachmann says the Darndest things.” Though nothing like the negative internet presence afforded by the leader of the pack.
She has however, done some good things with the net, co-sponsoring the Internet Freedom Act with Paul, which prohibits the FCC from regulating the internet, and co-sponsoring the permanent ban on state and federal taxation of the internet, and signed the Broadcaster Freedom Act. She also voted yes to provide $23 Billion dollars to Waterway infrastructure instead of the $4.9 Billion.
1. Rick Perry
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
Not exactly an internet stronghold, his constant slips ups being something of a runaway internet gag, and his “Strong” TV ad, being under attack from all corners of the net, garnering a surprising 732,636 YouTube dislikes and too many parodies to mention. For a time his face was even an internet meme. He has certainly, though not been entirely vocal on tech issues, has at least spoken with his wallet, investing $14 billion in emerging tech, through the Texas Enterprise Fund. This issue is ever so slightly soiled by the fact that when asked about green energy he stated “I don’t think the federal government should be involved in that kind of investment, period.” He is highly cynical of the green movement in general, stating that the scientists in question, read all the scientists, have merely manipulated the data in order to gain more wealth. His disavowal of the scientific method and the ignoring of data that he disagrees with makes him the least technologically apt candidate on the list.
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GOP Candidates with the Best Tech Credentials
12 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
With the first GOP primary now out of the way, we thought now would be the best time to put a side-by-side comparison of the candidates, not of economic policy, not of foreign policy, but where they stand on technological issues, and how tech savvy they can be. Here is our list of the top three tech savvy U.S. Republican Presidential candidates in ascending order.
3. Mitt Romney
Photo courtesy of IowaPolitics.com
Mitt Romney comes off strong on the tech front, originally the CEO of a global management consultancy firm, he wishes that the U.S. was able to compete globally on the tech front, and seeks to do this principally by opening up new markets and via innovation. Not only that, he seeks to ensure that our trading is done on a fair basis, stating in an interview with TechCrunch, that if a nation like China does not honor our intellectual property rights, then they will suffer market consequences.
As well as new markets, Romney states that in order to move ahead of other nations, we will have to innovate in emerging markets, chiefly the renewable energy market, which would receive substantial increases in funding under his Presidency. This will not only increase our technological presence on international markets, but also improve the economy with the added jobs work like this could bring. He states that his two main areas of funding to increase the economy would be tech and education.
Oh, and to the fanboys of both sides out there, Romney states that whilst his children have Macs and swear by them, he’s a creature of habit, and has a PC.
2. Ron Paul
Official Congressional Portrait
Ron Paul is the candidate that no-one in the television media seems to have heard of, but definitely has by far, the biggest internet presence, making numerous first page links on mega-sites like Digg and Reddit. Similarly, the internet darling is the sole candidate, including Barack Obama, who has a positive twitter presence. 55 percent of tweets about Paul are positive, while other Republican candidates got twice as many negative tweets as positive tweets, and the President? Obama received three times more negative tweets than positive tweets.
Given all this, you’d expect Paul to have some pretty positive things to say about the tech industry as a whole, and you’d be right. Paul, first off, in core with his pro-Libertarian outlook has stated that while he trusts the mainstream media, he trusts the internet a lot more, that he prefers the freedom of expression, and has never, nor would ever vote to regulate the internet. Co-sponsored the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2007, which bans the web being taxed and, most excitingly voted yes to promoting commercial space flight.
1. Newt Gingrich
Photo courtesy of Gaga Skidmore
Newt Gingrich is, I fear, unlikely to become the Presidential candidate, since the news of his affair, which is a shame for us techies, seeing as he is definitely, of the GOP candidates, the techie favorite. As the House Speaker twenty years ago, he was instrumental in bills concerning data-scrambling technologies and freedom of speech on the internet, he helped launch THOMAS, the Library of Congress website that provides information about bills and started the High Technology Working Group, currently the Technology Working Group, a group of Republican leaders involved in tech issues.
Too bad you can’t just have one Newt. There’s the clever, straightforward thinker and the unashamed science fiction fan, which may go some way to explain his more…outlandish ideas; such as space mirrors, which would light up American Highways from space, canceling the need for lights, his misplaced worries about an EMP attack and the speech to Second Life, talking about it’s supreme importance.
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SMS Application for Healthcare Providers
11 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
Health care providers such as the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K. have recently started testing SMS-based software in order to remind patients to attend appointments. The SMS services will send a scheduled text to the contact’s phone through the network. Some providers offer for the texts to be scheduled through Microsoft Outlook, increasing usability. Hundreds of dollars are wasted each hour on missed appointments to pay hospital employees. Scheduling reminders might prove to be a useful way to ensure that people can be reached in a timely and efficient manner.
To learn more about scheduling SMS calendar appointments in Microsoft Outlook, visit Red Oxygen online.
Source: Lincolnshire Free Press
Image: dream designs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Did You Know?
10 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
95% of text messages are sent in under 10 seconds.
The Android Emulator.
Source: Ezinearticles
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Mobile App Makes Pen Pals More Convenient
07 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
Ever have a pen pal as a kid? Maybe someone in a foreign country, and they’d send you letters in their language and you in yours? You’d spend hours pouring over the contents with your Spanish/English dictionary to hand trying to work out whether he’s talking about herding cows or being a coward.
No? Well, neither did I actually, but now we can with the new iPhone app called Wander. It randomly connects you with another iPhone user, across the world, in a move that hopefully is some kind of new cultural experience for both users, and won’t end up like chatroulette. Firstly, they already excel in the logo department – presentation obviously a must (see Fads and Favorites).
The idea is the phone will flash with someone’s face, you’ll think, “That’s the kind of person I could get along with,” and you’ll click accept, the phone will then advise you to take a picture of your house, your dog, your route to work, what you do in your free time and you’ll give them all these pictures, and they’ll send you ones back, the emphasis seems to be more on, take pictures of where you live, the monuments and cool stuff you’ve got around you (but with the internet being 93 percent cats, there’s going to be a lot of cats, oh, and mirror shots, seeing as how taking a picture of yourself not in a bathroom would be totally uncool).
The only slight worry here, apart from the fact that put two iPhone users in the same room, and the odds are close to 100 percent that they’ll just start talking about iPhones anyway, is the idea that the language barrier will not still be apparent. The text will apparently automatically translate from one language to another to facilitate speech, but would this actually be that seamless? Or will you be stuck in the same old quandary of one person typing “examples” and the other receiving “egg samples.”
My question, how fascinating does this sound? Is it the kind of thing that you’ll only try once, and maybe that time only because you think that whilst the lovely Czech girl is slightly out of your league, this might just work? Or, a natural progression from Friendster (remember Friendster? Anyone?) to Facebook, with the recent advent of the news feed to us all being more interconnected as a species. The creator is already telling Mashable that people have gotten their first passports because of the product, so maybe I’m just being slightly cynical, maybe this will work, bring together people from distant corners of the globe, all thanks to mobile communication.
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The Recent Samsung vs. Apple Controversy…And Why it Isn’t One.
06 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
There has been quite a lot of hot air floating about the internet recently about a pair of adverts released by Apple and Samsung, the adverts in question feature the same actress, which levels at the ads the accusation that Samsung copied Apple, that not only is the girl the same, but the entire advert is copied.
The first thing you may notice about the two adverts is the difference in languages, this is because the Apple advert was intended for an American audience and the Samsung advert was intended for a South Korean audience. The chances of a South Korean watching American commercials, is about the same as an American watching South Korean commercials, not impossible, just very unlikely, and the chances of someone noticing is even more unlikely than that.
The reaction would however, still be warranted if a foreign Allstate car insurance commercial started using a Gecko as an advertising figure, or if a foreign McDonalds advert featured a Southern gent in white clothes calling himself the lieutenant, then they would be copying a tried, tested and successful advertising technique. What the two adverts did here, is use the same child actor.
The second thing you might notice is that apart from the same actor, the two adverts are completely different, which is stretching the definition of copying, quite a bit. The Samsung ad has the girl and her father playing and learning with a tablet, the Apple ad, a person taking a picture of a girl, then flipping through other pictures of the same girl. Now, don’t get me wrong, the chance of them both picking the same stock photo model / actress is unmistakably remote, but all this means is that someone in charge of Samsung marketing was looking through other tech ads, saw the girl and decided to use her in their advert, and that’s not copying. If a film director, watches a film, and decides to cast the same actor in his movie, its because he liked the actor, not because he wants to remake the film.
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30% of Australian Businesses…
05 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
Did You Know: SMS and MMS marketing message volume increased by 300 percent in Australia this year. Likewise, approximately 30 percent of Australian businesses are using SMS.
Source: The Big Australian Report
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Hello, Apple!
04 January '12 by Angie, under Uncategorized.
Apple I - Apple's first product, now sitting in the Smithsonian. (Photo captured by rebelpilot.)
On January 3, 1977, Apple Computer, Inc. became an incorporated business. It was first established a few months earlier on April 1, 1976. It later dropped “Computer” from the name in 2007 in order to recognize it’s other electronic products.