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Boy, could we make a lot of money if we knew now who was going win the election in two weeks. All this technology, all of this fearsome data crunching power, you'd think our predictions would be getting better. Turns out our computers too often help us make bad political predictions more quickly. Nate Silver runs the New York Times political blog Five Thirty Eight. He's the guy who picked correctly 49 out of 50 states in the Presidential contest last time round. He's also got a new book, called "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don't." Part of the message in Silver's new book, which has been hailed by other number wonks as an argument for the wiz to apply his skills beyond politics, is that all the new technology we have at our fingertips doesn't guarantee better predictions.
Nate Silver on political polling in the cellphone and social media age
Television, the ever-present babysitter, the companion that asks nothing of you, is changing. It is changing because we're asking questions of it, and making new demands about how we watch TV, and even what we consider to be "TV."
No longer is the prime concern how big your TV should be, or what furniture should point at it. For some, the box isn't even the first place they go when they want to be entertained, for we now truly live in the multi-screen age. The rise of the smartphone, the tablet computer, Netflix, and other on-demand services has changed the screen/viewer relationship forever. Also, we shouldn't forget the importance of that increasingly antiquated invention called the "Internet." With each year (and in some cases, each month), the ability to watch things on different platforms at your own convenience moves from the producers' scheduling to the consumers' whims and desires.
How We Watch What We Watch: The Future Of TV
For districts around the country, it is the price as much as the cool quotient that could draw them to a new, smaller version of the iPad.
Apple has long been a leader in education, and schools began embracing the iPad soon after its 2010 debut. Yet as fiscal budget shortfalls crimp spending all the more, schools in growing numbers are warming to the handheld devices as an alternative to more expensive laptops. Now schools, as well as consumers, are about to get another big price break: The smaller iPad may cost as little as $249, according to Barclays Plc. That compares with $499 to $829 for the current iPad.
Apple Sees Schools Buoying Tablet Lead With IPad in Class
The newest member of Samsung Mobile's Mad Men team: Twitter.
Samsung's latest television ad, which mocks Apple’s new iPhone, is striking a chord with consumers, at least judging by its popularity on YouTube. The South Korean electronics maker credits part of its success to the fact that its ad was partly crafted by mining consumer comments on Twitter and incorporating them into its pitch. The spot shows people talking about different features of the new iPhone as they wait in line for an Apple store to open. One of the customers says: "I heard that you have to have an adapter to use the dock on the new one." Another young man chimes in: "Yeah, yeah but they make the coolest adapters." According to Samsung, those lines and other parts of the ad's script were based on "hundreds of thousands" of Tweets complaining or poking fun of specific features of the iPhone 5 such as the need for an adapter if a person wants to use the phone with older speakers, chargers or other accessories in the house.
Tweets Spawn Ad Campaigns
Microsoft instituted a policy on October 19 that gives the company broad leeway over how it gathers and uses personal information from consumers of its free, Web-based products like e-mail, search and instant messaging. Almost no one noticed, however, even though Microsoft’s policy changes are much the same as those that Google made to its privacy rules this year.
Google’s expanded powers drew scathing criticism from privacy advocates, probing inquiries from regulators and broadside attacks from rivals. Those included Microsoft, which bought full-page newspaper ads telling Google users that Google did not care about their privacy, an accusation it quickly denied. The difference in the two events illustrates the confusion surrounding Internet consumer privacy. No single authority oversees the collection of personal information from Web users by Internet companies. Though most companies have written privacy policies, they are often stated in such broad, ambiguous language that they seem to allow virtually any use of customers’ personal information.
As Microsoft Shifts Its Privacy Rules, an Uproar Is Absent
The latest controversy surrounds Reddit, a community and social news site that lets members create and run their own forums on any topic, from movie news to local politics to the sharing of beautiful nature photographs. Reddit has come under fire for harboring a forum that encourages people to covertly photograph women on the street and upload the images to the site for others to ogle and comment on.
The pictures, nicknamed “creepshots,” incited outrage and provoked other members of the site and some journalists to publicly out those distributing the suggestive images. These actions, in turn, prompted an outcry from those who felt that they should be able to retain their own anonymity while posting photographs of women without their consent. The skirmish has set off a debate about privacy and free speech, ownership and community, digital rights and accountability, touching upon issues of privilege and the undercurrents of power that course through the Web. At its core, the fallout is about how we transport social order, morals and responsibility to the digital realm and whether the online infrastructure can find a weird wisdom in the way it is being erected that will allow all its inhabitants to flourish.
When the Web’s Chaos Takes an Ugly Turn
Roger Ailes will remain in charge of the Fox News Channel for the next four years, ending a protracted period of speculation about his contract negotiations. The previous contract was set to expire next summer. By renewing, Ailes will remain at Fox through the next presidential election season in 2016. Ailes, 72, has run Fox News since its founding in 1996. He has also run a spinoff channel, the Fox Business Network, since 2007, and he has oversight of Fox’s local television stations and its television syndication arm.
Roger Ailes Signs Up for Another 4 Years at Fox News
Apparently, Google is weighing whether to settle a potential claim by U.S. authorities that it violated antitrust law in the way it handles mobile-device patents.
At issue is whether Google improperly refused to grant patent licenses to some mobile device competitors and sought court injunctions against them to stop their products from being sold. A broader probe of the company's search business is continuing separately, but no decisions have been made to press a case against Google. The Federal Trade Commission, which has been conducting an antitrust investigation of the Internet giant's business for more than a year, in recent months began probing Google's handling of patents that it acquired when it closed the $12.5 billion purchase of device-maker Motorola Mobility in May. Google inherited a slew of lawsuits filed by Motorola against competitors for violating its patents as well as cases in which Motorola is being sued for refusing to license patents. Courts and antitrust authorities around the world have been grappling over the proper handling of patents regarded as "essential" to particular technologies. Groups that set technical standards often require companies to license such patents on reasonable financial terms.
Google Weighs Mobile-Patent Antitrust Settlement
Facebook advertisements are a popular way for candidates to connect with voters, but a recent academic study suggests they aren't actually that effective.
Donald Green, a political science professor at Columbia University, and David Brookman, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, found that voters exposed to Facebook campaign ads were no more likely than other voters to know the advertised candidate's name. Nor were they more like to have a favorable impression of the candidate or vote for the candidate. The authors concluded that online ads are "quite unlikely to play a meaningful role in determining the fate of a political campaign or retailer."
Facebook campaign advertisements don’t work, says new study
Apparently, a new White House executive order would direct U.S. spy agencies to share the latest intelligence about cyberthreats with companies operating electric grids, water plants, railroads and other vital industries to help protect them from electronic attacks.
The seven-page draft order, which is being finalized, takes shape as the Obama Administration expresses growing concern that Iran could be the first country to use cyberterrorism against the United States. The military is ready to retaliate if the U.S. is hit by cyberweapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said. But the U.S. also is poorly prepared to prevent such an attack, which could damage or knock out critical services that are part of everyday life.
The draft order would put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of organizing an information-sharing network that rapidly distributes sanitized summaries of top-secret intelligence reports about known cyberthreats that identify a specific target. With these warnings, known as tear lines, the owners and operators of essential U.S. businesses would be better able to block potential attackers from gaining access to their computer systems. The draft retains a section that requires Homeland Security to identify the vital systems that, if hit by cyberattack, could "reasonably result in a debilitating impact" on national and economic security. Other sections establish a program to encourage companies to adopt voluntary security standards and direct federal agencies to determine whether existing cyber security regulations are adequate.
The draft order directs the department to work with the Pentagon, the National Security Agency, the director of national intelligence and the Justice Department to quickly establish the information-sharing mechanism. Selected employees at critical infrastructure companies would receive security clearances allowing them to receive the information, according to the document. Federal agencies would be required to assess whether the order raises any privacy or civil liberties risks. To foster a two-way exchange of information, the government would ask businesses to tell the government about cyberthreats or cyberattacks. There would be no requirement to do so.
Draft Order would give Companies Cyber Threat Info