Fast Company

ESPN's New World Cup Livestreaming Record Proves No One Did Work Today

According to ESPN, there were 1.7 million concurrent streams of the US-Germany World Cup match on its WatchESPN service. That crushes the previous high of 750,000 concurrent streams set by the last match between Mexico and Brazil.

Why Hackers Should Care About Accessibility

Most people think of "accessibility" as those little-used options on their computer for disabled users. But not only does accessible design make a piece of technology useful to all, but it also increases the product’s user base and also makes it easier to use for people across age brackets and cultural boundaries.

“This is something that’s very relevant, and it’s not a luxury anymore,” explained Faith Haeussler, county coordinator of Philadelphia Link, a collaborative that helps the disability community become more independent. “There’s a shortage of caregivers, I think technology has to come in and take over some of the responsibility. I really believe that technology is going to help keep people with disabilities in their homes.”

Instead of the traditional model of telling people with disabilities what they need, individuals with disabilities were seen as knowledge experts, sitting side-by-side with hackers and developing design decisions at the conception of each project.

“As a quadriplegic, I know that I could not do the work that I do without technology,” said German Parodi, a grassroots disability activist and student. “Collaborating from the bottom up, we’re respecting each other and trying to build a future collectively.”

Once Browser Tech Partners, Google And Apple Are Divorcing. Is The Web In Trouble?

[Commentary] It’s a little more than a year since Google launched Blink, a custom engine used by Chrome to turn HTML and CSS code into what you see on your screen.

Before that, Chrome was powered by a tweaked version of WebKit, the Apple-led open source engine used by Safari.

But developers and browser makers alike say cross-browser development is actually less painful than it’s ever been, thanks to efforts by browser providers to keep the tools as functionally compatible and compliant with published standards as possible.

“I think that browser compatibility is actually way ahead of what it used to be," says Rey Bango. "If you look at the most modern versions of browsers, things are coming off really nicely." Far from creating silos or havoc, this move by Google shows how "competition" in the technology sector can be a much more nuanced concept than usually thought.

On the web, businesses, distribution networks, and services operate across so many layers of abstraction that practically no game is zero sum. A competitive marketplace keeps individual browser makers from rolling out major features that aren’t supported by their rivals, since developers won’t make much use of a feature that only works in one browser.

Inside Google's World Cup Newsroom

Inside a San Francisco office building, Google is trying its latest experiment: original sports journalism. When the 2014 World Cup began, Google unveiled a World Cup Trends Newsroom to turn search data surrounding soccer games into infographics.

For the duration of the World Cup, a team of data scientists, designers, editors, and translators will publish shareable original content in multiple languages to the microsite. The project is a bold attempt to turn Google's search results into shareable material -- and inject Google-branded content into the Facebook and Twitter ecosystems.

Inside a large open-plan floor office in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, the 20-person staff works with an internal Google Trends dashboard to create World Cup-themed content on tight deadlines.

“Prior to each match, we look at sentiment in each country and sentiment about their competitor,” Danielle Bowers, the lead World Cup data analyst at Google Trends, said. “We then look at searches for players, and searches in general in each country. Then during a match, we use real-time tools after things like refs making a controversial call. After the matches end, we then pull summaries of the most interesting statistics.”

How Twitter Is Preparing For the World Cup

When you walk around the offices of Twitter’s engineering department, located on the sixth floor of the company’s downtown San Francisco headquarters, you will see signs counting down the days until the World Cup.

More than 3.2 billion people watched at least a minute of the World Cup live in 2010. For Twitter, Facebook, ESPN, YouTube, and a host of regional social media sites from Brazil to Russia, the World Cup means engineers frantically working overtime to prevent outages and site overloads.

Can Governments Get Economic Data From People On The Street?

If you’re a college student in Buenos Aires or Chennai, you may have come across an unorthodox way of making extra money. Using your Android phone, an American corporation will pay you to stop by the supermarket on the way home; snap a picture of how much bread or tomatoes costs that day; and submit the price of those commodities into an elaborate data system.

California-based Premise, as they're called, uses this information as fodder for an unusual business model: getting inflation and commodity price data before governments do, sourced from regular people on the street. Using thousands of college students and other part-time workers, Premise gathers raw item prices from retailers and street markets worldwide.

The information Premise’s workers collect is used to help develop live inflation indexes and food security data for clients including hedge funds and government agencies.

According to Premise, the company is currently collecting economic data in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, India, China, Japan, and Australia. Premise is currently offering their indexes to corporations and financial service providers, to government agencies, and to marketing organizations. Of these, David Soloff, Premise’s CEO, feels government agencies have the biggest potential for licensing Premise’s indexes.

If Net Neutrality Is Such A Big Deal, How Come It's Not In The News?

Network neutrality is one of business and government's biggest ongoing debates. But even though our lives are increasingly influenced and determined by online interactions, many people have no idea what the phrase means.

A recent Pew Research Center report put a point on how little the debate seems to be engaging the public. Out of the 203 articles that even mentioned net neutrality in 2014, 139 were in the same six papers. Twenty-five out of nearly 3,000 TV news programs discussed the issue. That's 0.8%.

The story's very different on Twitter, where nearly all the 650,000 tweets on the topic expressed support for an open Internet. Then again, Twitter's not even close to a representative sample of the US population.

A separate VentureBeat poll revealed similar findings. Of 714 people surveyed through Google, nearly 60% reported that they didn't even know enough about what net neutrality was. (And these are people already savvy enough to spend enough time on the Internet to take Google surveys.)

So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves journalists with more of a responsibility to report on tech stuff that isn't the sexiest app or most titillating group selfie.

But it's also a strong reminder: Some of the most important fights for public resources aren't made in front of the public. They're made in fluorescent-lit corporate conference rooms, on the least engaging parts of C-SPAN, or in tiny, esoteric debates that only circulate among a handful of people. And sometimes there's only mainstream news about them when it's too late.

The Internet Companies That Protect Your Privacy When the Government Starts Prying

With the Snowden revelations, we learned a lot more about how the government snoops into the lives of US citizens and how technology companies help them do it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's latest "Who Has Your Back?" report doesn't exactly reveal which companies are helping the NSA most. But it paints a picture of those companies that are taking the most action on privacy matters, and those that have more important things to worry about.

The report looks at the policies of 26 Internet companies -- from Internet service providers (ISPs) and email providers, to telecoms and blogging platforms -- across six categories "to assess whether they publicly commit to standing with users when the government seeks access to user data." Nine companies -- Apple, Credo Mobile, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Sonic, Twitter, and Yahoo -- gets stars in all categories. Twenty-three companies require a warrant. And 20 companies tell users about government requests. All the companies received at least one star.

A few companies stand out for their lack of policy. Snapchat only scores in one category ("publishing law enforcement guidelines"). "This is particularly troubling because Snapchat collects extremely sensitive user data, including potentially compromising photographs of users," the report says.

But AT&T and Comcast aren't much better. Neither require a warrant before allowing the NSA to view content, and neither tells users about government requests. And neither has sought to protect user rights by lobbying in Congress.

What Google Search Algorithm Changes Do To The Internet

Matt Cutts, a senior member of Google's webspam team, announced in early 2014 that Google is working on a new version of their algorithm designed to help small businesses by pushing spammers and content mills into far less prominent search results.

But because algorithms aren't perfect and lack human editors, Google may have accidentally made search results from many small websites less prominent over time.

What The Netflix Of The Future Might Look Like

Netflix’s streaming service's chief product officer, Neil Hunt, hinted at what the Netflix of the Future might look like. "Our vision is, you won't see a grid and you won't see a sea of titles," said Hunt.

It won't be able to magically pick the perfect movie for you. But there is a "powerful possibility" that future versions will present viewers with just three or four manageable choices at a time.

Internal Report Reveals New York Times' Digital Failings

An internal report obtained by BuzzFeed reveals that the New York Times is, by admission of its own employees, struggling to adapt to a digital publishing landscape.

The Times's "Innovation Report," commissioned by chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and conducted by his son, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger (a journalist at the paper), reveals a newsroom "falling behind" in the "art and science of getting our journalism to readers."

The Times "has watched readership fall significantly." "Not only is the audience on our website shrinking," notes the report, "but our audience on our smartphone apps has dipped, an extremely worrying sign on a growing platform." Per BuzzFeed, the Times is getting trounced by savvier online competitors like the Huffington Post, which are leveraging the Times' reporting to generate traffic.

Bill Maher Is Going To Change Washington -- By Getting Rid Of One Awful Politician

According to late-night HBO comedian Bill Maher, there are only two ways a nincompoop in the House of Representatives could lose a seat. "You literally have to die or tweet a picture of your penis," he said.

In 2012, when congressional approval ratings dropped to what was then a record low of 10%, Americans somehow reelected 90% of their representatives that same year. But going into the 2014 midterm elections, Maher's strategy has changed. He isn't only using political angst for bits; he's using a segment of the show to try and directly influence a midterm race.

Maher's "Flip a District" project has already begun taking video and social media nominations of representatives his 4.2 million weekly viewers would like to see ousted. The left-leaning Maher has vowed to narrow down a 16-person bracket to one contender and do his best to drive a stake through his or her incumbency.

The Other Gender Gap: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Getting Screwed Out Of Funding

[Commentary] “Do you know how many great business ideas die in the bank parking lot?” a Colorado woman asked then-First Lady Hillary Clinton 20 years ago. The aspiring entrepreneur had just been turned down, again, for a credit line critical to her technology startup. Today, women still struggle to access the capital they need to spur economic development.

While women entrepreneurs are now understood to be an accelerator of global growth, their difficulty accessing capital is a pernicious global brake. The opportunity cost is profound, given that women’s economic impact is magnified by a "multiplier effect"; women are more likely than men to plough earnings back into their communities, fostering prosperity and stability.

[Ambassador Verveer is executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security and partner at Seneca Point Global, a global women strategy firm; Azzarelli is a partner at Seneca Point Global]

4 Countries That Are Leaving Silicon Valley In Their Tracks

These countries have digitized governments that will put our Healthcare.gov problems to shame, fast broadband Internet speeds beyond comparison, and instead of hookup apps, you’ll see innovations in energy alternatives.

  • Estonia: Estonians are the brains behind Skype and Kazaa, an early file-sharing program, and has one the fastest broadband Internet speeds in the world.
  • South Korea: The South Korean government promotes its startup economy by pouring $2.7 billion in funding startups and offering tax breaks for big companies that invest in startups.
  • Israel: The country boasts more startups per capita than any other country and currently has 70 companies listed on the Nasdaq, making it third only to the US and China on the stock exchange. Not bad for a population of 8.2 million.
  • China: With its massive 1.3 billion strong population, entrepreneurs in China will be the ones who can identify unmet needs and use their resources to provide services and tools to meet those needs. Entrepreneurs outside of China can only dream of being able to fill gaps in this massive marketplace.

3 Ways Big Data Is Going To Be Used Against You In The Future

[Commentary] The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology just released a report analyzing future "big data" scenarios we all may face, alongside a 90-day review of the big data practices led by White House advisor John Podesta.

Health care, crime, smart homes, education, law enforcement, employment -- these are all areas in which big data has promised to deliver miracles. But are the tradeoffs of privacy for convenience (like Rodriguez's) something we really want? If they are, how do we make sure that individuals maintain control over how our information is being used?

You might not be worried about it, but here are three ways in which big data practices might one day affect you. Job Discrimination. Criminal Discrimination. Consumer Discrimination.

The Email That Created A Movement

When sexism happens on the Internet or in a high-profile setting, Rachel Sklar usually gets a “bat signal” in the form of an e-mail, text, or hashtag alert.

If a high-profile company event lacks female representation, she goes if she can. Someone just made a biased statement about women or diversity? Don’t worry. She’s on it.

Sklar, a former lawyer who writes about media, politics, culture, and tech, became the poster-woman for gender equality when she created the hashtag #changetheratio.

The effort was in response to a 2010 New York magazine story about tech entrepreneurs that featured mostly men. After noting that one of the few women in the photos had her face obscured by the startup owner’s foot as he was being held upside down, “I just thought that was a problem,” she says.

Silicon Valley Turns To An Algorithm To Fix Its Diversity Problem

In Silicon Valley, the algorithm is seen as a magic bullet that can fix almost anything. Now one company is banking on an algorithm to fix the industry's dearth of women and minorities in tech.

Entelo, which helps high-profile tech companies like Yelp and Facebook with recruiting, has launched a new product, Entelo Diversity. For $10,000 a year, organizations can target certain groups, like women, black men, or "old" people, with certain skills for job openings using Entelo's "proprietary algorithm."

Entelo assures that its technology won't lead to reverse discrimination, especially given the recent Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.

"I'm sensitive to that," said Entelo's CEO Jon Bischke. "But there's active discrimination going on today and we hope this will mitigate that." The technology claims to sift through already qualified candidates, assuring no "token" hires.

Unfortunately, the algorithm does nothing about the social issues behind the hiring imbalances. Silicon Valley's discrimination problems run too deep. Women often don't "qualify" for jobs because fewer women pursue careers and training in math and science. Multiple studies have shown that women drop out of STEM fields because of cultural, not innate, reasons.

Electric Objects Wants To Display the Most Beautiful Parts Of The Internet On Your Wall

Jake Levine thinks the Internet is stuck inside our computers. We turn on our screens, check e-mail, write a Word document, head over to Facebook, maybe watch some Netflix, then turn them off.

"That tends to build some anxiety," said Levine, the former general manager at Digg. "You have software built on those devices that is designed to demand your attention, to focus you. What we end up feeling at the end of all of that is anxious."

That’s where Levine's new venture, comes in. He wants to take some of the more serene parts of the Internet out of that stress-inducing device sitting on your desk, and put them on your wall through a different kind of device.

"I'm building an Internet-connected screen that will bring the Internet to your wall, a screen that is worthy of that beautiful mess of human expression that pervades our connected lives," Levine explained in a Medium post.

It sounds a lot like a smart TV. But, the similarities between the two end at the screen. Both the hardware and software of Levine's invention are designed for "passive" or "ambient" use, more like a picture frame and less like a tablet.

Alex Rainert, the head of design at Project Florida who is testing the device, said it doesn't feel like a gadget at all.

How Brazil Has Leapt Ahead Of The US With An Internet Bill Of Rights

Brazil is a place where the Internet landscape is diverging from the United States in a way that benefits ordinary digital citizens: On April 21, Brazil's congress passed a legally binding “Internet Bill of Rights.”

The Brazilian Internet Bill of Rights, called the Marco Civil, guarantees network neutrality, regulates government surveillance on the Internet, and places limits on data companies can collect from Brazilian customers. In addition, Internet service providers won't be held liable for content published by their customers and will be legally required to remove offensive material via court order.

President Dilma Rousseff said “The Marco Civil guarantees net neutrality, a fundamental principle for maintaining the free and open nature of the Internet. The new Marco Civil establishes that telecommunications companies must treat any and all data packages equally, and also forbids the blocking, monitoring, filtering, or analysis of the content of such packages. Our model for the Marco Civil can now influence the global debate on the path to ensuring real rights in the virtual world.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg Predicts That Future Moviegoers Will "Pay By The Inch"

Jeffrey Katzenberg has an intriguing prediction for the future of film distribution.

The DreamWorks Animation chief says that within 10 years, movies will only get three weekends in the theater, and then will be available everywhere, at which point viewers will pay based on the size of the screen they watch it on.

"A movie will come out and you will have 17 days [of theatrical exclusivity], that’s exactly three weekends, which is 95% of the revenue for 98% of movies," said Katzenberg. "On the 18th day, these movies will be available everywhere ubiquitously and you will pay for the size. A movie screen will be $15. A 75" TV will be $4.00. A smartphone will be $1.99. When that happens, and it will happen, it will reinvent the enterprise of movies."

Given the rapidly growing use of smaller screens to consume media, a reduced theatrical window makes sense to allow for multi-platform distribution. The "pay by the inch you watch" element, however, is a little more left-field. Right now, services that offer the same media on multiple screens, such as Netflix and iTunes, charge by flat subscription or single purchase price, regardless of screen size.

It seems that there would have to be some gradual shift in these business models to change consumer expectations of the cost of multi-platform delivery.

Can A TV Show Get Girls More Into Tech?

Tech outlets across the web have named it “brogramming culture.” And tons of organizations tirelessly work to combat it. It is the overwhelming scarcity of women in tech.

The general method to improve female-to-male ratios in tech companies is to attract women to the field early on, by encouraging them to take computer science classes in high school and college.

Recently the toys and games industry has targeted the youngest girls, with products like Computer Engineer Barbie and GoldiBlox. And now, a tech executive wants to get the entertainment industry on board.

Anthony Onesto, director of talent development at Razorfish, is finishing up an Indiegogo campaign to get a new children's cartoon off the ground, called Ella the Engineer. The campaign aims to raise $25,000 by April 27th to produce the pilot, aiming for outlets like Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Thinking of his daughters, he realized that girls are poorly exposed to the possibilities of a tech career from a young age.

“There is no hero, no heroine in their lives, particularly in the media and the shows that they are watching, that has this computer science background,” he says.

Breaking Up With Facebook? You Better Think Twice

[Commentary] The Internet is ablaze with chatter of how Facebook is “backstabbing” advertisers and “corroding” the relationships between brands and the followers they have worked so hard to attain.

But before you sever your social marketing ties with Facebook, take a second and review the situation. Facebook isn’t necessarily backstabbing marketers (although they are trying to make money). Instead, the social network is simply growing up and going down the natural path of marketing evolution -- one that we’ve already seen with Search.

Today, businesses understand that investing in paid search and search engine optimization is necessary to drive relevant traffic to their business. More recently, Google increased focus to the quality of content in paid and organic search. When companies try to game the system with generic, bland content or excessive links, their rankings and traffic drop.

If you want to keep rankings or traffic high, you have to pay Google to stay on top in sponsored links and keep up with SEO. We’re witnessing the same process underway at Facebook, so don’t take it personally. Facebook is not targeting or attacking the businesses they spent so many years cultivating -- it’s just the natural evolution in marketing.

[Revoy is the CEO of Viralheat]

Why The World's Largest Provider Of Online Courses Thinks It's The Answer To Getting Ahead In The New Economy

[Commentary] Not every 18-year-old knows what they want to do with their life; few fully understand the market demand for different skills and competencies; and none know exactly how industries and the implications for their future careers will evolve.

Our traditional education model has many virtues, but it is front-loaded and not designed to accommodate the volatility of individual career aspirations or that of the market. A big part of the challenge is that the half-life of knowledge and skills is decreasing.

I look at our Coursera engineers, mostly in their mid to late 20s, and consider all the programming they’re doing in languages that literally did not exist when they were in school. The traditional model is also out of sync with the current generation of highly mobile millennials who, on average, change jobs every 3.2 years in the United States, according to Bureau of Labor statistics.

A front-loaded model focused on general and transferable skills and knowledge has a place, but it’s clear that it needs to be complemented with training that is more current and dynamic. In a high-skills economy, the labor market requires constant infusion of up-to-date skills to work well. Informal education is becoming increasingly relevant for individuals seeking to differentiate themselves in the job market, advance at their companies, or pursue a new career path.

More accessible and dynamic learning options are opening up -- there are a number of MOOCs; coding bootcamps like Dev Bootcamp; sites like Udemy, Code Academy, and Treehouse; and abundant content on YouTube EDU at your fingertips.

[Stiglitz is the Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Coursera]

Despite Knowing Risks, People Are Banking and Filing Taxes Over Public Wi-Fi Networks

Accessing public Wi-Fi networks comes with its risks -- hackers snoop on network traffic -- but a new study finds 39% of US adults have sent sensitive information, including banking information and social security numbers, over such unsecured networks.

Polling 2,037 adults, a study conducted by Nielsen's Harris Poll for virtual private network company Private Wi-Fi found most people understood such risks, with 88% of respondents mentioning identity theft as a possible threat when using unprotected Wi-Fi networks.

That said, 26% of respondents said they have checked their bank accounts and 19% have paid bills while using public Wi-Fi. In addition, 8% admitted to sending emails containing sensitive information, such as social security numbers or account numbers, over these unprotected networks.