Two years ago in Iran, and now in Egypt, digital communications have helped level oppression and censorship. You would think that blocking the Internet in an entire nation would silence people, but, like water seeking its own level, small leaks have turned into rivulets and have flowed back to the world at large. And we […]
Facebook: privacy settings change again
In our hectic, public social lives, there’s always Facebook, a gated community where you can let it all hang out with your friends. What you say or show on Facebook is safe from those outside forces that might otherwise ruin the experience: your parents, your students, your ex, and yes, search engines. But Facebook is […]
Location-based services about to blossom
So what’s hot in social media today? Location, location, location! That’s right, location-based services appear to be gaining critical mass. This trend is driven by the proliferation of handsets with built-in GPS receivers, including the iPhone, Android devices such as the Droid, and the BlackBerry, as well as the proliferation of social networks. I often […]
Mash up and share feeds with Wiffiti
Wiffiti is a tool for capturing a feed and displaying it in a dynamic screen, which can be published in a variety of places. The National Communication Association is currently meeting in Chicago. Attendees are using the Twitter hashtag #NCA09. A screen based on this tag could be pushed to flat panels throughout the venue […]
Google Dashboard and online privacy
The Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff famously said, “In Soviet Russia, TV watches you.” Today, he might say, “on Internet, Google watches you.” Indeed, Google is like Santa Claus: it sees you when you’re sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. But you […]
Lessons from the Netflix $1 million prize
This week Netflix announced a winner in its contest to improve its movie rating software. A team of seven computer engineers, statisticians and machine learning experts, Bellkor’s Pragmatic Chaos, won $1 million for creating an algorithm that improves the current software by more than 10 percent. Some context: Netflix wants happy customers who see the […]
Respecting copyright on your blog or social media page
It’s a new semester, and that means students everywhere are jumping in to digital publishing, either for fun, self-expression or as part of a classroom assignment. While student work may seem to have limited scope, at some level it’s no different from a page at nytimes.com. If it’s published online, it is a public document […]