Big data is poised to transform society, from how we diagnose illness to how we educate children, even making it possible for a car to drive itself. Information is emerging as a new economic input, a vital resource. Companies, governments, and even individuals will be measuring and optimizing everything possible.
But there is a dark side. Big data erodes privacy. And when it is used to make predictions about what we are likely to do but haven’t yet done, it threatens freedom as well. Yet big data also exacerbates a very old problem: relying on the numbers when they are far more fallible than we think. Nothing underscores the consequences of data analysis gone awry more than the story of Robert McNamara.
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Google’s deference to data has been taken to extremes. To determine the best color of a toolbar on the website, Marissa Mayer, when she was one of Google’s top executives before going to Yahoo, once ordered staff to test 41 gradations of blue to see which ones people used more. In 2009, Google’s top designer, Douglas Bowman, quit in a huff because he couldn’t stand the constant quantification of everything.
See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514591/the-dictatorship-of-data/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130531
On Wednesday, Amazon Publishing announced Kindle Worlds, “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so.” The company is making this work by securing licenses from existing entertainment properties and by paying royalties to both the original author and the fan fiction author.
The website notes that “Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.”
See the full story here: http://paidcontent.org/2013/05/22/amazons-new-kindle-worlds-gives-authors-a-way-to-sell-fan-fiction-without-legal-hassles/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=2d31a97f95-c%3Amed+d%3A05-23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-2d31a97f95-99190873
[Philip Lelyveld comment: the author, Mike Terpin, is a long-standing LA business leader and entrepreneur.]
In 1994, there was tremendous skepticism about the Internet (people scoffed at claims it had a reach of 20 million people; I recall a TV executive at the time scoffing that "19 million of them are students and professors overseas").
So is this an amazing bubble ($1 billion in value, up from less than $10,000 at its inception in 2009) about to pop, the beginning of a ride to where the bitcoin rivals gold as an asset and the dollar as a currency, or the start of a ride that goes halfway up and then gets destroyed by hacks, government bans (which would be hard to enforce given its completely distributed nature -- it would be like banning barter) or the rise of a newer, better digital currency?
See the full post here: http://www.socaltech.com/articles/will-bitcoin-spark-a-wave-as-big-as-the-internet-/a-00234.html
Calabasas-based surround sound and audio technology firm DTS has scored a design win with Chinese auto manufacturer BYD, the company said this morning. According to DTS, BYD will implement its DTS Digital Surround into four models of its vehicles. The four models of vehicles will launch in China in Q2. Financial impact of the win was not announced.
See the full story here: http://www.socaltech.com/dts_gets_win_at_byd/s-0049470.html
While people were watching the movie, the heat of the DVD player affected the disc. When the movie ended and they ejected the disc, they smelled pizza. They also saw pizza: the discs were printed to look like mini pies, and carried the message: "Did you enjoy the movie? The next one will be even better with a hot and delicious Domino's Pizza."
See the full story here: http://adage.com/article/creativity-pick-of-the-day/a-dvd-smells-domino-s-pizza/241529/
The video installation relies on an automated system that downloads continually the most popular torrents. The intercepted data is immediately projected onto a screen before being discarded.
The flows appearing on the screens constitute a sort of 'surveillance' of the peers as fragments of the files that they are exchanging can be visualized during the transmission or the reception. The remote users are, unknowingly, composing an endless collage determined by what they chose to download.
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Didn't you fear that you might get into trouble?
We thought about it, we were particularly concerned about the exhibition spaces, but the legal aspects are very schizophrenic. It is obvious that the peer-to-peer structures have positive cultural impacts and also often positive social ones. The same questions were asked with the arrival of photocopiers, audio cassettes, VHS, etc.. The main stumbling blocks remain the obsolete structures of film and music production.
See the original stories here: http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2013/05/the-pirate-cinema.php?utm_source=feedburner#.UZpW6pX6LiN
and here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/20/4347484/the-pirate-cinema-nicolas-maigret-peer-to-peer-piracy-art-installation?curator=MediaReDEF
[Philip Lelyveld comment; If you strip away the technology, didn't Charles Dickens do this about 150 years ago?]
Haunting Melissa doesn’t have a predetermined length: Edelstein shot thousands of hours of video, and it will be pushed out to viewers in “chapters,” or segments, on a timeline that can be tweaked on the back end. For example, if a user hasn’t entered the app for a while, he or she might receive a push notification that a new chapter is available.
In addition, the actual video content can be adjusted through the app’s content management system, so new content can be inserted into a chapter after a user has already watched it. The idea is to keep users coming back to the app, checking for new content and seeing what has changed.
See the whole story here: http://paidcontent.org/2013/05/16/producer-of-the-ring-and-mulholland-drive-releases-new-horror-movie-as-an-ios-app/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=62fda6ef2f-c%3Amed+d%3A05-17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-62fda6ef2f-99147229
Mass Relevance is worth keeping an eye on because it’s helping Twitter and Facebook use their social interaction data in unique ways that are appealing to media companies and big brands during live or notable events. For example, it’s in the CBS’s best interest to curate and increase social interactions during the Super Bowl because it can then justify the higher advertising rate prices to advertisers that want to run a commercial during the big game.
The platform itself allows highly visible media companies to manage the flow of social information they’re consistently getting hit with. It takes social data streams from various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, and others) and weaves them into a single console for clients. From there you can set word/hashtag filters, audience demographic filters (age range, gender, geography), media or social network filters, and so on — basically fine-tuning all that social data for a specific purpose. The platform can also help its clients display that “social content” intelligently through mobile apps, live TV broadcasts, websites, projector screens at conferences, stadium displays, and other visualizations that run alongside media events.
See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/16/mass-relevance-growth/?curator=MediaReDEF
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) plans a hearing on Thursday before the House Intellectual Property subcommittee to pursue his worthy goal of copyright reform.
The hearing is called “A Case Study for Consensus Building: The Copyright Principles Project” and focuses on a group called the “Copyright Principles Project” that produced a white paper called “The Copyright Principles Project: Directions For Reform.”
Goodlatte has a refreshing desire for less polarization in America’s debate on copyright reform, but I must note that the Copyright Principles Project is a strange kind of “consensus” on copyright — because it’s no consensus at all.
There are no creators involved in the Copyright Principles Project at all! None. As in not one.
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This registration idea has been around for quite a while. The pitch to artists is never from other artists — it’s usually pitched as a good thing because the Internet would unleash a torrent of untold riches if people could just find you. This must be someone’s idea of a joke, because if the Internet has unleashed anything on artists, it is not a torrent of people trying to pay us. It’s another kind of torrent—a Bit Torrent.
See the full story here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/building-a-real-copyright-consensus-91231.html
The video installation relies on an automated system that downloads continually the most popular torrents. The intercepted data is immediately projected onto a screen before being discarded.
Mass Relevance is worth keeping an eye on because it’s helping Twitter and Facebook use their social interaction data in unique ways that are appealing to media companies and big brands during live or notable events. For example, it’s in the CBS’s best interest to curate and increase social interactions during the Super Bowl because it can then justify the higher advertising rate prices to advertisers that want to run a commercial during the big game.