Today’s article is titled: “Redrawing the Route to Online Privacy”. Written by Steve Lohr of the New York Times, the article aims to address the issue of online privacy. The current system of notifying the internet user of the implications of entering personal information seems to be very ineffective to most people. “It is an artifact of the 1990s, intended as a light-touch policy to nurture innovation in an emerging industry”. There the author was describing the old system of “notice and Choice” currently in use on many sites.
The solution to the problem has not been totally pinned down. Instead, multiple variations exist. “Lorrie Faith Cranor, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon, supports developing "privacy nudges," like short on-screen messages that remind users of the implications of data they're about to send”. There is no shortage of possible solutions such as hers, but the majority seems to fall under the category of “rules and tools”.
An example of the “rules” change the author speaks of is: “For example, the government might ban the use of recorded trails of a person’s Web-browsing behavior — so-called click streams — in employment or health insurance decisions”. Regulations need to be enforced and updated to make forward progress in internet privacy.
The other part of the solution, “tools”, is where Lorrie Faith Cranor’s idea comes in. Tools such as her “privacy nudges” would cause “people to naturally react more strongly, in a visceral way, to anthropomorphic cues”. For example, Ryan Calo of the Center for Internet and Society at the Stanford Law School is “exploring technologies that deliver “visceral notice.” His research involves voice and animation technology that emulates humans”. Calo refers to a study that was done involving free coffee but where bins were placed out for donations. Different bins were used on separate occasions, one had eyes on it while the other had flowers. “Time and again, he said, people paid more often for coffee when the box had eyes instead of flowers”. “Our brains are hard-wired to respond to images that look human, alive,” Mr. Calo said”.
Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/technology/internet/28unbox.html?ref=technology
Second Article:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/10/is-online-privacy-a-generational-issue/
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Article 6; Cries for Help via Text Messages Are Used to Direct Aid to Haiti
This weeks’ article is titled: “Cries for Help via Text Messages Are Used to Direct Aid to Haiti”. The article is focused on the natural tragedy that recently occurred in Haiti. Where technology comes into play for this particular article is in the form of text messaging. The article follows through the eyes of a man whose job it is to sift through thousands of text message requests from Haitians in need of food and suffering from loss of family members and their homes.
Many of the requests given by Haitians seem quite horrific. “I’m hungry and I have no one,” says one Haitian. “People are unable to breathe due to the smell of the dead,” says another. As a member of the Coast Guard, Ryan Bank says that he has received nearly 18,000 text messages from Haitians. He added that many of them are “utterly heartbreaking”.
Mr. Banks job, after the text message is received and the need is identified, is to relay that information to “military personnel at the United States Southern Command in South Florida.” The reason for the decision of basing the emergency network on text messaging was because of the “damage Haiti’s telecommunications system suffered in the quake”. According to the author, “Fallen cell towers and overloaded networks made telephone calls nearly impossible”. Mr. Bank noted that the bandwidth required for phone calls is much higher than that required for simple text messages. For that reason, text messaging became the best means of communication.
The texting program was brought into play very rapidly, and has evolved into a messaging service to deliver key information to those who had previously used the service. "The joint program has expanded to include regular news and information updates to those who have reached out through the emergency line, telling them where to find food relief and seek medical attention”.
Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/world/americas/21text.html?ref=technology
Second Article:
http://www.samasource.org/haiti/
Many of the requests given by Haitians seem quite horrific. “I’m hungry and I have no one,” says one Haitian. “People are unable to breathe due to the smell of the dead,” says another. As a member of the Coast Guard, Ryan Bank says that he has received nearly 18,000 text messages from Haitians. He added that many of them are “utterly heartbreaking”.
Mr. Banks job, after the text message is received and the need is identified, is to relay that information to “military personnel at the United States Southern Command in South Florida.” The reason for the decision of basing the emergency network on text messaging was because of the “damage Haiti’s telecommunications system suffered in the quake”. According to the author, “Fallen cell towers and overloaded networks made telephone calls nearly impossible”. Mr. Bank noted that the bandwidth required for phone calls is much higher than that required for simple text messages. For that reason, text messaging became the best means of communication.
The texting program was brought into play very rapidly, and has evolved into a messaging service to deliver key information to those who had previously used the service. "The joint program has expanded to include regular news and information updates to those who have reached out through the emergency line, telling them where to find food relief and seek medical attention”.
Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/world/americas/21text.html?ref=technology
Second Article:
http://www.samasource.org/haiti/
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Article 5; Plans Unveiled for World's Largest Yacht
This week’s article is titled “Plans unveiled for world's largest yacht”. The article discusses a new design for what would be the largest Yacht in the world. The design took place in London, England, and stretches a whopping 656 feet. The current longest Yacht in existence is owned by “Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich”. That Yacht seems small in comparison to this new design at 99 feet.
“Berkeley March, the yacht's naval architect, told CNN the boat could cost up to $1 billion (£650 million) to build, “depending on the needs of the clients””. A wide range of possibilities exist with the needs of a client. For example, the client could request gold furniture”. Regardless of the details the cost of building such a machine would be insurmountable to most. Despite being in a recession, some rich people with about 1 billion dollars to spare see this as an opportunity. “The people left with a lot of money have more power now, as there is less demand”.
Some amenities included in the monstrous boat include it “a drive-in-garage, a 100-foot swimming pool, a casino, a health spa and numerous bars and nightclubs”. The goal of course is to include “features that would make even the most blasé billionaire take notice”.
Main Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/12/project.1000.super.yacht/index.html
Second Article:
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/02/worlds-largest-5.php
“Berkeley March, the yacht's naval architect, told CNN the boat could cost up to $1 billion (£650 million) to build, “depending on the needs of the clients””. A wide range of possibilities exist with the needs of a client. For example, the client could request gold furniture”. Regardless of the details the cost of building such a machine would be insurmountable to most. Despite being in a recession, some rich people with about 1 billion dollars to spare see this as an opportunity. “The people left with a lot of money have more power now, as there is less demand”.
Some amenities included in the monstrous boat include it “a drive-in-garage, a 100-foot swimming pool, a casino, a health spa and numerous bars and nightclubs”. The goal of course is to include “features that would make even the most blasé billionaire take notice”.
Main Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/12/project.1000.super.yacht/index.html
Second Article:
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/02/worlds-largest-5.php
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Article 4; A Search Engine That Relies on Humans
The article titled “A Search Engine That Relies on Humans”, written by Joshua Brustein of the New York Times, is the subject of today’s post. The main focus of the article is to compare and contrast social search engines such as Aardvark to the other search engines that have no social component, such as Google.
The article briefly explains the difference between the two types of search engines. “Aardvark uses various factors to identify who it thinks are the best people to answer a question, then poses the question to them.” Whereas Google was said to “take questions, break them into keywords, and then find web sites that have the most relevance to these keywords”.
Neither of the methods for searching on the web was considered superior to the other. Proponents to the social search regime stated: “Social search will not replace conventional search. Instead, it will become another tool for web users”. Aspects of both types of search engines are still needed for web users. The benefit that the relatively new social search has is with subjective searches. Aardvark writes: “We demonstrate that there is a large class of subjective questions — especially longer, contextualized requests for recommendations or advice — which are better served by social search than by web search”.
Main Article:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/a-search-engine-that-relies-on-humans/?ref=technology
Second Article:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091020-124311
The article briefly explains the difference between the two types of search engines. “Aardvark uses various factors to identify who it thinks are the best people to answer a question, then poses the question to them.” Whereas Google was said to “take questions, break them into keywords, and then find web sites that have the most relevance to these keywords”.
Neither of the methods for searching on the web was considered superior to the other. Proponents to the social search regime stated: “Social search will not replace conventional search. Instead, it will become another tool for web users”. Aspects of both types of search engines are still needed for web users. The benefit that the relatively new social search has is with subjective searches. Aardvark writes: “We demonstrate that there is a large class of subjective questions — especially longer, contextualized requests for recommendations or advice — which are better served by social search than by web search”.
Main Article:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/a-search-engine-that-relies-on-humans/?ref=technology
Second Article:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091020-124311
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