Interesting Snippets

"When the centers opened in the 1990s as quaintly termed “Internet hotels,” the tenants paid for..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:52:53 +0100

“

When the centers opened in the 1990s as quaintly termed “Internet hotels,” the tenants paid for space to plug in their servers with a proviso that electricity would be available. As computing power has soared, so has the need for power, turning that relationship on its head: electrical capacity is often the central element of lease agreements, and space is secondary.

A result, an examination shows, is that the industry has evolved from a purveyor of space to an energy broker — making tremendous profits by reselling access to electrical power, and in some cases raising questions of whether the industry has become a kind of wildcat power utility

”

- North Jersey Data Center Industry Blurs Utility-Real Estate Boundaries - NYTimes.com

"the Royal Shakespeare Company will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream to a global audience over..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:40:16 +0100

“the Royal Shakespeare Company will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream to a global audience over three days via the magic of the internet…. the project, called Midsummer Night’s Dreaming… will unfold in real time. The production will use a number of online formats, from live-streaming to written blogs, all shared through the social network Google+ over the Midsummer weekend, from 21 June.”

- RSC and Google team up for online Midsummer Night’s Dream | Stage | guardian.co.uk

"One million songs were downloaded in the store’s first week, 25 million by the end of 2003, and one..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:51:51 +0100

“One million songs were downloaded in the store’s first week, 25 million by the end of 2003, and one billion by February of 2006. iPod sales responded in kind, jumping from under one million in 2003 to over four million in 2004 to a staggering 22.5 million in 2005. By the time iPod sales reached their peak at nearly 55 million in 2008, the iTunes Store had supplanted Best Buy as the number one music retailer in the US. Less than two years later, in February of 2010, iTunes became the number one music retailer on the planet”

- iTunes Store at 10: how Apple built a digital media juggernaut | The Verge

"For more than thirty years, computers have mostly just been about tasks, and they had to be–they..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:42:01 +0100

“

For more than thirty years, computers have mostly just been about tasks, and they had to be–they were too expensive and clunky and hard to use, so you wouldn’t really want to use them for anything else. But the modern computing device has a very different place in our lives. It’s not just for productivity and business, although it’s great for that too. It’s for making us more connected, more social, more aware.

Home, by putting people first, and then apps–by just flipping the order–is one of many small but meaningful changes in our relationship with technology over time.

”

- Vision | Dustin Curtis

(via The Secret Life of Cats: What You Can Learn by Putting a...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:24:54 +0100

(via The Secret Life of Cats: What You Can Learn by Putting a GPS on Your Kitty - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic) OK, I want to do this now too

"It is easy to write off Grindr as a hookup application… But the company, which is approaching..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:10:24 +0100

“It is easy to write off Grindr as a hookup application… But the company, which is approaching its fourth anniversary, has amassed more than five million users who spend on average 90 minutes each day using the application.”

- Digital Stats: Grindr has more than 5 million users

"Today, Google is arguably one of the most influential nonstate actors in international..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:15:53 +0100

“

Today, Google is arguably one of the most influential nonstate actors in international affairs… It tracks the global arms trade, spends millions creating crisis-alert tools to inform the public about looming natural disasters, monitors the spread of the flu, and acts as a global censor to protect American interests abroad. Google has even intervened into land disputes, one of the most fraught and universal security issues facing states today, siding with an indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon to help the tribe document and post evidence about intrusions on its land through Google Earth.

In a new form of digital statecraft, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has traveled to North Korea against State Department wishes.

”

- New Digital Age: How Google took on jobs that used to be reserved for government. - Slate Magazine

"The group who chooses to turn Facebook off permanently is relatively small, but there’s a larger set..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:33:36 +0100

“The group who chooses to turn Facebook off permanently is relatively small, but there’s a larger set of people who will deactivate their account for a day or two because they want to focus and study for a test—it’s the equivalent of locking yourself in the library. It’s actually a very popular feature”

- Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook Home, Money, and the Future of Communication | Wired Magazine | Wired.com

"when you unlock your phone, you’re presented with the “home screen”—the interface that shows off all..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:28:54 +0100

“when you unlock your phone, you’re presented with the “home screen”—the interface that shows off all your apps. If you install Facebook Home, both those screens will immediately be replaced by Facebook’s new interface. After that, every time you turn on your phone you’ll see a feed of photos and updates from your friends. You can flip through the pictures, Like them, and even comment on things without ever unlocking your device. To get to your apps, you’ve got to tap a little bubble to bring up a new menu. Facebook Home inserts itself between you and every non-Facebook thing you might want to do with your phone. The effect is one of parasitic invasion: In the past, your Android phone did everything, including Facebook. Now it’s a Facebook machine first.”

- Facebook Home: The Facebook phone is not as dumb as I thought it was going to be. - Slate Magazine If I used FB more I can imagine this being useful, in that I like the idea of being able to interact without unlocking

"Worldwide crowdfunding volumes reached $2.66 billion in 2012, up from $1.47 billion the previous..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:22:00 +0100

“Worldwide crowdfunding volumes reached $2.66 billion in 2012, up from $1.47 billion the previous year… North America accounts for the bulk of activity, with $1.6 billion raised there last year”

- Global crowdfunding volumes rise 81 percent in 2012 | Reuters

"G.E. announced a partnership with Quirky, a New York-based start-up that is a kind of social network..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:20:04 +0100

“G.E. announced a partnership with Quirky, a New York-based start-up that is a kind of social network for inventors, helping turn vague ideas into marketable items, manufacturing them, and distributing them through stores like Best Buy and Target. G.E. is licensing hundreds of its patents to the company’s community and working directly to help identify particularly promising consumer uses of these patents.”

- G.E. Turns to the Crowd for Help in Creating Consumer Products - NYTimes.com

"About 1,500 cities, including Chicago and, last year, New York, have also enlisted the public in..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:12:23 +0100

“About 1,500 cities, including Chicago and, last year, New York, have also enlisted the public in setting budgeting priorities. In 2012 around a million citizens took part in the annual budgeting process in Rio Grande do Sul, the Brazilian state which also hosted the first such event, in the town of Porto Alegre, in 1989. In 2011 the state governor collected 1,300 ideas for improving local health care, and then let citizens vote for their 50 favourites; 120,000 people took part. The voting software presented ideas in pairs; users could pick the one they preferred.”

- Participatory politics: Processing power | The Economist

"What does it mean that Google really is trying to build the Star Trek computer? I take it as a cue..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:41:17 +0100

“What does it mean that Google really is trying to build the Star Trek computer? I take it as a cue to stop thinking about Google as a “search engine.” That term conjures a staid image: a small box on a page in which you type keywords. A search engine has several key problems. First, most of the time it doesn’t give you an answer—it gives you links to an answer. Second, it doesn’t understand natural language; when you search, you’ve got to adopt the search engine’s curious, keyword-laden patois. Third, and perhaps most importantly, a search engine needs for you to ask it questions—it doesn’t pipe in with information when you need it, without your having to ask.
The Star Trek computer worked completely differently. It understood language and was conversational, it gave you answers instead of references to answers, and it anticipated your needs. “It was the perfect search engine,” Singhal said. “You could ask it a question and it would tell you exactly the right answer, one right answer—and sometimes it would tell you things you needed to know in advance, before you could ask it.””

- Google has a single towering obsession: It wants to build the Star Trek computer. - Slate Magazine

"European buyers of the Ford Focus, a mid-sized car, can now leave it to drive itself and maintain a..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:23:37 +0100

“European buyers of the Ford Focus, a mid-sized car, can now leave it to drive itself and maintain a safe distance in steady traffic. The car can measure a parking space and steer itself into it. It reads road signs and admonishes the driver if he breaks the speed limit. Such gadgetry also increasingly makes decisions on the driver’s behalf and overrules him in an emergency, for instance, braking to avoid a crash.”

- Driverless cars: Look, no hands | The Economist

The Internet: A Warning From History (by The Poke)

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:18:46 +0100

The Internet: A Warning From History (by The Poke)

"in Kenya the National Health Insurance Fund reduced its administrative costs from 60% to 32% by..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:59:55 +0100

“in Kenya the National Health Insurance Fund reduced its administrative costs from 60% to 32% by automating its claims processing, accessing real-time data and tracking payment processes”

- Google Europe Blog: Harnessing the Internet to boost Africa’s economy

www.rackspace.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/involve/user_all/Rackspace_Cloud_Report_Economic_IT_Skills_FINAL.pdf

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:41:50 +0100

www.rackspace.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/involve/user_all/Rackspace_Cloud_Report_Economic_IT_Skills_FINAL.pdf:

Survey of 1,300 organizations in the UK and the U.S., including 1,000 SME’s and 300 enterprises with 1,000 employees or more found that: 64% SMEs / 74% of large enterprises agree that
cloud computing has reduced their IT costs; 58% of SMEs / 66% large businesses said that they can focus more on strategy and innovation as a result of not needing a dedicated IT team

(via Making Cloud Computing Pay - Forbes)

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:40:47 +0100

(via Making Cloud Computing Pay - Forbes)

"The paper, Growth in a Time of Debt, was written by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:24:23 +0100

“The paper, Growth in a Time of Debt, was written by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff and published in 2010…. The link it draws between high levels of debt and negative average economic growth has been used by right-leaning politicians to justify austerity budgets: slashing government expenditure and reducing budget deficits in a bid to curtail the growth of debt.
…
A new paper, however, suggests that the data itself is in error. …
It turns out that the Reinhart and Rogoff spreadsheet contained a simple coding error. The spreadsheet was supposed to calculate average values across twenty countries in rows 30 to 49, but in fact it only calculated values in 15 countries in rows 30 to 44.”

- Microsoft Excel: The ruiner of global economies? | Ars Technica Oh my. Here’s why I never just add data to blank rows at the bottom of spreadsheets with formulas but instead insert them midway. I sympathise with the spreadsheet creators though hugely; I only learned to do that after having been caught out by similar mistakes myself, albeit not ones that were quite so public

"Mecca Bingo reports that a fifth of the money it now takes is online, rather than in bingo halls"

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:27:18 +0100

“Mecca Bingo reports that a fifth of the money it now takes is online, rather than in bingo halls”

- BBC News - Online bingo: A very full house