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Tags > web
Four short links: 21 December 2011 - Be a Data Hound, Secure Traveling, Secure SMS, Mozilla's Wider Focus
By Nat TorkingtonDecember 21, 2011
AntiMap -- open source Android software to gather arbitrary data and visualize it. This enables you to be a 21C Francis Galton, the man who walked the streets of England using a pin to prick holes on a cross of card in his pocket, all to keep track of the relative average beauty of women in different parts of...
What happens when an old law is updated for the digital age? - Attorney Dana Newman discusses a proposed update to the '80s-era Video Privacy Protection Act.
December 21, 2011
The '80s-era Video Privacy Protection Act had the unintended consequence of inhibiting consensual sharing of video viewing habits. Attorney Dana Newman weighs in on updated legislation.
The price of greatness: Three takeaways from the biography of Steve Jobs - Thoughts on the scarcity of great leaders.
December 20, 2011
From the moment he got sick in 2003 to when he died in October of this year, Steve Jobs was never fully healthy again. Yet, Jobs led his team to a series of triumphs that have no equal in the annals of business. Mark Sigal explores what this says about Jobs as a leader and the price that greatness demands.
There's a map for that - Can redistricting be opened to the public through open source and the web?
December 20, 2011
DistrictBuilder is a web-based redistricting tool that lets citizens draw their own maps, publish them online and submit them to redistricting authorities.
The ethics of the fail - Ben Huh on the responsibilities attached to other people's failures.
December 20, 2011
The content you see on Cheezburger, Inc.'s Fail Blog often mixes humor and pain — but not always in equal proportions. Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh discusses the boundaries of a fail.
Developer Week in Review: HP sets webOS free - HP wraps webOS up with a bow, Oracle lands in court, and one lucky coder escapes justice.
December 16, 2011
This week, we had heartwarming stories of one corporation's generous donation, one corporation fighting a lawsuit alleging extortion, and one company billing time for the man who wasn't there.
The end of social - When you take the friction out of sharing, you also remove the value.
December 5, 2011
If you want to tell me what you listen to, I care. But if sharing is nothing more than a social application feed that's constantly updated without your volition, then it's just another form of spam.
Why cloud services are a tempting target for attackers - Jeffrey Carr on the significant and escalating risks of hosting data with cloud providers.
December 5, 2011
Before organizations embrace the efficiencies and cost savings of cloud services, they should also closely consider the security repercussions and liabilities attached to the cloud.
Visualization of the Week: Amazon book recommendations - Christopher Warnow's viz app reveals the network of recommendations surrounding a book.
December 2, 2011
A new tool takes a link from a book on Amazon and creates the network surrounding it. It shows up to 100 recommendations associated with the title.
Could closed core prove a more robust model than open core?
By Andy OramDecember 1, 2011
The closed core model requires businesses to determine where their unique value lies and to be generous in offering the public extra code that supports their infrastructure but does not drive revenue. This model may prove more robust and lasting than open core, which attracts companies occupying minor positions in their industries.
Commerce Weekly: Cyber Monday lives up to hype - The biggest online spending day ever, observations from a Groupon Now merchant, and RIM's NFC play.
December 1, 2011
Cyber Monday 2011 was the biggest online spending day ever. Also, a restaurant owner explains why he likes Groupon Now, and RIM pins its hopes on NFC. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
A young entrepreneur's perspective on Angolan innovation - Angolan entrepreneur Nyanga Tyitapeka on mobile commerce and data's potential.
By Suzanne AxtellDecember 1, 2011
Infonauta founder Nyanga Tyitapeka says Angola is on the cusp of a technology explosion. Mobile and data are overcoming low levels of literacy to change the lives of everyday Angolans.
Sometimes one screen isn't enough - A look at 10 multi-screen projects and experiments.
November 29, 2011
Peter Meyers rounds up 10 content projects that span multiple screens. Some involve separate physical displays while others use different virtual windows.
Don't blame the information for your bad habits - Clay Johnson on info overload vs. info overconsumption.
November 29, 2011
Clay Johnson, author of "The Information Diet," says information consumption, not the information itself, is what needs to be managed.
How Twitter helps a small bookstore thrive - Omnivore Books follows a simple Twitter rule: 1/3 personal, 2/3 professional.
November 28, 2011
Learn how Omnivore Books, a cookbook store in San Francisco, uses Twitter to solidify relationships with customers and break through the publisher blockade.
Four short links: 28 November 2011 - Ubicomp Project, Data Volumes, Yahoo! Cocktails, and Fighting Cybercrime
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 28, 2011
Twine (Kickstarter) -- modular sensors with connectivity, programmable in If This Then That style. (via TechCrunch) Small Sample Sizes Lead to High Margins of Error -- a reminder that all the stats in the world won't help you when you don't have enough data to meaningfully analyse. Yahoo! Cocktails -- somehow I missed this announcement of a Javascript front-and-back-end...
Four short links: 25 November 2011 - MIND CONTROL COPTERS!, Better Security, Ratings Systems, and Lightweight Reference
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 25, 2011
Continuous Three-Dimensional Control of a Virtual Helicopter Using a Motor Imagery Based Brain-Computer Interface (PLOSone) -- direct brain control is becoming a reality, tiny step by tiny step. Also: HELICOPTERS! Forward Secrecy for HTTPS -- Google contributed a better HTTPS cipher suite to OpenSSL, one that doesn't share keys between conversations. Yay the Goog for giving back. Ratings Systems...
Intellectual Property Strategy: a book, a panel, and a movement
By Andy OramNovember 23, 2011
The speakers, who included household names of the free culture movement such as Lawrence Lessig and Eric von Hippel, emphasized the culture shift that is breaking the seemingly iron grip of current policies that favor wealthy companies with portfolios of patents and copyrights. But I think even these speakers failed to convey how huge a sea change in underway.
Strata Week: 4.74 degrees of Kevin Bacon - Facebook says we're closer than we thought, Gnip targets finance, and eBay grabs Hunch.
November 22, 2011
Facebook research questions the "six degrees of separation" rule, Gnip gets into the real-time financial data business, and eBay looks to put Hunch's recommendation engine to use.
Congress considers anti-piracy bills that could cripple Internet industries - SOPA and PROTECT IP would harm innovation.
November 22, 2011
In a time when the American economy needs to catalyze innovation to compete in a global marketplace, members of the United States Congress have advanced legislation that could cripple the Internet industry, damage cybersecurity and harm freedom of expression online.
Four short links: 22 November 2011 - Facebook Encircles the Web, Async UIs, SimRedistricting, and Questioning the Flipped School
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 22, 2011
Facebook is Gaslighting the Web (Anil Dash) -- interesting to see the way in which Facebook is attempting to embrace and extend the web, as opposed to AOL's doomed attempt to set itself up in competition and opposition to the web. As Molly's piece eloquently explains, what Facebook is calling "frictionless" sharing is actually placing an extremely high barrier...
VoIP Drupal reaches out to the developing world
By Andy OramNovember 21, 2011
The VoIP modules form a door through which Drupal can move into a vast world of touch tone telephones, smart telephones, and text messaging, and therefore toward integrating a huge range of users in developing regions who use those technologies instead of desktop or laptop computers.
Jonathan's Card: Lessons from a social experiment - What happens when everyone has access to your Starbucks card? Jonathan Stark found out.
November 21, 2011
Jonathan Stark raised eyebrows last summer when he made his Starbucks card available for anyone to use. Here, Stark looks back on the "Jonathan's Card" experiment and examines its lessons.
The future of social media at the National Archives - The National Archives described a dashboard for "citizen archivists" at a recent forum in D.C.
November 18, 2011
A recent forum at the National Archives featured a preview of a "citizen archivist dashboard" and a lively discussion of the past, present and future of social media.
Commerce Weekly: Bring your mobile to Black Friday - Retailers accept mobile's in-store presence, Android developers are keen on Kindle Fire, and Square rewards loyalty.
November 17, 2011
Brick-and-mortar retailers adopt the "if you can't beat 'em ..." attitude toward mobile devices. Elsewhere, Android developers are intrigued by the Kindle Fire, and Square wants to put loyalty program punch cards out to pasture. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
Four short links: 16 November 2011 - Mozilla's World View, USB Power, Farm Automation, and CSS Reference
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 16, 2011
Q&A with Rob O'Callahan (ComputerWorld) -- an excellent insight into how Mozilla sees the world. In particular how proprietary mobile ecosystems are the new proprietary desktop ecosystems, and how the risks for the web are the same (writing for one device, not for all). Bikes That Charge USB Devices -- German bicycle maker Silverback has recently launched two bikes...
Four short links: 15 November 2011 - Internet Asthma Care, C Fulltext, Citizen Science, and Mozilla
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 15, 2011
Cost-Effectiveness of Internet-Based Self-Management Compared with Usual Care in Asthma (PLoSone) -- Internet-based self-management of asthma can be as effective as current asthma care and costs are similar. Apache Lucy -- full-text search engine library written in C and targeted at dynamic languages. It is a "loose C" port of Apache Lucene™, a search engine library for Java. The...
Civic media competition attracts a new generation of change agents - A global conversation with finalists in Ashoka's civic media innovation competition.
November 14, 2011
Finalists in the Ashoka Foundation's civic media competition offered honest and perceptive observations about the role of civic media in the expanding information ecosystem.
Steve Jobs, the Unabomber, and America's love/hate relationship with technology - Technological schizophrenia is an American tradition.
November 14, 2011
Steve Jobs and Ted Kaczynski represent the extreme poles of a deep-seated ambivalence in our attitudes toward technology. It's an ambivalence that's been a part of American history, and part of the American psyche, since the beginning.
Confessions of a not-so-public speaker - If you want the tech community to have diversity, you need to be the change.
November 11, 2011
Stepping out of our comfort zones and into the spotlight at events (and encouraging others to do likewise) can help address the perception that the tech community is solely populated by young white guys.
Access or ownership: Which will be the default? - The ease of access and the desire to own appear to be on a collision course.
November 10, 2011
Business, media, publishing, data, education — these are all areas where access vs. ownership has organically popped up in Radar's coverage. But which model will win out in the long term?
Four short links: 10 November 2011 - Access Over Ownership, Retro Programming, Replaying Writing, and Wearable Sensors
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 10, 2011
Steve Case and His Companies (The Atlantic) -- Maybe you see three random ideas. Case and his team saw three bets that paid off thanks to a new Web economy that promotes power in numbers and access over ownership. "Access over ownership" is a phrase that resonated. (via Walt Mossberg) Back to the Future -- teaching kids to program...
Social network analysis isn't just for social networks - Social network analysis (SNA) finds meaningful patterns in relationship data.
November 9, 2011
The scientific methodology of social network analysis (SNA) helps explain not just how people connect, but why they come together as well. Here, "Social Network Analysis for Startups" co-author Maksim Tsvetovat offers a primer on SNA.
Anthropology extracts the true nature of tech - Genevieve Bell on how fieldwork and observation can guide technology.
By Jenn WebbOctober 31, 2011
Genevieve Bell, director of interaction and experience research at Intel, talks about how anthropology can inform business decisions and product design.
Top Stories: October 24-28, 2011 - 10/30/11 is Dennis Ritchie Day, post-PC and the new tech revolution, publishing's fundamental shift.
October 28, 2011
This week on O'Reilly: Tim O'Reilly called for a Dennis Ritchie Day to honor the computing pioneer, Mark Sigal examined the players and products in the post-PC revolution, and Hugh McGuire discussed the seismic shifts that are reshaping the publishing industry.
Commerce Weekly: Groupon's long and winding road to an IPO - Groupon takes its show on the road, Square targets the mainstream, and contactless payment is coming to airplanes.
October 27, 2011
We take a look at Groupon's bumpy road to an IPO and its slow-but-promising Now product. Also, Square makes a deal with Walmart and WestJet will test tap-and-pay in the skies.
Mobile analytics unlock the what and the when - Flurry's Sean Byrnes on mobile metrics and tablet apps vs phone apps.
October 26, 2011
Flurry's CTO Sean Byrnes discusses app life cycles, the specifics of user engagement, and the difference between smartphone apps and tablet apps.
"Revolution in the Valley," revisited - Andy Hertzfeld on the Macintosh's early days and its long-term legacy.
October 26, 2011
With "Revolution in the Valley" making its paperback debut and the work of Steve Jobs fresh in people's minds, we checked in with Andy Hertzfeld to discuss the legacy of the first Macintosh.
What to watch for in mobile web apps - How WebGL, device APIs, and ample experimentation will shape the future of mobile web apps.
October 25, 2011
Sencha's James Pearce discusses the most promising mobile web app technologies and explains why device APIs could make the web a lot more interesting.
Four short links: 24 October 2011 - Interactive Web Goodness, Location Based Security, Referer vs https, and Financial Charting
By Nat TorkingtonOctober 24, 2011
Tangle -- open source Javascript library for creating slider-type widgets in web pages, with built-in updating of other web elements. This is fantastic for exploring "what-if" scenarios. Check out the demos. Location-Based Security -- The researchers have created a customized version of Android controlled by a “policy engine” on a server. The Android devices use Bluetooth and near-field communications...
A focus on the stuff that matters most - Steve Jobs shifted Apple's motivation to great products, not profit.
By Tim O'ReillyOctober 24, 2011
Profit in a business is like gas in a car. You don't want to run out of gas, but neither do you want to think that your road trip is a tour of gas stations.
You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing - An examination of the post-PC wave and its major players.
October 24, 2011
Spurred on by a Googler's rant against his own company and Apple's release of a new phone, a new OS and a new cloud infrastructure, Mark Sigal wonders what the "post-pc" revolution really looks like.
Four short links: 21 October 2011 - Mozilla's Projects, YouTube Insults, iPhone Ultrasound, RoR Intro
By Nat TorkingtonOctober 21, 2011
What Mozilla is Up To (Luke Wroblewski) -- notes from a talk that Brendan Eich gave at Web 2.0 Summit. The new browser war is between the Web and new walled gardens of native networked apps. Interesting to see the effort Mozilla's putting into native-alike Web apps. YouTube Insult Generator (Adrian Holovaty) -- mines YouTube for insults of a...
Open Question: What needs to happen for tablets to replace laptops? - Moving from "tablet-plus-laptop" to "tablet-only."
October 17, 2011
What will it take for tablets to equal — or surpass — their laptop cousins? See specific wish lists and weigh in with your own thoughts.
Four short links: 17 October 2011 - From Reddit to Movie, Google Audited, Web Delays, and Sugared CSS
By Nat TorkingtonOctober 17, 2011
Story Written in Reddit -- historical scifi based on the question "Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?" Movie rights were just acquired by Warners. (via BoingBoing) Auditing Google -- the comically complex games played to move profits to...
International Open Government Data Camp looks to build community - In its second year, the camp's organizers aspire to galvanize more governments to open up their data.
By Alex HowardOctober 15, 2011
The second International Open Government Data Camp will convene advocates, activists, civic media, citizens and officials to exchange ideas, code and expertise in Warsaw, Poland.
Commerce Weekly: PayPal wants to "one click" across the web - PayPal has a big vision for single sign on, and a reporter searches for Bitcoin's creator.
October 14, 2011
PayPal Access is a single sign-on tool that enables transactions — and it's got sweeping ambitions. Elsewhere, a reporter searches for Bitcoin's developer. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
You share something, you get something back: How the web is redefining privacy - O'Reilly Media CIO, Jonathan Reichental, speaks at TEDx in Chicago.
By Jonathan Reichental, Ph.D.October 14, 2011
Combining a mix of freely available public domain information and our own sharing behaviors on the web clearly suggests that we must redefine our view of privacy.
Velocity is coming to Europe - Velocity Europe will be held Nov. 8-9, 2011 in Berlin.
October 13, 2011
The Velocity Conference has already turned once exotic topics like database scaling and mobile performance into common knowledge. Now, Velocity is bringing its mix of web ops and performance evangelism to Europe.
Why indoor navigation is so hard - Your phone can get you to the museum, but it can't guide you to the T-Rex.
October 11, 2011
The mapping applications built into smartphones are fantastic ... until you arrive at your destination. Here, Nick Farina explains how indoor navigation apps can and should work.
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