The New York Times – Planning on quitting the social platform? A major new study offers a glimpse of what unplugging might do for your life. (Spoiler: It’s not so bad.) – “… A recent study found that the average user would have to be paid $1,000 to $2,000 to be pried away for a… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2019
Electronics Are ‘the Fastest-Growing Waste Stream in the World’
Motherboard – The material value of e-waste alone is worth $62.5 billion, three times more than the annual output of the world’s silver mines and more than the GDP of most countries – “Electronic waste is a growing threat to the environment. Thanks to the low cost of manufacturing, it’s easier than ever for corporations… Continue Reading
Shutting down Google+ for consumer (personal) accounts on April 2, 2019
Google: “In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other… Continue Reading
Terabytes of Enron data have quietly gone missing from the Department of Energy
Muckrock – Two terabytes on the 2000-2001 Western Energy Crisis were unpublished by FERC, and not even its custodians know why: “Government investigations into California’s electricity shortage, ultimately determined to be caused by intentional market manipulations and capped retail electricity prices by the now infamous Enron Corporation, resulted in terabytes of information being collected by the… Continue Reading
Why Wikipedia’s Medical Content Is Superior
Slate: “…Like most encyclopedias, Wikipedia typically functions as a launch pad that provides a general overview of a topic and points to further or original sources. But at least one new study suggests that Wikipedia is superior to other medical sources in at least one key respect: short-term knowledge acquisition. That is, when it comes… Continue Reading
Court’s Biometrics Ruling Poses Billion Dollar Risk to Facebook, Google
Fortune: “The Supreme Court of Illinois on Friday ruled that an amusement park, Six Flags Great America, must pay damages to a boy for collecting his thumbprint without proper consent. The decision in the closely-watched case opens the door for the possibility of huge payouts in related cases against technology companies whose face-scanning policies breached… Continue Reading
Scribd’s ‘Netflix for Books’ Subscription Model Is Proving to Be Fruitful
Fortune: “Scribd—a vast digital library of documents, books, magazines, audiobooks, comic books, and more—now counts one million paying subscribers and counting worldwide. The San Francisco-based company launched in 2007 as an open publishing platform, with many early members using the platform as a free method to upload and share documents online. By 2013, Scribd launched… Continue Reading
Factual, or Warm and Fuzzy? Why Choosing the Right Words Matters
Knowledge@Wharton: “People use words to communicate what they think, feel and believe. But for social psychologists, words can do far more than convey one’s thoughts and emotions. The right combination of words can boost persuasiveness; it can forecast which ads will prompt people to share them and thus go viral. Exposure to the right kinds… Continue Reading
New Urban Centres Database sets new standards for information on cities at global scale
EU Science Hub: “Data analysis highlights very diverse development patterns and inequalities across cities and world regions. Building on the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL), the new database provides more detailed information on the cities’ location and size as well as characteristics such as greenness, night time light emission, population size, the built-up areas exposed… Continue Reading
Seven Out of Every Ten Open Vulnerabilities Belong to Just Three Vendors
Computer Business Review: “Seven out of every ten open vulnerabilities observed by customers belongs to just three vendors, Oracle, Microsoft and Adobe. These are the findings of cyber security enterprise Kenna Security in their new report Prioritization to Prediction, which explores how enterprises are dealing with open vulnerabilities. In their report Kenna found that Oracle… Continue Reading
Cisco 2019 Data Privacy Benchmark Study
Cisco newsroom: “Organizations worldwide that invested in maturing their data privacy practices are now realizing tangible business benefits from these investments, according to Cisco’s 2019 Data Privacy Benchmark Study. The Study validates the link between good privacy practice and business benefits as respondents report shorter sales delays as well as fewer and less costly data… Continue Reading
Google’s Sidewalk Labs Plans to Package and Sell Location Data on Millions of Cellphones
The Intercept: “Most of the data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like “SimCity.” A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has set out to change… Continue Reading
