A Smarter Planet

IBM 2012 Global Student Study: almost half find social voice through social media

Social media is exposing students to alternative ideas, philosophies and life experiences. It is also giving them an opportunity to exert influence in a much more interconnected world.

• 61 percent of students…

I’m really excited to share my new essay, “The Relevance of Algorithms,” with those of you who are interested in such things. It’s been a treat to get to think through the issues surrounding algorithms and their place in public culture and knowledge, with some of the  participants in Culture Digitally (here’s the full litany: Braun, Gillespie, Striphas, Thomas, the third CD podcast, and Anderson‘s post just last week), as well as with panelists and attendees at the recent 4S and AoIR conferences, with colleagues at Microsoft Research, and with all of you who are gravitating towards these issues in their scholarship right now.

The motivation of the essay was two-fold: first, in my research on online platforms and their efforts to manage what they deem to be “bad content,” I’m finding an emerging array of algorithmic techniques being deployed: for either locating and removing sex, violence, and other offenses, or (more troublingly) for quietly choreographing some users away from questionable materials while keeping it available for others. Second, I’ve been helping to shepherd along this anthology, and wanted my contribution to be in the spirit of the its aims: to take one step back from my research to articulate an emerging issue of concern or theoretical insight that (I hope) will be of value to my colleagues in communication, sociology, science & technology studies, and information science.

The anthology will ideally be out in Fall 2013. And we’re still finalizing the subtitle. So here’s the best citation I have.

Read the full essay by Tarleton Gillespie,  Cornell University Department of Communication

With LeWeb just a week away, the Internet of Things, this year’s theme for LeWeb Paris, is on everyone’s minds. After all, with LeWeb’s tendency to pick sectors/trends on the rise, it’s no surprise that everyone’s talking about it. While we’ve not quite arrived at Microsoft’s vision of the future, Sigfox as made significant strides in laying down the groundwork for connected devices, with a network covering 80% of France, and 100% coverage set for early 2013.

Imagine a large suburban area, and the difficulties associated with getting good cell service, when you share a cell tower with a couple thousand people. Now imagine how many connected devices each person may have – Fire Detector sensors that alert when they go off, tracking devices for animals, water, electricity, and gas meters,… – a network like that would soak up all the signal, not too mention it would be very energy intensive.
That’s why co-founder and CEO Ludovic Le Moan joined up with technical director Christophe Fourtet, who had developed a radio communications network that was up to the task. Not only was this network built to deal with billions of devices, but could do it with 30-40x less bay stations, and consuming significantly less energy, meaning sensors could hold a charge for years.

The Boulder, Colorado-based Seamless Toy Company has created a set of modular, high-tech building blocks called ATOMS. Founded by Michael Rosenblatt, who has worked at MIT and Apple, the company aims to help teach kids programming by creating toys that can do all sorts of exciting things.

Gigaom reports that Rosenblatt wanted to make something that encourages kids to interact with electronics, even if they don’t have tech-savvy parents. ATOMS don’t require any electronics skills or programming experience. The company is currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, and will introduce a selection of different sets at launch.

Juan Hindo, Program Manager, Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, IBM

By Juan Hindo

Today, World Community Grid celebrates eight years of bringing together volunteers from around the world to support humanitarian research. World Community Grid taps the spare computational power of computers volunteered by the general public and provides it – free of charge – to scientists who might not otherwise have access to the intensive computing power they require for timely, humanitarian research.

 In eight years, our volunteers have provided research scientists with the equivalent of more than 600,000 years of computing power to seek cures and new treatments for many diseases, identify clean sources of energy and seek to improve water quality. These projects have yielded more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers – industry recognition of scientific research being advanced by World Community Grid.

Continue reading at Citizen IBM.

A startup hopes to connect millions of low-power sensors worldwide to the Internet, making everything—from power grids to home appliances—smarter.

Full Story: Technology Review

interestingsnippets:

there’s nothing mindblowing in this, but it’s always useful to have the data brought together concisely