Devices on our bodies will multiply. Sensors, cameras, input methods, and displays will work their way into our clothing. They’ll listen for commands and whisper in our ears. Our environment will respond to us in new and interesting ways. The proliferation of large displays and projection technologies will relegate the small display on our phone to private or a constrained set of tasks. A new layered interaction model of touch, voice, and gesture will emerge as important as consumption: the continuous exchange of what we are doing, where we are, and who we are with. This will again work into the collective memory, attaching to our legacy--bringing in a new type of patina effect. It won’t be the same as physical degradation yet will offer fresh stimuli that allow for more meaningful navigation and recall.
Emerging tools and services will help translate our needs and desires into cloud-based automation. They will proactively work on our behalf, guided by our permission and divining our intent. Existing services such as Google’s Prediction API, which offers pattern-matching and trainable machine learning capabilities to developers, and IFTTT, which offers intuitive, user-friendly, and cloud-based rules engine expressed in simple “if this, then that” terms, are representative of the trend toward empowering more automated, if not quite yet artificial, intelligence for our digital alter-egos.
Read more here
Saturday, December 15
Friday, December 14
The Internet of Everything
We are rapidly heading into a new era that will not be measured by the number of users, devices or connections. What is changing the world, profoundly, is the value those connections make possible. When we connected the first 500 million devices to the Internet, it seemed to reshape our lives. But now we are on the cusp of a transformation that connects everything to the Internet. Highways, buildings, farms, satellites, solar panels, cars, milk cartons, cows … everything.
Each of these connections brings its own unique value, and the value increases even more with the exponential growth in potential connections between everything. These connections, combined with access to the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, will empower people in ways that we never imagined. Connections between people, between people and context-aware sensors and machines, and between machines themselves will help people turn data into actionable information, resulting in richer experiences and unprecedented value for individuals, businesses, communities and countries. We’re just starting to experience the phenomenon that we call the “Internet of Everything.”
Read more here
Each of these connections brings its own unique value, and the value increases even more with the exponential growth in potential connections between everything. These connections, combined with access to the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, will empower people in ways that we never imagined. Connections between people, between people and context-aware sensors and machines, and between machines themselves will help people turn data into actionable information, resulting in richer experiences and unprecedented value for individuals, businesses, communities and countries. We’re just starting to experience the phenomenon that we call the “Internet of Everything.”
Read more here
WordPress launches version 3.5
WordPress launched version 3.5 of its popular blog management software today.
WordPress.com, the free blog service hosted by parent company Automattic, has close to 400 million monthly unique users, as measured by Quantcast, Mullenweg told me. Add in users of WordPress.org blogs, which are hosted by ISPs or by users’ own web servers, and that number nearly doubles.
In other words, blogging is far from dead, and Facebook and Twitter haven’t killed it: It may even be undergoing a bit of a renaissance.
Read more here
WordPress.com, the free blog service hosted by parent company Automattic, has close to 400 million monthly unique users, as measured by Quantcast, Mullenweg told me. Add in users of WordPress.org blogs, which are hosted by ISPs or by users’ own web servers, and that number nearly doubles.
In other words, blogging is far from dead, and Facebook and Twitter haven’t killed it: It may even be undergoing a bit of a renaissance.
Read more here
YouTube to Power New Media Businesses of the Future?
Life is good at YouTube. It’s already the largest video network globally and the second largest search engine — and with over half of content marketers migrating an increasing share of their $40b+ budgets to video in 2013, YouTube is now uniquely positioned to become the go-to platform for building sustainable media businesses of the future. But it’s not in the bag just yet — this is at least the fourth major social platform that has tried to capture brand mindshare in the last few years.
We’re seeing YouTube engage in many efforts to re-invent itself as a destination for premium content (including, but not limited to, its funded channel experiment) and focus on key pieces of missing infrastructure will ultimately determine the success of the media businesses built upon the platform in the years ahead.
Read more here
We’re seeing YouTube engage in many efforts to re-invent itself as a destination for premium content (including, but not limited to, its funded channel experiment) and focus on key pieces of missing infrastructure will ultimately determine the success of the media businesses built upon the platform in the years ahead.
Read more here
Thursday, December 13
Study says half of media buyers will try native advertising in 2013
Native advertising — like a brand’s Tumblr blog or a sponsored tweet — is generating a lot of hype. "Native advertising” is being hailed as the ad format of the future by everyone from venture capitalist Fred Wilson to BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. Now, a survey suggests brands are ready to put down serious money to try it out. This could be good news for web publishers — as soon as people can agree on what the heck native advertising is.
Read more here
Read more here
Monday, December 10
Number of jailed journalists sets global record
Worldwide tally reaches highest point since CPJ began surveys in 1990. Governments use charges of terrorism, other anti-state offenses to silence critical voices. Turkey is the world’s worst jailer. Imprisonment of journalists worldwide reached a record high in 2012, driven in part by the widespread use of charges of terrorism and other anti-state offenses against critical reporters and editors, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ identified 232 individuals behind bars on December 1, an increase of 53 over its 2011 tally.
Read more here
Read more here
Sunday, December 9
The ability to determine the location of a person’s gaze is opening up an enormous range of new applications
Eye tracking can do more than just help designers by revealing visual shortcomings in websites, advertisements and product prototypes. More than 9,000 paralysed people operate computers and wheelchairs using eye trackers (most survivors of spinal injuries and neuromuscular diseases retain control of their eyes). The technology is also being used to alert drowsy drivers, diagnose brain trauma, train machine operators and provide surgeons with “a third hand” to control robotic equipment. Costs are falling so quickly that mainstream consumer use of the technology may not be far off. Haier, a Chinese maker of household appliances, recently unveiled a prototype TV controlled by a viewer’s gaze. Eye tracking may also find use in desktop computers, video-games consoles and e-readers.
For the time being, the main use of eye tracking is in design and marketing. Trials involving just a few dozen viewers of an advertisement, website or product design can reveal exactly what looks good and what does not. Software sold by iMotions, a Danish firm, creates colour-coded maps that show where gazes glide, linger, or twitch back and forth in frustration. Such “heat maps” can reveal more about how well an advertisement will work than asking people to express themselves in words, says Peter Hartzbech, the firm’s boss.
The ability to use eye tracking to control a computer has obvious advantages for disabled people, but fans of the technology believe it could become a widely used input technology for the able-bodied, too. Moving an on-screen cursor with a glance is much faster than using a mouse, for example.
Another use is in e-readers. Researchers at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence and the University of Kaiserslautern have created a program called Text 2.0 that uses eye tracking to analyse how a displayed text is being read. If the reader lingers on a foreign word, Text 2.0 can display its translation. Lingering on a word and then sweeping one’s gaze to the right margin calls up a definition. If the reader starts to skim, the software dims common words. The program could be used by authors to see which passages caused readers to stumble or skip ahead.
Read more at The Economist
For the time being, the main use of eye tracking is in design and marketing. Trials involving just a few dozen viewers of an advertisement, website or product design can reveal exactly what looks good and what does not. Software sold by iMotions, a Danish firm, creates colour-coded maps that show where gazes glide, linger, or twitch back and forth in frustration. Such “heat maps” can reveal more about how well an advertisement will work than asking people to express themselves in words, says Peter Hartzbech, the firm’s boss.
The ability to use eye tracking to control a computer has obvious advantages for disabled people, but fans of the technology believe it could become a widely used input technology for the able-bodied, too. Moving an on-screen cursor with a glance is much faster than using a mouse, for example.
Another use is in e-readers. Researchers at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence and the University of Kaiserslautern have created a program called Text 2.0 that uses eye tracking to analyse how a displayed text is being read. If the reader lingers on a foreign word, Text 2.0 can display its translation. Lingering on a word and then sweeping one’s gaze to the right margin calls up a definition. If the reader starts to skim, the software dims common words. The program could be used by authors to see which passages caused readers to stumble or skip ahead.
Read more at The Economist
Why journalists should explore the business side of news
BuzzFeed has drawn a lot of press this year for the success of its social advertising product. The company’s advertising wing is an agency that works with advertisers to create sponsored content in the BuzzFeed mold. These aren’t just your classic advertorials — the pages in the magazine with the slightly off typeface and the bad writing. This is content infused with the voice and sensibility of BuzzFeed itself, tailor-made for its audience.
Versions of the agency model are in place at organizations such as Forbes, Gawker, The Huffington Post and the Atlantic. I’ve also heard echoes of this model in conversations with forward-thinking sales managers, who approach companies not just to solicit advertising, but to pitch marketing expertise in a variety of domains — not just display ads, but search engine marketing, social advertising and more.
The point is that all the innovation and work we put into doing journalism may produce more value than mere space for advertising adjacencies. As we develop our ability to work with data, produce info-rich experiences for mobile devices, or experiment with distributed reporting, we may hit on tools and techniques valuable enough to help subsidize our journalism. But if we’re not attuned to those possibilities, they won’t exist.
It feels easier to just say journalists should minimize all dealings with their business-side counterparts. But that feels deeply wrong to me. Ethical behavior is not about trying to avoid situations that might challenge us to behave ethically. Ethical behavior is about regularly thinking through our values and how they should be applied, and then acting accordingly.
Read more at Poynter
Versions of the agency model are in place at organizations such as Forbes, Gawker, The Huffington Post and the Atlantic. I’ve also heard echoes of this model in conversations with forward-thinking sales managers, who approach companies not just to solicit advertising, but to pitch marketing expertise in a variety of domains — not just display ads, but search engine marketing, social advertising and more.
The point is that all the innovation and work we put into doing journalism may produce more value than mere space for advertising adjacencies. As we develop our ability to work with data, produce info-rich experiences for mobile devices, or experiment with distributed reporting, we may hit on tools and techniques valuable enough to help subsidize our journalism. But if we’re not attuned to those possibilities, they won’t exist.
It feels easier to just say journalists should minimize all dealings with their business-side counterparts. But that feels deeply wrong to me. Ethical behavior is not about trying to avoid situations that might challenge us to behave ethically. Ethical behavior is about regularly thinking through our values and how they should be applied, and then acting accordingly.
Read more at Poynter
Navigation technology: Using satellites to determine your position only works outside. A new approach is needed indoors
DIGITAL navigation surely ranks as one of life’s high-tech bargains. Thanks to free Global Positioning System (GPS) signals broadcast by American satellites, and free online maps from companies like Google, Nokia and Apple, all you need is a smartphone with an internet connection to pinpoint your location on the Earth’s surface and call up maps, directions and local information. Unless, that is, you are indoors. And even if you are outdoors in a built-up area, the lack of a clear view of the sky can prevent GPS working properly, because its satellite signals are easily blocked by roofs, nearby buildings or even trees. For positioning to work indoors, where people spend most of their time, new technologies are needed.
Locata, an Australian company, recently unveiled a system of powerful transmitters whose signals can penetrate walls or cover large outdoor areas such as airfields. The beacons within the network are synchronised to within a billionth of a second, and can allow a receiver to determine its position to within less than a metre.
There has also been headway in cutting through the tangle of competing standards that has discouraged investment in infrastructure. In August a group of 22 technology companies including Nokia, Samsung and CSR formed the In-Location Alliance. This trade organisation is dedicated to building indoor-location systems around two technologies, Bluetooth beacons and Wi-Fi signal mapping. It may finally give the indoor positioning industry something it currently lacks: a sense of direction.
Read more here
Locata, an Australian company, recently unveiled a system of powerful transmitters whose signals can penetrate walls or cover large outdoor areas such as airfields. The beacons within the network are synchronised to within a billionth of a second, and can allow a receiver to determine its position to within less than a metre.
There has also been headway in cutting through the tangle of competing standards that has discouraged investment in infrastructure. In August a group of 22 technology companies including Nokia, Samsung and CSR formed the In-Location Alliance. This trade organisation is dedicated to building indoor-location systems around two technologies, Bluetooth beacons and Wi-Fi signal mapping. It may finally give the indoor positioning industry something it currently lacks: a sense of direction.
Read more here
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