October 31, 2019

Arizona State University: Social media text mining can predict a company’s ‘brand personality’

Arizona State University: Social media text mining can predict a company’s ‘brand personality’. “‘Brand personality scales’ have been around for many years, using consumers’ feedback to attribute human characteristics to companies. These scales, which find that Cracker Barrel is ‘wholesome’ and Sephora is ‘contemporary,’ have proven to be reliable marketing tools. Now, a team including an Arizona State University professor and IBM researchers have harnessed machine learning to accurately predict brand personality ratings by analyzing hundreds of thousands of social media posts.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 31, 2019

Ars Technica: Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network

Ars Technica: Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network. “Dubbed ‘Messagetap’ by researchers from the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye, the recently discovered malware infects Linux servers that route SMS messages through a telecom’s network. Once in place, Messagetap monitors the network for messages containing either a preset list of phone or IMSI numbers or a preset list of keywords”

Security & Legal Issues 0
October 30, 2019

Boing Boing: Leaked document reveals that Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto plans for private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishment for people who choose privacy

Boing Boing: Leaked document reveals that Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto plans for private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishment for people who choose privacy. “Tomorrow, Toronto’s City Council will hold a key vote on Sidewalk Labs’s plan to privatize much of the city’s lakeshore in the name of creating a ‘smart city’ owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Today, the Globe and Mail published a summary of Sidewalk Labs’s leaked ‘yellow book’, a 2016 document that lays out Sidewalk Labs’s vision for Toronto and future projects in Detroit, Denver, and Alameda.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 30, 2019

MakeUseOf: The Best Free Online City Building Games Like SimCity

MakeUseOf: The Best Free Online City Building Games Like SimCity. “SimCity is one of the original city building games. Although Cities: Skylines now holds the city building and management crown, SimCity holds a place in the hearts of many would-be city planners. And with good reason. However, if you don’t have the time to play SimCity or Cities: Skylines, why not try a browser-based city building alternative? Online city building games may not have the same depth as SimCity, but they’re great fun nonetheless.”

Useful Stuff 0
October 30, 2019

Search Engine Journal: DuckDuckGo Study Finds More People Would Use Google Alternatives if Given a Choice

Search Engine Journal: DuckDuckGo Study Finds More People Would Use Google Alternatives if Given a Choice . “A study commissioned by DuckDuckGo finds more people would use non-Google search engines if they were offered a choice. To that end, DuckDuckGo proposes that Android smartphones come with a search preference menu that lets users choose their own default search engine.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 30, 2019

1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets (New York Times)

New York Times: 1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets. “It seems simple enough. But to deliver Amazon orders and countless others from businesses that sell over the internet, the very fabric of major urban areas around the world is being transformed. And New York City, where more than 1.5 million packages are delivered daily, shows the impact that this push for convenience is having on gridlock, roadway safety and pollution.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 30, 2019

CNN: This man is running for governor of California so he can run false Facebook ads

CNN: This man is running for governor of California so he can run false Facebook ads. “A San Francisco man is going to extreme lengths to call out Facebook’s controversial policy of allowing politicians to run false ads on its platform. On Monday morning, he registered as a candidate in California’s 2022 gubernatorial election — not with the primary goal of becoming governor, but so he can run false Facebook ads of his own.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 30, 2019

The Verge: DeepMind’s StarCraft 2 AI is now better than 99.8 percent of all human players

The Verge: DeepMind’s StarCraft 2 AI is now better than 99.8 percent of all human players. “DeepMind today announced a new milestone for its artificial intelligence agents trained to play the Blizzard Entertainment game StarCraft II. The Google-owned AI lab’s more sophisticated software, still called AlphaStar, is now grandmaster level in the real-time strategy game, capable of besting 99.8 percent of all human players in competition. The findings are to be published in a research paper in the scientific journal Nature.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 30, 2019

Fast Company: The first map of America’s food supply chain is mind-boggling

Fast Company: The first map of America’s food supply chain is mind-boggling. “My team at the University of Illinois just developed the first high-resolution map of the U.S. food supply chain. Our map is a comprehensive snapshot of all food flows between counties in the U.S.—grains, fruits and vegetables, animal feed, and processed food items.” I don’t want to get into a whole compare/contrast thing, but I do want to note that Arizona State University released a food supply chain tool in April.

New Resources 0
October 30, 2019

Ars Technica: Facebook’s new political-ad policy already showing cracks, loopholes

Ars Technica: Facebook’s new political-ad policy already showing cracks, loopholes. “If you create a system, someone will try to game it—that’s true of everything from Candyland to the tax code. And so we should not be terribly surprised that Facebook—which is desperately trying to create some kind of coherent system for political advertising and speech as the United States careens headlong into the 2020 election season—already has players pushing to exploit loopholes in its policy.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
October 30, 2019

New York Times: Ready. Set. Write a Book.

New York Times: Ready. Set. Write a Book.. “This year marks the 20th anniversary of the National Novel Writing Month project, which challenges people to write a 50,000-word novel in November. NaNoWriMo, as it is known, is a nonprofit that supports creative writing and education. Those who sign up for the group’s free annual event get community support, progress tracking and motivational advice to complete a book draft. If you think you have a novel in you, here is a quick guide to digital tools to help you along your way.” Every year I try NaNoWriMo, and every year I fail past all conception of failing.

Useful Stuff 0

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