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 […]
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 […]
State Archives of North Carolina: New Additions to Civil War Digital Collection. “A selection of 12 volumes from the Soldiers’ Home Association have been added to the Civil War digital collection. These volumes document the history of medical care for veterans and the elderly around the turn of the 19th century.”
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 — […]
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, […]
CNET: Microsoft warns Russian hackers could target the 2020 Olympics. “Microsoft has tracked ‘significant’ cyber attacks against sports authorities and anti-doping agencies, the tech giant announced Monday. The group, called Strontium, Fancy Bear or APT28, could impact the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Microsoft warned.”
Small Business Trends: Spreadsheet. com Brings Collaboration to This Popular Business Tool. “Spreadsheet.com wants to bring something new to a tried and true business form. As a result, they are changing the traditional spreadsheet and adding a new database and project management tools. The redesign tweaks make this familiar business tool more collaborative.”
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.” […]
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 […]
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 […]