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Showing posts from October, 2014

Tech Transitions, Video, and the Future | FCC.gov

Tech Transitions, Video, and the Future | FCC.gov : Such benefits follow from innovation. �Taking advantage of this rule, new OTTs may offer smaller or specialized packages of video programming, so consumers will be able to mix-and-match to suit their tastes. �Aereo recently visited the Commission to make exactly this point – that updating the definition of an MVPD will provide consumers with new choices. �And perhaps consumers will not be forced to pay for channels they never watch. An updated definition of MVPD would permit a new broadband competitor to offer customers the ability to reach a variety of OTT video packages without necessarily having to enter the video business itself.

Tim Cook: 'I'm Proud to Be Gay' - Businessweek

Tim Cook: 'I'm Proud to Be Gay' - Businessweek

FIFAWorldCup on Twitter: "The Official Emblem for Russia 2018 will be unveiled tonight! Video streaming available - http://t.co/w93e9HgBrP http://t.co/wSktw5SCyj"

FIFAWorldCup on Twitter: "The Official Emblem for Russia 2018 will be unveiled tonight! Video streaming available - http://t.co/w93e9HgBrP http://t.co/wSktw5SCyj"

5 facts about evolution and religion | Pew Research Center

5 facts about evolution and religion | Pew Research Center

Microsoft Introduces Wearable Health and Fitness Band - Businessweek

Microsoft Introduces Wearable Health and Fitness Band - Businessweek

Microsoft Introduces Wearable Health and Fitness Band - Businessweek

Microsoft Introduces Wearable Health and Fitness Band - Businessweek

fifa world cup logo - Google Search

fifa world cup logo - Google Search FWC Logo Brand Explanation

fifa world cup logo - Google Search

fifa world cup logo - Google Search FWC Logo Brand Explanation

Fitbit Joins the Smartwatch Race, and Replaces the Rash-y Force With a New Wristband | Re/code

Fitbit Joins the Smartwatch Race, and Replaces the Rash-y Force With a New Wristband | Re/code

Fitbit Joins the Smartwatch Race, and Replaces the Rash-y Force With a New Wristband | Re/code

Fitbit Joins the Smartwatch Race, and Replaces the Rash-y Force With a New Wristband | Re/code

Vente-Priv�e USA to shut down

Vente-Priv�e USA to shut down Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO of vente-privee.com in his office in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, 2010.

Who Owns Stocks? It’s Not Just the Rich - Real Time Economics - WSJ

Who Owns Stocks? It’s Not Just the Rich - Real Time Economics - WSJ

T-Mobile CEO John Legere Unleashed | Re/code

T-Mobile CEO John Legere Unleashed | Re/code

Eddy Cue on Twitter: "Just used Apple Pay at the World Series. Go Giants! #ApplePay http://t.co/clfQAeOGH3"

Eddy Cue on Twitter: "Just used Apple Pay at the World Series. Go Giants! #ApplePay http://t.co/clfQAeOGH3"

banksy on Twitter: "never stop RTing this http://t.co/CCSbS8QTOP"

banksy on Twitter: "never stop RTing this http://t.co/CCSbS8QTOP"

banksy on Twitter: "never stop RTing this http://t.co/CCSbS8QTOP"

banksy on Twitter: "never stop RTing this http://t.co/CCSbS8QTOP"

Russell Reynolds Headhunter Interview - Business Insider

Russell Reynolds Headhunter Interview - Business Insider : Knowledge is the only asset that people can't steal from you. It's a competitive advantage to know more than the other people. You get it by taking the job seriously. You read books about your competitors. You talk to people in the marketplace. You don't indulge in gossip, but you exchange information. You're a master of what you don't say and slave of what you do.

Newsonomics | The Newsonomics of Quartz’s — Obsessive — Explainer Business Model

Newsonomics | The Newsonomics of Quartz’s — Obsessive — Explainer Business Model : So, let’s look at the numbers Quartz reports: About 4.7 million monthly unique visitors. 40 percent of readers are from outside the U.S. The top five countries, in order: U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and India. Given the India audience, Quartz is�launching�its first non-U.S.-centric site, Quartz India, in June, partnered with scroll.in. More than 60 percent of the audience is executive level (according to�Bizo), with 90 percent of the U.K. audience at that level. 70 percent are male, and with an expected skew to tech, sometimes standalone tech and often tech within a variety of companies. 40 percent of its traffic is from mobile, with mobile heaviest on evenings and weekends, as at other news sites. Smartphone usage dominates the early morning, and out-distances tablet usage overall about 4-to-1. Fully 70 percent of traffic is driven by social links. 70,000 readers have signed up for�The Daily

Ello

Ello  mission statement  Your social network is owned by advertisers. Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold. We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership. We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life. You are not a product.

GfK Purchasing Power Europe for 2014/15

GfK Purchasing Power Europe for 2014/15 Purchasing power in Europe climbed by around two percent this year. The amount of disposable income available to Europe's inhabitants depends largely on their country of residence. There are especially notable differences between northern and western European countries as well as between central, southern and eastern European countries. But purchasing power also varies significantly within individual countries. These are some of the results of GfK's current study "GfK Purchasing Power Europe 2014/2015". According to the GfK study, a total of approximately €8.83 trillion is available to European consumers in 2014 for spending and saving. This corresponds to an average per-capita purchasing power of €13,112 for the 42 countries under review. Europeans consequently have around two percent more disposable income than they did in the previous year. This equates to a slight rise for consumers in most countries. According to the Euro

Chinese government apparently phishing iCloud account info with man-in-the-middle attack (Update: Apple confirms) | 9to5Mac

Chinese government apparently phishing iCloud account info with man-in-the-middle attack (Update: Apple confirms) | 9to5Mac : Chinese government apparently phishing iCloud account info with man-in-the-middle attack (Update: Apple�confirms)

Sesame Workshop Tackles Literacy With Technology - NYTimes.com

Sesame Workshop Tackles Literacy With Technology - NYTimes.com Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of “Sesame Street,” and the children’s speech recognition company ToyTalk plan to announce Monday that they have signed a two-year research partnership agreement to explore how to use conversational technology to teach preschool literacy. The agreement formalizes work the two have been undertaking for more than a year. Sesame Workshop has been testing prototype mobile apps that use ToyTalk’s proprietary PullString technology, a combination of speech recognition meant to understand children’s speech patterns, artificial intelligence and prewritten scripts responding to what a child has said. The first products resulting from the partnership could be available early next year, said Miles Ludwig, managing director of Sesame Workshop’s Content Innovation Lab. Products that more formally teach children to read will take longer, however. When it comes to technology that tells children whe

The Stream Finally Cracks the Dam of Cable TV - NYTimes.com

The Stream Finally Cracks the Dam of Cable TV - NYTimes.com : But those early kinks seemed to have been ironed out, and Mr. Plepler of HBO surprised many, including me, when he announced Wednesday morning during an investor meeting for its parent company, Time Warner, that sometime in 2015, the network would christen a stand-alone Internet-based service. “It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO,” he said.

Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K. - NYTimes.com

Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K. - NYTimes.com O.K., I know that was kind of abrupt. But I wanted to get the central point out there right away, because discussions of Amazon tend, all too often, to get lost in side issues. For example, critics of the company sometimes portray it as a  monster  about to take over the whole economy. Such claims are over the top — Amazon doesn’t dominate overall online sales, let alone retailing as a whole, and probably never will. But so what? Amazon is still playing a troubling role. Meanwhile, Amazon’s defenders often digress into  paeans to online bookselling , which has indeed been a good thing for many Americans, or testimonials to Amazon customer service — and in case you’re wondering, yes, I have Amazon Prime and use it a lot. But again, so what? The desirability of new technology, or even Amazon’s effective use of that technology, is not the issue. After all, John D. Rockefeller and his associates were pretty good at the oil business, too — but

Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong - The Washington Post

Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong - The Washington Post : Source: Data from Richard Reeves and Isabel Sawhill America is the land of opportunity, just for some more than others. That's because, in large part, inequality starts in the crib. Rich parents can afford to spend more time and money on their kids, and that gap has only grown�the past few decades. Indeed, economists Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane calculate that, between 1972 and 2006, high-income parents increased their spending on "enrichment activities" for their children by 151 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, compared to 57 percent for low-income parents. But, of course, it's not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child's formative early years. That's why, as Stanford profes

No one has a platinum album in 2014

No one has a platinum album in 2014 The  decline in album sales  is certainly nothing new, thanks to the smattering of  streaming options  now available to eager listeners. However, 2014 looks to be particularly awful.  Forbes  reports  that nearly 10 months into the year, no release since January has yet to reach platinum status -- a release that sells 1 million copies (in the US). What's more, only one has sold a million copies: the  Frozen  soundtrack that hit shelves last year. At this point in 2013, five different albums had hit that sales mark (Justin Timberlake's  The 20/20 Experience  led the pack). How bad are the numbers? Well, the best-selling effort that was actually released in 2014 is fourth on the year's sales tally (Eric Church's  Outsiders ). And singles are seeing the same fate, albeit at a slower pace. So far, 60 tracks have sold a million -- down from 83 at this point last year. As  Forbes  points out, sales usually see a boost during Q4 (holiday b

UN-Water: Thematic Factsheets

UN-Water: Thematic Factsheets : WATER FOR FOOD 70% of the global water withdrawals go to agriculture. The world population is expected to rise from 7 billion people today to 9 billion in 2050, leading to a 60% increase of the food needed globally and a 19% increase of agricultural water consumption.

Lumosity Press Release - Lumosity

Lumosity Press Release - Lumosity : San Francisco, Calif. – November 5, 2013 – Lumosity, the leading brain training and neuroscience research company, today announced that over the course of six years since launching its first suite of online games, it has reached over 50 million members, growing its user base about 200% year-over-year from 80,000 members in October 2007. To date, Lumosity’s games have been played over 1.1 billion times, averaging more than 1.7 million games played each day, contributing to Lumosity’s continuously growing database of human cognitive performance – the largest of its kind in the world.

General Services Administration Palantir Technologies Pricelist | Public Intelligence

General Services Administration Palantir Technologies Pricelist | Public Intelligence

General Services Administration Palantir Technologies Pricelist | Public Intelligence

General Services Administration Palantir Technologies Pricelist | Public Intelligence General Services Administration Palantir Technologies Pricelist September 18, 2014 The following is a pricelist from the General Services Administration for products of Palantir Technologies including Palantir Gotham and Metropolis as well as the Palantir license agreement and terms of service.  A link to the pricelist was originally  posted to Hacker News  after which the document was apparently  removed from gsaadvantage.gov .  This version was obtained from a cached version of the page maintained by the  Internet Archive . AUTHORIZED FEDERAL SUPPLY SERVICE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SCHEDULE PRICELIST GENERAL PURPOSE COMMERCIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE AND SERVICES

Pew Research Center on Twitter: "Support for gay marriage: South - 44% East - 61% West - 58% Midwest - 52% http://t.co/xjo0uqtGTh http://t.co/8hguqq63r5"

Pew Research Center on Twitter: "Support for gay marriage: South - 44% East - 61% West - 58% Midwest - 52% http://t.co/xjo0uqtGTh http://t.co/8hguqq63r5"

NASA GISS (@NASAGISS) | Twitter

NASA GISS (@NASAGISS) | Twitter

U2 frontman Bono apologizes for foisting 'Songs of Innocence' on unsuspecting iTunes users

U2 frontman Bono apologizes for foisting 'Songs of Innocence' on unsuspecting iTunes users : "Oops, I'm sorry about that," Bono said in answer to a Facebook fan question. "We had this beautiful idea, we got a carried away with ourselves, artists are prone to that kind of thing. Drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn't be here. There's a lot of noise out there, I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it."

Roy Keane reveals touching Eric Cantona gesture

Roy Keane reveals touching Eric Cantona gesture : Keane and Cantona spent four years together at Manchester United before the Frenchman’s early retirement and, although two strong and temperamental characters, enjoyed a decent relationship during this time at Old Trafford. While Cantona was known to be colourful and volatile, he was also a man of great integrity and a figure that the rest of the Manchester United players looked up to, from the youngest members of the squad to the more senior pros. This is something outlined by Keane in his book, which was released last week to much fanfare, with one story in particular highlighting just why Cantona was held in such high regard by his peers and manager. Cantona story “In my early years at United, there was a players’ pool and each of us would get about �800 out of it at the end of the season for the work we’d done for the in-house magazines, the club videos,” Keane writes. “We were all on decent money and eight hundred quid wa

h Magazine | Is It Better Never To Have Been Born? (anti-natalism)

h Magazine | Is It Better Never To Have Been Born? (anti-natalism) John G. Messerly [ Editor's note: Transhumanism claims that there is a situation in which we find ourselves that can be improved through applying reason, science, and technology, and that doing so is desirable. It seems therefore that we are also assuming a priori that existence is preferable to non-existence. Agree or disagree? Share your views in the  h+ Connect  forum below. ]   David Benatar is professor of philosophy and head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism. His article, “Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence,” espouses the view that it is always a harm to be born. In addition he wrote a book on the same topic:  Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence . It is commonly assumed that we do nothing wrong bringing future people into existence if their lives will, on balance, b

h Magazine | Transhumanism Gets Political [updated (2)] - h Magazine

h Magazine | Transhumanism Gets Political [updated (2)] - h Magazine : For better or worse, transhumanism is rapidly becoming a political as well as philosophical movement. Gabriel Rothblatt, son of well known transhumanist billionaire and author Martine Rothblatt, is running for congress as a candidate for the Democratic Party in the�United States.�Another openly political transhumanist and techno-libertarian, Mike Lorrey, is running for the New Hampshire House under the Republican Party in New Hampshire. And, entering the fray just last night,�transhumanist author and adventurer�Zoltan Istvan is taking a page from his own book The Transhumanist Wager and announcing what he calls “The Transhumanist Party ” a political party for transhumanists seemingly with Zoltan himself as the lead candidate for the presidency in 2016. This isn’t the first time a transhumanist has been political. Humanity board chair Natasha Vita-More was elected as a Councilperson for the 28th Senatorial D

h Magazine | The Definition of�Knowledge - h Magazine

h Magazine | The Definition of�Knowledge - h Magazine Philosophers have traditionally defined knowledge as a belief that is both true and justified, a definition that sufficed until, 50 years ago, Edmund Gettier pointed out that the conditions could be fulfilled by accident, in ways that didn’t amount to what we would intuitively regard as knowledge.  Gettier pointed to scenarios such as: “Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that ‘Jones will get the job.’ He also has a justified belief that ‘Jones has 10 coins in his pocket.’ Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes that ‘the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket.’ In fact, Jones does not get the job. Instead, Smith does. However, as it happens, Smith (unknowingly and by sheer chance) also had 10 coins in his pocket. So his belief that ‘the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket’ was justified and true. But it does not appear to be knowledge.” Since Gettier’s paper, many