Monday, February 20, 2012

I wonder how common this is? Some indication in the Comments section that companies are looking for “engaged” employees!
"Companies can get a lot of mileage out of social networking services from the likes of Google or Facebook. Chat, document collaboration, and video conferencing using services like Google+ Hangouts or Facebook's Skype are seductive additions to an IT arsenal. But a lot of people have privacy concerns about these services, and there's no shortage of horror stories how these sites track and exploit their users' habits. Would you work for a company that forced its employees to join a social network?"


Well, that's one possible reaction...
"Bloggers around the world have been commenting on recently leaked Heartland Institute documents that reveal their internal strategies to discredit climate science. These posters are now under threat of legal action. According to the Heartland Institute 'the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages'"


The Next Big Things?
The “Unhyped” New Areas in Internet and Mobile
We are in a whole new world of platforms, a post-PC era, which I’d more aptly describe as the always/everywhere era, finally, and that means a whole new set of opportunities
… Personally, it is hard to see all the areas in which some disruptive or large new segment idea will take off, but it is clear that there are many. So when going fishing for these, I have defined certain pools that are more interesting than others in which to fish. I call them the “unhyped dozen”
  1. Data Reduction or Filters (Siri, Donna, Recorded Future, and many others): “Reducing, filtering and processing data streams to deliver the information or action that is relevant to you.”
  2. Big data or Analytics (Ness, Billguard, The Climate Corporation, Kaggle, Datasift): “Analyzing massive amounts of structured and unstructured data to deliver unique services or analysis.”
  3. Emotion (Foodspotting, Ness, Instagram): “Services that evoke strong emotions in users,”
  4. Education 2.0 (it’s early, but Altius, Khan Academy, CK12, Udacity): “Education models that dramatically reduce the cost and increase the availability of quality learning.”
  5. TV 2.0 (Miso, Flingo, Maker Studios, both first and second screen apps as well as content production & sourcing): “TV as an interactive and social experience both on the primary and the second screen.”
  6. Social Next (intersecting with all the interest graph stuff and verticals like Github, Coursekit, and Researchgate): “Social as a useful and productive part of lives—enabling collaboration and deep community building around the world in specific areas.”
  7. Interest-based networks (where Meebo is pivoting to, Twitter, Snip.it, State): “User driven content that maps to people’s interests both for a better user experience and better targeting.”
  8. Health 2.0 (Jawbone UP, Nike Fuelband, Empatica, BodyMedia, MC10, Fitbit, iBike, Recon, Withings, Alivecor): “Exponentially growing data will yield personalized lifestyle suggestions, improved outcomes, predictive diagnostics and applications we can’t imagine.”
  9. Internet of Things/Universal ID/NFC/Smart sensors (a technology with the applications still to emerge): “Sensors and authentication technologies which will interconnect everything and remake our interaction with the world around us.”
  10. Personal Collaborative Publishing (Pinterest, Tumblr, storify, Snip.it): “Truly free press with no barriers to entry and personalized interest-based curation.”
  11. Utility Apps (Siri, Seatme, Ifttt, Uber, and many, many more): “Leverage device ubiquity and context to deliver valuable services.”
  12. Marketplaces & Disintermediation (Interview Street, Kaggle, Etsy): “Remove the middle man, increase market efficiency and produce better results, faster“


For my geeky students
February 19, 2012
Field Guide to Web Applications 2012 Edition
Official Google Code Blog, Pete LePage, Developer Advocate: "...the Chrome Developer Relations team launched several new resources, including the Field Guide to Web Applications. It’s a new resource that is designed to help web developers create great web apps. We’ve heard loud and clear from users that they want more and better web apps, and we hope this new field guide will enable you to create those web apps. Our fictitious author Bert Appward guides you through topics like the properties of web applications, design fundamentals, tips for creating great experiences, and a few case studies that put best practices to use. Whether you're building your first web app or are just looking for ways to improve your existing apps, I hope you'll find the field guide useful."


For my Computer Security students
"The popular free security tool HijackThis has been open sourced by its owner, Trend Micro. The tool scans systems to find settings that may have been modified by spyware, malware or other programs that have wiggled their way onto a system and caused problems. Downloaded over 10 million times, HijackThis generates reports to help users analyze and fix an infected or problem computer. But the tool is not designed for novices – and doesn't actually determine what's good or bad. That's up to you, but it is a good way to keep an eye on things and possibly locate anomalies that may have been missed by other security products. Trend Micro warns that if you don't know what you're doing, it's probably not a good idea to make any changes to your computer settings and system files. Trend Micro acquired the tool from creator Merijn Bellekom in 2007, and has offered it for free ever since, but now is making the code available to the public. The code, originally written in Visual Basic, is now officially available at Sourceforge here."


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