Tufts University scientists are in the process of developing techniques that could allow computers to respond to users thoughts of frustration too much work or boredomtoo little work. Applying non-invasive and easily portable imaging technology in new ways, they hope to gain real-time insight into the brains more subtle emotional cues and help provide a more efficient way to get work done........
Source: Technology blog
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Computers to 'read the minds' of users
Fighting phishing attacks with phishing tactics
Early findings by Carnegie Mellon University scientists suggest that people who are suckered by a spoof email into visiting a counterfeit Web site are also people who are ready to learn their lesson about phishing attacks. Phishing attacks have become a common method for stealing personal identification information, such as bank account numbers and passwords. Lorrie Cranor, associate research professor of computer science, said phishing often is successful because a number of people ignore educational materials that otherwise might help them recognize such frauds........
Source: Technology blog
Researcher traces history of the personal computer
Carbon paper? Punch cards? What are those? The Internet, personal computers, word processing and spreadsheets are so embedded in todays society that its hard to remember that just 35 years ago they didnt exist. Thomas Haigh, assistant professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), is among a very small number of computer experts in the world who are also historians, studying the role of technology in broader social change. These new experts are tracing how computers have changed business and society........
Source: Technology blog
Vocal Joystick uses voice to surf the Web
The Internet offers wide appeal to people with disabilities. But a number of of those same people find it frustrating or impossible to use a handheld mouse. Software developed at the University of Washington provides an alternative using the oldest and most versatile mode of communication: the human voice........
Source: Technology blog
Giving Computers Common Sense
Using a little-known Google Labs widget, computer researchers from UC San Diego and UCLA have brought common sense to an automated image labeling system. This common sense is the ability to use context to help identify objects in photographs. For example, if a conventional automated object identifier has labeled a person, a tennis racket, a tennis court and a lemon in a photo, the new post-processing context check will re-label the lemon as a tennis ball........
Source: Technology blog
Most Complex Silicon Phased Array Chip in the World
UC San Diego electrical engineers have developed the world's most complex "phased array" -- or radio frequency integrated circuit. This DARPA-funded advance is expected to find its way into U.S. defense satellite communication and radar systems. In addition, the innovations in this chip design will likely spill over into commercial applications, such as automotive satellite systems for direct broadcast TV, and new methods for high speed wireless data transfer........
Source: Technology blog
New computer program automates chip debugging
Fixing design bugs and wrong wire connections in computer chips after they've been fabricated in silicon is a tedious, trial-and-error process that often costs companies millions of dollars and months of time-to-market. Engineering scientists at the University of Michigan say it doesn't have to be that way. They've developed a new technology to automate "post-silicon debugging.".......
Source: Technology blog
Decades of cancer research into 2 years
Canadian scientists expect to accelerate the war on cancer by tapping into a global network of hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer their idle computer time to tackle some of the worlds most complex problems. The research team, led by Dr. Igor Jurisica at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), and researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network, are the first from Canada to use the World Community Grid, a network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globes top five fastest supercomputers........
Source: Technology blog
Benefits of online interaction for teens outweigh danger
Is there such a thing as being too safe on the Internet? One University of Illinois education researcher believes there is, at least when teenagers are concerned. Media reports warn of online predators, hate groups and other "digital dangers" lurking in online social spaces, and those dangers are not to be taken lightly, says Brendesha Tynes, a professor of educational psychology and of African American studies at Illinois........
Source: Technology blog
Dealing with the data deluge
Most people have a few gigabytes of files on their PC. In the next decade, astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope. And with DNA sequencing getting cheaper, researchers will be data mining possibly hundreds of thousands of personal human genome databases, each of 50 gigabytes........
Source: Technology blog
Security loophole in Windows operating system
A group of scientists headed by Dr. Benny Pinkas from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Haifa succeeded in finding a security vulnerability in Microsoft's "Windows 2000" operating system. The significance of the loophole: emails, passwords, credit card numbers, if they were typed into the computer, and actually all correspondence that emanated from a computer using "Windows 2000" is susceptible to tracking. "This is not a theoretical discovery. Anyone who exploits this security loophole can definitely access this information on other computers," remarked Dr. Pinkas........
Source: Technology blog
Lecture Search Engine To Aid Students
Imagine you are taking an introductory biology course. You're studying for an exam and realize it would be helpful to revisit the professor's explanation of RNA interference. Fortunately for you, a digital recording of the lecture is online, but the 10-minute explanation you want is buried in a 90-minute lecture you don't have time to watch........
Source: Technology blog
Google favored over other search engines
Web site policy makers who use robots.txt files as gatekeepers to specify what is open and what is off limits to Web crawlers have a bias that favors Google over other search engines, say Penn State scientists whose study of more than 7,500 Web sites revealed Googles advantage. That finding was surprising, said C. Lee Giles, the David Reese Professor of Information Sciences and Technology who led the research team which developed a new search engineBotSeerfor the study........
Source: Technology blog
Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly
Honeybees somehow manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with limited resources and no central command - after all, the queen bee is too busy laying eggs to oversee something as mundane as where the best nectar can be found on any given morning. As per new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the swarm intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges........
Source: Technology blog
Black Casio EXILIM EX-V8
If you grew tired of silver-colored Exilim cameras, Casio has a black version of the Exilim EX-V8. at least in Japan. My last experience with the Exilim EX-Z3 wasn't so great: the image quality was lower than the Canon or Nikon counterparts, even if the camera body was superb. Anyhow, here are the technical highlights:.......
Source: Technology blog
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Computer poetry pushes the genre envelope
What happens to poetry in the Digital Age? In one of the first academic works in the field, Swedish researcher Maria Engberg has studied how the ability of the computer to combine words, images, movement, and sounds is impacting both writing and reading. The dissertation, to be publicly defended on September 14, has been jointly submitted at Uppsala University and the Blekinge Institute of Technology........
Source: Technology blog
Computers to 'read the minds' of users
Tufts University scientists are in the process of developing techniques that could allow computers to respond to users thoughts of frustration too much work or boredomtoo little work. Applying non-invasive and easily portable imaging technology in new ways, they hope to gain real-time insight into the brains more subtle emotional cues and help provide a more efficient way to get work done........
Source: Technology blog
Fighting phishing attacks with phishing tactics
Early findings by Carnegie Mellon University scientists suggest that people who are suckered by a spoof email into visiting a counterfeit Web site are also people who are ready to learn their lesson about phishing attacks. Phishing attacks have become a common method for stealing personal identification information, such as bank account numbers and passwords. Lorrie Cranor, associate research professor of computer science, said phishing often is successful because a number of people ignore educational materials that otherwise might help them recognize such frauds........
Source: Technology blog
Researcher traces history of the personal computer
Carbon paper? Punch cards? What are those? The Internet, personal computers, word processing and spreadsheets are so embedded in todays society that its hard to remember that just 35 years ago they didnt exist. Thomas Haigh, assistant professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), is among a very small number of computer experts in the world who are also historians, studying the role of technology in broader social change. These new experts are tracing how computers have changed business and society........
Source: Technology blog
Vocal Joystick uses voice to surf the Web
The Internet offers wide appeal to people with disabilities. But a number of of those same people find it frustrating or impossible to use a handheld mouse. Software developed at the University of Washington provides an alternative using the oldest and most versatile mode of communication: the human voice........
Source: Technology blog
Giving Computers Common Sense
Using a little-known Google Labs widget, computer researchers from UC San Diego and UCLA have brought common sense to an automated image labeling system. This common sense is the ability to use context to help identify objects in photographs. For example, if a conventional automated object identifier has labeled a person, a tennis racket, a tennis court and a lemon in a photo, the new post-processing context check will re-label the lemon as a tennis ball........
Source: Technology blog
Most Complex Silicon Phased Array Chip in the World
UC San Diego electrical engineers have developed the world's most complex "phased array" -- or radio frequency integrated circuit. This DARPA-funded advance is expected to find its way into U.S. defense satellite communication and radar systems. In addition, the innovations in this chip design will likely spill over into commercial applications, such as automotive satellite systems for direct broadcast TV, and new methods for high speed wireless data transfer........
Source: Technology blog
New computer program automates chip debugging
Fixing design bugs and wrong wire connections in computer chips after they've been fabricated in silicon is a tedious, trial-and-error process that often costs companies millions of dollars and months of time-to-market. Engineering scientists at the University of Michigan say it doesn't have to be that way. They've developed a new technology to automate "post-silicon debugging.".......
Source: Technology blog
Decades of cancer research into 2 years
Canadian scientists expect to accelerate the war on cancer by tapping into a global network of hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer their idle computer time to tackle some of the worlds most complex problems. The research team, led by Dr. Igor Jurisica at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), and researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network, are the first from Canada to use the World Community Grid, a network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globes top five fastest supercomputers........
Source: Technology blog
Benefits of online interaction for teens outweigh danger
Is there such a thing as being too safe on the Internet? One University of Illinois education researcher believes there is, at least when teenagers are concerned. Media reports warn of online predators, hate groups and other "digital dangers" lurking in online social spaces, and those dangers are not to be taken lightly, says Brendesha Tynes, a professor of educational psychology and of African American studies at Illinois........
Source: Technology blog
Dealing with the data deluge
Most people have a few gigabytes of files on their PC. In the next decade, astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope. And with DNA sequencing getting cheaper, researchers will be data mining possibly hundreds of thousands of personal human genome databases, each of 50 gigabytes........
Source: Technology blog
Security loophole in Windows operating system
A group of scientists headed by Dr. Benny Pinkas from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Haifa succeeded in finding a security vulnerability in Microsoft's "Windows 2000" operating system. The significance of the loophole: emails, passwords, credit card numbers, if they were typed into the computer, and actually all correspondence that emanated from a computer using "Windows 2000" is susceptible to tracking. "This is not a theoretical discovery. Anyone who exploits this security loophole can definitely access this information on other computers," remarked Dr. Pinkas........
Source: Technology blog
Lecture Search Engine To Aid Students
Imagine you are taking an introductory biology course. You're studying for an exam and realize it would be helpful to revisit the professor's explanation of RNA interference. Fortunately for you, a digital recording of the lecture is online, but the 10-minute explanation you want is buried in a 90-minute lecture you don't have time to watch........
Source: Technology blog
Google favored over other search engines
Web site policy makers who use robots.txt files as gatekeepers to specify what is open and what is off limits to Web crawlers have a bias that favors Google over other search engines, say Penn State scientists whose study of more than 7,500 Web sites revealed Googles advantage. That finding was surprising, said C. Lee Giles, the David Reese Professor of Information Sciences and Technology who led the research team which developed a new search engineBotSeerfor the study........
Source: Technology blog
Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly
Honeybees somehow manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with limited resources and no central command - after all, the queen bee is too busy laying eggs to oversee something as mundane as where the best nectar can be found on any given morning. As per new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the swarm intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges........
Source: Technology blog
Free For All in the New York Times' Op-Ed and Archives
Nearly a month after the New York Times shut down TimesSelect, the subscription-based service for premium content on NYTimes.com, traffic to areas of the site that were previously members-only is flowing fast and free. With popular columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd drawing thousands of curious readers and fans, the Opinion section has more than doubled unique visitors, while the overall NYTimes.com site has grown by roughly 10% in the same period.
The Op-Ed section reached 560,057 unique visitors last week, up from 245,942 for the week ending 09/15/07, while overall site traffic hovered around 3.8M, up from 3.4M in the same period. Op-Ed columns have also driven major viral traffic, claiming 4 out of 5 Most E-Mailed stories in today's online edition.
TimesSelect, launched exactly two years prior to its closure on September 17th, put the Opinion section, weekly crossword, and Archives behind a paid subscription firewall. The service had a lukewarm reception from readers, less than 10% of whom signed up as paying subscribers.
Since September 17th, the Times has charged only for access to the crosswords and Archive articles dating from 1923 to 1986. Access is free for the Op-Ed section and Archives from 1851 to 1922 and 1987 to the present.
Times management also cited Google's rising importance as a referral source in the decision to discontinue TimesSelect. In September 2006, Google referrals overtook those visitors who set NYTimes.com as their homepage or received an inbound link from an email client.
Google plays a more pivotal role in the behavior of the Times readership than ever before, owning a 5% greater share of referrals than it did in September 2005. Meanwhile, Yahoo and MSN/Live have dramatically lost share. As important as Google has become to the Times today, there is still opportunity for the Old Gray Lady in search.
Plans to open up the Wall St. Journal, now part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, will also likely include Google and search in a big way. Traffic to the paid-access financial news site has reached a record high of 2.5M visitors in September 2007, up 36% from July when the deal was announced.
Source: Blog compete
2007 MITX Award Finalist: Compete.com
The 2007 MITX awards finalists have been announced — and we're proud that Compete.com is a finalist again this year. Great work team!
Last year this very blog won the award for "Best Community/Blogs", and this year Compete's new Search Analytics product is a finalist in the "Applied Technology" category.
We're up against VistaPrint, Outsight Interactive/FootJoy, John Hancock and MarketSight.
MITX Awards Ceremony is on:
November 8, 2007, 6:00pm
Boston Marriott Copley Place
110 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA
Hope to see you there!
Source: Blog compete
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