25 April 2013

Fighting Terrorism with Crowdsourcing

You want to defeat terrorists? Use crowdsourcing--why wasn't Reddit (and the rest of us) given the Lord & Taylor video?

Reddit and the Marathon Bombers: The Wise Way to Crowdsource a Manhunt : The New Yorker: " . . . the Redditors faced a simple, but insuperable, obstacle when it came to identifying the Tsarnaevs, namely that the two brothers were not, as far as I can tell, in any of the photographs that were widely available before Thursday morning. The footage that convinced investigators that the Tsarnaevs were prime suspects was the footage from the Lord & Taylor surveillance cameras, which hadn’t (and still hasn’t) been released to the public. This is an obvious point, but one that’s been overlooked: Reddit had no real chance of identifying the right suspects because it didn’t have access to the information that mattered. (Had the clip of the Tsarnaevs walking down Boylston Street been publicly available last Tuesday, I don’t think there’s any doubt Redditors would have flagged them as suspicious.) Whatever the value of the wisdom of crowds, it isn’t magic: you can’t ask the crowd to find someone that, in a sense, it’s never seen. . . ."

Afternoon MoJoe: Google’s Eric Schmidt on how technology upgrades the war on terror — MSNBC: "Not only did photographs capture and add surveillance to nearly every inch of the crime scene . . . “In the future, as terrorists have to opt in to using technology, the room for error becomes much greater, and millions of people with smartphones are able to catch them in their tracks and press rewind,” said Jared Cohen, the director of Google Ideas, the company’s internal think-tank, and Schmidt’s co-author on the new book The New Digital Age." 

The Apple Economy Isn't Done Yet : The New Yorker: " . . . the company is trying to keep shareholders happy by dispensing some of its cash mountain on stock buybacks, and by promising to gear up the company a bit by issuing some debt. Together with a raised dividend, this financial engineering may put a floor under the stock for a while. But it will be Apple’s computer engineers, programmers, and designers—rather than its financial engineers—who will determine the company’s fate."

Fed guidelines: Carmakers must step up to stop distracted driving NBCNews.com Hoping to prevent distracted driving – blamed for causing more than 10 percent of all U.S. highway fatalities – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released voluntary guidelines Tuesday to keep drivers' eyes on the road rather than on ... 

New Chevy Spark claims EV efficiency crown Los Angeles Times Chevrolet says it has earned bragging rights as the car company with the most efficient electric vehicle. The automaker says that the 2014 Spark, which is set to go on sale this summer in California and Oregon, has an EPA estimated range of of 82 miles when ... 

Sony Unveils $2000 Digital Binoculars With Image, Video Capture PC Magazine Sony today unveiled an updated pair of digital binoculars that can capture 3D images and video and is up to 30 percent lighter and smaller than its predecessor. Those bells and whistles won't come cheap, though. The DEV-50V will set you back $2,000 when ... 

MetroPCS Shareholders Approve T-Mobile Merger PC Magazine MetroPCS stockholders on Wednesday gave their stamp of approval to the company's merger with T-Mobile. The move means all the necessary regulatory and procedural hurdles have been dealt with, and the transaction is expected to close by May 1, ... 

Doubts raised about LulzSec 'mastermind' Telegraph.co.uk Mr Flannery, a 24-year-old IT worker, was arrested in Sydney after he was linked to a recent cyber-attack against an Australian government agency. The Australian Federal Police said the man was described as a leader on LulzSec chat sites and made no ...
Telegraph.co.uk 

Egg laid by extinct elephant bird sells for $101G at British auction Fox News LONDON – A massive, partly fossilized egg laid by a now-extinct elephant bird has sold for more than double its estimate at a London auction. Christie's auction house said Wednesday that the foot-long, nearly nine-inches in diameter egg fetched 66,675 ... 

Want the most reliable Windows PC? Buy a Mac (or maybe a Dell) ZDNet Summary: A new report from Soluto uses data from its massive online database of PC crashes, hangs, and performance metrics to identify the 10 most reliable Windows PCs you can buy today. Surprisingly, a MacBook Pro is at the top of the list. Even more ... 

Swype Ditches Beta Tags, Lands in Google Play PC Magazine After a lengthy beta phase, the Swype virtual keyboard has finally made its way to the Google Play store for Android devices. Swype is currently priced at 99 cents as a limited-time offer, so those looking to get their hands on the app should download it soon...

Java Flaw Targeted By Crimeware Toolkit: Patch Now InformationWeek Don't wait on this update, Java 7 users. Exploit uses bug, patched by Oracle last week, to execute arbitrary code. Java 7 users: Have you updated to the latest ... 

BitTorrent Sync challenges cloud-based file management BBC News Developers of the BitTorrent file-sharing process have opened an experimental data-synchronising tool up to the public. BitTorrent Sync uses peer-to-peer technology to send information between users' PCs. It eliminates the need to upload data to a third ... 

Antimatter results emerge at LHC - but puzzle abides BBC News The quest to understand why our Universe is made of matter rather than antimatter has received a boost at the Large Hadron Collider. The LHCb experiment has for the first time observed decays of particles known as Bs mesons that preferentially end up as ...
BBC News 

Report: Twitter working on two-step authentication - USA Today USA TODAY Twitter is reportedly close to adding two-step authentication to its service following the hack of the official account of the Associated Press. According to Wired, Twitter has been internally testing the feature, and hopes to make it available to users soon. 

FreedomPop introduces nationwide 3G, $40 hotspot CNET The company's new Overdrive Pro supports both 3G and 4G connectivity via Sprint's network, which covers most of the country instead of just select cities. Rick Broida. by Rick Broida. April 24, 2013 7:48 AM PDT Follow @cheapskateblog. The FreedomPop ... 

Microsoft, ZTE Reach Android Patent Deal PC Magazine "Under the agreement, Microsoft grants ZTE a license to Microsoft's worldwide patent portfolio for ZTE phones, tablets, computers and other devices running Android and Chrome OS," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, wrote in a blog post. 

Fish-Eating Dino Hunted Like a House Cat Discovery News An illustration of Microraptor, a 120-million-year-old dinosaur found with a stomach full of fish. Some researchers ... 

Google Buys Wavii For North Of $30 Million TechCrunch Google has finally closed the deal on Wavii, a natural language processing startup, for a price that is more than $30 million, we're hearing from a legitimate source. Both Apple and Google were competing for the Seattle-based startup, and Google eventually ...

Monaco's co-op game play will steal your heart (review) VentureBeat Co-op gaming is often magical. When done right, it enables gamers to team up and have a great time with friends and family that are not as skilled. Monaco, out now for PC and soon for Xbox Live Arcade, does co-op right. Developer Pocketwatch Games ... 

Next Call of Duty to drop 'Modern Warfare' name, called Call of Duty: Ghosts MCV That's according to a retail listing on Tesco Direct. It could be wrong, of course, but the clearly final product cover image it includes more or less proves its authenticity. It lists the release date as December 31st – a placeholder, certainly. The game will almost ...
MCV 

Toyota Outsells GM for Fifth Quarter Amid Yen-Led Recovery Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) outsold all automakers for a fifth straight quarter as the yen's depreciation sharpens the Japanese company's edge over General Motors Co. (GM) and Volkswagen AG. (VOW). Worldwide sales at Toyota, including those of ... 

New 'Fairy' Insect is Mind-Blowingly Small LiveScience.com A new species of tiny fly named after the fairy in "Peter Pan" is mind-blowingly miniscule, with delicate wings trimmed in fringe. Tinkerbella nana is a newly discovered species of fairyfly from Costa Rica. Fairyflies are a type of chalcid wasp, and almost all are ...

Russian cargo ship launched on station resupply flight CBS News A Russian cargo ship loaded with 3.1 tons of needed supplies and equipment blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday and set off after the space station amid troubleshooting to figure out what might be done to free a jammed ... 
CBS News 

The Competition Has AT&T's Number Barron's AT&T reported underwhelming first-quarter results, with disappointing net adds, weak average-revenue-per-user trends, and continued wireline-segment declines. We believe AT&T (ticker: T) management is caught in a bind, having enabled application ... 

Black-eyed Pies reel from BeagleBoard's $45 Linux micro blow Register Pics Open-source hardware outfit BeagleBoard has formally announced a major revision of its BeagleBone board computer that ups the spec and downs the price. The BeagleBone Black's single-core processor jumps from its predecessor's 720MHz to 1GHz. 

Chatterbox: Wednesday | Technology | guardian.co.uk - The Guardian By Keith Stuart The place to talk about games and other things that matter. Technology: Games blog | guardian.co.uk


Try Glasses Online Thanks To 3D Technology | Ubergizmo By Edwin Kee 3D printing has seen its fair share of successes, and in one case, students from Harvard University have plans to use 3D printing so that the blind... Ubergizmo

HTC found blameless over Nokia microphone technology used in ... By Chris Chavez More details have emerged from yesterday's legal spat between Nokia and HTC, the one that ended with a preliminary injunction against the HTC One in. Android Phone Fans

Denver post names boa technology as one of denver's top workplaces By Evan Buzbee Boa Technology has been ranked 13th on a list of Denver's top workplaces for their corporate health and wellness program. Transworld Business » | Transworld...

BitTorrent Sync: Secure File Sync Between Computers Using P2P ... By Andrew BitTorrent Sync: Secure File Sync Between Computers Using P2P Technology [Public Alpha] ~ Ubuntu / Linux blog. ... BitTorrent Sync: Secure File Sync Between Computers Using P2P Technology [Public Alpha] ... Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog

Coto Technology claims industry's smallest MEMS reed switch Coto Technology, which has been designing and developing small signal switching solutions to the worldwide electronics industry for over 90 years, has announced the availability of its RedRock RS-A-2515 MEMS-based magnetic reed ... DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

An assistive technology guide for autism | eSchool News By Meris Stansbury In recent years, educators and parents have touted iPads, tablets, and mobile apps as assistive technologies that can help children or students diagnosed with autism communicate and learn basic concepts. But just as there's a spectrum of ... eSchool News

Editorial: Has Technology Taken Over Our Lives? | CAFNR Corner ... By Ashley Craft As you walk across campus, count how many people are zombie-fied on their phone while they walk. You might be amazed if you look up from your own phone to ... CAFNR Corner Post

Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology launches ... Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) has announced the launch of the new strategic project DubaiSat-3, the first satellite that will be completed in the UAE.A core team of 45 UAE experts and engineers will lead ...

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