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Submission + - Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Founder of the computer anti-virus company McAfee Associates, John McAfee gained world-wide attention eluding Belizean authorities in the jungle. Since we last sat down with John, he's been working on a device that blocks the government's ability to spy on PCs and mobile devices, been asked by the GOP to fix Obamacare, and has seen his last name removed from his old company. The rebranding garnered this response from McAfee: 'I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet. These are not my words, but the words of millions of irate users. ... My elation at Intel's decision is beyond words." John has agreed to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.

Submission + - Is DIY brainhacking safe? (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My colleague at IEEE Spectrum, Eliza Strickland, looked at the home transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) movement. People looking to boost creativity, or cure depression, are attaching electrodes to their heads using either DIT equipment or rigs from vendors like Foc.us. Advocates believe experimenting with the tech is safe, but a neuroscientist worries about removing the tech from lab safeguards...

Submission + - Genome Pioneer, X Prize Founder Tackle Aging (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hot on the heels of Google's spin-off company Calico, another major contender has emerged in the race to develop technologies for extending healthy human lifespan. Dr Craig Venter, who was first to map the entire human genetic code and the first to engineer a synthetic lifeform, has teamed up with founder of the X-Prize, Dr Peter Diamandis, to create Human Longevity Inc.(http://www.humanlongevity.com) “Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease," said Dr. Venter. “Using the combined power of our core areas of expertise—genomics, informatics, and stem cell therapies, we are tackling one of the greatest medical/scientific and societal challenges—aging and aging related diseases,” said Dr. Venter. “Between 1910 and 2010 improvements in medicine and sanitation increased the human lifespan by 50 percent from 50 to 75 years.....our goal is to make 100-years-old the new 60," said Diamandis.

Submission + - Agbogbloshie: the world's largest e-waste dump – in pictures

Submitted by kc123
kc123 writes: Photographer Kevin McElvaney documents Agbogbloshie, a former wetland in Accra, Ghana, which is home to the world’s largest e-waste dumping site. Boys and young men smash devices to get to the metals, especially copper. Injuries, such as burns, untreated wounds, eye damage, lung and back problems, go hand in hand with chronic nausea, anorexia, debilitating headaches and respiratory problems. Most workers die from cancer in their 20s

Submission + - Interview: Ask Richard Stallman What You Will

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Richard Stallman (RMS) founded the GNU Project in 1984, the Free
        Software Foundation in 1985, and remains one of the most important
        and outspoken advocates for software freedom. RMS now spends much
        of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws,
        digital rights management, and software patents. He's agreed to
        answer your questions about GNU/Linux, how GNU relates to Linux
        the kernel, free software, why he disagrees with the idea of open source, and other issues of public concern. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

Submission + - Harold Ramis dies at 69

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Writer and comedian Harold Ramis has passed away at 69. Ramis had a hand in many classic comedies but is especially loved for playing the ghost-hunting Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters. 'His creativity, compassion, intelligence, humour and spirit will be missed by all who knew and loved him,' said his family in a statement.

Submission + - Let's Finance College With a Tax on All Graduates

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: As the number of students attending colleges and universities has steadily increased and the cost for most students has climbed even faster, student debt figures (both total and per person) have continued to get bigger. Now Josh Freedman at Forbes Magazine proposes a graduate tax-funded system of higher education, under which students would pay nothing to attend college upfront. Instead, once they graduate and move out of their parents’ basements, they would begin to pay an additional income tax (say, for example, three percent) on their earnings that would fund higher education. "In other words, the current crop of college graduates funds the current crop of college students, and so on down the line. There is no debt taken on by students, which minimizes risk (good); repayment is tied to income, because only people who make income pay the tax (also good); and it is simpler and more easily administrable than plans to make loans easier to pay off (still good)." The main argument for a graduate tax comes from its progressivity. Supporters of a graduate tax point out that most college graduates, particularly those from elite universities that use a greater share of resources, are richer than people who have not graduated from college. The state of Oregon made headlines last year for an innovative proposal called “Pay It Forward” to fund higher education without having students take on any debt. Pay It Forward amounts to a graduate tax: All of the graduates of public colleges in Oregon would pay nothing up front in tuition but would pay back a percentage of their income for a set number of years. These payments would build a fund that would cover the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no upfront costs. "As pressure mounts for more students from all backgrounds to attend college, it will become increasingly difficult to try to stem the rapid tuition inflation under a loan system," concludes Freedman. "Our current student loan system has made college more expensive, turned higher education into an individual, rather than a communal, good, and generated serious negative economic and social risks."

Submission + - Atlas of Historical Geography of U.S. Digitized

Submitted by memnock
memnock writes: The Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond digitized the atlas: 'Here you will find one of the greatest historical atlases: Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, first published in 1932. This digital edition reproduces all of the atlas's nearly 700 maps.'

Submission + - Super Bowl Ads: Worth the Price or Waste of Time?

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Every year companies are willing to dish out big bucks to reach tens of millions of consumers with their Super Bowl ads. This year is no exception with an average price tag of $4 million for a 30-second commercial. We've seen: beer obsessed frogs, field goal kicking horses, celebrities drinking various beverages, explosions of all sizes, homages to 1984, and day trading babies in the past. Since talking about the commercials has become almost as popular as the game itself, here's a place to do just that. What have you liked and what do you think would have been better left on the cutting room floor.

Submission + - NSA spied on Copenhagen climate summit .. (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Developing countries have reacted angrily to revelations that the United States spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored communication between key countries before and during the conference to give their negotiators advance information about other positions at the high-profile meeting where world leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change.

Submission + - New Zealand Schools find less structure improve childrens' behavior

Submitted by geminidomino
geminidomino writes: A research project involving eight schools in Dunedin and Auckland report that loosening rules on the playground may lead to fewer incidents of bullying, vandalism, and injury. One principal opines ""The kids were motivated, busy and engaged. In my experience, the time children get into trouble is when they are not busy, motivated and engaged. It's during that time they bully other kids, graffiti or wreck things around the school."

As one might expect, the article states that there was a lot of resistance to the project, and I'm kind of surprised they got as many administrators to sign on as they did. The story may be premature, as the article states that "the results of the study will be collated this year," but it may be interesting to see how the numbers shake out.

Submission + - Chinese Search Giant Baidu Launches International Sites (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Baidu, a company that offers a search engine, a Wikipedia-style user-edited encyclopedia, and other online services, is a household name in China. Now the company is seeking to gain ground on Google in the rest of the world, opening local search sites (in local languages) for Thailand, Brazil, and Egypt. It's worth noting that Baidu is seen by many as particularly compliant with the Chinese government's censorship regime.

Submission + - Book review: The Digital Crown 1

Submitted by benrothke
benrothke writes: Title: The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web

Author: Ahava Leibtag

Pages: 358 pages

Rating: 10/10

Reviewer: Ben Rothke

ISBN: 978-0124076747

Summary: Invaluable resource and reference for building an effective web content strategy







With Adobe Flash, it's possible to quickly get a pretty web site up and running; something that many firms do. But if there is no content behind the flashy web page, it's unlikely anyone will return.



In The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web, author Ahava Leibtag does a fantastic job on showing how to ensure that your web site has what it takes to get visitors to return to the website, namely great content.



Make no mistake, creating good content for a large organization is a massive job. But for those organizations that are serious about doing it right, the book provides the extensive details all of the steps required to create content that will bring customers back to your web site.



Leibtag writes in the introduction that the reason so many websites and other digital strategy projects fail is because the people managing them don't focus on what really matters. They begin changing things for the sake of change and to simply update, without first asking why. They also forget to ask what the updates will accomplish. What this does is create a focus on the wrong priorities. Leibtag notes that the obvious priority is content.



So what is this thing called content? The book defines it as all of the information assets of your company that you want to share with the world.



The book is based around 7 rules, which form the foundation of an effective and comprehensive content strategy, namely:



1. Start with Your Audience

2. Involve Stakeholders Early and Often

3. Keep it Iterative

4. Create Multidisciplinary Content Teams

5. Make Governance Central

6. Workflow that Works

7. Invest in Professionals and Trust Them





Chapter 1 (freely available here) takes a high-level look at where branding and content meet, and details the need for a strategic content initiative.



An interesting point the book makes in chapter 2 which is pervasive throughout the book is to avoid using the term users. Rather refer to them as customers. Leibtag feels that the term users as part of a content strategy, makes them far too removed and abstract. Dealing with them as customers makes them real people and changes the dynamics of the content project. Of course, this transition has to be authentic. Simply performing a find/replace of user/customer in your documentation is not what the author intended; nor will such an approach work.



The book is heavy on understanding requirements and has hundreds of questions that need to be asked before creating content. The book is well worth it for that content alone.



It also stresses the importance of getting all stakeholders involved in the content creation process. As part of the requirements gathering process, the book details 3 roadmap steps which much be done in order to facilitate an effective strategy.



The book notes that content is much more than web pages. Content includes various formats, platforms and channels. An effective strategy must take allof these into account. The book notes that there are hundreds of possible formats for content. While it is impossible to deal with every possible option; an organization must know what they are in order to ensure they are creating content that is appropriate for their customers.



By the time you hit page 100, it becomes quite clear that content is something that Leibtag is both passionate about and has extensive experience with. An important point she makes is that it is crucial not for focus on design right away in the project, as it eats up way too much time. The key is to focus the majority of your efforts on the content.



The dilemma that the book notes is that during the requirements gathering process, far too many organizations are imagining a gorgeous web site with all kinds of bells and whistles, beautiful colors and pictures. That in turn moves them to spend (i.e., waste) a tremendous amount of time on design; which leads them to neglect contact creation and migration.



The book details multichannel publishing, which is the ability to publish your content on any device and any channel. This is a significant detail, as customers will be accessing your site from desktops with huge screens and bandwidth to mobile devices with smaller screens and often limited bandwidth. This requires you to adapt and change your content publishing process. This is clearly not a trivial endeavor. But doing it right, which the book shows how to do, will payoff in the long run.



Another mistake firms make is that they often think content can be done by just a few people. The book notes that it is an imperative to create multidisciplinary content teams, since web content will touch every part of the organization, and needs their respective input.



One of the multidisciplinary content teams that must be involved is governance. The book notes that governance standards help you set a consistent customer experience across all channels. By following them, you can avoid replicating content, muddying your main messages and confusing your customers. Governance is also critical in setting internal organizational controls.



Leibtag lays out what needs to be done in extreme detail. She makes it quite clear that there are no quick fixes that can be done to create good content. Creating an effective content marketing strategy and architecture is complex, expensive and challenging. But for most organizations, it is also absolutely necessary for them in order to compete.



The author is the head of a content strategy and content marketing consultancy firm. Like all good consultants, they focus on getting answers to the questions clients often don't even know to ask. With that, the book has myriad questions and requirements that you must answer before you embark on getting your content online.



The book also provides numerous case studies of sites that understand the importance of content and designed their site accordingly. After reading the book, the way you look at web sites will be entirely different. You will likely find the sites you intuitively return to coincidentally happened to be those very sites that have done it right and have the content you want.



My only critique of the book is that the author quotes herself and references other articles she wrote far too often. While these articles have valid content, this can come across as somewhat overly promotional. Aside from that, the book is about as good as anything could get on the topic.



For firms that are serious about content and looking for an authoritative reference on how to build out their content and do it right, The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web is certain to be an invaluable resource.







Reviewed by Ben Rothke.

Submission + - Naked self-destructing sexts could be what finally kills Google. No, Seriously. (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: As Google’s share price soars beyond $1,100, it seems like nothing can stop the Internet juggernaut as its land grab strategies continue to win over the eyes of its users and the wallets of its advertising clients. But an analysis published over this past weekend raises an interesting question surrounding a new business model that could someday lead to Google’s downfall. Do we want an erasable Internet?...

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