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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: how to verify your identity without being there in person? 1

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: I work for a large university, and our recruitment policy allows us to interview prospective staff and grad students over Skype, but the chosen applicant still has to show up in person before they can be formally appointed. This is so that they can physically hold up a genuine passport and prove their identity (as a failsafe against bogus interviews). What other ways could applicants do this, without flying potentially around the world just to file paperwork?

Submission + - Does mass media, like, affect how we speak?

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: It might seem obvious that the kids are all like, yeah whatever, because they hear it on the tellybox. But in the field of sociolinguistics (the study of language in society) that has long been a contentious and hotly debated topic. In the latest issue of the Journal of Sociolinguistics is an article summing up 20 years of research on the matter and proposing a new research framework — followed by a series of response articles thinking it through from different angles. The skinny: there is some influence of mass media on spoken language, but it's nowhere near as simple as it seems. The main article is open access (Creative Commons Attribution License) but the response articles are paywalled.

Submission + - The Hub of All Things (H.A.T.) lets you collect and sell your own consumer data

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: A £1.2 million project, taking place across 6 UK universities (Warwick, Exeter, Nottingham, Cambridge, West England and Edinburgh), is looking to reinvent the consumer data business, enabling consumers to collect and sell their own data. From the project website: "The H.A.T digital vault (which could be server-at-home, cloud-based or a hybrid of the two) will store all data collected in the home and, crucially, all data generated by the individual is owned by the individual. This means that the data’s worth – in every sense from a ‘vertical’ dataset (such as consumption of medicine) to the relational dataset (such as the linkages between several objects e.g. food, fitness and medicine) – is owned by and can only be used with explicit permission from the individual for the time period stipulated by the individual. Such data could be exchanged with firms for personalized products or services that would enhance lives, and could inform and empower individuals for better decisions and behaviours." And if you want to get involved, they're hiring.

Submission + - Secrets of Beatboxing Revealed by MRI

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: Beatboxing, pioneered in the 1980s and made famous by Michael Winslow in Police Academy (1984), and recently demonstrated by Tom Thum at TEDxSydney), has long been something of an enigma. Phonetic transcriptions have been attempted, including Standard Beatbox Notation and The Beatbox Alphabet (the latter based more closely on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)). The Beatbox Bible also uses phonetic terminology to teach the technique. Now, an international team from UCSD and Philips Research have published a paper (article paywalled; extensive free related resources at UCS here) in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, showing the results of real-time magnetic resonance imaging conducted on a beatboxing performer. The authors make interesting comparisons to sounds in many minority languages around the world (such as the 'click' consonants in many African languages); they also show how beatboxing sounds can be represented using the IPA.

Submission + - NSA Spying Hurts California's Business

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: Interesting opinion piece by Joe Mathews published today (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jul/13/could-nsa-spying-hurt-california-economy/all/?print)
makes the argument that California's economic life depends on global connections. "Our leading industries — shipping, tourism, technology, and entertainment — could not survive, much less prosper, without the trust and goodwill of foreigners. We are home to two of the world’s busiest container ports, and we are a leading exporter of engineering, architectural, design, financial, insurance, legal, and educational services. All of our signature companies — Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Chevron, Disney — rely on sales and growth overseas. And our families and workplaces are full of foreigners; more than one in four of us were born abroad, and more than 50 countries have diaspora populations in California of more than 10,000."
It quotes John Dvorak: "Our companies have billions and billions of dollars in overseas sales and none of the American companies can guarantee security from American spies. Does anyone but me think this is a problem for commerce?”
It points out that: "Asian governments and businesses are now moving their employees and systems off Google’s Gmail and other U.S.-based systems, according to Asian news reports. German prosecutors are investigating some of the American surveillance. The issue is becoming a stumbling block in negotiations with the European Union over a new trade agreement. Technology experts are warning of a big loss of foreign business."
The article goes on to suggest that perhaps a California constitutional ammendment confirming privacy rights might help (but would not guarantee a stop to Federal snooping).
United Kingdom

Submission + - Rightster blocks Youtube video of UK Prime Minister's Questions (youtube.com)

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: Prime Minister's Questions is a popular weekly televised puppet show in the UK. Expatriate political nerds cannot access it via the BBC's iPlayer unless they have access to a UK-based VPN (top tip: most UK universities and many UK employers run VPNs, all you need is a working login!). For VPN-less expats, the solution has been the UK Parliament's imaginatively named 'UKParliament' Youtube channel. But their upload of last week's PMQs has been blocked by online media distribution firm Rightster. Rightster have previously hosted clips of PMQs, but does that enable them to block the whole thing? Just W exactly TF is going on here?

Submission + - Gmail Quietly Adds 'Conversation View Off' Option (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: Loved by many, deeply loathed by some, Gmail's innovative 'conversation view' (grouping together email replies) was for six years stubbornly maintained as the only option. Well, Gmail have finally introduced a 'Conversation view off' option in the General tab of the Settings page. Luddites rejoice!
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 online

Submitted by united_notions
united_notions writes: A few hours ahead of the official release time of 12.00 PDT, the release directory for 3.1b3 now exists, but it's still appearing empty. However, if you go to the Beta release webpage page and copy the hyperlink to your beta of choice, then change '3.1b2' in the URL to '3.1b3', hey presto, it loads! The .exe installs ok and the 'About' popup checks out. Enjoy the latest release of FF!

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