14202092
submission
mantis2009 writes:
Paul Adams, a senior user experience researcher at Google has posted a slideshow from a recent presentation that gives insightful research into how people use social networking technologies. The presentation describes several shortcomings of existing technology, and it highlights specific modalities that current technology (ahem, Facebook) gets wrong. Adams concludes that social networking applications are a "crude approximation" of real-life social networks. "People don't have one group of friends," Adams research in several different countries shows that in reality, most people have between four to six groups of friends. He argues that social networking applications need to be built with that reality in mind.
12746644
submission
mantis2009 writes:
After recent complaints of anti-competitive behavior, the New York Times reports that the US Department of Justice has opened an inquiry into Apple's business practices for selling music. Investigators have specifically asked whether Apple colluded with record labels to thwart Amazon.com's music download store, according to the ever-present anonymous "people briefed on the situation." Allegedly, Apple threatened to retaliate if any music label participated in Amazon's "MP3 Daily Deal" promotion, which offered early access to some MP3 tracks. Apple refused to comment on the story, so no word on whether Bill Gates came up with the anti-competitive idea or if Steve Jobs thought of it all by himself.
12169552
submission
mantis2009 writes:
Paul Thurrott, the prolific technology analyst and Windows expert, reacts strongly to an article highlighted on Slashdot. Thurrott takes numbers from IDC and the Wall Street Journal, indicating that netbook sales have not in any meaningful way been affected by sales of Apple's tablet computer, the iPad. Money quote: "...netbooks and sub-12-inch machines[] will sell 45.6 million units in 2011 and 60.3 million in 2013. If I remember the numbers from 2009, they were 10 percent of all PCs, or about 30 million units. Explain again how the iPad will beat that. Please. Even the craziest iPad sales predictions are a small percentage of that."
7878064
submission
mantis2009 writes:
When it comes to stopping a cataclysmic Earth vs. asteroid event, social science and international political leaders have more difficult questions yet unanswered than physicists do, according to report delivered at this week's American Geophysical Union meeting. Wired has a discussion of an analysis authored by former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who worries that the international community is nowhere near ready to begin the complex and inevitably controversial task of deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Among the questions to be answered is whether to modify the Partial Test Ban Treaty to allow nuclear weapons in outer space. Another possibility to avoid the destruction of civilization would require the international community to choose an area on the globe where an asteroid might be "aimed." Who would decide which nations get placed in the asteroid's crosshairs?
7489188
submission
mantis2009 writes:
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a request for public comment on an upcoming transition from the decades-old circuit-based Public Switched Telephone Network to a new system run entirely with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. This is perhaps the most serious indication to date that the legacy telephone system will, in the near future, reach the end of its life. This public commenting phase represents a very early stage in what will undoubtedly be a very complex transition that makes this year's bumpy switch from analog to digital television look relatively easy.
