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Data, Cell Phones, Transforming Health Care

How Cell Phones Are Transforming Health Care in Africa | MIT Technology Review: "....Once we have that data, it’s difficult to say with any great clarity what the full long-term benefits will be. However, companies like the crowdsourcing data analytics firm Kaggle offer a hint. They have shown that with the right algorithms, this kind of big data should not only give us a much more accurate picture of what is happening now, but make it possible to predict future global health trends. And the more data there is, the more accurate that picture is likely to be...."




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Reading Context, Computing Content

The Value of Scalable Learning, Or How a Hardcore Geek Became a Softy | Big Think Edge | Big Think: "Math and physics wiz John Seely Brown realized at a young age that being able to compute complex things in his head "didn't really matter." That may seem surprising, considering that Brown's first job was a bookie, a profession that is all about numbers. And yet, Brown learned that it was more important to read the people approaching him, and to be able to determine, for instance, who might be out to cheat him. Reading context, not just computing content, was one of the skills that Brown explored in his recent commencement address at Singapore Management University."




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Data, Online Consumers, Ad Tech

The Evolution of Ad Tech | MIT Technology Review: "Something else happened as a result of the Internet’s growth: voluminous amounts of data appeared and so did the opportunity to use it for finding and targeting specific online consumers. At last, marketers delighted; the right ads could be delivered to the “right” people, anywhere they appeared online. To do this, marketers would analyze the data to determine patterns of consumer behavior and pinpoint what products or services the user was most likely to respond to in order to influence sales. "




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Google, Search, Economic Predictions

Could Google Be an Economic Magic 8-Ball? - Canada Real Time - WSJ: "The world’s dominant search engine could have predicted the global recession up to three months before its onset, based on the rising use of the search terms “recession” and “jobs,” according to Greg Tkacz, associate professor and economics chairman at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Many of the world’s official economic indicators are released with a time delay or at infrequent intervals, or require significant revisions after their release, Mr. Tkacz said in a report released by the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think tank.  But Google Trends search data offer more timely glimpses into the economic well-being of hundreds of millions of people, he said." (read more at link above)




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Search Engine, Internet-Connected Cameras, Traffic Lights, Medical Devices

The Terrifying Search Engine That Finds Internet-Connected Cameras, Traffic Lights, Medical Devices, Baby Monitors And Power Plants - Forbes: "When Gilbert checked his Foscam account, he discovered that the hacker had added his own user name–”Root”–so he could sign in whenever he wanted. Gilbert is now considering a class action against Foscam. He could find other plaintiffs using a search engine called Shodan. It’s likely the tool the pervy hacker used to find him."




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Police, Surveillance, Databases

Menlo Park looks to beef up surveillance efforts - SiliconValley.com: "The Menlo Park Police Department is looking to create a database of home and business surveillance cameras as part of a high-tech crime-fighting effort that also involves city-operated surveillance cameras, vehicle license plate readers and expanded use of red-light enforcement cameras."




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Search, StartPage, Ixquick, Encryption, Mass Surveillance

StartPage and Ixquick Deploy Newest Encryption Standards against Mass Surveillance: " In the wake of the US PRISM Internet surveillance scandal, companies are revisiting how they do business online and beefing up their privacy practices to protect their users. Private search engines StartPage and Ixquick have pioneered a new advance in encryption security . . . becoming the first search engines in the world to enable "Perfect Forward Secrecy" or PFS in combination with a more secure version of SSL encryption known as TLS 1.1. and 1.2 , which works by setting up a secure "tunnel" through which users' search traffic cannot be intercepted. . . ."




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Software, Algorithms, Expose Faked Photos

Using algorithms to detect suspicious shadows, computer scientists say their software can sniff out doctored images.

Software That Exposes Faked Photos - NYTimes.com: "In the age of Photoshop, detecting manipulated photos is a growing priority for lawyers, journalists and people involved in law enforcement and national security. To determine an image’s authenticity, the software uses geometric formulas to detect and analyze shadows that are invisible to the naked eye, then lines them up with a potential light source. If it cannot do so, it deems the image to be physically implausible."




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Human Face of Big Data Book (video)

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Human Face of Big Data Book - YouTube: more info: http://www.humanfaceofbigdata.com/




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Google Search, Improved Dictionary Definitions

Very useful tool -

Google Search Adds Improved Dictionary Definitions With Sample Sentences And Usage Stats: "Google’s dictionary definitions — which you can invoke by using a query like “define crunch” — now feature significantly more information about virtually every word in its catalog. The update, Google says, is meant to “give you more information about these words beyond just their definition.”"




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Data crunching, fashion forecasting

Data crunching starts to make inroads into the traditional method of design forecasting: trend analysis with a big dollop of intuition.

How to Tell the Fashion Future? - NYTimes.com: "Not surprisingly, some traditional forecasters are suspicious of a data-driven approach. “Right now data is the buzzword,” said Isham Sardouk, chief creative officer at Stylesight in New York and once a design director at Victoria’s Secret. “But for me, data is not everything. It’s just a portion of the information that’s out there. I think that intuition is underrated, and when people think of a trend forecaster they imagine a crazy guy in a room experiencing visions of salmon pink. But it’s a group decision. I have a team of 200 industry experts feeding information from all around the world.”"




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ZMap scans the entire Internet in an hour

Faster, Less Cost --

Here’s what you find when you scan the entire Internet in an hour: . . . .at the Usenix security conference in Washington, they announced ZMap, a tool that allows an ordinary server to scan every address on the Internet in just 44 minutes. . . . ZMap is “stateless,” meaning that it sends out requests and then forgets about them. Instead of keeping a list of oustanding requests, ZMap cleverly encodes identifying information in outgoing packets so that it will be able to identify responses. The lower overhead of this approach allows ZMap to send out packets more than 1,000 times faster than Nmap. So while an Internet-wide scan with Nmap takes weeks, ZMap can (with a gigabit network connection) scan the entire Internet in 44 minutes. . . .




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Google, Hadoop, Big Data (video)



In developing its powerful search engine, Google cracked one of the toughest "big data" nuts: figuring out how to make a copy of the Internet, digest what it means, and then use that information to answer a seemingly infinite number of user questions in nanoseconds. A decade later, Google's innovations have spawned new open-source projects such as Hadoop (source: http://on.wsj.com/17EaRBv )




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