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Archive for the ‘internet’ category: Page 312

Jun 5, 2015

Ex-Googlers Get Millions to Help You Build the Next Google — Klint Finley Wired

Posted by in categories: information science, internet, software, supercomputing

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After Spencer Kimball left Google, he found himself missing some of the custom-built software the company uses internally. So he and a bunch of fellow ex-Googlers started building their own. And now they want to make it available to everyone to power the next Google or Facebook.

Specifically, Kimball wanted something like Google’s database system Spanner. Spanner is designed to juggle data between potentially millions of database servers, a tool that keeps Google’s services online even if several servers, or an entire datacenter, go offline. While few companies need to operate at quite the scale Google does, the ability to stay online even if many systems fail, and to automatically balance resources between servers, would be useful to many other companies. Read more

Jun 4, 2015

A New York State of Megabits — Susan Crawford | Backchannel

Posted by in categories: architecture, big data, business, economics, education, energy, information science, internet, moore's law

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So it was great to get back to New York and be able to report on what is called the“New NY Broadband Program.” It involves a $500 million expenditure to help ensure that New Yorkers across the state have access to current-generation Internet capacity. There’s lots of potential in the plan, targeted at providing every New Yorker with access to 100 megabit per second (Mbps) service (10 Mbps uploads) by the end of 2018. Because New York expects a 1:1 match from the private sector for each grant or loan it makes, that means the state hopes to be deploying at least $1 billion on high-speed Internet access infrastructure.

Read more

May 13, 2015

There’s an Uber for Everything Now — Geoffrey Fowler | The Wall Street Journal

Posted by in categories: business, economics, innovation, internet, mobile phones

“Can tech companies really offer better experiences than the taqueria, flower shop or dry cleaner down the street, while taking a cut for themselves? Not necessarily. Quality control is a challenge when the supervisor is just software.

Read more

May 4, 2015

Twitter at the Crossroads

Posted by in category: internet

David Auerbach | Slate

Illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo.
“Twitter’s strength is being the pulse of the Internet, the place where news gets broken in 140-character messages, where important topics start trending the second they enter the collective hivemind, and where politicians and celebrities and thinkers of all stripes can make announcements without the bother of a press release or the filter of the media. Yet this has always made Twitter Janus-faced: Is it a real-time news aggregator or a social network? More importantly, how will it make money?” Read more

Apr 29, 2015

Injustice, Ethereum and the information renaissance…

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, internet

Quoted: “I recall reading somewhere that “Ethereum is to Bitcoin as an iPhone is to a calculator”, which is a pretty good analogy. Bitcoin proved to us that it was possible to keep a tamper-proof system synchronised across the globe. There really is no reason the same system can’t be applied to other problems in the same way we apply normal computers to them.

Ethereum is a single computer spread out over the internet, processing the information we all feed it together. I guess you could call it a ‘shared consciousness’ if you wanted to.

In this computer, information cannot be suppressed. In this computer, ideas and trust rule. Work and reputation are visible and independently verifiable. Anyone can contribute and everyone is automatically safe. Collaboration will overcome privatisation as people work together to build an open network of ideas contributing to the betterment of us all. They are calling it internet 3.0. And though web 2.0 was a thing in some ways, I think we’ll look back at everything up until this point as the first internet. The internet we built by adapting old communication lines into new ways of communicating. The internet we built when we were still used to centralising responsibility for things.”

Read the article here > http://pospi.spadgos.com/2014/11/30/injustice-ethereum-and-t…naissance/

Apr 24, 2015

Article: Harnessing “Black Holes”: The Large Hadron Collider – Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction

Posted by in categories: astronomy, big data, computing, cosmology, energy, engineering, environmental, ethics, existential risks, futurism, general relativity, governance, government, gravity, information science, innovation, internet, journalism, law, life extension, media & arts, military, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, open source, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, posthumanism, quantum physics, science, security, singularity, space, space travel, supercomputing, sustainability, time travel, transhumanism, transparency, treaties

Harnessing “Black Holes”: The Large Hadron Collider – Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction

Why the LHC must be shut down

Apr 24, 2015

CERN-Critics: LHC restart is a sad day for science and humanity!

Posted by in categories: astronomy, big data, complex systems, computing, cosmology, energy, engineering, ethics, existential risks, futurism, general relativity, governance, government, gravity, hardware, information science, innovation, internet, journalism, law, life extension, media & arts, military, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, quantum physics, science, security, singularity, space, space travel, supercomputing, sustainability, time travel, transhumanism, transparency, treaties
PRESS RELEASE “LHC-KRITIK”/”LHC-CRITIQUE” www.lhc-concern.info
CERN-Critics: LHC restart is a sad day for science and humanity!

Continue reading “CERN-Critics: LHC restart is a sad day for science and humanity!” »

Apr 13, 2015

How The Grid Will Automate Web Design Without Killing The Designer

Posted by in categories: disruptive technology, internet, robotics/AI

Tyler Hayes | Fast Company


“The inherently robotic system begs to be humanized and explained. The first question Taylor had to ask himself was if what Tocchini was attempting was even possible. Could he translate design intention into an algorithm that was always producing new and relevant results—something that satisfied a broad range of needs and desires?” Read more

Apr 7, 2015

The Internet doesn’t make you smarter; you only think it does

Posted by in category: internet

by — ARS Technica

If you’ve ever lived with roommates, chances are you shared a “transactive” memory system with them. One person might have remembered to pay the bills, while another knew the contact details of the plumber. It’s common to find social systems that share the information needed by a group across all the members of that group. Systems like these make life easier for individuals, who need only keep track of who knows which nugget.

Transactive memory systems are a common feature of human social groups, but they can be technological, too—and in the case of the Internet, the relationship can be a pretty powerful one. There are already indications that we treat the Internet like a transactive memory partner, remembering only where to find information, rather than the content itself. But could we also be blurring the boundary between our own internal knowledge and the easily accessed knowledge available via search engines? A group of researchers at Yale University think that we are. Read more

Apr 2, 2015

App Maps Addresses Of Anti-Gun Violence Activists

Posted by in categories: ethics, internet

By — Fast Companyhttp://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/1280/poster/2015/03/3044336-poster-p-1-app-maps-addresses-of-anti-gun-violence-activists.jpg
On Thursday morning, a handful of anti-gun-violence activists realized there is an app in the Google Play Store with their names on it—literally. The app, Gunfree Geo Marker, features a map pinpointing the home and work addresses of politicians, gun control organization employees, and “random anti-gun trolls” who “push the anti-gun agenda in any way, shape or form.”

Clicking on a person’s name in the menu reveals their address on a Google map, along with the app creator’s reasons for including that person in the app.Read more