wiley-blog LATE LAST WEEK, a Minionesque vending machine mysteriously appeared in a parking lot near Snap’s original offices in Venice, California. It was named Snapbot, and it was there to sell Specs, the company’s goofy new picture-taking sunglasses, for $130 a pop to anyone who got there fast enough. After 24 hours, the machine disappeared…. Read more »
Posts By: David Firth
Snap’s Spectacles Are the First Camera We Actually Want to Wear
Snap, the company formerly known as Snapchat, just released its sunglasses with built-in cameras. They’re tough to get, but fun to use and they just might be the first face computer you’ll actually want to wear. Source: Wired Magazine Date: November 17th, 2016 Link to video (under Gadgets area): https://www.wired.com/ Discussion 1) How might a company you work… Read more »
The NFL’s Pittsburg Steelers experimenting with robot tackling dummies
A Mobile Virtual Player, a remote controlled robotic dummy, was introduced during Steelers workouts. The mobile dummies, developed at Dartmouth College, could aid in tackling development without the risk of players hitting each other. “The applications we are quickly finding are endless,” coach Mike Tomlin told the team’s official website. “It never gets tired. It… Read more »
Beware online “filter bubbles”
[ted id=1091] As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be… Read more »
‘Invulnerability illusion’ leaves younger people exposed to web frauds
If you’re a younger person who thinks older people are more likely to get scammed online than you are, your dodgy prince awaits. A recent Better Business Bureau study found 69 per cent of online scam victims are under 45 — and millennials are more likely to get conned than baby boomers. “Despite the perception that… Read more »
Battlefield 1: Can a video game about WW I be both entertaining and a history lesson?
After about two minutes — if you survive that long — you run out of ammo, and find yourself outnumbered. When you’re inevitably gunned down, a short card with your soldier’s name and lifespan appears on the screen — for example, “Matthew Collings (1884-1918).” Then you’re placed in the role of another doomed recruit, in another part of… Read more »
Should games firms welcome or fear Chinese conquest?
The Chinese are coming and they’re hungry for games companies. They need new content to feed their 560 million avid gamers, who contribute to the biggest gaming market in the world – worth an estimated $24.4bn (£19.8bn) in 2016, according to Newzoo. And this market is growing at around 15% a year. Source: BBC Technology News… Read more »
Dongle dilemma provokes Apple price cut
Apple now sells 17 different types of dongle. In its ever-escalating war against connectivity ports, Apple’s latest computers do away with the SD card port, a full-size USB port, and the HDMI port. Instead, you’ll need a dongle to convert those “legacy” connectors, as Apple put it, into the new, smaller USB-C port. Apple’s newest… Read more »
Facebook’s Race-Targeted Ads Aren’t as Racist As You Think
IN LATE OCTOBER ProPublica released a scathing investigation showing how Facebook allows digital advertisers to narrow their target audience based on ethnic affinities like “African-American” or “Hispanic.” The report suggested that Facebook may be in violation of federal civil rights statutes and drew parallels to Jim Crow Era “whites only” housing ads. Source: Wired Magazine Date: November… Read more »
Analyzing Social Data to Understand the US Electorate
Networked Insights analytics engine Kairos processes unstructured data from millions of sites, blogs, and social platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. Billions of public posts are then analyzed and classified across 25,000 topics, emotions, and demographics—turning noisy social data into insights. Source: Wired Magazine Date: November 9th, 2016 Link: https://www.wired.com/2016/11/faq-analyzing-social-data-understand-us-electorate/ Discussion 1) “We built 4 metrics: Awareness, Positivity, Negativity… Read more »
Leading Titles
Introduction to Information Systems, 3rd Canadian Binder Ready Version Update Edition
R. Kelly Rainer, Casey G. Cegielski, Ingrid Splettstoesser-Hogeterp, Cristobal Sanchez-Rodriguez
ISBN: 978-1-119-13385-8
August 2015, © 2016
CDN $98.95; CDN $114.95