Description: Anderson Cooper looks at a portion of the user-generated news site Reddit and its potentially illegal content. Source: CNN .com. Date: Oct 1, 2011 Questions for discussion: Who should police the content on the Internet? Why Is there any content that should not be allowed on the internet? What?
Posts Categorized: EXAM ARTICLE
When Machines Get Ahead Of Us
Description: Two recent articles in the New York Times highlight two different aspects of a single phenomenon: we build powerful machines, their capabilities lead to unintended consequences, and they ensnare us in some unforeseen way. Source: Forbes.com. Date: Sept 20, 2011 The first discusses a new technology, an improvement, really, of a technology that’s been… Read more »
No Cards, No Cash. Just a Phone.
Description: Plenty of companies would love to get their hands on our wallets. But Google wants to go one step further: it wants to be our wallets. Source: NYT.com. Date: Sept 21, 2011 Its new phone software, called Google Wallet, is intended to replace the credit cards in our actual wallets. It does sound pretty… Read more »
Cloud Computing May be a Shot in the Arm our Economy Needs
Description: Economists and pundits have long feared the emergence of what they called “hollow corporations,” or businesses that don’t actually produce actual goods or services themselves, but instead act as brokers or intermediaries relying on networks of suppliers and partners. Source: Forbes .com. Date: Sept 19, 2011 Where are these services coming from? Look to… Read more »
How to increase your search engine optimization
Description: Every company wants to be the first listing in a Google search. Some spend thousands of dollars making sure their websites are search accessible. This process is called search engine optimization (SEO). It’s certainly legal and quite common. Source: USAToday .com. Date: Sept 16, 2011 Big problems arise when you employ illegal tactics, often… Read more »
Best Buy Gets Amazoned: Is It Doomed?
Description: Is it plausible to expect that Best Buy’s sales clerks will offer better advice than the many expert reviews on the Internet, augmented by the hundreds or thousands of customer reviews for Best Buy’s bread and butter products? Source: Forbes .com. Date: Sept 15, 2011 My friend, Paul Carroll, is peeved at Best Buy. … Read more »
Writing Machines — Their Uses and Meaning
Description: A Sunday business column in The New York Times looked at the work of a start-up, Narrative Science, that combines computer science and journalism. Its software takes data and converts it into stories — short summary-style articles so far, but ones that don’t really read as if they were written by a machine. Source:… Read more »
A hacker’s attack sheds light on internet security holes
Description: The encryption used by many websites to prevent eavesdropping on their interactions with visitors is not very secure. This technology is in use when Web addresses start with “https” (in which “s” stands for secure) and a closed lock icon appears on Web browsers. Source: Globe&Mail Date: April 7, 2011 The Electronic Frontier Foundation,… Read more »