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| Google patents search that tracks your mouse moves |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: theregister.co.uk |
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| Hover-over-but-don't-click-through rate. Google has patented a system that displays search results and ads based on where you move your mouse. Mountain View first filed for the patent — dubbed a "system and method for modulating search relevancy using pointer activity monitoring" — in February 2005, and the US patent office rubber-stamped the application earlier this month, as noticed by TechEye. Search engines such as Google's already order search results according to click-through rates — i.e., how often users click on particular hyperlinks. The new patent takes this idea a (large) step further, looking to reorder search results by monitoring when users show interest in web content without actually clicking on it. "If the information being sought...is already available...in the search results (i.e., not requiring the user to click though to receive additional information), [today's] search engine may not receive user feedback about the relevancy of the informational item to the search," reads the patent-speak. "There is a need for collecting user feedback with respect to informational items presented in response to a search query and adjusting the relevancy values of the items in accordance with the user feedback, even if there is no click through information about one or more of the informational items." |
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| Original URL (new window): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/27/google_patents_mouse_movement_search_tweaks/ |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:44 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| Battle joined for future of open source IPS |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: theregister.co.uk |
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| Snort bares teeth at DHS-backed project Analysis The battle to develop the next generation of open source intrusion prevention systems (IPS) technology is intensifying between incumbent Snort and a US government-backed project, the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF). Disagreements over technical issues such as the relative importance of developing IPS systems that support multi-threading have lately been accompanied by increasingly acrimonious exchanges that have taken a political dimension, with the Snort camp accusing the OISF of having nothing to show for $1m in public funding. Au contraire, OISF members argue. The OISF project is in an advanced stage of development (see the project status report here) and is only needed in the first place because the Snort camp sat on its laurels and failed to innovate. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/27/intrusion_prevention_tech_fight/ |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:41 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| Nobody would pay for Twitter, literally |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: blorge.com |
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| Would you pay to use Twitter? If you answered “Yes” then congratulations, as you’ve just gone completely against the grain. If you answered “No” then join the club. The Web is still in its infancy, relatively speaking. And that means it’s still finding its feet, still evolving, still finding its place in the grand scheme of things. However, it doesn’t take long for a precedent to be set, with people such as you and I quickly getting used to a certain way of doing things. For the Web this means that it’s now become the norm for websites to be free and, usually, supported by advertising. Sure, there are some genres of site which lend themselves to being paid for, such as sites offering copyrighted media. But these have somewhat had the rug pulled out from under them by the rise in file-sharing. Generally speaking, most websites have taken a free approach to this point, and that has set a precedent that is going to take a phenomenal effort to overcome. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2010/07/27/nobody-would-pay-for-twitter-literally/ |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:39 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| Apple sued over iPad overheating in sunlight |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: cnet.com |
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| Most gadget owners know that leaving any piece of electronic equipment in the direct sunlight isn't a great idea. Now an iPad owner, who claims their touch-screen tablet overheats and turns off when left in the sunlight, is suing Apple. Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the complaint was filed Friday in federal court in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit is seeking class-action status and asks for unspecified damages because the device "overheats so quickly under common weather conditions." The suit says Apple's iPad "does not live up to the reasonable consumer's expectations created by Apple. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20011873-260.html |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:31 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| GameStop will buy social gaming site Kongregate |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: afterdawn.com |
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| Continuing its foray into the digital distribution world, giant video game retailer GameSpot has announced it intends to purchase the social gaming site Kongregate for an undisclosed amount. GameSpot has been, for a long time, a brick-and-mortar business, with little pull in the digital distribution world. Kongregate has 10 million players monthly, each of which uses the site to play Flash games while interacting with other players. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2010/07/28/gamestop_will_buy_social_gaming_site_kongregate |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:30 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| In L.A., Google Blowing Big Cloud Marketing Chance |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: computerworld.com |
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| Google just can't seem to get it right in the City of Angels. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Google missed the June 30 deadline for its closely-watched contract to move the City of Los Angeles' e-mail system over to Gmail from its current Novell Groupwise e-mail platform. The main point of contention for Google is the Los Angeles police department, which has strict guidelines for how its data is secured. In a meeting with city council members, according to the L.A. Times, LAPD CIO Maggie Goodrich said that the department's security requirements have not been met. When asked by a city council member which party is to blame, Goodrich replied: "In my opinion, it was Google that didn't deliver the security requirements." |
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| Original URL (new window): http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179740/In_L.A._Google_Blowing_Big_Cloud_Marketing_Chance?taxonomyId=86 |
| Date Posted: Jul,27 2010 - 09:29 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| More IT means lower salaries for uneducated workers |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: arstechnica.com |
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| If you don't have enough education, information technology can have a negative impact on your salary, according to a research paper published this week. A study on the education level of workers in Hong Kong and the penetration of IT in their fields showed that IT can lead to higher salaries—but only for highly educated individuals. Contrary to previous research, scientists found that IT has actually depressed the salaries of many less-educated workers. The authors of the paper suggest that retraining programs for unskilled workers are in order. However, computers are replacing workers at more and more complicated tasks, and eventually it may be skilled workers that need to make sure they are able to adapt to new technologies, lest they be displaced by them. Research on the economic interaction between the use of IT and education has been fairly limited so far, but one study in 2003 did find that IT seemed to have beneficial effects to some degree on all workers' salaries, from construction workers to bankers. To refine the picture a bit more, another group of researchers decided to look more directly at IT's interaction with education, and took metrics from Hong Kong's 2006 census on salary, education level, and the penetration of IT technology in various industries. The data showed that the penetration level of IT and its interaction with education did have a beneficial effect on salaries. Highly educated individuals will earn much more money in an industry with high IT penetration, like finance or community and social services, while a low-education, low-IT field like construction gets only a small bump. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/06/workers-need-education-to-stay-ahead-of-it-curve.ars |
| Date Posted: Jun,28 2010 - 09:17 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |
| Porn's New Domain is Good News |
| Posted by: Shaun |
| Story Author: pcmag.com |
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| Too bad competing interests will probably make the .XXX domain all but useless. Now that ICANN has given the nod to a new .XXX top level domain for pornographic web sites, all the old concerns and arguments have risen from the dead. The most laughable of these is that this is some sort of official sanction for smut or that it "validates" the adult business. That's a quaint, if blinkered, idea. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. For those that haven't been paying attention, digital porn predates the web. Early bulletin boards were rife with it and yellowed copies of PC Magazine from the early 80's and 90's featured a surprising number of adult-only BBS service ads. When the Web arrived to the masses in the mid 90's, I don't imagine that the adult industry saw it as something that would transform the adult business, but it was certainly viewed as yet another adult material transport mechanism. In those early days, many online users had the unfortunate experience of stumbling on blatantly sexual online content. There was no Google back then, just Northern Lights, Alta Vista and Yahoo. People did not begin their Web browsing experience, as they often do today, with a search query. Instead, they used portals and typed in URLs. Interestingly, people didn't know all the URLs for major web sites and so they would enter their best guess. "Whitehouse.com" was one such guess. |
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| Original URL (new window): http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365773,00.asp |
| Date Posted: Jun,28 2010 - 09:15 pm |
| 0 comments posted - [ Post/View Comments ] |