Categories
-Updates 10.1 Online Outlaws: Computer Crime 10.4 Security and Reliability

Catching a Money Virus

Computer crime can be costly, and it’s not going away anytime soon. This Huffington Post article describes the Gozi virus, its creators, and its impact on banks and their customers.
huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/gozi-virus-fbi_n_2535282.html

Categories
-Context 8.7 Social Networks

Hashtag 101

When the American Dialect Society named “hashtag” the word of the year, they chose a word that means nothing to millions of people who don’t tweet. If you’re one of those people, this NPR story will help you to understand why so many words these days are preceded by #.
npr.org/2013/01/08/168883343/the-art-and-strategy-of-the-hashtag

Categories
-Updates 11.1 Where Computers Work 13.3 E-Business 2.0: Reinventing Web Commerce 13.5 Inventing the Future: E-Commerce Tomorrow: The Never-Ending Game 3.2 Output: From Pulses to People

3D Printing May Change Everything—and Soon

We’ve been hearing about 3D printers for quite a while. But according to this Planet Money story on NPR, the 3D printer may soon be showing up all over the place, changing the way we live, shop, and work in profound ways.
npr.org/blogs/money/2013/01/04/168627298/3-d-printing-is-kind-of-a-big-deal

Categories
-Inventing the Future 4.4 The User Interface: The Human-Machine Connection 4.7 Inventing the Future: Tomorrow's User Interfaces I 5.8 Inventing the Future: Multisensory Interfaces

Will You Be Waving Goodbye to Your Touch Screen Soon?

Just as the mouse made the command-line interface of early PCs seem primitive, the touch screen may soon put the mouse out of a job. But after you see this short video, you may think that even the touch screen is old-fashioned. Once again, science fiction points the way to future technology.
wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/01/leap-motion-asus
 

Categories
-Context 10.5 Human Questions for a Computer Age 11.7 The High-Tech Home

In Defense of Games

In the ongoing debate about the impact of video games on the human brain, emotional arguments are seldom grounded in solid research. In this TED talk, Daphne Bavelier claims that current research contradicts many common-sense beliefs about the psychological impact of fast-paced gaming. The research is still in the early stages; after all, computer gaming is a relatively new human activity. And there remain questions about violence, addiction, and other big issues. But the research described here is a small step toward understanding how what we do changes who we are.
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html

Categories
-Cross Currents 7.3 Database Trends 7.4 No Secrets: Computers and Privacy

Why Big Data Is a Big Deal

More and more, we’re living in a data-driven world. In this excellent little piece that aired recently on NPR’s Fresh Air, Geoff Nunberg gives one of the clearest explanations we’ve seen of what Big Data is and why it’s important to all of us.
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167702665/geoff-nunbergs-word-of-the-year-big-data

Categories
-Updates 13.3 E-Business 2.0: Reinventing Web Commerce 8.5 Interpersonal Computing: From Communication to Communities 8.7 Social Networks

Crowdsourcing the Car

The Internet naturally lends itself to peer-to-peer communication and commerce. In this short TED talk Robin Chase explains how she’s using technology to make car sharing easy and profitable.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/10/166890714/forget-the-register-stores-use-mobile-to-make-sales-on-the-spot