New reporter? Call him Al, for algorithm By Rob Lever | AFP – 8 hours ago The new reporter on the US media scene takes no coffee breaks, churns out articles at lightning speed, and has no pension plan. That's because the reporter is not a person, but a computer algorithm, honed to translate raw data such as corporate earnings reports and previews or sports statistics into readable prose. Algorithms are producing a growing number of articles for newspapers and websites, such as this one produced by Narrative Science: "Wall Street is high on Wells Fargo, expecting it to report earnings that are up 15.7 percent from a year ago when it reports its second quarter earnings on Friday, July 13, 2012," said the article on Forbes.com. While computers cannot parse the subtleties of each story, they can take vast amounts of raw data and turn it into what passes for news, analysts say. "This can work for anything that is basic and formulaic," says...
Posts
Homeland Security warns of hackers targeting popular Niagara software By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Friday, July 13, 12:16 PM The Department of Homeland Security on Friday warned that a popular system used by organizations around the world to manage millions of machines and devices over the Internet is vulnerable to attack from hackers. The software system known as the Niagara Framework enables corporate, military, health-care and other users to remotely control or monitor medical devices, elevators, video cameras, security systems and a wide array of other sensitive operations. In an alert issued Friday, cybersecurity officials said that Niagara users should immediately prohibit guest users, bolster passwords, cut off direct access to the Internet and take other steps to prevent hackers from exploiting configuration and software flaws. “Disable the ‘guest’ and ‘demo’ user accounts if enabled,” says the alert, issued by the department’s Industrial Control Systems Cy...
10 file-sharing options: Dropbox, Google Drive and more Sharing files with one or more colleagues can still be a hassle. We look at 10 online services that aim to make it easier. Serdar Yegulalp July 13, 2012 (Computerworld) Remember the first time you tried to send a 4GB video file as an email attachment? Anybody who has tried to share a large file with a friend or colleague understands all too well to the problems that are involved. Email attachments can get rejected, especially if you don't know what the upper limit on a file size is for sender or recipient. Uploads and downloads can be arbitrarily slow. And the clunkiness of the whole process makes it hard to get real work done. In the bad old days, if you wanted to distribute files that were too hefty for your email to handle, you had few choices. You could buy some web-hosting space and use that to distribute files on the fly to your co-workers and collaborators, you could burn a disc or copy the file to a USB...
Solar storm incoming: Federal agencies provide inconsistent, confusing information Posted at 12:31 PM ET, 07/13/2012 By Jason Samenow Visualization of a solar flare and wave of charged particles known as a coronal mass ejection (NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory) A wave of plasma stoked by an X-class solar flare , the most intense type, is headed towards Earth. This blast of charged particles, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), is forecast to ignite a geomagnetic storm on Earth over the weekend. NOAA predicts it will be minor, maybe moderate. NASA says it will be moderate to severe. I ask: which intensity will it be and why aren’t these two science agencies on the same page? The intensity of the inbound CME matters. If NOAA’s right, and the ensuing geomagnetic storm is minor, it’s no big deal. It means the high latitudes could be treated to some brilliant auroras over the weekend with few, if any, negative effects on earth-orbiting satellites or the...
Apple Removes Green Electronics Certification From Products July 6, 2012, 6:49 PM ET Joel Schectman WSJ Reporter Apple has pulled its products off the U.S. government-backed registration of environmentally friendly electronics. Apple asked EPEAT, the electronics standards setting group, to pull its 39 certified desktop computers, monitors and laptops, which included past versions of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, off the list of green products late last month, Robert Frisbee, CEO of EPEAT told CIO Journal. EPEAT, created through funding by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and manufacturers, awards products a seal to certify they are recyclable and designed to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental harm. In order to meet the standards, recyclers need to be able to easily disassemble products, with common tools, to separate toxic components, like batteries. The standards were created jointly by manufacturers, including Apple, ...
Twitter to unveil major 'search and discovery' update today Company's Pankaj Gupta, who runs the Personalization and Recommender Systems, says that search and discovery on the service will "change forever." by Don Reisinger July 6, 2012 5:05 AM PDT Twitter could be planning a major update to its search and discovery feature later today, according to one of its employees. Twitter's Pankaj Gupta, who runs the company's Personalization and Recommender Systems, sent out a tweet yesterday congratulating his team on an improvement to its search and discovery tools that, he says, will dramatically change the service. "Search and discovery in Twitter [is] set to change forever after tomorrow," Gupta tweeted. "Team -- congrats and enjoy the enormity of your impact few understand today." Twitter has quickly realized that improving the user's ability to access relevant information from the service is a key component...
European parliament throws out online piracy pact By Arnaud Bouvier | AFP – Wed, 4 Jul, 2012 The European parliament on Wednesday threw out a controversial global pact to battle counterfeiting and online piracy, quashing any EU ratification and possibly killing it for good. Twenty-two of the 27 EU states as well as other countries, including the United States and Japan, signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in January but the treaty has yet to be ratified anywhere amid protests that it would curtail Internet freedom. The parliament ignored European Commission pleas that the treaty was needed to protect the economic interests of companies hit by counterfeiting and online piracy. Members voted by 478 to 39 against the pact, with 165 abstentions, ignoring a last-minute call by conservatives for them to wait until the European Court rules on its conformity with European Union law. The run-up to the vote, which followed the line of every parliamentary...