5 posts and columns on Carl Bialik

Computers Can See You — If You Have a Mug Shot

in Social on September 6, 2011 at 4:30 am PT

When rioters wreaked havoc on some U.K. cities last month, police deployed facial-recognition technology to try to identify some of the participants.

Wi-Fi Threat to Trees Rooted in Shaky Stats

in News on December 10, 2010 at 4:17 pm PT

Recent headlines in international newspapers, on television news and in technology blogs highlighted a startling statistic from the Netherlands—70 percent of urban trees are sick, up from 10 percent a few years earlier.

Rise and Flaw of Internet's Election-Fraud Hunters

in News on July 1, 2009 at 4:00 pm PT

Protesters on the streets of Tehran questioning the recent Iranian presidential election results have gotten support from a new breed of election watchers: Internet-enabled anomaly hounds who say the numbers don’t add up.

Behind Sexting Survey, Debate Over How to Poll Teens

in News on April 8, 2009 at 10:34 am PT

It seemed like more troubling evidence that kids these days engage in behavior they wouldn’t want to write home about. Researchers recently found that one in five teenagers have shared nude or seminude photos of themselves by cellphone or online. That statistic has become a fixture in articles about “sexting” and its social and legal implications. But that number may be inflated, because the same teenagers who have engaged in such behavior could be the ones most likely to say they have done so in an online poll.