12 posts and columns on researchers

Voices

The Sleepless Elite

in News on April 5, 2011 at 4:30 am PT

For a small group of people–perhaps just 1 percent to 3 percent of the population–sleep is a waste of time. Natural “short sleepers,” as they’re officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously.

Humanity's Last Hope at "Jeopardy" Is Named Rush Holt

in Enterprise on March 1, 2011 at 10:45 am PT

It took a congressman who’s also a nuclear scientist and former “Jeopardy” champion in his own right to do what Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter failed to do: Beat IBM’s Watson.

Done With Silly Game Shows, IBM's Watson Finds a Job

in Enterprise on February 17, 2011 at 7:45 am PT

Having licked the puny humans on TV games shows, the Watson supercomputer, or at least one like it, will be put to work on ways to help doctors make better decisions.

Why Is Google Spending $10 Million on Fflick? Perhaps to Predict Box Office Success.

in Enterprise on January 25, 2011 at 4:36 pm PT

Fflick tells you what movies your Twitter friends like and dislike. Google may be dropping $10 million on the service for something far more valuable than that.

Voices

Word-Wide Web Launches

in News on December 17, 2010 at 12:00 am PT

Language analysts, sifting through two centuries of words in the millions of books in Google Inc.’s growing digital library, found a new way to track the arc of fame, the effect of censorship, the spread of inventions and the explosive growth of new terms in the English-speaking world.

Google Buys Phonetic Arts to Make Machines Sound Human

in Commerce on December 3, 2010 at 2:06 pm PT

Google is beefing up its voice services with today’s acquisition of Cambridge, England-based Phonetic Arts. Google’s view is that voice will be critical going forward to making mobile devices with small screens and keyboards more useful.

SFund Invests in a Not-Particularly Social Site, FindTheBest.com

in Social on December 1, 2010 at 9:11 am PT

Kleiner Perkins last night closed one of its first publicly disclosed funding rounds coming from its new sFund, an initiative designed to bring the august firm into the realm of the social Web. The company at the receiving end of the dollars is FindTheBest.com, a vertical database creator.

News Byte

Android Apps Transmitting Private Data

in News on September 30, 2010 at 10:55 am PT

A new study shows that many popular Android apps transmit private user data to advertising networks without the user’s consent or knowledge. Researchers from Duke, Penn State and Intel Labs developed an application called TaintDroid, which detects such transmissions, and tested 30 apps from the Android Market–half of which were found to be sending GPS coordinates to remote servers. The developers of the TaintDroid application plan to make it available to the public to enable user awareness of data collection.

Voices

A Data Deluge Swamps Science Historians

in News on August 28, 2009 at 9:42 am PT

In a vault beneath the British Library here, Jeremy Leighton John grapples with a formidable challenge in digital life. Dr. John, the library’s first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today’s discoveries and better understand the people who made them.

Another Critic Tries Stomping on the Long Tail

in Media on December 22, 2008 at 6:09 am PT

Chris Anderson’s influential Web theorem says that endless choice equals unlimited demand. But a new study argues that most people want the same stuff–and no one wants that unpopular stuff, period.