The Pirate Bay Launches Free VPN
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Mick Darling's posterousAll my blogging in one spot. (mostly)Filed under: readerThe Pirate Bay Launches Free VPN
bs0d3 writes "The Pirate Bay team is going to be making the RIAA angry, with the launch of a new ad-supported VPN service. PrivitizeVPN is available for free from The Pirate Bay. Instead of earning revenue through subscription as ipredator does, PrivitizeVPN comes packaged to install the Babylon search bar (adware). PrivitizeVPN appears to be available for Windows users only at the moment. The Pirate Bay staff has a long history of promoting services that have no logs; e.g. , you can't get in trouble if your anonymized IP is subpoenaed by government officials. Although PrivitizeVPN is being released silently, with no press coverage, no official statement, and no comments from The Pirate Bay of any kind, people are assuming that PrivitizeVPN will have the same familiar data protection policies. A backup download location has been setup here for people who have limited access to the Pirate Bay domain."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. How to Use Drafts to Speed Up Your Mobile Note Writing [Writing]
The iPhone and iPad app, Drafts, is an excellent way to quickly jot down a note without worrying about where it goes. But if you dig deeper, it's far more than that—it's a speed dial for all your text based work, a text app launcher of sorts—and it has replaced every writing app I have on my iPad and iPhone. More »
LG's Game World landing on its own Smart TVsLG has just announced Game World, a new Smart TV portal that's only available to Cinema 3D Smart TV owners. The service will let users snap up downloadable games in categories such as action, RPG or arcade, then play them in 2D or 3D with the company's Magic Remote or other third-party controller. The service is not to be confused with LG's Gaikai cloud gaming service, and the company said most of the titles will be family-friendly. Mind you, that looks like Shadowgun on the main page above, so there's clearly some grown-up only entertainment, too. Continue reading LG's Game World landing on its own Smart TVs Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Internet, HD LG's Game World landing on its own Smart TVs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/27/lg-game-world-smart-tv/Hisense Pulse Google TV set-top box coming in November for $99 Continue reading Hisense Pulse Google TV set-top box coming in November for $99 Filed under: HD Hisense Pulse Google TV set-top box coming in November for $99 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/27/hisense-pulse-coming-in-november-for-99/Can Success Be Measured?The idea of analyzing real-time data in appealing reports and dashboards is becoming more realistic as big data and data analytics come into play. As companies obtain more and more data, the demand to store, process, and analyze large datasets at low costs is increasing exponentially. The time now is ripe as data storage has gotten extremely cheap making it more efficient and cost effective to store massive quantities of data. I remember just 10 years ago I bought my first laptop for college with an external wireless card, a 3.5 floppy disc drive, and only a 30GB hard drive. A few weeks ago I went out and bought a new laptop with a 1TB hard drive. It is amazing how much data we can store just on our hard drives now. It is no secret; education in the United States has been on the decline for the past 30 years. There are many theories as to why this is happening but I believe it is because the education industry as a whole is slow to react and adopt new technologies. Now with education institutions offering online classes there is the opportunity to increase data collection and analytic efforts. This data could be: website data, application data, admissions data, student records, course evaluations, student performance records, learning management system data, social media data, alumni surveys, etc. Of course there are many challenges in an education institution and the one that is of most concern is cost. Aggregating data, structuring database systems, and creating an analytics platform is very expensive and time consuming. However, then there is the barrier of understanding what data analytics is. How can data analytics help the institution? What problems does it help solve? Does the institution need something like this to remain competitive?
There are many education institutions that have implemented innovative solutions that use data to help solve issues and make decisions. Arizona State University created a system called “eAdvising” that helps students follow a plan by informing them when to take key courses. The system even alerts students if they get off track or begin to perform poorly. The Austin Peay State University in Tennessee created a similar analytics program called “Degree Compass” which provides students a customized list of course recommendations based on degree requirements as well as predicted grades. There are several more efforts going on and you can read more about them here. Many online schools are using data analytics for many operational tasks from tracking student activity online to analyzing how their students interact with the online course material. Similar to Google Analytics, these institutions are creating dashboards and reports that show student activity, logins, interactions, participation, time spent on content, number of assignments, grades, submissions, and more. These reports are created for students, professors, and course designers to ultimately analyze the activity and feedback to help make improvements. img All of this data seems very interesting to me, but can it be useful? The trend I see is a lot of institutions are analyzing some of the quantitative data available, but why not all and what about the qualitative data? What about the college experience? Does it really matter how well a student did in a course if the student thought it was a waste of time or too easy? I think data can be useful when making decisions, improving course content, and improving learning outcomes, but can success of the student be measured or predicted? Since every student comes from a unique background with different experiences why only concentrate on quantifying and assigning data values to a student’s behaviors? I believe data analytics will be very useful for institutions in the near future, but the true innovators will find a way to correlate students’ performance in school with post-graduate performance and career success. Analyzing the outcomes of the student and correlating their satisfaction could really help the institution understand what will work for future students with similar backgrounds. I believe this is the answer to our declining education system and our team at College Miner has stepped up to the plate ready to take a swing at it. We just need more people to pitch us the ball. from BostInno http://bostinno.com/channels/can-success-be-measured/ In cloud storage war, Mover arms developers with data migration toolsAs the so-called cloud storage wars between services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and others rage on, Canadian startup Mover wants to make a name for itself as an arms dealer in the ongoing battle for dominance. The five-person company, which is based in Edmonton, Alberta, this week graduated from Vancouver’s GrowLab accelerator and won a ‘startup smackdown of 24 startups at the GROW Conference, which also took place this week in Vancouver. The company’s pitch is that as different cloud storage providers vie for consumer attention, developers (the startup’s target audience) should be able to easily move their data between platforms and integrate user data stored across them. Its bullish closing tagline: “There is a cloud storage war coming, and Mover is selling the guns.” As a judge for the startup competition, I was interested by the company’s one-minute elevator pitch. As my colleague Barb Darrow has written, businesses of all sizes want secure, reliable cloud storage and several players are attempting to meet that demand. But moving data between the different platforms can be a challenge.
A few other companies, such as Otixo, Cloudring and SMEStorage, offer file transfer services. But founder and CEO Eric Warnke told me that his startup’s ultimate vision is bigger than that. “Moving files is just the tipping point of what we want to do,” said Warnke. “We’re going to be this leveling layer for all Web services.” Instead just offering a single-feature app that transfers files, he said they want to be a platform for satisfying all of a developer’s cloud-based needs. Down the road, developers could use Mover to move statistics data, whole databases and entire apps, he said. But they could also use it to integrate with data stored by their users in the cloud. For example, if a fashion app centered around image recognition needs to access pictures stored by users across different cloud storage providers, it could let Mover take care of that function and focus on the features that are core to the app’s experience. The company has partnered with Box and is running pilots with other cloud companies like Oxygen Cloud and Egnyte, but its focus will ultimately be developers, whom it will charge depending on how frequently they use its APIs and how much data they’re moving. Two Ways Local Students are Innovating This Year’s Presidential Election & Making Us More Informed
First, we have the Super PAC App created by recent Harvard Kennedy School graduate Jennifer Hollett and MIT Sloan School of Management graduate Dan Siegel. The app operates in the same way Shazam does with music: Users can simply hold up their phone while watching a political TV ad to identify the commercial and receive objective, third-party information. The app also reveals how much money was spent on the ad, as well as the organization who funded it and whether the claims made are based on fact. This year’s presidential race is the first since the creation of Super PACs — political action committees that can raise and spend an unlimited amount of money to campaign for or against candidates — making this app incredibly important in the now. “The hope is that the average voter feels more engaged and informed,” said Hollett in an interview with Forbes. The Super PAC App will also be able to help individuals sift through the overwhelming pool of information that’s out there. And one piece of that is money, which is why there’s also Politify. Founded by Nikita Bier and Jeremy Blalock of UC Berkeley, the team has also received the help of student Jacob Cole from MIT. Through Politify, voters can discover the financial impacts of the 2012 presidential candidates’ plans. Politify’s forecasts are based entirely on the official policy platforms listed on Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s websites. Using family structure records, financial data and reports from non-partisan think tanks, Politify models the U.S. economy to replicate the impact the duo’s political policies would have on American households. As the team writes: “Politify is setting out to solve one of the oldest problems in democracy: Which candidate best serves our individual interests?” And as the election heats up, that’s the question we’re going to need to answer before stepping into the ballot booth. Are you sure you’re making an informed decision? from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/08/26/two-ways-local-students-are-innovating-this-ye...Personal Energy Orb Arduino project knows you haven't been exercising, cripples your computer
Spending too much time indoors? You need a Personal Energy Orb, a glowing Arduino powered ball that allows you to trade physical exertion for a tolerable mouse speed. Developed by two students at the University of Munich for a physical computing course, the PEO connects to a bike-mounted revolution counter to note how far a user rides, counting the total distance toward usable time on a computer. A fully "charged" green orb will allow a user to use their PC unhindered -- but a spent red orb will drag Windows' cursor sensitivity settings to its lowest. The idea, the project's creators say, is to annoy the user off of the computer and back on to their bike. It sure sounds aggravating to us. Check out the full homework assignment at the source link below, complete with goals, follies and Python scripts. Filed under: Misc Personal Energy Orb Arduino project knows you haven't been exercising, cripples your computer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Aug 2012 02:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink PSFK | Sketching with Hardware | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/26/personal-energy-orb-aruino-project-knows-y...
Dropbox Rolls Out Two-Step Verification; Use It [Dropbox]
Most security-minded computer users know about Google's two-step verification process, but other popular webapps like Facebook and Amazon have also added this great way of reducing your chances of being hacked. Today, Dropbox joins the two-step verification party . More »
Why Arrested Development on Netflix could change everythingWhoever might be employing me in the spring of 2013, know this: The moment Netflix debuts the return of Arrested Development, I’m calling in sick. Because on that glorious day, me and the hundreds and thousands of other devotees will be in our pajamas, in front of our laptops and iPads and Xboxes and Rokus, once again enjoying the antics of the Bluth family. Arrested‘s rebirth, over four years in the works, has the potential to completely change the game in terms of the way we regard web content in the future. I mean, cult network sitcom gets a literal second life through the largess of a company that began life as a mail-order DVD service? If you time-traveled to 2006 (the year Fox originally canceled the show), and told this story, no one would believe you. And yet, it’s happening: scripts have been written, producer/narrator Ron Howard’s Tweeting from the set, and David Cross, on a recent press blitz, said no shortage of interesting things about the series’ return, including this to Rolling Stone:
This is the sort of statement that would make a network executive’s head explode, due to the way traditional TV is budgeted and structured on a per-episode basis. But we’re on Netflix’s turf now. Unexplored territory. Beyond Lilyhammer, which has been renewed for a second season, the industry hasn’t gotten much sense yet of how Netflix’s many high-profile in-the-works projects, such as Arrested, the Eli Roth series Hemlock Grove or the Kevin Spacey-starring House of Cards, will really work out — especially because the question of how to promote a VOD project is still a bit up in the air. With theatrical releases, you get premiere dates, big galas. But Netflix is so stealthy about announcing what’s available and what isn’t that websites and email services have been created to update people. Without doubt, I’ll know what day I’m calling in with the Arrested flu next spring — it’s impossible to imagine that not being heavily promoted by both the production and Netflix — but the Netflix experience in general has always boiled down to “Wait, THAT’S available now? Okay, cool.” Seeing how Netflix adapts to accommodate the original programming they’re launching, while still enabling the casual browsing of the user experience, is a fascinating challenge. The other element is the fact that like Lilyhammer, all 10-13 episodes of the series will be released at once, setting fans up for epic marathon sessions. The term “binge viewing” has been coined to describe how many TV fans now consume shows, gulping up entire seasons on DVD or streaming services. It’s a wonderful way to fall in love with a show — just sinking into it the way you might sink into an epic novel. And Arrested‘s new season, according to Cross, sounds designed with just that experience in mind:
Given the show’s pre-established track record for hidden jokes and gags, this sounds more than promising.
The AMC series Breaking Bad is a key example of a show that’s grown its audience thanks to binge viewing, indicated by how its ratings have increased with each season, as new viewers discover the show through Netflix. But Vince Gilligan, in a recent interview with KCRW’s The Business, had this to say about the phenomenon:
It’s an attitude you’ll hear elsewhere in the industry — which may be why Netflix is doubling down on its subscription model. I couldn’t track down the budget for Arrested Development‘s new season, but House of Cards‘s price tag was reported by some as $100 million, and Hemlock Grove, it’s said, is budgeted at $40 million for 13 episodes — otherwise known as about $3 million an episode. That’s real TV money — in fact, it’s the same budget as Breaking Bad. It’s a long time until the spring of 2013, but looking forward it’s hard to imagine a more important signpost for the convergence of television and the web than Arrested Development. If it succeeds, it’ll legitimize a whole new distribution platform and business model. And if it fails, well, we’ll at least get to see Tobias in his cutoffs again. The TV singularity approaching us consumers of media is at times a scary one: We’re used to shows that cost millions an episode, but we’re also now used to consuming whatever we want, wherever and whenever we want. Some people think that going forward, these two mindsets won’t be able to co-exist. But Netflix seems to disagree, and the Bluths may be the ones to prove it. |
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