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Friday, January 31, 2003 |
Something new in Mac weblogs.
9:31:44 PM 
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The architecture of data-rich public spaces. 
I looked out the window this morning and was greeted by a six-story-high image of George Bush. I was in Times Square, on the 19th floor of a hotel, facing the brobdingnagian information display that ascends and wraps around the Reuters building. Movies like Blade Runner conditioned us to expect these displays. Minority Report updated the concept with aggressive personalization. But the Reuters display is about something different, and far more interesting, than the advertising techniques imagined in those movies. Its designer, ESI's Edwin Schlossberg (yes, that Edwin Schlossberg), has profound ideas about public information display as a focus for interaction. From Wired 10.12:
Schlossberg's next big thing is the Reuters News Index, an addition to the sign that debuts in 2003. Roughly every hour, a 304-foot thermometer will appear onscreen measuring how "hot" the news day is on a scale of zero to ten. Schlossberg hopes it will inspire people on the street to turn to each other and say, "Did you see that? The News Index just shot up to 6 degrees -- what have you heard?"
The Index is calculated using Satran's Algorithm - developed by Reuters and R/GA, and named for veteran Reuters editor Dick Satran. Every 15 minutes, the formula crunches four data points: the total volume of stories filed from Reuters' 200 offices in 97 countries; the number of priority one and priority two stories filed (editors assign a priority code to each report coming off the Reuters wires); and the total number of Reuters.com hits logged in the previous 15 minutes. At one early meeting with Reuters editors, ESI design manager Gideon D'Arcangelo recalls, "one of them said that if we really wanted to make the index true to life, we ought to factor in the blood pressure of Reuters editors, too." [Wired]
... [Jon's Radio]
7:56:52 PM
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New hope for ISPs and other TLAs. Scott Mace on Mitch Kapor's talk at Stanford on Wednesday: ...an ISP, acting as an ASP, could take Chandler's calendaring system (fully integrated with the other components of Chandler, such as email, instant messaging, a directory, authentication, managing tasks, and other workflow aspects of PIMs) and extend it. Such extensions could serve focused customers or markets, combining the freedom and flexibility of standards-based open-source solutions at low cost, while at the same time creating a steady revenue stream by licensing solutions to customers that tailor Chandler's capabilities to the customer in question... Traditional commercial software is not up to this task. It costs too much and it's too hard to modify. Chandler won't be the only alternative. Software based on components built in Java, XML, pieces of Microsoft .Net, and others will also provide ways to do what I've just described. But the key is to open up the software development process in such a way that a whole range of service providers can assemble best-of-breed software components in a just-in-time fashion to solve a problem, whether it's calendaring, workflow or even more sophisticated applications, at lower cost.
This agrees with my sense that there's a new software business slowly taking shape. Not sure what it is, exactly, but it's not the old model at all. [The Doc Searls Weblog]
6:40:58 AM
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What is a k-log?. Some people are taking the concept of weblogs and applying it to the wider concept of knowledge management. The result is k-logging ("knowledge-logging"). But will it catch on - will your employer dump Lotus Notes databases in favour of browsers and blog-style brain-dumps? [WriteTheWeb]
6:39:24 AM
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Yahoo News - Telemarketers Sue to Stop Do-Not-Call List. Four telemarketing companies and a trade group filed suit in federal court in Oklahoma City to stop the Federal Trade Commission from setting up a program that would allow consumers to place their names on a list of households that do not want to receive such calls. Telemarketers who ignore the FTC's list would face fines of up to $11,000. Callers for charities and political groups would be exempt. The FTC's proposal, which could be up and running as early as August, has won unprecedented support from consumers who have swamped the agency with more than 50,000 letters of support. But telemarketers say 27 existing state do-not-call lists and a voluntary national list run by the Direct Marketing Association trade group should provide consumers enough protection. In the suit, the DMA and four telemarketing firms said the FTC's effort would violate free-speech laws and discriminate against an industry that provides millions of jobs. [ ... ] One privacy advocate said the suit had little chance of success, as federal courts have upheld similar laws banning unsolicited faxes. "The DMA are plainly going though the motions that they must know will be ineffective simply to placate some of their members," said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp., a privacy consulting firm. The proposal cleared a crucial hurdle earlier Wednesday when a House of Representatives committee voted to give the FTC the power to collect fees from telemarketers to pay for the list. [ ... ] A DMA spokesman said the suit was filed in Oklahoma City because one of the plaintiffs, U.S. Security, is based there. But one privacy advocate said the case was filed there because Oklahoma falls in a federal circuit that is known to be sympathetic to business interests in privacy cases. "This is a strategy known in legal circles as 'forum shopping,"' said David Sobel, general counsel at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. [Privacy Digest]
5:41:32 AM
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School News from Wired News - FTC Eyes 'Educational' Marketers. Companies that snooker students into revealing personal information under the guise that it will be sent to colleges better watch it. The FTC is cracking down on outfits that sell survey data to marketers. [ ... ] The FTC began investigating deceptive student surveys in December 2001. According to the investigation, ERCA sent surveys to teachers and guidance counselors that asked for students' names, addresses, gender, date of birth, religious affiliation, racial and ethnic background and extracurricular interests. The FTC found that information collected from high school and middle school students, which was supposed to be sent on to colleges and universities, was also being shared with banks, consumer goods and service providers, and other list brokers. "We found very little middle school data was tabulated into any report shared with colleges and universities," said Laura Mazzarella, attorney for the FTC's bureau of consumer protection. [Privacy Digest]
5:39:17 AM
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CNET NEWS.COM - Verizon appeals RIAA subpoena win. Verizon Communications is asking an appeals court to block a court order that would reveal the identity of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate to the music industry. In what is widely viewed as a test case pitting privacy against copyright laws, Verizon said on Thursday that it would file the request for a stay with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals by the end of the day. "Verizon will use every legal means to protect its subscribers' privacy," said John Thorne, a senior vice president for Verizon. "If this ruling stands, consumers will be caught in a digital dragnet, not only from record companies alleging infringement of their copyright monopolies, but from anyone who can fill out a simple form." [Privacy Digest]
5:37:54 AM
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iApps proxy?. I am unable to make any of Apple's iTools work properly. I can however, open and access my iDisk. Backup can't find the .Mac server and I am unable to publish iCal calendars, yet I can subscribe to them.
I have a funny feeling this is a proxy problem. I am forced to use one here in Belgium, and I have it set properly in my system preferences. Any thoughts on this one?
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
5:33:29 AM
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TGIF.
5:24:10 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Paul W. Swansen.
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