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05 Mar 2012 20:34

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Tech: Chevy halts production of its prize-winning hybrid, the Volt

  • 60K number of Volts Chevrolet expected to sell in 2012
  • 1,626 number of Volts the company has actually sold so far source
  • » But hey, it’s still a winner! Really. The Volt received some bad press since its debut, so it hasn’t sold as many cars as it could have sold. If only sold as many cars as it won awards; it just won the 2012 European Car of the Year — but the car also won the 2011 North American Car of the Year, the World Green Car of the Year and was named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. Now Chevy just needs to sell more cars, and the Volt can earn its recognition on the roads.
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Mar 2012 11:04

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Biz, Tech: The bloodshed begins: Yahoo will reportedly lay off thousands

  • 14,100 current Yahoo employees source
  • » Word is that a major restructuring is happening: New CEO Scott Thompson (no relation) reportedly plans to cut back heavily at the company, which analysts see as a key example of tech company excess, in an attempt to focus on the things the company does well. While the company has had some recent success (their Open Graph collaboration with Facebook has been a boon, for example), the company has not undeservedly built a reputation of acquiring other companies (for example, Delicious) and letting them languish under the corporate structure. It used to be mentioned in the same breath as Google, but now it’s more likely to be mentioned in the same breath as AOL. Would cuts bring Yahoo back to life?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2012 20:16

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Tech: NASA skimps on cyber security, China hacks us regularly as a result

  • 3.9% of NASA’s IT budget is allocated to cyber security
  • 13 successful hacking attempts were carried out against NASA last year source
  • » You get what you pay for: Really, guys? Thirteen times in a year? This means NASA gets hacked more often than I pay my phone bill. But maybe that’s to be expected when you spend so little on cyber security. This is all based on testimony from the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, and the rest of his testimony is quite terrifying. For example, Martin says that hackers working through Chinese IP addresses were able to gain full system access to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, steal user credentials from over 150 NASA employees, and modify system logs to cover up their tracks. Let’s hope it was just a couple of bored middle schoolers.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2012 15:15

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Tech: Out come the haters: The Pinterest backlash intensifies

  • one MacLean’s writer Lisan Jutras criticizes it for being strongly feminine, but only on the surface: “This domain is sort of like a girls-only clubhouse, but it’s not about expressing innermost desires, just surface desires—for hair, shoes, nail art, a boyfriend that exists in soft-focus black-and-white.”
  • two Thought Catalog narrows down the appeal of the service in a single damning line: “It’s the first Nora Ephron movie that you have to log into, and yep, you guessed it, there’s a wait list to join.” Their problem is stated plainly in the headline: “Pinterest: The depths we will go to not read.”
  • » A couple quick thoughts of our own: It’s possible that the success of Pinterest may reach a little bit of a plateau at some point because of the shape it’s already taken. It’s growing quickly, but the best social networks are formless in terms of the content. Anything goes on Tumblr for the most part, for example; same with Twitter and Facebook. With Pinterest, the culture has kind of limited what can work there, at least for now. It feels like, even if it hasn’t been spelled out, the parameters have been partially defined. And for businesses, minus a few obvious verticals (say, you sell clothes or artwork) Pinterest is not necessary or even desirable for building a strong brand. It could be, though, if it was repositioned slightly. These are some of the things the site will struggle with as it tries to grow. if we were them, we’d figure out ways to encourage shapelessness, so as not to scare new users off.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Mar 2012 22:40

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Tech: Three things you need to know about Google’s privacy policy changes

  • one Google consolidated its privacy policies from over 70+ to one; the change took effect today, covering services like Gmail, Google+, Google Docs and Picasa. It will also combine information from across all accounts.
  • two “We can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day,” said Google’s blog. Creepy or not?
  • threeYou can remove your Google search history, but the company could still be “gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes.” It often gives users’ personal info to the government. source
  • » An advertising play: “We can provide more relevant ads too,” Google points out. “For example, it’s January, but maybe you’re not a gym person, so fitness ads aren’t that useful to you.” More relevant for users, possibly, but more relevant for advertisers, too? It’ll be interesting to see what happens a few months down the line with this policy.
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Feb 2012 15:08

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Tech: Newly discovered fossil sets record for largest known penguin

  • 130 lbs. the weight of a considerably colossal, ancient penguin, as extrapolated from a recently unearthed fossil
  • 5 feet the portly penguin’s height, making it both the tallest and heaviest penguin known to science source
  • » Move over, Emperor penguin. While you may be the largest penguin left in these modern times, 27 million years ago you would have been dwarfed by science’s latest fossil discovery, the Kairuku grebneffi, found in New Zealand. It’s believed that their longer, curved beaks allowed them to easily spear fish for food. As described by Otago University’s Ewan Fordyce: “…relatively longer bills and a more slender body than in living species. The wing was probably able to flex a little more.”
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Feb 2012 23:08

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Tech: Gaming the system: On the rise of YouTube’s search-friendly “reply girls”

  • We’ve yet to see this phenomenon analyzed anywhere in the media, so let’s give this a signal boost: The secret to becoming popular on YouTube is to build heat. Sometimes you create something so great it goes viral on its own. Sometimes you know the right people and the right places. Sometimes, though, you’re good with the timing and keywords. That is actually an effective way to get popular on YouTube — this Pomplamoose clip, for example, was a very well-timed attempt to bank its success on a popular song at the height of its notoriety. But what if you take that philosophy to the extreme? The answer is that you end up with TheReplyGirl. Let’s explain how this works:
  • The concept A woman who claims to go by the name Alejandra Gaitan, above, has been on YouTube since August, and her main routine is to reply to popular videos, load her responses with ads, and wear something revealing, with the goal of enticing a click. She’s not alone — a woman who calls herself Megan Lee Heart, for example, posted a well-tagged video after Whitney Houston died and got 100,000 views. And hundreds of dislikes on the clip.
  • The precedent Gaitan, Heart and others are essentially pulling off an elaborate search engine optimization scheme on YouTube. Their videos show up high on YouTube search results because of strong tagging and they get clicks because of the eye-grabbing visuals. The result is that the videos themselves are extremely low-quality (Gaitan’s clips can be hard to follow at times), but it doesn’t matter, because the goal is to build up ad impressions.
  • Here’s the thing … TheReplyGirl is interesting because it’s a new twist on a relatively old idea — the production of low-quality content that shows up high in search results, which has the side effect of diluting searches. Minus the human being talking, this was basically Demand Media’s business model. The question is, though, will Google step in? They took on Demand, forcing the company to change its model. Will they do the same on YouTube?
  • Edit: Reworded part of this for clarification.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

24 Feb 2012 21:48

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Tech: Microsoft appears to be killing off longtime product lines in Windows 8

  • Zune This death was kinda obvious for a while, but now the Zune appears to have zero presence in the upcoming version of Windows. Seriously, they lost their biggest fan like four years ago — the writing has long been on the wall.
  • Live More surprising is the fading away of the Live brand, which anchors many of their online messaging services; “Microsoft Account” will replace Windows Live ID. The company appears to be trying to simplify their brand naming. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Feb 2012 22:45

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Tech: Open-source fans, here you go: Ubuntu for Android ahoy!

  • After months of rumors, Canonical has unveiled Ubuntu for Android, a version of the ultra-popular Ubuntu Linux kernel that boots from Android mobile devices. We’ll let the video do the rest of the talking. source
Posted by Scott Craft • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Feb 2012 21:16

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Tech: Crazy but true: Google wants to be your cable TV provider in Kansas City

  • then In May 2011, Google made Kansas City, Missouri the second location of their highly-sought-after Fiber Project. The deal? A reasonably-priced one gigabyte-per-second fiber optic internet connection for roughly 50,000 to 500,000 people. Google: Your internet company.
  • now Google just filed for a video franchise license with the Missouri Public Service Commission. Reports claim Google will do something similar in Kansas next week — suggesting Google’s ready to tackle Time Warner Cable on the television front, too. source
Posted by Scott Craft • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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