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Comment Re:an odd conclusion (Score 1) 187

Excellent point. Print magazines are in many ways the ideal ad medium. They allow advertisers to choose the type of content that the ad is attached to, but it's impractical to target individual users.

http://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered-harmful/#what-does-print-have-that-online-doesnt

Which is why Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends presentations keep showing an out-of-proportion percentage of ad spending going to print, and lower percentages going to more trackable media.

Comment "BYOL" IT? (Score 1) 600

by dmarti (#34306620) Attached to: Best IT-infrastructure For a Small Company?

The final decision on this is probably above the OP's pay grade, but consider putting employees on the "Bring your Own Laptop" plan. One of your biggest expenses at a company this size (unless you have very expensive vertical market software) is desktop hardware. Company-owned machines take a lot of hard use, and somehow people's own property lasts longer.
Cellphones

Why Overheard Cell Phone Chats Are Annoying 344

Posted by timothy from the they-drown-out-the-bark-of-my-gun dept.
__roo writes "American researchers think they have found the answer to the question of why overhearing cell phone chats are annoying. According to scientists at Cornell University, when only half of the conversation is overheard, it drains more attention and concentration than when overhearing two people talking. According to one researcher, 'We have less control to move away our attention from half a conversation (or halfalogue) than when listening to a dialogue. Since halfalogues really are more distracting and you can't tune them out, this could explain why people are irritated.' Their study will be published in the journal Psychological Science."
Handhelds

Apple Reverses iPad "No Cash Purchase" Policy 377

Posted by timothy from the so-it's-free-now dept.
ZipK writes "After a few days of bad publicity, Apple has reversed its no cash purchase policy, explaining that the policy was originally implemented to limit the number of iPads an individual could buy during the introductory period of short supply. Now that supply has caught up with demand — and the story has hit front pages and gained national attention — Apple has reversed its policy, and taken the opportunity to put a bow on the story by giving the formerly scorned Diane Campbell a free iPad."

Comment Is Google turning into AltaVista? (Score 1) 145

by dmarti (#32195154) Attached to: Google To Answer Your Questions Directly

Before Google, "search engine optimization" was basically choosing a good page title, then stuffing the page with keywords.

Then Google came along, and PageRank saved the web from crap keyword-stuffed pages. All of a sudden, placement was based on whether or not a page could attract inbound links. Life was good.

Now, Google is tracking click-throughs using JavaScript, resulting in putting less and less weight on PageRank, and more and more weight on...keyword stuffing. Yes, you're using Google Math to weed out the auto-generated crap and duplicate pages, but keyword stuffing is back in a big way. (If I were wrong about this, Demand Media and other "content farms" of crap pages would not exist.)

I'm not worried about Google making us "stoopid" but are we making Google stoopid?
Linux Business

Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source 226

Posted by kdawson from the say-pretty-please dept.
An anonymous reader touts a blog posting up at PC World titled "Trademarks: The Hidden Menace." Keir Thomas asks why open source advocates are keen to suggest patent and copyright reform, yet completely ignore the issue of trademarks, which can be just as corrosive to the freedom that open source projects strive to embody. "Even within the Linux community, trademarking can be used as obstructively as copyright and patenting to further business ends. ... Is this how open source is supposed to work? Restricted redistribution? Tight control on who can compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name? ... Trademarking is almost totally incompatible with the essential freedom offered by open source. Trademarking is a way of severely limiting all activity on a particular product to that which you approve of. ... If an open source company embraces trademarks then it embraces this philosophy. On the one hand it advocates freedom, and [on] the other it takes it away."
Science

Reversing Undesirable Fish Evolution 216

Posted by samzenpus from the make-them-bun-shaped dept.
TaeKwonDood writes "Your granddad's approach to fishing — throw the little 'uns back — may have hurt their evolution, but we can reverse that, says a group of researchers, with a change of policy. Fish have been 'reprogramming' themselves to be smaller and live longer. Welcome to evolutionary dynamics, Lamarck. But, no, they are serious. And it can be fixed within 12 generations. What do the smart people out there think about this? Are they using the term 'evolution' the wrong way?"
PC Games (Games)

WCG Tournament Director Admits Drugs In E-Sports 448

Posted by Soulskill from the hopped-up dept.
SlappingOysters writes "In the lead up to the World Cyber Games finals in Germany, Gameplayer has an incredible interview with Tournament Director Alex Walker in which he freely admits knowledge of participants taking illegal drugs to enhance their performance. The interview came in response to a previous article by the site in which they examined whether there was a need to bring drug testing into professional gaming events to ensure a level playing field. Walker said, 'I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did, although obviously they couldn't just pull out another joint midway through. In one WCG, a player I knew took amphetamines an hour before his match to boost his reflexes.'"
Bug

Dual Boot Not Trusted, Rejected By Vista SP1 525

Posted by timothy from the that's-south-of-luckless dept.
Alsee writes "Welcome to our first real taste of Trusted Computing: With Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate, Service Pack 1 refuses to install on dual boot systems. Trusted Computing is one of the many things that got cut from Vista, but traces of it remain in BitLocker, and that is the problem. The Service Pack patch to your system will invalidate your Trust chain if you are not running the Microsoft-approved Microsoft-trusted boot loader, or if you make other similar unapproved modifications to your system. The Trust chip (the TPM) will then refuse to give you your key to unlock your own hard drive. If you are not running BitLocker then a workaround is available: Switch back to Microsoft's Vista-only boot mode, install the Service Pack, then reapply your dual boot loader. If you are running BitLocker, or if Microsoft resumes implementing Trusted Computing, then you are S.O.L."
Portables

TechCrunch Wants To Create an Open Source Tablet 160

Posted by Soulskill from the i-prefer-gelcaps dept.
RKo618 writes "TechCrunch announced that they are planning to design their own $200 web tablet device. Quoting: 'The idea is to turn it on, bypass any desktop interface, and go directly to Firefox running in a modified Kiosk mode that effectively turns the browser into the operating system for the device. Add Gears for offline syncing of Google docs, email, etc., and Skype for communication and you have a machine that will be almost as useful as a desktop but cheaper and more portable than any laptop or tablet PC.' The aim is for the tablet to run on modified open source software, which will be released back to the community along with the specifications for the hardware."

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