Tag: technology
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Software Project Metrics and Control: They Don’t Matter (Sometimes)
Software project metrics are not as important as we have been led to believe, and the field of software engineering has evolved to such a state as to almost be almost… over. This is according to the eminent software engineer Tom DeMarco who, looking back at his 1986 book on the subject, Controlling Software Projects:…
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‘Bit Culture’ and the Benefits of Distraction
The information consumption habits of many in the younger generations–one feature of the ‘Internet information culture’–has many merits, despite its many detractors. So says Ban Casnocha in an article for The American that acts as both a review of Tyler Cowen’s Create Your Own Economy and a fairly positive and comprehensive overview of the “bit…
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A Beginner’s Guide to SEO
SEOmoz has done a lot for my perception of SEO companies: before I became aware of them a number of years ago, I was wary of the entire sector (with good reason, many would say). To help us all understand the world of legitimate SEO a bit better and to provide a primer on how…
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Privacy and Identity on the Internet
Jeffrey Rosen, law professor at George Washington University (GWU), has called the current incarnation of the Internet “a digital world that never forgets” in a recent piece on privacy for the The New York Times. It’s an astute article looking at the idea of segmented identities, the search for a way to safely control our…
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Sergey Brin’s Search for a Parkinson’s Cure
After discovering that he held the LRRK2 mutation on his twelfth chromosome (indicating that his lifetime risk of developing Parkinson’s disease is 30-75% rather than the typical 1%), Google co-founder Sergey Brin became one of the first philanthropists to fund research into a disease based on the results of a genetic test. In Thomas Goetz’s…
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Privacy and Tracking with Digital Coupons
Data collection and mining can be quite lucrative pursuits for many retailers, and technological advances are providing them with more novel and extensive methods of doing just that. Data mining is a topic I’ve been fascinated with ever since I was introduced to it in university, and this look at how digital coupons track us…
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The Technological Timeline and Science Education
In this brief profile of the Czech-Canadian academic Vaclav Smil–dubbed as Bill Gates’ tutor–we are treated to his thoughts on “the main things we should be worrying about (or not)” from his latest book and his opinion on science education and the maturation timeline of new technologies: [Vaclav Smil] is (almost) resigned to the fact that…
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The Role of Good Progress Bars
For the increasingly complex applications that we deal with on a daily basis, progress bars are an important feature in order to provide users with a constant experience of progression, efficiency and engagement. After explaining the benefits of progress bars (see above!), Gavin Davies then delves deeper into the topic, looking specifically at the role of…
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The Business of Invention
By separating invention from manufacture we can create a strong “capital market for inventions”, says former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold*, and this will bring about greater creativity and rewards for all concerned. Myhrvold is currently the CEO and cofounder of Intellectual Ventures (a company he freely admits as being “reviled as a patent troll”) and…
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The World as the Extended Mind
That the tools and technologies we use act as extensions to our brains is nothing new: this is the extended mind theory. Indeed, last year I pointed to Carl Zimmer arguing that Google–and thus the Internet as a whole–was an extended mind. However, Scott Adams’ take on the ‘exobrain’ is simultaneously the most concise and…