Netgear’s WGR614L Wireless-G router openly plays nice with Tomato / DD-WRT
Filed under: Networking
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Collaborative Filtering: Lifeblood of The Social Web
Collaborative Filtering (Wikipedia definition) is a mechanism used to filter large amounts of information by spreading the process of filtering among a large group of people. Unlike mainstream media where there is either one or very few editors setting guidelines, the collaboratively filtered social web can have infinitely many editors and gets better as you increase the number of participants.
There are two basic principles involved in Collaborative Filtering.
1. The Wisdom of Crowds and Law of Large Numbers suggest that as communities grow, not only does a large (diverse, independent, etc.) community make better decisions than a handful of editors, but the larger a community gets, the better its decisions will be. Therefore, we can hypothetically create a Collaboratively Filtered newspaper, television channel, radio station, etc., which would be better (for the community) rather than any other arbitrarily selected medium. In fact, as we will see, services like Digg, YouTube, and Last.fm, are trying to do exactly that - (CF) based media outlets.
2. The second principle of Collaborative Filtering suggests that in any such large community, with enough data on individual participants and on how the individual participants collaborate or correlate with each other, we can make predictions about what these users will like in the future based on what their tastes have been in the past, i.e. develop a collaboratively filtered recommendation engine. This, of course, relies on the fact that people's interests, preferences, and ideologies don't change too drastically over time.
The two aspects of the (CF) system result in two very different and important results.
The first gives you new, interesting, entertaining, and newsworthy information as judged by the community (in a way this is content that is the average of the interests of the entire community) and a good example of this is Digg's front page. Not all the content will be directly relevant to your tastes and in fact some of it will be completely irrelevant to you. However, as the community grows and becomes more diverse and independent, the average news story promoted to the front page will be of interest to the average community member. Not satisfied with averages? This is where the second aspect comes into place.
The second aspect of the (CF) system collects information on what kind of content and commentary you like and dislike, and based on your submission and voting habits, it does user-data-profiling. This user profile helps the site recommend content that has been submitted by users (or from sources) you generally agree with and find interesting, as well as topics that you usually vote up and tend to comment on. What this means is that by collecting enough information on how you interact with the site and with other users, the (CF) system can recommend content to you. The system finds the content and deliver it to you rather than it requiring you to scout for it. Furthermore, the more you use the recommendation system and vote up or down, the better it becomes with its recommendations.
The important thing, one that not many social sites realize, is that a (CF) system that doesn't automatically match content to your preferences, is inherently flawed. The reason for this is simple: Unless you can achieve perfect diversity and independence of opinion, one point of view will always dominate another on a particular platform. The dominant point of view on the social web is a left-leaning one, and without the ability to get the most appropriate pieces of content to the people that care most about them, the right-wing point of view gets buried almost every time.
A perfect example of this was the Ron Paul supporters and the ease with which they were able to manipulate the social news sites. Now if you could match the right-wing viewpoint to the right-wingers, and the left-wing viewpoint to the left-wingers, and get both points of views across to people that are interested in healthy debate rather than partisan politics, you're getting closer to the ideal system. A filtering system with preference-based recommendations, in essence, is the future of the social web.
Who is using what system?
The (CF) system is without a doubt the lifeblood of the social web. Even though different platforms apply it to varying extents, the system is still there at the core, and the social web would look more like rush hour in downtown Lahore if the community wasn't actively policing the traffic.
Social News
In the social news space, Digg and Propeller just use the system insofar as the front page is concerned (although Digg is set to release their recommendation engine this week). Once the content is promoted to the front page, the system's job is done. The system works in that you get rid of spam and unoriginal thought, but it isn't the best because it relies on averages rather than direct preferences of each participant. While these sites try to catch up and develop recommendation engines of their own, Reddit and StumbleUpon have leapfrogged them for a while now by having recommendation engines in place. These two sites also have similar concepts of a community front page (based on the average interests of the average community member) but they enhance your experience and incentivize increased participation by using your history of likes and dislikes to deliver the most high-quality and most relevant content to you. Furthermore, the normalization of Reddit's front page shown how a one-front-page-for-all approach forces conformity and dilutes the individual experience, whereas normalization ensures that each user controls how content is distributed to him or her.
Ultimately, even though there are some sites with little or no filtering (Slashdot, Fark, etc.), sites that use their (CF) based recommendation engines will continue to diminish the importance of active filtering from upcoming submission queues and improve the quality of user experience on an individual level.
Video Streaming and Sharing
Online video sites hosting and sharing sites are not much different. Site's like YouTube have multiple filtering mechanisms that often perform the same functions without requiring votes per se. Viewability, for example, is determined by:
1. Number of people currently watching a video
2. Number of comments on a video
3. User ratings and favorites.
The problem with impressions-based system (like the one used by now understandably dead content aggregator Spotplex) is that just because you viewed something or commented on something doesn't mean that it's good. In fact, there are dozens of YouTube videos that I click on, don't like them and then close the window (I see other people writing negative comments in poor English but I doubt that helps either). Some other sites like Break and Funny or Die use a StumbleUpon-like up/down voting system to determine what gets promoted to the front page. Again, while there are options to view similar/related videos and more videos from a user you like, there is no recommendation system using your rating and favoriting habits (and tags you like).
Blogging and Microblogging
For the most part, blogs use a combination of most viewed, most linked, most commented, and highest rated, as mechanisms for displaying content that you might like. While this is a better idea than letting people go through trial and error, it doesn't ensure that every visitor will be happy with what they see. For example, two very different posts on two entirely different topics can be the most viewed posts on your blog, and I might like one and not like another. At the same time, one has to wonder, at what point is it economical or time-efficient to start monitoring each individual user?
StumbleUpon solves this problem for the 'big guys' by letting you StumbleThru one site for the content that you might like the most. The feature, however, is not available for all sites yet.
Most Microblogging sites, unfortunately, have no filtering system at all. The signal to noise ratio debate rages on with respect to Twitter and its ilk. FriendFeed, however, launched a rudimentary recommendation feature that simple displays the top 'liked' and commented links.
Photo Hosting and Sharing
When I was thinking about the concept of (CF) systems, photo-sites like Flickr and Photobucket weren't even on my radar. Part of the reason for this is how most people I know use these sites, i.e., primarily for hosting and sometimes for finding creative commons images for embedding on their sites. I was, however, quite pleasantly surprised to see that Flickr has gone a long way to help people explore and discover excellent photography.
The feature that most people are probably familiar with is Interestingness. The feature is quite robust. It takes into account things like where the referral traffic to the image is coming from, who is commenting on it and when, who marks it as a favorite and how many people like it, among other more nuanced things. But in addition to that, the site also has other great features such as exploring based on geotagging on a map of the world, popular tags, subject-based and quality-based groups, camera finder, and most recent uploads.
The only thing left to add is a 'photos you might like' based on photos you have liked and commented on.
Music Streaming and Discovery
The best implementations of a Collaborative Filtering (CF) system along with a preference based recommendation/discovery system that I have seen are always on music streaming and discovery sites. The implementation on Last.fm for example, is almost perfect in my opinion. First of all, whether you use their online streaming widget or use their desktop software, they monitor every single song you listen to and aggregate that data. They also track how artists jump on and fall off your radar on a week to week basis. They use that data to make specific recommendations and automatically create a radio station for you that plays Last.fm's recommendations for you based on what you like.
While that in itself is more than enough, they don't stop there. They have another radio station for you that plays songs you usually like to listen, they show you what the entire Last.fm community is generally listening to, what your friends are listening to, and what your friends are recommending. It is a very robust system for aggregation, filtering, and recommendation. Here's how the recommendation engine works:
As you can see, they look at the musicians I listen to a lot and then recommend people that are either similar in sound or people who were influencers of or influenced by my favorites. These are followed by recommendations from friends and music-based groups on the site.
So, collaboratively filter and recommend or die?
These are only some of the major players that have embraced (CF) and personalized recommendations - Netflix and Amazon come to mind among others. As you can see from above, it is certainly possible to have a good collaborative filtering system without a recommendation engine (as seen in Flickr). It is optimal, however, for the users (because their experience is better) and your site (because users will participate more often and generally be happy with your product) if you throw in some recommendation system a-la Last.fm, the most robust of the lot by far.
This is a guest post by Muhammad Saleem, a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites. You can follow Muhammad on Twitter.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in read write web | | Comments Off
Some Developers Leaving Google For Microsoft
recoiledsnake writes "We have heard about lots of talented developers jumping ship from Microsoft to Google, but is the trend beginning to turn? Dare Obasanjo (a Microsoft employee) writes about a few high-profile people picking Microsoft over Google — either making the jump directly, or choosing Microsoft after receiving offers at both. Sergey Solyanik is back to Microsoft and he primarily gripes about the culture and lack of career development at Google. He writes, 'Everything is pretty much run by [engineering] — PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process. Google as an organization is not geared — culturally — to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications.' Danny Thorpe, who was the key architect of Google Gears, is back at Microsoft for his second stint working on developer technologies related to Windows Live."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in slashdot | | Comments Off
TVonics rolls out tiny MFR-300 Freeview tuner
Filed under: Home Entertainment
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Web Hosting? What Web Hosting?
The folks over at Royal Pingdom have discovered an interesting trend: Google Trends shows that the number of searches for both “web hosting” and “hosting” has decreased quite rapidly in the past few years.
This could be for any number of reasons, as they’ve noticed in the post: change of terminology, or people using sources other than Google to find about web hosting.
My guess, though, is that web hosting is just no longer an issue for most users. Remember the Internet 5 or 10 years ago? If you wanted to start any kind of project on the Internet, no matter how small, the first thing everyone told you was to find a good web host. Now, you can do a whole lot of stuff without ever having to worry about web hosting. Want to create a gallery? Flickr. Blog? Wordpress. Post videos? Youtube. Web hosting is there, somewhere underneath it all, but you don’t need to worry about it - just like you don’t have to worry about having electricity.
It’s a logical course of events. The end users don’t have to worry about the sheer foundations of the Internet any more; they can focus on a specific service they need and let the provider worry about the hosting and other “unimportant” details.
In fact, I’ve checked out what Google Trends says about some other services that once seemed to be growing unstoppably. “Web design,” for example, is on an even sharper decline. “Photo sharing” and “video sharing,” however, are doing better than ever, and “social networking“, you guessed it, is on an even steeper incline.
This doesn’t mean that these services are no longer needed; it merely means that the majority of users don’t need to know about them, just like they don’t need to know about the intricacies of the way their 16 valve car engine burns fuel. On the Internet, however, these large scale changes are happening faster than in other industries; if you’re building an Internet business, you better be willing to adapt fast.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Netflix Changes Its Mind, Will Keep Profiles Feature
xChange writes "I too was disappointed at Netflix's decision to remove the Profiles feature, and let them know via email and telephone. I was surprised to find the following email in my inbox today: 'You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.' I thought that it sounded too good to be true, and went to their blog to confirm, finding this entry. Netflix decided to listen to its customers, and keep a feature that many of us find essential for our use of their service. I am surprised, and very pleased."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in slashdot | | Comments Off
Start Using the New iGoogle Today [Screenshot Tour]
Last week we told you about iGoogle's new look, which they've rolled out to a few users in June and will continue to roll out to users through July. However, if you're dying to start using the new iGoogle today you can head to the iGoogle Sandbox Sign Up page and enable the new iGoogle right now. The only catch: Google puts you on the honor system that you're a developer. If you're comfortable calling yourself a developer (there are no real checks in place), then go ahead and get started. Either way, hit the jump for a closer look at the new iGoogle.
As you can see, all of the tabs that used to be on the top are now found in a sidebar on the left of iGoogle. When one tab is focused, you can see all of the individual gadgets by name beneath the tab name.
Clicking on one of the individual gadgets will show only that gadget. So far I haven't seen anything special when focused on one gadget, but if gadgets were made to take advantage of the full view, the fullscreen focus has a lot of potential. For example, this little Gmail gadget—which doesn't do much when it's focused—could work more like a Gmail-replacement when it's focused.
Luckily Google is, in fact, planning to take advantage of this expanded view. I'm not seeing it in the iGoogle Sandbox yet, but the experimental iGoogle features help page shows Google Reader-like views for RSS feeds you've subscribed to in iGoogle like the feed for The Onion in the screenshot below.
Finally, as we reported last week, the new iGoogle integrates with Gmail chat, so you have access to the same IM in iGoogle as you do in Gmail.
If you give the new iGoogle a try and aren't happy with the new interface, you can still switch back to the standard iGoogle by navigating back the the iGoogle Sandbox link below. It won't be for long, though; even if you don't enable it through the sandbox, the new iGoogle should be hitting your Google account sometime this month.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
Snail car
If you've been to Maker Faire, you've likely seen Jon Sarriugarte's (Oakland, CA) SS Alpha Fox vehicle, or his awesome Boiler Bar. Now he and his cohort are building a Snail Car on top of a stripped down VW bug. You can follow the build here. [Via Boing Boing]
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! Tags: digg, makeRelated posts
June 30th, 2008 - Posted in make | | Comments Off
The Amazing Joy Buzzards volume 1: Here Come the Spiders
Scott says:
One of my favorite comics from the last year is The Amazing Joy Buzzards, an over-the-top title about the world's greatest rock 'n roll adventure band. With their trusty sidekick, the mythical Mexican wrestling genie, El Campeon, in tow, the Buzzards hop from one fast-paced adventure to the next, saving mankind from monsters, super-villains and evil beasties while living the rock 'n roll lifestyle to the fullest. Writer Mark Andrew Smith (Aqua Leung, Pop Gun) and and Artist Dan Hipp (GYAKUSHU!) have created a zany tour de force that will remind any reader that comics can still be fun without sacrificing story. Image Comics has just released a new "director's cut" super-deluxe trade paperback.Amazing Joy Buzzards Volume 1: Here Come The Spiders ($14.99 at Amazon) | ($15.99 at Heavy Ink)
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Boing Boing | | Comments Off
Yamaha intros YSP-3050 Digital Sound Projector
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Continue reading Yamaha intros YSP-3050 Digital Sound Projector
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Apple releases Leopard 10.5.4 update
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Looks like the latest Leopard update, 10.5.4, just landed. Nothing big, but all the details are after the break; Mac users, you know how to snag it.Continue reading Apple releases Leopard 10.5.4 update
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
ZDNet Clock Overclocks Your Mac Pro [Featured Mac Download]
Mac OS X only: Freeware application ZDNet Clock overclocks your Mac Pro's processor for faster performance. As the name suggests, the application is made by the German branch of tech web site ZDNet, and according to the download page the latest generation Mac Pro (3.1) with a 2.8GHz processor can be overclocked to 3.24GHz without increasing voltage to the CPU and without losing stability (translation: faster computer, no major risk). Overclocking has never been as easy on Macs as PCs, but the ZDNet Clock tool aims to make it just that. ZDNet Clock only works on Intel Mac Pros and the Apple server Xserve, requires OS X 10.5. We don't have a Mac Pro at Lifehacker HQ to test it on, so if you feel like being our canary in the coalmine, let's hear how it worked for you in the comments.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
Today on Boing Boing Gadgets
Today at Boing Boing Gadgets we spotted a weird Rubik cube, overclocked a Mac Pro that none of us actually own; and wondered how one fits a headphone amp in a CD-ROM drive.
What is it we do? We covet. John wants an MSI Wind running Leopard and a brilliant Invader Zim sculpture; Joel wants a vestal grenade watch and a kegerator-cum-boombox on his hitch; and Rob wants a Sound Chaser to pipe audio unicorn chasers into his ears after every bad phone is announced.
There was a hippy control net; classic flip clocks; a frightening Gigermobile; a homemade autogiro from China; an unexpectedly-useful ladybug gadget; a GLaDOS GPS hack; and a disconcerting Elvis Terminator thing.
Let there be music! If you don't like the AirPiano, try the Time Harp. The visual arts, however, are a different matter: destruction in the name of beauty and a video card with an identity crisis.
Lastly, loose lips won't sink ships with the flying dildo drone.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Boing Boing | | Comments Off
Nikon D700 DSLR shows itself in German magazine
Filed under: Digital Cameras
[Thanks, Albert]
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Your “Flavor of Love” SuperPoke Could Appear on VH1
Slide’s SuperPoke! seems to be the marketing tool of choice, especially for MTV Networks. After the success of the Juno Pregnancy SuperPoke!, MTV Network’s VH1 is now teaming up with Slide for the “I Love Money SuperPoke!Fest.” This is a gap-bridging promotion between online and on-air mediums, where a SuperPoke! on Facebook or MySpace has a chance of appearing on television. The promo will run here on VH1’s website.
Starting Wednesday July 2nd, a day before the marathons of “Rock of Love,” “I Love New York,” and “Flavor of Love” on VH1, randomly selected super pokes will appear on the related television programs. The selection for pokes are pretty wide; there are 30 different VH1-branded actions like “get romantic with” someone for the Flavor of Love show, or “throw some tongue” at someone for the “Rock of Love” show.
The online-to-on-air process won’t leave you completely in the dark — the lottery method will be used to pick SuperPoke! users to appear on-air, and you’ll be notified of your upcoming television “appearance.” Just your name and the name of your SuperPoke! recipient will appear along the bottom of the screen, accompanied by an animation of the SuperPoke! action that’s taking place.
This is an interesting method for getting users to not only become more interactive around a particular television program, but it enables VH1 to use a tactic that could actually result in more television viewers. If you know your SuperPoke! is going to appear soon on VH1, you’ll probably tune in, and tell your friends to tune in as well. I doubt I’ll be watching much of the marathon programs myself, but I am interested to find out how will this will work towards combining marketing on a cross-platform basis.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Algorithm Names Powell ‘Ideal’ Vice President Candidate
CWmike writes "Turns out the ideal vice presidential candidate for Sen. John McCain is the same person as the ideal vice presidential candidate for Sen. Barack Obama, according to a sophisticated online survey based on technology developed at MIT. Mr. Ideal? Colin Powell, a former U.S. Army general and former secretary of state. Affinnova's survey methods doesn't use the typical polling method of asking respondents to pick a name from a list. Instead, it gives respondents larger concepts, including photos, biographical information and possible first-term priorities. Affinnova calls this algorithm 'evolutionary optimization.' Steve Lamoureaux, the company's chief innovation officer, said of the VP finding: 'We never imagined that the same candidate would show up for both parties.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in slashdot | | Comments Off
Nintendo pushes back DVD-playing Wii for Japan, again
Filed under: Gaming
While those of us 'round these parts have pretty much given up on the idea of a DVD-playing Wii a long time ago, folks in Japan have had some cause for hope based on promises from the company that such a system was, in fact, headed for the country sooner or later. It seems like they're now about to enter the acceptance phase as well, however, as Nintendo has just announced yet another delay to the system with no word about an eventual release date. According to IGN, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata would only go so far as to say that due continuing worldwide supply constraints on the current Wii, "the priority is on the current model." One thing getting a boost in availability, however, is the Nintendo DS 1Seg TV tuner, which Nintendo says will get a retail release next month after previously only being available online.[Via Joystiq]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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June 30th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
