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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 51
Volume 15, Issue 51 Atari Online News, Etc. December 27, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1551 12/27/13
~ Porn Filters Backfire! ~ People Are Talking! ~ New Guinness Title!
~ Giving St Nick A Boost! ~ Italy Delays Google Tax! ~ Tracking Santa!!
~ Inside Look at Google! ~ "Dogecoin" Gets Hacked! ~ Rap Genius Banished!
~ Tablets A Hit With Kids ~ Turing Gets Royal Pardon ~ Bye Bye, Web Bile!
-* PS4 Winning The Console Wars? *-
-* Santa Logs 19.58 Million Web Visits! *-
-* Atari, Other Old Consoles Come to Browsers *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, another year is coming to a close in a few days. It's going to be a
year that I'll be glad to see end, for a number of reasons!
I hope that your holidays were enjoyable. For us, we spent the holiday
with family and had a nice celebration. Hopefully, your holiday time
was equally enjoyable. We hope that you'll all ring in the new year
with a lot of fun, but please do so safely; we want you all to be around
for the new year - Happy New Year, 2014!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - More Evidence Suggests PS4 Is Winning The Console Wars!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" NY Man's 10,607 Video Games Secure Guinness Title!
Atari and Other Old Consoles Come to Your Browser!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
More Evidence Suggests PS4 Is Winning The Console Wars
Were still very early in the game and the Xbox One has a lot going for it
that could help it trounce the PlayStation 4 over the long haul. However,
in these early stages weve seen several bits of evidence that all point
to Sonys PlayStation 4 having a slight but persistent lead in its battle
against Microsoft and the Xbox One. And now we have two more data nuggets
that seem to show that the PS4 is maintaining its slight early edge in
the console wars heading into 2014.
First, Benzinga reports that a poll of readers conducted earlier this
month shows that more would prefer to get a PlayStation 4 for Christmas
this year (41.2%) than would prefer to get an Xbox One (37.3%). While this
is obviously just one survey, its results line up with other data weve
seen such as Googles recent report showing that the PS4 generated
slightly more search traffic this year than the Xbox One and also sales
figures that show PS4 sales are pacing just slightly ahead of Xbox One
sales.
Our second tidbit comes to us from Ars Technica, which notes that the PS4
is now outselling the Xbox One on eBay by a margin of two-to-one. This
isnt as clear-cut a win for Sony, however, because strong eBay sales
could simply be a reflection of more constrained PS4 supplies that have
made the console harder to find than the Xbox One so far.
Feeling Nostalgic? Atari and Other Old Consoles Come to Your Browser
Plenty of PlayStation 4s and Xbox Ones were unwrapped this year around the
Christmas tree, but 30 years ago it was the parents doing the unwrapping
to reveal a shiny new Atari 7800 or Colecovision. And now the Internet
Archive lets you play games on those old-school consoles right in your
browser.
Announced in a blog post at Archive.org on Thursday, the new Web-based
console emulators are still in an early stage. An emulator is a kind of
"virtual machine" that lets the data normally stored on cartridges or
disks their "read-only memory," or ROM to be run as if it were on the
console itself.
Included are the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Colecovision, Magnavox Odyssey2
and the Astrocade. There are dozens if not hundreds of games available
for each one; some may technically still be the property of one company
or another, but there aren't many people buying Atari cartridges these
days, so the publishers of these old games often allow them to be
distributed for free.
The Web-based emulator is a work in progress: Some games have bugs, others
don't run at all, and sound hasn't been implemented yet (those bleep-bloop
sounds are half the fun). But you can still relive the first few screens
of "Pitfall" or try to survive a few minutes of "Asteroids." No downloads,
no configuration, no nothing.
Nevertheless, the holidays are often a time of nostalgia, and this may be
a good opportunity to show the next generation that their parents were
gamers, too though they'll soon find things were much different back
then.
If you'd like the capability to play these games without a browser, you
can download MESS, a multiple-system emulator for old consoles like the
Atari series, or search for other emulators of your favorite old
consoles.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
NY Man's 10,607 Video Games Secure Guinness Title
Maybe it was getting his first video game, Cosmic Avenger, for Christmas
at age 12, and then having to wait an entire year for the hard-to-land
Colecovision console to play it on that made Michael Thomasson so
determined to get his hands on every video game and system he could find.
Now, 31 years and roughly 11,000 games later, Thomasson is the newly
crowned world record holder for having the largest collection of video
games. He is featured in a two-page spread in the just-released "Guinness
World Records 2014 Gamer's Edition."
"I have games on cartridge, laser disc. I have VHS-based games,
cassette-based games," Thomasson said, standing among the collection that
fills the basement of his suburban Buffalo home.
Along with the games, he has the devices to play them on, not only the
Xboxes and PlayStations but obscure ones like the Casio Loopy, the only
game system specifically geared toward girls, which came out in Japan in
1995, and the Pippin, a dud released by Apple the same year.
"Every game on it is awful," Thomasson says of Apple's foray into the
gaming world. "It's the least fun of anything in the house."
At the other end of the spectrum is the old Colecovision unit like the one
that appeared under the Christmas tree one year after his grandparents
gave him his first game for it. They had mistakenly believed his parents
had gotten their hands on the playing system, which was a hot item that
year. It stands to this day as the best present his parents ever gave
him.
"It's my first love so it's sentimental," Thomasson said. But the games
also were quality, with very little of the "shovelware" mediocre, rushed
releases typical of many systems, he said.
"They looked good, they played good. For the time they sounded good," he
said, "for the bleeps and blips of the 80s."
Thomasson began collecting almost immediately, he said, but the path to
the world record had a couple of restarts. He sold off his collection
twice, first in 1989 to raise money for a Sega Genesis, then again to pay
for his 1998 wedding. ("I was heavy into collecting when we married so
she knew what she was getting into," he says of his wife, JoAnn.)
Since then, Thomasson has methodically rebuilt the collection, averaging
two games per day on a strict $3,000-a-year budget which means never
paying full price.
He estimates the collection is worth $700,000 to $800,000.
He hasn't played every game. The father of a 5-year-old, Anna, Thomasson
designs games and teaches 2D animation, game design and the history of
video games at Canisius College in Buffalo. He also writes on the topic
for magazines and books.
"I probably get three hours of playing in a week," he said. "If I'm
lucky."
Guinness lists the number of games in Thomasson's record-breaking
collection at 10,607, though he said the number exceeds 11,000 now, a year
after the official count and after discovering forgotten stashes of games
after the counting crew left.
Either way, it bested the previous record holder, Richard Lecce, who held
the record first recorded in 2010 with 8,616 games.
"My congratulations to a fellow collector," Lecce, 39, said by phone from
his Florida home upon hearing his record had fallen. "It's very impressive
and I'm very happy for him."
Lecce began collecting as a way to own all the games he couldn't have as
a kid, he said, and grew to appreciate their place in pop culture.
Still an active collector, Lecce hasn't counted his games in the last few
years and doesn't know what his number has grown to, but he has no
immediate plans to challenge Thomasson for his old record.
"It's something I did for my own enjoyment. I applied for the Guinness
book for my kids so that years from now they can look back and say, wow,
my father was in the 'Guinness Book of World Records,'" Lecce, a father
of two and numismatist, a rare coin dealer, said.
He's happy to see more people collecting, and appreciating, video games.
"Everything from the original artwork to the actual code that was written
for the games to the actual box art and the whole marketing plan," he
said. "It's just a very undervalued and underappreciated art form."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
NORAD Tracks Santa Logs 19.58 Million Web Visits
The North American Aerospace Defense Command's Santa-tracking program
logged 19.58 million unique visitors to its website on Christmas Eve.
NORAD said Thursday that volunteers answered 117,371 calls from children
seeking information on the jolly old elf's whereabouts. First lady
Michelle Obama was among the program's 1,200 volunteers.
An additional 146,307 followed Santa's progress on Twitter. The program
also got 1.45 million "likes" on Facebook.
Those numbers are up from last year when volunteers answered 114,000 phone
calls from around the world. The website had 22.3 million unique visitors.
NORAD Tracks Santa had 1.2 million followers on Facebook and 129,000 on
Twitter.
The Christmas tradition of tracking Santa began in 1955 when a local
newspaper advertisement invited children to call Santa but mistakenly
listed the hotline of NORAD's predecessor.
5 Things To Know About Tracking Santa's Journey
For kids who can't wait for Santa to arrive, the North American Aerospace
Defense Command has a Christmas treat. Visions of sugar plums can be
augmented by a check on the fabled fat man's progress around the globe on
Christmas Eve. Here are five things to know about the holiday tradition
called NORAD Tracks Santa:
1. HOW DO YOU FOLLOW SANTA'S PATH?
NORAD provides updates by phone, Facebook, Twitter and email. If you call
877-HI-NORAD, an operator will give you an update. Online:
http://www.noradsanta.org . Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noradsanta.
Twitter: @NoradSanta. Email: noradtrackssanta@outlook.com. Smartphone
apps also are available at app stores.
NORAD's Santa operations center opened at 6 a.m. EST on Dec. 24 and has
received tens of thousands of calls from around the world. This year,
Santa's first stop after leaving the North Pole was Novoye Chaplino,
Russia, NORAD said. The Canadian naval ship Regina reported seeing Santa
on its radar near the Arabian Sea. Santa usually ends his trip in North
America and South America. "Santa calls the shots," NORAD says on its
website. "We just track him!"
2. HOW MANY PEOPLE FOLLOW SANTA?
Last year, volunteers answered 114,000 phone calls from around the world.
The website had 22.3 million unique visitors. NORAD Tracks Santa had 1.2
million followers on Facebook and 129,000 on Twitter.
Among the questions kids have had on their minds when they called in
previous years:
"Am I on the nice list or the naughty list?"
"Can you put my brother on the naughty list?"
"Are you an elf?"
"How much to adopt one of Santa's reindeer?"
3. WHY DOES NORAD DO IT?
In 1955, a local newspaper advertisement invited children to call Santa
but mistakenly listed the hotline of NORAD's predecessor. Rather than
disappoint the kids, commanders told them they indeed knew where Santa
was. NORAD, a U.S.-Canadian operation based at Peterson Air Force Base
in Colorado Springs, Colo., continues the tradition every Christmas Eve.
4. WHY WAS THERE CONTROVERSY THIS YEAR?
A children's advocacy group complained that an animated video on the NORAD
Tracks Santa website injected militarism into Christmas by showing fighter
jets escorting Santa's sleigh on a 39-second video promoting the event.
NORAD says the fighter escort is nothing new. NORAD began depicting jets
accompanying Santa and his reindeer in the 1960s.
5. HOW DOES NORAD TRACK SANTA?
Using the same satellites it uses to track missiles, NORAD says it is
able to detect heat signatures from Rudolph's nose.
High-Tech Santa: 5 Devices To Give Old St. Nick A Boost
Every year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracks
Santa Claus' location on Christmas Eve, to the delight of millions who
visit the military's website that night.
If a high-tech military operation can track Santa, couldn't technology
also give the jolly old elf a hand in finishing his rounds? After all,
Santa isn't getting any younger, and Christmas Eve isn't getting any
longer.
So what should be on Santa's wish list this year to help him guide his
sleigh from the North Pole and get presents to all the good girls and
boys of the world? Here are a few suggestions. (Note: LiveScience is not
being paid to promote these products. We're simply concerned for Santa's
well-being.)
1. A 3D printer
Manufacturing is a tough business, what with outsourcing, supply problems
and the cost of labor. Perhaps Santa's elves could stay competitive if
they caught up with the 3D-printing craze. Desktop 3D printers for home
use are just coming on the market, and they're capable of turning digital
instructions into 3D gizmos. Santa and his elves could even move beyond
plastic as a material with a new, open-source 3D metal printer that costs
less than $1,200, compared with $500,000 for a commercial device.
2. An updated naughty/nice list.
Parchment and paper are so 20th century. Santa needs something a bit
snazzier perhaps a tablet? LAPTOP magazine's Avram Piltch suggests
Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1. It comes with a pen and note-taking
applications, so Santa won't have to take off his gloves to swipe at the
screen (nor will he have to worry about tablet typing with chubby
fingers). The tablet allows users to open two apps at once, so Santa can
keep his naughty/nice list open while consulting Google Maps for
directions to his next stop.
3. High-tech gloves
Santa's white gloves provide a nice contrast to his bright-red suit, but
they won't do for the tablet era. Who wants to have to take off their
gloves to use a touch screen or open an app? Dutch designer label Mujjo
sells a line of touch-screen gloves that register on smartphones and
tablet screens just fine. There's even a double-layered gloves for chilly
climates like the North Pole, and the gloves are super-stretchy, so the
aforementioned chubby fingers shouldn't be an issue. These gloves would
ensure that if Santa were to drop his stylus from the sleigh midair,
he'd still be able to access his list and directions.
4. GPS capabilities
Rudolph, with his nose so bright, may do just fine at keeping Santa's
sleigh on course. But a little backup couldn't hurt. Santa needs to take
advantage of the global positioning system (GPS).
GPS has been around since 1995 and is now so ubiquitous in phones and
cars as to be taken for granted. Originally a military project, GPS uses
satellites positioned in orbit that transmit periodic messages with the
time and their location to Earth. GPS receivers on the planet's surface
capture and triangulate these space-based messages in order to pinpoint
location.
An emerging line of GPS trackers can even help Mrs. Claus keep an eye on
her husband. These devices can show where someone is and where they've
been Perfect for Christmas Command Headquarters.
5. Protective gear
One disadvantage to entering the digital age is that most tech gadgets
aren't built for the cold. Apple recommends operating its devices only
between 32 degrees and 95 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees and 35 degrees
Celsius).
What's an Arctic-based elf to do? A Kickstarter-funded company has a
possible answer. Salt Cases uses NASA-developed materials that protect
spacecraft from the chill of space and the heat of a launch to keep
smartphones, laptops and tablets cozy. The thermal layers in the cases
refract heat away when it's hot and reflect warmth into the device when
it's cold. The company even offers appropriately Christmasy red cases.
Italy Delays 'Google Tax' Until July
Italy delayed the start of its planned Internet tax until July 2014,
approved billions of euros in business and welfare measures and extended
a ban on media cross-ownership in a final package of year-end legislation
approved on Friday.
The launch of an Internet tax, sometimes dubbed the "Google tax", passed
this week by parliament, will be postponed until July, 1, 2014, Prime
Minister Enrico Letta's office said in a statement. The delay should
ensure it can be more closely coordinated with other European countries.
The tax, designed to ensure that companies that advertise and sell online
in Italy do so only through companies with a tax presence in the country,
has been criticized by the European Commission, which expressed doubts on
its legality before it was approved in parliament.
The delay was contained in the so-called "Milleproroghe" ("thousand
extensions"), a catch-all decree used by Italian governments to pack in
miscellaneous pieces of legislation that must be approved before the
start of the new year.
The package announced after Friday's cabinet meeting included measures to
allow Italy to use 6.2 billion euros in European Union funds, which have
already been approved, to help small businesses, fight youth unemployment
and help local economies by funding the maintenance of historic sites.
It also extended provisions, which would have otherwise expired,
forbidding newspaper publishers from operating national broadcasters. This
is a highly sensitive political issue given center-right leader Silvio
Berlusconi's extensive television interests.
The package also contained measures to shore up the finances of the city
of Rome and allow the cancellation of a number of expensive rental
contracts on buildings used by parliament and the public service, an
issue on which the government has been attacked by the opposition 5-Star
Movement.
Anti-porn Politicians Website Blocked by Porn Filters She Advocated
As was predicted by just about everyone, the United Kingdoms initiative
to get U.K. ISPs to add default pornography filters has been a complete
and utter disaster so far. Not only have the filters been blocking access
to pornographic content but theyve also been blocking access to health
information websites and charity websites among other unintended targets.
There is some justice to come out of all this, however: The Independent
reports that the filters have also blocked access to the website of
Conservative MP Claire Perry, who has been one of the leading crusaders
for implementing porn filters in the U.K. It seems that Perrys website
contained information on her assorted anti-pornography campaigns, which
was apparently enough to get her site caught in the porn filter dragnet.
Although many Britons will be happy to see the government scrap its porn
filter plans, we can also imagine them petitioning to keep the block on
Perrys website upheld for the foreseeable future.
Bitcoin Alternative 'Dogecoin' Hacked, 21 Million Coins Stolen
Take two of 2013's biggest Internet sensations - bitcoins and the Shiba
Inu puppy nicknamed "Doge" - and smash them together. What you get is
Dogecoin, a virtual currency that was hacked during the holidays.
Although 21 million dogecoins were lost in the heist, they only amounted
to about $12,000 in value. In comparison, bitcoins are now valued at
close to $750 a piece, and a bitcoin hack in November lost 4,100
bitcoins, totaling $1.2 million.
The hack caught Jackson Palmer, a co-founder of the currency, by surprise.
"It's interesting that there has been a focus [on dogecoins] in the short
two or three weeks we've been up and running," he said. "I think it's
crazy that it can happen, but maybe these hackers are trying to get in
early."
He and the other co-founder of Dogecoin, Billy Markus, are looking to beef
up security in the next month, Palmer added.
Even though the idea of dogecoins started as a joke, Palmer said, it has
grown in popularity. "For the majority of their people, it's their first
experience with cryptocurrency," he told ABC News. "It's a lot more
accessible and the majority of people are having a lot of fun with it."
A single dogecoin might only be worth a fraction of a penny, but Palmer
does see it being useful as a currency, though maybe not in the real
world.
"People are trading coins for small purchases, like in an online game
where you can purchase a different set of armor," he said. "I think
that's a really good place [for Dogecoin]."
Rap Genius Website Banished for Trying To Game Google
Whether you were preparing for your bar's karaoke night or settling a bet
about the exact words to "Like a Rolling Stone," you've likely stumbled
across lyrics websites in your Google search results.
One of those websites, Rap Genius, was caught trying to pull a fast one
to appear more prominently in searches. As a result, Rap Genius has been
vanquished to the Google underbelly. Searching for the phrase "Rap
Genius" won't bring up the website until the fifth page of a search.
A recent email published by blogger John Marbach appears to be the origin
of Rap Genius' woes. Marbach asked about blogging opportunities with Rap
Genius and received an email from one of the site's co-founders, Mahbod
Moghadam. According to the email, Rap Genius would promote Marbach's
posts so long they included several links back to Rap Genius pages
devoted to Justin Bieber songs, even if Marbach's post had nothing to do
with the pop star.
After Marbach posted the email on his own website, it became popular on
Hacker News, where it caught the attention of Matt Cutts, the head of
Google's Webspam team. The search engine's linking policy says that
"creating links that weren't editorially placed or vouched for by the
site's owner on a page ... can be considered a violation of our
guidelines."
As a result, Google came down on Rap Genius and banished it to Internet
limbo.
Rap Genius admitted its mistake. "This is where we messed up," wrote the
Rap Genius founders in an open letter of apology to Google on the Rap
Genius website. "In some instances, we have fallen short in terms of
making sure that the links people post are natural."
But Rap Genius said that other lyrics websites have also violated
Google's linking policy. "With limited tools, we found suspicious
backlinks to some of our competitors," said the founders. "We'd love for
Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and
see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search
results."
Bye Bye, Bile? Websites Try To Nix Nasty Comments
Mix blatant bigotry with poor spelling. Add a dash of ALL CAPS. Top it
off with a violent threat. And there you have it: A recipe for the worst
of online comments, scourge of the Internet.
Blame anonymity, blame politicians, blame human nature. But a growing
number of websites are reining in the Wild West of online commentary.
Companies including Google and the Huffington Post are trying everything
from deploying moderators to forcing people to use their real names in
order to restore civil discourse. Some sites, such as Popular Science,
are banning comments altogether.
The efforts put sites in a delicate position. User comments add a lively,
fresh feel to videos, stories and music. And, of course, the longer
visitors stay to read the posts, and the more they come back, the more a
site can charge for advertising.
What websites don't want is the kind of off-putting nastiness that spewed
forth under a recent CNN.com article about the Affordable Care Act.
"If it were up to me, you progressive libs destroying this country would
be hanging from the gallows for treason. People are awakening though. If
I were you, I'd be very afraid," wrote someone using the name "JBlaze."
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has long been home to some of the
Internet's most juvenile and grammatically incorrect comments. The site
caused a stir last month when it began requiring people to log into
Google Plus to write a comment. Besides herding users to Google's unified
network, the company says the move is designed to raise the level of
discourse in the conversations that play out under YouTube videos.
One such video, a Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family,
met with such a barrage of racist responses on YouTube in May that
General Mills shut down comments on it altogether.
"Starting this week, when you're watching a video on YouTube, you'll see
comments sorted by people you care about first," wrote YouTube product
manager Nundu Janakiram and principal engineer Yonatan Zunger in a blog
post announcing the changes. "If you post videos on your channel, you
also have more tools to moderate welcome and unwelcome conversations.
This way, YouTube comments will become conversations that matter to you."
Anonymity has always been a major appeal of online life. Two decades ago,
The New Yorker magazine ran a cartoon with a dog sitting in front of a
computer, one paw on the keyboard. The caption read: "On the Internet,
nobody knows you're a dog." At its best, anonymity allows people to speak
freely without repercussions. It allows whistle blowers and protesters to
espouse unpopular opinions. At its worst, it allows people to spout off
without repercussions. It gives trolls and bullies license to pick
arguments, threaten and abuse.
But anonymity has been eroding in recent years. On the Internet, many
people may know not only your name, but also your latest musings, the
songs you've listened to, your job history, who your friends are and even
the brand of soap you prefer.
"It's not so much that our offline lives are going online, it's that our
offline and online lives are more integrated," says Mark Lashley, a
professor of communications at La Salle University in Philadelphia.
Facebook, which requires people to use their real names, played a big
part in the seismic shift.
"The way the Web was developed, it was unique in that the avatar and the
handle were always these things people used to go by. It did develop into
a Wild West situation," he says, adding that it's no surprise that Google
and other companies are going this route. "As more people go online and
we put more of our lives online, we should be held accountable for things
we say."
Nearly three-quarters of teens and young adults think people are more
likely to use discriminatory language online or in text messages than in
face to face conversations, according to a recent poll from The
Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV. The
poll didn't distinguish between anonymous comments and those with real
identities attached.
The Huffington Post is also clamping down on vicious comments. In
addition to employing 40 human moderators who sift through readers'
posts for racism, homophobia, hate speech and the like, the AOL-owned news
site is also chipping away at anonymous commenting. Previously, anyone
could respond to an article posted on the site by creating an account,
without tying it to an email address. This fall, HuffPo began requiring
people to verify their identity by connecting their accounts to an email
address, but that didn't appear to be enough and the site now also asks
commenters to log in using a verified Facebook account.
"We are reaching a place where the Internet is growing up," says Jimmy
Soni, managing editor of HuffPo. "These changes represent a maturing
(online) environment."
Soni says the changes have already made a difference in the quality of the
comments. The lack of total anonymity, while not a failsafe method, offers
people a "gut check moment," he says. There have been "significantly fewer
things that we would not be able to share with our mothers," in the HuffPo
comments section since the change, Soni says.
Newspapers are also turning toward regulated comments. Of the largest 137
U.S. newspapers - those with daily circulation above 50,000 - nearly 49
percent ban anonymous commenting, according to Arthur Santana, assistant
communications professor at the University of Houston. Nearly 42 percent
allow anonymity, while 9 percent do not have comments at all.
Curbing anonymity doesn't always help. Plenty of people are fine
attaching their names and Facebook profiles to poorly spelled outbursts
that live on long after their fury has passed.
In some cases, sites have gone further. Popular Science, the 141-year-old
science and technology magazine, stopped allowing comments of any kind on
its news articles in September.
While highlighting responses to articles about climate change and
abortion, Popular Science online editor Suzanne LaBarre announced the
change and explained in a blog post that comments can be "bad for
science."
Because "comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media
culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock
scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories," wrote
LaBarre.
We can't wait to see the response to this story.
Former Interns Give Us An Inside Look at What Its Like To Work at Google
Googles internship program is one of the most sought-after and widely
discussed in the United States, so its no wonder that Hollywood deemed
the experience worthy of an overblown film adaptation. Although the
interns admit that their internships werent quite as eventful as Owen
Wilsons time with Google in the movie, they have shared their
experiences on Quora, discussing everything from the hefty paychecks to
the internal structure of the search giant.
Business Insider has picked through the thread to share the most
interesting tidbits. One of the key components to an internship with
Apple is the secrecy, but at Google, things are a little different.
The open office also mirrors how open the company is internally, said
former intern Molly Long. There are quite literally, no secrets. Theres
TGIF/TGIT every Thursday where Larry and Sergey, the founders, answer
company-wide questions, broadcasted to the entire company. They present
the new Google technologies so they can get feedback on it from everyone.
For example, Google Glass, was presented at TGIF, several months before
it was announced [to the] public.
Google has high hopes for everyone that works at its offices, and the
company expects the interns to make themselves heard. When you start your
internship with Google, you are assigned to a product area and a team
within that area. If it doesnt suit you, you can decline the offer and
have the opportunity to work with another team instead.
Working with the most talked-about company around the globe is a reward
of its own, but that doesnt mean there arent plenty of perks to go
along with a Google internship.
One thing that makes Google internships special is the perks you get just
as any other Google employee, said Paul Baltescu, an intern from
2010-2011. [There's] free food & refreshments, free gym membership,
laundry, dancing lessons, etc. Intern events are also loads of fun: you
may go to paintball, laser tag, watch a SF Giants game and all summer
interns go on a luxury boat trip on the San Francisco Bay.
Designing the most widely used applications and services in the world is
certainly a Herculean task, but between the trust, the perks, and, oh
yeah, the average wage of $6,700 per month, you cant go wrong with an
internship at Google.
Tablets A Hit With Kids, But Experts Worry
Tablet computers are so easy to use that even a 3-year-old can master
them.
And that has some pediatricians and other health experts worried.
Since navigating a tablet generally doesn't require the ability to type or
read, children as young as toddlers can quickly learn how to stream
movies, scroll through family photos or play simple games.
That ease-of-use makes tablets and smartphones popular with busy
parents who use them to pacify their kids during car rides, restaurant
outings or while they're at home trying to get dinner on the table. And
many feel a little less guilty about it if they think there's educational
value to the apps and games their children use.
The devices are expected to rank among the top holiday gifts for children
this year. Gadget makers such as Samsung have introduced tablets
specifically designed for kids and many manufacturers of adult tablets now
include parental controls. Those products are in addition to the slew of
kiddie tablets produced by electronic toy makers such as LeapFrog, Vtech
and Toys R Us.
But some experts note there's no evidence that screen time whether from
a TV or tablet provides any educational or developmental benefits for
babies and toddlers. Yet it takes away from activities that do promote
brain development, such as non-electronic toys and adult interaction.
They also say that too much screen time has been linked to behavior
problems and delayed social development in older children.
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital,
points out that iPads have only been on the market for a little over three
years, which means tablet-related research is still in its infancy.
Christakis says educational games and apps have some value if they engage
a child and prompt them to interact with the device, but cautioned that
if all children do is watch videos on their tablets, then it's just like
watching TV, which has a limited ability to engage a child.
He also notes that parents need be mindful of whether tablet time is
replacing more important activities such as sleeping, reading or
interacting with adults. He says that while the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours of screen time a day
for kids over the age of two, he thinks one hour is plenty.
"The single most important thing for children is time with parents and
caregivers," he says. "Nothing is more important in terms of social
development. If time with the tablet comes at the expense of that, that's
not good."
Dr. Rahil Briggs, a pediatric psychologist at New York's Montefiore
Medical Center, says tablet usage needs to be limited for the youngest of
children, because too much screen time can slow language development. And
since there's very little research out there so far, experts still don't
know exactly how much is too much, she says.
For older children, Briggs says too much tablet use can slow social
development. She notes that the solitary nature of the activity means that
kids aren't using that time to learn how to make friends or pick up on
social cues.
Some experts, however, believe tablets and smartphones possess unique
educational benefits.
Jill Buban, dean of the School of Education at Post University in
Waterbury Conn., says the more children absorb and understand technology
before they start school, the more comfortable they'll feel when they
enter a classroom for the first time.
But she says even the best educational apps must be monitored by parents
and limited. She recommends no more than 30 minutes of tablet usage at a
time in light of the short attention spans of most young kids.
"There's so much media out there and so much marketing," she says. "It's
all about smart choices and research, whether it's an app on a tablet or
a TV show."
Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood,
says parents should be wary of any TV show or app that touts educational
benefits for babies or toddlers, saying that scientists have yet to prove
that there are any.
"Babies and young children are spending huge amounts of time with screen
media when really what they need is hands-on creative play, active time
and face-to face time with the people that love them," Linn said.
Linn's group, known for its allegations against "Baby Einstein" videos
that eventually led to consumer refunds, is urging the Federal Trade
Commission to examine the marketing practices of certain apps and games
geared toward babies.
"The best toys are the ones that just lie there until the child transforms
them," Linn said pointing to blocks and stuffed animals as examples. "If
all children do is push a button, that's not the kind of play that
promotes learning."
Since its debut over 40 years ago, Sesame Street has dealt with
questions about the amount of screen time small children should have.
Scott Chambers, Sesame Workshop's senior vice president for digital
content, says the brand, which now includes 45 apps and 160 e-books, has
gotten a huge boost from touch screen devices, which are much easier for
preschoolers to handle than computer mice. That content can provide
children with a much more customized and interactive educational
experience than the show could hope to deliver, he says.
"It's a balancing act, but all we can do is try to provide a good
enriching media experience wherever parents and preschoolers may be,"
Chambers says.
Chambers notes that some of Sesame's apps encourage kids to put down
their devices, pointing to Sesame's new "Family Play" app. Instead of
having a child interact directly with a phone or tablet, it gives parents
ideas for ways to play together.
Adam Cohen, a stay-at-home father of two from New York, says apps have
been a key part of his 5-year-old son Marc's education since he was just
a baby.
"He had an iPad at close to 18 months so he was definitely one of those
babies swiping away in his stroller," Cohen says. "Now it's different,
but back then we were a little ostracized. Now he's reading at close to
a second-grade reading level and I credit a lot of that to iPad apps."
Marc now has his own iPad loaded with mostly educational content and his
baby sister Harper, who isn't yet one-year-old, seems frustrated that she
doesn't have one too, Cohen says.
Still, not every parent is keen on tablets and apps.
Lance Somerfeld, another stay-at-home dad from New York, says he thinks he
and his wife are stricter than most parents. They don't own a tablet and
didn't allow their 5-year-old son Jake to watch TV until he was nearly
three. But Somerfeld says he does have an iPhone and lets Jake
occasionally play with some of the apps.
"If I have an hour and a choice, I'd really rather spend it reading books
with him," Somerfeld says. "But he's really engaged by the apps, so you
could make the case that there needs to be a balance."
Memory Trick Increases Password Security
Passwords have steadfastly remained the primary way we prove our identity
to the many Web sites and apps that have become integral to daily life.
Despite years of predictions that passwords would eventually be phased out
in favor of more secure approaches to authentication, such as biometrics,
they persist because they are inexpensive and remain one of the better
compromises between security and usability.
Managing dozens of passwords is even more challenging than coming up with
good ones in the first place. Common sense provides some guidance when
choosing them: A password should be an alphanumeric combination that a
family member or friend cant guess in five tries, and it should be
complex enough so a person cant figure it out by watching you type it
once. That accomplished, now you just need to remember which password
logs you onto which site or app.
A team of Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists is studying the
possibility of employing memorization techniques and mnemonic devices to
help cut through our password clutter. Their planinspired by the
PersonActionObject, or PAO, method described in Joshua Foers 2011 book
Moonwalking with Einsteininvolves both generating strong passwords and a
schedule for committing them to memory.
The researchers proposed shared cues system (pdf) asks you to first
select a an image of an interesting place (for example, a baseball field)
as well as a photo of a familiar or famous person (say, Bill Gates). You
would then imagine some random action along with a random object to
create a PAO story, says Jeremiah Blocki, the lead researcher. Blocki
proposes, Bill Gates swallowing a bike on the baseball field.
After you create and memorize stories for several different image pairs,
you would use those stories generate unique passwords. In Blockis
example, you might take the first three letters from swallow and bike
so that you associate the image pair of Gates and a baseball field with
swabik. String a few image pairs together and youve got a fairly
inscrutable password. If you can memorize nine sentences, the system can
generate distinct passwords for 126 accounts, Blocki says.
Heres how shared cues might work in practice: You install an app
developed by Blocki and his team in your browser that presents you with
four image pairs whenever you visit a login screen. (A mobile version of
the app would work the same way.) You recognize each image pair, and
remembering the story associated with each, type in your password. A login
screen for a different Web site would present a different subset of four
stories from the nine that youve memorized.
If this all sounds like a lot of work, it is. The mobile version of the
app, however, would serve as a coach to help you keep your stories
straight. It would use the phone or tablets notification system to
randomly present you with image pairs on a regular basis so the stories
you created for those pictures remain fresh in your memory. Many
cognitive and educational psychologists agree that frequent quizzing is a
highly effective way to activate and search long-term memory. From a
usability standpoint, this practice is greatit minimizes the number of
words you have to memorize and gives you more natural rehearsal, which
is the more important factor, Blocki says.
As the Carnegie Mellon researchers point out, the level of security
passwords can provide depends on the amount of effort users put into
creating and managing them. Simply reusing passwords across multiple
sites is, of course, the easiest approach to password management but
poses a problem highlighted by the recent theft of tens of millions user
names and passwords from Adobe. Given how easy it is to guess a persons
user name for any given accountoften, its their e-mail addresshow
difficult would it be for the thieves to access other accounts secured by
those same user names and passwords? Even Adobe acknowledged that people
often reuse passwords and recommended that its customers change their
passwords on any Web site sharing the same user ID and password as the
purloined Adobe accounts.
Another barrier to complicated password programs is the temptation simply
to use the reset function available on most Web sites whenever password
recall remains stubbornly elusive. Password resets create security
vulnerabilities, however. A 2008 Scientific American article by security
specialist Herbert Thompson explains how someone could easily search the
Web for all of the information they need to surreptitiously reset your
password and gain access to your e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and many other
accounts.
Royal Pardon for Codebreaker Alan Turing
Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous
royal pardon.
It addresses his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was
punished by being chemically castrated.
The conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop the
code-cracking work that had proved vital to the Allies in World War Two.
The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a
request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.
"Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind," said Mr.
Grayling.
He said the research Turing carried out during the war at Bletchley Park
undoubtedly shortened the conflict and saved thousands of lives.
Turing's work helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval
messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. He also contributed some
more fundamental work on codebreaking that was only released to public
scrutiny in April 2012.
"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual
activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and
which has now been repealed," said Mr Grayling.
"Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic
contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from
the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."
The pardon comes into effect on 24 December.
Turing died in June 1954 from cyanide poisoning and an inquest decided
that he had committed suicide. However, biographers, friends and other
students of his life dispute the finding and suggest his death was an
accident.
Many people have campaigned for years to win a pardon for Turing.
Dr Sue Black, a computer scientist, was one of the key figures in the
campaign.
She told the BBC that she hoped all the men convicted under the
anti-homosexuality law would now be pardoned.
"This is one small step on the way to making some real positive change
happen to all the people that were convicted," she said.
"It's a disgrace that so many people were treated so disrespectfully."
Some have criticised the action for not going far enough and, 59 years
after Turing's death, little more than a token gesture.
"I just think it's ridiculous, frankly," British home computing pioneer
Sir Clive Sinclair told the BBC.
"He's been dead these many years so what's the point? It's a silly
nonsense.
"He was such a fine, great man, and what was done was appalling of course.
It makes no sense to me, because what's done is done."
'It's very wrong'
Lord Sharkey, a Liberal Democrat peer who wrote a private member's bill
calling for a royal pardon in July 2012, said the decision was "wonderful
news".
"This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion," he said. "It has recognised
a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and
injustice with which Turing was treated."
Vint Cerf, the computer scientist known as one of the founding fathers of
the internet, also welcomed the development.
"The royal pardon for Alan Turing rights a long-standing wrong and
properly honours a man whose imagination and intellect made him legendary
in our field," he told the BBC.
Technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch added: "Society didn't understand Alan
Turing or his ideas on many levels but that was a reflection on us, not
on him - and it has taken us 60 years to catch up."
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: "I pay tribute to the
government for ensuring Alan Turing has a royal pardon at last but I do
think it's very wrong that other men convicted of exactly the same
offence are not even being given an apology, let alone a royal pardon.
"We're talking about at least 50,000 other men who were convicted of the
same offence, of so-called gross indecency, which is simply a sexual act
between men with consent."
Mr Tatchell said he would like to see Turing's death fully investigated.
"While I have no evidence that he was murdered, I do think we need to
explore the possibility that he may have been killed by the security
services. He was regarded as a high security risk," he said.
'Not entirely comfortable'
Glyn Hughes, the sculptor of the Alan Turing Memorial in Manchester, said
it was "very gratifying" that he had finally been pardoned.
"When we set out to try and make him famous - get him recognised - it was
really difficult to collect money," he said.
Turing's life is the subject of upcoming Hollywood movie The Imitation
Game, which focuses on the cracking of the Enigma code. Starring Sherlock
actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, the film is due for release next
year.
And during the 2012 celebrations of the centenary of Turing's birth, a
Welsh digital arts festival - the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival -
featured a laser image of Turing projected from Conwy Castle into the sky.
Although Turing was born in London, he had strong connections with north
Wales.
The Italianate village of Portmeirion in Gwynedd was one of Turing's
favourite places.
But it was in northern England where Turing spent the last six years of
his life, working at Manchester University in various specialist fields
including mathematical logic and philosophy.
"None of the big computer companies would stump up a penny for a
memorial. They perhaps would now - we've come a very long way."
But he said he was "not entirely comfortable" that Turing had been
pardoned while thousands of other gay men had not.
"The problem is, of course, if there was a general pardon for men who
had been prosecuted for homosexuality, many of them are still alive and
they could get compensation."
In December 2011, an e-petition was created on the Direct Gov site that
asked for Turing to be pardoned. It received more than 34,000 signatures
but its request was denied by the then justice secretary, Lord McNally,
who said Turing was "properly convicted" for what was at the time a
criminal offence.
Prior to that in August 2009, a petition was started to request a pardon.
It won an official apology from the prime minister at the time, Gordon
Brown, who said the way Turing was persecuted over his homosexuality was
"appalling".
=~=~=~=
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