Group items tagged

2 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook each day. As of this week, every new image will be processed by automatic face recognition software, designed to identify the people in the photographs. It's not the addition of this new function that has caused the creeping sense of unease, but the covert manner with which it has been activated

"From my experience, I get the sense that being on Facebook is not cool anymore," Hoglund said. "The early adopters and trend-setters are moving away. [But] these are also exactly the type of people brand advertisers want to reach; if they are leaving, it doesn't look good for Facebook."

Why the drop? Most prominently, the United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it. This is the first time the country has lost users in the past year. Canada also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million, although it has been fluctuating around that number for the past year. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia all posted losses of more than 100,000. If these countries - most of whom had adopted Facebook many years ago - had not lost users, and instead posted even small gains, Facebook would have had a much more typical month

Facebook users who want an interesting (and perhaps creepy) visualization of their activity on the world's largest social network can get it with the help of Intel's new Museum of Me application. Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20068257-17/intels-facebook-museum-of-me-is-a-must-try/#ixzz1UOjMmAlE

"To address this and similar challenges, we're developing Open Foresight - a social response to accelerating change. It's a new process that crowdsources the future of given topics, as demonstrated by the Future of Facebook pilot project. It's different because it structures data around established futures categories and methods, then synthesizes that information into easily digestible video format."

Do new information and communication technologies (ICTs) empower repressive regimes at the expense of civil society, or vice versa? For example, does access to the Internet and mobile phones alter the balance of power between repressive regimes and civil society? These questions are especially pertinent today given the role that ICTs played during this year's uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond. Indeed, as one Egyptian activist stated, "We use Facebook to schedule our protests, Twitter to coordinate and YouTube to tell the world." But do these new ICTs-so called "liberation technologies"-really threaten repressive rule? The purpose of this dissertation is to use mixed-methods research to answer these questions.

ONE of humanity's ultimate dreams, to peer into the future, may be moving a step closer with a controversial €1 billion ($1.3bn) EU plan to recreate the entire world in a computer system. The Living Earth Simulator project would take the vast streams of data pouring into the internet, ranging from Facebook and Twitter to dry-as-dust government statistics, and try to spot the economic and social trends that will shape the future.

Yesica and her lawyers have exercised a legal right now dubbed the "Right to Be Forgotten" that allows you to remove embarrassing pictures or information you put on the Web - and do it permanently, totally. Which means you can tell Yahoo or Google or Facebook, "I don't want that there anymore. I want this to be forgotten. You have the image or the email or whatever in your computers. Remove it. And if you don't, you are breaking the law."

"Thousands of museum professionals gathered Sunday in Houston to mull their futures and contemplate ways to recast their missions and audiences. Participants at the American Association of Museums' annual conference pondered possibilities that included a multiple-voucher system in which museums compete to meet certain components of a public school child's education. They even discussed a "Facebook update from hell" that would simultaneously publish everyone's personal data - including information museums have gathered in order to personalize visitor experiences."

We (Cognitive Edge) would be really grateful if you would be prepared to share your thoughts, fears and hopes about the current state of the world post the financial cris. What are the implications for public service? How will our institutions adapt? What will be important for the public service in the future? What is going to happen to public service anyway? We want your micro-narratives, you mini-scenarios as part of a crowd sourcing project. Anyone who participates can have access to the data, results will be published here. Basically you click here and contribute your ideas, then you signify their meaning. The signifier (or index) set was produced in conjunction with experts in strategic foresight. We want to demonstrate the power of networks, the ability of the voice of the person on the metaphorical Clapham Omnibus, Jo Public (or whatever yiyr cultural phrase is) to stand up there with the views of experts. One is not better than the other, we need both! Also we want them fast - as many as you can over the next couple of days. The first report will come out on Sunday, then more over next week. Please participate please pass this on in your blog, Twitter, Facebook, emails lists or good old word of mouth.

The occupation of Wall Street began in the deserts of Western Sahara and this weekend it will spread to our Australian cities.

"U.S. intelligence officials say that in hindsight, using open sources like Facebook and Twitter could have helped them predict the uprisings that have swept the Arab world."

from Global Guerrillas http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/

More evidence that the future needs to slow down or we need to write faster.....