"Cable companies weren't interested when the federal government dangled millions of dollars to expand broadband Internet service and boost economic opportunities in Lake County, Minnesota, on Lake Superior (Wikipedia map). But "They didn't want anyone else to build a system, either," report Jim Spencer and Larry Oakes of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "That would mean competition in small parts of the county they already serve, even if it would leave thousands of northeastern Minnesota residents and businesses without broadband. So in 2010, when Lake County applied for federal stimulus funds to build a countywide network, it ran straight into a challenge from industry giant Mediacom and the Minnesota Cable Communications Association. The conflict that ensued is part of a national struggle," one that is repeated over and over in communities across the country, perhaps one you know or cover. "

"Medium is designed to allow people to choose the level of contribution they prefer. We know that most people, most of the time, will simply read and view content, which is fine. If they choose, they can click to indicate whether they think something is good, giving feedback to the creator and increasing the likelihood others will see it. Collections give people context and structure to publish their own stories, photos, and ideas. By default, the highest-rated posts show up at the top, helping people get the most out of their time in this world of infinite information."

"Just about a month ago, I stopped wrestling with an operating system and learned to love the Web. Windows? Gone. My MacBook? Hardly touched. Instead, I've relied on a Samsung Chromebox 3 running Google's ChromeOS for virtually all my daily computing needs. And I not only survived, I actually prospered."

Yet there's something intriguing about the concept of augmented reality, the notion of enhancing objects in the real world with virtual sounds and images and additional info. And when Google revealed earlier this year that it was developing glasses that will be part wearable computer, part digital assistant that flashes relevant data right before your eyes, augmented reality (AR) no longer seemed such a digital parlor trick. The geek gods had spoken. In fact, recent analysis by the London firm ABI Research concludes that the next big phase of AR-now largely played out on smartphones and tablets-will be through wearable tech. That's when the technology will become truly functional, when your glasses are able to tell you everything you want to know about the restaurants and stores on the block where you're walking.

Global Pulse is an innovation initiative of the UN Secretary-General, harnessing today's new world of digital data and real-time analytics to gain a better understanding of changes in human well-being. Global Pulse hopes to contribute a future in which access to better information sooner makes it possible to keep international development on track, protect the world's most vulnerable populations, and strengthen resilience to global shocks.   Global Pulse functions as an innovation laboratory, bringing together expertise from UN agencies, governments, academia, and the private sector to research, develop, test and share tools and approaches for harnessing real-time data for more effective and efficient policy action.

"What is Big Data? A meme and a marketing term, for sure, but also shorthand for advancing trends in technology that open the door to a new approach to understanding the world and making decisions. There is a lot more data, all the time, growing at 50 percent a year, or more than doubling every two years, estimates IDC, a technology research firm. It's not just more streams of data, but entirely new ones. For example, there are now countless digital sensors worldwide in industrial equipment, automobiles, electrical meters and shipping crates. They can measure and communicate location, movement, vibration, temperature, humidity, even chemical changes in the air."

"Although it's still a work in progress, 0xdata thinks it has the answer to the problem of doing advanced statistical analysis at scale: Build on HDFS for scale, use the widely known R programming language and hide it all under a simple interface."

"f there's any sign that the media ecosystem is on the verge of dramatic change, then these four digital trends bubbling to the surface are the latest proof points of that. These aren't random trends but are illustrative of tectonic shifts that will change the media business dramatically. Tectonic shifts of the type that we have witnessed in the music and book publishing businesses with the rise of the internet. Shifts that won't change the media landscape in time for the next upfront, but will reshape the landscape over the next five years. Here they are and what they mean for advertisers, agencies and the traditional media companies alike"

"As the popularity of visualizations grows, so does their range and quality. Here's a list of 20 of the best Static Visualizations, Interactive Visualizations, and Information Videos from 2011."

"As the New York Times claimed last weekend, 2012 is truly turning out to be the year big-data crossed over from being a topic of interest to tech gurus, IT managers, and geeks, to being a concept understood and embraced by the public domain."

"Students may now spend more time on Facebook than down the pub, but research seen by Marketing Week suggests that brands wanting to connect with 16- to 24-year-olds should reassess their f-commerce strategies."

With all the good advice out there about dealing with negative comments you'd think managing negativity would be no big deal. (Um...that would be "no.") What's frustrating for communicators is that we're usually dying to get out there and communicate. Even when the organization has made mistakes we know: 1. Being there first, fast, and fluently is the way to defuse a crisis early on. 2. Not dealing with it means that people think you're guilty. 3. People thinking you're guilty means they read negative meaning into everything you say. 4. Once trust is lost, even when you listen, the audience doesn't trust you and so accuses you of being Big Brotheresque. 5. Real criticism left un-dealt with can easily turn into hate writing either organically or because it's exploited. If the organization really, really, really can't respond....then something is really, really, really wrong.

"A new pilot project is allowing citizens to see local service information such as planning applications and food hygiene ratings of cafes projected live onto images or videos of their local area using "augmented reality" (AR) software. Data can be seen overlaid live onto locations by pointing a smartphone or tablet computer with a camera running AR software at a building or area. "

"The decline of DSL in the US has life tough for the phone companies - who in total lost 70,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2012. Winner: cable companies in general and Comcast in specific as 260,000 new folks signed up for broadband in the US."

Providers are extending healthcare to rural patients with financial assistance from the rural healthcare pilot program, a six-year-old initiative that provides funds for telehealth projects. So far, the program has committed an estimated $369 million of the total $415 million set aside, according to an evaluation published Aug. 13 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

"Spot de présentation de la démarche d'ouverture des données numériques publiques, initié par LiberTIC, soutenu par Nantes Métropole et réalisé par A2B Production en licence Art Libre."

Révolution tranquille, les outils de cartographie heuristique, ou mindmapping, gagnent l'entreprise. Que ce soit pour mener un projet, concevoir un produit ou documenter un processus les logiciels de mindmapping, comme MindManager 8, apportent un gain de

"Visualization is hot because it makes data analysis easier. Analysis with more conventional BI query and analysis tools is still hard: Nearly half (45 percent) of the 414 respondents to our InformationWeek Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Information Management Survey, conducted late last year, cited "ease-of-use challenges with complex software/less-technically savvy employees" as a barrier to adopting BI or analytics products. That was second, barely, to "data quality problems," cited by 46 percent."

According to "Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Record Systems and Process Quality of Care: Evidence from a Panel Data Analysis of U.S. Acute-Care Hospitals," recently published in Health Services Research, meaningful use of EHRs does improve hospital quality. Hospitals with primitive or limited IT that upgraded to an EHR system satisfying stage 1 meaningful use objectives saw a significant improvement in healthcare delivery, according to the study.

""In the tech startup world, people tend to equate entrepreneurial activity with innovation, and that's the wrong assumption," said Shenkar, a professor of management and human resources at Ohio State University. "There's a long history of successful startups that are built on imitation, not innovation.""