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সোমবার, ১৫ জুলাই, ২০১৩
Mark Levin Attacks Karl Rove For Urging GOP To Support Immigration Reform
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Nokia CEO ?very happy? replacing Symbian with Windows Phone
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop recently participated in an interview with UK publication The Guardian. A large chunk of the interview focused on Nokia?s decision to adopt Windows Phone as the primary OS it would deploy on smartphones, rather than sticking with its own Symbian OS or hopping on the Android bandwagon like the competition.
Elop brings quite a few good points to the interview mainly addressing why Nokia steered away from Android. The simple answer is because most Android phone manufacturers aren?t even doing all that well in the business with the exception of Samsung.
?Now fast forward to today and examine the Android ecosystem, and there?s a lot of good devices from many companies, but one company has essentially now become the dominant player,? Elop said. He later added, ?You look at a number of other Android providers right now and they?re in a tough spot.?
Overall, Elop doesn?t regret the decision at all to choose Windows Phone because as he says, Nokia and Microsoft have managed to create a ?third ecosystem? good for some healthy competition.
?I?m very happy with the decision we made. What we were worried about a couple of years ago was the very high risk that one hardware manufacturer could come to dominate Android,? he commented. Elop also said that having strong partners like AT&T not only helps Nokia stay afloat but also pushes them forward to gain some prominence within the market.
Could Windows Phone and Nokia both be doing better? Yes. I do think Elop makes several good arguments for the decision to adopt Microsoft?s OS though. It?s very plausible that had Nokia chosen Android, the company would be in a worse position than it is today with Windows Phone.
[via PhoneArena]
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রবিবার, ১৪ জুলাই, ২০১৩
Can Big Data solve the mystery of suicide??
Durkheim Project 
21 hours ago
AP
Everywhere on the Internet, we're trailed by bots that inspect our searches and social chatter, attempting to predict what we're going to buy, watch or who we might date next. But in the middle of all that commerce-friendly jibber jabber, some people are saying, in not so many words, "I am going to kill myself." What if a computer program could spot those cries for help as well?
An ambitious new study is analyzing real-time data collected from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts volunteered by veterans and active military personnel in order to develop a way to identify those who might be at risk of suicide. The Durkheim Project is a joint effort by predictive analytics firm Patterns and Predictions and the Veterans Education and Research Association of Northern New England, with support from Facebook and funding from DARPA, among others. By seeking linguistic cues from social media interaction, it may someday aid healthcare workers to identify and help patients before it's too late.
Men and women of the military are an all too rich source of research material. Everyday, 22 U.S. veterans take their own lives, an average of one every 65 minutes, according to a recent government report. In 2012, suicides among active members of the military reached 349, exceeding those killed on duty. Further, mental health experts say, the military culture makes those at risk less likely to ask for help or admit they need it.
Somewhere between the first thought of self-harm and the final act, Durkheim's project director Chris Poulin hopes to find "those subtle cues as they build up, but haven't become much of a problem that you can't change the fate," he told NBC News.
And it really is about subtlety.
"We do know factors that increase risk [of suicide], such as depression, but our best methods rely on individuals telling us," Dr. Craig J. Bryan, associate director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah and a Durkheim Project adviser, told NBC News. "A lot of people who die by suicide don't tell people they're thinking of it, so the difficulty is trying to figure out if there are other indicators that go around this problem of self report."
So to start with, suicidal patterns needed to be identified. Three groups were formed using 300 anonymous medical records from the Veterans Administration: patients who died of suicide, patients under psychiatric care and patients seeking medical treatment but not under any psychiatric care. From that trove of detailed doctors' notes, the project's computer scientists discovered the behavior unique to those patients who ended their lives.
Troubled relationships, debt, job loss, post-traumatic stress, health issues and alienation are common experiences for many United States veterans, as well as being risk factors suffered by many people who chose to take their own lives. But risk factors are not the same as warning signs ? which can be far less obvious.
According to Poulin, the project's consulting doctors who had treated veterans were surprised not at the common behaviors ? agitation, shame, self-hatred ? but that a computer program could detect often subtle clues from the medical reports.
It's not a simple matter of key words, either. While the results of this study won't be published for some time, and privacy prohibits discussion of the records themselves, the project's managers point out that the initial patterns are not explainable as words that simply cropped up while cross referencing text files. "The technology is trying to find the stories within the stories," said Gregory Peterson, a Durkheim Project spokesperson. "We look for certain kinds of language, and we analyze it."
Peterson said they can already identify certain clusters of language that do raise flags, for instance, those that surround notions such as loneliness or agitation. And when multiple clusters appear, there's greater concern. But "this is not some kind of scanning technology," Peterson told NBC News. "It's far more complicated."
In the new phase of the project, the foundation established by the initial 300 patient records will be tested against a much larger population of volunteers, with data coming from a variety of apps that will continuously upload the subjects' social media and mobile phone interactions. While there's no minimum number of participants, the project hopes to enlist up to 100,000.
The accumulated social information ? safeguarded by HIPAA standards of medical privacy and stored in the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth's secure onsite database ? is analyzed by computer programs developed during the earlier phase. None of the data is shared with third parties, and the information is objectively safer than any stored on Facebook, OKCupid or Edward Snowden's flash drive. Similar to many medical tests, this stage is only for observation. There will be no diagnosis or intervention, though participants are welcome to drop out of the study at any time.
What goes unsaid in the Durkheim Project press release is the cold hard fact not uncommon with drug tests for cancer or other potentially fatal diseases: To get optimum results, the researchers are waiting for people to die.
"It's not a happy topic. I don't think we should back away from it just because it's taboo or so stressful," Poulin said, adding that "there's no negative intent there, no creepy objective. This is the cost of doing business in life-or-death research."
The Durkheim project takes its name from French sociologist ?mile Durkheim. In 1897, Durkheim published a groundbreaking case study, "Suicide," in which he used diaries and notes of suicide victims to detect patterns, including social isolation. Similarly, Poulin's team strives to use Big Data to find words, phrases or behavior that can identify the warning signs that, within society, may even go unnoticed by the potential victim.
If those warning signs can be deciphered, it may be "possible to intervene with a narrative that is more positive, and basically changed the track of someone's life," Poulin said.
But that's a difficult proposition. Even outside the military population, doctors miss cues. A review of studies by the Mayo Clinic found approximately 44 percent of people who commit suicide visited their primary care physician, and 20 percent visited a mental health care worker in the month before their deaths.
As with people who have never served, when veterans take their lives, "there is no single reason," Bryan said, explaining that he and other researchers are learning that military service is increasingly stressful in a war that's gone on for 10 years. And once soldiers leave the military, "they return to a society that as a whole is less engaged. Many veterans don?t fit in with the rest of the society. Nobody knows what they've gone through, and they begin to feel marginalized. It's when marginalization occurs that suicide risk increases."
Poulin hopes the project will eventually open to volunteers outside the military community. Groups that deal with teens and cyberbullying have already expressed interest, he said.
Dr. Lisa Horowitz, a staff scientist and clinical psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health, isn't affiliated with the Durkheim Project, but she told NBC News she sees value in the information shared on social media.
"Social media is probably very important, especially with young people who use it as their forum to reach out to their community," she said. Nevertheless, she said, there's a danger in attempting to apply a single protocol for different groups at risk.
"With youths, the way to access suicide is to ask them directly," Horowitz said, citing a study that found adolescents prefer direct questions. "The majority of suicides tend to be committed by older men, and they have a tendency to deny suicide if you ask them directly."
So what works for the military will likely not apply to civilians, but the research ? much like social media itself ? is still so new that the possibilities themselves are yet to be discovered. "Just because it's complicated and these different groups are so varied doesn't mean there's no solution," Horowitz said. "It just means we have to be careful not to create one prevention style that's meant to work for everybody."
Helen A.S. Popkin is Deputy Tech & Science Editor at NBCNews.com. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.
Warning signs of suicide
The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. Warning signs are associated with suicide but may not be what causes a suicide.
- Looking for a way to kill oneself.
- Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose.
- Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain.
- Talking about being a burden to others.
- Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs.
- Acting anxious, agitated or recklessly.
- Sleeping too little or too much.
- Withdrawing or feeling isolated.
- Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge.
- Displaying extreme mood swings.
What to do if someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide
- Do not leave the person alone.
- Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt.
- Call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255).
- Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.
? Information provided courtesy of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.
Resources:
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Jobs Versus Innovation
None of the top Internet firms have labor unions, and it has made Silicon Valley a lightning rod for civil liberties proponents. So, last week, after several prominent technologists in the Bay Area came out against a subway union strike in San Francisco, it provided a convenient excuse for critics to again brand the tech community as greedy oligarchs. ?There?s a reason why so many people are hating on the techies,? wrote Slate?s Andrew Leonard, after quoting one Valley executive who argued that we should find a way to replace BART workers with a computer, ?Get ?em back to work, pay them whatever they want, and then figure out how to automate their jobs so this doesn?t happen again.?
A couple discuss a different way to travel upon learning that the Fruitvale BART station is closed due to a strike Monday, July 1, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. (Ben Margot/AP)
There?s a very good reason why Silicon Valley has always been union-averse: unions aren?t fans of technology. ?Unionizing the tech industry would be a disaster for the economy and innovation,? wrote TechDirt?s Mike Masnick. ?Unionization takes away the necessary flexibility of both workers and employers, greatly slowing down the pace of innovation.?
Case in point: labor unions have aggressively fought ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft that threaten taxi drivers with increased competition. As a result, a multi-billion-dollar industry of applications that permit people to share their cars has been paralyzed. For good measure, the AFL-CIO also called the tech community ?greedy? for wanting to make it easier to hire foreign engineers.
Until unions embrace technology, they?ll never be welcome in Silicon Valley. Creating technological breakthroughs is a messy, fragile process that takes every ounce of intelligence and grit to pull off. The Valley doesn?t just need employees who reluctantly support innovation, but ones who often put their entire lives on hold to see a product to fruition. The very existence of unions threatens the kind of unpredictable disruption that fuels the knowledge economy?for better or worse.
Union members are twice as likely to say that a technology should not
be adopted if it replaces people's jobs. In a simple study TechCrunch
conducted with Google's online survey tool, we asked people if they
worked for the tech sector or a labor union, and what employers should
do when they find a technology that can do an employee's job cheaper
and more efficiently. 30 percent of tech workers said, "Replace my job
with new technology," compared to 16 percent of union workers; 27
percent of union workers said employers should "Protect my job, don't
replace me," while half (12 percent) of tech workers agreed with that
statement.
The anti-innovation sentiment has been around since the Valley?s formative days. In a 1983 survey (PDF) of United States labor unions, author Stephen Peitchinis found that a mere 9 percent of unions had policies advocating for technology change, while 24 percent actively opposed any change that threatened members? jobs.
Commuter Kali Davis, right, takes a picture in front of a helicopter she would take back home to Concord, Calif. at the San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, Tuesday, July 2, 2013. Just days before hundreds of Bay Area Rapid Transit workers went on strike, an online transportation support service bought a new web address: www.bartstrike.com. By Monday morning, when 400,000 displaced commuters were struggling to get to work, they were offering a free helicopter ride to one lucky commuter, selected at random, who downloads their ridesharing app. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
Peitchinis finds that unions have storied anti-technology history. For instance, the early coal-fueled trains once needed firemen to protect railways in case of an accident. But after trains advanced beyond coal, unions fought bitterly to keep safety workers employed. ?The very livelihood of our members, the continuation of our craft, and the continued existence of our organization are at stake.? wrote one union in the early 19th century.
Back then, unions had a pretty sweet deal. Some unionized railway workers were guaranteed lifetime pay and only had to work a few hours a month. It cost the train industry an extraordinary sum of money, as non-unionized trains had roughly half the number of workers, according to the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute. ?The rail unions deserve the labor equivalent of an Oscar for best sustained performance in reducing industrial efficiency,? joked the CATO report.
Indeed, economists generally find that unions stall innovation. ? Firm innovation output, measured by patent counts and citations, declines significantly after firms elect to unionize and increases significantly for firms that vote to deunionize,? wrote one team of economists from the University of South Florida.
I seriously doubt that if Google ran the BART system, a human would still be powering every train.
Now, this isn?t to say that unions don?t serve an important role in protecting workers, but for valley employees themselves, they don?t much need worker representation. Facebook, voted last year as the ?best company? to work for in America, has no union. Cushy salaries, luxurious dining amenities, and a decentralized management structures give a lucky elite class of tech workers all the benefits and influence they could ever hope for.
There?s also an army of freelance engineers that thrive on unpredictability. ?I think unionization would ruin the free spirit and innovation in the high-tech industry,? freelance web designer Alvin Bost told CNET in 2001. ?It would be terrible for people like me.?
But many workers outside the technology bubble will experience rising inequality as technology automates more and more jobs. It?s a problem. I seriously doubt that if Google ran the BART system, a human would still be powering every train.
However, it should be clear that this is not ?class warfare? as Slate calls it. Techies hold a legitimate philosophical differences that assume the benefits to innovation outweigh the short-term gains of protecting workers. The Valley has been quite honest about its assumptions, and unions should be honest about theirs.
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Heartland Flyer Brings Loads Of Supplies To Oklahoma Tornado Victims
MOORE, Oklahoma -
Help is still pouring in from around the nation several weeks after deadly tornadoes hit Oklahoma.
Piece by piece, disaster relief workers in Oklahoma City unloaded more than 60 supply bins off the "Heartland Flyer" train from Fort Worth and onto a truck headed to Moore.
"So much devastation and so many people's lives affected one way or another," said Matt Cantrell, distribution manager for Disaster Assistance Church of Christ. "It's good to be there for moral support, also for supplies."?
Cantrell's group of church volunteers lugged each 18-gallon tote stocked with household goods for families devastated by the May tornadoes. For weeks, a relief group called America Recovers out of Connecticut worked with Amtrak to get the precious cargo delivered.
"We use the train to bring supplies when we need it," said Craig Moody, Railroad Manager for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. "And obviously, this was a disaster type situation, so all resources are used in the best way possible, this was a way for us to give supplies to the people who need it."
People like Linda Brewster, who lost so much in the storms, met the volunteers at a home in Moore.
"All of my neighborhood is gone and God saved us because he left our house there with four walls. It's unlivable, but we are there," Brewster said.
Many tornado victims walked away with packed boxes of supplies, crates of water and a big smile.
"I just can't imagine all the people all over the world, who are helping in such devastation, and I just want to thank everybody," Brewster said.
Many of the families who lost children in Plaza Towers Elementary School also pick up supplies and said they are still in need of items like furniture, home appliances as well as hotel money and transportation.
If you'd like to help out those families who lost loved ones in the tornadoes, you can visit the Plaza Towers Survivor Fund at www.gofundme.com/31ju98 and on Facebook.
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This week on gdgt: UE Boom, VAIO Duo 13, and Internet privacy tips
Each week, our friends at gdgt go through the latest gadgets and score them to help you decide which ones to buy. Here are some of their most recent picks. Want more? Visit gdgt anytime to catch up on the latest, and subscribe to gdgt's newsletter to get a weekly roundup in your inbox.
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