Feed Unplugged
Gasp! Thanks To These Startups, Teachers Are Making Money On The Web
For example, Udemy, a web platform that allows anyone to host and take online classes, this morning announced that its top ten instructors earned a combined $1.6 million over the last 12 months.
Full Story: TechCrunch
(Source: emergentfutures)
Who Does Facebook Think You Are Searching For? | thekeesh.com
Have you ever wondered how Facebook orders your search results? Clearly they have some ordering about who they think you are looking for, and they seem to guess pretty well. I can only guess, but it seems like they order it based on who you interact with, whose profile you look at and who you have recently become friends with.
Note: This is really interesting, but may be embarrassing to you.
Mozilla document points towards one App store for all platforms.
The Mozilla foundation (most well known for Firefox) has released a roadmap showing their hopes for the future of App Stores. Rather than have a single App Store for each platform, the document suggests web platforms could be updated to deliver all Apps to any device or platform via the Web.
While already praising the wide scope of HTML5, it says there are “still gaps to fill”.
The Web lacks standard, consistent ways to find, rate, review, purchase and prove ownership of apps. Mozilla’s goal is to foster an ecosystem that combines the best elements of the Web with the best elements of the app model.
The Web must be made easier to develop for than proprietary platforms.
HTML5, CSS and JavaScript continue to enable amazing websites and apps, but there’s more to be done to support the most cutting-edge, high-performance apps, especially on mobile devices. Mozilla must continue to lead the Web platform forward by enabling access to the hardware, communications and connectivity capabilities of smartphones and tablets (camera, SMS, telephony), make it easy for app developers to build “instant-on” apps that run as well offline as they do online (improve app cache and local storage), and enable rich media support and interactivity at high frame-rates.
While an open, standardized platform would be great news for consumers, it’s hard to imagine a world where Microsoft, Apple and Google would all let go of their proprietary (and money making) App Stores, to embrace this open model.
(Source: wiki.mozilla.org)
KLM Airlines is giving passengers the power to pick who they sit next to via social media. The opt-in system will display the Facebook and LinkedIn profile pages of each passenger on the flight.
Full Story: Mashable
(Source: emergentfutures)
2012 Conference will explore new “rules of robotics”
As robotics finds its way into more and more consumer technologies, a conference has been planned for April 2012 to explore legal and policy issues relating to robots.
The conference will ““encourage conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate.”, according to organizers.
Isaac Asimov famously wrote his “Three Lawn of Robotics almost 70 years ago:
- “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- “A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”
While Asimov’s laws are generally related to self-aware humanoid type robots, the conference is likely to focus on much more specific issues related to all forms of robotics, including:
- Effect of robotics on the workplace, e.g. small businesses, hospitals, and other contexts where robots and humans work side-by-side.
- Design of legal rules that will strike the right balance between encouraging innovation and safety, particularly in the context of autonomous robots.
- Issues of legal or moral responsibility, e.g. relating to autonomous robots or robots capable of exhibiting emergent behavior.
- Issues relating to robotic prosthetics (e.g. access equity issues, liability for actions activated by conscious or unconscious mental commands).
- Relevant differences between virtual and physical robots.
- Relevant differences between nanobots and larger robots.
- Usage of robots in public safety and military contexts.
- Privacy issues relating to data collection by robots, either built for that purpose or incidental to other tasks.
(Source: smartplanet.com)
KLM Airlines Passengers Can Pick Their Seatmate Using Facebook
KLM Airlines is giving passengers the power to pick who they sit next to via social media. The opt-in system will display the Facebook and LinkedIn profile pages of each passenger on the flight.
If Angry Birds were made into a movie, this is how I’d want it to be
First of all, I loved the movie Snatch. Not everyone liked it, but I did, it’s good. If you haven’t seen it, you should. So the premise here is Angry Birds is made into a movie, with the likeness of the movie Snatch. If this Angry Birds movie was ever made, it would be epic. There really isn’t much to say other than it would be a must see.
HR Shield: 8 Tips for Writing Great Online Recruitment Ads
Need some tips for writing a great online job board advertisement? Before you begin writing your company’s recruitment advertisement, first consider how much money is available for recruitment and the time frame in which the position needs to be filled. Based on this information, you then can…
