Category: General Tech

John Timmer, Ars Technica:

Earlier today, IBM announced that it would be using Watson, the system that famously wiped the floor with human Jeopardy champions, to tackle a somewhat more significant problem: choosing treatments for cancer. In the process, the company hopes to help usher in the promised era of personalized medicine.

The announcement was made at the headquarters of IBM’s partner in this effort, the New York Genome Center; its CEO, Robert Darnell called the program “not purely clinical and not purely research.” Rather than seeking to gather new data about the mutations that drive cancer, the effort will attempt to determine if Watson can parse genome data and use it to recommend treatments.

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After a successful fundraising campaign, App.net launched in 2012 as a member-supported Twitter-like social network.

That makes a ton of sense, as App.net was born during a period of distrust around Twitter. Many of my geeky friends flocked to it, hoping to re-kindle the magic of 2007-era Twitter. While I think that did happen to an extent, the reality is that App.net could probably never really rival Twitter.

App.net’s leadership recognized this early on, and have been working for years to grow App.net into something much broader. As a result, App.net has grown over the years, and now has several core services:

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I first got to know Shawn Blanc back in 2009 when he ran an article about my Mac setup. Five years later, we’ve worked together on several projects, so it felt right to finally re-visit my Mac rig.

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The father of the Internet is worried about its future.

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Nilay Patel:

So there’s the entire problem, expressed in four simple ideas: the internet is a utility, there is zero meaningful competition to provide that utility to Americans, all internet providers should be treated equally, and the FCC is doing a miserably ineffective job. The United States should lead the world in broadband deployment and speeds: we should have the lowest prices, the best service, and the most competition. We should have the freest speech and the loudest voices, the best debate and the soundest policy. We are home to the most innovative technology companies in the world, and we should have the broadband networks to match.

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Comcast:

Working collaboratively over many months, the companies have established a more direct connection between Netflix and Comcast, similar to other networks, that’s already delivering an even better user experience to consumers, while also allowing for future growth in Netflix traffic. Netflix receives no preferential network treatment under the multi-year agreement, terms of which are not being disclosed.

According to The Wall Street Journal, those terms include Netflix paying the ISP a big sack of money.

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The $16 billion would fund St. Jude for 23 years or so.

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Reuters:

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox Internet browser, will start selling ads as it tries to grab a larger slice of the fast-expanding online advertising market.

The company said in a blog posting on Tuesday that it has reached out to potential corporate sponsors about its fledgling “Directory Tiles” program, targeted at first-time users.

When I read the news (via Daring Fireball), I was very surprised. Mozilla helped lead the charge on changing how online advertisers can track users, and is seen by parts of the online community as a sort of refuge from Google, which makes a majority of its income from online ads.

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Kickstarter:

On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers’ data. Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.

I have a lot of questions as to what occurred resulting in the company being alerted of an issue within their own system by an outside law enforcement agency.

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We’ve used Editorially from day one on The Sweet Setup. Its editing and collaboration tools are excellent, and this news has bummed Shawn, Jeff and I out big time.

That said, I’m not surprised.

From the FAQ:

WHY NOT JUST CHARGE FOR USE?

We thought of that, and in fact, it was always our plan to do so. But Editorially is a sophisticated application that requires a team of engineers to maintain and develop. Even if all of our users paid up, it wouldn’t be enough.

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Bryan Bishop, on the news of Comcast’s desire to purchase Time Warner:

But with the prospect of a combined Comcast and Time Warner on the horizon, the question turns to what a merger would actually mean — both for consumers and the industry at large. If the move is approved by federal regulators, it could cement the kind of monolithic monopolies that have plagued cable subscribers all along, raising concerns over net neutrality and competition in the marketplace. Despite the very real potential for a media dystopia, however, there could be a silver lining: the chance that the deal could help break down a wall that’s kept innovation out of the living room for years.

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The Verge walks through the strange history of Sony’s PC line.

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