Facebook users prefer profiles over newfangled(ish) newsfeed
Since Facebook has become a pretty serious mainstay of social media, researchers have become interested in using it to find out which types of social interaction people prefer. A study done at the University of Missouri used physiological data to determine that Facebook users enjoy seeking out specific information and interactions, like Facebook wall posts, far more than more general and passive uses, like browsing the newsfeed or other aggregated sections.
In the experiment, 36 participants were tracked while they browsed Facebook from their own accounts. Researchers monitored physical outputs that correspond to emotional and motivational responses, such as skin conductance and eye movement; they also took screen shots and timed how long participants spend on each page. They broke down Facebook use into two categories: social browsing—looking at newsfeeds, invites pages, and so on—and social searching, such as seeking a friend's profile page or writing on a friends' wall.
The results showed that users spent the most time on activities that were classified as social searching, and had stronger responses to them. Ocular monitoring suggested they also experienced more "pleasantness" during those interactions. Over time, social searching remained more interesting, according to eye movements, while social browsing was a bit boring, and became more so as time elapsed.
The researchers say the data suggests that social searching, or interacting with an individual's more complete information rather than a sea of informational clips, stimulates an appetitive response. Appetitive responses are typically initiated when a person encounters something that promotes species survival, according to the authors. Taking steps to make friends contributes to survival, so this doesn't seem terribly surprising.
However, the results pose an interesting paradox for Facebook, as it seems the things we're most interested in are buried a level deep in searches or menus. Furthermore, the newsfeed, a flagship feature that's intended to combine Twitterlike aggregation and extensive content controls, is the one we care far less about than in-depth knowledge about our friends. It seems we'd rather use Facebook for its more unique feature—interactions and profiles that tell us where our friends work and what movies they like.
Researchers note that they did not study some secondary features of Facebook, such as games like Farmville or Facebook Marketplace, but that they might be worth looking into.
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No end in sight for anti-virus software problems
Last week, McAfee broke a lot of its customers' computers. A virus definition update caused a false positive identification of a virus within a key Windows file.
McAfee initially tried to downplay the issue, claiming only "moderate to significant" issues on affected machines, and that the default configuration of its software was harmless. "Not booting properly and being useless for real work" strikes us as somewhat worse than "moderate to significant," and there are many reports from people saying that McAfee is wrong about the default configuration (the situation seems unclear, but it looks like upgrades and certain patches can result in a different "default"—one that isn't safe). As if that was any consolation—none of the settings should result in machines getting broken. Ultimately, such quibbling is irrelevant: tens or hundreds of thousands of machines were disabled by the virus update.
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Minnesota data capper in rush to build empire
Ars readers no doubt recall that several weeks ago the town of Mound, Minnesota made headlines by becoming what may be the nation's first municipality whose residents might pay $249.99 a month for broadband—if they consume more than 250GB a month from their 3Mbps DSL provider, Frontier Communications.
We also mentioned that Frontier is in a hurry to buy over $8 billion in phone and broadband line assets from Verizon in 14 states, making Frontier the nation's "largest pure rural communications services provider" and the fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC).
Well, late last week Frontier and Verizon had themselves a meeting with the Federal Communications Commission and told the agency to hurry the heck up and give the acquisition its blessing. Okay, they were more polite about it than that—they were there to discuss the "timeline for approval and timely close of the Frontier-Verizon transaction."
All the states have given a green light to this deal save West Virginia, so the ball is in the FCC's court now. Not that there's any pressure, Frontier/Verizon emphasized, but the longer the agency waits, the more the merger process will cost.
Among other expenses, Frontier disclosed that it financed this transition via a privately arranged note that requires the company to pay $22 million per month for every month that it does not close this deal. On top of that, "each month of delay results in an additional cost to Frontier of approximately $7 million related to the West Virginia transition," the company added, "as the transition would have to be put on hold, but the resources to conduct the transition and postclose implementation would have to remain in place."
Then there are Security Exchange Commission requirements, among them a truckload of transfer-related prospectuses that have to be mailed out to shareholders. "The postage costs for this Information Statement/Prospectus are themselves substantial—approximately $12.5 million," Frontier and Verizon mentioned.
Gosh, who knew these things cost money and involved paperwork? Anyway, "closing this transaction as soon as possible is in the public interest," Frontier emphasized, "because it will allow Frontier promptly to begin implementing the broadband investments it has committed to during the state proceedings, including commencing construction in areas where construction must be halted in the winter."
Heaven forfend that anyone unnecessarily delay this worthy cause, but we do hope that the FCC asks Frontier about those Mound data caps: $99.99 for 100GB consumed over a 30-day period, and $249.99 over 250, with "reasonable usage" defined at 5GB a month.
We've spoken to Frontier twice about this matter, and were assured that "currently" the company has no intention of extending the policy elsewhere.
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You should buy Super Street Fighter IV if...
Super Street Fighter IV hits store shelves this week for $40, and it seems like it was just yesterday that the original was released. The question is... do you need to upgrade? We've been having fun with the final code for the past few days as we explored that very question, and it's not exactly cut and dried. So let's answer some questions about what we want out of a fighting game. You should buy Super Street Fighter IV if...
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Sim Bully on your child's computer
Bullying is a tough issue. Studies have revealed that victims of chronic bullying end up being consistently less healthy over the long term. However, people's response to victims of bullying range from dismissive (harden up already) to acting as bullies themselves (show me who teased you, Timmy, and I'll give them what-for). It gets even more complex when one considers that children are devious, and bullying doesn't always result in physical scars.
Now, as a result of my history as a victim of bullying and now having a daughter who is exiting her third year as the victim of bullying, I am not a dispassionate observer in this. I want solutions. Specifically, I either want the bullying to stop—not realistic—or I want ways to help my daughter cope with and escape from bullies.
So, it was timely that the EU's science funding agency chose to highlight the Victec program, led by Ruth Aylett at Hariet-Watt University. The aim of the Victec program is to develop game-like environments that allow victims of bullying to try to develop strategies for escaping from it by experimenting with different responses. After a bit of searching, I managed to locate a recent publication from the collaboration, and the results are what I would classify as tentatively useful.
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feature: The cloud and the future of the Fourth Amendment
In mid-April, a coalition of privacy groups filed a brief in federal district court in Colorado, defending Yahoo against attempts by the federal government to obtain the contents of Yahoo Mail messages without first obtaining a warrant. One month earlier, the Justice Department filed a 17-page brief arguing that Yahoo Mail messages do not fall under current statutory protection because, once opened, those messages are not considered to be in "electronic storage."
The privacy coalition—which included Google—came to Yahoo's defense, arguing that users with e-mail stored in the cloud have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of that e-mail, and should thus be protected from warrantless searches by the government. (Hopefully the irony of Google opposing robust searches is not lost on Google's attorneys.)
Unfortunately, the protections afforded by the warrant requirement have not yet been fully extended to the digital "cloud." This handy metaphor for the ethereal Internet as a storage and access hub is coming to have other implications: can we really conceal our data inside this cloud, shielding it from government intrusion?
In fact, there is not even any guarantee that e-mails stored locally on a personal home computer will be afforded such protection. But as this novel question has remained unanswered by the sloth-like pace of legal innovation, a dozen more questions have cropped up. Meanwhile, the technological innovators are demanding faster answers.
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We don't trust government, but we like government websites
We the People may say we distrust government, but we are quite fond of government websites, a new Pew Internet and American Life survey reports.
The survey finds hefty percentiles of online America using government sites to read up on the latest legislation, post comments, apply for jobs, look for services or benefits, peruse statistics, download forms, get advice on health and safety issues, and find other ways to tap local, state, and federal agencies for various goodies.
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Pieces of Windows Phone 7 puzzle forming attractive scene
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is approaching the smartphone market in a whole new way. Windows Mobile allowed many different variations of processor performance, screen resolution, touch capability, and sensor hardware, resulting in many different phones in many different form factors, at a range of price points. The huge flexibility offered with Windows Mobile is now gone; at launch, Windows Phone 7 will support only one screen resolution (with a second arriving some time later), will have a range of mandatory sensors (GPS, accelerometer, proximity, camera), and demand particular high-performance ARM processors.
This consistency extends to the software stack, too, a point reinforced by leaked documents last week. Manufacturers will not be able to replace the Windows Phone 7 home screen with custom UIs, and will have a limited ability to preload applications. No more than six applications, occupying no more than 60MB, will be permitted, and all preloaded applications will have to undergo the same Marketplace vetting process as standard third-party software.
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FCC creates TV spectrum death panel
The Federal Communications Commission has launched a new "spectrum task force," the agency announced on Monday, to "advance the FCC’s spectrum agenda and promote collaboration across the agency." The group will play a big role in "the execution of the spectrum recommendations in the National Broadband Plan, including long-term spectrum planning."
Maybe the Commission should stay away from words like "execution," given how nervously television broadcasters are watching this process. As everybody knows, a huge chunk of this project will involve figuring out ways that TV station owners can do with less bandwidth so that their licenses can be sold to the wireless industry. The latter sector faces mounting demand from smartphone-hungry consumers.
The agency's National Broadband Plan calls for the FCC to review its spectrum allocations, and free up 300MHz starting just below the UHF zone (300MHz to 3GHz) to be made "newly available for mobile use within five years."
In the case of broadcasters, the Commission proposes doing this via "incentive auctions," in which incumbent license holders will receive a portion of the money raised by an auction of their bands. "This sharing of proceeds creates appropriate incentives for incumbents to cooperate with the FCC in reallocating their licensed spectrum to services that the market values more highly," the NBP explains, e.g., mobile phone service.
But the tough challenge that this task force will face involves putting together a way for broadcasters to reconfigure their operations so they can let go of some of those licenses. Earlier this year CTIA - The Wireless Association came up with a scheme which went over with a thud at the National Association of Broadcasters. "We cannot endorse this proposal," their statement explained.
Anyway, the crusade has just begun, and the panel is cochaired by Julius Knapp, Chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering Technology, and Ruth Milkman, head of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. Both are old hands at these sort of wars. And the way we see it, there's nowhere to go but up.
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DDR3 coming back to netbooks with new Atoms
A report at the DigitTimes claims that Intel is poised to launch a pair of Atom parts with DDR3 support, and that report has been confirmed by a slip-up on Toshiba's French site. DigiTimes doesn't give a specific date for the launch of the upcoming the N455 and N475—the publication says only that the launch will happen "shortly." And given that Toshiba France has already put out a page for its NB305-10F, which pairs an N455 with 1GB of 1066MHz DDR3, we'd expect the launch to happen any day.
Also allegedly on tap for June is the dual-core Atom N500 launch, along with a $575 N500-based netbook from Asus.
Given that DDR2 and DDR3 prices reached parity and then crossed over at the beginning of this month, DDR3 was bound to arrive on the Atom platform. Atom doesn't actually need DDR3 for performance reasons—DDR2 would do just fine, because Atom's bottlenecks are elsewhere. But DDR2 prices have risen while DDR3 has remained flat, and Atom systems are cost-sensitive, so it makes sense to pair Atom with the now-cheaper DDR3.
Of course, the upcoming Atom parts only mark the return, and not the introduction, of DDR3 to Atom-based netbooks. Back before they were given the boot by Intel via the DMI bus licensing dispute, NVIDIA's ION platform paired early Atoms with DDR3 memory. So soon it will once again be possible to get a new Atom netbook, and even an ION 2-based netbook, with DDR3—not that this will make any real-world performance difference for most netbook users.
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DMCA abuse extends to Twitter posts
Twitter can be a decent communications medium for some things, but let's face it: there's only so much one can say in 140 characters. It's hard to believe that a user could infringe on someone's copyright within such tight constraints, but someone apparently thinks it can. Twitter has removed an update posted by the music writer who runs JP's blog, citing a DMCA takedown request from an unnamed sender. The situation once again highlights the potential for abuse through the DMCA's takedown system, and raises questions about how much service providers should push back against abuses.
According to a post on JP's blog, JP received a message from Twitter with a URL to the tweet that was being removed, noting that the reason was because of a DMCA takedown notice. The tweet in question was a link to a blog post on his site posted on April 20. The post described a leaked album by The National, a link to the Amazon page where the album could be preordered, and two links to MP3s from the album, both of which were hosted elsewhere (Box.net and Mediafire).
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Intel revamps Classmate PC as hybrid netbook-tablet
Today, Intel introduced the latest reference design in its low-cost, education-oriented Classmate PC program. As you'd expect, the hardware now supports an updated version of the Atom processor series, and can optionally include GPS and the latest wireless technologies. But the real news here may be the emphasis that Intel is placing on developing an ecosystem focused on early education, which suggests it sees a large potential for growth here.
The classmate hardware itself is a bit of a tablet in netbook clothing. In addition to sporting an Atom N450 at 1.66GHz, the reference design handles hard drives up to 160GB and incorporates a touch-sensitive screen with a resolution of 1366x768 in a 10.1 inch form factor. In addition to various forms of WiFi, OEMs can incorporate 3G or WiMax connectivity (there's a place allocated for a SIM card) and a GPS receiver. The hardware itself is EnergyStar 5.0 compliant, and the claims are that it gets 8.5 hours of operation out of its removable battery.
All of that is standard netbook stuff, but the classmate puts a tablet twist on things. The screen is touch-sensitive—it'll work with either a stylus or fingers—and can rotate and lie flat on top of the keyboard. An accelerometer ensures that the screen reflects the current orientation. The webcam and microphone are on a pivoting mount above the screen, which either allows them to capture the laptop's user, or allows the user to record something in the background.
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Windows Home Server version 2 hits public beta
A new version of Windows Home Server has gone into beta. Codenamed "Vail," the next Windows Home Server release is built on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2. Big new features include new media streaming capabilities, improved multi-PC backup and restore features, simpler setup, and richer customization and development opportunities for OEMs.
To download the beta, register at Connect. The beta has a laundry list of known issues, and as with all Microsoft betas, it's not recommended for production usage. The hardware requirements are modest (1.4GHz x64 processor, 1GB RAM, and at least one 160GB hard drive). It'll run happily in Hyper-V.
One of Windows Home Server's main features is its pooled storage system, Drive Extender. In version one, this was not without its problems, with data loss bugs that took a long time to receive patches and poor handling of failing or failed disks. Drive Extender has been substantially overhauled in the new version; it has better detecting and handling of errors, and provides the ability to remove hard disks without downtime.
The new media capabilities have a lot in common with Windows 7, offering transcoding, streaming, and remote playback to other networked machines. These are all managed through the Windows Home Server web front-end.
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Texas beauty school's cell phone jammer leads to $25K fine
What does a cosmetology school just outside Dallas need with a 5W adjustable cell phone jammer? Blissful quiet in the classrooms, apparently. But the school's decision to install the jamming unit (it had three more that weren't yet set up) in 2009 was one link in a chain that last week led the Federal Communications Commission to propose a $25,000 fine against the company hawking the products.
London-based Phonejammer.com has actually been in the FCC's view for some time. Back in 2008, the agency issued a citation to Phonejammer (PDF) for "marketing in the United States radio frequency devices designed to intentionally interfere with cellular and PCS frequencies."
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iPad Camera Connection Kit has hidden USB capabilities
The iPad Camera Connection Kit is not only a collection of two dock connector dongles designed to help you get photos onto an iPad from nearly any digital camera. It turns out the kit can also help you connect other USB devices to an iPad, making it that much more useful to those looking to go iPad-only for some tasks.
One of the Camera Connection Kit's two dongles has a USB port for connecting almost any digital camera via its USB cable (the other has an SD card slot). Connecting a camera or other device that reports itself as a digital camera, including an iPhone, will allow you to download full-resolution images into the iPad's Photos app.
However, experimentation has reveled that other USB devices will work with an iPad as well. Confirming earlier rumors, TidBITS reported that some USB audio devices, like speakers, headsets, and microphones will also work when attached to the USB dongle. Headsets work especially well with Skype for VoIP calls, according to TidBITS. It's expected, though untested, that USB microphones commonly used for recording podcasts or other audio should also work with audio recording applications.
In addition to USB audio devices, TUAW reported that one user was able to plug in a USB keyboard and type text, just as if a Bluetooth keyboard or an iPad Keyboard Dock were being used. This capability doesn't seem especially useful compared to a portable Bluetooth keyboard, but it's there if you need it.
Other functionality may be possible, and the fact that these devices work at all is a small sign that Apple may expand USB support in the future. iPhone OS 4.0 will also add keyboard support to the iPhone and iPod touch, though the Camera Connection Kit doesn't currently work with either device. It's possible that this device support may spread to those devices, though in our opinion connecting USB devices to an iPhone makes a lot less sense than connecting them to the larger iPad.
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Lousy tech support makes "Computer Stress Syndrome" worse
Tech support: two words that send chills down the spines of both computer experts and tech novices. Hours spent waiting on hold, techs with questionable communication skills, costly and time-sucking solutions to seemingly simple problems—how could anyone not love going through this process when they're having problems? It turns out that users experience so much stress over computer issues (and subsequently, tech support) that a whole report has been written on the topic. Unfortunately, suggestions for improving service are few and far between.
The report, Combatting Computer Stress Syndrome, was compiled by the marketing think tank Customer Experience Board and tech support company iYogi. More than 1,000 consumers in North America were surveyed in order to see what issues they had been experiencing with their machines and to reveal their perceptions and experiences dealing with support. And it certainly seems as if stress is the name of the game.
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Kids beware: your ISP has rated this website "PG"
UK ISP Tibboh is selling "safe" mobile broadband targeted at kids. For £19.99, you get a cheap USB HSPA modem, "10Gb" [sic] of data a month, and Internet access that's filtered like the movies.
Tibboh appears to be the first ISP to use the UK's official film classification scheme (U, PG, 12, 15, 18) to tag webpages using automated technology; parents can then assign a child's SIM card a certain level of approved content. Anything above that level will be blocked.
The idea is to simplify content filtering. Parents who may be confused or overwhelmed by complex filtering schemes should have less difficulty choosing a single, well-known movie rating for their child (to say nothing of installing and configuring many of the end-user solutions on the market). Tibboh even provides its own search engine so that "children only obtain results suitable for their age."
The company's sales pitch reinforces the idea of simplicity and goes after parents who don't feel fully comfortable with the Internet. "If you are unsure of how to keep your kids safe on the internet," says its website, "then tibboh is the mobile broadband solution for you."
According to the company, "The same standards are applied to the Internet that parents have come to expect over the years with cinema and DVD classifications." One obvious difference: movies classifiers actually watch the films in question. Tibboh's automated classification system works in tandem with tools like Netsweeper, but the company admits that it won't be foolproof. Still, the system is meant to be "hard to break" even for "clever kids."
How does a company market something like this to this kids? "Best of all, tibboh is safer, so you won't get any dodgy stuff you don’t like or don’t want and there’ll be less hassle from the parents... The great thing is that your parents will probably let you go on the Web more often."
The next great frontier is social networking, and the company is already "working on next generation technology which will analyse the language used on chat and social networking sites and alert the system to anything unusual or inappropriate. This will minimise the risk of cyber bullying or grooming and will allow children and young people to network online with their peers in relative privacy and increased safety."
Many of our readers have experience using, writing, or administering similar tools, so here's a question: how important is this kind of one-click "show my child only PG-rated Web content" for parents who want to set up such a system for their kids? And how effective is such a simple system likely to be?
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Supreme Court to weigh in on restricting violent game sales
The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to review the case of Schwarzenegger v. Video Software Dealers Association, a lawsuit that arose from a challenge to a law that would ban the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. According to a post on SCOTUSblog, the case will be heard when the court's next term starts on October 4. Gaming laws have a long, contentious history... and so far every bill passed to regulate the sale of content has been struck down as unconstitutional.
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