| |
| compos mentis. Concision. Media. Clarity. Memes. Context. Melange. Confluence. Mishmash. Conflation. Mellifluous. Conviviality. Miscellany. Confelicity. Milieu. Cogent. Minty. Concoction. |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Tech Industry |
2:42 pm EDT, May 29, 2003 |
In this article, published in the May 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review, I examine the evolution of information technology in business and show that it follows a pattern strikingly similar to earlier technologies like railroads and electric power. For a brief period, as they are being built into the infrastructure of commerce, these "infrastructural technologies," as I call them, open opportunities for forward-looking companies to gain sustainable competitive advantages. But as their availability increases and their cost decreases - as they become ubiquitous - they become commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they become invisible; they no longer matter. Seeing IT in this light reveals important new imperatives for the corporate management of information technology. In brief, executives need to shift their attention from IT opportunities to IT risks - from offense to defense. Nick Carr has collected responses to his HBR, as well as related reading on the topic, at his web site. At a glance, much of his work reported here appears to be derived from that of Thomas P. Hughes. IT Doesn't Matter |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Tech Industry |
2:39 pm EDT, May 29, 2003 |
As information technology has grown in power and ubiquity, companies have come to view it as evermore critical to their success; their heavy spending on hardware and software clearly reflects that assumption. Chief executives routinely talk about information technology's strategic value, about how they can use IT to gain a competitive edge. But ,scarcity, not ubiquity, makes a business resource truly strategic -- and allows companies to use it for a sustained competitive advantage. You gain an edge over rivals only by doing something that they can't. IT is the latest in a series of broadly adopted technologies -- think of the railroad or the electric generator -- that have reshaped industry over the past two centuries. For a brief time, these technologies created powerful opportunities for forward-looking companies. But as their availability increased and their costs decreased, they became commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they no longer mattered. That's exactly what's happening to IT, and the implications are profound. In this article, HBR's Editor-at-Large Nicholas Carr suggests that IT management should, frankly, become boring. It should focus on reducing risks, not increasing opportunities. For example, companies need to pay more attention to ensuring network and data security. Even more important, they need to manage IT costs more aggressively. IT may not help you gain a strategic advantage, but it could easily put you at a cost disadvantage. Subscription required for full text. Or pick up a copy of HBR at your local news stand. IT Doesn't Matter |
|
Action video game modifies visual selective attention [PDF] |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Games |
10:45 am EDT, May 29, 2003 |
Abstract: As video-game playing has become a ubiquitous activity in todays society, it is worth considering its potential consequences on perceptual and motor skills. Here we show that action-video-game playing is capable of altering a range of visual skills. Four experiments establish changes in different aspects of visual attention in habitual video-game players as compared with non-video-game players. In a fifth experiment,
non-players trained on an action video game show marked improvement from their pre-training abilities, thereby establishing the role of playing in this effect. Here is the article in today's issue of Nature. Subscription required. Action video game modifies visual selective attention [PDF] |
|
Video-Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Games |
10:41 am EDT, May 29, 2003 |
And now, the news that every parent dreads. Researchers are reporting today that first-person-shooter video games -- the kind that require players to kill or maim enemies or monsters that pop out of nowhere -- sharply improve visual attention skills. Video-Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report |
|
Waste - Nullsoft strikes again |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Technology |
10:40 am EDT, May 29, 2003 |
WASTE is a software product and protocol that enables secure distributed communication for small (on the order of 10-50 nodes) trusted groups of users. WASTE is designed to enable small companies and small teams within larger companies to easily communicate and collaborate in a secure and efficient fashion, independent of physical network topology. WASTE is licensed under the GPL. # Network architecture: WASTE uses a distributed architecture that allows for nodes to connect in a partial mesh type network. Nodes on the network can broadcast and route traffic. Nodes that are not publicly accessible or on slow links can choose not to route traffic. This network is built such that all services utilize the network, so firewall issues become moot. # Security: WASTE uses link-level encryption to secure links, and public keys for authentication. RSA is used for session key exchange and authentication, and the links are encrypted using Blowfish in PCBC mode. The automatic key distribution security model is very primitive at the moment, and may not lend itself well to some social situations. Waste - Nullsoft strikes again |
|
On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Technology |
1:11 pm EDT, May 24, 2003 |
We propose two new tools to address the evolution of hyperlinked corpora. First, we define time graphs to extend the traditional notion of an evolving directed graph, capturing link creation as a point phenomenon in time. Second, we develop definitions and algorithms for time-dense community tracking, to crystallize the notion of community evolution. We develop these tools in the context of Blogspace, the space of weblogs (or blogs). Our study involves approximately 750K links among 25K blogs. We create a time graph on these blogs by an automatic analysis of their internal time stamps. We then study the evolution of connected component structure and microscopic community structure in this time graph. We show that Blogspace underwent a transition behavior around the end of 2001, and has been rapidly expanding over the past year, not just in metrics of scale, but also in metrics of community structure and connectedness. This expansion shows no sign of abating, although measures of connectedness must plateau within two years. By randomizing link destinations in Blogspace, but retaining sources and timestamps, we introduce a concept of randomized Blogspace. We observe similar evolution of a giant component, but no corresponding increase in community structure. Having demonstrated the formation of micro-communities over time, we then turn to the ongoing activity within active communities. We extend recent work of Kleinberg to discover dense periods of "bursty" intra-community link creation. This paper by Prabhakar Raghavan of Verity was presented this week at the International WWW conference. Free ACM registration required for download. On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace |
|
Information Flow in Social Groups [PDF] |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Technology |
1:37 am EDT, May 24, 2003 |
We present a study of information flow that takes into account the observation that an item relevant to one person is more likely to be of interest to individuals in the same social circle than those outside of it. This is due to the fact that the similarity of node attributes in social networks decreases as a function of the graph distance. An epidemic model on a scale-free network with this property has a finite threshold, implying that the spread of information is limited. We tested our predictions by measuring the spread of messages in an organization and also by numerical experiments that take into consideration the organizational distance among individuals. This paper is sort of a follow-up to the Email as Spectroscopy paper. You can find a PowerPoint briefing on it at http://www.hpl.hp.com/shl/papers/flow/justflow.ppt Information Flow in Social Groups [PDF] |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Computers |
11:02 pm EDT, May 21, 2003 |
At the height of the Internet boom in the late 90's, computer science talent was in such demand that recruiters offered signing bonuses to students who agreed to drop out of school. Now, spooked by layoffs and disabused of visions of overnight riches, many undergraduates are turning away from computer science as if it were somehow cursed. Katie Hafner writes about the fall of computing at American universities in the Thursday edition of the New York Times. Computing's Lost Allure |
|
Graduates Face Difficult Job Market |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Business |
1:05 am EDT, May 14, 2003 |
On Monday morning, about six in ten college graduates will be without a long-term plan. ... the Peace Corps has become more selective. "I think it's definitely temporary. ... two or three years, and everything will be back to normal." "I finally have an interview, kind of. It's an exploratory interview. I don't know what that means." "Right now, it almost doesn't matter what you're doing. If you have a job, people look at you like, 'You're so lucky.'" Sucks to be graduating now ... Graduates Face Difficult Job Market |
|
The EigenTrust Algorithm for Reputation Management in P2P Networks [PDF] |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Intellectual Property |
12:47 am EDT, May 14, 2003 |
Abstract: Peer-to-peer file-sharing networks are currently receiving much attention as a means of sharing and distributing information. However, as recent experience shows, the anonymous, open nature of these networks offers an almost ideal environment for the spread of self-replicating inauthentic files. We describe an algorithm to decrease the number of downloads of inauthentic files in a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that assigns each peer a unique global trust value, based on the peers history of uploads. We present a distributed and secure method to compute global trust values, based on Power iteration. By having peers use these global trust values to choose the peers from whom they download, the network effectively identifies malicious peers and isolates them from the network. In simulations, this reputation system, called EigenTrust, has been shown to significantly decrease the number of inauthentic files on the network, even under a variety of conditions where malicious peers cooperate in an attempt to deliberately subvert the system. The EigenTrust Algorithm for Reputation Management in P2P Networks [PDF] |
|
