Blake

How Big a Problem Is It for Google and Facebook That Consumers Don’t Trust Them?

People don’t trust them.
According to a survey just released by consultancy Prophet, neither Facebook nor Google is among the top 10 most relevant brands as ranked by consumers. Nor are they in the top 50. In fact, Facebook barely made the top 100. That’s not because consumers don’t find these platforms useful or even inspirational—they do. But when it comes to faith and confidence in what happens to people’s personal information, everything falls apart.
“These platforms are so enjoyable—Facebook is in the top 20 to 30 brands in making people happy, and it meets an important need,” said Jesse Purewal, associate partner at Prophet. “But being able to depend on it? It’s not a brand people trust.”

From How Big a Problem Is It for Google and Facebook That Consumers Don’t Trust Them? | Adweek

January 22, 2016 by Books EBooks Google Technology

The state of privacy in America | Pew Research Center

After the June 2013 leaks by government contractor Edward Snowden about National Security Agency surveillance of Americans’ online and phone communications, Pew Research Center began an in-depth exploration of people’s views and behaviors related to privacy. Our recent report about how Americans think about privacy and sharing personal information was a capstone of this two-and-a-half-year effort that examined how people viewed not only government surveillance but also commercial transactions involving the capture of personal information.

Here are some of the key findings that emerged from this work:

From The state of privacy in America | Pew Research Center

January 21, 2016 by Internet Privacy

Libraries, Meetup Groups Get Into Adult Coloring Craze

Libraries across the country are holding adult coloring programs more and more in response to the spike in interest, according to the American Library Association, including New York City, Denver and Milwaukee. There are also groups popping up through Meetup.com.

“People just love this. . I think they feel successful, like they’ve finished something,” said Jane Henze, the adult-programming director at DeForest Public Library near Madison, Wisconsin. “The neat thing about it, as far as stress goes, you’re concentrating on something, you’re not thinking about what’s going on at home or at work.”

From Libraries, Meetup Groups Get Into Adult Coloring Craze « CBS Denver

January 21, 2016 by American Library Association Libraries

Medieval Handwriting App – Medieval Histories

If you want to study medieval scripts, handwriting, and manuscripts or simply want to get acquainted with some of the finest medieval codices here is an app to get you started

The origins of the app – Medieval Handwriting – lie in online exercises in palaeography developed for postgraduate students in the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, U.K.

The aim is to provide practice in the transcription of a wide range of medieval hands, from the twelfth to the late fifteenth century. Please note that it is not a tutorial on the development of handwriting in medieval Western Europe. Users can examine 26 selected manuscripts, zoom in on individual words, attempt transcription and receive immediate feedback. They can optionally compare their transcription with a full transcript. The user’s transcripts can be saved and reopened. The saved transcripts are accessible via File Manager apps.

From Medieval Handwriting App – Medieval Histories

January 20, 2016 by Internet

Edgar Allan Poe Had a Time Machine and I Can Prove It

Curious and tragic, yes, but hardly evidence that the acclaimed horror writer could transcend the limits of space and time. No, my time travel theory concerns the author’s creative output, which you’ll soon see, is so flukishly prophetic as to make my outlandish claim seem plausible—nay, probable!

The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is a loosely linked map of flesh-eating floaters, crunched skull-survivors, and primordial particles. OK, here we go…

From Edgar Allan Poe Had a Time Machine and I Can Prove It | HistoryBuff | The Future of History

January 20, 2016 by Uncategorized

Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future

So get used to these five. Based on their stock prices this month, the giants are among the top 10 most valuable American companies of any kind. Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft are the top three; Facebook is No. 7, and Amazon is No. 9. Wall Street gives each high marks for management; and three of them — Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook — are controlled by founders who don’t have to bow to the whims of potential activist investors.

From Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future – The New York Times

January 20, 2016 by EBooks

Braille Tablet prototype can help blind people read full pages of text

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently unveiled a new Braille-enabled prototype tablet that makes it possible for those with vision problems to read text on a full display . The tablet itself features fully refreshable pages containing raised bumps, a marked improvement from current devices that can only display one line of Braille text at a time.

From Braille Tablet prototype can help blind people read full pages of text | BGR

January 19, 2016 by Uncategorized

E-Book Sales Are Falling? Maybe?

You look suspicious. How strange. It’s almost as if you think that because those numbers come from the Association of American Publishers, they might indicate something rather different from the death of the e-book; they might be a signifier of the rise of smaller publishers not tracked by the AAP, and/or, the growth of online reading via eg Wattpad or Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. Author Earnings argues that what we’re really seeing is that AAP publishers “have seen their collective share of the US ebook market collapse.” Mathew Ingram in Fortune adds, rhetorically, “Isn’t a drop in sales just a natural outcome of the publishers’ move to keep e-book prices high?”

From Book It, Baby | TechCrunch

January 18, 2016 by Books EBooks Internet

Lost script reveals what Orson Welles really thought about Ernest Hemingway

Orson Welles once described his relationship with Ernest Hemingway as “very strange”. The two men were friends, rivals and sometimes prickly antagonists. Now a previously unpublished manuscript has revealed just what the director thought about the novelist’s take on a common passion: Spain.

The manuscript, presented in a new study on Welles, reflects his disdain for a type of macho tourist frequently spotted in Spain when mass travel to the country took off in the 1960s. Intended to form the basis of of a love-triangle drama, the script features an American bullfighting aficionado, clearly inspired by Hemingway, as the lead character.

From Lost script reveals what Orson Welles really thought about Ernest Hemingway | Film | The Guardian

January 18, 2016 by Uncategorized

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