Author: Serkadis

If you’re looking for ways to improve the health of your heart, don’t overlook the dramatic impact of two simple nutrients: vitamin B6 and CoQ10. In a controlled study published in the journal Nutrition Research in October 2012, researchers from Chung Shan Medical…

The brain neurotransmitter dopamine activates the metabolism helping the body establish a healthy weight. Additionally, dopamine helps the brain generate sufficient energy to run the body. It stimulates the heart, regulates the flow of information through our brains…

If there’s one thing monopolists hate, it’s competition. That’s probably why the U.S. government shut down Liberty Reserve yesterday, charging seven men with laundering $6 billion for over one million clients. Calling Liberty Reserve a “bank of choice for criminals,…

The criminality and illegitimacy of the federal government continues to grow, this time with the disclosure that a former U.S. attorney intentionally released a document aimed at discrediting a whistleblower in the “Operation Fast and Furious” scandal. A new report…

President Obama’s second term thus far has been consumed in scandal, including new revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has, for years, targeted key conservative constituencies including Tea Party-related organizations for political considerations. But…

Buycott is a word that defined as “the opposite of boycott,” so rather than focus on the negative act of boycotting a company, it seems the Buycott folks want you to Buycott a company. What does that mean exactly? Buycotting a company means to support a company that…

Pediatrician and pro-vaccine advocate Dr. Paul Offit has spoken out repeatedly against vaccine religious exemptions. For example, in one speech (http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org ), he implies that since the Old and New Testaments and the Qur’an predate vaccines, these…

First, let’s discuss what good sleep is and its effect on the immune system. In 2005, the National Sleep Foundation conducted a nationwide poll and determined that the amount of nocturnal bed time average in America was just under what’s considered normal, eight hours…

People who suffer from symptoms of depression have yet another way to deal with it that does not involve taking dangerous antidepressant drugs. A new study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry has found that practicing mindfulness, a meditative routine…

Propolis (or ‘bee glue’) is a sticky, brown mixture that honey bees make from their saliva and the resin of tree bark for repairing damage to their hive and sealing it from invaders. Unlike beeswax, which is used to seal larger open spaces, bees tend to reserve propolis…

When it comes to protecting the public from GMOs, Hungary knows how to get the job done: set fire to the fields growing GM corn! Although environmentalists might at first argue about the ramifications of burning so much organic matter right out in the open, the deeper…

A recent Danish study observed that several other studies have recorded evidence of vitamin C deficiency as a high risk factor for heart disease. This study’s conclusion was to merely propose a protocol for further study, ensuring the randomized double-blind approach…

Apple has hired former EPA Chief Lisa Jackson to oversee environmental activities at Apple, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at AllThingsD’s D11 conference on Tuesday night. Jackson stepped down as EPA head in January, after serving under the Obama administration.

Cook said that Jackson will be reporting directly to him and will be in charge of Apple’s environmental policy. Cook made the announcement following a shout-out to Apple’s data center in North Carolina, which has a huge solar farm and fuel cell farm next to it, and used the data center as an example of how Apple can turn around public scrutiny.

Over the past several year’s Apple’s attention to environmental concerns has grown significantly. Once targeted by advocates like Greenpeace over toxic chemicals, batteries that can’t be easily replaced, and poor conditions of its manufacturers’ employees overseas, Apple now often times receives high marks around its attention to the environment. Apple has been increasing its dedication to running its data centers off of clean power, to lowering its carbon footprint, and to reducing waste and toxic chemicals from its devices.

Even so, Apple has still stumbled over environmental regulations. A year ago, Apple, newly led by Cook, decided to walk away from certifying its computers for the green electronics method EPEAT, but then later reversed that decision, calling it a mistake. Cook can now take a cue from a leader, Jackson, with a long history with environmental regulations and metrics.

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The internet of things is gaining attention for its role cobbling together our home security systems, letting us play with our lightbulbs and even for helping track our personal fitness goals, but it’s also a fun toy for parents to engage with their kids. Unfortunately, since most connected devices are gaining ground because they borrow the brains and screens of a smartphone for their interface, most children, especially younger ones aren’t really playing with the internet of things widely.

But that could soon change. Tuesday a <a href=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/messagepetz/make-your-text-messages-huggable?ref=live”>Wi-Fi </aequipped teddy bear launched on Kickstarter. It will let parents who are away from their child text a message to the bear. The child (or a person at home who can read) will read the parent’s message as it scrolls across a little LED screen in the bear’s chest. From the MessagePetz press release:

Glenn Jones, Co-Founder and CEO, explains: “Being away from your kids can be one of the most difficult things a parent can go though. It gives me peace of mind to know that even when I’m far away, my son can snuggle up to one of the MessagePetz Bears and know I’m thinking of him. MessagePetz is like a Teddy Ruxpin for the smartphone generation”.

For those who like the idea and want to spend $89 to get the bear in March 2014  or $139 to get it in times for the 2013 holidays, here’s the project. But, with a little creativity and other connected devices you could do something similar. For example, the other day I was playing with my Belkin WeMo and realized I could send a text to IFTTT that would trigger whatever is plugged into the WeMo to turn on. So I told my daughter that when I was out of town I could plug in her disco light and whenever I thought of her, I would turn the light on.

She was unimpressed, telling me that then the light would be on all the time. So I scrapped that plan. But it started me thinking about how to use the array of connected devices in our home to send messages to her, even though she has no smartphone. You could use IFTTT to flash your child’s favorite color using Hue lights at a certain time every day, or with a bit more engineering have them trigger a a remote camera such as People Power and get a message or a short video from them as they enter the house. My daughter would love offering me a mug shot. When the MobiPlug boxes come out I could set my daughter’s favorite song to play on the Sonos given certain triggers.

The bottom line, is that a Wi-Fi enabled teddy bear that can read texts and tell you when your child hugs the bear is fun, and might indeed be worth the $89, but the internet of things can offer a lot more if you’re willing to get creative and have a few connected devices lying around. And this doesn’t even begin to cover the monitoring aspect of parenting.

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Author Gabe Zichermann recently stopped by the Googleplex to discuss his latest book, “Gamification Revolution.” Google has made the talk available on YouTube:

“Gamification: It’s the hottest new strategy in business, and for good reason–it’s helping leading companies create unprecedented engagement with customers and employees,” Google says in the video description. “Gamification uses the latest innovations from game design, loyalty programs, and behavioraleconomics to help you cut through the noise and transform your organization into a lean, mean machine ready to fight the battle for user attention and loyalty.”

The book itself is available on Google’s own Google Play.

More recent “At Google” talks here.

Lots of opportunities coming up today. I learned about the following from the MHTA newsletter…

The Anita Borg Institute is seeking applications for high school students to attend the October 2-5 Grace Hopper Celebration here in Minneapolis.  40 high school students will be selected to attend this prestigious event as part of the GenConnext program.

They are inviting 40 high school students from the Minneapolis area to participate in GHC 2013. Here are the details…

• Dates: October 2-5, 2013.
• Location: Minneapolis Convention Center

What will you do at the event?

• Experience being part of Career Fair that features organizations like Google, • Facebook, Cisco, Microsoft, HP, University of Minnesota, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvey Mudd, and many more.
• Attend one of the largest Poster sessions featuring research work from over • 150 undergraduate & graduate students.
• Connect with women mentors and other high school students who share your • tech interests.
• Be inspired by attending sessions, enjoy a delicious lunch and possibly attend • the Friday evening celebration.
• Learn what you need to do to prepare for a technology career through a • panel of experts.
• Participate in a code-a-thon to benefit humanity or be engaged in some • hands‑on skill Gaming Workshop.

Apply to participate

Complete the simple and easy online application. Visit: http://gracehopper.org/2013/conference/grace-hopper-genconnext-program/.

Please note: The application deadline is June 30, 2013.

Things are really starting to heat up with Netflix streaming. In the wake of the successful premieres of House of Cards and Hemlock Grove, Netlix has now debuted the long-anticipated return of Arrested Development, and will soon get the new season of The Killing.

Netflix has now also made available The Fall, the new crime show featuring Gillian Anderson of The X Files fame.

The show has done quite well in the UK, appearing on BBC2, and reportedly reaching about 3.5 million viewers a week since debuting earlier this month. The BBC announced that it is being renewed for a second season.

It’s not exactly a Netflix original, but it’s the latest example of Netflix getting more sought-after content to its streaming service, and quickly.

Season now available on Netflix in the U.S.

There has been a backlash lately against big data. From O’Reilly Media to the New Yorker, from Nassim Taleb to Kate Crawford, everyone is treating big data like a piñata. Gartner has dropped it into the “trough of disillusionment.” I call B.S. on all of it.

It might be provocative to call into question one of the hottest tech movements in generations, but it’s not really fair. That’s because how companies and people benefit from big data, data science or whatever else they choose to call the movement toward a data-centric world is directly related to what they expect going in. Arguing that big data isn’t all it’s cracked up to be is a strawman, pure and simple — because no one should think it’s magic to begin with.

Correlation versus causation versus “what’s good enough for the job”

One of the biggest complaints — or, in some cases, proposed facts — about big data is that is relies more on correlation than causation in order to find its vaunted insights. To the extent that’s true, it’s a fair criticism. Only I’m not certain how often it’s true for things that really matter.

Honestly, for song or product recommendations, who really cares?

But in areas like medicine, finance and even marketing, people are becoming much more concerned with finding out “why” once they’ve found out “what.” If you’re a police department trying to figure out a strategy for stopping people on the street, for example, even a strong correlation between race and certain crimes probably won’t be enough to justify harassing minorities. Oncologists might benefit from seeing the similarities among cells in a biopsy, but targeting certain markers doesn’t guarantee you can cure someone’s cancer.

Or if you’re a retail store, knowing that Mac users who visit your site tend to buy more-expensive products might make you want to show them more-expensive products. Some deeper digging — perhaps even via direct questions — would show they’re really concerned with craftsmanship. The more you learn beyond what a clustering algorithm can tell you, the better you can connect with customers.

This is why some people call the process of asking interesting questions of data “exploratory analytics.” Data analysts can send out a virtual Christopher Columbus to see what’s doing inside their data. If they find something potentially valuable, they dig in further. Correlations are just a notice that there might be something worth looking at here.

And even in the realm of machine learning — where algorithms are tearing through datasets trying to discover complex patterns humans could never spot — very few people are seriously suggesting we take the machines at their word. In case after case after case, the story is the same: machines do the heavy lifting but humans still play critical roles in training the models by correcting mistakes or adding judgment into an otherwise entirely logical process.

Web data is only part of big data

There’s another idea floating around, too, which is that web-derived data — be it from social media, search queries or some other place — is somehow synonymous with big data. Critics are quick to point out that there are biases in this type of data and that we shouldn’t abolish traditional methods of qualitative, non-digital research in lieu of methods utilizing this fast, easy web data. Of course these critics are right.

But who is really suggesting we do away with traditional forms of research? Social media data shouldn’t usurp traditional customer service or market research data that’s still useful, nor should the Centers for Disease Control start relying on Google Flu Trends at the expense of traditional flu-tracking methodologies. Web and social data are just one more source of data to factor into decisions, albeit a potentially voluminous and high-velocity one.

Even if they’re biased or perhaps even slightly misleading, though, these new data types are still valuable, even for social science research. It is a source of new, large, and arguably unfiltered insights into attitudes and behaviors that were previously difficult to track in the wild. I’m thinking of the researchers who identified new insights into bullying by studying Twitter activity, and of those who have mapped racist tweets across the United States.

The drawbacks should be pretty easy to overcome. Demographic or other biases might be relatively easy to spot when information is also tagged with geodata and perhaps profile information, for example. And assuming the data is mostly indicative of macro trends, there’s definitely value in being able to track it by the day, hour or minute and see trends shaping up in something far closer to real time than traditional research methods would allow.

It’s not all about insights

Which brings me to another point, this one about the idea that big data is all about finding out new things through exploration. Sure, that can be the case if you’re starting to analyze entirely new data sources (like social media data) or using entirely new techniques, and it’s a very compelling reason to get started down the big data path. But sometimes big data is just about automation.

Technologies like Hadoop, for example, aren’t designed to write you better models — they’re designed to process a lot more data a lot faster. If your models still work, Hadoop should help you run them better against a much larger dataset. That might lead to more accurate models and faster answers, but it won’t necessarily lead to some “a ha” moment — like that you’ve been doing business all wrong for all these years.

If you’re a law firm, analyzing e-discovery files faster and more accurately might be reward enough in itself. Or maybe you’re just trying to get a better view of customers or products by putting all your data on them, that you’ve collected over years, into one place. The point is these are valuable objectives even if they don’t involve finding a needle in the haystack.

I think MailChimp is a great example of this. It used big data techniques to discover some interesting things about the characteristics of spam, but the bigger goal was automating the spam-detection process. Those insights don’t directly affect the bottom line, but they did free up resources to help apply data science in others areas that could.

Lower your expectations. Or at least know them

Like anything in IT, big data is almost destined to be a money pit if you go into it without a plan. I’ve heard stories of large-enterprise CIOs deploying Hadoop clusters — sometimes numerous flavors of Hadoop clusters — just because they felt obligated to. I assume there are companies trying desperately to hire data scientists with no real idea what types of problems they’ll be trying to solve. That’s crazy.

In some ways, this type of thinking ties back to the idea that new digital data sources somehow overtake a company’s legacy data in terms importance. Without any actual plan of attack, proposing “We’ll use social media” as a solution to finding out more about consumers is about as useful as proposing “We’ll use Hadoop” as a solution to a question about a big data strategy. Both might very well be parts of any given plan, but they need to be used for what they’re good for.

One major takeaway from my recent interview with MetLife, for example, was how fast the company was able to move on a new data-centric project because it approached it with a plan in place about the types of data and technology it needed. I don’t think it’s surprising, either, to hear the team at Infochimps say that while customers often approach thinking they need Hadoop, it turns out they usually need to begin with something a little less industrial-strength.

So, no, new data types, technologies for processing them and techniques for analyzing them aren’t going to change the world through their mere existence. At the worst, they’re just bigger, shinier and arguably better versions of what we already had. At the best, however — and used appropriately — they really could make a big difference.

Big data will never equal perfect data, but it can definitely point us in the right direction. I suggest not throwing the baby away with the bathwater.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user alri.

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Electric car maker Tesla Motors is continuing its swift stock market trajectory this week. On Tuesday the company opened up at $101.55, crossing over the $100 mark for the first time. It’s now trading up around $110.05 per share this afternoon.

TSLA data by YCharts

With Tesla’s first quarterly profit in the company’s decade-long history last quarter, Tesla proved to skeptics that it’s been able to transition from a niche electric car maker into a more mainstream auto company. While Tesla will no doubt face hurdles as it offers two more models in the coming years, the company is far less risky than it was back in Fall of 2012, before it has cranked up its Model S production into 400 cars per week.

Over the past year, the amount of short interest (the amount of shares that investors have sold short, expecting the stock to drop in price) in Tesla has been nothing short of remarkable — it was 40 percent of available shares as recently as April 19. But now as Tesla’s stock price has been rising these short sellers have been forced to buy more shares, causing the stock to rise even more.

The result has been a massive three-fold jump in Tesla’s stock price from the $30′s a year ago to over $100 today. Tesla went public in the Summer of 2010 at $17 per share. For the Tesla teams’, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s, ambitions, it’s only the beginning.

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Arrested Development finally returned on Sunday as a Netflix semi-original series, and stars Will Arnett and Bateman have been hanging out getting some pictures taken with fellow Netflix stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright (House of Cards).

Spacey tweeted this photo out a few hours ago:

Funniest photo shoot I’ve done in a while @batemanjason @arnettwill @realrobinwright @thr @netflix twitter.com/KevinSpacey/st…

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) May 28, 2013

Here’s a better look:

Photographer Miller Mobley also shared a picture from the shoot:

@kevinspacey Did you like the results from our shoot? This one was my favorite… twitter.com/millermobley/s…

— Miller Mobley (@millermobley) May 28, 2013