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Google has been testing a fleet of autonomous vehicles on U.S. roadways for quite some time now, and other companies such as Mercedes-Benz are adding more advanced technology to aid drivers. We now have cars that can automatically stop, parallel park themselves and even detect when another car is in a blind spot. Google executives have previously said that they would like to see self-driving vehicles on the road within three to five years, however it may not happen that quickly. Industry experts believe that by 2020, car computers will handle much of the work when traveling at high speeds and five years later, we could finally see fully autonomous vehicles arrive “in meaningful numbers.”

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Many comedians use Saturday Night Live as a jumping off point for a long and successful movie or TV career, but the transition between the two can often be awkward. This week, Kristen Wiig encapsulated that awkwardness, saying she “floundered a bit” after leaving the show.

The comedian told Access Hollywood that she “felt a little lost” after her seven-year stint on the show was over. She related that the demanding six-day work week and the fact that cast members “live and breathe the show” made it difficult to adjust to a new life.

Now, however, Wiig has found her footing. The star is currently set to star in movies such as Anchorman: The Legend Continues and The Skeleton Twins. She will also be providing voice work for the animated films Despicable Me 2 and How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Wiig first appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2005. During her time with the show, she was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Her final episode of SNL ended with host Mick Jagger kicking off a rendition of the Rolling Stones song “Ruby Tuesday,” which plays while current and former cast members dance with Wiig in turn.

(Image courtesy Jiro Schneider/Wikimedia Commons)

Google today announced a major expansion of its data center campus in Lenoir, North Carolina, saying it will spend $600 million to build new server farms and populate them with  IT equipment. The search giant also said it will use its purchasing power to jump-start a renewable energy program for Duke Energy, the utility that provides electricity to the Lenoir facility.

The announcement brings Google’s investment in Lenoir to $1.2 billion. The small town in western North Carolina, where the economy was once driven by the furniture industry, is now a major conduit for Internet traffic for Google search, Gmail and YouTube videos.

“When Google builds a data center, it chooses a site large enough to accommodate growth and a site where we want to establish a long-term commitment to the local community,” said Data Center Operations Manager Enoch Moeller. “We are proud to be a part of the City of Lenoir and Caldwell County community where our employees live, work and play. North Carolina and the Lenoir community are great places in which to work and grow.”

Google also said that it will be the pilot customer in a new program from Duke Energy, which create a new service tier to deliver entirely renewable energy to large customers. Duke will file the plan with regulators within 90 days, according to Gary DeMasi, Director of Global Infrastructure for Google.

Prompting Utilities to be Greener

Google’s approach is significant for several reasons: it meets Google’s goal of using programs that create new generation of renewable energy, and prompts utilities to boost their focus on clean energy sources. This has been a major focus in North Carolina, where Greenpeace has pressured Apple over the energy sourcing for its huge data center in Maiden, which is about 30 miles south of Google’s Lenoir facility. Apple has made a huge commitment to on-site renewable generation in Maiden, building a huge solar power array and a fuel cell farm power by gases from nearby landfills.

Google is taking a different approach, tracking a model championed by Greenpeace, in which the data center industry uses its purchasing power to encourage utilities to offer more renewable options. In North Carolina, Duke is pledging to create a new rate plan (or “tariff”) for customers that want energy sourced solely from renewable sources.

“The concept of a ‘renewable energy tariff’ is simple,” Google explained in a white paper. “Utilities would offer companies like Google the choice to buy renewable energy through a new class of service. The service would be voluntary, provided only to those companies that request it but open to all customers that want it and meet basic criteria. A key aspect of the tariff is that the costs of procuring the renewable power would be passed on to the customer that has elected this option, so the goal would be to avoid impact on other ratepayers.”

Data Centers Greening the Grid

Google has been considering this type of approach for some time. In March 2012, Google data center executive Joe Kava said the data center industry could use its leverage to prompt greener practices from major utilities.

“I’d like to challenge the industry to pool its resources,” Kava said at an industry conference. “Why can’t we, as an industry, form a consortium to buy renewable power and push it to the grid. That way we can green the power we are all using … “To us, it’s about increasing the content and percentage of renewables on the grid. If we can increase the green content on that grid, we’ll also green our data center.”

When asked whether Google had contemplated such an approach in North Carolina, Kava said there had been no active effort to organize other players. But if Duke succeeds in creating an all-green service tier, other data center companies could participate, further boosting demand for renewable generation.

“Offering companies like Google a renewable energy option has many advantages,” DeMasi wrote in a post on the Google blog. “Because the service is made available to a wide range of customers, companies that don’t have the ability or resources to pursue alternative approaches can participate. And by tapping utilities’ strengths in power generation and delivery, it makes it easier for companies to buy renewable energy on a larger scale.”

Google’s move was hailed by Greenpeace.

“Google’s announcement shows what forward-thinking companies can accomplish when they are serious about powering their operations with clean energy,” said Greenpeace International Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook. “Before today, even large energy users in North Carolina were only offered dirty energy by Duke Energy: coal, nuclear and gas. In living up to its commitment of powering 100% of its operations with renewable energy, Google has given Duke Energy the push it needed to offer a Renewable Tariff which could finally mean access to clean energy for Duke Energy’s customers in North Carolina.”

Will Google Pay a Green Premium?

The approach is not without its challenges. Utilities will need to work out the details of the service with state regulators, and find cost-effective renewable projects.

But the major issue for data center providers will be cost, as renewable energy sources are currently more expensive than the current industrial rates from Duke Energy of about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which is primarily sourced from coal and nuclear power. Google is aware of this discrepancy.

“We might take a loss (at first),” said Kava in his presentation last year. “But over a 20-year period, I’m betting the price of power will go up.”

By committing to be the pilot customer for Duke, Google appears to be ready to pay a premium for renewable energy, at least in North Carolina. Even a “green tariff” would likely include some non-renewable energy, since solar power is only available during the day and wind power can be intermittent.

“If needed, a supplemental ‘shaping’ service from other (likely non-renewable) generation would fill in the gaps of variable renewable resources and ensure
that customers receive continuous and reliable service,” Google said in its white paper. “Thus,the tariff will eliminate many of the complexities of intermittent renewable energy production for customers.”

The “Microsoft’s dead” meme is one of the most popular among tech bloggers and arm-chair pundit commenters. Posts are everywhere the last 30 days or so, fed this month by reports of record-weak PC shipments. After market close yesterday, with fiscal Q3 results, Microsoft proved critics wrong and showed just how much strength remains in the Windows franchise. More significantly, a dramatic change is underway, regarding which buyers generate more revenues.

IDC says that PC shipments fell 13.9 percent during calendar first quarter (Microsoft’s fiscal third), and there was reasonable expectation Windows license sales would see similar fall off. Instead, when removing a one-time $1.085 billion deferral, Windows & Windows Live division revenue was flat ($4.62 billion) year over year. Given the sorry state of the PC market, flat isn’t just good but great.

Typically, license sales to PC manufacturers account for 75 percent to 80 percent of Windows revenue. During fiscal third quarter there was dramatic shift, with non-OEM sales, largely from commercial licenses and Surface tablets, representing 40 percent of revenue. If this turns into a trend, within a year Windows & Windows Live could look more like Business and Server & Tools divisions, where, respectively, 60 percent and 50 percent of revenues come from multi-year license sales to businesses.

The dynamic smooths out revenue for the other divisions and insulates them from economic downturns or changes in PC sales. The Windows group moves in the same direction. The reason, however, will surprise many.

Two-thirds of enterprises now use Windows 7, according to Microsoft, and three-quarters of Enterprise Agreements include Windows licenses. Meanwhile, overall volume-licensing revenue grows in the double-digits. However, in my experience talking to IT managers, large businesses often buy licenses to exercise downgrade rights rather than to upgrade — that’s to standardize on one platform. There still is in process a massive move away from XP, which by analyst estimates accounts for 40 percent of the Windows install base.

The rise in uptake could easily reflect resistance to Windows 8 rather than demand for it — large businesses choosing annuity contracts so they can downgrade rights and install Windows 7. That said, once businesses move to annuity contracts, they are more likely to stick with them, based on historical Microsoft corporate customer buying trends. Additionally, the business downgrading today can upgrade in the future.

Microsoft offers many multi-year license plans. Enterprise Agreement, generally the most flexible, is the more popular among larger businesses. To the other plans, buyers can attach — and Microsoft encourages them to do so — Software Assurance, which provides lower-cost upgrades. Businesses make annual payments for EA or SA, the latter 29 percent per year of desktop software’s price. That’s where Microsoft gets assured revenue, regardless of economic downturns or declines in PC sales.

So there are two lessons coming from fiscal Q3 results: Windows license sales are surprisingly healthy, particularly considering PC market ills. Windows revenue shifts from PC OEMs to other segments, particularly multi-year license sales to businesses. There remains Windows success, or failure, on future computing devices — a topic I tackle in my next post.

Photo Credit: abeadev/Shutterstock

For those startups in newer areas like robotics, artificial intelligence and augmented reality who complain that VCs are too focused on consumer internet companies, help is at hand: Genesis Angels is a new VC that has raised a fund of around $100 million, with a large chunk coming from co-founder and serial investor and Kazakh petrochemical mogul Kenges Rakishev, which it plans to use for early stage investments in emerging areas like these and others. Based in Israel, but looking for startups worldwide, Genesis launched just this week, naming ex-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert as its chairman.

Moshe Hogeg, the other co-founder behind Genesis Angels (and founder and CEO of mobile video/photo startup Mobli, pictured here with Rakishev, left, and Olmert, center), says that the idea for Genesis came out of his and Rakishev’s observation that while the market for consumer internet services is saturated with a lot of me-too companies, there is a flourishing world of R&D in areas like robots and artificial intelligence that is not getting enough attention. It’s mostly giant tech companies like Google and Microsoft and academic institutions that are putting money into the very cutting edge of technology.

(Indeed, it was just yesterday, during Google’s earnings call, that CEO Larry Page talked about the “big bets” that Google wants to make on new technology. Google is not afraid to make big investments, he said, because the fear is that if it doesn’t it may miss out on the next big thing.)

The problem with this is that it leaves little room for startups. And although more recent developments like Kickstarter and Indigogo are creating a new groundswell of interest and financial support for some of these projets, there are yet others that will not want that kind of public profile for what they’re working on.

Hogeg describes Genesis’ role as something between the concept stage and when a VC may typically become interested in a company working on cutting-edge technology. “You can send the most brilliant scientist to a VC, but often it might take that scientist and his startup five years to create their products,” he explained in an interview. “VCs will say, ‘No problem, come back in four years.’ Genesis will invest in those companies in the meantime.” Typical investments will be in the range of $200,000 and $2 million.

If you visit Genesis Angels’ site, you will see that it already lists a number of companies in its portfolio, including Hogeg’s. These are listed, he says, because they are some of the investments Rakishev himself has made. Genesis, he notes, is still raising money for its first fund, with the total in play currently close to $100 million. Among those contributing to the fund are merchant bank Forbes & Manhattan, as well as private individuals who are well-known in the space of angel investments specifically around areas like hardware and new technology. The first three investments that are being made out of the new fund, Hogeg says, will be coming out shortly.

Ehud Olmert’s appointment as chairman is about laying the groundwork for the kind of assistance that Genesis Angels will be able to offer its portfolio companies, Hogeg says.

“He is a big believer in technology. Irasel invested the most in this area when he was still prime minister,” he notes. The relatively small country currently has some 3,000 tech companies, according to this report from the AP on the launch of the new VC.

Olmert took office in 2006 but left in 2009 under a corruption scandal cloud that he is still fighting. But that, apparently, has not affected his wider influence. “Mr Olmert is a very powerful man and he can use his contacts to help us and our companies, for example in partnering and joint ventures. He can open any door in the world.”

There have been other VC funds focused on these emerging areas. Dmitry Grishin, for example, the CEO of Mail.ru and founder of Grishin Robotics, last year started a $25 million fund dedicated to investing in other robotics companies (examples of his investments here, here and here).

It may be that Genesis teams up with people like this to cooperate on investments. “He shares a vision with us about this space,” says Hogeg.

Pricing is at the heart of every business, and pricing decisions are far more complicated than merely covering expenses. In the price of a good there are connotations of quality, the volume sold and even the perception of the brand. But when it come to digital goods — where the cost of goods sold is measured in AWS instances and engineers — setting prices can become almost pure strategy.

Bill Gurley, a general partner with Benchmark Capital, takes a look at this strategy when it comes to setting what he calls the rake, or commission, between a platform owner and those using the platform. Examples of the rake include Apple’s 30 percent fee on apps in its App store as well as the service fees associated with oDesk or OpenTable.

Gurley’s article, which is well worth a read, explores the relationship between the rake and the spread of the platform through a series of anecdotes. I just wish he had some documented research; not because I think his conclusions are wrong, but because I think we’d learn even more about how the cost of doing business on a platform affects volume in more subtle ways.

For example, Gurley makes much of the benefits of having a low rake, which encourages developers/end users/merchants to use the platform and also prevents a newcomer from coming in and undercutting you on price. What he doesn’t dig into is how the benefits of scale in the digital world mean that undercutting people on price is a race to the bottom. This is one reason people are concerned that no one but Google can compete with Amazon Web Services when it comes to cloud computing, despite Microsoft saying it will match AWS pricing on its own Azure cloud.

Here’s Gurley’s take on competition and the set rake:

If your objective is to build a winner-take-all marketplace over a very long term, you want to build a platform that has the least amount of friction (both product and pricing). High rakes are a form of friction precisely because your rake becomes part of the landed price for the consumer. If you charge an excessive rake, the pricing of items in your marketplace are now unnaturally high (relative to anything outside your marketplace). In order for your platform to be the “definitive” place to transact, you want industry leading pricing – which is impossible if your rake is the de facto cause of excessive pricing. High rakes also create a natural impetus for suppliers to look elsewhere, which endangers sustainability.

And here he is discussing a favorite business model for digital platforms — a low rake with a mechanism for people who want to spend more to do so in exchange for better placement or the opportunity to get favorable placement on the platform:

You start with a low rake to get broad-based supplier adoption, and you add in a market-driven pricing dynamic that allows those suppliers who want more volume or exposure to pay more on an opt-in basis. This way no one leaves the network due to excessive fees, yet you end up with a higher average rake over time due to the competitive dynamic. And when prices go up due to bidding and competition, the suppliers blame their competition not the platform (part of the genius of the Google AdWords business model). This also allows you to extract more dollars from those suppliers who desire to spend more to promote themselves (without raising the tax on those that don’t).

The article is worth reading, and I hope that some MBA professor takes it into his head to start some rigorous research on the best commission structures across digital verticals, or perhaps the biggest factors that should influence your rake rates. Because while generally low is good, if one could manage to be an area where high or medium works — at least for a while — then why not start there and see what happens?

Or better yet, invest in tools that allow for dynamic pricing based on the user’s need or demographics. That’s something more easily done online and is utterly neglected in Gurley’s article. In a digital world, the cost of goods is lower, so the risk of playing with pricing is lower as well. I think we’re going to see a lot more of it.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech
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Google has invested over a billion dollars into clean power projects, but the search engine giant wants even more ways to access clean power directly for its data centers. That’s why on Friday Google is expected to publicly ask utilities to offer clean power buying programs to large companies like itself that are willing to buy clean power, potentially at a premium. At the same time, Google is also announcing that it’s working with Duke Energy in North Carolina on just such a program.

Duke Energy said it will ask the state commission in North Carolina in the coming months to approve a new plan to sell clean power directly to companies that request it. Utilities sometimes can’t offer these types of programs because of regulatory constraints.

Google will buy that clean power and use it to expand its data center operations in Lenoir, North Carolina. Google said it will invest another $600 million into building out more computing capacity and the equivalent power to run that capacity in Lenoir. The Lenoir data center, which will involve a total investment of $1.2 billion for Google, runs services like Google search, Gmail, Google+ and YouTube.

As I discovered on my North Carolina mega data center road trip last year (which included a stop at Lenoir), North Carolina is becoming a hub for some of the internet giants’ largest data centers. But the problem has been that the North Carolina grid is mostly coal and nuclear power. As a result, some of the internet companies in the state, like Apple, have been trying to be creative — Apple is building out two massive solar panel farms and a fuel cell farm at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina.

Google’s Lenior data center was one of the first in the region, and was built a bit before the internet companies started implementing more clean energy for data centers. Last year for my series, I interviewed Gary Demasi, who has led Google’s efforts purchasing clean power for data centers, and he told me that Google has “gotten more proactive and aggressive since then.” That’s why Google might be starting its first efforts for direct clean power in North Carolina.

Google calls the new program “renewable energy tariffs.” Basically, the customer using the power — in this case Google — would pay for the additional cost of clean power, instead of the rate-payers — basic residential and commercial customers — which is how it operates in many states.

Unlike Apple, Google has shown less interest, so far, in building its own clean power plants at the sites of its data centers. However, that could change, as I’ve heard rumors that Google might want to build more of its own clean power projects, as the price of solar panels has gotten so cheap in recent months. However they do it, clearly Google is trying to innovate within the stodgy world of regulation and the power grid.

Check out my series on North Carolina’s mega data centers:

• The ultimate geek road trip: North Carolina’s mega data center cluster
• 10 reasons Apple, Facebook & Google chose North Carolina for their mega data centers
• The controversial world of clean power and data centers
• The story behind how Apple’s iCloud data center got built

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• The case for low-power servers in the data center
• Data center, meet the smart grid
• Locating data centers in an energy-constrained world

Twitter may have gotten significantly more useful for businesses this week with the launch of keyword targeting for its ad platform. The company began rolling out the feature on Wednesday in all languages and markets where Twitter ads are supported.

Do you think the new targeting capability makes Twitter more valuable for businesses? Let us know in the comments.

With keyword targeting, advertisers can reach users based on words in their recent tweets and in tweets with which they’ve recently engaged.

“This is an important new capability – especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent – because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context,” says Twitter Revenue product manager Nipoon Malhotra. “For example: let’s say a user tweets about enjoying the latest album from their favorite band, and it so happens that band is due to play a concert at a local venue. That venue could now run a geotargeted campaign using keywords for that band with a Tweet containing a link to buy the tickets. That way, the user who tweeted about the new album may soon see that Promoted Tweet in their timeline letting them know tickets are for sale in their area.”

According to Twitter, users are more likely to engage with promoted tweets that take advantage of keyword targeting. The company ran tests with clients like GoPro, Everything Everywhere, Microsoft Japan and Walgreens, and found this to be the case.

“After testing keyword targeting in timeline across four marketing campaigns, GoPro saw close to two million impressions, and engagement rates as high as 11 percent on Tweets promoted using the new feature,” says Malhotra.

Twitter’s new offering has been drawing comparisons to search advertising. Peter Kafka at All Things D says it’s Twitter making its ad pitch “more Googley”. Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch also compares it to search.

In fact, even Malhotra plays the search card, saying, “Setting up a campaign to target keywords in the timeline is very similar to the setup process for search. Enter the keywords you want to target, choose whether you want to use phrase match or unordered keyword match, and specify your other targeting options such as geographic location, device and gender.”

As Kafka notes, however, some have been quick to point out that it’s not exactly like search in that the intent expressed in a tweet is hardly reflective of the intent of a search. Essentially, when you’re searching, you’re looking for something. When you’re tweeting, you’re simply saying something. Occasionally, that might be a signal of something you’re interested in buying, but how often?

The set-up process is about as easy as it could possibly be. You simply go to Twitter’s Advertisers page, log in, and follow the steps. Tell Twitter who you want to target, what you want to promote, how much you want to spend, and how you want to pay. That’s pretty much it.

Some are still skeptical about how effective the new feature will make Twitter for advertisers, but it certainly can’t hurt. The functionality is available in the full Twitter Ads user interface as well as through the Ads API.

What do you think? Does this make Twitter a better place to advertise? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Amazon Studios has just unveiled 14 new pilots for your viewing pleasure, and your feedback will determine which pilots are developed into something more.

Over on the Amazon Original Pilots page, you can find the pilots for 8 different comedy shows. Most of them have been announced and viewers have simply been waiting for the pilots to drop – this includes Zombieland, based on the film of the same name and Betas, a show about a Silicon Valley startup.

The full list of the comedy pilots is Alpha House, Betas, Browsers, Dark Minions, Onion News Empire, Supanatural, Those Who Can’t, and Zombieland.

Amazon has also launched the pilots for 6 children’s shows: Annebots, Creative Galaxy, Positively Ozitively, Sara Solves It, Teeny Tiny Dogs, and Tumbleaf.

All of the pilots are free to watch for people in the U.S. and the U.K. German LOVEFILM customers will get the pilots in a few weeks.

Amazon is also inviting viewers to rate and review the pilots, in an attempt to determine which ones should receive a full-series run. On the pilots page, Amazon links viewers to a survey where they can answer questions about any and all of the 14 pilots – “Overall, how would you rate the show” and “Based on what you’ve seen, would you watch future episodes” type questions.

Not all of these pilots will receive additional episodes – but the exact number that will is still undecided. Amazon Studios director Roy Price told The Verge:

“We don’t have any particular number of shows in mind…We would like to see a few shows come out of the process. Seven would be a lot, but zero wouldn’t be enough. So somewhere between there.”

So, go watch, and go vote. Let’s see if Amazon can draw up some good series out of this experiment.

Yo-yo world champion BLACK admits that the first time he picked up his instrument of choice, at age 14, he couldn’t figure out the simplest of tricks. But after a week of practice, he started to understand its movement and dynamics.

BLACK: My journey to yo-yo masteryIn today’s talk, given at TED2013, BLACK remembers, “I thought, ‘The yo-yo is something for me to be good at. For the first time in my life, I found my passion.’”

BLACK practiced for hours a day and, four years later, won the World Yo-Yo Contest. But when fame and fortune failed to follow, he put the yo-yo aside and studied to be a systems engineer.

In the end, though, he says couldn’t stay away. He won the World Yo-Yo Contest for a second time in 2007 and, from there, he hasn’t looked back, taking his unusual performance art all around the world.

“I wanted to show on stage how spectacular the yo-yo could be, to change the public image of the yo-yo,” he says. “What I’ve learned with the yo-yo is that if I make enough efforts with huge passion, there’s no impossible.”

After you’ve watched today’s talk — yo-yos swirling masterfully along to dramatic music — watch more videos of this yo-yo superstar in action. Starting with an incredible six-minute act.

If you only have 40 seconds, here’s a supercut of some of his greatest tricks.

Here, BLACK uses a yo-yo to pull a tablecloth off a table — without spilling a drop of water.

The routine that won BLACK the World Yo-Yo Contest in 2007.

And BLACK performs to Christopher Hardy’s “Breathing Light.”

Check out some beautiful images of BLACK from the TED stage »

We’ve already talked about how Twitter has changed the way that real-time journalism functions during news events like the Boston bombings, by taking all the editorial activity that usually happens behind the scenes in newsrooms — the speculation, the fact-checking, and so on — and pushing it out into the open where anyone can take part in it. But it’s not just Twitter, of course: as we’ve seen this week, other social platforms like Reddit are also playing a growing role. Is that good or bad? As with most things on the internet, there’s plenty of both.

Within hours of the explosions in Boston, members of the Reddit community had created a thread (or sub-Reddit) about the incident, in an attempt to identify potential suspects. Users posted photos that had been published online or submitted by onlookers, and analyzed video clips, piecing together clues like a specific kind of zipper that was used on a backpack found at the scene. Eventually, two potential suspects were identified — including one who posted a message on Facebook about his innocence.

Plenty of mistakes to go around

After some more investigation and crowdsourced information gathering, users on the Reddit thread seemed more or less convinced that the two were not likely to be the actual bombers, and eventually declared them “cleared.” Meanwhile, the New York Post identified the same two people as potential suspects and published their photos on the front page (both suspects have now been identified — one was reportedly shot by police on Friday and as of mid-afternoon on Friday the other was said to be on the run).

Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic wrote that the process taking place on Reddit amounted to “vigilantism,” and was reprehensible, and warned against encouraging untrained people to try and determine the validity of forensic evidence after such an event. But is what happened on Reddit so bad? And is it any worse than what the traditional media have done in similar situations? I’m not convinced.

Yes, users of Reddit made mistakes — plenty of them, including identifying the wrong person as a suspect a second time on Thursday after erroneous information emerged from police scanners and other sources. But CNN and the NY Post have made plenty of mistakes as well, something Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review doesn’t really mention in his post about how brilliant the traditional media was and how wrong Reddit has been. The larger point is that this isn’t an either/or situation — crowdsourcing is valuable, and has been valuable for journalism and will continue to be.

Remember when we didn’t think random people putting together an encyclopedia would ever work? And yet it has — in part because it has a lot more structure than Reddit or 4chan. And those sites would probably be a lot more useful in these cases if people spent more time thinking and less time typing. But that doesn’t negate the value they can provide. The idea of using the knowledge and resources of the crowd is the whole point behind Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s “open journalism,” and it is a force we need to figure out how to tame, not dismiss as irrelevant based on one incident.

Open journalism works better

Am I calling what Reddit has been doing since the Boston bombings journalism? Yes. It may not encompass the entirety of what we know as journalism, and it is clearly flawed, but it is certainly an important aspect of it — just as Eliot Higgins, an unemployed British accountant, is performing a valuable journalistic act (one that New York Times writer C.J. Chivers has recognized) in verifying smuggled weapons in Syria by watching hundreds of hours of YouTube videos every day, even though no one is paying him to do so.

Will Oremus at Slate makes a fairly persuasive argument that Reddit has in some cases been *more* responsible in its attempts to identify the individuals than some traditional sources, including the Post. This kind of crowdsourced fact-checking and verification of evidence has been going on for years — it’s just more mainstream now. And anyone looking for evidence of someone jumping the gun and encouraging vigilantism doesn’t have to look any further than CNN.

When I wrote recently about the benefits of having journalism occur out in the open, journalism teacher Steve Fox and others said I didn’t spend enough time on the need for verification, and maybe I didn’t, but I believe this also should be done out in the open. In fact, one of the benefits to doing so is the ability to have more eyes on the information at hand — thereby making it easier to filter out the noise and find the signal, or triangulate the truth. As Jay Rosen has said, journalism gets better the more people there are doing it. And that includes Reddit.

Post and thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr users Christian Scholz and Eva Blue and Jan-Arief Purwanto

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3D printers can be used for a lot of things, but a music player never seemed like one of them. One inventor at Art Hack Day 2013 in Stockholm proved that assumption wrong with his own unique 3D printer that doubled as a music player.

What’s interesting about this particular 3D printer is that it not only plays music, but it prints the music as well. As it’s playing the music, the printer is also creating the “sound-form” of the music as its visualized by a computer program. During the event, the printer played and printed six songs, including the Imperial March and Carmen: Habanera.

Here’s the printer playing and printing Carmen:

You may be asking yourself, “What’s the point?” The point is that it’s really awesome.

If you want to try out 3D printed music for yourself, you can grab the source code here.

[h/t: 3ders]

If Sprint was hoping that Dish’s merger offer would get rival suitor SoftBank to up its bid, it may come away disappointed. An unnamed SoftBank executive tells Bloomberg that the company has no plans to sweeten its offer and instead “will focus on its existing plans” for acquiring the company. As it stands now SoftBank’s $20.1 billion offer is significantly less than the $25.5 billion offer that Dish proposed earlier this week. Sprint has formed a special committee to take a look at Dish’s offer and Dish has asked the Federal Communications Commission to hold off on approving the proposed SoftBank merger until Sprint executives have had the opportunity to evaluate the competing offer.

As it matures, Google’s Chrome OS is looking more and more like a traditional operating system as opposed to a simple browser. François Beaufort from Google points out the Files app shows a number of improvements in the latest Developer version of Chrome OS. And unlike web apps, Files will be what Google calls a Packaged App; software that runs in Chrome OS outside of the browser.

That last point is key because Packaged Apps take advantage of Chrome’s security elements — sandboxing, in particular, so that if they crash or hang, they can’t affect other apps or browser pages  – while still using web technologies. The apps are treated like first-class citizens to the operating system. You can tap Alt + Tab to switch between them, for example. Google explains:

Packaged apps deliver an experience as capable as a native app, but as safe as a web page. Just like web apps, packaged apps are written in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. But packaged apps look and behave like native apps, and they have native-like capabilities that are much more powerful than those available to web apps. Packaged apps have access to Chrome APIs and services not available to traditional web sites. You can build powerful apps that interact with network and hardware devices, media tools, and much more.

Aside from the Packaged App technology, the developer build of Files has more and better ways to show files.

On my Chromebook Pixel, for example, I can only see Downloads, Google Drive and any external storage in the Files app. Since the Pixel is my full-time work machine, I typically run the standard Stable version. The newer Developer version also shows recently used files, files that are shared and those marked for offline use. From what I can see, it doesn’t yet include support for other cloud services, however.

Both the usability improvements and the standalone nature of the Files app show that Google doesn’t plan to keep Chrome OS as a simple browser running atop a Linux kernel. The platform is quickly iterating to provide the desktop experience that traditional computers users are used to while still being a lightweight but effective computing environment.

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Whether you’re asking Siri about the weather, the score of last night’s ballgame or something a little more personal, you’re probably at least a little curious about how Apple handles all those voice-activated search requests. Well, you can thank the ACLU and Wired for getting to the bottom of things: it turns out that Apple, using anonymized user ID numbers, holds on to your Siri data for up to two years.

Here’s Wired‘s explanation on what happens when you ask Siri to do something for you and the information goes off to an Apple data center:

Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.

Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple “disassociates” your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes.

The report includes a statement from Apple, which confirms the anonymized information may be kept “for up to two years.” But, according to the Apple spokeswoman, “If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.”

The two-year mark is six months longer than Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, all of which retain search data for 18 months.

Apple clarified what it does with this information because a lawyer for the ACLU started asking questions. The concern stemmed from Apple’s privacy policy for Siri users, which states in part, “Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Siri and other Apple products and services.”

Machine learning technology and natural language processing, which is what Siri is based on, needs a lot of information to identify patterns in data and therefore be more helpful both in understanding your speech and providing correct answers.

Being connected to an anonymized set of digits may make some users uncomfortable, so the ACLU thinks Apple should make that more clear before they start using the service.

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Over the past decade, patient-centered care has become a mantra for high-quality health care. Policymakers, researchers, physician-leaders, and patients have all cited the need for care to be tailored to patients’ unique needs and preferences. And there is solid evidence that patient-centered care can help improve care quality and reduce costs. However, in the rush to become more patient-centered, the health care system has misplaced its focus.

Current approaches to patient-centered care are based on aggregated preferences rather than individualized needs. Researchers and health systems deploy focus groups and surveys to assess general patient preferences in an effort to determine “what patients want.” But patients are a diverse group with diverse needs. Characterizing general beliefs and preferences alienates those whose needs and preferences do not align with the majority. The result has been a monolithic view of patients and their needs — a framework that prevents the delivery of truly patient-centered care.

All service industries share the challenge of providing tailored, individualized service. In response, leaders in customer service have developed tools and infrastructure to understand and respond to individual needs and preferences. Health care providers should leverage these approaches.

Tailored Service

For example, lessons from hospitality industry hold promise in helping physicians understand patient preferences and deliver tailored care. Consider New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer, who has built a restaurant empire on a relentless pursuit of hospitality and personalized service.

People sitting down for a business dinner or anniversary at one of his restaurants might receive reserved, formal service. A group of eager tourists, on the other hand, may hear longer explanations of each dish and its provenance.

This type of service acumen is essential if physicians are going to respond to each patient’s unique needs and provide individualized care. However, medical education currently focuses on teaching standardized approaches to patient interaction. We were taught specific language that patients find helpful and specific actions and reactions such as placing a hand on patients if they begin to cry.

These strategies are well intentioned but stem from a misguided focus on the needs of the average patient. New servers at Meyer’s restaurants do not learn the preferences of the average diner. Instead, they are trained to quickly assess the preferences of the people at each table and tailor service to their unique needs. Medical schools should help students develop these same skills.

Consumer-Marketing Tools

Additionally, consumer-marketing tools, such as customer segmentation, can help providers deliver tailored care. Customer segmentation is ubiquitous across service and consumer product industries, but its application to health care has lagged. As health-care-delivery systems expand and more data is stored in electronic databases, there exists the potential to prospectively segment patients according to their needs and preferences.

Recently, researchers have used cluster analysis and data mining of large health databases to group patients according to preferences and measures of experience. Delivery systems could use these data to predict patient needs and expectations. For example, a practice could determine which patients are more likely to prefer being close partners in care decisions, be especially angered by lengthy wait times, or place a premium on warm, trusting relationships with staff.

Despite their broad applicability, these types of strategies and insights from service industries are underutilized by health care systems. One reason is providers have been reluctant to see health care as a service industry. Only by accepting the reality that it is one can providers learn from the successes of others in the field. And there is plenty to learn.

An L.A. SWAT team was called to the home of actor Eddie Kaye Thomas this week, but it wasn’t the latest incident of ‘swatting‘.

TMZ this week is reporting that Thomas placed a 911 call this week, after a woman at his house threatened him with a knife. Police arrived and an hours-long standoff with the woman ended when the SWAT team forced her out of the house with tear gas.

The TMZ report states that Thomas had only met the woman the night before the incident. The woman reportedly “trashed” Thomas’ house and smashed a guitar during the incident. She has been charged with felony vandalism.

Thomas is most famous for playing the role of Finch in the 1999 movie American Pie. The character is famous for bedding another character’s (Stifler’s) mom at the end of the movie.

In addition to reprising his role in other American Pie movies, Thomas has starred in movies such as Freddy Got Fingered, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

(Image courtesy Attit Patel/Wikimedia Commons)

Google released its Q1 earnings on Thursday, beating Wall Street estimates. The company reported $14 billion in revenue, up 31% year-over-year.

Google has made available its entire earnings call for all to listen to after it was broadcast live . If you want to revisit it, here you go:

You can see the full earnings release here.