Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

It is Always Nice to See Innovation in Action

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

At BlackOut we try to keep current on new web developments and there have been quite a few lately. One that I wanted to toss out there is Kapitall.

Although there is no shortage of investing tools out there I think between the mission of Kapitall and the revolutionary interface it is a project the deserves a mention. The goal of the project, in part, is to educate beginners on the world of investing and specifically on how to research an investment. It does a great job of sorting your portfolio data and pulling up information about a stock or mutual fund effortlessly. Right now the project is in a “beta” so you can really just monkey around with the interface and be dazzled by the workspace. My be is much link Mint we will be reading about an acquisition sooner rather than later.

Definitely a project worth watching.

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Posted in Business, Design, Opinion | No Comments »

April 1st Can Only Mean One Thing…

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Time for a new Google hoax. This year they embrace their take on AI, sort of. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html

On January 12th 2009, the STT run (Standard Turing Test) confirmed behavior indistinguishable from that of a reasonable human being with above-average intelligence and 3.8 GPA (we’re still struggling to understand that missing .2; we suspect it points to fundamental flaws in the GPA system rather than CADIE.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to find these April Fool’s projects previously you might want to check out Wikipedia. I still think the world is ready for Google Gulp.

Posted in Business, Opinion | No Comments »

Big Brother 2.0

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

There has been a bit of controversy over how the 50-60million subscriber monster Facebook is treating their terms of service (TOS). There is some more detail here but as they point out on Mashable the gist is the following:

“The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service, regarding user-generated content.

In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way – even if you quit the service.”

I teach a class or two per semester at a local university on various technology/web topics in which I find myself in the same spot semester after semester. I assume my students are leary enough of technology, since they are in the 17 – 21 year old demographic, to not assume they are using their Facebook or Myspace accounts with anonymity. Semester after semester I see their eyes widen when I tell them how the magical internet actually ciruclates their latest Facebook status and that gallery of images from the party that their first employer really didn’t need to see all the details of without their permission. I like to think this little TOS blip might further impress upon them that indeed their digital soapbox is very public.

Posted in Business, Opinion, Social Media | No Comments »