Weekly digest of week 38 2009

The subjects for this week’s digest are: Google’s Internet stats and Google liberating data, Microsoft’s vision on the next-gen newspaper and digital contact lenses that monitor your health.

Linked Government Data « Decentralyze
identify ways for governments and computer science researchers to
continue working together to advance the state-of-the-art in data
integration and build useful, deployable proof-of-concept demos that
use actual government information and demonstrate real benefit from
linked data integration.
Digital Contacts Will Keep an Eye on Your Vital Signs | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
Forget about 20/20. “Perfect” vision could be redefined by gadgets that
give you the eyes of a cyborg. The tech industry calls the digital
enrichment of the physical world “augmented reality.” Such technology
is already appearing in smart phones and toys, and enthusiasts dream of
a pair of glasses we could don to enhance our everyday perception. But
why stop there? Scientists, eye surgeons, professors and students at
the University of Washington have been developing a contact lens
containing one built-in LED, powered wirelessly with radio frequency
waves.
PrimeLife – Privacy and Identity Management in Europe for Life
Individuals in the Information Society want to protect their autonomy
and retain control over personal information, irrespective of their
activities. Information technologies hardly consider those
requirements, thereby putting the privacy of the citizen at risk.
Today, the increasingly collaborative character of the Internet enables
anyone to compose service and contribute and distribute information.
Individuals will contribute throughout their life leaving a life long
trail of personal data.
Google – Internet Stats
This Google resource brings together the latest industry facts and
insights. These have been collected from a number of third party
sources covering a range of topics from macroscopic economic and media
trends to how consumer behaviour and technology are changing over time.
Facebook: “We’re cash-flow positive”
“We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way.
Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive
sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this
milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets
Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.”
Semantic Video at Google
Google may never call itself a semantic web company, but yesterday it
plunged a bit deeper into the space. The search engine leader announced
in a blog posting that it is announcing support for Facebook Share and
Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFa.
Microsoft’s vision for a “next-gen newspaper” looks like TweetDeck
The Newspaper Association of America cast a wide net this summer in
seeking proposals for generating online revenue. Their request went out
to many of the firms we’ve been covering closely but also several tech
companies that aren’t exactly in the thick of the news industry,
including Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.
Social Media, Web 2.0 And Internet Stats
As our digital and physical lives blur further, the internet has become
the information hub where people spend a majority of their time
learning, playing and communicating with others globally. Sometimes it
is easy to lose sight of just how staggering the numbers are of people
collaborating, researching, and interacting on the web.
Government 2.0: A case study from Australia
I found this presentation by Matthew Hodgson a great overview of the
ways “government 2.0” tactics are succeeding at home and abroad. Check
out some of his screenshot examples online: FutureMelbourne (a wiki for
citizens to design a better Melbourne), Powerhouse Museum (a Sydney
museum that allows users improve its online collections through
tagging, ranking and sharing information), and Bang the Table (a
service facilitating public policy discussion).
Tweeting is more than just self-expression
From CNN to Ashton Kutcher, everyone is tweeting. In ads, many
companies now display the logo of an animated blue bird holding a sign
that says “follow me.” Twitter, a micro-communication service that
gives users an opportunity to express their thoughts in 140-character
“tweets,” is a hit in the social media world. Companies are also
benefiting from Twitter, where 20 percent of the tweets contain
requests for product information or responses to the requests,
according to Jim Jansen, associate professor of information science and
technology in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST)
at Penn State.