Deema Tamimi had one plan for the 2016 California Apps for Ag hackathon: get in and get out. She thought the weekend-long event would be a good opportunity to meet people, but she didn't feel ready to launch a new app, and so she planned on stealing away soon after the hackathon began. This, despite the very impressive resume she'd accrued and the fully-formed idea for a gardening-based app that had been brimming for half a year. But something magical can happen when so many engineers, experts, change-makers, and creatives converge at a hackathon. more
Aaron H. Swartz, a computer activist, co-founder of Reddit and co-author of the "RSS 1.0" specification, died in New York on Friday. Swartz, 26 years of age, committed suicide in New York City on Jan. 11, according to his uncle. more
The AI Strategy course at UC Berkeley has come to an abrupt end, but formal learnings in AI will continue. I want to thank professors at UC Berkeley, Alberto Todeschini, Ph.D., and Stuart Russell, who developed a comprehensive course to implement AI in business. After three certificates, Alberto has encouraged me to pursue a master's in Artificial Intelligence. My wife and I are contemplating this next step. more
A Chinese law that went into effect six months ago required online service providers to file details of the algorithms they use with China's centralized regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). In mid-August, CAC released a list of 30 algorithms used by companies such as Alibaba, TenCent and Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, with a brief description of their purpose. more
It was interesting to see that, albeit belatedly, the American media started to stop giving Trump opportunities to spew out his lies across the country and beyond. It obviously had now reached a point where the media realized that if they continued to provide Trump with their avenues, this would make them accomplices in inciting violence. Is this going to be a turning point? more
Microsoft Corp. on Monday released an official announcement stating it has reached an agreement to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion, confirming rumors reported last week. more
Geotargeting is a well-established online technique for delivering tailored web content based on a user's geographic location. From an internet technology point of view, this is usually based on the user's IP address, which is converted to a physical location through a standard look-up process performed by network infrastructure. Geotargeting is commonly used by websites for several legitimate reasons, including providing users with relevant advertising and other content... more
Here's a question: If 47 USC 230(c) (the Good Samaritan provision of the Communications Decency Act) says that online services are not liable for third party content, then can you even sue the online service? Shouldn't the online service be immune from lawsuit? Because, after all, what would be the point of being sued for something for which you cannot be liable? more
Do you know someone who deserves recognition for helping build the Internet in their region or country? Or someone who made the Internet more secure through the work they've done? Or someone who made some major technical innovation that made the Internet faster or better? more
It’s been a while since I took a look at the worldwide Internet. The statistics cited below come from Datareportal. The world population in January 2024 was 8.08 billion, up 74 million from a year earlier, a growth rate of 0.9%. There were 5.61 billion unique mobile subscribers in January, up 138 million (2.5%) over a year earlier. 5.35 billion people used the Internet at the end of 2023, up 97 million (1.8%) from a year earlier. more
Internet 2009 in numbers as reported by Royal Pingdom: In 2009 there were 90 trillion emails sent; 100 million new email users; 24 percent increase in spam; 47 million new websites; 8 percent increase in domain names with the total reaching 187 million; 18 percent increase in overall Internet users with the worldwide total reaching 1.73 billion; and new zombie computers created reach 148,000 per day. more
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, in negotiations with other Internet companies and human rights organizations, have reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other countries that censor the Internet. The participants are reviewing the agreement for final approval. more
The death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has led to stores running out of black and white clothing as the population mourns its leader in color-appropriate clothing. What does this mean for website localization? ...Web localization isn't just about creating a localized website and forgetting about it. It's about creating a living and breathing website that responds quickly to local events. Web localization is about respect. more
In Part 1 of "Bug Bounty Programs: Are You Ready?" we examined the growth of commercial bug bounty programs and what organizations need to do before investing in and launching their own bug bounty. In this part, we'll discuss why an organization needs to launch a bug bounty program, and what limits the value they will likely extract from such an investment. more
I'm not sure that most people understand the extent to which our online experience has moved to the cloud -- and this movement to the cloud means we're using a lot more bandwidth than in the recent past. A huge number of online functions now reside in the cloud, when only a few years ago, a lot of processing was done on our computers. Take the example of Twitter, where I keep an account to upload a copy of my blog every day. more