Green Energy
From Technology Review:
- Earth Is An Oil-producing Machine — We're Not Running Out
From Investors: Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue...
- No Depression
I'm shocked etc. CNBC: Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing...
- Wreckovery
CNBC: Stubborn Jobless Claims Still Keep On Climbing Higher New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to 424,000 last week from a revised 414,000 in the prior week, pointing to a painfully slow improvement in the nation's job...
- Don't Worry Everything Will Be All Right?
Bullet makers can't keep up with demand Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition. Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have...
- Vee Haff Noticed Your Attitude, Undt Vee Vill Take Aktion !
Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to...
Green Energy
New Startup Company Develops Software That Reads Emotions On Human Faces To Aid Sales Process
From Technology Review:
Last year more than 1,000 people in four countries sat down and watched 115 television ads, such as one featuring anthropomorphized M&M candies boogying in a bar. All the while, webcams pointed at their faces and streamed images of their expressions to a server in Waltham, Massachusetts.
In Waltham, an algorithm developed by a startup company called Affectiva performed what is known as facial coding: it tracked the panelists’ raised eyebrows, furrowed brows, smirks, half-smirks, frowns, and smiles. (Watch a video of the technology in action below this story or here.) When this face data was later merged with real-world sales data, it turned out that the facial measurements could be used to predict with 75 percent accuracy whether sales of the advertised products would increase, decrease, or stay the same after the commercials aired. By comparison, surveys of panelists’ feelings about the ads could predict the products’ sales with 70 percent accuracy.
Although this was an incremental improvement statistically, it reflected a milestone in the field of affective computing. While people notoriously have a hard time articulating how they feel, now it is clear that machines can not only read some of their feelings but also go a step farther and predict the statistical likelihood of later behavior.GO READ THE WHOLE THING.
- Earth Is An Oil-producing Machine — We're Not Running Out
From Investors: Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue...
- No Depression
I'm shocked etc. CNBC: Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing...
- Wreckovery
CNBC: Stubborn Jobless Claims Still Keep On Climbing Higher New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to 424,000 last week from a revised 414,000 in the prior week, pointing to a painfully slow improvement in the nation's job...
- Don't Worry Everything Will Be All Right?
Bullet makers can't keep up with demand Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition. Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have...
- Vee Haff Noticed Your Attitude, Undt Vee Vill Take Aktion !
Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to...