Ashley McCollum of BuzzFeed makes a clever observation. When a user searches for a word on Google and then types in that same query on Pinterest, the difference in results reveals the limitations of Google’s internal logic.
Searching “stripes” on Pinterest, for example, brings up striped clothing, fabric, and art design:
“Stripes” on Google spits this out:
McCollum goes on to list 9 more comparisons and the contrast is demonstrated in each instance. Where Pinterest recalls fashion, art, and conceptual abstraction, Google retrieves products, names and hyper-literalness. (When she types in “California” we get pins of beaches and forests and skimpy clothes; Google instead delivers maps and pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.)
From Google’s perspective, this is a rather silly and unfair analysis. The search colossus stores and catalogs the entire Internet, whereas Pinterest caters to sartorialists, designers, and artists. That Google’s searches are too obvious or mechanical or archetypal, as compared to Pinterest, is not so much criticism as it is a difference in intended user experience.
Even so, I find McCollum’s argument compelling. She grasps towards the point that certain kinds of computer driven algorithms are severely limited. And that a more curatorial approach to search has obvious advantages.
Cale Weissman writes at PandoDaily:
“In the long term (and ideally) we would, as a nation, confront our dismal education system, which doesn’t graduate nearly enough computer-literate people. In the short term, our best bet is to do what we do best: Import what we need and get rid of policies that only serve to undermine our economic well being.”
The studio that brought Halo into this world has said farewell to Master Chief and the highly praised 10 year project and unveiled their newest endeavor: Destiny. Today Bungie released a CG teaser of their newest first person shooter. In a few weeks, at E3, actual gameplay footage will be shown of the “always-on” massively multiplayer adventure.
Destiny will be released in 2014 and will be available on 4 platforms: the next generation of Xbox One and PlayStation 4, as as well as the older PS3 and Xbox 360.
The trailer was directed by Jon Favreau, of Iron Man 1 and 2, and is exceptional. It’s Halo, Star Wars, and GUNS…lots of GUNS.
This week Yahoo acquired the popular blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Writing for the business and investment site Minyanville, Carol Kopp discusses the likely business model for Yahoo’s newest content creator.
“Here’s a little dose of financial reality for Tumblr users who are upset that their free-to-use, nearly ad-free little corner of the Internet has been bought by big, bad corporate Yahoo: One way or another, probably sooner rather than later, you’re going to pay for your free blog,” she remarks. And that dose of financial reality will come in the form of ads.
“Advertisers are willing to pay a premium to advertise to a small but self-selected group of people with an expressed interest in golf or puppies or movies.”
It’s important to mention that in March Yahoo gobbled the start-up Summly for $30 million. That company offered readers computer generated summaries of news articles, another kind of content that helps Yahoo boost its traffic.
“The new console, the Xbox One, will enter a market very different from the one its predecessor, the Xbox 360, entered nearly eight years ago, when there was no iPad, smartphones had keyboards and mobile gaming devices were primitive at best,” writes Nick Wingfield of the New York Times.
“Today, video games can be played almost anywhere, on any device, with the biggest possible audience of online friends and without the aid of a costly gaming console.”
In the biological conception of nature and nurture, we tend to think that the dueling forces of genetics and environment shape and predict one’s personality. In a new study involving 40 genetically identical mice–all exposed to the same precisely controlled and measured environment–researchers are revealing the hidden importance of random chance on brain growth.
Writing on the New Yorker’s Elements blog, Gary Marcus explains the findings of the experiment:
Kempermann’s new mouse study shows that chance plays a role in cognitive development. For reasons as yet unknown, possibly having to do with intrauterine environments or randomness in the process by which individual genes are switched on, some mice became more active, others more passive; those that explored to a greater degree subsequently grew more neurons in their hippocampus. In an environment that rewards exploration, the more active mice would presumably thrive; with a simple follow-up it should be possible to prove that luck can mediate success in a carefully controlled environment.
The New York Times
