Tag: facebook | Hamilton.jerry

April 15, 2014

Google Everywhere Just Got Real

Titan Atmospheric Satellite & Google Team Up

Google’s purchase of Titan Aerospace will bring Internet to remote locations. At least that’s what some say. http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/04/15/reuters-tv-titan-aerospace-a-sky-high-platform-for?videoId=310012780&videoChannel=118065 Costs of operation of Titan’s high flying drone will offer satellite coverage worldwide at 1/100th the cost of present day satellites.

Titan also offers high flying giant helium balloons as part of its Project Loon, although no one seems quite as enthusiastic in comparison to cheers for the solar powered, forever flying drone airplane, known in Titan circles as an ‘atmospheric satellite’ that will possibly fit in with Google’s plans to bring the net to all. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/14/google-buys-drone-maker-titan-aerospace-2

HFS analysts note that Facebook, the lead suitor for Titan until Google swooped in to offer more money last week, might have had similar plans. The competition for the future Internet seems to be unfolding right before the eyes of the world. What do you think?

March 20, 2014

DeepFace by Facebook Is Better than FBI’s Best, Called NGI

Facebook, ever on the edge chasing dollars better than most, has announced DeepFace, its facial recognition program that more than 97% of the time gets it right. http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/facebooks-facial-recognition-tech-now-better-fbis-heres-thats-scary/

Despite spending more than a billion dollars, the best the FBI’s new program, Next Generation Identification (NGI), can do is about 80%. Of course, Facebook’s commercial agenda differs significantly from the FBI’s law enforcement mission.

Nonetheless, analysts at HFS note that much of the planet is moving away from anonymity towards something never before known, at a rapid pace. Will the new Facebook tech be used by law enforcers through their Open Mind software? Of course it will.

What do you think?

March 15, 2014

IBM & FB Say ‘No’ to NSA, But Are We Safe Yet?

IBM and Facebook Say ‘No’ to NSA, So Are We Safe Yet?

On IBM’s blog, the biggest-in-the-world tech company says it has not and will not cooperate with NSA when the feds come knocking. See its privacy policy: http://www.ibm.com/privacy/details/us/en/

If IBM receives a national security subpoena, what will it do? According to the IBM statement, it will fight in court and otherwise. Why does this matter? Some of the world’s largest and most successful corporations work with and through IBM systems, and they pay well for privacy. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-usa-ibm-dataprotection-idUSBREA2D1R620140314

What’s behind the scenes of IBM privacy protection? Here’s one insight from HFS: IBM’s preferred provider of computers is the Chinese multinational company Lenovo. So where might IBM keep the hardware servicing its cloud? Anyone’s guess, but Chinese computer leaders are helping. http://ibm-lr.blogspot.com

How about Facebook, the biggest-in-the-world social network? According to its Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on a recent FB entry, he says: “When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.” And Zuckerberg called President Obama directly to complain about it. http://www.reuters.com/subjects/facebook?lc=int_mb_1001

Scariest to many is a Snowden leak about how NSA co-opted 140,000 computers to inject them with spyware. NSA says Snowden’s report is inaccurate. (Yeah, HFS analysts can just imagine how inaccurate; it’s probably many, many more than just 140,000 computers by now.) http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/03/nsa-botnet/

So if you want to acquire a new computer someday within the next year or two, how could you go about building it yourself or through a truly trusted source? Do you have to be a tech wizard for that? Could average artists and writers build their own? Or at least, could artists and writers find a truly trusted source?

Not likely, if the latest, greatest quips from IBM and Facebook sound worried, as their message implies.

What do you think?

March 11, 2014

Turkey Solves Bad Image by Facebook and YouTube Shutdown?

Just ban Facebook and YouTube if your image sinks under the weight of fraud allegations based on direct voice recordings posted to social media by your political enemies. That’s how Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan handles it. http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/03/07/turkeys-pm-threatening-to-ban-facebook-y?videoId=289456498&videoChannel=6

Not so fast, says the Turkish president, Abdullah Gül. And so the political dervish spins in Turkey, and now the PM has backed down. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkish-pm-backtracks-on-social-media-ban-threat/2014/03/11/fc260e12-a91a-11e3-8a7b-c1c684e2671f_story.html

The larger question will persist long after the Turkish controversy passes. Why would any government seek to shut down such media? Of course, some governments with openly corrupt leaders seek to maintain power, but in other situations there might arise better reasons to contemplate shut down. In Thailand today, for example, apparently malicious use of Facebook and Twitter has caused death. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Social-media-marvellous-tools-that-could-also-be-g-30226491.html

The technical challenge of shutting down seems less important to the Chinese government. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/committee-to-protect-journalists/liu-jianfeng-tests-new-mo_b_4913654.html

So here at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com (HFS) we pose the meta-question about the politics of the Internet: When is a government justified in shutting down its citizen’s access to the Internet and its various versions of social networks?

To analysts at HFS, the problem lies in the nature of political contests, where no winner remains for long and most issues may be understood from multiple perspectives. So long as power exists to potentially shut down citizen access, the Internet will remain a tool of politicians and their technicians.

What do you think?

February 21, 2014

WhatsApp Low Tech Good Facebook Long Strategy

Still Pondering the WhatsApp Deal by Facebook

Looking into Facebook’s giant payment for WhatsApp continues to occupy my attention, and maybe I understand it a little more today than yesterday. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/21/whatsapp-ceo-on-facebook-deal-its-about-staying-independent/?KEYWORDS=whatsapp

Surveying the leading message services across the planet, many have added a few bells & whistles such as games, shopping, or extra communication functions. But not WhatsApp! Instead, WhatsApp offers very simple text messaging for the low price of $1.00 per year. As a result, it has attracted nearly half a billion users in the developing economies of Asia, South America, and to a limited degree Africa. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/21/us-whatsapp-facebook-idUSBREA1K0U120140221

That brings into focus the reason for the $19B price to be paid by Facebook. Who would FB want to prevent from future competition? The obvious candidates: Google, Apple, and maybe Amazon and Microsoft. By essentially buying half a billion customers in the largest market on earth, Facebook has strategically placed itself in the emerging markets on the bet that half a billion will turn into three or five billion within a decade. That means Facebook will grow into a dominant, if not the dominant, player in the social net business of the next decade. http://www.forbes.com/sites/hollymagister/2014/02/21/whatsapp-19-billion-secret-formula/

Too forward looking? Too strategic? Maybe, but it fits the present data to explain why the huge price tag for a rather ho-hum text messaging service. http://www.afp.com/en/node/1277993

That’s the view from analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com, but what do you think?

hamilton.jerry

February 20, 2014

FB To Buy WhatsApp for $19B, But Why?

Communication, Content and Cyber Society

Facebook’s focus on the content of light verbal bursts and replies coupled more recently with images of common themes will expand to include more concentrated text exchanges, if the WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook announced today for $19 B comes to pass. Who really knows how FB might expand? The huge price implies big changes should be expected all the same. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-whatsapp-facebook-idUSBREA1I26B20140219

A subtext runs with this latest business deal, once you pass the sticker shock of multi-billions paid for texting tech. What could possibly be worth mega bucks to Facebook? Apparently a robust market segment vehemently declines participation in the FB fashion of trivial talk, preferring instead mobile texting as the primary method of content exchange, and that’s what FB seeks to include in its social net. The attraction for users: Avoidance of carrier fees to send text. The attraction for FB: More users. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-whatsapp-facebook-idUSBREA1I26B20140220

Still, the persistent question runs beneath the surface of tech and money: Why do people FB in the first place? Or why do they blog? Why do they text? Why do they bother sending almost meaningless trillions of words and images to each other if they really have almost nothing to say? What is it about the human species that needs to show images of kittens and babies, food and sex, or sunsets and ocean waves to each other? Why do people jabber on and on about how babies smile, lovers hug, and party people drink or smoke so much? http://www.fastcompany.com/3021749/work-smart/10-surprising-social-media-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-social-stra

Sure, FB tracks the jabber, sells stuff based on the inane exchanges, and calls it good on the bottom line when beans are tallied. That justifies the big ticket for WhatsApp, perhaps, although it remains to be proven with actual returns on such an investment. But why do people act as they do with either FB or WhatsApp? What’s the appeal? http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/07/google-facebook-twitter-and-blogs-when.html

Maybe some humans beings feel connected and therefore more secure when they friend, tweet, or poke another human being, or maybe they fill so much time with reading and replying or writing and reading and…replying because they’re fundamentally bored and disconnected. Analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com hope this blog entry will rise slightly above the shallow chaos to pose a meta-query about the big picture. What is the point of all this chatter? What do you think?

From HamiltonFinanceServices.com, this is hamilton.jerry