“The Doctor is In (Well, Logged In)” is an article I found on the NY Times. I found this article to be both extremely interesting and at the same time kind of unsettling. Here’s a little background: Dr. Jay Parkinson is a 37 year old doctor who graduated from Penn State College of Medicine and did his residency at both St. Vincent’s Manhatten Hospital and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. After finishing his residency, he decided he really didn’t want to go into a private practice and work long hours for little pay. His next move was pretty bold and somewhat outside of the character of what we envision doctors to be and do.

Dr. Jay Parkinson became the founder of Sherpaa, an online website that operates as a virtual doctor’s office, examining patients via email and text messaging. He says, “We’re using the Internet to reinvent health care.” I agree with him on this, he is certainly changing the way we think about health care. And while this sounds incredibly cool and makes visiting a doctor more accessible to patients, I take a different view.

Absolutely, Dr. Parkinson is brilliant and deserves his accolades but in the long run, this method of health care could never really work. First of all, Dr. Parkinson is about making money, not helping people. For one he let his licence to practice medicine lapse. Secondly, his clients are not everyday working people, they are “Web luminaries like David Karp, founder of Tumblr, Chris Hughes a founder of Facebook,” and other company giants. These giants are very interested in Dr. Parkinson’s new health care model which will seek to cut employee health care costs  by $4,000 a year per employee. Not to mention celebs like Tyra Banks want him on their shows. I respect Dr. Parkinson for doing something as brilliant as he did, my only hope is that we don’t disguise new ways of making money as groundbreaking health care.

What do you think about this? And what implications does it have for technology and healthcare?

You can find this article at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/fashion/jay-parkinson-the-doctor-is-in-well-logged-in.html?ref=technology&_r=0

Towards the end of February a new copyright alert system had rolled out. Essentially it is an early alert system for users that downloaded illegal/copyright content. The individuals affected by this new monitoring system are those who download from peer to peer clients. The most popular client out there are torrents. So if one day John doe decided to download the new Taylor Swift album from The Pirate Bay and the content owners of that album (ex: the recording studio) happened to find out that this file was downloaded illegal through a peer to peer network, the  content owners can inform the Internet Service Provider of the downloaders’ illegal activity and the Internet Service Provider (ex: Verizon) will send our a warning to user in the form of a pop up message and an email notification.
The rest of the article talks about the other repercussions that could occur if the user repeatedly downloads (pirates) copyrighted content.

While Internet Service Providers have been monitoring our online usage since the dawn of time, now they are seemingly passing this ability to content owners (music/movie industries). These content owners essentially could be monitoring everything that  we download, since they are screening out all of the downloads and transfers that occur through peer to peer networks. Could this lead to an invasion of our privacy? They basically have the tools needed in order to analyze our behaviors on the internet, and with the support of the major internet service providers, its as though they are free to roam around in our private lives as they so desire. Torrenter’s are not the only ones affected, even users that send files through 4shared and FileZilla are monitored since those fall in the category of P2P. What do you think? Do you think there is a much greater transparency on the net now and that we should be held accountable/responsible for our behavior on the internet? And do you think it is “fair” that these content managers are able to monitor our behavior (whatever it may be they are actually really monitoring)?

Source:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2013/0227/Copyright-Alert-System-Six-strikes-and-you-re-out

This article I found in the technology section of the NY Times relates to the “Filter Bubble” in many ways. About a month ago, we participated in a group activity regarding where we think most people get there news from and which source of news can be considered the most reliable. This NY Times article basically depicts the statistics received from research done. In this day and age news spreads like wildfire. News is spreading faster and further with the development of technology. Researchers found that “word of mouth” communication, emails, web posts and face-to-face conversations which are about news topics which are classified as “good news”. In my opinion I feel people are tired of getting the “bad news” (deaths, earthquakes, plagues, floods, etc.) from media such as television and radios, which is why people tend to share the “good news” through word of mouth, web emails, blogs, etc.

Also in this article is an opinion given by researchers that states news that spreads through conversation/word of mouth isn’t so reliable or credible. News spread through social media tend to be reliable sources. The article states, “We fill conversational spaces by saying what’s top of mind. But when you write something, you have the time to construct and refine what you say, so it involves more self-presentation.” Basically they are saying that the more time and thought we put in to spreading news via social media networks, the more reliable the story will become.

Any thoughts?

Here’s a link to the article if you are interested:

I had a conversation the other day with some friends about how we write essays. I remembered the day when the internet could not be used for research. Not only was it not allowed but also was not possible. The majority of my time would be spent reading books in the library. However, now that the internet is so prevalent my time management has also changed. I now spend the majority of my time editing and organizing a paper. As a result I learn less about the actual topic, having only briefly read a few sentences here and there. The paper itself is going to be better written and with better content but I’m not learning as much nor am I improving my literary abilities. Also since facts are so easily checked nowadays I am more conscious of having a correct date in my paper than having a really sound argument. Do you think that students are more or less intelligent as a result of internet access?

This article relates to a majority of what we have already read in the “Filter Bubble”. Businesses are using a “privacy friendly” feature to give them a competitive advantage in the market. Mozilla is an example of a company doing so. Companies have noticed that people are learning towards companies which part take in this feature. Having this feature in today’s browser market is considered a competitive advantage. Many companies of web browsers and there CEO’s are debating on whether or not to produce a “Do Not Track” feature for their products. Not only computer based web browsers, but internet mobile platforms would also have the option to enable this feature. According to the article more and more users are beginning to have the “Do Not Track” signal on. “..nearly 12 percent of desktop users of Firefox and 14 percent of Firefox users on Google’s Android mobile operating system have turned on the Do Not Track signal.” As mentioned before, Mozilla is one of the first to take initiative and are really close to launching a new tool which fully blocks third party tracking software, or cookies. This is big for Mozilla since they are considered underdogs in the web browser market. This new tool could be a huge factor in users deciding what makes them feel secure.

How do you guys feel?

Do you feel this new “Do Not Track” tool is the real deal? Or are third parties still tracking you?

What do you think Pariser would have to say about such a tool?

Source:

I came across this article on Consumer Affairs while browsing Reddit. You can read the opinion of others in the comments section of each site to get a better understanding of the situation taking into account that the opinions expressed there are made by those who are well informed as well as those who have no idea of what they’re talking about.

Mozilla has announced that in future iterations of the Mozilla Firefox Browser it will have third party cookies blocked by default. In this article it talks about how that may hurt small internet businesses that rely on traffic and advertisements to gain revenue. I don’t know how it all works so I don’t have an opinion on whether it’s good or bad yet. It’s an interesting read and a different perspective on the role of cookies as opposed to what we have discussed in class.

Thoughts?

While visiting Youtube today I saw this recommendation at the top of my feed. Through the readings and our discussions in class I’ve become much more aware of how personalized my internet experience has become. I’m not sure if Youtube recommended me this video only because I watched “Nas-the message” or if they may also have an algorithm based on the types of videos in my history and subscriptions I have. Either way I felt extremely elated when I saw this in my feed. It was a perfect combination of my interests in science and hip hop. Being able to see a celebrity of science interview one of my favorite rappers made my night.

In our class and readings we mostly focus on the negative aspect of personalization; but my discovery today is a perfect example of how it can be used to enhance our experience.

How do you feel about personalization with what you know so far?

I thought the interview was a little bland but here’s the link to the video if you want to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfdd-PQVwo

I came across an article in the NY Times called, “Face-lift at Facebook, to Keep its Users Engaged.” This article examined the current status of facebook. Facebook has one billion users worldwide and is known as one of the most profitable enterprises to date. However, recently facebook suffered a drop in share value as well as unsettling news that 61% of users had “taken a sabbatical from the social newtwork, sometimes for months at a time,” due to boredom.

Facebook is always trying to reinvent itself by constantly trying to add new features. Most recently, Facebook is working to revamp the News Feed, to allow for “bigger photos, more videos and  more engaging ads.” I believe this can work for a while, if Facebook is able to get relevant News Feed data available to its users. If they can’t then they can actually alienate some users with “finely targeted advertisements” that don’t reach them.

My question is , will  Facebook be able to continue to remake and reinvent itself to keep users engaged? Can Facebook ever become irrevelant like Myspace or  other social networks that we no longer use? Or is facebook simply so valuable to marketers that they will ensure its success and that it is here to stay?

I think that the value of Facebook to users is often undervalued. Yes, many users are switching to Instagram and Twitter but Facebook is still overwelmingly better at connecting people from all corners of the earth. I also believe that facebook has become a necessary tool for marketers and they don’t want to see it go anywhere. Society is also moving towards personalization and Facebook mirrors that.

What do you think?

US Government asked Google for user data 4,601 times.

I came across the above article from a dashboard from The Filter Bubble website, where different contributors share their thoughts on the ideas discussed in the book, The Filter Bubble, by Eli Pariser, and this article by Matt Maiorana caught my attention.

Maiorana shares and explains to us on what happens after, to the ginormous amount of data collected by Google to make “relevant search results and news” for its users. Apparently Google provides its users with a transparency report that shows ‘a detailed look at who’s asking for data and how much Google gives up’ and how the US Government has ‘asked Google for user data 4,601 times’ in a six month period alone. Scary! Not only that, our information even seems to travel out of the US, with Google providing our information to countries like France, Brazil, the UK and India to name a few. Why? I can only wonder.

Well yes, it is great news that Google shares with its users what else they do with our information and who they provide it to, and maybe profit a lot from. However, that does not settle my heart that information about me is going around, making its rounds, oblivious to my knowledge. Just because, Google is showing the entire world, every step they are taking, does not mean that the action they are doing is justifiable. I may be going off topic, by this is an exact replica of ‘the cheating boyfriend’ story, where the boyfriend expects his girlfriend to forgive him for cheating on her, because he told her the truth. Does not make sense, right? Just by putting up stats on a nicely arranged (its actually pretty plain) website, and letting its users know what they are up to, does not justify their actions. It is wrong of them to even share our information that they, in the first place, collected without our consent, or tricked us into giving. Google should not be able to get away with this, just because they are playing the ‘nice guy’ card.

How do you feel about this?

Well, you at least know how I feel about it.

Facebook Owns You.

I recently came across the above video above on Youtube. Even though this video dates back to 2010, it is of surprise to me that I did not know about this matter until now.

Facebook, apparently altered some its ‘Terms of Use’ in 2010, removing the language that read, Facebook’s “ownership of our content would end when we remove or close our account’ meaning that Facebook will save and continue to use our personal information and pictures even after we close or deactivate our account. What is even worse it that Facebook ‘quietly and suddenly’ changed their terms without sharing and bringing it to the attention to its Facebook users, as this matter was only found and publicized by an independent blogger. After much protest, Mark Zuckerberg replied with only a post to reassure Facebook users stating that ‘in reality, we would not share your information in a way you would not want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.’

But the problem is Facebook already lost my trust by ‘quietly and suddenly’ changing the terms without publicly announcing it to its users, meaning they knew it was something sort of shady as well. And no reasonable person would trust a website that would still retain their information even after they deactivated the account. What is the point of deactivating it then? However the most disturbing thing of all is that Facebook has the right to keep all your information, to sell it to a third party if they like, and there is nothing you can do about it; no undoing the done. This scares me and reminds me of one of my classmate’s post Facebook Legal Notice- where Facebook, without her permission used her pictures. This is definitely an invasion of privacy and I wonder if Congress has done anything to stop it.