Children should be protected from inappropriate material on the internet, but does responsibility lie solely with their parents?

Luisa Dillner: writer and parent

Who's to blame if your child watches porn? It's the greedy internet service providers, say MPs from an all-party committee, who want ISPs to apply automatic filters to prevent access to adult material. To access porn, you would have to opt out. But before you think, "Phew, job done", Naomi Gummer, a Google executive, said last week that technology moves too fast for filters to work and that parents are to blame if their children watch porn. Now, I really don't want my children watching porn, but no filter is 100% effective. So must I still be vigilant 5% of the time? Can filters pick up inferences, so that, when my daughter types the name of a book (The More the Merrier) into Google images, we won't get references to group sex? I'm with Ms Gummer. While I hate blaming parents for anything and sympathise with our learned helplessness around technology, I can't see ISPs as being more responsible for my children than I am. Porn is bad, but so is the hatred spewed out on the internet – the violent images, pro-anorexia sites. Can my children be protected from these things, too (without my involvement), while we're at it? I'm not averse to help, but I'm their parent and it's my job to protect my children. Part of that involves policing what they access.

David Niven: former chairman of the British Association of Social Workers, now a child-protection trainer

The question isn't about whether responsible parents should get involved in protecting their children from inappropriate exposure. It's about what our responsibilities, as a society, are to protect the vulnerable. The tens of thousands of children who are officially considered at risk of abuse from their parents rely on us to help them have a less risky childhood. If car manufacturers had no responsibility for safety measures – ie car seats for children, airbags, seatbelts – and it was entirely up to parents if they chose to use these, there would be an outcry. So what is the difference with social networking sites? We know the dangers; we know there are negligent parents. We have to protect the children whose parents can't or won't. You argue quite rightly that it is your job to protect your children, but it is not just your job. Otherwise, police, social services and any other statutory organisation would not have the mandate that they have. The social networking and search engine sites make massive revenues from their activity: they should spend and research more on safety measures for our children.

LD I'm a big fan of public health measures, research and the concept that it takes a village to bring up a child. But believing that our children can, with no parental input, be kept safe from the internet will give us a false sense of security.

Using the car seats analogy, they and seat belts work because they are made to mechanical standards. A seat belt is a seat belt. But what are the mechanical standards for images and words to be? Who will judge them? I wouldn't want to argue against protecting the vulnerable. But does catching a glimpse of internet porn cause more damage to a child than being cyber-bullied? The ISP can only be part of a solution. It isn't in loco parentis, much as we sometimes use it that way. Have we really thought this through? What would be the liability of the ISP if its filters didn't work? Parental responsibility is as much to do with what children post as what they see online. The ISP can't help us with that.

If we could automate our children's internet experience to be safe and palatable, we would also be forgetting something. It's the process of a parent saying 'no' and explaining why not that matters even more than the denial itself. Trying to find porn is part of the teenage condition. Parents (and schools) need to educate children about sex rather than believe, incorrectly, that one fine day, they won't be able to find it on the internet any more.

DN It's never been the case that parents haven't a role to play in safeguarding children online. But the gap between parental ignorance and teenage savvy is still huge. At a Bath Spa University conference last week, Facebook admitted that it had evidence of parents opening accounts for under-13s (the permitted age) and then lying about their age – even adding 10 years sometimes! Apart from this, they estimate significant numbers of under-13s have pretended their way to getting personal pages. We demand proof of age for drink, mobile phone contracts, cigarettes etc, so why is it beyond the wit and resources of social networks to come up with solid proof-of-age requirements? Use a few of the millions to fund schools to verify as well as enabling educational programmes. What about photo IDs with a 24-hour delay?

How can we rely on and be confident when a significant minority of parents don't even password protect their own sites and publish all sorts of pictures of their children for public consumption and, more worryingly, as a handy source of material for paedophiles?

LD I'm glad you brought up Facebook. For a year I have been pestered with: "X has got Facebook. It's not fair." Now my daughter is thirteen and a half, we've set up her page together (with privacy settings), talked about Facebook's risks, and I insisted I knew her password. She showed me the photo she was putting up. If she does anything that I think is unsafe, I will restrict her use of the internet to the living room or take her laptop away.

Yes, I know that some parents are relaxed about Facebook and collude with their children to help them sign up. These same parents will collude with their children to bypass any ID controls (should controls be possible). They may be the same parents who buy cigarettes and rent 18-certificate films for their underage children. Not all parents see controls as support. The assessment of risk plays a big part in this discussion. There is a risk to the internet but also a benefit, and it is an open door to some of the best and worst in life. A blunt control, I fear, will have limited effect. There is no equivalent to the nine o'clock watershed for the internet. And any controls to safeguard teenagers may be better placed protecting them against their biggest risk – being killed on the roads.

DN Safety of our young people isn't a competition. Whether they are killed on the roads or abused by ignorant or neglectful parents – both should require our full attention.

It can't follow that because some parents like yourself take time and trouble to look after their children that all parents will follow that example. We have a duty to get involved in aspects of child safety, which should be an integral part of family life, the same as road safety – important but not smothering. So, whether we are talking about food content, equipment, sports and social clubs, cinemas, alcohol or pornography on the internet, we have a duty of care as a society. ISPs should spend significant revenue on making the internet an acceptable place for our young people.

The internet is a fantastic resource for all – no question about that – but it provides a service and we, the consumer, are entitled to expect a continuing commitment to improved safety.

• Pornography
• Internet
• Sex education
• Child protection
• Google

Luisa Dillner
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Joe Moreno ha passato nove anni a lavorare per Steve Jobs e adesso sta raccontando in alcuni articoli degli episodi particolarmente curiosi della sua esperienza. Come quello del logo sottosopra. Ecco cosa scrive Moreno: “A volte anche gli studiosi sbagliano … Continua a leggere→

Credits: dullhunk @ Flickr

La tecnica si chiama RAD (Recombinase Addressable Data module), un termine che in slang americano significa “grandioso” o “fico”, e in effetti consente di fare qualcosa di straordinario: utilizzare il DNA come supporto biologico per l’immagazzinamento di dati.

Non è la prima volta che qualcuno prova a “scrivere” una sequenza di DNA. Già in passato, alcuni ricercatori ci erano riusciti, ma le informazioni incluse nella sequenza risultavano poi indelebili. Oggi, un’equipe di ricerca dell’Università di Stanford è riuscita nell’intento di codificare, immagazzinare e all’occorenza cancellare informazioni da una stringa di DNA.

Per ottenere un simile risultato è stato necessario trovare il modo di convertire le sequenze di nucleotidi in un supporto per la codificazione binaria. La quadra è stata trovata sfruttando enzimi capaci di invertire l’orientamento di piccole sequenze di DNA all’interno di un cromosoma. Dopo tre anni e 750 tentativi a vuoto, attraverso un calibratissimo dosaggio degli enzimi serina integrasi e serina excisionasi, Jerome Bonnet e colleghi sono riusciti a scrivere, e soprattutto riscrivere, all’interno dei genomi di batteri E. Coli.

Questo, in parole più semplici, significa che gli scienziati della Stanford hanno trovato il modo di invertire a piacimento l’orientamento di specifiche sequenze di DNA all’interno di un genoma, in modo da codificare un’informazione binaria (uno dei due orientamenti corrisponde a “1”, l’altro a “0”). Per comprovare questi risultati, Bonnet e colleghi hanno sfruttato particolari sequenze che producevano un tipo di fluorescenza diversa (rossa o verde) a seconda dell’orientamento che veniva scelto. Così facendo, hanno dimostrato che le informazioni codificate nel DNA batterico erano in grado di persistere anche dopo 100 duplicazioni della cellula.

Credits: Image courtesy of Stanford University Medical Center

Ma insomma, vi chiederete voi, a che pro fare tutta questa fatica? Progresso scientifico a parte, cosa ci guadagniamo dalla possibilità di scrivere e riscrivere stringhe di DNA come fossero memorie digitali? Domande legittime, che trovano immediata risposta se si conoscono le proprietà dell’acido desossiribonucleico (per gli amici, DNA). Prendete un normale Blu-Ray, soppesatelo sulla vostra mano e riflettete sul fatto che in quello spazio ristretto sono stipati qualcosa come 50 gigabyte di informazione. Poi pensate al fatto che in ogni singola cellula del vostro corpo c’è una copia del vostro genoma, e che questo minuscolo groviglio di basi azotate trasporta la bellezza di 800 gigabyte di informazioni. L’equivalente di 16 Blu-Ray, contenuti in un nucleo cellulare con un diametro pari allo spessore di un filo di ragnatela (7 micron).

“Siamo in grado di scrivere e cancellare dati sul DNA di una cellula vivente” spiega Bonnet “Questo significa che ora possiamo portare la logica computazionale all’interno della cellula stessa”

Questo significa che di qui a pochi anni la nostra collezione di Blu-Ray e chiavette USB sarà sostituita da una coltura di microbi? È altamente improbabile. Anche se, nel lungo periodo, questa innovazione potrà permettere di sviluppare memorie non volatili che non richiedono costi energetici, l’applicazione più plausibile dell’importante risultato di Bonnet e soci infatti riguarda le frontiere che potranno essere aperte in campo biomedico e bioinformatico. L’inclusione di informazioni all’interno del DNA delle cellule infatti potrà essere sfruttata per studiare fenomeni come l’invecchiamento, inoltre si intravede già la possibilità di poter impiegare queste tecniche per bloccare in tempo la proliferazione delle cellule tumorali.

What's new on the app stores on Wednesday 23 May 2012

A selection of 23 new and notable apps for you today:

Kingdom of Plants with David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough's new TV show is airing on Sky rather than the BBC, which is a sign of the times. As is the official iPad app, which blends text, videos and panoramic photos of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.
iPad

Sidecar.me

Aiming to provide "smart calling for your smartphone", Sidecar is the latest Voice-over-IP app looking to add extra features to standard voice calls. In this case, that includes the ability to share live video, photos and location data while chatting. It's free to use with other Sidecar users.
Android / iPhone

Nike Golf 360°

At the time of writing, Nike's new golf app appears to be a US-only affair. It tracks your rounds and statistics, uploading everything to the NG360° website for later analysis. Swing videos can be uploaded and analysed too, with golf-focused workouts and tips also included.
iPhone

Mass Effect: Infiltrator

Another treat for hardcore gamers on Android devices, as EA brings its latest Mass Effect game to Google-powered devices. That means spiffing graphics, touchscreen-optimised controls and lots – LOTS – of shooting.
Android

Louboutin

Shoes! Posh shoes, at that. Fashion label Christian Louboutin has an official app showing off its latest collection, including designers' sketches, a store locator, and a wish list feature to store details of your favourites.
iPhone

Kate

The Daily Mail is the latest newspaper looking into one-shot apps for iPad, with its tribute to the Duchess of Cambridge. It offers articles and photos from the year since her marriage to Prince William, with a focus on her frocks.
iPad

#BeyHive

Hashtags in app titles? That's 2012 for you. This app is a fan-project devoted to all things Beyonce, offering "a social network" for fans around the world. They sign in using Twitter, then get news, photos, links to music and the ability to earn points for their fandom.
Android / iPhone

Euro Finals from Betfair

Gambling service Betfair has a new app dedicated to the Euro 2012 football tournament, giving a quick way to access all its markets around the finals, place bets and then cash out from the device.
iPhone

Red Bull Racing Spy

Red Bull has launched a new Formula 1 app, promising news, gossip and party photos from the F1 circuit. The spy of the title is Red Bull's "man on the inside", who's also running his own Twitter account.
iPhone / iPad

Trailr

Here's an interesting use for image recognition technology: an iPhone app that when pointed at a movie poster, advertisement or DVD cover, searches for and plays its video trailer. It's the work of LTU Technologies – a showcase for the company's in-house tech.
iPhone

Clueful

Spooked by reports earlier in 2012 about how apps are sharing your personal data? Clueful is an iPhone app that aims to show you what apps are running in memory, and what they're doing with your data. It can also be used as a reference guide before installing an app, to see what it does.
iPhone

AT&T mHealth

This is only available in the US for people with an invitation from their employer or health management company, but it's still something to track. AT&T's mobile health app focuses on diabetes, helping people manage their condition, track their blood glucose levels, and share data with medical staff.
Android

eWowBooks

The latest startup looking to provide a book-apps platform on iOS is eWowBooks. Its app is out now, including a 30-page story called My Random Digi-Life, aimed at young readers. It blends animation, interactivity and social features. Going forward, the company is hoping to work with other publishers and authors to get new stories onto the platform.
iPad

BitPix

Photo-sharing app BitPix might not end up being sold to Facebook for $1bn, but it looks good fun. It turns photos into "8-bit goodness" with visual filters based on vintage consoles and computers.
iPhone

Samplodica

The latest innovative iPhone music-creation app is Samplodica, which offers a selection of digital instruments, as well as the option to record your own samples – all played by "whipping your iPhone in the air, like a rhythm egg or a drum stick".
iPhone

Digifit iCardio

Fitness app iCardio has made its debut on Android, helping you track cardio workouts "indoors and out", mapping the latter and sharing (well, bragging) about runs, rows and other exercises on Twitter and Facebook. It works with Polar's Bluetooth heart rate monitor too, to track your heart rate.
Android

WeAreTennis by BNP Paribas

Tennis buffs getting ready for the summer season should love the WeAreTennis app, which promises news, live scores from major tournaments, and push alerts from individual players. There's also a social feature to make your own commentary for classic match moments and share the results with friends.
iPhone / iPad

Men In Black 3

Gameloft bagged the licence for an official mobile game based on the new Men In Black 3 film. It sees you building and running a Men In Black agency, as well as whizzing around New York to fight aliens. The link above is for Android but here's the iOS version.
Android / iPhone / iPad

Skyrise Runner

Protect the forests in this environmentally-sound Android game, which offers lush side-scrolling platform action with crystals to collect and great eagles to, er, morph into.
Android

Perrette and the Pot of Milk

The flow of high-quality kid-apps from iOS to Android is improving, with Perrette and the Pot of Milk the latest example. Offering a choice of English, French, Spanish and Arabic, it's an adaptation of a famous story, with 50 interactive illustrations.
Android

Rocka Bowling 3D

This 3D bowling game for iOS offers a six-person local multiplayer mode, and uses a freemium model funded by in-app purchases of bowling alleys, pins and balls. iOS developers may smile at the developer's attempt to ensure it's found on the App Store – the developer is listed as 'Best 3D Bowling Game Arcade, Action & Sports Free Game - Flick Ball Online Multiplayer! A Ten 10 pins best game for Kids! The sudoku Puzzle Free Games! Bowling Games! Funny Cool Fun Free Apps! Free App Creation Company'.
iPhone / iPad

Moosejaw Sweaty And Wet

Outdoor gear and clothing firm Moosejaw has released a new augmented reality app for its summer collection, which involves virtually soaking the models with water. Dreadfully sexist? Well, the models are male and female...
iPhone / iPad

Hooters Calendar Sexy Screen Wash HD

Well, indeed. Included here purely for its disclaimer text: "This application does not actually wash or clean your iPad screen. However, this application includes a video of a talented model/actress simulating a screen wash."
iPad

• Apps
• Smartphones
• Tablet computers
• Mobile phones
• iPhone
• Android
• iPad
• Windows Phone
• David Attenborough
• The Duchess of Cambridge
• Beyoncé
• Euro 2012
• Betfair
• Red Bull

Stuart Dredge
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(Credits: Motorola)

Se volete uno smartphone full-touch che sia al tempo stesso potente e longevo avete sostanzialmente due possibilità:

1) Vi comprate uno smartphone qualsiasi e lo utilizzate con molta parsimonia. Evitando ad esempio di sincronizzare i dati in backgroung, limitando l’uso del Wi-Fi, del Bluetooth o del Gps e facendo girare il meno possibile le applicazioni più energivore.

2) Acquistate il nuovo Motorola Razr Maxx, che poi altro non è che la versione con batteria maggiorata del più popolare Android-phone della casa americana.

La prima ipotesi, diciamoci la verità, appare un po’ deprimente. Che non c’è cosa più frustrante che comprarsi uno smartphone al top di gamma e utilizzarlo con il freno a mano tirato; sarebbe un po’ come avere la Porsche per girarci nel cortile di casa.

Meglio allora puntare sul nuovo Motorola Razr Maxx, un dispositivo che grazie alla sua batteria da 3300 Mah promette un’autonomia di 17 ore, praticamente 2 volte e mezza la durata di uno smartphone medio.

Certo, non aspettatatevi il profilo ultrasottile del Razr in formato classico; l’innesto di una nuova batteria più capiente si fa sentire sia in termini di spessore (8,99 millimetri contro i 7.1 della versione standard) che di peso (145 grammi contro 127): nel complesso, però, il risultato è tutt’altro che sgraziato. Anche nel formato Maxx, infatti, il Razr si conferma uno dei cellulari più filanti del mercato.

Batteria a parte, non ci sono novità sul piano funzionale. Confermata in blocco tutta la dotazione del primo Razr: scocca in fibra di Kevlar, display Gorilla Glass Super Amoled Advaced da 4.3 pollici, processore dual- core da 1.2 GHz, fotocamera da 8 megapixel e 16 Gb di memoria interna.

Vale lo stesso discorso anche per la parte software: nell’attesa che venga rilasciato l’aggiornamento ad Ice Cream Sandwich, il sistema operativo resta Gingerbread (Android 2.3.5), supportato dalle ottime Smart Actions e dal sistema di sincronizzazione in streaming remoto Motocast.

Motorola Razr Maxx è in vendita a un prezzo consigliato di 549 euro (Iva inclusa).

Seguimi su Twitter: @TritaTech

Cyber criminals are cranking out new weapons at a brisk pace, tailoring malicious software for a spectrum of gadgets including smartphones, tablets, and Macintosh computers, a security firm said.

Moog was used to having his name mispronounced. Which words do you find people consistently get wrong?

Robert Moog is celebrated on Google's homepage today with a playable version of one of his pioneering electronic synthesisers. It would have been the late founder of Moog Music's 78th birthday today, and he would tell anyone who asked that he pronounced his name not with a long "oo" sound, but to rhyme with "vogue".

Moog seemed to be quite tolerant of people mispronouncing his name, however. Tell us if you get rather more agitated when you hear other mispronunciations. Which names and other words do you wish people would stop getting wrong?

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Anche se Google ha appena ricevuto la buona notizia che Chrome è il browser più usato al mondo, Facebook è diventato l’argomento principale di discussione dell’intervista televisiva che Charlie Rose ha fatto a Larry Page, CEO e co-fondatore di Google. … Continua a leggere→

(Phys.org) -- Developers and end users both have been indicating they are ready to start saying long goodbyes to mouse and keyboard. In this touchscreen generation of mobile users, the big stir among gadget reviewers this week is the announcement by Leap Motion that you can not only say goodbye to mouse and keyboard, but goodbye to touchscreen, too. "That nice LED display remains clean and untouched, as it should be,” says the company. The San Francisco based company has announced it is accepting pre-orders for its new Leap, a small USB peripheral that performs motion control with in-the-air sweeps of hand and movements of fingers. The Leap creates a 3-D interaction space of eight cubic feet to interact with and control software on a laptop or desktop. This gesture-control device for computers is running rings, and orbs, and swirls, and curlicues, around Kinect, the most well known of technologies that help users interact with computers without mouse and keyboard.

Google's second Big Tent event is in its second year - and this year has panels on pornography, copyright and more

10.23am: Now getting into the question of whether you would have political filters, morality filters, and so on. Heaney of TalkTalk says that you can do blocks on games sites. Nobody has quite gotten to Platell's point yet about accessibility, or got an answer here.

(Just as a reminder, I tried to tackle this question with Worried about online porn? Don't regulate the net – regulate your kids. Not sure if Platell has read it.)

Q from father of an 8yo: what's missing is personalisation - devices, context of the person's use. Network filtering can transcend location and control what child sees on multiple devices but it's up to the parent - don't need ISP making decision. Education is important.

Q "someone saying Mail is leading campaign against porn, I've gone onto Mail Online... steamy sex scene with Carey Mulligan, watch the video now."

Platell: I wouldn't have a problem with my kids seeing this today, but I do have a problem with Pornhub, Leonardo di Caprio isn't going to be tying her up...

Graham Linehan, from the floor, suggests search on Mail Online "all grown up" because that's about children who are now legal. Mail Online regularly does articles about child stars who are now 16. It means "this person is now available for sex." Says it's ironic that Mail is running anti-porn campaign while running pictures of people in bikinis.

10.18am:
Platell quotes stats about how many children have seen porn before age of 16. Concern seems to be that it's affecting middle-class images. "These images are so damaging". Moderator asks if she's in favour of censorship. She says yes, in some circumstances.

Google's Sarah Hunter says "we believe children shouldn't be seeing porn online. We don't want children to be unsafe online. Google also says: it's not that easy. Solutions being discussed aren't perfect. There are problems - deskilling parents by giving them solution that aren't themselves perfect. So most important thing is making sure parents know the risks children face online, give tools to protect children.

Q: can a clever teenager get around it?
Andrew Heaney: yes - it's one of many things.

Amanda Platell looking like she owns the sofa.
Lawyer Mark Stephens, former defender of Julian Assange, says that this is just an update of the porn mags of the earlier days.

Platell says that the images are completely different. Pornhub had pics of a woman being stripped and then forced to perform oral sex on another woman while.... OK, that's quite graphic, Amanda.

10.12am: First up is a session on pornography, Krishnan Guru-Murphy moderating, Amanda Platell from the Daily Mail leading for the anti-porn brigade: says she looked up Pornhub last night. Unsurprisingly, it was a bit shocking.

Andrew Heaney of TalkTalk saying it's too easy to slip over into censorship, that you shouldn't have a default block.

The Big Tent is going on now - and here's the liveblog.

The Big Tent is going on now - and here's the liveblog.

• Google
• Eric Schmidt

Charles Arthur
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Universities must do more to help students develop as global citizens. Virtual global learning communities could be the answer

Globalisation in the 21st century continues to bring about many new political, economic, social, and technological developments. Today's students therefore tend to be more digitally savvy, mobile and transitory, socially connected, and more democratic in their worldview. This new reality has placed greater demands on educators in all countries to create more contemporary learning environments that reflect the pluralistic nature of life on our planet. To that end, we believe that virtual global learning communities have the potential to create more authentic and experiential learning spaces for students.

Global learning is the cultivation of multiple, diverse, and global perspectives. It allows one to develop the intercultural competencies necessary to become a global citizen who can understand issues from multiple perspectives and gain a deeper appreciation of and tolerance for diversity of all types (cultural, linguistic, religious, political, for example). The International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association believes the global citizen is better equipped to more effectively function in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.

If one of the goals of colleges and universities is to produce the next generation of global leaders, then developing intercultural competencies in students should be a high priority.

For example, as part of a three year intercultural communications project that began in January 2009, Olga Kovbasyuk from the Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law (KSAEL) in Russia, Anders Eriksson, et al from the Orebro University in Sweden, and Alyssa O'Brien, et al from Stanford University in the US created a shared virtual learning space wherein their students regularly collaborated with each other as part of their course activities. One aim of the collaboration was to develop students as contemporary global citizens by cultivating their intercultural communication skills through shared dialogue across cultures and geopolitical boundaries.

Blogs, wikis, email, and audio-video conferencing technologies were used that allowed students to share their different political and cultural experiences, traditions, and perspectives. Using these technologies, the Russian, Swedish, and American students shared their points of view on topics that ranged from global environmental issues to international security policies to rhetorical skills in communicating across media.

The research findings of this three-year project concluded that these students cultivated greater inter-cultural sensitivity and developed more appropriate modes of dialogue across cultures. The participants' attitude towards the project was also very positive.

Working on shared projects can enrich students' experiences and open them to more critical ways of thinking and more creative forms of problem-solving.

However, some may not see the deeper value in this type of collaborative learning but experience shows that such teaching-learning methods have the potential to create more personally meaningful learning spaces for students and more professionally enriching work environments for teachers.

Conflicts and xenophobia that exist in the world suggest the inability of some people to construct effective interactions. Another challenge in building virtual global learning communities lies in how well we can contribute to dealing with the complexities and conflicts arising from the growing interconnectedness and interdependence between cultures. However, within virtual global communities, students and educators can learn to become more socially minded and ethically responsible global citizens which, in turn, can help improve relationships in the broader world community.

Patrick Blessinger is the founder and executive director of the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL), New York City. Olga Kovbasyuk is president of HETL and vice dean for International Relations at the Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law, Russian Federation. Patrick and Olga are co-founders of the Institute for Meaning Centered Education.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.

• International
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"TV gadget man dies," says the headline in the Times, although it doesn't quite do Eugene Polley justice. Polley, the paper explains, invented the television remote control. "The Flash-Matic, made by Zenith Electronics, was introduced in 1955," says the paper. Polley, who has died aged 96, and another Zenith engineer were rewarded with an Emmy for their efforts. Remotely, as it turned out – they didn't get them until 1997.

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Monkey
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Mentre ci sono ancora utenti che resistono strenuamente all’invasione del Diario su Facebook, l’azienda sta già rimescolando le carte e il cambiamento sarà imposto da Palo Alto. Guardando il profilo di Carl Franzen di TPM (cliccate sulla foto per ingrandirla) … Continua a leggere→

(AP) -- Regulators are examining whether Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that shepherded Facebook through its highly publicized stock offering last week, selectively informed clients of an analyst's negative report about the company before the stock started trading.

MapMyFitness is a veteran of the online health and fitness space, with the first iteration of its website appearing back in the summer of 2005. Since then, the startup has developed a suite of fitness-oriented websites (like MapMyRUN.com, MapMyRIDE.com, MapMyWALK.com, et al) to let users track and store their running, cycling, walking and hiking endeavors, along with accessing a database of international routes, fitness calculators, nutrition tracking, events listings and more. MapMyFitness has long had a stable community of committed users, but over the last year, things have been moving steadily north.

CEO Richard Jalichandra (who joined the startup from Technorati last year) tells us that MapMyFitness recently passed 9 million registered users, and that, collectively, its mobile apps have amassed over 30 million downloads, making it one of the biggest players in the fitness tracking space.

The good news for MapMyFitness, however, has been the recent telescoping growth in registrations (not downloads), with the latest 1 million registrations occurring over the last 40 days. That’s an increase from the 54 days it took for the site to go from 6 million to 7 million users, and the 47 days it took to pass 8 million users. All in all, that’s 3 million new users in the last 5 months, and the CEO says the company is today seeing 25K new registrations a day, significant when viewed against its nearly 7-year history.

It’s based on this recent uptick in activity that MapMyFitness is today launching one of the biggest feature updates the platform has seen since rebranding in 2007. The startup has completely rebuilt its portfolio of websites, and is now beta testing three big new features: Updated routes, personal challenges, and courses, with the main attraction, Jalichandra says, being the latter.

The CEO claims that the introduction of its new feature makes MapMyFitness the only online fitness service to have integrated Google Maps API v3.9 (the latest version of its API) and leverage its full functionality.

What does that mean? While MapMyFitness users could already plan, track, and share their routes, Jalichandra says that Courses adds a notable difference in performance and user experience, enabling users to go beyond the actual route. By incorporating realtime info on traffic, weather, safe routes, directions, realtime elevation, and custom markers, now users can go beyond the route, planning the best Segway route home from work, for example..

Really, the feature is intended to bring MapMyFitness into the gamification/Foursquare era, as it provides both hardcore and casual athletes with both leaderboards and check-ins. Courses offers an automatic “check-in activity” for every exercise logged to track the speed, distance, consistency, and intensity of workouts, ranking users by gender, age, and weigh on the platform’s new leaderboard.

There’s also a group segmenting feature that allows users to compare themselves, leaderboard-style, against specific groups, be they local clubs, friends, or fierce cycling rivals, backed by a points system that incorporates personal best times and monthly consistency, awarding badges to the users with the most overall points on climbing courses, those with the most completions of a course, the fastest time, etc., etc.

Courses will span MapMyFitness’ five primary categories, including cycling, running, walking, hiking and winter sports, as well as hundreds of subcategory specialties (like unicycling) and enables users to create new Courses directly from their iPhones, BlackBerrys, Androids, Windows Mobile phones and iPads.

It also helps that Courses leverages the startup’s database of more than 50 million routes, 1 million climbs, and 30K event courses through realtime processing, allowing users to measure fitness and track progress in realtime or over time.

With RunKeeper on a laudable mission to build “the health graph,” alongside an API that’s already attracted 50+ integrations, big funding, and a platform that’s quickly becoming one of the top destinations for tracking and sharing fitness routines, incumbents are feeling a little bit of pressure.

But, as its name implies, MapMyFitness does maps better than most, especially now that it is powering its new features with Google’s latest mapping technology. According to the startup’s CEO, other than Strava, MapMyFitness is the only platform that offers realtime GPS activity leaderboards, and he thinks that components of the service, like route mapping, the ability to send a route to your phone to route with directions, along with the ability to choose from over 40 sports give its service a leg up on the competition.

MapMyFitness also capitalizes on three revenue streams: Media, digital commerce and subscriptions, and enterprise software, with this diversity resulting in the startup’s revenue doubling each of the last four years, the CEO says, and is projected to triple in 2012. This has allowed the startup to avoid raising outside investment beyond its series A in 2010 and to grow, under its own volition, to a team of 78, giving it an advantage over its competition in terms of good old human capital.

With its a deep database of courses, routes and trails, some added stickiness thanks to leaderboards and check-ins, and some big data collection and storage capabilities on the back-end using postGIS, it wouldn’t be surprising to see MapMyFitness continue in its accelerating growth trajectory. And maybe even find a little funding waiting in the wings.

Also, don’t be surprised if MapMyFitness ends up being featured by Google at some point. My guess would be here.

Courses will be available initially through a private beta test for first 100,000 users
who sign up here. iPhone and Android MMF users will only see superficial changes reflected in its new site — now available to one and all — at new.mapmyfitness.com. Widespread access to Courses et al will be offered later this summer.

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