Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297069170?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, April 7, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
7 Shady Publisher Ad Tactics | Digiday
Web advertising, for better or worse, is a volume game. Sometimes, it can appear as a race to the bottom. As a result, many employ sketchy tactics to help boost impressions and click-throughs Here are some of the most popular tricks out there:
Slideshows
Rarely is Web content best presented through the medium of slideshow, but that doesn?t stop some publishers from using them at every given opportunity to help boost pageviews and ad impressions. Why present users with a single, easily scrollable page of content when you can force them to click nine times and bombard them with banner ads in the process? Notice a publisher like BuzzFeed, which doesn?t sell display ads, doesn?t use slideshows.
Autoplay video
Another example of a practice that users hate and publishers love. Advertisers like video ads, and publishers can still charge a premium for them, almost regardless of the context they?re served in. The easiest way to boost your video inventory? Don?t wait to see if a user clicks play; just start streaming anyway.
?Pop-ups and pop-unders?
?Browser-based pop-up blockers thankfully managed to eradicate most of them, but some pop-ups still seem to slip through the net. Netflix is a big fan of the pop-up format, or at least its affiliates are. And anyone who frequents torrent sites or the more dimly lit corners of the internet will be all too familiar with MacKeeper ads, too.
Pagination
A 700-word article could easily be published on one page or two. Some publishers would rather opt for two because that would double the ad impressions. Most users, on the other hand, would probably rather just scroll than click.
Auto page refreshes
This one?s pretty simple: Instead of loading a Webpage and the ads placed on it just once while a user reads it, why not refresh it every 30 or 60 seconds instead? Think of all those extra impressions! It?s like printing money. Sort of.
?Aggregation?
Some online publishers take another site?s content, add some value or further the discussion around it, and republish it on their own site to the benefit of their audience. Others will simply publish a headline and a summary sentence before linking to the source, and serving three or four ads in the process. It?s a cheap, quick, and easy way to boost pageviews and impressions.
?Sex sells
?Sex sells, that?s a given, and ads featuring scantily clad torsos can be found all over the net. But even major ad sellers lean on it heavily to help them sell ads, often by turning a blind eye to a good old-fashioned bait-and-switch. Facebook, for example, does little to police the imagery used by marketers in its units. Often the raunchy artwork depicted in its ads has nothing at all to do with the products or services being sold, but Facebook gets its clicks, and the marketer gets its traffic. It?s the user that loses out. ?
Source: http://www.digiday.com/agencies/7-shady-publisher-ad-tactics/
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Online learning: It's different
Apr. 4, 2013 ? The number of online educational offerings has exploded in recent years, but their rapid rise has spawned a critical question: Can such "virtual" classes cut through the maze of distractions -- such as email, the Internet, and television -- that face students sitting at their computers?
The solution, Harvard researchers say, is to test students early and often.
By interspersing online lectures with short tests, student mind-wandering decreased by half, note-taking tripled, and overall retention of the material improved, according to Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology. Their findings are described in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"What we hope this research does is show that we can use very strong, experimentally sound techniques to describe what works in online education and what doesn't," said Szpunar. "The question, basically, is how do we optimize students' time when they're at home, trying to learn from online lectures? How do we help them most efficiently extract the information they need?
"Some students I've talked to say that it takes them as long as four hours to get through an hour-long, online lecture because they're trying to combat all the distractions around them," he continued. "If we give students an incentive to pay attention to what they're doing, it's going to save them time. This is one way to do that."
Ironically, Schacter said, while online classes have exploded in popularity in the past few years, there remains "shockingly little" hard scientific data about how students learn in the virtual classroom.
"A lot of people have ideas about what techniques are effective," he said. "There's a general folk wisdom that says lessons should be short and engaging, but there's an absence of rigorous testing to back that up."
To get at that question, he, Szpunar, and research assistant Novall Khan devised two experiments.
In the first, a group of students was asked to watch a lecture that had been broken up into four segments of about five minutes each. After each segment, students were asked to do several math problems. Some students were then tested on the material from the lecture, while a control group did more math problems.
In the second experiment, participants were separated into three groups. Similar to the first experiment, all began watching a lecture that had been broken up into four segments. The difference was that students were interrupted, and asked whether their minds were wandering.
"It was surprising how high the baseline tendency to mind-wander is," Schacter said. "In our experiments, when we asked students if they were mind-wandering, they said yes roughly 40 percent of the time. It's a significant problem."
Following each segment, all three groups again did a set of math problems. Some students were then tested on the lecture, some did more math problems, and some were given the chance to study material from the lecture a second time.
Surprisingly, Schacter said, in both experiments, students who were tested between each segment -- but not the others, even those who were allowed to study the material again -- showed a marked drop in mind-wandering and improved overall retention of material.
"It's not sufficient for a lecture to be short or to break up a lecture as we did in these experiments," Schacter said. "You need to have the testing. Just breaking it up and allowing them to do something else, even allowing them to re-study the material, does nothing to cut down on mind-wandering, and does nothing to improve final test performance. The testing is the critical component."
Those tests, Schacter and Szpunar believe, act as an incentive for students to pay closer attention to the lecture because they know they'll have to answer questions at the end of each segment.
"Whether it's in the classroom or online, students typically don't expect to have to summarize a lecture in a way that makes sense until much later on," Szpunar explained. "But if we give them an incentive to do that every now and then, students are actually much more likely to set everything else aside, and decide they can get to that text after class, or they can worry about their other class later, and they're able to absorb the material much better."
Another surprising effect of the testing, Szpunar said, was to reduce testing anxiety among students, and to ease their fears that the lecture material would be very challenging.
Going forward, Schacter said, he hopes to research whether the testing effect can also reduce mind-wandering in the classroom.
"We know that there is mind-wandering in classroom lectures," he said. "Testing intervention hasn't been tried yet, but I think both Karl and I expect it would have similar, and possibly even stronger, results, because these experiments were conducted in a very controlled setting."
As online courses are increasingly touted as a large part of the future of higher education, Szpunar said he hopes the findings help to lay out a blueprint that can ensure students get the most out of such studies.
"At the very least, what this says is that it's not enough to break up lectures into smaller segments, or to fill that break with some activity," he said. "What we really need to do is instill in students the expectation that they will need to express what they've learned at some later point. I think it's going to be a very sobering thought for a lot of people to think that students aren't paying attention almost half the time, but this is one way we can help them get more out of these online lectures."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- K. K. Szpunar, N. Y. Khan, D. L. Schacter. Interpolated memory tests reduce mind wandering and improve learning of online lectures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221764110
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/XxtPDGBr73U/130404122240.htm
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Analyst reveals why Android is beating the iPhone, but not the iPad
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Thursday, April 4, 2013
US, French tourists kidnapped, 1 raped in Rio
Map locates Rio de Janeiro where tourists were attacked and one was sexually assaulted aboard a public transport van
Map locates Rio de Janeiro where tourists were attacked and one was sexually assaulted aboard a public transport van
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? An American woman was gang raped and beaten aboard a public transport van while her French boyfriend was shackled, hit with a crowbar and forced to watch the attacks after the pair boarded the vehicle in Rio de Janeiro's showcase Copacabana beach neighborhood, police said.
A third man, aged 21, was arrested for the attacks, which took place over six hours starting shortly after midnight on Saturday, police said in a Tuesday statement. Two men aged 20 and 22 had already been taken into custody for the attacks, police said. and a young Brazilian woman has come forward to say that she, too, was raped by the same men in the van on March 23.
"The victims described everything in great detail, mostly the sexual violence," police officer Rodrigo Brant told the Globo TV network. "Just how they described the facts was shocking ? the violence and brutality. It surprised even us, who work in security and are used to hearing such things. Their report shocked us."
The incidents raise new questions about security in Rio, which has cracked down on once-endemic drug violence in preparation for hosting next year's football World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic games. The city will also be playing host to World Youth Day, a Roman Catholic pilgrimage that will be attended by Pope Francis and is expected to draw some 2 million people in late July.
Officials from the local Olympic and World Cup organizing committees didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The attack also drew comparisons with the fatal December beating and gang rape of a young woman on a New Delhi bus. Six men beset a 23-year-old university student and male friend after they boarded a private bus, touching off a wave of protests across India demanding stronger protection for women. Officials there say tourism has dropped in the country following the attacks.
In the Brazil case, a police statement said the suspects forced other passengers to get out of the van and then raped the female tourist inside the vehicle, which was one of a fleet of vans that serve bus routes and seat about a dozen people.
Such van services are often linked to organized crime in Rio, particularly the militias largely comprised of former police and firemen that control large swaths of the city's slums and run clandestine services such as transportation and sell cooking fuel and illegal cable TV hookups. In general, tourists avoid the vans and opt for regular buses or taxis.
Sexual assaults on tourists are not common in Rio, with muggings and petty crime reported more frequently.
During the assault, the two foreigners were driven to the poor neighborhood of Sao Goncalo, where the two suspects were apprehended, a police statement said.
Reports said the two foreigners had been studying Portuguese in Rio for about a month and both left Brazil following the attack.
The police statement said that one victim's cellphone was found in the suspects' possession. The suspects had also used a debit card belonging to one of the victims at two gas stations, it said.
The Globo television network broadcast surveillance camera images of two men filling up the white van and showed police images of a crowbar the suspects used to beat and intimidate the victims. The victims positively identified the two suspects.
In an interview with Globo television, commanding officer Alexandre Braga, who heads the Rio police unit specializing in crimes against tourists, said the suspects had gone on a sex crime spree.
"The characteristics of both crimes, both the Brazilian case and the one with the foreigners, lead us to believe that they (the suspects) wanted to have a 'party of evil,' in quotes," Braga said. "The principal motive appears to have been the satisfaction of their lust."
He added that the robbery and other crimes appear to have been "secondary."
Multiple calls to police seeking further details on Tuesday were not immediately returned.
In Brazil, more than 5,300 cases of sexual assault were reported between January and June 2012, according to the country's Health Ministry.
___
AP Television producer Ana Pereira contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Speaking a tonal language (such as Cantonese) primes the brain for musical training
Apr. 2, 2013 ? Non-musicians who speak tonal languages may have a better ear for learning musical notes, according to Canadian researchers.
Tonal languages, found mainly in Asia, Africa and South America, have an abundance of high and low pitch patterns as part of speech. In these languages, differences in pitch can alter the meaning of a word. Vietnamese, for example, has eleven different vowel sounds and six different tones. Cantonese also has an intricate six-tone system, while English has no tones.
Researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute (RRI) in Toronto have found the strongest evidence yet that speaking a tonal language may improve how the brain hears music. While the findings may boost the egos of tonal language speakers who excel in musicianship, they are exciting neuroscientists for another reason: they represent the first strong evidence that music and language -- which share overlapping brain structures -- have bi-directional benefits!
The findings are published today in PLOS ONE.
The benefits of music training for speech and language are already well documented (showing positive influences on speech perception and recognition, auditory working memory, aspects of verbal intelligence, and awareness of the sound structure of spoken words). The reverse -- the benefits of language experience for learning music -- has largely been unexplored until now.
"For those who speak tonal languages, we believe their brain's auditory system is already enhanced to allow them to hear musical notes better and detect minute changes in pitch," said lead investigator Gavin Bidelman, who conducted the research as a post-doctoral fellow at Baycrest's RRI, supported by a GRAMMY Foundation? grant.
"If you pick up an instrument, you may be able to acquire the skills faster to play that instrument because your brain has already built up these auditory perceptual advantages through speaking your native tonal language."
But Bidelman, now assistant professor with the Institute for Intelligent Systems and School of Communication Science & Disorders at the University of Memphis, was quick to dispel the notion that people who speak tonal languages make better musicians. Musicianship requires much more than the sense of hearing and plenty of English-speaking musical icons will put that quick assumption to rest.
That music and language -- two key domains of human cognition -- can influence each other offers exciting possibilities for devising new approaches to rehabilitation for people with speech and language deficits, said Bidelman.
"If music and language are so intimately coupled, we may be able to design rehabilitation treatments that use musical training to help individuals improve speech-related functions that have been impaired due to age, aphasia or stroke," he suggested. Bidelman added that similar benefits might also work in the opposite direction. Musical listening skills could be improved by designing well-crafted speech and language training programs.
The study
Fifty-four healthy adults in their mid-20s were recruited for the study from the University of Toronto and Greater Toronto Area. They were divided into three groups: English-speaking trained musicians (instrumentalists) and Cantonese-speaking and English-speaking non-musicians. Wearing headphones in a sound-proof lab, participants were tested on their ability to discriminate complex musical notes. They were assessed on measures of auditory pitch acuity and music perception as well as general cognitive ability such as working memory and fluid intelligence (abstract reasoning, thinking quickly).
While the musicians demonstrated superior performance on all auditory measures, the Cantonese non-musicians showed similar performance to musicians on music and cognitive behavioural tasks, testing 15 to 20 percent higher than that of the English-speaking non-musicians.
Bidelman added that not all tonal languages may offer the music listening benefits seen with the Cantonese speakers in his study. Mandarin, for example, has more "curved" tones and the pitch patterns vary with time -- which is different from how pitch occurs in music. Musical pitch resembles "stair step, level pitch patterns" which happen to share similarities with the Cantonese language, he explained.
Bidelman's research team included Sylvain Moreno, senior scientist with Baycrest's RRI and lead scientist with the Baycrest Centre for Brain Fitness; and Stefanie Hutka, an RRI graduate student and PhD student in the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto.
The GRAMMY Foundation, which supported the study, works in partnership with its founder The Recording Academy? to bring national attention to important issues such as the value and impact of music and arts education.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Gavin M. Bidelman, Stefanie Hutka, Sylvain Moreno. Tone Language Speakers and Musicians Share Enhanced Perceptual and Cognitive Abilities for Musical Pitch: Evidence for Bidirectionality between the Domains of Language and Music. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e60676 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060676
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/MxGA7YdRjCU/130402182640.htm
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93% Zero Dark Thirty
All Critics (243) | Top Critics (45) | Fresh (228) | Rotten (17) | DVD (2)
What's striking is the absence of triumphalism -- Bigelow doesn't shy away from showing the victims shot down in cold blood in the compound -- and we come away with the overwhelming sense that this has been a grim, dark episode in our history.
This is an instant classic.
Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.
No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.
While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.
From the very first scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action.
Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a grueling masterpiece that captures the hunt for bin Laden with a daunting amount of realism and efficiency.
Slathered in controversy, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty confidently and forcefully storms onto DVD with an admirable A/V transfer, only hindered by a paltry gathering of extras from Sony.
The direction by Kathryn Bigelow, who won Oscars for Best Film and Best Director in her previous film "The Hurt Locker," is fierce and focused...
Despite what those silly Oscars would have you believe, it was this movie, not Argo, that was the finest of 2012.
Indulges Cheneyian fantasies complete with the bad-movie scene of the prisoner's defiance: "You're just a garbage man in the corporation," shouts the Arab who needs a lesson in manners from the Ph.D. (in torture?) who is racking him.
Bigelow tells the story very well, very efficiently, but doesn't really say much about it, which is ironic given the response to the film in some quarters.
Kathryn Bigelow takes the procedural model and brushes away every unnecessary detail, leaving behind a heavy, blunt object of a film that is also hugely watchable, engrossing and, best of all... highly suspenseful.
Rotten Tomatoes notes that I agree with Tomatometer critics 80 percent of the time, but this is one of those times I have to part ways with them.
Bigelow has directed excellent movies before, but this deserves to be remembered as the film that established her as a master.
You can't deny that what Zero Dark Thirty sets out to do, it does excellently.
An exhilarating and compelling historical document worthy of praise.
Bigelow's latest proves a rewarding piece of filmmaking, one that, in its best moments at least, is as gripping and as troubling as anything the director's ever made.
Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal shape history -- those breaks, big and small, that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden -- into one of the finest fact-based thrillers since "All the President's Men."
Purely as cinematic exercise, Zero Dark Thirty is an exhilarating piece of work. But, beyond its for-the-times subject matter, the work does not linger whatsoever.
Zero Dark Thirty is interesting as opposed to enjoyable, intriguing as opposed to entertaining, and certainly less memorable than The Hurt Locker.
It's quite remarkable how Bigelow and Boal managed to take 12 years of information (including a conclusion that everyone knows) and packaged it into a coherent, intimate and intense movie.
We know the ending, yet remain mesmerized by familiar details, filmed with a harrowing sense of urgency. It's as close to being in the White House situation room that night, watching a closed-circuit broadcast, as anyone could expect.
The second half of the film IS the film.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zero_dark_thirty/
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