Sorin Adam Matei
Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.
Assistant Vice President for Partnerships in Strategic Defense Innnovation and Professor of Communication at Purdue University, Director of the FORCES initiative leads research teams that study the relationship between technological and social systems using big data, simulation, and mapping approaches. He published papers and articles in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information Society, National Interest, and Foreign Policy. He is the author or co-editor of several books. The most recent is Structural differentation in social media. He also co-edited Ethical Reasoning in Big Data,Transparency in social media and Roles, Trust, and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets: Theory and Methods (Computational Social Sciences) , all three the product of the NSF funded KredibleNet project. Dr. Matei's teaching portfolio includes technology and strategy, online interaction, and digital media analytics classes. A former BBC World Service journalist, his contributions have been published in Esquire and several leading Romanian newspapers. In Romania, he is known for his books Boierii Mintii (The Mind Boyars), Idolii forului (Idols of the forum), and Idei de schimb (Spare ideas).
Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video via Flickr The end of a planet captured by Hubble… The hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy may also be its shortest-lived world. The doomed planet is being eaten by its parent star,…
Image via Wikipedia Here are two hints about the most likely way in which the ABC series Lost will end … Details after the series finale, on Sunday May 23, 2010. The Ouroboros or Uroborus[1] is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent…
I will never forget what William Dutton, now of Oxford Internet Institute Fame, one of my Annenberg School, USC professors, told me when I mentioned to him my belief that one day the set top cable box will be a computer and…
Image via Wikipedia Longer range M-1 style rifles to return to the Afghan battlefield? The U.S. military’s workhorse rifle — used in battle for the last 40 years — is proving less effective in Afghanistan against the Taliban’s more primitive but longer…
J Craig Venter Image via Wikipedia Designer cell created on computer is launched. One day we will design cells for steak and grafts alike… The genome pioneer J. Craig Venter has taken another step in his quest to create synthetic life, by…
My cell phone suddenly rang during a meeting with a grad student the other day. The device is set to a traditional, 1940s plain ring. It is the loudest I could find. I am either getting old and hard of hearing or…
In an article that’s wondering why despite fierce competition Microsoft Word still dominates the world of productivity suites, I picked up this little tid bit about Google’s revenue potential compared to Microsoft’s. $19 billion. That’s about how much Microsoft made last year…
Karma: Image via Wikipedia After a semi critical article in Popular Science, which accused Fisker Automotive, the producer of the much vaunted electric Karma car of exaggerated secrecy, a quasi release date for the elusive car is announced today by New York…
Justified debates in Europe about dogmatic interpretation of net neutrality. BERLIN — With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should…
World War 3 will probably be televised. Most recruits will watch it from the comfort of their coaches or prison cots, too fat or in trouble with the law to serve. The latest Army statistics show a stunning 75 percent of military-age…
From the trenches of undergrad education: LSU veteran professor suspended for tough grading policy. Dominique G. Homberger won’t apologize for setting high expectations for her students. The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning…
China tightens control over social media, promotes “clean” sites, including official party newspaper site. Chinese officials consider tools like social networking, microblogging and video-sharing sites a major vulnerability. In the past year, they have been forced to block access in China of…
An Irish judge asks legal systems everywhere to implement intellectual laws and to reject online piracy. He reprimands those who believe that cyberspace is an autonomous territory with its own copyright laws. “The Internet is only a means of communication,” he wrote.…
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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski (R) te… Image by Getty Images via Daylife The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down a recent FCC regulation that would’ve forced Internet providers to treat all Internet traffic, including…
iphone Image via CrunchBase On my last trip to Chicago I noticed that data connections for iPhone were plain abysmal. If you live in a large metropolitan area, the iPhone can be a liability, not an asset, when it comes to data…
Viv Magazine believes it is, as this NYTIMES article suggests. According to its website, VIVmag offers insight, advice and authentic stories to inspire and motivate women in their quest for a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Smart and vital, VIVmag readers know the…
Abstract A theoretically-grounded learning feedback tool suite, the Visible Effort (VE) Mediawiki extension, is proposed for optimizing online group learning activities by measuring the amount of equality and the emergence of social structure in groups that participate in Computer-Mediated Collaboration (CMC). Building…
Honda took the unusual step of featuring some of its advertising faux-documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival. The living with robots flick featured below is super slick and slippery. Luminary after luminary and robot researcher after robot researcher is prompted to say…
A new logo for the Italian Justice System? Image via Wikipedia An Italian court decided that anyone who does anything, anywhere in the world that an Italian court can interpret as an infringement of Italian law can be prosecuted, tried, and convicted.…
The New York Times returns to the site of the first future commercial spaceport and finds a project that is very much alive despite economic woes throughout the world: Past a ranch that used to be a stage stop on an ancient…
Google’s announced plans to build 1 Gigabyte broadband networks seem to play the same role as Google‘s threats of yesteryear to bid for WiMax frequencies. The FCC is planning to propose a new national broadband plan, which would make accessible to most…
The FTC Logo, Image via Wikipedia Facebook is on the hook. Privacy advocates complained to the FTC that Facebook’s decision to make most of your actions public by default is a form of deceptive practices. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a…
The CBS television show 60 minutes reports that criminals steal around 60 billion dollars from the Federal coffers each year. The method is simple. Hire or bribe a pharmacist or medical supply company with a legitimate medical practice license, buy or steal…
After being overtaken by Google in the later part of 2008, Yahoo now is passed by Facebook. During the last year Facebook doubled its traffic, while Yahoo remained largely stationary. 133 million unique visitors in Jan 2010. From Mashable: Facebook is now…
Mosul image via Wikipedia The Iraq War, now in it’s sixth year, has produced its own literature. Brian Turner was focused on staying alive, not poetry, when he served as an infantry team leader in Iraq. But he quickly saw that his…
The White House is these days literally white, as this picture provided by the presidential administration shows.
Gang Signs on the Web creative commons image by JL! via Flickr Gang members use social media to organize payback missions or to snuff out snitches. A Washington Post article cited by Gawker and dugg 172 times reports that gangs regularly use…
iPad Apple Tablet Will Ship 10 Million in 2010 WOOOOOW! Ambitious….
The Looking into the past Flickr gallery and project uses a simple and effective trick. Take a period picture, find its location, go there, hold the picture at the right distance from the camera and from the landmark depicted in it, make…
A most powerful medium, of unknown abode and origin, summoned through dark arts the spirit of the Evil One himself, the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, to ponder on iPad’s fate. This is what he had to say: Related articles by Zemanta The Meme…
The iPad launch video clip A roundup of Apple iPad reviewes The New York Times gave it ample space, asking however some pointed questions: Mr. Jobs, a consummate showman, presented the iPad to an enthusiastic crowd of around 800 employees, business partners…
Image by cattias.photos via Flickr The Apple iPad will be a glorified iTouch, with better connectivity. First off, it will have no camera. None whatsoever. (Although there are people who say that there are some camera kits available) Then, no GPS whatsoever…
Image via Wikipedia Lifehacker picks this little tid-bit of insight from Inc: You might think that involving a bunch of people in every company meeting and email keeps everyone on the same page. In reality, it's a productivity killer that hinders rather…
David Pogue, the technology columnist/blogger for New York Times believes that the announced Apple tablet, the so called iSlate, will contain at least one element of surprise and will not be just a tablet. Or so we can hope. But my gut…
The Uniqueness of Humans We are not unique? Is organized crime the only differentiator for humans? Or figuring out how to get the banana when the boss is around? This presentation, featured by TED, makes you wonder what is to be human…
Cover via Amazon Sequel to two successful media epics, “Googled” delivers some major insights–the search giant might not be as strong as it seems–yet it does not raise above “competently executed.” Overall tastes like a reasonably well cooked dish following a well…
Image by pamhule via Flickr Google claims, albeit in a rather veiled way, that a hacking attack on its servers that originated in China was inspired or supported by the Chinese authorities. A pointed paragraph in the Google announcement sends the readers…
A feature article published in Scientific American reveals the most probable use of what some consider to be the first complex computing device on record. According to Shawn Groetzen: Devices with this level of complexity were not seen again for almost 1,500…
Image via Wikipedia Slate leads the uprising against the idea of taxing soda and fat (on people). In my last column “Let Them Drink Water!”, I suggested that a tax on sweetened soft drinks would move the nation toward an apartheid of…
All links below will bring up a floating You Tube clip, courtesy Apture… NY Times reviews the e book explosion at CES 2010, including the Lenovo detachable screen e-100 notebook and plasticlogic’s que (649), ultralight reading device. Bokeen, at 249, is highlighted…
Image via Wikipedia The inside view of how Wikipedia works This article presents an interview with Angela Beesley, Elisabeth Bauer, and Kizu Naoko. All three are leading Wikipedia practitioners in the English, German, and Japanese Wikipedias and related projects. The interview focuses…
Augmented reality replaces virtual reality as new tech shibboleth. Since mid 2009 augmented reality has become a favorite search term on Google. The advent of touchscreen mobile phones with GPS and cameras such as the iPhone and Android phones is giving rise…
On Wisconsin My down the hall colleague, Glenn Sparks, is not just a great scholar, but also a theramin builder and performer….
Image via Wikipedia “The conscious, brain-based memories that we humans set so much store by are not the only memories out there.” Think of our immune system for a minute… And then, get ready to learn about plant memories. Truly poetic… via…
University of Illinois has only received 7% of its state budget allocation and the interim president announces that its professors will be furloughed (a form of salary cut or partial unemployment). It is a move on a par to UC’s catastrophic budget…
Chosen by MSNBC, the best 2009 YouTube videos include Susan Boyle at Britain got talent, whose Amazon.com CD was an absolute bestseller Dentist doped kid – David at the dentist Funny JK wedding dance YouTube’s 2009 star was Susan Boyle, the frumpy…
Business Week announces as almost sure that Apple prepares a new consumer device. A 7-10 inch, ITouch like tablet. The tablet might use the patents Apple just applied for this summer, which include off screen haptic controls and haptic feedback . Apple…
Image by dewfall via Flickr New York Times reflects on an emergent turn toward higher emphasis on “skills” in American colleges. Is this desirable? Should we abandon philosophy departments? How about math? THOMAS COLLEGE, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself…
Image via Wikipedia Wikipedia articles that are controlled by a small group of editors that coordinate their work closely seem to be of higher quality. This is one of the main suggestions made by Kraut an Kittur, whose work was previously featured…
A list of influential books on designing successful social media strategies. Gillin – Social Media Marketing and New Influencers Safko – Social Media Bible Weinberg – Community Rules Brogan – Trust Agents Connor – 18 rules for community engagement Qualman – Socialnomics…
Janet Napolitano, the Secretary for Homeland Security, explains the failure. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy The explanation might or might not stand scrutiny. Many have pointed to the fact that the recent terrorist attempted attack…
The Wall Street Journal announces that US pilotless drones patrolling the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan beam down their video feeds in clear. They use no encryption and anyone can just point their dish at the transponding satellite to “grab” the feed.…