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).
White House spokesman John Carney told the White House press corps at a regular briefing that Osama was not armed when killed. Other details, according to AP: Unexpectedly high temperatures caused a lumbering helicopter carrying elite commandos to make a hard…
Click the image to see our full coverage of Obama’s Abbottabad Compound The Department of Defense released this diagram of the Osama Bin Laden Compound. The map below overlays the Department of Defense diagram above onto the exact location of the Osama…
ABC News published footage from Osama bin Laden mansion and released dramatic pictures of the bedroom where the final stand took place. Blood covers the ground and the bed. The inside of the building is nicely furnished. Electronic devices and appliances are…
A special briefing at the White House detailed the manner in which Osama bin Laden was found and killed by US Special Forces. The investigation started in August 2010 and involved Guantanamo Bay interogations. The speakers requested not to be named for…
Following a tip received by CIA in August 2010, the US intelligence community determined that Osama Bin Laden is located in Abbottabad, in North-West Pakistan, about 100 km North of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. He was found, in a “mansion” and killed…
A sudden White House announcement Sunday night that President Obama will give an important address kept the nation in suspense for about an hour and a half until the president announced officially at 11:34 PM EST that Osama Bin Laden is dead.…
The media coverage of the greatest wedding of the 21st century (so far), compressed to 1.5 minutes by MSNBC. Great footage, especially the one inside the cathedral, shot from above the altar. The audience of the wedding was absolutely staggering, more than…
From The New York Times: Storms Rock the South and Midwest Severe weather in parts of the South has killed several people and left thousands more without power from East Texas to Memphis and up through Illinois. Slideshow: http://nyti.ms/mHBp1I
Very good stuff for absolute beginners… PHP is a powerful scripting language that fits gracefully into HTML and puts the tools for creating dynamic websites in the hands of the people — even people like me who were too lazy to learn…
All your digital breadcrumbs in one place… A program aggregates all your location based information and plots it on a map. A new software tool created by Greek programmer Yiannis Kakavas goes much farther in the shock category. Called “Creepy,” Kakavas’ tool…
We are finally getting somewhere… Cloud computing, though, is more than a hyper-efficient means of distributing digital services. The cloud model is animated by a set of Internet technologies for juggling computing workloads in data centers far more efficiently than in the…
The power of WordPress consists in its ability to be extended to perform any number of tricks. In this post I will introduce the notion of WordPress plugins for my WebProduction class and I will illustrate it with several examples, including Register…
Next fall I will teach the Online Interaction Seminar at Purdue University. The class is listed as 47566 – COM 63200 – 001 and it will meet on Tuesday – Thursday from 1:30 pm to 2:45 pm PM. This is a fun…
Ali Wylam, one of the students enrolled in my Com 435 class (Emerging Communication Technologies) found that teen sensation Justin Bieber has a gigantic stature in cyberspace. He is right up there with the big corporations. He garnered over 30 million monthly…
Of the many billions of stars that surround us, only some are orbited by planets. Of those that have planets, only some can support life. Of those planets that can support life, only some are close enough to their star not to…
WordPress is indubitable the best content management system in the world. It is used by half of the top 1 million Alexa sites that run off-the-shelf content management systems. Also, there are 27 million WordPress publishers in the world, of which I…
News about “radioactive” foodstuff in Japan needs to be taken with a grain of salt: The Japanese government has found radiation levels “significantly above” acceptable levels in milk, spinach and kakina, another leafy vegetable, produced near the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power…
The latest news from Gaddafi’s compound Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Of the two dozen residences Muammar Gaddafi calls home, the most known and recognizable is the Bab el-Aziza compound, located right in the heart…
The end of Moore’s law and it’s economic effects https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/0413224/Michio-Kakus-Dark-Prediction-For-the-End-of-Moores-Law?from=newsletter#commentlisting Links: 0. http://slashdot.org/my/journal 1. http://www.salon.com/technology/computers/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/03/19/moores_law_ends_excerpt How much radiation can your body absorb? https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1422238/A-Handy-Radiation-Dose-Chart-From-XKCD?from=newsletter#commentlisting Links: 0. http://xkcd.com/radiation/ Which are the world’s premiere science cities? https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1648254/Citation-Map-Shows-Top-Science-Cities?from=newsletter#commentlisting Links: 0. http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3216 1. http://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/2154-citation-map-shows-top-science-cities.html
Defensive measures at the Fukushima Nuclear plant are called by Michio Kaku, a Japanese physicist teaching in the US, “like squirting a gun at a forest fire.” He would opt for the Russian solution, entomb the reactor in sand, boric acid and…
As the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant becomes darker by the day (see Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Update) and the risk of a major meltdown increases, people all over the world ask themselves how great is the danger of a major…
As the reactor failure at the Fukushima Plant in the aftermath of the Sendai earthquake increases public apprehension of nuclear technology, the future of this type of energy production might not be as bleak as it looks. There is one design that…
Live feed of main Japanese Television Network (NHK) in English Online TV Shows by Ustream Update: Fukushima powerplant releases radiation in the atmosphere. Spent fuel rods could be exposed to air and catch on fire. MSNBC reports that the situation in Tokyo…
Update: see the latest shocking images from the Fukushima powerplant and Sendai earthquake The radiation that emanates from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant can now affect human life. Three explosions in as many days has probably damaged one of the reactor containment…
Update: Images filmed the very moment the tsunami hit Sendai [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vWzkfUwJlg[/youtube] READ AND WATCH MORE NEWS ABOUT THE FUKUSHIMA POWER PLANT RADIOACTIVE LEAK Images shot right when the tsunami hit the cities of Northeastern Japan. Terrifying… [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3AdFjklR50[/youtube] Incredible slideshow of devastation provoked…
What you say if you got a $1.5 BILLION grant? Samuel Ting (Nobel Prize laureate, 1974, MIT professor) got precisely this amount over 10 years to put a new experimental device in space. The device was meant to detect anti-matter. Although intriguing,…
“I want to be an individual, like anybody else” seems to be the new American vocation. With an uncanny ability to detect trends that most commentators ignore David Brooks spots in his artful Modesty Manifesto editorial the rise of expressive individualism. Considering his Bobos in Paradise, the book that…
Facebook does not seem to have a very large advertising footprint. In fact, it relies in great measure on two major partners, Zynga, the producer of Farmville, and Groupon. Gaming and group buying partners are responsible for 2/3rds of Facebook’s revenue. While…
Most emailed articles at New York Times 1.Warner Tests Renting Film on Facebook for Web Cash http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/technology/09facebook.html?src=me&ref=technology&nl=technology&emc=techupdateema6 2.YouTube Acquires a Producer of Videos http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/technology/08youtube.html?src=me&ref=technology&nl=technology&emc=techupdateema6 3.Matchmaking for Web Start-Ups and Investors http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/technology/start-ups/07angel.html?src=me&ref=technology&nl=technology&emc=techupdateema6 4.Bits: Used iPads Selling Quickly Online http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/first-generation-ipad-reselling-quickly-online/?src=me&ref=technology&nl=technology&emc=techupdateema6 5.Storing Your Files Inside…
The recent and worrying news of violent incidents between the Muslim majority and Copts, a largely unknown Christian minority of Egypt, made many ask “since when are there Christians in Egypt?” The answer is simple: since the first or second century AD.…
From The New York Times: BITS: Software Progress Beats Moore’s Law Research shows the pace of software progress has surprisingly outstripped gains in computing from faster chips. “A White House advisory report cited research, including a study of progress over a 15-year…
From The New York Times: Sites Like Twitter Absent From Free Speech Pact The effort by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft has failed to attract other tech companies, raising questions about its impact. “The initiative was created in 2008 after human rights groups…
Have you heard of the Jevons effect? From The New York Times: FINDINGS: When Energy Efficiency Sullies the Environment Some economists say it’s possible that improved energy efficiency can paradoxically lead to more greenhouse emissions. http://nyti.ms/gwCDJ4 Get The New York Times on…
The New York Times combines a number of data sieving and semantic sorting services into a new type of application “document discovery.” The aim of this new service is the Holly Grail of automatic content analysis. Concepts are derived from context by…
From the NYTIMES: The Fading Sounds of Analog Technology By DAVID POGUE As digital technology takes over, we’re losing the sounds of analog technologies. And sometimes that’s a real loss. A dial tone can serve a useful purpose, at least on TV.…
David Pogues’s take on Comcast’s latest foray in television programming. Yes, you will be able to watch it on an Ipad http://ideagora.us
From The New York Times: China Tightens Controls on Foreign Press Apparently fearing that unrest could spread to China, the authorities have clamped down on activities by foreigners deemed threatening. “Separately, Beijing officials announced Wednesday that they intended to monitor the movements…
Brands driving augmented reality apps growth http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/20632-brands-driving-augmented/&ct=ga&cad=CAcQAhgAIAAoATAAOABAvf6z6wRIAVgBYgVlbi1VUw&cd=d_6lXnfFm5A&usg=AFQjCNFEmmoqgBdU6nZcg6Bu2oU9iXg0cw Siliconrepublic.com *…* Royal Mail, Coca-Cola – are using B2C applications, such as *junaio*, to facilitate AR content,” said the report’s author, Dr Windsor Holden. *…* Augmented reality apps set to achieve 1.4bn downloads by 2015…
From The New York Times: “Today, with father and son preparing for a siege of Tripoli, the success of a joint American-British effort to eliminate Libya’s capability to make nuclear and chemical weapons has never, in retrospect, looked more important.” In U.S.-Libya…
A part, and an important one, of the “wise crowds” mystery seems to have been solved. All “smart mobs” need to meet two pre-requisites, which seem to be at odds with each other. While members need to be ignorant of the overall…
I thought you would find this interesting: Did Google’s New Search Algorithm Hurt the Huffington Post’s Google Juice? – http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Did-Googles-New-Search-Algorithm-Hurt-the-Huffington-Posts-Google-Juice-7143 Shared from AtlanticWire, an iPhone app made with www.AppMakr.com
Security to Ward Off Crime on Phones By RIVA RICHMOND With smartphones outselling PCs for the first time, the long-predicted crime wave on hand-held devices appears to have arrived. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/technology/personaltech/24basics.html?nl=technology&emc=techupdateema2
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http://m.gizmodo.com/5767377/this-is-the-worlds-teensiest-computer
I saw this story on the BBC News iPad App and thought you should see it. ** Lasting legacy of 500-year-old love ** Love it or hate it, even the most hardened anti-Romeo will be hard pressed to avoid Valentine’s Day this…
From The New York Times: OP-ED COLUMNIST Friedman: They Did It Egypt takes a big first step in the long walk toward democracy. And the fact that is home made counts for a lot.. “Some people worry, though, that the Egyptian Army…
New York Times ponders on the merging of journalism and search engine optimization Search Engine Optimization to Lure Readers – NYTimes.com The Huffington Post has hired veteran journalists to beef up its news coverage. But a significant chunk of its readers come…
New York Times ponders on the merging of journalism and search engine optimization Search Engine Optimization to Lure Readers – NYTimes.com The Huffington Post has hired veteran journalists to beef up its news coverage. But a significant chunk of its readers come…
New York Times ponders on the merging of journalism and search engine optimization Search Engine Optimization to Lure Readers – NYTimes.com The Huffington Post has hired veteran journalists to beef up its news coverage. But a significant chunk of its readers come…
Is Egypt ready to start the democratic process? WORLD | February 14, 2011 Egypt’s Military Dissolves Parliament; Calls for Vote By KAREEM FAHIM and J. DAVID GOODMAN The Egyptian military, for the first time publicly laying out the terms of its rule,…
New York Times: The Return of Pushing Democracy With the revolution in Egypt, democracy promotion is back in fashion. Was Bush right? Next step: American politicians competing over who pushes harder. http://nyti.ms/h2M5eZ
Businessweek.com identified the 50 most expensive small towns (populations less than 10,000) nationwide where median home values are the highest. We evaluated data on 4,624 cities and census-designated places from November 2010, the most recent available. Some expensive communities, such as Bel…