Biweekly Links – 05-31-2010

1. Desktop Notifications: Now available to extensions in Chrome
Google is adding more APIs to Chrome at a rapid clip. This looks pretty neat and might be a good feature for Chrome Nanny.

2. How to Reboot Your Sleep Cycle and Get the Rest You Deserve
I guess this has some good ideas about how to bring your sleep cycle to normalcy. Some of the ideas seems to be promising !

3. How a Search Engine Might Identify Possible Query Suggestions
Has a good discussion about how search engines might improve user’s search experience : show possibly related queries , give query suggestions that frame the intent better etc. Many of the techniques seems to be quite straightforward. I am sure the current state of art is more complex though!

4. Sam’s Club Personalizes Discounts for Buyers
Possibly another big news in data mining. Even for the relatively small target population (Sam’s club’s Plus members) the permutations were mind boggling. I hope this gives some experience that can be used to scale it further. (Applying it to Costco or even Walmart). In a related news , Web Start-Ups Offer Bargains for Users’ Data .

5. In graphics: Supercomputing superpowers
A neat graphic about Top 500 Super computers. Its a pity that India seems to far behind the leaders. The graphic allows different filters. It was most satisfying to see Linux dominating in OS for the super computers.

 

 

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Biweekly Links – 04-19-2010

1. An Open Mind
This NYTimes articles talks open course ware like MIT OCW and asks the critical question – what next ? One glaring issue in OCW is that even if you master the course contents you are not really “certified”. It also talks about other initiatives like CMU’s OLI (its statistics and causal reasoning courses are among my favs)  and Peer 2 Peer University . I was not aware of P2PU and it looks like terrific concept. I am hoping to take part in its next offering. Lets see how it goes.

2. Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell
Another interesting article that talks about Web Coupons , information in it and profile matching. The Facebook scenario is the scariest, although I think the anonymity set in the other case should also be small. RevTrax may be the most important company we never were aware of 🙂

3. The History of Beauty
A post about a book on the beauty industry. It is a $30 billion industry without much analysis. The post has some interesting points.

4. Why Linux Is Not Attracting Young Developers
Has some very interesting insights.

5. XAuth: The Open Web Fires a Shot Against Facebook Connect
Looks like a promising concept. I think Facebook and Twitter will ultimately join this even while supporting their own protocols.

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