February 5, 2010 | 12:24 pm

UCSB professor wins Harvey Prize

Posted by Adam Wills

Technion—Israel Institute of Technology selected Shuji Nakamura, a UCSB engineering professor whose work was key in the production of white LED lighting, for the 2009 Harvey Prize, an award named for the late L.A. benefactor Leo M. Harvey.

From UCSB:

Nakamura is a professor of materials in the College of Engineering at UCSB, where he also is co-director of the Solid State Lighting and Energy Center. He is internationally known for his invention of revolutionary new light sources: blue, green, and white light-emitting diodes and the blue laser diode. He and a UCSB team also developed the world’s first nonpolar blue-violet laser diodes.

According to the prize announcement issued by the Technion, Nakamura was chosen for the Harvey Prize for “his seminal contributions to light sources based on nitride containing III-V semiconductors. Professor Nakamura pioneered the research that led to the first semiconductor laser producing blue emission, which increases significantly the density of optical storage devices. His work on nitride containing light emitting diodes led eventually to the white light LED, which totally revolutionized lighting concepts. These white light LEDs will dominate light-producing systems, as they are significantly more efficient than conventional incandescent light bulbs, ensuring huge reductions in energy consumption.”

The Harvey Prize, which includes a $75,000 cash stipend, recognizes individuals who have made great contributions to science and technology and human health as well as individuals who have advanced the cause of peace in the Middle East. The other 2009 winner is Sir David Baulcombe, a botanist and research professor at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

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February 4, 2010 | 4:00 pm

Do you speak IMonics?

Posted by Sam Gliksman

I consider it my civic duty to keep you updated on the latest technological advances. Now I recognize that the new iPad is fascinating and advances in electronic cars are definitely important for the environment. What I’d like to know however is whether you are up to date on the latest “IMonics” – abbreviations our kids using when instant messaging and texting each other.

I read an article this morning by educational author Ian Jukes. He reported on a teacher that assigned an essay for his students and received the following from one of them:

My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we ud 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kds FTF. ILNY, its a gr8plc.

True story. Do you know what it says? Scroll down for the answer…
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“My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York. It’s a great place.”

How did you do? The instant messaging generation sends more than 19 billion messages every day on average. Instant messaging lingo is described as a hybrid write-speak language based on a combination of abbreviated words and pictures. And of course, most messages are sent while their senders are occupied with a myriad of other tasks at the same time.

Here are some more IMonics from the front lines…
A3 – any time, anywhere, any place
FML – F my life
BOOMS – (don’t want to see anyone messaging this in your class…) bored out of my skull
SOMY – sick of me yet? (please, no jokes…)
T+ - think positive
L2G – would love to go
KPC – keep parents clueless
SMHID – scratching my head in disbelief
@TEOTD – at the end of the day
PRW – parent/people are watching
PSOS – parent standing over my shoulder

Just for the record, my son sent me a text message the other day and I responded by saying “lol”. He’s not speaking to me.

Sam Gliksman
Email: sam@mail.swsoftware.com
http://www.twitter.com/samgliksman

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January 27, 2010 | 8:19 pm

iPad: an iPod Touch on steroids

Posted by Adam Wills

Apple’s long-rumored tablet device, iPad, was heralded by Apple CEO Steve Jobs today following the strains of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. But will a recession-weary, iPhone-wielding public be singing “It Ain’t Me, Babe” by the time the $499-$829 iPad roll out starts in late March?

Serving as a middle ground between the smart phone and laptop, and as Apple’s entry into the cheap Netbook market, the 9.7-inch iPad is a lightweight device (.5 inches thick, 1.5 lbs) designed to browse the Web, share photos, watch videos, listen to music and play games. The iPad will also handle e-books (ePub format) through the new app iBooks.

“Amazon’s done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle. We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further,” Jobs said. “It looks like a bookshelf. … It’s an iBook Store to allow you to discover, purchase and download e-books right on your iPad.”

Like most Apple products, iPad looks great—but looks aren’t everything.

The iPad runs on the iPhone OS, which doesn’t support Adobe Flash without a workaround, so portions of the Web (from movie sites to online gaming) won’t be available to iPad users. And according to Jobs, the device will run “almost all” of the iPhone apps—iPod Touch users will be happy to lend a sympathetic shoulder. Also like the Touch, iPad doesn’t feature a camera, much less a Webcam, video output, USB or firewire ports. And forget multitasking—running two or more apps at the same time—which we take for granted now on desktops and laptops.

As far as what’s under the hood, iPad is powered by a custom silicon chip called the A4 (1Ghz) and includes WiFi, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, compass, speaker, microphone, dock connector and 10-hour battery. Although the iPad isn’t designed to be a phone, Skype via WiFi will likely be an option. One thing Apple got right with the iPad was offering a peripheral keyboard dock in addition to its virtual keyboard. “If you’ve got to write ‘War and Peace,’ just plug your iPad in,” Jobs said.

The first iPad model (WiFi only), will be available in late March with pricing at $499 (16 GB stoarge), $599 (32 GB) and $699 (64 GB). The second model, which includes WiFi with a 3G connection through AT&T (yeah, sorry Verizon and Sprint customers), will be available in late April featuring price points of $629 (16 GB), $729 (32 GB) and $829 (64 GB). The monthly 3G data plan options are: $14.99 for 250 MB or $29.99 for unlimited access. 

For international customers – pricing for 3G is coming this summer.

Considering this was one of the most anticipated product launches in consumer electronics history, the response thus far has been a notch above meh. It didn’t have the oomph of the iMac in 1998 or the iPhone in 2007.

Hype surrounding the iPad reached a fever pitch toward the end of December 2009 when MacRumors reported that Apple had purchased the domain name iTablet.com in 2007 through MarkMonitor.com. Additional names thrown into the mix included iSlate and MacTablet.

Apple first played with the tablet concept in 1983 with its Bashful prototype and then created one of the first handheld PDAs with the Newton. But the 21st century development of the tablet PC left Apple loyalists desperate to find a laptop-sized Mac equivalent. Los Angeles-based Axiotron won the Best in Show award at the 2007 MacWorld Conference with its after-market Modbook, which remains the only tablet-form Mac available to the public until iPad rolls out in March.

The iPad is rightly being called an iPod Touch on steroids. We’re no longer wowed by features like touch screens, virtual keyboards and mobile apps. These features were unique in 2007, when we were first introduced to the iPhone. Today they’re pedestrian, expected.

Hardware deficiencies aside, Apple will need to update its iPhone OS to make the iPad an appealing alternative to Windows-native Netbooks. Yes, iPad offers more features than an e-book reader like Kindle, but its inability to support basics like Adobe Flash or multitasking might make consumers think twice about a product that’s almost double the cost of its PC competitors.

And then there’s the name, which “Mad TV” predicted (and rightly mocked) in 2006… (mature audiences only)

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December 13, 2009 | 1:58 pm

Hackers Deface US Jewish Website

Posted by Sam Gliksman

(from Israel National News IIN.com) A self-identified Turkish Muslim returned for the second week in a row Saturday night to hack the popular Five Towns Jewish newspaper website. Readers of the site were met with a picture of the Statue of Liberty, carrying a Muslim holy book, apparently the Koran, and decked out in a burka, the Moslem robe that covers the body. Last Saturday night, readers attempting to access the site saw images of burning Israeli flags and a video demonizing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The hacker, calling himself Seyhul-isLam, posted the following message to the website. “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter [Al-Maida: 33] Allahu Akbar!!!”The Five Towns Jewish Times is a weekly newspaper serving the Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens area of New York.

Samuel Sokol, the newspaper’s Israeli correspondent, noted that “The internet has increasingly become a battleground in both the Arab-Israeli conflict and the war against terror. In 2008, a Muslim hacker posted an anti-Semitic message on the website of the Bank of Israel, stating ‘Listen to me Jews - you are a nation whose fate has been decreed… we will kick you out. Millions of young Muslims are ready to die for the sake of Al-Quds [Jerusalem]...’

“In 2006, a Moroccan group calling itself ‘Team Evil’ hacked over 750 Israeli websites over a period of several hours in response to IDF operations in the Gaza Strip following the kidnapping of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit.”

Click here for the full text of the story…

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November 4, 2009 | 12:41 pm

Marijuana could reduce PTSD stress, Haifa study finds

Posted by Adam Wills

Researchers at the University of Haifa report they have stumbled onto a medical treatment that could limit the release of stress hormones in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and it’s increasingly available in L.A. storefronts.

According to a study by published in the September issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, found that synthetic cannabis (marijuana) could aid in the treatment of PTSD suffers. 

PTSD and substance abuse tend to go hand in hand, and the treatment for patients who self-medicate often requires specialized cognitive-behavioral approach. But researcher Akirav believes weed should be considered as a medical treatment option.

“The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into using cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,” she said.

University of Haifa release:

In most cases, the result of experiencing a traumatic event –- a car accident or terror attack –- is the appearance of medical and psychological symptoms that affect various functions, but which pass. However, some 10%-30% of people who experience a traumatic event develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which the patient continues to suffer stress symptoms for months and even years after the traumatic event. Symptoms include reawakened trauma, avoidance of anything that could recall the trauma, and psychological and physiological disturbances. One of the problems in the course of treating trauma patients is that a person is frequently exposed to additional stress, which hinders the patient’s overcoming the trauma.

The present study, carried out by Dr. Akirav and research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, aimed to examine the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with post-traumatic stress. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana, which has similar properties to the natural plant, and they chose to use a rat model, which presents similar physiological responses to stress to that of humans.

The first stage of the research examined how long it took for the rats to overcome a traumatic experience, without any intervention. A cell colored white on one side and black on the other was prepared. The rats were placed in the white area, and as soon as they moved over to the black area, which they prefer, they received a light electric shock. Each day they were brought to the cell and placed back in the white area. Immediately following exposure to the traumatic experience, the rats would not move to the black area voluntarily, but a few days later after not receiving further electric shocks in the black area, they learned that it is safe again and moved there without hesitation.

Next, the researchers introduced an element of stress. A second group of rats were placed on a small, elevated platform after receiving the electric shock, which added stress to the traumatic experience. These rats abstained from returning to the black area in the cell for much longer, which shows that the exposure to additional stress does indeed hinder the process of overcoming trauma.

The third stage of the research examined yet another group of rats. These were exposed to the traumatic and additional stress events, but just before being elevated on the platform received an injection of synthetic marijuana in the amygdala area of the brain –- a specific area known to be connected to emotive memory. These rats agreed to enter the black area after the same amount of time as the first group –- showing that the synthetic marijuana cancelled out the symptoms of stress. Refining the results of this study, the researchers then administered marijuana injections at different points in time on additional groups of rats, and found that regardless of when exactly the injection was administered, it prevented the surfacing of stress symptoms.

Dr. Akirav and Ganon-Elazar also examined hormonal changes in the course of the experiment and found that synthetic marijuana prevents increased release of the stress hormone that the body produces in response to stress.

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October 7, 2009 | 4:34 am

Ada Yonath—first Israeli woman to win Nobel Prize

Posted by Adam Wills

Ada Yonath became the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel when the chemistry prize was awarded Wednesday. The Weizmann professor, who has dedicated her career to studying and mapping the ribosome—the protein factory within cells—shares the prize with two U.S. scientists: Thomas Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. The trio were honored for “having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Yonath, a professor of structural biology and the director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute, was born into an impoverished Sephardi family in Jerusalem during British Mandate Palestine. “We were so poor we didn’t even have books,” she told Israeli21c in 2008, after becoming the first Israeli to win a lifetime achievement award from L’Oreal and UNESCO.

“There was nothing in my childhood to suggest that I would reach this point, even though my parents and family have always thought there was a chance of recognition,” Yonath told Israeli public radio, according to AFP.

After the award was announced, Israeli President Shimon Peres, also a Nobel laureate, called to congratulate the Weizmann professor, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who expressed his “enormous pride, along with the entire nation” for her achievement.

From Haaretz:

“The Nobel Prize is a true Olympics of humanity,” said Netanyahu. “It is an enormous achievement.”

Yonath was the first Israeli biologist to work with NASA in sending research material to outer space. She cooperated with NASA on 12 missions. Her research contributed greatly to the development of more effective antibiotics, which can overcome phenomenon of drug resistant pathogens.

Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize.

“I’m really, really happy,” Yonath said after being informed of her victory. “I thought it was wonderful when the discovery came. It was a series of discoveries…. We still don’t know every, everything, but we progressed a lot.”

…

This year’s three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.

“These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity’s suffering,” the academy said in its announcement.

“All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome,” the academy said.

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.

Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor [$1.4 million] purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo.

Israeli physicist Yakir Aharonov lost the Nobel Prize for physics, despite predictions that he was likely to win. The committee awarded the the physics prize to engineers who developed the mechanism used in digital photography, preferring to award the prize to practical technology that could be used on a daily basis rather than the theoretical physics which Aharonov focused on.

The last Israeli to receive a Nobel Prize was Yisrael Robert Aumann, who was awarded the prize in economics in 2005 for his work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis. He shared the prize with Thomas Schelling.

The number of Nobel prizes won by Israelis now stands at nine: three for chemistry (Yonath, 2009; Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, 2004), three for peace (Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, 1994, and Menachem Begin, 1978), two for economics (Aumann, 2005, and Daniel Kahneman, 2002), and literature (Shmuel Yosef Agnon, 1966).

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September 17, 2009 | 1:12 pm

Criminals checking social media

Posted by Sam Gliksman

Didn’t your Mother always remind your father to cancel the mail and newspaper delivery before you left on holidays? Well, for those of you using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, you should exercise the same caution when updating your status or sending out messages. A recent BBC news report shows that criminals are increasingly using social media to target their victims. If you announce your plans to go out for the evening or away on holidays you may be posting a public sign that reveals the fact that you’re not home.

Your online “friends” get direct feeds of everything you publish on your social media. To test how readily people accepted ‘friends’ online, Opinion Matters - a European market researcher - recently sent out 100 “friend” or “follow” requests to strangers selected at random. 13 percent were accepted on Facebook and 92 percent on Twitter—without any checks.

Despite these new “friends”, the survey found that nearly two-thirds of 16-24 year olds shared their holiday plans using their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Men were very relaxed about giving personal information online, with 13 percent going so far as to include their mobile phone number on their profile compared with 7 percent of women. Nine percent of men also posted their address compared to 4 percent of women. Of course, even if you don’t post your address it’s a relatively simple task to find it for those that know how.

So think twice before publishing that “So excited - we just left for a two week vacation” post. A complete stranger can quite easily learn about your interests, current location and movements in and out of your home ... and it would certainly ruin any holiday or evening out to come home to a ransacked house.

Sam Gliksman
You can email me at sam@mail.swsoftware.com
Follow my Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/samgliksman

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September 14, 2009 | 11:33 am

Trapped girls Facebook their way out

Posted by Sam Gliksman

I feel that it’s my responsibility to keep you apprised of developments in the field of technology use. It pains me to have to reveal that this bulletin is about two girls from Australia - my country of origin - but the story is just so absurd that I had to swallow my national pride and report it.

Two girls in Adelaide, Australia found themselves trapped in a storm drain ... one could end the story there and wonder how they managed to get themselves into a storm drain in the first place. Faced with the prospect of being lost in the drains for days, they conjured up a unique and creative solution to their problem.  They managed to update their status on Facebook revealing that they were trapped and in desparate need of assistance. How did they accomplish it?  They used their cell phone!!

Rather than use their cell phone to actually DIAL for emergency help, they instead used it to update their status and send out a call to their Facebook friends. One of their friends read the update and called the Fire Department. Thankfully they were released within a few hours.

Firefighter Glenn Benham, who took part in the rescue, said: “These girls were able to access Facebook on their mobile phones so they could have called the emergency services. It seems absolutely crazy but they updated their status rather than call us directly.”

Technology can be wonderful asset but it’s never a replacement for common sense…

Read more…

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July 30, 2009 | 12:51 pm

‘Every iPhone’ vulnerable to SMS virus

Posted by Adam Wills

Cybersecurity researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner have found a bug that enables hackers to take control of an iPhone via SMS, Andy Greenberg reports at Forbes.com.

If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.

That small cipher will likely be your only warning that someone has taken advantage of a bug that Miller and his fellow cybersecurity researcher Collin Mulliner plan to publicize Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Using a flaw they’ve found in the iPhone’s handling of text messages, the researchers say they’ll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device’s camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.

“This is serious. The only thing you can do to prevent it is turn off your phone,” Miller told Forbes. “Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this.”

Though Miller and Mulliner say they notified Apple about the vulnerability more than a month ago, the company hasn’t released a patch, and it didn’t respond to Forbes’ repeated calls seeking comment.

CNET InSecurity Compleex blogger Elinor Mills let Miller and Mulliner demonstrate the hack on her iPhone at Black Hat yesterday:

Here’s what happened: While I was talking on the phone to Charlie Miller, his partner, Collin Mulliner, sent me a text message from his phone. One minute I’m talking to Miller and the next minute my phone is dead, and this time it’s not AT&T’s fault. After a few seconds it came back to life, but I was not able to make or receive calls until I rebooted.

The attack is enabled by a serious memory corruption bug in the way the iPhone handles SMS messages, said Miller, a senior security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators.

…

Previous iPhone attacks required an attacker to lure the iPhone user to visit a malicious Web site or open a malicious file, but this attack requires no effort on the part of the user and requires only that an attacker have the victim’s phone number, Miller said.

Once inside a victim’s phone, the attacker could then send an SMS to anyone in the victim’s address book and spread the attack from phone to phone, he said.

Previously, Miller discovered a hole in the mobile version of Safari shortly after the iPhone was launched in 2007 and earlier this year he won a contest at CanSecWest by exploiting a hole in Safari.

Asked what an iPhone user can do when attacked, Miller replied: “Rebooting wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would stop all but the most sophisticated attacker. However, it doesn’t take but a second to grab all your personal info from the device, and as soon as you turn it back on, the bad guy could attack you again. That’s why I think this is so serious.”

UPDATE:

On Friday, Apple released iPhone OS 3.0.1 to fix the SMS vulnerability.

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July 29, 2009 | 7:13 pm

Playing with robot snakes on Sunset

Posted by Adam Wills

The best-kept secret in the Negev is not Dimona (home of Israel’s hush-hush nuclear program) but Ben-Gurion University, said Israel Consul General Jacob Dayan, who introduced robotics professor Amir Shapiro during a Ben-Gurion event that attracted several dozen people to the Luxe Sunset earlier this month.

Shapiro, who served as a visiting researcher at Caltech 2007-2008, looks to nature for inspiration when crafting his robots. For fun, he designs navigation algorithms for multi-limbed robots and locomotion methods for snake-like robots at Ben-Gurion University, where he’s a lecturer with the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

One project Shapiro is involved with features agricultural robots that can spray and pollinate date palm trees – a process that requires three people (one driver, two assistants working at heights of more than 50 feet) and which has lead to deaths due to falls on uneven terrain. With an automated system, target spraying would be handled by one driver and a robot, which could recognize dates by sight and handle straying/pollination duties with little human involvement.

A military project under development in Shaprio’s lab features a tunnel-mapping system, which resembles two remote-controlled tanks linked by a single metal bar. The robot would traverse the length of a tunnel and report back with details on slope, depth, angle, etc. This, in turn, could help the IDF determine where to strike so a tunnel couldn’t be rebuilt.

But it’s the robot snakes Shapiro designs, like his Big Ben (pictured above, wearing a smile), that capture the imagination of onlookers. Engineers turn to nature for examples – monkeys, insects, donkeys – when creating robots that can climb, fly or carry equipment. And yet it’s the snake that people want to watch slither in corkscrew fashion or pump along in waves.

The snakes, he says, are not so unusual – these search-and-rescue systems are segmented, featuring different motors that can produce their own independent motion. The snake can slowly move through small pockets in a collapsed building to find trapped survivors, or work its way through pipes to find something as mundane as a blockage.

This technology is several years old, Shapiro says, but the real twist is to eventually create the first autonomous snake, which could operate independently of humans.

The IDF snake-like robot featured recently in television news coverage is not one he was directly involved with, Shapiro said. But he did study alongside its creator, Alon Wolf of Technion, whom Shapiro says wasn’t happy with the IDF distributing video of snake, which is not ready for field use.

Copying the natural movements of animals is the current trend in robotics, but Shapiro says that the next stage in robot evolution will be the ability of these systems to act on their own. The real trick, he says, is to get the system to repair themselves and to build other robots without human involvement.

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July 15, 2009 | 3:57 pm

Did Twitter Cost Bruno Millions?

Posted by Sam Gliksman

Despite initial predictions, Bruno's opening weekend
was well short of initial $50 million predictions

We all know the power of word of mouth. Positive or negative reviews impact the success of any product. In our current age of social networking, electronic word of mouth has the ability to make a product sink or swim faster than ever. Last Friday it seemed that Sacha Baron Cohen had created another monster hit with his new film Brüno. Early ticket sales on opening day had many Hollywood insiders predicting that Brüno would gross around $50 million on opening weekend. As it turns out, sales for Brüno peaked on opening day and actually fell the rest of the weekend, finishing with “only” $30.4 million. What happened? According to Time magazine, “Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect”.

Although Brüno won the weekend movie battle, it fell well short of initial predictions. Brüno certainly was a hit with many reviewers but its outrageous, in-your-face humor was too much for many movie-goers to stomach.  A quick review of the thousands of “tweets” about Brüno on Twitter shows many harsh comments such as “im angry, apalled”, “Do not waste your money seeing Bruno” or “Worst movie I have ever seen”. With techsavvy moviegoers tweeting their opinions to millions of followers, Twitter trends have an instant impact on the success of a movie. In the words of Time, “Instant-messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend.”

Sam Gliksman
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You can follow Sam on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SamGliksman

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July 8, 2009 | 3:40 pm

Is Twitter Just for Birdbrains?

Posted by Sam Gliksman

I have this practice of jotting down my article ideas in a file and then coming back to them later when I’m ready to write. Ideas come freely. On the other hand, planting my rear down on a seat long enough to write a full article is far more daunting. As a result, the list grows progressively longer and, given the pace of change in technology, earlier ideas become dated very quickly.

In reviewing my list of article concepts today I noticed one item a few months back about an up and coming micro-blogging site called Twitter. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Figuring that it’s better later than never I thought I’d write a review for the last two of you left on the planet that don’t use Twitter. The rest of you are invited along as well.

For most of its initial, formative years the internet was comprised of websites that had static content composed by programmers. As internet technology developed we reached a platform commonly referred to as “Web 2.0” which contains a host of tools that allow anyone, with any skill level, to post web content in a variety of new formats. One such tool is the “blog” - a shortened form of the term “web log”. What you’re reading now is a blog. It’s a web page maintained by an individual that contains entries with thoughts and opinions on any topic. It’s usually displayed in chronological order and adding entries is similar to typing a word processing document.

From Blogs to Micro-Blogs
Just as we became comfortable with blogging, along came a new concept called “micro-blogging”. If blog entries are discussions on a topic then micro-blog entries are brief snippets. Twitter - www.twitter.com - is a micro-blogging website. Users sign up for free accounts and then submit micro-blog entries called “tweets” which are limited to 140 characters in length. Entries can be submitted by a variety of means - some as simple as typing a message on a cell phone. You then simply start posting entries about what you’re thinking or doing.

Users of Twitter can also “follow” other users and get access to all their updates. Prominent Twitterers amass audiences of several thousand up to a million followers. Others have a small handful of followers.

Why Twitter?
The micro-blogging sensation has grown exponentially in just the last few months. Twitter’s surging popularity has seen its membership grow from around one million members a year ago to an estimated 20 million members today and several thousand new members join every day.

Why do people use Twitter? New York Times columnist David Pogue describes it as “a complicated cross between a chat room and private e-mail”. The founders of Twitter were looking for a way that people could keep in touch often and easily. The main theme of Twitter is stated simple on its web page - “What are you doing”? Entries can be as mundane as where you’re going, what you’re eating, what movie you just saw and so on. For some, Twitter provides a feeling of connectedness with others. For others, there’s definitely a large element of ego-stroking knowing that others are “following” your words and actions.

You’d have to wonder why anyone would care about the mundane, everyday details of another’s life. Do I really care whether you ate Fruit Loops or Cherios for breakfast? I certainly don’t need to hear that you had too much to drink last night and no offense, but if I need information about a new movie then I’ll read a newspaper review before searching for your blurted 30 character tweet as you walk out of the theater.

So why then is Twitter so popular? The fact is, many people broadcast really interesting comments in their tweets. If you hook up with like minded people then you can get important information that’s pertinent to your area of interest. You can also search for tweets on any topic much as you would use google. Follow firsthand the thoughts of political leaders, historians, cultural figures and more. Discover the latest developments in your industry. Get frontline, breaking news reports from people at the scene. When the recent wildfires broke in Australia people on the ground were tweeting about the location of the fires and the directions in which they were heading. When a US Airways plane famously landed in the Hudson River a few months ago, the news was initially broken in a tweet from a person that watched the plane land. Four minutes after the crash, he tweeted, “I just watched a plane crash into the hudson river in manhattan.” There are many interesting Twitter related tools as well. Try using Twitterfall - www.twitterfall.com - and type in a search term such as “global warming”. Watch live as posts about global warming from people all around the world scroll on screen. Corprate execs have also started to wake up to the potentials of using Twitter. Companies such as Starbucks and Amazon actively use Twitter for marketing and research.

There’s no question that Twitter can be another one of those incredible wasteful activities that keep us glued to our computer screens while everything that needs to get done sits waiting for attention. It can however also be an amazing communication tool that lets you know instantly about things that you care about. Someone is online tweeting about it right now.

You can follow Sam Gliksman on Twitter at www.twitter.com/samgliksman 

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May 15, 2009 | 3:30 pm

Anti-Semitism: The Ugly Side of Facebook

Posted by Sam Gliksman

Image posted on Facebook "We Hate Israel" group page

A Congressional briefing last week entitled “Hate in the Information Age” highlighted the fact that we’re experiencing a sharp increase in hate and terror propaganda on the Internet. To make matters worse, new interactive web 2.0 services allow extremists to leverage technologies such as blogs and video sharing to promote their agenda on popular sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

At their core, social networking sites provide a simple mechanism for connecting with friends and like minded people across the Internet. Anti-Semitic propagandists and terror supporters however use these sites as a dynamic tool for spreading their propaganda against Jews and Israel. What should be particular cause for concern is that they are targeting the teens and young adults that form the majority of members at social networking sites such as Facebook.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, presented the results of their Digital Terrorism and Hate Project’s annual study to the Congressional Hearing. He reported that they had observed a 30% increase in the presence of hate groups online in the last year. Most of it can be attributed to posts in blogs and discussion forums. “The Internet is a fantastic marketing tool,” Rabbi Cooper noted.

Unlike more traditional web sites, group pages on social networking sites can be harder to find and track. “You can market and train followers while bypassing traditional Web sites. It makes it very, very difficult for law enforcement to follow what’s going on,” he said. According the Wiesenthal Center report, “Extremists are leveraging 2.0 technologies to dynamically target young people through digital games, Second Life scenarios, blogs, and even Youtube and Facebook style videos depicting racist violence and terrorism.”

I discussed the various Holocaust Denial sites on Facebook in my last blog post. It does however seem that the more you dig, the uglier it gets.

How bad is it? A quick look at the page of one group called “We hate Israel” gives you an idea of what can still pass uncensored on Facebook. The main page contains the image of a large swastika made from the letters in the word Israel. There’s a poster of the Twin Towers on fire with a large caption stating “The Jews. We all know it was them.” The group blog is littered with posts such as “Kill all Israel people!!!”, “Death to Israel!” and “Hitler took the (right) decision with the Jewish people. They must all be burned at the same time”. Other posts threaten that there will be a strike in October that will wipe out all of Israel. Companies such as Disney and Pepsi are accused of being Zionist (it’s claimed that Pepsi derived its name as an acronym from “Pay Every Penny to Save Israel”!). Yes, even Facebook - the company that is allowing the group to spread this vicious anti-Semitic dribble - is supposedly “owned by a Zionist”!

I should clarify that sites such as Facebook state expressly that they do not allow objectionable groups, comments or images to appear on their web pages. They will actively search for and censor any pornographic or violent images. Their terms of service clearly state “You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” In addition, “You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.” Inexplicably however, it seems that extremists espousing hatred or threatening violence towards Jews and Israel fall under their radar.

To be fair, Facebook - albeit under significant pressure - has removed a number of Holocaust Denial sites recently. The most offensive includes a cartoon of Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, posted from Lebanon. Some of the extremist groups still using Facebook however include Stormfront, National Socialist Life, Libertarian National Social Movement, Aryan Guard, FARC, Al Shabab Mujahideen, Hamas (Multiple), Hezbollah (multiple), Faloja Forum, Support Taliban, Support Taliban and scores of anti-Israel sites.

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May 9, 2009 | 1:57 pm

Facebook urged to remove Holocaust-denial groups

Posted by Sam Gliksman

With the advent of increasingly simple, interactive web technologies anyone can now publish their opinions on the internet. For example, websites such as Facebook allow users to form social groups where they can connect and communicate with each other. Friends and family can stay in touch. Online communities can share information and opinions. On occasion however those opinions can be offensive and social networking sites such as Facebook can be used as a launching pad for establishing and expanding those offensive views.

This week CNN reported that Facebook was under pressure to remove Holocaust denial pages from its website. The issue at hand is not new. Is the right to free speech absolute or can an opinion become offensive to the point that it demands censorship?

The Holocaust Denial movement seeks to deny or minimize the Holocaust, in which Nazis killed about six million European Jews during World War II. Texas attorney Brian Cuban has been leading an effort to have Facebook remove pages of groups with names such as “Holocaust: A Series of Lies,” and “Holocaust is a Holohoax” removed from its site.

Cuban points out that Facebook is in the private realm and therefore has a clear right to review and censor content published on its website. According to Cuban, “This isn’t a freedom-of-speech issue. Facebook is free to set the standard that they wish.” Facebook’s own Statement of Rights and Responsibilities says that users “will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

Brian Cuban, the brother of the NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, is of Russian Jewish descent and has written about his fight to have the Holocaust-denial pages removed on his site, The Cuban Revolution.

See the full story on cnn.com

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May 1, 2009 | 5:08 pm

Phishing: Don’t take the bait!

Posted by Sam Gliksman

What is it about the estate laws in Nigeria that make it so diffiicult for princes to retrieve their millions in inheritance? We’ve all received that hoax email from someone that needs your help in recovering millions in a bank account. One of the more common forms of hoax email is the “phishing” scheme. Phishing is when an email sender tries to trick the recipient into thinking the message is from someone else. The message may ask you to “update,” “validate,” or “confirm” your account information. Phishing emails typically attempt to trick people into revealing financial data, or direct you to spoof sites or phone numbers to call where they ask you to provide personal data.

The consequences of falling prey to a phishing scam can be devastating. Scammers potentially gain access to your credit card, social security number, bank account, password or personal information. Your data is traded on the black market and, in a worst case scenario, you end up becoming the victim of identity theft. Some creative scammers even use your data to defraud others of greater amounts of money. In one scenario, a scammer will gain access to your account information on an auction site such as eBay. Trading in your name they sell a fake item worth thousands of dollars. A buyer bites and you’re left explaining why don’t know anything about it.

It’s estimated that over 100 million phishing e-mails are sent ... every day! Losses are estimated at over $1 billion a year.

What does a phishing scam look like?

A phishing scam can take many forms. The scam is traditionally spread through email and might appear to come from a financial institution, company you regularly do business with, ecommerce site such as ebay or Paypal or from a social networking site. Phishing email often includes official company logos and can look convincingly like they come from legitimate websites.

The following is an example of what a phishing scam in an e-mail message (as displayed on an informational page on the Microsoft website) might look like.

Note that the graphic header is the actual logo taken from the real company’s website. The email includes a masked link to a fake website. The text of the link appears to be from the actual company’s website but if you place your mouse pointer above the link (rest it above - do not click the link) it reveals that the real address is actually a totally bogus site (203.144.234.138 ...). Scammers will sometimes also use addresses that contain minor alterations of the real company’s name (eg. wellsfagro.com) in the hope that you don’t notice. In either case, clicking on the link will take you to a spoofed site that attempts to have you submit your personal information.

There are several steps you can take to help protect yourself against phishing scams:
1. Don’t respond to emails that ask for personal, financial or account information. They are almost always scams.
2. Mouse over links in the email and read the pop-up that displays the actual address. See if looks genuine or not (then don’t click it anyway…).
3. Use anti-virus software and keep it up to date.
4. Never, ever email sensitive personal information. Even if you are sending it to a legitimate source, it will likely sit in somebody’s Inbox for a period of time where it can be read or stolen.
5. Check your bank and credit card statements for any unusual charges.
6. If you are using a Windows computer, upgrade your web browser to either Internet Explorer 7 or later or Firefox 3 or later. Both contain a phishing filter that warns you if you are about to enter a site that appears to be spoofed.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

SMS Smishing
“Smishing” is the growing practice of sending phishing scams via SMS text messaging. Email filters have become more proficient at recognizing and blocking phishing schemes. This has pushed scammers to search for alternative digital delivery methods for their spoofed messages. SMS texts avoid filters normally associated with emails. Very few SMS messages are blocked and it can be difficult to determine if a message is real. Smishing text messages will prompt you to call a phone number. When you call, a phony operator will ask for your personal or financial information in order to complete some bogus financial transaction or account change.

The solution here is crystal clear. No legitimate company or financial institution will send you a text message asking you to call them and submit personal information. Do not reply. It’s that simple.

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