Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 176
Posts 41 - 50

Der Herr der Smileys

(The Lord of Smileys)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 29.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | computer programming, emojis, misunderstanding, translation
Summary | The Unicode chief, Mark Davis, assesses which new emojis make it into the Unicode which all major tech firms use. Anyone can propose an emoji but they have to argue why it is a globally significant symbol. They are then written into the Unicode which is a computer code that works for all languages. Tech firms then choose the font for the letters and emojis in which these symbols appear on their devices. Tech companies have chosen more similar emoji fonts over the last years to avoid misunderstandings between devices of different providers if the emojis are displayed differently.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee Mark Davis.
Image Tags | male(s)

To Survive in Tough Times, Restaurants Turn to Data-Mining

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 25.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | marketing, privacy, research/study
Summary | Restaurants are facing tough times as people seem to visit restaurants less ofter rises. Now analytic firms have come up with software designs that collect data about customers and waiting staff to find inefficiencies and smooth them out. This way all waiters would recognize guests by name and know their order and payment preferences. It could revolutionize customer service in the hospitality industry.
Image Description | People looking at a chart.
Image Tags | chart, female(s), male(s)

The Secret to a Good Robot Teacher

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 26.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | computer programming, research/study
Summary | Digitized education as it is usually designed today makes a fatal omission. It ignores the fact that human learning requires not only language as information but also language as social cues. Evolution has designed our minds so that we learn best from other human testimony. Studies with children show that they trust robotic teachers more when they display some kind of emotional range and social cues.
Image Description | Illustration of a robot teaching children.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), school

Teaching A.I. Systems to Behave Themselves

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, Google, threat
Summary | Artificial intelligence systems have made huge development leaps in recent times but there is still a lot of learning to do. The image recognition AI assistants of Facebook and Google demonstrate how, on the one hand, they can recognize a lot of images correctly if they have had enough data to learn from and, on the other hand, how it still makes bold mistakes. It suffices to manipulate a few pixels and the AI system gets confused. Developing AI systems not only takes a lot of data but also trial and error phases which are monitored and taught by human teachers.
Image Description | Programmers working on computers.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s)

'Bring your own device': weighing up the business benefits

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 23.1.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | Some businesses let their employees bring their own devices (e.g. laptop) at work. This is called BYOD (Bring your own device). This way, companies can save money, and it's also more convenient for employees to carry one device instead of two. In order to avoid any problems, companies that work with BYOD need to come up with good employee agreements, and use cloud-based services. The article also lists several examples of BYOD companies and explains the (dis)advantages of the method.
Image Description | Portraits of four men, and photograph of people's hands using a tablet, a smartphone, and a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, hand(s), male(s), smartphone, tablet

Crackdown on Online Criticism Chills Pakistani Social Media

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, law, misunderstanding, social media, threat
Summary | The Pakistani government has passed a very strict law that prohibits any anti-government or anti-army posts on social media. Some people have already been arrested. They claim that their posts were not criticizing the armed forces and that it was all a misunderstanding. This is a huge issie when people get arrested for trivial tweets.
Image Description | Getty image of a protest.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

Twitter Users Blocked by Trump File Lawsuit

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 11.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, politics, Twitter
Summary | President Donald Trump is being sued for blocking users who are American citizens on Twitter on the grounds of violating the First Amendment. Twitter is like a modern-day town hall which the president has chosen to use and he cannot expell people from a public forum. Legally, the case is not very straightforward. Different experts disagree.
Image Description | Donald Trump waving while walking away from an aircraft.
Image Tags | male(s)

Twitter's Passion Politics

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, research/study, Twitter
Summary | In a study analyzing political discourse on Twitter, the researchers found that Republicans tend to get more retweets when they use emotional-moral language than Democrats do. This also rang true when looking at the presidential candidates: Donald Trump could impress far more people by using emotional language than Hillary Clinton. Ms Clinton was interestingly far further below the Democratic average retweet rate for emotional tweets.
Image Description | Illustration of a man blowing into the fire in a tablet.
Image Tags | male(s), tablet

'Ha' Isn't a Laugh. Seriously?

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, emojis, Facebook, research/study, texting, word/writing
Summary | People express laughs in different ways when the text or otherwise communicate online. Some type a version of "haha", others write "LOL" or a similar abbreviation but none of these messages mean that one is actually laughing. Linguists who have analyzed thousands of texts claim that LOLs signal interlocutor involvement like an "uh-huh" on the phone.
Image Description | Cartoon of various people laughing with various noises.
Image Tags | male(s)

Germany Tells Sites to Delete Hate or Pay Up

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law, threat
Summary | Germany has the strictest policies when it comes to illegalizing slanderous, threatening, and extremist language from public spaces. Germany has just passed a law that allows them to fine Facebook as much as 57 million dollars if they do not remove offensive content quickly enough from the platform. While some may say this is censorship , German lawmakers claim that respectful online encounters are a necessity for free speech to thrive. Facebook is now working on improving the flagging process for offensive material and are also using artificial intelligence to remove fake news.
Image Description | Blurry man looking at a smartphone with the Facebook logo in the background.
Image Tags | Facebook, logo, male(s), smartphone

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