Shel Holtz and I recorded the December edition of the monthly Hobson & Holtz Report podcast. It is the final FIR episode of 2017: FIR will return on January 8, 2018, in an all-new format. Listen to this episode for details! This month’s topics: A group of UK newspapers using robots to help write stories Research that found higher engagement for tweets that took advantage of the new 280 character count Storify, a great curation tool aimed at journalists, is shutting down … [Read more...] about For Immediate Release 118: Longer tweets, creepy tweets, and tweetstorms
Entertainment
SDF podcast 10: Big Data is never a be-all and end-all
Amid congressional hearings and FBI investigations in the US about whether and how Russia interfered with the US Presidential Elections, discussions continue about the efficacy and ethics of micro-targeting voters. In our latest and 10th edition of the SmallDataForum podcast, Neville, Sam and Thomas reflect on the outcome of the recent general elections in the UK. This episode's show notes were written by Thomas Stoeckle. We agree that, unlike last time, Labour did better than the … [Read more...] about SDF podcast 10: Big Data is never a be-all and end-all
Is podcasting about to get its tipping point?
There's been quite a sense of anticipation, if not excitement, among podcasters about Apple's announcement last week on some significant enhancements the company is making this autumn to its podcast app for iPhones and other iOS devices. The big change in the app is potentially a game-changer for podcasting as it will provide podcasters with basic analytics functionality to offer evidence of listening behaviours by subscribers (where they paused in a podcast, how much of it they listened to, … [Read more...] about Is podcasting about to get its tipping point?
The human error of Tay
Microsoft's public experiment with artificial intelligence in the form of Tay, an AI chatbot, made news headlines everywhere during last week - but not for positive reasons at all. Launched on March 23, Tay was developed by Microsoft's Technology and Research and Bing teams to experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding. Microsoft says: Tay is designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation. … [Read more...] about The human error of Tay
Consider the human side of robots
With all the talk about how robots will take everyone's jobs and basically bring on the Apocalypse, it's not hard to get worried. The robots haven't just landed in the workplace - they’re expanding skills, moving up the corporate ladder, showing awesome productivity and retention rates, and increasingly shoving aside their human counterparts. One multi-tasker bot, from Momentum Machines, can make (and flip) a gourmet hamburger in 10 seconds and could soon replace an entire McDonalds crew. A m … [Read more...] about Consider the human side of robots