So far there have been only scattered examples of the potential of mining social media. Last year HP Labs researchers used Twitter data to accurately predict box office revenues of Hollywood movies. In August, the National Science Foundation approved funds for research in using social media like Twitter and Facebook to assess earthquake damage in real time.

The accessibility and computerization of huge databases has already begun to spur the development of new statistical techniques and new software to manage data sets with trillions of entries or more.

“Big data allows one to move beyond inference and statistical significance and move toward meaningful and accurate analyses,” said Norman Nie, a political scientist who was a pioneering developer of statistical tools for social scientists and who recently formed a new company, Revolution Analytics, to develop software for the analysis of immense data sets.

The SMS said “Dont attend to calls from 7888308001, 9316048121, 9876266211, 9888854137, 9876715587. These numbers come in red colors. U may get brain hemrage due to high frequency. 27 persons died just recieving the call”

How best to name the key theme for the next research cycle? We discussed this at length three years back. Rohan’s original idea was ‘Mobile Multiple Play’. We would have agreed, if not for the reason it already meant something else. Then came ‘Mobile++’. We were still not satisfied. Finally we settled for ‘Mobile 2.0’, which didn’t exist then in that sense.

Put simply, Mobile 2.0 was the second wave of mobile applications. Mobile 1.0 = voice communication on the move. Mobile 2.0 = everything else, starting from texts.

My google search did give few hits. I can take a safe bet it was less than 100. Nothing we could take seriously. Things have changed. As of today the hits for “Mobile 2.0” have increased to –verify if you don’t believe – 461,000.

There are multiple definitions too.

Daniel Nations from About.com:

Mobile 2.0: Bringing Web 2.0 to Mobile Devices vs. Combining Web 2.0 with Mobile Devices

It sounds like the beginning of a semantic argument, but there is actually quite a bit of difference between bringing Web 2.0 to the mobile and combining mobile devices and Web 2.0 to create Mobile 2.0. If all we wanted to do is bring Web 2.0 to our mobile devices, we are well underway to doing just that. We simply need a mobile web browser that is capable of handling various technologies used to bring together Web 2.0 websites.

But do we really want to sell ourselves short? Mobile devices are not personal computers. And we don’t want to treat them like personal computers. Instead of just brining Web 2.0 to mobile devices, we want to make Web 2.0 mobile – we want a combination of the two that exploits the advantages of our mobile device.

Is this different from what Wikipedia has to say?:

Mobile 2.0, refers to a perceived next generation of mobile internet services that leverage the social web, or what some call Web 2.0. The social web includes social networking sites and wikis that emphasise collaboration and sharing amongst users. Mobile Web 2.0, with an emphasis on Web, refers to bringing Web 2.0 services to the mobile internet, i.e., accessing aspects of Web 2.0 sites from mobile internet browsers.

By contrast [to Web 2.0], Mobile 2.0 refers to services that integrate the social web with the core aspects of mobility – personal, localized, always-on and ever-present. These services are appearing on wireless devices such as Smartphones and multimedia feature phones that are capable of delivering rich, interactive services as well as being able to provide access and to the full range of mobile consumer touch points including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening and viewing.

So what exactly Mobile 2.0? Can we agree on a common definition?

So computing does indeed have a role in fighting climate change, but that role mainly involves using computers in new ways, rather than making the machines themselves more efficient. It is time for the industry to start thinking outside the box, as it were.

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

I don’t want to waste too much time on this, but this kind of research makes two classic errors:  first, it does not assess the websearch in relation to whatever it replaces.  So a person doing product comparison on the web has to be compared with a person physically comparing prices in multiple shops, using walking, public transport, a Prius, a Ferrari, etc.   Obviously, the research will have a bigger carbon imprint than the search.

Second, this whole approach is Luddite, in that it does not account for the fact that we as humans need to do new and better things, rather than just do the same old, same old.   So even if the above opportunity cost problem is addressed, the fact that the Google searches may be improving the quality of the user’s life is not addressed.

By doing the research, the researcher is burdening Mother Gaia, by publicizing it the Times is burdening Mother Gaia, and by blogging about it I am really hammering her.  People who are into this line of thinking should consider low-carbon imprint ways of euthanising themselves.  Because, that, we can be sure, will have the lowest carbon imprint.

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

Recently, the blog has become controversial. Since April 2006, one thread has been used by various persons to discuss Sri Lankan ICT policy issues, with emphasis on the appropriate standards for using Sinhala in computing.

Not all the comments on this thread have been rational and civilized and some commenters have engaged in personal vilification.

The controversy hit a peak around the time of Professor V.K. Samaranayake’s felicitation event at the University of Colombo in early June and his subsequent demise.

It is fair to say that Professor Samaranayake bore the brunt of the personal attacks on the website, though the President of the Maldives, Mr Milinda Moragoda and I, among others, had also been attacked at various times.

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By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 30, 2006

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 29 — It sounds like a project that just about any technology-minded executive could get behind: distributing durable, cheap laptop computers in the developing world to help education. But in the year since Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, unveiled his prototype for a $100 laptop, he has found himself wrestling with Microsoft and the politics of software.

Mr. Negroponte has made significant progress, but he has also catalyzed the debate over the role of computing in poor nations — and ruffled a few feathers. He failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft on including its Windows software in the laptop, leading Microsoft executives to start discussing what they say is a less expensive alternative: turning a specially configured cellular phone into a computer by connecting it to a TV and a keyboard.

Continued here.