Tag: OPINION

Perhaps you've heard of this Exodus International iPhone app fracas? The leading organization behind the ex-gay movement (the belief that religious counseling can help LGBT people "struggling" with their sexualities to reorient themselves to heterosexuality) recently had its official app approved by Apple, and gay rights groups are now in an uproar. Surprise? Despite the fact that Apple deemed ...

Today the iPad 2 goes on sale and, as with most iDevices, there will be a gaggle of geeks lined up outside your local Apple store to snatch it up. It's only a small evolutionary update to the original iPad, but there's no denying its intrigue. Yet even after reading all of the glowing reviews, I'm still not sold. There's no doubt that the iPad 2 is going to sell like hotcakes, but I won't be ...

Mark Pincus admits that his ego is larger than a tycoon's. "I want to create something that will matter in a hundred years," the CEO of Zynga and creator of time-suck games like 'FarmVille,' said on Nightline last night. Parading his innocently vainglorious vision of the Internet and gaming, Pincus dismissed worries about the millions of users who funnel real money into unreal products as part of ...

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University recently decided to start parsing Tweets, categorizing them by topic and measuring their sentiments, in a way similar to a recent exercise by HP Labs focusing on box office performance. The team was able to analyze this data and produce, in effect, public opinion polls without having to call (annoy) a single person. What's more, the results of this ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/02/01/how-many-facebook-friends-do-we-have-for-real/'; A few weeks ago, we reported on a study re-released by Robin Dunbar of Oxford University, wherein he retested his theory that the size of the human brain's neocortex can only comprehend social circles of 150 before cohesion gives out. In the 1990s, this number of '150' was known as 'Dunbar's number,' ...

The iPad No "One More Thing" this year. Steve Jobs took to the stage and proceeded to rocket past months of tablet hype by finally confirming the 9.7-inch iPad. He concluded by claiming, "[The iPad is] our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price." Once revealed, Apple's entry into the tablet space seemed more like a big iPhone or iPod touch than the ...