need
NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports cut a deal to fuse internet, TV coverage
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/10/nbc-sports-yahoo-sports/
While Yahoo has had a tumultuous last few years, one unit that has consistently been at the top of the heap is its sports news division. At the same time, NBC Sports has been getting a boost — even without the NHL’s help — ever since Comcast bought NBCUniversal. Apparently between Yahoo’s need to better leverage its media properties and NBC’s free agency after calling it quits with Microsoft the two have found common ground and struck a deal. Although both websites will continue to operate independently, expect multi-platform crossover between TV and internet, cross-promotion with links to NBC Sports Live Extra streams from within Yahoo, new made-for-the-internet video shows combining their assets and Yahoo’s fantasy sports will be the exclusive game for NBC’s Rotoworld site. Check after the break for the press release and a heads up on why even non-sports fans that pay for TV may need to keep an eye on this move.
Continue reading NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports cut a deal to fuse internet, TV coverage
Filed under: HD
Online Doctor’s Sick Visits Could Be Coming To A Computer Near You
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/online-doctors-sick-visits-2012-11
Could we be seeing the end of routine doctor visits?
Scientific American reports that researchers are testing a new system for electronic doctor visits that could potentially eliminate the need for patients to see a doctor for routine illnesses.
Patients would simply enter their symptoms and health record into an online system, and doctors would use this information to send a diagnosis and, when necessary, a prescription.
Early reports suggest that such diagnoses were just as accurate as those given in person, although there are still some kinks that need to be ironed out:
Researchers analyzed some 5,000 doctor visits for sinus infections and 3,000 visits for urinary tract infection. Less than 10 percent of all visits were electronic. One possible e-visit drawback: doctors were more likely to prescribe antibiotics after an e-visit than a face-to-face.
But patients with an e-visit had just about the same rate of follow up as those who had an office visit. Which suggests that there was not a higher rate of misdiagnosis or treatment failure online. E-visits were also cheaper.
Detractors will note that this program only applies to relatively routine illnesses, but even so, this is nothing to sneeze at.
One of the primary goals of Obamacare was to cut down on the use of expensive emergency room visits for routine medical care, which was clogging up emergency rooms and leading to millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills. This looks like a much cheaper and simpler way to accomplish the same thing.
Naturally, we’ll need to see more studies before these programs can be rolled out on a national scale, but this looks like a good place to start toward improving the ! efficien cy of the health care system. Massive, top-down reforms like Obamacare get most of the attention, but it is smaller innovations like these will do the most to shape the healthcare of the future.
It also seems clear that letting consumers benefit from cheaper prices is a way to push the health care system as a whole toward less costly methods. E-visits for routine problems (and ultimately, perhaps, e-visits to nurses rather than to physicians) can offer better, faster, more convenient service at a lower price. Moving in directions like this is the kind of health care reform we desperately need.
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Staples Is Getting Amazon Lockers
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5958020/staples-is-getting-amazon-lockers
Amazon lockers are a great new idea, allowing people to pick up their parcels when it suits them. Now, Amazon has announced that it’s rolling out the scheme across the Staples chain, too.
Reuters reports that the office supply stores will be the latest string of locations to feature Amazon’s ultra-convenient pick-up system. When we tried them out last month, we were convinced:
The lockers are stupidly simple. You can even have your locker code texted to you when your order arrives. It doesn’t cost anything-standard, one-, and two-day shipping is available for free if you’re on Prime. If you have the need for a surrogate mailbox, using Lockers is pretty much a no-brainer.
Amazon has already partnered with other stores in the US— including 7-Eleven, Rite-Aid, Safeway, and Walgreen’s—but Staples is a biggy. Just don’t mention that Amazon is stealing custom from right under its nose, because that would be rude—and at any rate, you can be sure some serious cash is changing hands to set this scheme up. [Reuters]
Behind The Predictive Future Of Search
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569684/google-now-android-4-2-knowledge-graph-neural-networks
For decades, visions of the future have played with the magical possibilities of computers: they’ll know where you are, what you want, and can access all the world’s information with a simple voice prompt. That vision hasn’t come to pass, yet, but features like Apple’s Siri and Google Now offer a keyhole peek into a near future reality where your phone is more “Personal Assistant” than “Bar bet settler.” The difference is that the former actually understands what you need while the latter is a blunt search instrument.
Google Now is one more baby step in that direction. Introduced this past June with Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean,” it’s designed to ambiently give you information you might need before you ask for it. To pull off that ambitious goal, Google takes advantage of multiple parts of the company: comprehensive search results, robust speech recognition, and most of all Google’s surprisingly deep understanding of who you are and what you want to know.
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JCPenney Broke A ‘Sacred Covenant,’ And Now It’s Paying For It
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/jcpenney-ron-johnson-turnaround-trust-2012-10
JCPenney and its CEO Ron Johnson are going through a period of total transformation, but the retailer has had plenty of critics.
They understand that the metamorphosis is going to take time, but some disagree with the way Johnson is going about it.
Bruce Dybvad at brand consultancy Interbrand writes that JCPenney is the perfect example of what happens when a big-time retailer “fails to keep pace, listen, and respond.”‘
He commends JCPenney’s attempt to turn things around, but he’s worried about the amount of input consumers are getting regarding all the changes. Customers have been confused and unwilling to go along with the new image.
Dybvad writes:
“Retailers pay a steep price when they break a sacred covenant; that is, the need for the experience to deliver on the expectations set by its brand communications. Leaders of tomorrow will be those who effectively manage transformational change with the participation of their customers and keep their promises.”
It’s a real problem that JCPenney has to deal with. Some customers actually feel betrayed. So far, JCPenney hasn’t been able to match the expectations that it set for itself.
One customer explained how she felt about her beloved store in an email that we published back in August:
“Think of the way most women have a best friend. For many of us, our favorite department stores and ! brands a re like best friends. We rely on them to offer what we need and provide support and interest in our lives. Large-scale drastic changes to stores and brands are akin to having a best friend become a completely different person and leave the friendship. This effect is compounded when a favorite retailer suddenly sends signals that you as a customer are no longer valued or wanted. Not only does it create discomfort, but it shatters trust and causes emotional pain.”
NOW SEE: Here’s What JCPenney Retail Employees REALLY Think Of CEO Ron Johnson >
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in annoyance for mobile devices
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/22/youtube-announces-in-stream-ads-for-mobile/
If you’ve made it a habit of viewing YouTube videos on your mobile device in an effort to flout the site’s pre-roll ads, your days of bliss are quickly drawing to a close. Today, the site implemented TrueView in-stream ads for the mobile platform, and like you’ve become accustomed to on the desktop, you’ll begin to notice these commercials on your smartphone and tablet. Now, we get the need for content producers to make some coin, but the move certainly represents the end of an era. Fortunately, just like on the desktop, you’ll have the ability to skip these ads after five seconds. Maybe now, you can take pride in making an independent producer rich beyond imagination — or, at least helping them buy some lunch.
Filed under: Internet, Software
YouTube heralds arrival of in-stream ads, built-in annoyance for mobile devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
VC Explains Why A Founder’s Initial Idea Often Doesn’t Matter At All
Investor Laura Sachar says she can spot entrepreneurs who have ideas, but don’t know how to execute them.
Sachar, general partner and founder of StarVest Partners, has been involved in early stage companies since the mid-’90s. She shared her insights on a panel at Business Insider’s Startup 2012 conference:
Sachar focuses on people in the early stage, because it’s about the belief that the person can figure out what to do with the business to make it successful.
“Often, the initial idea is not how the company succeeds and drives revenue,” says Sachar. “Focusing on the people first, and a belief that they can develop attractive ideas and move from there, makes sense.”
There needs to be a clear path that shows that the person can turn the idea into something real.
“If you can’t execute, you don’t have a company,” she says. “A lot of people have ideas.”
Nowadays, companies don’t need as much money to get momentum. She suggests that you take more money than you think you need (if it’s available), because so many investors are looking for the companies that are gaining tons of velocity in the early going. By having that money, you have more resources to pull that off.
NOW SEE: 10 VCs And Founders Give Their Best Advice For Raising Money >
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One Of The Most Impressive Cases Of Efficiency Growth We’ve Ever Seen
Airlines don’t deserve credit for much — they’re notoriously loss-making, bankruptcy-prone, and customer-aggravating.
But with oil prices elevated for much of the past decade, they have done a great job battling the need for more fuel.
The below chart shows the massive divergence over the past decade between traffic growth (as measured by passenger miles) and jet fuel demand.
Says Barclays
According to Airbus and CERA, although cumulative growth in air traffic has totaled roughly 45% since 2000, fuel consumed by the global fleet of aircraft is up less than 5% over the same period, as airlines have accelerated aircraft parking/retirements of older airplane models and ordered newer more efficient replacements at a record pace. Greater efficiency (i.e. load factors) and fleet renewal are at the heart of an airline’s competitiveness in a world where fuel is now an airline’s largest single operating cost; this became the case mid-last-decade for the first time since the late 1970’s US deregulation.
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See Also:
- CHART OF THE DAY: The Skyscraper Index
- CHART OF THE DAY: This Worrying Demographic Trend Is Bad News For Consumer Spending
- CHART OF THE DAY: Why America Should Love Its Exploding Trade Deficit
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NYC opening its first public high school dedicated to software engineering
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/nyc-opening-its-first-pubic-high-school-dedicated-to-software-en/
There are plenty of specialized public high schools in New York City and in September of 2012 that roster of educational institutions will grow by one more when the Academy for Software Engineering opens its doors. The school will greet its first class of incoming freshman at the beginning of the next school year and become the first NYC public school dedicated to pumping out programers. Beyond filling our desperate need for more engineers the school will be special in several respects. For one, it will be a “limited, unscreened” institution, which means grades and attendance records are not considered for admission — only interest. Secondly, this isn’t a vocational school that simply teaches kids to live and breathe in C++ and JavaScript. While the focus will be on software engineering, it will be accompanied by traditional college preparation academic classes. Check out the source and more coverage links for a few more details.
NYC opening its first public high school dedicated to software engineering originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Um, Google’s “Search, Plus Your World” Sucks So Far
Google’s “Search, Plus Your World” launched with some fanfare and with jilted partner, Twitter, crying foul. But the real proof is in the “pudding” and so far, from my own taste testing, the “puddin’s not all that good.” In fact, it’s downright spoiled.
In theory, returning results based on my own activities, photos, shares, etc. plus the social sharing activities of my circles of friends seems to make sense. After all, my friends should share similar interests, etc. However, in reality, this appears to be far from the truth.
Either my friends all suck at what they are sharing OR what I search for has very little to do with (or very little overlap with) what I and my friends are sharing. And I think the latter is more likely the case, because my friends are all awesome and I usually find what they share to be super informative and I always learn something new from them and the insightful curation they do.
So what is wrong with Google’s new personalized search, flavored with +1? And will it ever get better with time and more usage?
My current hypothesis is NO .. it won’t get better with time. Here are a few reasons why I think so:
– what I search for (what I need at this moment) is not necessarily what I share (what I think my followers would be interested in)
– news items and other cool information that is shared are things I “discover” through the curation of my circles of friends and I like to browse these things to learn; this contrasts with things that I search for at any moment in time, which could include things that I need now, gifts for other people, research for clients in other industries that I am not in. What this means is that those search terms and the sites that I visit don’t necessarily have any bearing on any future searches and what I am interested in.
– finally, among all my friends, I would probably only ask 1 or 2 of them for restaurant recommendations (in New York) because they live here and are known for their expertise in food; I would ask different friends for advice on digital cameras (@designerguy), keyword research platforms (@glenngabe), ad networks (@jonathanmendez), etc. you get the idea. So canvassing my entire social graph for keyword based ways to personalize search results is actually making the results worse (see examples below).
Search ( photos )
[Redacted] – I don’t need to see my own photos from my own Picasa, which I already know is there.
Search ( italian restaurants in New York – no quotes )
Search ( spend polarization – no quotes )
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