Posted on

A social-network illusion that makes things appear more popular than they are

An illustration of the “majority illusion” paradox. The two networks are identical, except for which three nodes are colored. These are the “active” nodes and the rest are “inactive.” In the network on the left, all “inactive” nodes observe that at least half of their neighbors are “active,” while in the network on the right, no “inactive” node makes this observation. Credit: arXiv:1506.03022 [cs.SI]
A trio of researchers at the University of California has uncovered a social-network illusion that might explain why some things become popular in cyberspace while others do not. Kristina Lerman, Xiaoran Yan and Xin-Zeng Wu have written a paper describing the illusion and how it works and have posted it on the preprint server arXiv.
Posted on

Hoping Google’s Lab Is a Rainmaker

Project Loon aims to develop a network of stratospheric balloons to establish an Internet Wi-Fi hub. Credit Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s research arm, Google X, is called the company’s Moonshot Factory. One reason the company picked the word “Moonshot” was to remind people to tackle big problems that may well blow up in their faces.

New York Times: http://ift.tt/1AsR8rP

Posted on

The death of distance, the end of time, and the net neutrality blip

A very interesting take on net neutrality. –BB

In the 1800s, in a very short period of time, we experienced two innovations that created the death of distance and the end of time. Today, we’re seeing the fruition of those innovations, as networks overtake hierarchies in importance.

from VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1AjWcwU