Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.).
The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 – 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine’s Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.
We Feel Fine – an exploration of human emotion, in six movements
22 December 2011Popular Science Magazine’s Innovation of the Year
19 December 2011This year the award goes to … Lytro Light-Field Cameras.
MIT Will Offer Certificates to Outside Students Who Take Its Online Courses
19 December 2011For the first time, such students will be able to get a credential for their work, after demonstrating mastery of the material.
[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]
Screencast-o-matic – Free online screen recorder for instant screen capture video sharing
16 December 2011Screencast-O-Matic is an online screen recorder for one-click recording from your browser on Windows, Mac, or Linux with nothing to install …and it’s FREE!
Cloud Storage Platform Box.net Ramps Up Security For The Enterprise; Debuts Partnership With Intel | TechCrunch
15 December 2011Cloud storage platform Box.net is ramping up security today, announcing a new set of tools and access controls for the enterprise. In addition, Box is also announcing a product integration with Intel to deliver additional protections for users and increased admin capabilities for IT managers.
CollabraCam multi-camera video production for iOS devices
15 December 2011CollabraCam is the worlds first multicam video production iPhone app with live editing and director to camera communication. CollabraCam provides a quick, easy and fun way to shoot and simultaneously edit live video from multiple cameras using iPhones, iPod Touches and iPad 2. CollabraCam links iOS devices running the app over local WiFi to create a video switcher and communication control room with a simple, yet powerful, live video editing workflow.
Smarthistory – Art history from cave paintings to Warhol
15 December 2011Smarthistory.org is a free and open, not-for-profit, art history textbook. We use multimedia to deliver unscripted conversations between art historians about the history of art. Noted by Time Magazine as one the 50 best educational websites of 2011.
Apple Posts Gyroscope-Friendly Panorama of Grand Central Retail Store Opening
13 December 2011Apple has posted a 360-degree panorama of its new Grand Central Terminal retail store on opening day, showing the large crowds and the new store in the context of the massive terminal building. The panorama supports gyroscope input on compatible iOS devices, allowing users to experience the panorama simply by rotating the device.
The panorama is accessible by visiting Apples Grand Central retail store page and tapping on the “View More Photos” link on the featured store photo. The panorama is the final image in the gallery, and can be navigated by gyroscope on newer iPhone and iPad devices and by clicking/tapping and dragging on other devices.
via Mac Rumors.
As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are Promised
13 December 2011The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success with many of its early users. The most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer.
A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky.

Posted by Oscar Retterer 
