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Poor or non-standard English used on Twitter by stars is being pointed out by kids at Red Balloon language schools
Grammatically incorrect tweets by Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are being used as teaching materials to help Brazilian students learn correct English.
In a crafty attempt to help its students learn in a modern, engaging way, the Red Balloon English language school, which has branches in several Brazilian cities, has been getting its pupils to critique celebrities' badly written tweets. The "Celeb Grammar Cops" are a team of children aged between eight and 13 who respond with the grammatically correct edits to celebrity solecisms. The team was formed when Red Balloon teachers became worried that their pupils were absorbing too much grammatically incorrect or colloquial English in tweets by entertainers. Once the Cops have located their target, they then use the @RedBalloon twitter account to revise the tweets, sending suggestions for corrected versions.
Although the Cops have dealt with an array of tweeting actors, such as John Cusack and Charlie Sheen, musicians are some of the worst verbal offenders. Eleven-year-old Carolina took umbrage at a tweet from Rihanna: "@She's my rock so I hold on to she tight!!!" Carolina responded "Hi @rihanna! I love your songs. My name is Carolina. I'm 11 years old. It's not to she, it's to her. bye bye". Milena, 10, was hot on the heels of Lady Gaga's spelling of "crowd": "that phoenix crowed was completely and utterly insane. Just did #4showsin4days in three states. I will be sleeping for the next 24hrs". Soulja Boy's tweet, "She not a queen if she don't belong to a king" came under the scrutiny of Mayara and Ana, who responded: "We're 11 and 8 years old. Did you mean "she's not" and "she doesn't"? :)".
So far, none of the celebrity dunces have responded to the Grammar Cops' tweets.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2013
As scrutiny of the activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA) continues, a new Tumblr blog launched by the Office of the Director of National Security is promising more transparency on "lawful foreign surveillance activities" carried out by US agencies.
IC on the Record will host official statements, declassified documents, speeches, interviews, fact sheets and videos among other content.
Plans for the blog were announced by President Barack Obama earlier in August, as part of promises for more transparency on the activities of the US intelligence community in the wake of recent revelations about the NSA and its PRISM program of electronic surveillance.
"The intelligence community is creating a website that will serve as a hub for further transparency, and this will give Americans and the world the ability to learn more about what our intelligence community does and what it doesn't do, how it carries out its mission, and why it does so," Obama told journalists at the time.
The IC on the Record blog was launched with a post by US director of national intelligence James Clapper, who has been criticised recently after he apologised for misleading a Senate hearing by denying that the NSA collects information about US citizens.
"The goal of IC on the Record is to provide the public with direct access to factual information related to the lawful foreign surveillance activities carried out by the intelligence community," wrote Clapper.
"In addition to comprehensive explanations of the authorities under which the intelligence community conducts foreign surveillance, the site will address methods of collection, use of collected data, and oversight and compliance."
Subsequent posts have focused on declassified documents relating to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), with the promise that the IC on the Record blog will serve as a "single online location" to find more documents as they are made available.
The launch is a coup for Tumblr, which was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1bn earlier this year. Yahoo was listed as one of nine technology companies being tapped for data by the NSA's Prism program earlier in the summer.
A legal battle between a Reddit forum and a gay blogger has resulted in a trademark claim on the word "gaymer" being abandoned.
Blogger Chris Vizzini founded the website gaymer.org to represent LGBT individuals in the video game community and trademarked the word "gaymer" in 2008. Vizzini later sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reddit over its forum called "r/gaymers," claiming the it violated his trademark.
With the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Perkins Coie, the Reddit gamers filed a petition to cancel the trademark in January. Vizzini filed a motion to dismiss the petition, but his motion was rejected. Vizzini gave up the fight in July, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark office officially revoked the trademark on Wednesday.
"Gaymer is a term that everyone can use – including Vizzini – and we're pleased that there is no legal question about that now," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "But the real tragedy is that this term was ever registered for a trademark in the first place. You shouldn't have to go through a big legal battle to use a word you've used for years. The PTO must get more vigilant about the trademarks it allows to be registered in order to protect everyone's free speech rights."
In a statement on gaymer.org, Vizzini said he surrendered the trademark because he didn't have the financial means to fight against the petition. He has also shut down his website.
"I had a couple of goals in mind when I began the site. One was to make change - make change for the word gaymer and gay gamers themselves. I wanted to give them someplace safe to come when they were called names. I wanted them to feel not so alone in the gaming world and feel unconditionally accepted. Another goal was to help people meet each other. They did. They became friends, boyfriends and, in one case, two people got married. I’m extremely proud of that.""Here it is 10 years later. The word gaymer has changed so much that people are willing to fight for it. I couldn’t ask for more if I’m going to lose the trademark. It wasn’t for nothing."
"I come from the school of thought that, if create something and you put in the hours, the work, the money and your heart in it, that it belongs to you. I thought that's part of what being an American was about. Especially if you played by the book and took all the right legal channels. What I found out in the end that it doesn't matter what you do, if a big law firm powerful enough comes along and wants to take it, they will and there's not much you can do about it."
[Male gamer via Shutterstock]
Crowdfunding gets a new twist Thursday with the launch of an online platform that offers startups ideas and expertise as well as cash.
The new platform called JumpStart Fund, marrying crowd-sourcing with crowdfunding, comes from the California-based online community called Jumpstarter, which has been involved in matching investors with technology opportunities.
While raising money from the masses on the Internet has become common at websites such as Kickstarter and Kiva, the new fund goes further by adding patented technology and problem-solving perspectives to the formula.
"We are trying to give startups tools they need to make their product more successful," JumpStart Fund chief and co-founder Dirk Ahlborn told AFP.
"Crowdfunding together with crowd-sourcing is a solution."
The self-described serial entrepreneur said inspiration for JumpStart Fund came from learning that lack of experience caused many startups to fail and that public patents are languishing in US federal research labs.
JumpStart Fund was designed to be an online community where people can share ideas and build businesses based on patented technology, with individuals getting stakes in startups based on what they bring to the mix.
"Ideas get submitted, or it can be a patent, and we move it to a work-in-progress stage," Ahlborn explained.
"People apply to be part of the idea as the executing team, and from there we start using the crowd for input from basic things like a name to refining the business model or how to use the technology."
Those who participate in shaping startups get advisory points which translate into shares in revenue.
JumpStart aimed to limit the crowd share to 10 percent commission on a startup's revenue, with advisors needing to remain active in companies to remain eligible for their cuts of revenue.
"We want to avoid someone being part of a startup in the first year and then not caring any more in year two," Ahlborn said.
Business ideas can be submitted from anywhere, but resulting companies will be formed in the United States, according to JumpStart.
The online community votes on startup ideas, with top contenders culled by an in-house selection process.
JumpStart is working with federal research labs holding thousands of patents deemed public property because they were paid for with tax dollars and is reaching out to US universities and private facilities.
"There is a mandate to bring federal patents out to the public, but no one said they have to do a good job," Ahlborn said. "We are trying to solve the fact that it is really difficult and bureaucratic to get to those patents."
Business models built with knowledgeable input from the "crowd" and based on patented technologies should prove enticing to investors, who are also invited to be part of JumpStart's online community, according to its founders.
"We are trying to get entrepreneurs and technical minds on our side to create companies," Ahlborn said. "I am a personal believer in the power of the crowd to help you get ahead."
California-based JumpStart's income sources will include broker fees on capital raised and equity in successful enterprises in a typical startup incubator model.
JumpStart also charges $10 for each idea submitted, but said the fee was intended more to prevent "spamming" than to be a money stream.
American teenagers love their smartphone apps, but many are avoiding them, due to fears about privacy and location tracking.
A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found 58 percent of US teens surveyed have downloaded phone or tablet apps, but half of teen apps users have avoided using some due to privacy concerns.
The survey conducted with the Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society found 26 percent of teenage apps users have uninstalled an application because they found out it was collecting personal information they did not want to share.
Nearly half of the apps users have turned off location tracking features on their cell phone or in an app because they were worried about the privacy of their information, Pew found.
"Younger teen apps users ages 12-13 are more likely than older teen apps users 14-17 to say that they have avoided apps over concerns about personal information sharing," the researchers wrote.
"Boys and girls are equally likely to avoid certain apps for these reasons. There are no clear patterns of variation according to the parent's income, education level or race and ethnicity."
But the survey found girls are considerably more likely than boys -- 59 to 37 percent -- to say they have disabled location tracking features.
According to the researchers, teens may be concerned not only about advertisers and companies tracking them, but their own parents as well. A 2009 Pew survey indicated half of parents of teen cell phone owners said they used the phone to monitor their child's location in some way.
Among American teens, 78 percent have a cell phone and 23 percent of teens have a tablet computer; 82 percent own at least one of these mobile devices.
The report was based on a survey of 668 respondents between the ages of 12 and 17 from July 26 to September 30, 2012.
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Facebook and other technology giants launched an initiative Wednesday designed to give the whole world access to the Internet.
The project is entitled Internet.org and its goal is to cut the cost of smart phone-based Internet services in developing countries.
"Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said.
"There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it."
Today some 2.7 billion people, just over a third of the world's population, have access to the Internet and the number of new users is growing only slowly each year, a statement said.
The other partners in the project are Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Opera, while Twitter and LinkedIn also also due to sign up.
"The goal of Internet.org is to make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today," the statement said.
The seven founding partners are going to develop joint projects, share knowledge and mobilize governments and industry to bring the world online.
Specifically, they want to simplify mobile apps to make them more efficient and improve telephone components and networks so they perform better while consuming less energy.
They also want to develop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and partnerships to more broadly deploy internet access in underserved communities.
"Partners will support development of sustainable new business models and services that make it easier for people to access the internet. This includes testing new models that align incentives for mobile operators, device manufacturers, developers and other businesses to provide more affordable access than has previously been possible," it added.
The partnership emulates one launched by Facebook in 2011 called Open Compute Project and which aims to improve the materials used in call centers and make them less energy-hungry.
That project was originally met with scepticism but has gradually won over the major players in the computer industry.
The new thrust comes at a key time for tech groups. Mature markets are saturated and have little potential for significant growth, while poor regions like Africa, Latin America and some parts of Asia are pools of potential new customers.
News that Samsung will unveil a "smartwatch" next month has sent rumour mills into overdrive within the tech community as it second guesses what the much-hyped gadget will offer.
Wearable computing, including Google's smart glasses, is considered the next frontier in consumer electronics following smartphones.
Apple has long been rumoured to be working on introducing an "iWatch" and Samsung is reportedly looking to steal a march on its arch rival by launching its "Galaxy Gear" smartwatch at the IFA industrial exhibition in Berlin in the first week of September.
Samsung has steadfastly declined to confirm or deny its intentions and has offered no insights on the design or technical specifications of the new digital device.
That has not stopped specialist tech websites filling the vacuum with speculation and informed guesswork based on sources at application development firms who have apparently been sent prototypes.
Initial reports suggested the watch would allow users to make calls, access e-mail and surf the Internet.
The Verge website cited one source who insisted it would not be a self-contained "watchphone" in the sense of a unit with its own SIM card, cellular radio, and data connection.
Instead it will be a device that "works with phones" using bluetooth technology to pair with a user's smartphone, the source was quoted as saying.
The website GigaOM cited various sources as saying the Samsung device would have a camera integrated into the strap and tiny speakers in the clasp of the watch.
This was partly supported by details provided by local South Korean website Moveplayer of a patent for "Samsung Gear" that was approved by the South Korean patent office in May.
The patent design shows what looks like both a tiny microphone and/or speaker as well as a USB port embedded in the wrist clasp. It also suggested a curved screen that would make up the watch's main display.
GigaOM's sources said Samsung had seeded various different designs to developers but with some common characteristics including a 2.5 inch OLED screen.
The watch will boast a built-in "accelerometer" that makes it possible to switch it on when it is moved up towards the eye, the sources said, adding that the screen would support the usual touch, swipe and select type gestures -- but not text-input given the size constraints.
Phil Libin, the CEO of app developer Evernote, told GigaOM that smartwatch technology remained experimental despite its rapid development.
"None of this is going to be super mainstream in six or 12 months, but I think it's going to be in the next two or three years," Libin said. "It's going to go faster than people expect."
The idea of the connected watch has been around for at least a decade: Microsoft had one in 2003. And some devices are already on the market including from Sony, the crowd-funded maker Pebble and Italian-based firm i'm Watch.
Up to now, smartwatches have been able to connect to phones wirelessly to give users signals about new messages, and allow some limited Web access.
But analysts say once they gain traction, app developers can come up with new functions, possibly drawing on health and fitness monitoring devices now in use.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
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