Path Social Network Limits Users to 50 Friends

Most people on Facebook have several hundred "friends," so it's safe to assume that the average person does not divulge their most private thoughts on the site. A new social network from a former Facebook executive, however, aims to tighten your personal network to just 50 people so you can feel more comfortable sharing details of your life. The Personal Network, or Path, is a photo-based service that lets you upload photos and share that moment with your closest family and friends. It launched last November as an iPhone app, but a Web-based version is also available. Path is the brainchild of Dave Morin, a former senior platform manager at Facebook who will serve as Path's chief executive. The company's lineup, however, is a who's who in the tech startup world, including Napster founding Shawn Fanning. Digg founder Kevin Rose is also an investor. Path social network. "Path allows you to capture your life's most personal moments and share them with the 50 close friends and family in your life who matter most," Morin wrote in a blog post. "Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how personal. Path is a place where you can be yourself."

Path: How's the Weather?

As our obsession with the moment continues, we are always looking for new ways to help you add context to your moments. In thinking about context, we like to think of the important questions good friends ask each other to start a conversation over a distance: How are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? Where are you? And often times the question of: How’s the weather? Weather often times defines our days. A beautiful sunny day evokes feelings of warmth and happiness. While a cold and rainy day reminds us of staying inside and cuddling in blankets while listening to the rain against the windows. Weather is ever changing but always a constant and important context. Path & SimpleGeo worked together to add weather, including the temperature and the forecast, to all of your moments. Bringing a new layer of context to the social web.

Path, A New Social Network

Path limits users to 50 friends. The photo-centric service, built for smart phones, is designed to help users share information only with people they trust. It was launched November 2010. Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar has a famous theory that the number of people with whom one can maintain a close relationship is limited to 150 by the size of the neocortex, the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language. The Internet has made it quicker and easier to connect with far-flung acquaintances, but Dunbar says it's impossible to overcome that basic brain programming. With high rollers on Facebook boasting up to 5,000 "friends," digital friendship has become increasingly indiscriminate. And that keeps some people from feeling comfortable sharing the more intimate details of their lives. That's the motivation behind Path, a San Francisco company that is offering a more exclusive social network. Path bills itself instead as a "personal network."Dave Morin, formerly an executive at Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc., and Shawn Fanning, co-founder of Napster, are betting that people crave more private interaction with a much smaller social circle: Path lets each user designate only 50 friends. Morin estimates that, based on Dunbar's research, 50 is "roughly the outer boundary of our personal networks."

Carnegie Mellon University Lecture Series 2011

Computational thinking ought to be embedded within educational programs in order to cultivate children's analytical ability, says Carnegie Mellon University professor Jeannette M. Wing. "Computational thinking helps us figure out how to solve problems through reduction, embedding, transformation, decomposition, or simulation," Wing told attendees at Carnegie Mellon Qatar's Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series. Everyday skills such as planning, learning, scheduling, searching, and making trade-offs come into play with computational thinking, she says. "Teaching computational thinking cannot only inspire future generations to enter the field of computer science because of its intellectual adventure, but will benefit people in all fields," Wing says. Everyone is capable of learning computational thinking concepts, according to Wing, and she says the tech-savvy generation should be exploited to teach more people computer science. Carnegie Mellon Qatar professor Kemal Oflazer notes that a discussion on how computer science needed to be perceived in an educational context was started by Wing's 2006 opinion paper in the Communications of the ACM. She persuasively contended that computer scientists' wide-ranging skills represent a universally applicable attitude and skill set required for everyone.

Demand High for Mobile App Developers

Many companies increasingly want to hire mobile application engineers, but there are not enough developers for all the available positions. The increased demand is forcing companies to increase wages, retrain software engineers, outsource work to third-party developers, and set up offshore development labs. The number of mobile development jobs offered on Elance.com, a freelancer Web site, doubled between the first quarters of last year and this year, twice as fast as job growth overall. Some companies are trying to attract new developers by holding recruitment drives at college campuses and public technology seminars, while others are choosing to retrain software engineers in mobile development. Meanwhile, 31 percent of companies reported that the average salary among mobile software developers increased at a higher rate than normal, according to a Dice.com survey. The survey also found that the average mobile salary was about $76,000, but many companies pay as much as $150,000 a year.

Major Advance in Artificial Intelligence

IBM's Watson supercomputer represents a major advance for artificial intelligence (AI) research through its ability to answer verbal questions posed by people. IBM researchers and industry analysts say this skill makes the system better equipped than any previous machine to organize its responses and engage in verbal conversation with humans. "To reach [a computer] conversationally and have it respond with knowledgeable answers is a sea change in computing," says analyst Richard Doherty. The goal of AI researchers to create a computer capable of mimicking human intelligence took a step forward this week with Watson competing against human players on the game show Jeopardy! "Watson is a significant step, allowing people to interact with a computer as they would a human being," says IBM researcher Jennifer Chu-Carroll. "Watson doesn't give you a list of documents to go through but gives the user an answer." The Jeopardy! match especially showcased the confidence the IBM researchers instilled within the supercomputer, as demonstrated by its frequent buzzing in. Chu-Carroll anticipates computers learning to use actual common sense within the next decade, and Doherty believes such advances will revitalize competition between AI researchers.

IBM Supercomputer wins in Jeopardy TV Game Show

IBM's Watson supercomputer concluded its third and final televised round of Jeopardy! on Wednesday in triumph, defeating the human players and winning the three-day tournament. Watson finished the three rounds with $77,147, while the two other contestants won $24,000 and $21,600. Watson proved very proficient at buzzing in quickly to answer questions--a reflection of its confidence in its answers--and its victory was a vindication for computer science and the notion of developing a thinking machine. The supercomputer excels at parsing language. For example, it responded to "A recent best seller by Muriel Barbery is called 'This of the Hedgehog,'" with "What is Elegance?" IBM plans to announce a collaborative venture with Columbia University and the University of Maryland to develop a doctor's assistant service based on the Watson technology, which will permit physicians to ask questions of a cybernetic assistant. Another collaboration with Nuance Communications will strive to add voice recognition to the assistant, possibly making the service available in as soon as 18 months. IBM executives also are discussing the development of a version of Watson that can engage with consumers on various topics such as buying decisions and technical support.