Could Groupons Save the World?
Two-and-a-half year old web start-up Groupon is a stunningly successful company. It reportedly turned down a six billion US dollar buyout offer from Google in December, and Reuters reports that is now planning an initial public offering that may value the company at between $15-20 billion. It has achieved this staggering valuation with a simple business model: every day in each of a number of cities (now hundreds worldwide) it offers on its web site a deal from a merchant wanting to access Groupon’s email subscribers in the local market. The daily deal might offer such luxuries as a massage, a day of paintball, a restaurant meal or hotel stay for two, or tooth whitening treatment, at a discount of about 50-70% off the regular price. The concept is that a minimum number of people have to sign up to the deal for it to be valid, so Groupon provides a bundle of willing buyers to the merchant. In return, the merchant provides what amounts to a bulk discount. The Groupon company makes money by operating as a middleman for payments: it sells buyers a voucher for the product, and Groupon passes on some of the money it received for the voucher to the merchant, keeping a chunk of it for itself.
The Ethics of Gamification: Little Rewards for Everything
[note: the original version of this post contained some interactive code, which has been removed from the archives]
Addiction by design
A new report released by the US Surgeon General last month reminds us that cigarettes are designed with addiction in mind. Tobacco companies infuse tobacco with ammonia so that the nicotine crosses the membranes in the lungs faster, reducing the delay between inhalation and pharmacological effect. They add flavourings like chocolate and vanilla to the blend, knowing that smokers will be more likely to smell something in their food that they associate with smoking, and to feel like lighting up. These tricks are a source of moral outrage for many of us; it seems as though the tobacco companies are exploiting weaknesses in our biology to make us buy things we would not otherwise have bought, and to do things we would not otherwise have done (or would not have done so much). And tobacco executives have often denied engaging in these kinds of tactics.
All this makes for an interesting contrast with the case of video games, in which addictiveness is universally held to be one of the hallmarks of an excellent game, in which games can win awards for being addictive, and in which a developer can unabashedly boast of putting the most addictive systems into their games.
Is mathematics the Christmas present of the year?
by Anders Sandberg
Is mathematics the Christmas present of the year? TheoryMine is a company that uses automatic theorem discovery and proof to generate new theorems via computer, which customers can then buy the naming rights for (for a paper describing the method, see The Theory behind TheoryMine). Is this a scam? Or does it devalue pure mathematics? Or is this a great new way of acknowledging its beauty?
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear: Wikileaks and RIPA
Governments around the world have condemned Wikileaks recent release of US diplomatic cables, often while simultaneously denying they matter; the reactions are tellingly similar to the previous reactions from the US military simultaneously claiming the leaks were highly illegal, dangerous and irrelevant. At the same time many have defended the release as helping transparency. As David Waldock twittered: "Dear government: as you keep telling us, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".
Is this correct?
Is your mobile phone part of your body?
by Rebecca Roache
The Frontline reports that sensors carried on the body of mobile phone users could soon be used to boost the UK’s mobile phone network coverage. If only half of the 91% of the UK population who owns a mobile phone carried such sensors, then nearly half of the UK population would become part of a ‘body-to-body’ mobile phone network.
When technology becomes as wearable and ubiquitous as this, it raises some interesting questions about what sort of things people are, and about the division between the body and the surrounding environment. What, after all, is a body? At first glance, a person’s body is that mass of flesh, blood, and bone that we point to when we point to him or her: all very simple and straightforward. Things get more complicated when we consider someone who has received an organ transplant. Does a transplanted organ become part of the body of the person who receives it? I would say so. Assuming that the transplant is successful, it functions just like the organ it replaces; and an injury to the transplanted organ would be considered an injury to the recipient. What about artificial devices that replace or supplement organs, like cochlear implants: do these count as body parts too? I would imagine that most of us would be less willing to view such things as body parts. However, if transplanted organs are to count as parts of the recipients’ bodies, refusal to accept cochlear implants as body parts seems mere prejudice. Both enable the recipient’s body to perform a familiar and normal bodily function; and whilst a transplanted organ is – unlike a cochlear implant – undeniably a body part, it is pre-transplant no more a part of the recipient’s body than a cochlear implant. So, perhaps we should consider cochlear implants to be body parts too. If we accept something like a cochlear implant as a body part, though, what else might we feel bound to include? What about less permanent replacement body parts, like false teeth and prosthetic limbs? Tools that are not intended to replace body parts, but which nevertheless enable certain people to perform something like a familiar and normal bodily function, like wheelchairs? Tools that enable people to perform functions that are not familiar and normal bodily functions, like pencils and screwdrivers? Where do we draw the line between the body and the surrounding environment?
Retaining privacy: the EU commission and the right to be forgotten
Do we have a right to be forgotten? That was the question posed to me by BBC Newsnight in the light of the EU Commission's latest draft framework for data protection policies. EU Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding stated that “The protection of personal data is a fundamental right”, and set out to fix current privacy protection measures in the light of changing technology and globalization. Among other things users should be able to give informed consent to the use of their personal data, and have a "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or when they want their data deleted.
Spying on people for fun and profit
A new company, Internet Eyes, promises to crowdsource monitoring of surveillance cameras by using online users to watch footage and report suspicious activity. They would get rewarded 'up to £1,000' if they press the alarm button to report something useful. Not unexpectedly the anti-CCTV groups really dislike the idea. The Information Commissioner is somewhat sceptical but allowed a beta test to go ahead, as long as users had to pay for using it – this would allow their details to be checked and would reduce risks for misuse. However, at least one subscribe "thought it was his civic duty to sign up". Civic duty or profit-making voyerism?
Should we be afraid of virtual reality?
Prominent
authors like Susan Greenfield and Roger Scruton have raised worries about the rise of virtual worlds such as Second Life, which
they fear might have a negative impact on human relationships, as people
increasingly spend their lives hidden behind an “avatar”. The movie Surrogates, recently released, precisely pictures a future humanity that lives
as it were by proxy: the story takes place in a world where people stay at home
and send remote-controlled “surrogates” – androids that are typically younger
and better-looking versions of themselves – out in the world to do things for
them. In the same vein, American futurologist Ray Kurzweil predicts that within a quarter of a century, virtual reality (VR) will rival the real
world: “If we want to go into virtual-reality mode”, he says, “nanobots will
shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will
become commonplace”. However, far from sharing the worries of people like
Greenfield and Scruton, Kurzweil believes this is a prospect we should look
forward to.*
Don’t be Evil — and prove it.
A new angle has recently come to light regarding the unrest in Iran: well known western companies provided the technology the government are using to eavesdrop on its citizens. The Washington Times and Wall Street Journal have reported on the fact that Nokia and Siemens have sold special equipment to Iran's state-owned telecommunications company, which can be used to tap phones, read email messages and observe who is accessing which internet sites. This is not the first such case. In 2006, Amnesty International drew attention to the assistance Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google had given to Chinese authorities in their attempts to suppress free speech on the internet in China. Finally, the networking giant, Cisco, has been a key player in setting up the hardware that China uses to block foreign websites with its 'Great Firewall'.
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