Yule Heibel's Library tagged apps →  View Popular, Search in Google

Fascinating article in many respects, including in how Skinner's work has been perceived.
QUOTE
In 1965, when Julie Vargas was a student in a graduate psychology class, her professor introduced the topic of B. F. Skinner, the Harvard psychologist who, in the late 1930s, had developed a theory of “operant conditioning.” After the professor explained the evidently distasteful, outmoded process that became more popularly known as behavior modification, Vargas’s classmates began discussing the common knowledge that Skinner had used the harsh techniques on his daughter, leaving her mentally disturbed and institutionalized. Vargas raised her hand and stated that Skinner in fact had had two daughters, and that both were living perfectly normal lives. “I didn’t see any need to embarrass them by mentioning that I was one of those daughters,” she says.
UNQUOTE

atlantic_monthly selfdiscipline quantified_self obesity bf_skinner behavioralism apps loseit fitbit

Cool. Exercises for improving presbyopia (by "re-wiring" perception in the brain) soon available as an app. A $95.00 app, alas. But still...
QUOTE
The app helps people compensate for deterioration in their eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects by training the brain to process the resulting blurred images. “We’re using the brain as glasses,” says Tel Aviv University’s Uri Polat, cofounder of Ucansi, which designed the software.

The software trains users to detect patters called Gabor patches (pictured above) – blurry lines created by varying a gray background.
UNQUOTE

glasses_off presbyopia eye_exercises vision apps neuroscience

Wow...
QUOTE
The days of iPad content apps in app stores are numbered, if HTML 5 is up to the task of delivering an app-like experience in the browser
UNQUOTE

mit_techreview onswipe online_publishing apps html5 content browser

QUOTE
As behavioral economists—who use social, cognitive, and emotional factors to understand how people make choices—refine their understanding of what helps us stick to commitments, they are using this information to design new tools. Not surprisingly, money turns out to be a good motivator.

Ian Ayres, a behavioral economist at Yale, developed a website called StickK.com, on which users set a specific goal and then pledge a sum of money to forfeit should they fail to achieve it. Unlike other sites that track weight loss and fitness goals and offer support via social networking, StickK leverages another discovery from behavioral economics: our extreme dislike of losing money.

"The specter of losing money is twice as motivating as the possibility of gaining the same amount of money," says Rose.
UNQUOTE

mit_techreview behavioral_economics cognitive_function apps

Virginia Heffernan makes a case for parallels between flight to suburbia (for "safety") and the contraction of the open web in favor of closed platforms. It's a short opinion piece, not a long article, but interesting (if you happen to be interested in cities *and* the web):
QUOTE
People who find the Web distasteful — ugly, uncivilized — have nonetheless been forced to live there: it’s the place to go for jobs, resources, services, social life, the future. But now, with the purchase of an iPhone or an iPad, there’s a way out, an orderly suburb that lets you sample the Web’s opportunities without having to mix with the riffraff. This suburb is defined by apps from the glittering App Store: neat, cute homes far from the Web city center, out in pristine Applecrest Estates. In the migration of dissenters from the “open” Web to pricey and secluded apps, we’re witnessing urban decentralization, suburbanization and the online equivalent of white flight.

The parallels between what happened to cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York in the 20th century and what's happening on the Internet since the introduction of the App Store are striking.
UNQUOTE

nyt virginia_heffernan cities urbanism web computing apps open_source

This is a very cool implementation of Google maps, built by Joseph Boutilier (at 18 the youngest candidate in the current Victoria municipal election). He took a map of Victoria and added geo-links to connect specific sites with specific issues (and his proposed policies/ approaches). Very nice work.

maps victoria politics apps municipal_elections

"Exploring social media and public relatons" = tagline. Includes an excellent new / reworked definition of social media by Joseph Thornley.

socialcomputing apps public_relations pr thornley_fallis

Because of this particular blog entry at Digital Urban -- and because the YouTube video Digital Urban included no longer worked -- I looked on YouTube for more information and found a couple of really interesting "how-to" videos (see: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Google+Spreadsheet+API&search_type= ).

The video that prompted the search is called "Google Visualization API on Google Spreadsheets" (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8EsFJu6p3P4 ) It's pretty impressive -- even I (non-user of spread sheets and non-techie) sort of get it.

For lots more, see also the Google Visualization API-- Google Code page (see: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ ).

I'm posting this mainly for the benefit of a couple of people near and dear to me. They might really get a kick most especially out of this YouTube google video, "Using Google Spreadsheets as a Database in the Cloud" (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rWCLROPKug0 ).

visualisation google apps apis

Via Tris Hussey; blog post by Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategist, SF Bay Area: listing of 7 different Twitter tools/ apps. "TwitterLocal" is particularly interesting.

local_news tools twitter apps web2.0

Intriguing summing up by Regine from We Make Money Not Art of Eric Rodenbeck's presentation at etech08, "Information Visualization is a Medium." I especially liked this, on the Crime Spotting app:

"...interactive map of crimes in Oakland was developed with the idea of offering a tool for understanding crime in cities.

"You can get a precise overview of what is happening in your neighbourhood (or the one where you plan to rent a house) over time, you can select the crimes you want to see and if you like that sort of thrill, crime alerts can be delivered to you in almost real time via RSS or email.

"Crimespotting helps people explore public information, draw connections, see pattern emerge and find new possibilities for questioning.

The website says: We believe that civic data should be exposed to the public in a more open way. With these maps, we hope to inspire local governments to use this data visualization model for the public release of many different kinds of data: tree plantings, new schools, applications for liquor licenses, and any other information that matters to people who live in neighborhoods."

Yes, data should be "exposed to the public in a more open way."

apps data data_visualization eric_rodenbeck etech08 gis mapping_apps o'reilly regine wmmna

The 3 Us -- damn that apostrophe, it's all wrong as used in the article's title. But if you leave it out, it reads as "the 3 us," as in *us* or *them*... Regardless, an interesting summing up of what might make applications interesting for users. See notes.

apps economy marketing socialnetworks web2.0