Spark

Mazer is a brand new initiative coming out of the Japanese government as part of its "Cool Japan" project. The idea is to have leading creative lights in Japan post questions or problems, and crowdsource the answers. The winning ideas will be bid on by businesses to make them a reality. We expand the conversation for a look at how and when crowdsourcing can be effective, with digital culture writer, Don Tapscott.

In her new book, Consent of the Networked, Rebecca MacKinnon argues that it’s time to discuss the ways technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of all the world’s Internet users.

Nora sits down with the president and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) to talk about balancing copyright with the open internet in the wake of the recent protests against SOPA

As part of a larger look at cities and how to create creative hubs (aka the mythical next Silicon Valley), Nora Young speaks with Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla foundation who has a long history in working to build open, collaborative, creative environments.

Science fiction author, journalist, and all around futurist Cory Doctorow believes the recent copyright battles are the opening salvo of a larger war against general computers.

Throughout history, technological change has caused job loss, but there have always been new jobs that have opened up. In his new book Race Against The Machine, MIT researcher Andrew McAfee argues that digital technology is advancing so quickly, it's outstripping our ability to adapt economically.

Many schools are experimenting with new digital tools in the classroom, from cellphones, to apps, to tablets. Rhonda McEwen, a University of Toronto academic who researches the impact of new media, has been researching the benefits of using iPads with non-verbal students who are autistic.

Many schools are experimenting with new digital tools in the classroom, from cellphones, to apps, to tablets. Rhonda McEwen, a University of Toronto academic who researches the impact of new media, has been researching the benefits of using iPads with non-verbal students who are autistic.

Right now we are in the age of life-logging, recording every bit of information about a person's activities, behavior, and physicality. This behavior is also called total capture and Facebook’s latest Timeline feature, has introduced the idea of total capture to mainstream audiences. A Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Abigail Sellen is critical of the modern conversation on life-logging and total capture and argues this technical handling of memories through indexing and metadata is just not how memory works.

Baratunde Thurston is a comedian and author, as well as the web and politics editor for The Onion. His first book, How to be Black, will come out at the end of January, and he has an interesting approach to marketing it. He has amassed an advance street team of volunteers - volunteers he vetted for their social media influence, and has now sent forth to campaign for him and his book.

Nora Young interviews David Weinberger, author and co-director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab.

Luis von Ahn wants to translate the entire web into every major world language. Nora Young interviews Luis about his new project, Duolingo.

Tim Hwang

How many of your Facebook friends are robots? Maybe more than you think. New research from the University of British Columbia suggests that users of online social networks like Facebook are surprisingly susceptible to infiltration by socialbots — computer programs designed to pass themselves off as human beings.

This week on Spark, we’ll play Nora’s interview with Tim Hwang, a socialbot researcher and the organizer of a socialbot coding competition. They’ll discuss some of the techniques socialbots use to mimic us, and how we can tell the difference between bots and humans. You can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 18:14]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]

Due to some changes outside of our control, we've had to re-jig Spark's podcast plumbing, and some feed details are changing. For full details, visit http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/11/important-changes-to-spark-podcast-feeds/

How many of your online friends are robots? Maybe more than you think. Nora Young talks to Tim Hwang, who organizes Socialbot coding competitions.

Media futurist and strategist, Steve Rubel discusses "transmedia storytelling." Beyond the buzzword, when does transmedia really work, and how can it help businesses beyond Hollywood?

Amanda Lenhart is a senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center, which studies trends in internet and digital technology use. Nora Young interviews Amanda about a new study, called Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites.

This week on Spark’s regular, over-the-air radio broadcast, you’ll hear Spark 138: Rap Metrics, Machine Poets, and The Breakup 2.0, which first aired in February 2011. But you won’t hear Spark 138 this week on the podcast, because we’ve promised no more podcast repeats. We’ll be back with a brand-new episode of Spark next week.

In the meantime, you can listen to the original broadcast of the whole show below (runs 54:00).

You can also listen to individual stories below.

The Breakup 2.0

Photo by Jose Izquierdo

Ah, young love. It’s formative and all-encompassing and central to what makes us human. When we’re young, we pair up and we split up – a lot. But Ilana Gershon thinks that the way young people break up today has changed dramatically because of social media. Nora speaks to her about her latest book The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. (Runs 10:52)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Ilana Gershon
• The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media
• Full uncut version of interview with Ilana Gershon

India Calling

Photo by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan

Many of us have heard this tale before: kids born and raised in North America by immigrant parents who as adults, move to their parent’s home country to live. Anand Giridharadas did just this. Nora talks to him about his latest book India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking which documents his move to India (where his parents emigrated from decades earlier) and his observations on the way technology is transforming Indian culture. (Runs 11:24)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Anand Giridharadas
• Anand Giridharadas’ New York Times Columns
• India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking

Welcome, Our New Computer Overlords

Photo by Johnson Cameraface

Recently, IBM’s trivia-game supercomputer Watson competed in a three-part tournament on Jeopardy. The computer played against two of Jeopardy’s best contestants – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. And Watson won. By a lot. (Prompting Ken Jennings to write the hilarious “I for one welcome our new computer overlords” under his correct final answer). But how does a computer make sense of trivia questions anyway? Nora speaks with Noah Smith, a computer science professor who specializes in language technologies. Although he’s not directly involved with the Watson trivia computer, we wanted to get his take on the challenges of designing automated question answering. (Runs 6:38)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Noah Smith
• CBC Tech: IBM’s Watson trounces humans at Jeopardy
• Full uncut version of interview with Noah Smith

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Digital Night

Photo by Moira Clune

Machines can do a lot of “human” things – play Jeopardy, correct our grammar, and imitate our voices. But can they understand poetry? Enough to translate not only the meaning but the form into another language? Nora speaks with Michael Galvez, Product Manager at Google Translate about a recent Poetic Machine Translation research project at Google. (Runs 7:55)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Google Research Blog: Poetic Machine Translation
• Google translate
• Google translate blog

RapMetrics

Photo by CATARSI_Onlus

The world of sports is flush with stats – you can know everything you want to know about any player or team. What if you could apply the same analytics to hip-hop MCs? Liban Ali Yusuf is a chemical engineering student at the University of Waterloo, and in his spare time he’s created a program that measures, in a quantifiable way, a rapper’s technical ability by applying statistical analysis using linguistic software. We’ll also talk to him about a really cool online rhyme generator he’s created. (Runs 10:41)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Liban’s RapMetrics blog (Language warning)
• Liban’s Rhyme Generator (Language warning)
• Automatic detection of internal and imperfect rhymes in rap lyrics
• Full uncut version of interview with Liban Ali Yusuf

Episode Details

• APM music used in this episode

Spark Podcast

You can receive Spark automatically by subscribing to any of our totally free podcast feeds:

• Free weekly podcast (Subscribe in iTunes)
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For more information (and instructions) visit cbc.ca/podcasting

Steve Rubel spends a lot of time thinking about the future of media – a favourite topic here at Spark. He’s Executive Vice-President of Global Strategy and Insights at the PR firm Edelman, and a popular blogger, columnist, and Twitterer. Earlier today, I interviewed Steve while he was in Toronto. We talked about transmedia storytelling: what it is, how to do it right, and how to hold the attention of media consumers when there’s so much media available and no more time than before.

You can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 18:44]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]

On this episode of Spark: Solar Gadgets, Tactile Telepresence, and Social TV. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).

You can also listen to individual stories below.

Social Solar-power Gadget Chargers

Our tech got a little more green this week in the Spark office – we charged our phones using the sun! Changers is a solar-powered gadget charging system that aims to add a social dimension to CO2 emission. Nora Young talks to Changers co-founder Hans Raffauf, and Ottawa-based green IT consultant Bill St. Arnaud about whether everything has to be social now. (Runs 9:22)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Changers
• Bill St. Arnaud
• Full uncut version of interviews with Hans Raffauf and Bill St.Arnaud

Solar Charger Giveaway: Changers sent us a solar charger kit to give away to one lucky Spark listener — maybe you! Entering is easy: scroll down to leave a comment on this page, and tell us what device you would like to charge using solar power. All entries will be entered into a draw, and we’ll select the winner at noon ET on November 18, 2011. The winner will be contacted by email. This draw is open to Canadian residents only. Good luck!

Social TV

Through the use of social networking tools, we’re re-embracing the social experience of watching TV. Now, companies are using analytics to get a sense of what conversations are happening about shows, and using that to taper what TV shows look like. Marie-Jose Montpetit is a scientist at the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, she talks to Nora about the present and future of social TV. (Runs 12:43)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Marie-Jose Montpetit
• MIT News: Secure, synchronized, social TV
• Full uncut version of interview with Marie-Jose Montpetit

Being There Without Being There

Back in 1986, a group of artists staged a telepresence exhibit, connecting Toronto to Rotterdam. 25 years later, telepresence has become ubiquitous through technology like Skype. But the telepresence of today is just a thin slice of what was imagined in 1986, when the artists imagined much more than audio and video, but communicating through touch. Nora Young visits a restaging of this exhibit to explore the limits of today’s telepresence technology. (Runs 8:45)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Video of Nora sending her heartbeat across the Atlantic Ocean
• Graham Smith’s Displaced Perspectives 2.0
• InterAccess
• The Strategic Arts Initiative

Teens, Social Media, Kindness and Cruelty

This past week, the PEW Research Centre released a new study called Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites. Nora speaks to Amanda Lenhart, a Senior Research Specialist at PEW’s Internet and American Life Project, about some of the surprising and not so surprising (come on, they’re teenagers!) findings. (Runs 8:10)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• PEW Internet: Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites
• Amanda Lenhart
• Full uncut version of interview with Amanda Lenhart

DIY Foodies

Sous-vide is all about cooking food sealed in plastic bags in hot water for long periods of time. It was once something only found in pricey restaurants or the homes of foodies willing to shell out big bucks for special equipment. Now do-it-yourselfers have figured out how to rig up simple and inexpensive sous-vide cooking systems by using old appliances. Spark’s guide to the DIY world, Jon Kalish, gives us the lowdown. (Runs 9:14)

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

• Jon Kalish
• Sous-vide

Additional Links

• APM music used in this episode
• Main page photo by gr33n3gg

Spark Podcast

You can receive Spark automatically by subscribing to any of our totally free podcasts.