Who Stands to Gain from The Summer Olympics?

sierpień 1st, 2012

It seems that you can’t turn on the TV or browse to your favorite website these days without a mention of the Summer Olympics. It’s pretty fashionable to cite incredible performances of athletes, drop WAGs names better than a tabloid Sports section or enter into well-informed arguments over which Olympic team swims-shoots-runs-throws-jumps better (hint: whatever the discipline, the Chinese are a safe bet). Olympic Games represent one of the most noble pursuits in sports, that of reminding people of fair play, health, history and camaraderie. Spectators are also granted some truly fantastic sights at the competitions, some of which cannot be seen in any off-season events (like table tennis, for instance); many disciplines are simply below the radar for most of the year (in this case, years – since Summer and Winter olympics rotate every 2 years). And yet, Olympics are not all that they seem, especially from monetary standpoint

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The Aftermath of Euro-2012: Spain, Poland and Ukraine

lipiec 11th, 2012

It’s been almost two weeks since the Spaniards brought home their well-deserved Henri Delaunay Trophy, commemorating (and praising) their masterful performance on the pitch in Kiev. It’s about time, then, to draw some conclusions in regard to the championship and sum it up in economic terms (and not in vein of the „players full of desire” comment like the one Alan Shearer made). Let’s check how the three biggest winners of the event – Spain, Poland and Ukraine – fare in the aftermath of the tournament…

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G20 in Mexico – New Plans for EU

czerwiec 20th, 2012

Summer’s in full swing, with temperatures around the EU rising not only in the most literal sense. The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship (no wonder it’s called „Euro 2012” for short) is gathering pace, what with quarter-finals beginning as soon as tomorrow. Riots on the stadiums and unruly fans aside, both organizers have been consigned to hosting only, as neither Ukraine nor Poland pulled through to the knockout phase. At the same time, G20 summit in another corner of the globe (Los Cabos, Mexico) put all the current crisis-combating efforts in Europe under close scrutiny…
Not too close though; platitudes and encouragement were the words of the day. Europe was called „the world’s richest bloc” and President Obama read a long list of countries that depend on Europe for goods and funds. This a mere week before a more important European Council Summit on 28-29 July where actions will speak louder than words. In Los Cabos though, diplomats and representatives scurried about intent on solving great problems, while (seemingly) neglecting the „smaller” issues of poverty and hunger; this time, it was Europe that was on everyone’s lips. Przeczytaj resztę tego wpisu »

Facebook IPO – A Flop?

maj 25th, 2012
So this month we’ve seen quite a few things happening, what with Greece possibly opting out of the Eurozone, the first succesful commercial space launch (no, really, it was!), the catching of an escaped penguin (that one was the highlight of the newsreel, apparently) and Apple CEO Steve Jobs Tim Cook foregoing the huge cash payout he might’ve gotten in dividends, and the not-so-surprising news that Obama DID smoke weed, but wasn’t such an outlaw after all. But what May was supposed to be all about was Facebook’s much lauded IPO, a shining beacon of hope in an otherwise rather gloomy economic landscape. And… It flopped. Przeczytaj resztę tego wpisu »

Twitris – a data collecting time capsule

luty 23rd, 2012

If you use Twitter on a daily basis, which is still at a nascent stage when it comes to Polish users, you probably sometimes wonder what happens to the most popular tweets. Do they vanish after a period of time or are they recorded somewhere? Twitris provides an answer to the question.

It is safe to say that Twitris is a tweet-based Semantic Social Web Application that was created by the Kno.e.sis Center in Dayton, Ohio, to help in processing a huge amount of information that pop up about a particular event. The application uses Semantic web technologies that analyze and provide trustworthy data from various sources around the Internet (blogs, microblogs, news, Wikipedia articles, to name a few). It collects and archives topics, hashtags, images and videos and therefore acts like a time capsule (data is not deleted, so searches are available for future research).

Twitris’ main purpose is based on the quickest and simplest understanding of the important events that take place in the world and their influence on social perceptions. In other words, it analyzes people’s reactions to a specific piece of news or a happening. Becasue it is „event centric”, Twitris supply only utmost details on what users are discussing, when and where. The application keeps us informed on the latest news along with a semantic investigation of the whole story.

So far, the most spectacular success is the Occupy Wall Street movement analysis. The application has processed and stored around 4 million tweets from users that participated in the Occupy events. Overall, Twitris has collected all kinds of data from about 40 worldwide events, including the Iran Election in 2009 and the tragic earthquake on Haiti in 2010.

According to the app developers, there is a plan to upgrade the system with more search options and to „individuazlie” it for an ordinary user. For now, the creators choose what to follow and the latest even that is being analyzied on a large scale in the US Presidential Election, 2012.

For more relevant info, I recommend visiting the following websites:

Twitris – Official Twitris Website

Twitris Demo video on YouTube

By Rafał Zieliński

 

VOCABULARY

at a nascent stage – beginning to exist

vanish – to disappear suddenly

amount – a quantity of sth

pop up – appear suddenly or unexpectedly

trustworthy – that you can rely on to be good, honest

influence – the effect that somebody or something has on the way a person thinks or behaves

perception(s) – the way you notice things

spectacular – very impressive

worldwide – affecting all parts of the world

upgrade – to make a computer system more powerful and efficient

individualize – make something different to suit the needs of a particular person

on a large scale – involving many people or things

 

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