... what they like, and who their friends are.

It does this by extending the value of the social graph and first-party data to sharply differentiate Facebook's offering from Google.  

Reports Mr Williams: "The new offering extends the value of 'Likes' and the social graph to search, a move that can revolutionize accuracy, value, and relevance — especially as consumers perform more and more local searches using mobile devices, an area where Google has struggled."

With the launch of Social Graph, people who want to search beyond Facebook will see web search results from Microsoft's Bing, along with social context and additional information such as Facebook pages.

This approach is reminiscent of the days when Google was the default search engine for the Yahoo Directory.

Over time Williams expects Facebook to cut into Google's desktop and mobile search volume, particularly in local and lifestyle (think restaurants, products, services, and what to do in a city).

Eventually, predicts Williams, search dollars will transition away from Google and toward Facebook, where large incremental revenue streams will complement existing revenue streams from desktop display, mobile and its gaming currency.

"The fact that this is a different kind of search – leading to results pages that feature precise answers, rather than links – will create new socially relevant queries that just don't happen on other engines.

And Google is unlikely to be the only casualty.

"People will look for their friends in particular cities, making search more locally and personally relevant. They'll also check out who knows whom. A user could theoretically search for which of their friends knows Kevin Bacon, which will steal traffic from networking platforms like LinkedIn.

Curiously, though, Mr Williams' prognosis fails to factor-in the near certainty of a Google counter-attack.

Read the original unabridged AdAge article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... efficient algorithm for ranking web pages.

But as the world now knows, Google's mind-boggling success was built on crawling the web via software that visits every single web page ito build a vast index of online content.

Says entrepreneur Gilad Elbaz, who founded Common Crawl: “The web represents, as far as I know, the largest accumulation of knowledge, and there’s so much you can build on top.

“But simply doing the huge amount of work that’s necessary to get at all that information is a large blocker; few organizations have had the resources to do that.”

Mr Elbaz also points out that new search engines are just one of the things that can be built using an index of the web. He also notes that Google’s translation software was trained using online text available in multiple languages.

“The only way they could do that was by starting with a massive crawl. That’s put them on the way to build the Star Trek translator,” he says.

“Having an open, shared corpus of human knowledge is simply a way of democratizing access to information that’s fundamental to innovation.”

Around five years ago, Elbaz noticed that researchers with new ideas about how to use web data felt compelled to take jobs at Google because it was the only place they could test those ideas.

But Common Crawl’s data, Elbaz claims, will make it easier for novel ideas to gain traction, both in the world of startups and in academic research.

Read the original unabridged TechnologyReview article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... Unilever and Coca-Cola, both of whom plan to harness the technique to their entire ad-testing programme during 2013.

According to the MediaPost source article, Millward Brown developed the technology in partnership with Affectiva, the developer of a facial coding technique known as Affdex.

The technique uses proprietary software to interpret how viewers feel about ads via their facial expressions - feelings that often are not communicated verbally in respondent surveys.

Graham Page, head of Millward’s neuroscience practice, believes that facial analysis “adds depth to our understanding and builds on our validated metrics to deliver new insights in an easily applied and cost-effective way.”

Millward said it has used facial analysis on over 400 advertising research projects around the world since partnering with Affectiva.

It expects to apply the technique to thousands of projects during 2013.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... all purchases made via tablets.

A separate Forrester study, which examines US mobile retail sales, estimates that m-commerce will increase from $12 billion in 2013 to $31 billion in 2017.

Nonetheless, the sector remains a minuscule part of overall e-commerce dollars.

Forrester's mobile payments forecast is divided into three parts:

1. Mobile proximity, or in-store, payments.
    
2. Mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) and remittances.
    
3. Mobile remote commerce, or m-commerce.

Proximity payments are expected to be the fastest-growing segment, increasing 137% to $41 billion by 2017.

In that time, such payments will mushroom from just 6% of mobile payments to 45%, while m-commerce drops from about 90% to 50%.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... hierarchical language, and how the brain processes language in a hierarchical way, depending on the stimuli during key stages of development. 

In an exclusive video interview with Singularity Hub, Kurzweil gave one of his first interviews since the December announcement that he joined Google as Director of Engineering.

Speaking with Singularity Hub Founder Keith Kleiner, Mr Kurzweil discussed his new role, how his research interests connect, and how technology will advance to produce a 'cybernetic friend'.

“The project we plan to do is focused on natural language understanding,” said Kurzweil. “We want to give computers the ability to understand the language that they’re reading.”

Kurzweil continued: “I envision some years from now that the majority of search queries will be answered without you actually asking. It’ll just know this is something that you’re going to want to see.”

While it may be take some years to develop this technology, Kurzweil personally thinks it will be embedded into whatever Google offers currently, rather than as a stand-alone product.

Read the original unabridged SingularityHub article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... “to eliminate [traditional] surveys and instead focus on social feedback as their primary source for customer experience information.”

Moreover, claims the firm, clients will use consumers' online habits to discover how their competitors are doing by benchmarking competitors' social data.

They will also use that competitive data for product creation. NewBrandAnalytics predicts that more than a third of businesses will tailor their products explicitly to what their competition’s online customers are saying.

Also, social intelligence will make real-time performance evaluation common, as companies figure out how to assess their performance from online chatter, even to the extent of using comments - from employees, customers and consumers - to help make hiring and firing decisions!
 
Perhaps most significantly, the trend suggests that social media currents won't belong only to companies' marketing departments.

The firm predicts that 'buzz content' will infiltrate into the decision-making processes of operations, human resources, customer service, and product development.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... a proprietary real-time bidding platform that plugs into exchanges and supply-side platforms, including Google’s AdX and PubMatic.

The platform enables web-wide retargeting of Amazon shoppers based on their browsing and purchase habits on the company's owned and operated properties, and looks to be a genuine game changer.

Also, given Amazon's 'recommendation engine' and general deal-closing prowess, the company's consumer data should leave advertisers standing in line.

Over the past twelve months Amazon has slowly rolled out the platform. By the first quarter of 2013 it will introduce a self-serve real-time bidding platform for media buyers, including agency trading desks, which will be able to use the platform to manage their own buys.

Amazon, as usual, remains tighter than a clamshell: “Amazon has a long-standing practice of not commenting on future plans, so we can’t speak to a self-service platform,” declared an Amazon spokesperson.

The shopping Goliath reportedly has yet to demonstrate the platform to agency media buyers. But according to trading desk executives with knowledge of Amazon’s plans, the platform is expected to let buyers leverage Amazon’s valuable data — to an extent.

The self-serve RTB platform would hypothetically function similarly to Facebook’s Ads Manager in terms of how buyers could target their ads.

Amazon, understandably, is not about to hand over its customer's names or individual buying histories. 

The firm is highly protective of its data and wary of providing outside access, so like Facebook, Amazon's platform would enable buyers to create targeting segments such as “men; aged 25-34; in California; interested in high-definition TVs; who have purchased how-to books and home improvement tools.”

Darren Herman, chief digital media officer at The Media Kitchen, said he’s bullish on Amazon’s market opportunity.

“I think they could become one of bigger media companies in the next five years or so. You have to realize that they’re capturing a ton of demand through their owned-and-operated sites and have people shopping right now.”

Read the original unabridged AdWeek article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... computers will be able to recognise and interact with human sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.

Come 2017, says IBM, computers will be much more aware of the world around them, and able to understand it.

The company's annual "5 in 5" list which predicts the five trends in computing that will arrive in five years' time, reads exactly like a tally of the five human senses - predicting computers with sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.

In an interview with Mashable online magazine. IBM's vice president of innovation Bernie Meyerson described the technology as "a foundationally different way of thinking of computing".

"You have to change how you think about absorbing data. You can't just take a picture and file the picture. You have to treat the picture as an entity at a very high level, as opposed to just a bunch o' bits."

"It [cognitive computing] makes for some very interesting shifts in capability," he adds. "That's a rather profound sort of driver."

However, Meyerson denies that the technology equates to articifial intelligence. "This is really an assistive technology," he asserts. "It can't go off on its own. It's not designed to do that. What it's designed to do, in fact, is respond to a human in an assistive manner.

Read the original unabridged Mashable article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... 18,000 square-foot facility, claimed to  be "an Epcot Center for aging" that would draw consumers and industry leaders from across the country. The goal is to create what essentially would be a mall for fashionable and functional senior products, from furniture to cosmetics.

The project will aso serve as a 'living laboratory' in whch startups and other companies can demonstrate and test new products with a specific set of consumers.

One section will include a model home, called an 'idea house,' that will enable entrepreneurs to test and collect data on products designed to allow seniors to stay in their homes longer.

For instance, the bathroom might include new robotic-tub technology that helps lift seniors out of the bath. Another section will be filled with "eldertainment," such as virtual-reality games that promote fitness, mobility or rehabilitation.

One of InnovateLTC's clients is a Dutch company called Vita Care, which is developing "therapeutic motion simulation" systems that use video and vibrating chairs to simulate activities such as motorcycle riding or jet skiing. 

Assuming success stateside, it's seems invitable that the InnovateLTC concept will extend to Western Europe and beyond.

According to the company's website, InnovateLTC claims to be "deeply entrenched in academic research and has connections to several of the nation’s top universities".

Read the original unabridged AdAge article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... Californian firm Drawbridge Inc which matches internet users according to the 200 million (and soaring) devices currently in use worldwide.

According to Cisco, by 2015 there will be more than 15 billion network-connected devices - twice the world's population.

Although tracking ads already follow people as they browse different websites, a BBC News report reveals that Drawbridge uses statistics to do the same across devices.

The Drawbridge system gathers information on which gadgets are being used and what is being done with them. enabling the firm to build 'anonymous' profiles of different users.

The statistics generate a probability for which profiled user might be on that particular smartphone, tablet or laptop.

To date, Drawbridge reports, it has amassed profiles connecting 200 million users to the different electronic gadgets and applications they use in separate locations every day.

Drawbridge's technology is based on cookies - planting these on a device when its browser visits a particular website.

The cookie also logs which browser is being used to access which site as well as the time of the visit.

The firm then compares data gathered by these cookies, using 'information theory' to calculate the activity patterns of individual users.

The firm claims it uses no personally identifiable data such as location or log-in names.

Read the original unabridged BBC News article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.