News by Subject Technology & Engineering

A new study by Murtuza Jadliwala, assistant professor of computer science at The University of Texas at San Antonio, examines wearable technology and whether it affects drivers' concentration. Jadliwala and his collaborators discovered that while a driver texting with a wearable device can marginally reduce their level of distraction, it ultimately makes texting while driving just as dangerous as with an ordinary cell phone.

Using the photo-sharing site Instagram as a test case, Columbia researchers demonstrate how two common recommendation algorithms amplify a network effect known as homophily in which similar or like-minded people cluster together. They further show how algorithms turned loose on a network with homophily effectively make women less visible; they found that the women in their dataset, whose photos were slightly less likely to be 'liked' or commented on, became even less popular once recommendation algorithms were introduced.

An algorithm tool developed by Purdue Polytechnic Institute faculty will help law enforcement filter out and focus on sex offenders most likely to set up face-to-face meetings with child victims.

An Oxford University study published in Nature advises that people's digital remains, such as, social media activity and online history, should be viewed in the same way as the human body, and treated with care and respect rather than manipulated for commercial gain. The paper suggests regulation akin to those used in museums and commercial use of organic human remains, is the best way to create explicit boundaries around acceptable afterlife activity and grief exploitation.

As Instagram is viewed as a place for building the ideal self, some users have created fake Instagram (Finsta) accounts to buck this trend. But are these 'fake' accounts really there to express the real, sometimes ugly self, or is there a deeper motivation? A recent study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, found that users align their real Instagram accounts (Rinsta) with their actual self and to escape from reality, whereas Finsta to foster social bonding.