Netflix drops $1 million algorithm, goes all-in on streaming recommendations

 

Netflix awarded a $1 million prize to a developer team in 2009 for an algorithm that increased the accuracy of the company’s recommendation engine by 10 percent. But today it doesn’t use the million-dollar code, and has no plans to implement it in the future, Netflix announced on its blog Friday.

The post goes on to explain why: a combination of too much engineering effort for the results, and a shift from movie recommendations to the “next level” of personalization caused by the transition of the business from mailed DVDs to video streaming.

Netflix notes that it does still use two algorithms from the team that won the first Progress Prize for an 8.43 percent improvement.

via ars technica

It turns out that all the prize-winning work was perfect for DVD-by-mail where users add something to their queue and, best-case scenario, receive it the following day. But, now that instant streaming is taking over the parameters have changed. Viewers want something to watch immediately and like the option of flipping between several options.

That is why the Netflix updated all of its interfaces to show rows of movies giving you many, many options. It’s a subtle shift from finding the one movie you will love two days from now, to showing all the possible movies you might want to watch right now.

I guess that is the simplest way to put it, but if you want to know more the Netflix personalization science and engineering team, Xavier Amatriain and Justin Basilico, posted a lengthy and detailed, but interesting write-up, Beyond the 5 stars.

DIY: build your own Battlestar Galactica space flight simulator

Six families of makers from the Bay Area are working on building a fully-operational motion controlled flight simulator based on the fighter ship from Battlestar Galactica.

Using the fuselage of a small plane, the team has already built a motion platform that rotates a full dizzying 360 degrees in both the pitch and roll axes. They’re still a ways away from finishing the project, including furnishing the interior of the cockpit to look like the ship from the show, and programming the open source flight simulator software to work with their rig.

The goal is to finish The Viper by this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire on May 19th.

The project is even more impressive when you consider that the team that’s building it mostly consists of middle and high school students, with some help from their parents and mentors.

via Tested

 

You can learn more about all this by visiting the project home, The Viper, or through the Kickstarter fundraising project. Oh, and check out my favorite part of the whole thing, the test model built using legos…I would love to see NASA doing that 🙂

The untold story of American superheroines

Yesterday, I wrote about the need for women writers and artists in comic books, highlighting a very successful Kickstarter project, Womanthology. The project was so successful that they have an offshoot. A documentary about female super heroes that premiered at South by Southwest 2012:

Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s, to the blockbusters of today, WONDER WOMEN! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.

The film introduces audiences to a cast of fictional and real life superheroines fighting for positive role models for girls, both on screen and off, and reminds us of our common human need for stories that tell us we can all be heroes.

On set for the Avengers with green-screen action photos

If you’re like me, then you’re super excited about the new Avengers movie. After last weeks premiere (photos, videos) the anticipation is building.

To whet your appetite I found a full article about being on-set for the movie and green screen photos of the live action.

To the casual observer, Joss Whedon might seem like an odd pick to bring such a hugely anticipated project to the big screen. Known mostly for his TV work like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, some might have expected a more seasoned helmer…

“There was a moment a couple weeks after I had taken the job when I suddenly went, ‘Agh,’ and my wife just turned to me and said, ‘Honey, it’s just the next story,'” laughs the filmmaker. “I went, ‘O.K., thanks. I’m back.’ That was it, because ultimately it is. The financial burden is not on me. As I have said many times, ‘The first weekend is [the audience’s] job. The second weekend is mine.’ If the story is compelling, if I got it right, if people want to come back to it, yay!”

Lightning strikes Bay Bridge in San Francisco eight times in 20 seconds (photo)

There is a storm sweeping down the coast of California. Here in Southern California the rain is pouring down. Yesterday it hit San Francisco with some lightning…

They say that lightning never strikes twice, but this amazing photo proves otherwise.

An incredible eight bolts struck the Bay Bridge in San Francisco last night which was captured in this incredible shot by photographer Phil McGrew, who took the photo through the rain-soaked window of his apartment.

“You can count the strikes, the Bay Bridge has four distinct towers and you can see the lightning hitting each tower.”

via Mail Online

// Thx to Brett Lider

Kickstarter project: Womanthology – massive all-female comic anthology

I read a lot of comics and it is always upsetting that there are no women creating them. There are female characters everywhere in the stories, many super heroines, and yet, nearly all the top female characters have all-male teams working on them.

It is pretty sad, and unfair.

The good news is that a few projects rumbling around are experiencing awesome success. The following Kickstarter project, one of the most successful on the site, covers this exact topic:

 

Womanthology; Massive All Female Comic Anthology!

Womanthology is a large scale anthology comic showcasing the works of women in comics. It is created entirely by over 140 women of all experience levels, including top industry professionals.

The purpose of the book is to show support for female creators in comics and media. There will be multiple short stories, “how to” & interviews with professionals, and features showcasing iconic female comic creators that have passed, such as Nell Brinkley and Tarpe Mills. A Kids & Teens section will also be included, showcasing their work, and offering tips & tricks to help them prepare themselves for their future careers in comics.

Overall, this is pretty much a huge book showcasing what women in comics have accomplished, and what we are capable of 🙂 We are also hoping that by doing this book, it will encourage a new generation of women to pick up the pencil and create!

What if the world’s greatest works of art, when seen one after another, told a story?

What if the world’s greatest works of art, when seen one after another, told a story? A story of people, places, nature and motion. artCircles from Art.com brings you “Van Gogh to Rothko in 30 Seconds,” an epic journey of discovery through the world’s most inspiring art collection.

 

// Thx to Mara Mascaro

Berlin cracks the startup code

“We looked at each other and knew in that moment that we’d be crazy not to move here,” says Ciarán O’Leary, a partner at the German venture capital firm Earlybird. “There was just so much happening—founders everywhere, in every bar, cafe, every corner.”

Berlin…has become a global tech hub, one which foreign money discovered years ago. According to data from Thomson Reuters, 103 Internet startups received global venture capital funding in Germany in 2011, more than in any country besides China and the U.S. Although the numbers are not broken down by city, Berlin is where most German startups congregate.

Encouraged by all the interest—and the money—many Berliners have gotten startup fever. The Berlin Chamber of Commerce reports that 1,300 Internet startups have been founded in the city since 2008, 500 of them last year alone.

 

keep reading at Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Careers on the ocean

A post from Aaron Hartmann, a marine biologist, describes some of diverse of ocean-related jobs out there:

Fisheries observers: Want to improve your sea legs? Fisheries observers live aboard fishing boats and ensure that the animals being harvested are big enough and not in numbers exceeding legal catch limits. Their work is critical for managing ocean harvesting in order to ensure that we don’t drive species to extinction.

Oceanographer: Open-ocean ecosystems, deep-sea communities, hydrothermal vents, oxygen minimum zones, garbage patches, currents, winds, and global seawater circulation—oceanographers do it all (not surprising given their title).

Engineers: Submarines, remote sensing buoy systems, remotely operated underwater vehicles and ocean-scanning satellites—engineers make them all. Thanks to their work, we are constantly going deeper and farther, discovering more about the ocean’s unknowns.

Aquarist: The survival of animals that live in public aquariums worldwide depends on professional aquarists. These people know more about what makes marine critters happy than anyone else, and I know this from experience. Working alongside aquarists at Birch Aquarium, I’ve learned an incredible amount about corals over the past few years.

via Science Minded (w/ 4 more careers)

Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For – finally moving forward

Robert Rodriguez‘s long-awaited sequel to Sin City, his 2005 adaptation of the Frank Miller comics, is finally moving forward.

Dimension Films announced that Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, has secured financing from AR Films, the company founded by Alexander Rodnyansky, and will be released domestically by Dimension. It will begin casting next week with a plan to shoot this summer at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin.

“The first question I am always asked is, ‘When will you make another Sin City?’ ” said Rodriquez. “I have wanted to reteam with Frank Miller and return to the world he created since the day we wrapped the original but have felt a duty to the fans to wait until we had something truly exceptional that would meet and exceed what have become epic expectations. A Dame to Kill For will certainly be worth the wait.”

As in the original Sin City, Rodriguez will co-direct with Miller, who will share screenplay credit with William Monahan.

via THR

 

// Photo – WeI-chieh Chiu