Data Science

Facebook was quite vocal about its opposition to Apple's ATT (AppTracking Technology). The social media giant feared that its implementation in iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 would significantly damage its Facebook Audience Network business. They were right. Very, very right. Continue Reading →

As she approached the entrance to the club, she gave the frame of her new prescription AR glasses a gentle squeeze. When she got to the door, it appeared to turn green, indicating recognition that she was over 21 years of age. Then, a message appeared along with a friendly voice asking for the 5 ADA cover charge. She shook her head yes. A moment later, the door opened, which indicated that the transaction had cleared. And so begins a story about life in a trustless, decentralized world − a tale from under the Merkle tree. Continue Reading →

iOS 14.5 featuring "App Tracking Transparency" is rolling out across the Apple universe and, wait… hear that? That's Facebook screaming in pain. Why? Because now, on iOS and iPadOS 14.5, whenever anyone (including Facebook) wants to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, they will have to get your permission. Continue Reading →

With the full understanding that killing 3rd-party cookies in its very popular Chrome browser would impact practically every advertiser, Google, the world's largest seller of advertising, offered its idea of a replacement: FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts). To make a long story short, practically everyone but Google hates the idea. Continue Reading →

Sometime next week, Apple will release iOS 14.5, which will require users to give explicit permission for apps to track them. This has had Facebook's knickers in a knot since the feature was announced, and they've been quite vocal about it. Continue Reading →

More than 500 million Facebook users had their data leaked. What can you do about it? Shelly Palmer offers tips to Bianca Peters and Kayla Mamelak on Fox 5's Good Day New York. Original Airdate: April 6, 2021 Continue Reading →

Ready to be part of a FLoC? That's Google's acronym for a Federated Learning of Cohorts, a toolset supposedly engineered to help take the "psycho" out of psychographics. Continue Reading →

We’re in the middle of a cryptocurrency bubble and an NFT (non-fungible token) craze. For context, the price of a Bitcoin (BTC) is bubbling around $56,000. The price of an Ether (ETH) is just over $1,700. That sounds bubbly, but this column is not about financial advice. I’m going to teach you, step by step, how to build a very small cryptocurrency mining operation so you can get a deeper understanding of the process. Continue Reading →

Whenever I'm asked about the fate of the television business, I always answer, "As goes the next NFL deal, so goes TV." Well, as everyone with even the slightest interest in the subject already knows, the NFL/TV deal is done—but times have changed. Continue Reading →

As part of a smear campaign designed to eliminate her daughter's cheerleading rivals, a woman in Bucks County, Penn., created deepfakes depicting her daughter's rivals naked, drinking, or smoking. Then, according to the Bucks County DA, she sent them to her daughter's coaches and to the victims of her attack with text messages urging the teenaged girls to kill themselves. Continue Reading →