based

Twitter has announced it will run personalised advertisements based on what an individual user is writing about. It's an attractive proposition for advertisers but may come across as creepy to users of the social media service. Most Twitter ads are ... based on the people a user follows and the types of messages that users retweet (or share with other users). (Source; pcworld.com ) The new advertising model will go beyond that and incorporate technologies from two popular ad-funded web giants. Like Facebook, Twitter ads can now be targeted to people of a particular gender, living in a particular ... (view more)

Two techies have each won $25,000 after coming up with plans to block automated "robocalls." The men came up with ideas based around the way some websites check a human rather than a machine in completing a form. The contest is run by the Federal ... Trade Commission (FTC), which regularly deals with complaints that companies have violated rules that restrict robocalls, or automated marketing calls where you pick up the phone only to hear a recorded message. Although the FTC is continuing to pursue offenders through its regulatory and legal powers, it wanted to find technical measures that could ... (view more)

Regarding our vote on February 15, 2012 -- I have read approximately 1,000 comments from readers, along with their ballots. I will provide insight with regard to the findings, as well as address some issues. This post is approximately 1,500 words. I ... realize some of you won't want to read all of it and just want the results. So, I would like to begin by saying this: According to the results of the vote, I am pleased to announce that Infopackets will remain online. Moving forward: all users will retain access to everything that they have now and well into the future. This includes free access ... (view more)

Google is rumored to be testing a search tool for Dish Network-powered televisions. It would allow users to search both for programming on the satellite broadcasts and for online videos. According to the Wall Street Journal, the service is being ... tested with a small group of employees. Based on Android and designed for use with a plug-in keyboard, the service would work with Internet-enabled television sets. Those are becoming more popular with the advent of streaming versions of rental services such as Netflix and even Blockbuster. (Source: wsj.com ) The idea appears to be that the service ... (view more)

Wikipedia.com is planning to introduce a feature which will color-code parts of its articles in order to show how reliable the information is likely to be. It's a solution to an ongoing problem that has led to a planned freeze on edits to entries ... about living individuals. The WikiTrust feature analyzes the text on a page and ranks each piece of text based on how recently it was edited. This is based on the idea that the longer a piece remains unchanged, the more likely it is that it is trustworthy -- otherwise (it is reasoned), Wikipedia's users would have overturned the edit. The feature ... (view more)

In a well designed style-based document, few, if any, paragraphs are actually left in the Normal style. Since most paragraphs have a specific role to play in a document, they should be formatted with the appropriate style. Normal style is typically ... reserved for paragraphs with unique or ad hoc formatting. Normal style's main role is to hold the document's basic formatting, particularly the document's base font. That way, if you need to change the base font, you need only to change the Normal style. Once Normal is changed, other styles based on Normal will change as well. Changing the Document ... (view more)

Recall -- Two weeks ago, I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their picks for a reasonably-priced economy class printer that has refillable ink cartridges with the print head built onto the cartridge. " ... There are in fact many bubble-jet / ... ink-jet printers on the market today that sell for under $50 dollars. The printers are priced low because ink is consumable -- and in many cases, the name brand cartridges cost almost as much as the printer. I have owned my Canon Bubble Jet BJ-200 printer for over 10 years now and it prints as good as the first day I bought it. The reason for this ... (view more)