Thứ Hai, 26 tháng 9, 2016
Welcome to the 2016 presidential election. Here we have a photograph of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton standing before a crowd full of excited young supporters at a campaign event in Orlando... except the group of "millennials" greeted Clinton by literally turning their backs to her. You're probably asking yourself what could possibly be more important than looking directly at the potential first female president of the United States. A selfie, of course. The iconic photograph, captured by Barbara Kinney — a former White House photographer for Bill Clinton who is currently working full time for the Hillary Clinton campaign — perfectly highlights the essence of this generation's technological priorities. 2016, ya'll. pic.twitter.com/M0AZceVagQ — Victor Ng (@victomato) September 25, 2016 Though it is unclear whether the massive group selfie session was requested by Clinton herself, the candidate is no stranger to the art of selfie taking. Selfie master Hillary Clinton posing with a supporter after speaking at a campaign event at City Garage in Baltimore, Sunday, April 10, 2016. Image: Patrick Semansky/ap photo Hillary Clinton cheesing for a selfie with a group of supporters at a rally at California State University on June 3, 2016. Image: John Locher, File/ap photo What a time to be alive. Mashable has reached out to Barbara Kinney for comment.
Thứ Hai, 22 tháng 8, 2016
Democratic party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has an app for voters so it's only natural that her GOP opponent, Donald Trump, would roll out his own as well. The America First app was quietly launched Thursday and since its release there's been very little chatter about it, which may be due to app's relatively unremarkable offerings. As you might expect, it allows you to receive updates on the campaign's event schedule, get messages from Trump's social media feed and offers links to the campaign's Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts. All fairly standard political app fare. Image: america first But where the app gets interesting is user engagement. After spending some time with the app, it appears that rumblings from some that Trump's presidential campaign is doubling as his own reality show aren't far off the mark. Here are just a few examples: 1. On the app's badges page (you accrue points for certain actions, which earn you badges), the entry-level badge labels users as Apprentice. That's right, the same name of the reality show (The Apprentice) Trump is most famous for. Coincidence? 2. In the Trivia section of the app, the questions mostly revolve, appropriately, around politics. However, one question really stands out: "Which city does NOT have a Trump Tower?" That has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with branding. Real estate branding in the Trump for president app, go figure. 3. Let's go back to the badges page. The top badge, which requires the most points, is called Big League, and is represented by a White House icon. Right below that? Merch! The second highest level is dubbed MAGA (presumably, representing Trump's catchphrase, "Make America Great Again") and the icon is the now famous hat bearing his well-known slogan. So in the realm of app user achievements, the only level comparable to winning the White House level is represented by commercial swag from Trump. Again, it appears that branding "trumps" politics in this app. Image: america first In a report published in June, Vanity Fair editor Sarah Ellison claimed that, at one point, Trump sought permission from NBCUniversal to continue hosting The Apprentice even if he won the White House. In that context, the app's branding approach makes a lot more sense. Overall, the app is fairly well done, but when we tried to send an invite to a colleague to join the app, it ended up in her spam email filter. Make of that what you will. The app is available as a free download in the Apple App Store and on Google Play and, to be fair, it enjoys a favorable user rating on both platforms. However, your mileage may vary.
Thứ Sáu, 10 tháng 6, 2016
Did Google manipulate search for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton? Is this a conspiracy?! Not likely. And no. We're asking these questions because online viral video site SourceFed believes it's stumbled onto the biggest search and political scandal of this election season. In a video posted Thursday, SourceFed's Matt Lieberman reports that "Google has been actively altering search recommendations in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign." The allegation comes from SourceFed's video editor Spencer Reed (who does not appear in the video) and is based on disparities they found in Google's autocomplete function. Autocomplete will start to guess at your search query as you type. It's something Bing and Yahoo do, as well, but Reed and Lieberman contend Google does it differently and in such a way as to protect Clinton and her presidential aspirations. As evidence, the video shows how when you start typing in "Hillary Clinton cri" the site does not complete it as "Hillary Clinton Criminal Investigation." Bing does autocomplete with "crimes" and "criminal investigation." By contrast, a search of "Donald Trump ra" does fill in with "racist" on Google, as well as Bing. On the other hand, a Google autocomplete search of "Donald Trump indi" brings up a search for Indiana and India, while it returns "indiscretions" as the second option in Bing. If SourceFed is right, then shouldn't Google at least be consistent? When we searched "Hillary Clinton ema" the second autocomplete result was "Hillary Clinton email charges." When asked by Mashable about the autocomplete charges, a Google spokesperson emailed this statement: Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works. Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person's name. More generally, our autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms. SourceFed seems to be confusing actual search results with these recommendations, which are essentially Google's automated guesswork. Is it consistent? No. Certainly, "racist" is an offensive term and yet Trump still gets stuck with it. This may have something to do with Google's algorithm looking for more context. The "Donald Trump racist snl" recommendation, for example, actually takes you to CNN's video discussion of the SNL Trump campaign ad parody. Sources tell Mashable that Google's focus is on delivering useful and trustworthy information. In addition, the company doesn't use people to manually rank results or even these recommendations. They have algorithms for that with, obviously, rules, like the one that seems to have a problem with some "offensive terms" when they appear alongside people's names. The company is, sources tell us, always working on improving autocomplete. That could mean that Clinton will soon find her name married to "crimes," or that Donald Trump will finally be able to shed the autocomplete term "racist." Or it may mean nothing at all. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
