After hearing my friends frequently sharing stories of a prolific figure in Neasden, I decided to investigate in an attempt to find out the truth about this figure they know only as "Salvo".
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Sunday, 13 March 2011
An Interview with Sam from Black Polaris
Black Polaris are a Herts-based metal 5-piece fronted by vocalist Sam Burgess. I caught up with him in the street and picked his brain for a couple of minutes before he took to the stage at the Camden Barfly.
More information can be found on Black Polaris on their official Facebook page here
Google News
Google have undergone a serious transformation since its founding at a search engine in 1998.
It now truly transcends this status by offering services that have and still are revolutionising the way things are done on the world wide web. Google Earth is one of the most innovative user-friendly satellite tools, Google acquired YouTube in 2006 and has begun branching into renewable energy production.
As a company, Google have dominated a number of markets. Google News is, however, perhaps a different story.
The words together give the unjust impression that Google as a company have branched into the production of reporting, becoming a kind of trans-medium news behemoth. This is not the case, and Google do not take part in the production or reporting in any way, shape or form.
Google do as Google know - they filter. The Google News homepage is an aggregation of top stories from a number of respectable news sources - The Guardian, BBC, the FT and so forth. The stories are filtered and arranged in order of relevance and the homepage is reportedly not edited or managed by judgement, instead relying on an algorithm to select stories. This could potentially remove some of the bias Philip Schlesinger spoke of with regards to how the news is selected, but it must be remembered that, since the news presented by Google is simply an aggregation, it is still given precedence through assumed relevance by the original producer. This means that whilst a lack of human editing body capable of bias gives a sense of freedom from socio-political partiality, the presentation of Google News is only as impartial as the governing bodies behind the producers allow their own sites to be.
It is possible, however, to become your own editor of the Google News homepage. Working much like an RSS feed, the reader can select sources and news media - subject to what is topically and geographically relevant to them.
Though this isn't a revolutionary system, it's a step in the right direction for how news is broadcast and the Google brand will give exposure to new ways of consuming news media. The lack of monitoring in lieu of a electronic editing system is a controversial topic, one that could cost jobs when the algorithm is fully realised and news media moves more and more in the direction of Google News aggregators.
It now truly transcends this status by offering services that have and still are revolutionising the way things are done on the world wide web. Google Earth is one of the most innovative user-friendly satellite tools, Google acquired YouTube in 2006 and has begun branching into renewable energy production.
As a company, Google have dominated a number of markets. Google News is, however, perhaps a different story.
The words together give the unjust impression that Google as a company have branched into the production of reporting, becoming a kind of trans-medium news behemoth. This is not the case, and Google do not take part in the production or reporting in any way, shape or form.
Google do as Google know - they filter. The Google News homepage is an aggregation of top stories from a number of respectable news sources - The Guardian, BBC, the FT and so forth. The stories are filtered and arranged in order of relevance and the homepage is reportedly not edited or managed by judgement, instead relying on an algorithm to select stories. This could potentially remove some of the bias Philip Schlesinger spoke of with regards to how the news is selected, but it must be remembered that, since the news presented by Google is simply an aggregation, it is still given precedence through assumed relevance by the original producer. This means that whilst a lack of human editing body capable of bias gives a sense of freedom from socio-political partiality, the presentation of Google News is only as impartial as the governing bodies behind the producers allow their own sites to be.
It is possible, however, to become your own editor of the Google News homepage. Working much like an RSS feed, the reader can select sources and news media - subject to what is topically and geographically relevant to them.
Though this isn't a revolutionary system, it's a step in the right direction for how news is broadcast and the Google brand will give exposure to new ways of consuming news media. The lack of monitoring in lieu of a electronic editing system is a controversial topic, one that could cost jobs when the algorithm is fully realised and news media moves more and more in the direction of Google News aggregators.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)