Center for Information Technology and Society

Blog

October 19, 2009

Netflix Prize: Crowdsourcing for cash

In 2006 online movie rental company Netflix announced a contest called The Netflix Prize. The company's challenge? Beat its in-house movie recommendation system by 10%. Prize? $1 million.

More than 50,000 teams participated, but recently one team (a combination of four of the front running teams) announced that it reached 10.05% improvement.

Oct 14
Fish in the fMRI?
Sep 21
Mobile phones around the world
Sep 14
Woman fired for using ALL CAPS in email
Sep 10
Video Games and Music
Sep 3
Social Media and Political Engagement
Aug 31
Google Maps Crowdsources Traffic

View the blog

People

Here’s a random sample of the people that make CITS such an exciting place. Refresh your browser to see a different group of folks.

Barbara Herr Harthorn, Research Affiliate

Barbara Herr Harthorn, Principal Investigator and Director of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center: Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) at University of California at Santa Barbara, is also Associate Professor of Women's Studies, and Co-Director of the Center for Global Studies in the Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research.

S. Courtney Walton, Graduate Student

Pursuing research related to the attitudes and behaviors of mobile phone users, Courtney is interested in the interplay between mobile phone technology, social networks, gender, self-disclosure and perceptions of influence.

Doc Searls, Fellow

Doc Searls' long and varied professional history includes work as a newspaper and magazine editor, radio personality and marketing executive.

Research Initiatives

Social Collaboration and Dynamic Communities

The structure of communities and the myriad patterns of human engagement that comprise societies have always been tied fundamentally to technology.

Global Cultures in Transition

Global Cultures in Transition is a research initiative affiliated with the Center for Information Technology and Society at UCSB.

Technology in Education

Technology has long played a role in education. However, contrary to expectations, the adoption of technology in almost all areas of education has been surprisingly slow.

Upcoming Events

Dec 3
FLS: Patrick McCray
Jan 21
FLS: Nelson Lichtenstein

Ph.D. Emphasis in Technology & Society

CITS supports the Technology & Society Ph.D. emphasis. The emphasis, available to students in participating doctoral programs, provides interdisciplinary training on the relationships between information technologies and society.

Santa Barbara Forums

The Santa Barbara Forums bring together leading thinkers from universities, industry, media, foundations, and the not-for-profit world to exchange ideas about the dynamic interplay among information technology, social activity, and human psychological processes. Discussion and deliberation-focused panels, expert workshops, and design charrettes examine cutting-edge trends and long-term social transformations resulting from the use of information technologies, as well as exploring how to improve engineering with social insights.

About CITS

CITS is dedicated to analyzing the cultural transitions and social innovations associated with new media, particularly in highly dynamic environments, and committed to infusing social insights into engineering innovations.

More about CITS

Media

Apr 9, 2009 to Apr 10, 2009

MEDIA FIELDS 2: INFRASTRUCTURES

MEDIA FIELDS 2: INFRASTRUCTURES
UCSB, April 9-10, 2009
Thursday, April 9: McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020); Friday, April
10: Mosher Alumni House

Media Fields 2: Infrastructures is an interdisciplinary conference on media and infrastructure hosted by graduate students in Film and Media Studies, Communication, and Comparative Literature at UCSB.

Tags: mediafields

Mar 12, 2009

Privacy 2.0: Managing Privacy in Social Networking Environments 3/12 12noon ESB 1001

Engineering Science Building Room 1001

Title: Privacy 2.0: Managing Privacy in Social Networking Environments

Tags: CITS, Facebook, metzger, Privacy, socialnetwork, ucsb, web20

Feb 19, 2009

I Want My iTV - 2/19 1pm McCune Conference Room

The beginning of the talk was cut off.

Tags: CITS, iptv, itv, ucsb

Classes

These courses may be of interest to T&S participants, but may not necessarily fulfill T&S requirements. Click here to see a list of courses that fulfill T&S requirements without a petition.