A map plotting the location and device platform of over a quarter billion mobile tweets show predominate use of iPhones in affluent areas and Android in poor regions, with scant representation of Blackberry outside of major cities and its strongholds in Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The interactively explorable globe by MapBox, tweeted by Benedict Evans, pairs data from GNIP and Twitter to light up the world one tweet at a time.
The resulting image of North and Central America depicts the wealthier, urban of United States and Canada (above) as lit up in iPhone red, while in some rural areas and south of the border, there's more Android green and Blackberry purple.
The same pattern emerges in Europe (below), where in the U.K., Scandinavia and most of Central and Western Europe are predominately red, while Spain is mostly green. Blackberry seems to continue to enjoy a greater representation in European capitals than it has retained in the U.S.
In Asia, the pattern repeats again (below), with Japan and Hong Kong dominated by red, along with major cities including Seoul, Shanghai and Taipei. The remains of Samsung's South Korea and HTC's Taiwan are dominated by green. In closer detail, the same applies to the San Francisco Bay Area (below), where more affluent neighborhoods in Marin and Berkeley and from Silicon Valley to San Francisco appear in bright red while green dominates in poorer neighborhoods: West Oakland, East Palo Alto, Hunter's Point, Richmond and Vallejo. And again, Blackberry is represented in a bright purple spot centered in San Francisco's Financial District. Apple continues to gain in the enterprise at Blackberry's expense, and is widely expected to announce a new foray into lower priced handsets to target markets that have, so far, been served almost exclusively by Android's lower end offerings.
The company has already sought to expand its customer base by partnering with smaller, U.S. prepaid carriers who cater to users on a budget, an effort that only began last summer.
Apple has also shown itself willing to earn lower profits to expand its customer base with last fall's iPad mini, aggressively priced at just 50 more than bargain bin devices like Google's Nexus 7 and Microsoft's Surface RT, which major education markets have rejected despite its new fire sale pricing.
Study finds climate change to shrink bison, profitPublic release date: 20-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joseph Craine jcraine@k-state.edu 785-532-3062 Kansas State University
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- As temperatures go up, bison get smaller.
Joseph Craine, research assistant professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University, examined how climate change during the next 50 years will affect grazing animals such as bison and cattle in the Great Plains. The study, "Long-term climate sensitivity of grazer performance: a cross-site study," was recently published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS ONE.
"Bison are one of our most important conservation animals and hold a unique role in grasslands in North America," Craine said. "In addition to their cultural and ecological significance, they're economically important both from a livestock perspective and from a tourism perspective. There are about half a million bison in the world."
Craine analyzed a data set of 290,000 weights, ages and sexes collected from 22 bison herds throughout the U.S. The information came from herds owned by the university's Konza Prairie Biological Station; Oklahoma's Nature Conservancy; Turner Enterprises; and other federal, state, nonprofit and commercial entities. The organizations kept annual records of each animal in the herd and matched the data with the climates of the sites.
Based on differences in sizes of bison across herds, Craine found that during the next 50 years, future generations of bison will be smaller in size and weigh less. Climate is likely to reduce the nutritional quality of grasses, causing the animals to grow more slowly.
"We know that temperatures are going to go up," Craine said. "We also know that warmer grasslands have grasses with less protein, and we now know that warmer grasslands have smaller grazers. It all lines up to suggest that climate change will cause grasses to have less protein and cause grazers to gain less weight in the future."
Craine said the results of climate change in coming decades can already be seen by comparing bison in cooler, wetter regions with those in warmer, drier regions. For example, the average 7-year-old male bison in South Dakota weighed 1,900 pounds, while an average 7-year-old male bison in Oklahoma -- a warmer region -- weighed 1,300 pounds. The cause: grasses in the southern Great Plains have less protein than grasses in the northern Great Plains because of the warmer climate.
"The difference in temperature between those two states is around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about three times the projected increase in temperatures over the next 75 years," Craine said. "That's a pretty extreme difference and beyond the worst-case scenario. But it is a clear indicator that long-term warming will affect bison and is something that will happen across the U.S. over the next 50-75 years."
While the economic cost of smaller bison might not be so great, Craine said that warming might also shrink the revenue of cattle producers.
Although compiling and analyzing data about cattle weights has yet to be done, findings for bison may translate to the more than 90 million cattle in the U.S., Craine said. Cattle and bison share similar physiologies and weight gain for both is typically limited by protein intake.
If the same reduction in weight gain applies to cattle as bison, every temperature increase of one-and-a-half degrees Fahrenheit could cause roughly $1 billion in lost income for cattle producers, Craine said. The reduction would come from either the cost of protein supplements needed to maintain similar weight gains before climate change, or from a loss of income because of reduced weights. Scientists predict that temperatures in the U.S. will increase by 6-8 degrees Fahrenheit during the next 75 years.
The study is an offshoot of Craine's ecology research with the Konza Prairie Biological Station, which is jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. Managed by the university's Division of Biology, the Konza Prairie spans about 8,600 acres.
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Study finds climate change to shrink bison, profitPublic release date: 20-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Joseph Craine jcraine@k-state.edu 785-532-3062 Kansas State University
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- As temperatures go up, bison get smaller.
Joseph Craine, research assistant professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University, examined how climate change during the next 50 years will affect grazing animals such as bison and cattle in the Great Plains. The study, "Long-term climate sensitivity of grazer performance: a cross-site study," was recently published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS ONE.
"Bison are one of our most important conservation animals and hold a unique role in grasslands in North America," Craine said. "In addition to their cultural and ecological significance, they're economically important both from a livestock perspective and from a tourism perspective. There are about half a million bison in the world."
Craine analyzed a data set of 290,000 weights, ages and sexes collected from 22 bison herds throughout the U.S. The information came from herds owned by the university's Konza Prairie Biological Station; Oklahoma's Nature Conservancy; Turner Enterprises; and other federal, state, nonprofit and commercial entities. The organizations kept annual records of each animal in the herd and matched the data with the climates of the sites.
Based on differences in sizes of bison across herds, Craine found that during the next 50 years, future generations of bison will be smaller in size and weigh less. Climate is likely to reduce the nutritional quality of grasses, causing the animals to grow more slowly.
"We know that temperatures are going to go up," Craine said. "We also know that warmer grasslands have grasses with less protein, and we now know that warmer grasslands have smaller grazers. It all lines up to suggest that climate change will cause grasses to have less protein and cause grazers to gain less weight in the future."
Craine said the results of climate change in coming decades can already be seen by comparing bison in cooler, wetter regions with those in warmer, drier regions. For example, the average 7-year-old male bison in South Dakota weighed 1,900 pounds, while an average 7-year-old male bison in Oklahoma -- a warmer region -- weighed 1,300 pounds. The cause: grasses in the southern Great Plains have less protein than grasses in the northern Great Plains because of the warmer climate.
"The difference in temperature between those two states is around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about three times the projected increase in temperatures over the next 75 years," Craine said. "That's a pretty extreme difference and beyond the worst-case scenario. But it is a clear indicator that long-term warming will affect bison and is something that will happen across the U.S. over the next 50-75 years."
While the economic cost of smaller bison might not be so great, Craine said that warming might also shrink the revenue of cattle producers.
Although compiling and analyzing data about cattle weights has yet to be done, findings for bison may translate to the more than 90 million cattle in the U.S., Craine said. Cattle and bison share similar physiologies and weight gain for both is typically limited by protein intake.
If the same reduction in weight gain applies to cattle as bison, every temperature increase of one-and-a-half degrees Fahrenheit could cause roughly $1 billion in lost income for cattle producers, Craine said. The reduction would come from either the cost of protein supplements needed to maintain similar weight gains before climate change, or from a loss of income because of reduced weights. Scientists predict that temperatures in the U.S. will increase by 6-8 degrees Fahrenheit during the next 75 years.
The study is an offshoot of Craine's ecology research with the Konza Prairie Biological Station, which is jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. Managed by the university's Division of Biology, the Konza Prairie spans about 8,600 acres.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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The United States government's controversial data collection practices reportedly helped thwart plots to bomb the New York City subway system and New York Stock Exchange, Federal Bureau of Investigation deputy director Sean Joyce said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing this morning in Washington, DC. Information from the programs -- one focused on phone networks and another on the internet -- was also said to serve a role in stopping a separate bombing threat at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, which ran a cartoon depicting Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
National Security Agency director Keith Alexander added that, "50 terror threats in 20 countries" were stopped as a result of the controversial information gathering practices. "I would much rather be here today debating this than explaining why we were unable to prevent another 9/11'' attack," he said. When asked if the NSA is technologically capable of "flipping a switch" and listening in on Americans (whether by phone or internet), Alexander flatly answered, "no."
Update: According to a Wired report, the man named during today's hearing in connection with the New York Stock Exchange bombing, Khalid Ouazzani, wasn't convicted of anything regarding the NYSE. Rather, his plea cites various money laundering in connection with terrorists, and his lawyer said, "Khalid Ouazzani was hot involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange."
For the occasion of the first Indiewire Influencers list, a survey of 40 people and companies impacting the direction of the film industry, the Los Angeles Film Festival hosted a panel in downtown Los Angeles on Monday night sponsored by DIRECTV and Loyola Marymount University - Los Angeles featuring several people from the list.
The hour-long conversation opened with a recent news hook: A recent statement made by Steven Spielberg, during an appearance at USC, that the film industry is on the verge of implosion. With panelists currently embroiled in the process of addressing changes to the marketplace of independent film, the reactions to this statement revolved less around the veracity of Spielberg's statement and instead focused on what kinds of models may come next.?
READ MORE: The 2013 Indiewire Influencers
Indiewire editor-in-chief Dana Harris moderated the discussion, which featured innovators from across the landscape of independent film production and distribution (click their names to learn more about them): Emily Best, Founder and CEO of Seed&Spark; Nicolas Gonda, Co-Founder of theatrical on-demand platform Tugg; Chris Horton, Associate Director of Sundance Institute's Artist Services; Stephan Paternot, Co-Founder and Chairman of film financing platform Slated; Jay Van Hoy, producer; and David Wilson, Co-Founder of the True/False Film Festival.?
The following edited transcript highlights some of the key exchanges from the panel.
STEPHAN PATERNOT: If there are enough artists who are all throwing darts at the wall, some of them are really going to emerge and blow up big. We just haven't seen that in the film industry quite yet. We're seeing a lot of noise being made by crowdfunding campaigns, but when you see one big, successful film get out there without going through a traditional studio, that's when everybody's lights will go off. We're waiting for that moment to occur.
JAY VAN HOY: What that doesn't acknowledge is the talent behind the actual marketers and distributors. There are some extremely talented marketers and publicists behind the success of these films who aren't acknowledged for what they do. They work with you, as a filmmaker, to help position your film to the public and understand what's exciting about it. I think that, more and more, distribution companies offer that service. It can be a full-time job and not everybody's the best at it. I don't know if every director is good at being a marketer or cuts their best trailer. Some of them are very gifted at it. But they may not have a relationship with a bright trailer cutter, whereas someone doing this exclusively for 10 years can make these connections really quickly.
"By putting crowdfunding ahead of pre-production, you're pulling some basic inefficiencies out of the system."
SP: You're absolutely right. But what's happened is that those experts are now for hire. You might create a film and then do a rental model as opposed to giving up the rights, giving up final cut, giving up everything and then having a fight with the distributor or the one investor who put up $10 million for your film. So you now have more options.?
EMILY BEST:? The music business had an advantage: The creator and the product were never divorced from one another. You would associate the song you would listen to with the band's name. That's not true in the film business. The people in this room pay attention to who directed a film they like. For the rest of the universe, they think of the name of the movie or the name of the actors. The name of the creator is not usually involved. Therefore, creators are starting over from zero to create a new audience for each film. It's a highly, highly inefficient system. Every time musicians release an album, they build a fan base for the band; the next time they release an album, they build a new fan base for that album on top of the existing one from the previous album. From album to album, they're growing steadily. One of the most exciting things about crowdfunding is that it doesn't divorce the product from the creator. So you're building an audience from that film for your whole career.?
By putting crowdfunding ahead of pre-production, you're pulling some basic inefficiencies out of the system. You used to have to hire all these super-talented people, but you have to spend a lot less money if you have a few thousand influencers who are already marketing your film ahead of its festival release. We have a lot to talk about around what day and date means. Does it happen at a festival? Could you do a Tugg campaign during a festival and leverage all that press? We haven't figured out the most efficient ways to combine all these things. I agree that we have to find a way to incorporate the experts -- maybe as producers. Maybe they're your social media producers.?
SP: Once enough films go through this process, a new type of distributor will emerge that specializes in that, optimizes that and makes that their business. It's not like, "Can we make everything from the old guard fit into the new guard?" There's this groundswell of filmmakers finding new means to build audiences and investors online. At Slated, that's all we do. It's happening faster and requires a lot of work. It'll get easier with time. Honestly, we view it as a 10-year endeavor. In 10 years, filmmakers will grow up experiencing it this way. They will never know the pain that we've gone through before the revolution kicked in.
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Public release date: 20-Jun-2013
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