Tuesday News: DBW claims software can detect porn with pinpoint accuracy; Game developer tries to mute reviews with copyright claims; Apple makes a lot from iPads
Creative Commons via Flickr by lonely radio
The Literary Darknet of Independent Publishing – DBW reports on “Book Genome Tools”, a computer code that can map out the number of sex to non sex related scenes in a book and that purports to identify erotic content with up to 99% accuracy. It also claims to identify bestiality books at a 99% accuracy rate. (What counts as bestiality, I’m not sure.) Digital Book World
Video game studio uses copyright claims to censor bad reviews – A video game player posted a negative review on YouTube and enabled the ads feature which allows the YouTube host (the video game player) to receive some ad money every time a person views the review video. The game company had the review taken down citing copyright violations. “We protected our copyright because Total Biscuit has no right to make advertising revenues with our license.” A shit storm ensued and the game company retracted its copyright allegations. The Daily Dot
Netflix Poised to Pass HBO in Paid U.S. Subscribers – I read one article that said Netflix wanted to become HBO before HBO could become Netflix. Well, congratulations, Netflix has reached 30 million paying U.S. customers whereas HBO (owned by Time Warner Inc) has about 28.7 million. The monthly cost is one reason that Netflix has grown so quickly in such a short amount of time.
Apple Adjusts Tablet Strategy – Remember the article yesterday about tablet usage on the rise? According to WSJ, tablets are second only to the iPhone in generating revenue for Apple. Today Apple will unveil a new iPad, iPad Mini, Mac Pro, new display, and possibly a refresh for the macbook pros.
I still don’t see the problem with Amazon selling these kind of books . It’s not a Disney website, they don’t have to be family-oriented. Also, I hope bestiality doesn’t include shapeshifting novels. I love my werewolf romances!
I think you got the problem with the Genome Project spot on, Jane. There are no definitions given. I write shifter fiction, so what is a man when he’s morphed into a leopard? He’s still sentient, but does the fact that he’s half man half leopard make him a beast? So what’s erotica? When the industry working with the issue every day can’t make up its mind, and there is no hard line to be drawn, how can it be defined? There are no resources given for the survey and no methodology. It’s an interesting idea, to help outlets with vast stocks, growing all the time, decide what’s what, but there’s a lot of work needed before it can be offered as a useful tool.
You guys are worried about whether werewolves are going to trigger the bestiality meter. I worry about My Friend Flicka. I’ve tried computer translation, something that should be a lot more straightforward than identifying sex scenes, given that euphemisms and metaphor are common and will probably be a lot more common if it gets stuff around a filter.
Anyway, after Microsoft demoed their live translation, I picked random text from Ford’s Chinese website and ran it through their translator. I could grasp the general topic (greatly helped by the fact that I knew it came from Ford’s website) but not many of the details.