Plus Beijing gets an official air quality app, why people believe nonsense, Twitter 64-bits (and so should you), iMac falls and more

A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Beijing government releases official air quality monitoring app >> Tech In Asia

Boy, has the government come a long way when it comes to air pollution. just half a year ago, if you wanted to know how dangerous the air was in Beijing, your only real option was the US Embassy’s @BeijingAir twitter feed, and the Chinese government was desperately trying to stop you from reading that. Now, not only is the Beijing government publishing real-time numbers for the air’s PM2.5 (deadly particles) count, it has released a smartphone app so that users can check pollution stats while on the go.

OK, good. But – would you trust it to be telling you the truth?

New details on Apple’s budget iPhone 5 >> iLounge Backstage

This new model is actually a cross between the iPhone 5, fifth-generation iPod touch, and… wait for it… the iPod classic. Yes, really. it will have a 4″ screen, like the iPhone 5, a bottom like the latest iPod touch, and a shape that’s most similar to the iPod classic.

The budget iPhone’s raw dimensions are just barely larger than the iPhone 5′s. it is around a half-millimeter taller and a half-millimeter wider–nearly imperceptible differences–as well as almost a millimeter thicker. Beyond shifting from glass and metal to a substantially plastic chassis, the most significant change Apple will make is in the curves.

iPhone 5P for Plastic?

Cash worries hit Phorm shares >> FT.com

Phorm was a sharp faller this week as fears grew that the maker of internet traffic monitoring software would need a rescue fundraising.

The group, which has been focused on emerging markets after facing criticism from privacy campaigners, dropped 39.8% even after announcing a rollout into two new Chinese provinces. “The company is likely to run out of cash around March absent funding,” said Liberum Securities. “Recent share price weakness is potentially unhelpful and reflects financial worries, not progress in the business.”

Remember Phorm? (Subscription required to view article.)

Moving to 64-bit Twitter User IDs >> Twitter Developers

Every entity represented in Twitter’s API has an ID associated with it. as we allocate larger and larger numbers for these IDs, the space required to store them must grow in turn. for example, we migrated Tweet IDs from 32-bit to 64-bit integers back in 2009, then did the same for direct message IDs in 2011. We expect to start allocating user IDs in a 64-bit integer space sometime this year.

This means that if you currently use signed 32-bit integers to track user IDs in your system, you should update your code to use 64-bit integers as soon as you can. To be safe, and to provide a date to aim for, we recommend making this change by July 1, 2013. This includes statically typed variables in your application code and column types in your database code.

Twitter is thinking big.

iMac shipments fall over 40% in 4Q12, say Taiwan makers >> Digitimes

There were an estimated 578,000 new iMacs shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, dropping 42.8% on quarter and 54.8% on year mainly due to delayed supplies of key components, especially panels, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. as the supply of key components began to significantly increase in November 2012, iMac shipments are expected to rebound in the first quarter of 2013, the sources said.

Pretty much what Tim Cook said.

New BlackBerry World for BlackBerry 10 to Include extensive catalogue of songs, latest movies and TV shows

BlackBerry® World(TM) storefront (formally BlackBerry App World(TM)) for BlackBerry 10 will offer one of the most robust music and video catalogs in mobile today. The new BlackBerry World will include an extensive catalog of songs as well as movies and TV shows, with most movies coming to the store the same day they are released on DVD, and next day availability of many current TV series. The competitive offering will feature content from all major studios, music labels and top local broadcast networks. Customers will be able to preview tracks and access the content using multiple payment options.

Instagram v Vine >> Willa’s World

Says it all. Requires six seconds, but no video.

Acer sees success in Chrome; Windows 8 fails to drive sales >> Bloomberg

Chrome-based models accounted for 5% to 10% of Acer’s US shipments since being released there in November, President Jim Wong said in an interview at the Taipei-based company’s headquarters. That ratio is expected to be sustainable in the long term and the company is considering offering Chrome models in other developed markets, he said.

Acer, which last week announced a NT$3.5bn ($120m) write-off on the value of its Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines brands that pushed it into losses, is looking for alternatives as Windows-based computers struggle amid rising popularity of tablets and smartphones. Global computer industry shipments dropped 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter despite Microsoft’s latest operating system being released during the period, according to IDC Corp.

“Windows 8 itself is still not successful,” said Wong, whose company posted a 28% drop in fourth-quarter shipments from a year earlier. “The whole market didn’t come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that’s a simple way to judge if it is successful or not.”

also: won’t release any Windows RT devices before autumn. Instead, it’s getting into the smartphone business.

False beliefs persist, even after instant online corrections

It seems like a great idea: Provide instant corrections to web-surfers when they run across obviously false information on the Internet.

But a new study suggests that this type of tool may not be a panacea for dispelling inaccurate beliefs, particularly among people who already want to believe the falsehood.

“Real-time corrections do have some positive effect, but it is mostly with people who were predisposed to reject the false claim anyway,” said R. Kelly Garrett, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University….

In fact, it has already been attempted: a team from Intel and the University of California, Berkeley, developed Dispute Finder, a plug-in for web browsers that was released in 2009 and would alert users when they opened a webpage with a disputed claim. That project has ended, but Garrett said similar efforts are under way.

Idées fixes are all very well until a lion chews off your head. You’d think evolution might have sorted this out. or maybe it’s not an evolutionary disadvantage?

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Boot up: Apple’s next iPhone?, Phorm fizzles, Instagram v Vine, Acer on Chrome and more

WASHINGTON — Comedian Bill Maher became the latest member of the seven-figure “super PAC” donors club Thursday night, when he announced during a comedy special that he would donate $1 million to the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action.

Maher, the liberal host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” revealed the donation at the conclusion of his hourlong special “CrazyStupidPolitics,” which was streamed live on Yahoo.com on Thursday night.

“I would like tonight to announce a donation to the Obama super PAC, which has the very unfortunate tongue-twister name Priority USA Action. I know, it was named by Borat. But tonight, I would like to give that PAC $1 million,” Maher said, prompting cheers from the audience.

The donation — manifested onstage in the form of an oversize check — will provide a significant boost to the super PAC’s coffers; the group raised less than $59,000 in January and $4.4 million overall.

Earlier this month, the Obama campaign announced a friendlier posture toward the group, allowing administration and campaign officials to appear at the super PAC’s fundraising events. Super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of cash to support political causes but are not permitted to coordinate their activities with candidates they favor.

Maher said that an Obama victory over any of the Republican contenders was “worth a million dollars” and described the donation as “the wisest investment I think I could make.” He encouraged other wealthy donors to give to the group as well.

– Melanie Mason, Tribune Washington Bureau

Bill Maher gives $1 million to ‘super PAC’ supporting Obama

The hype surrounding Siri on the the iPhone 4S essentially took over the tech world upon its release last year. but that enthusiasm was dampened a bit when users realized that Siri was susceptible to network outages like that one that occurred last November. Nevertheless, Apple remains committed to Siri as a central part of its consumer strategy, as evidenced by a new set of iPhone 4S television spots that feature Siri as a central part of your everyday life.

The two spots are called Rock God and Road Trip and offer a less science fiction-style take on Siri’s abilities, opting to make the software truly appear as a normal (albeit invisible) assistant that you talk to in nearly any situation.

Rock God takes us through a day in the life of an aspiring rock musician who asks Siri how play songs from the Clash, and eventually even demands that Siri refer to as “rock god.” the Road Trip spot takes Siri into the car and shows off the software’s ability to answer questions about the constellations, as well as offer real-time location map assistance. Overall, the television spots speak more to mainstream family users rather than the hoodie-clad hipsters with whom Apple has been known to associate itself.

the new television spots are particularly significant considering the timing—one week “after” the Super Bowl. Apple’s apparent decision to snub the annual Super Bowl advertising event was widely noted by analysts and Apple fans alike. Apple’s most famous commercial, 1984, was famously broadcast during the 1984 Super Bowl and since then Apple has been a regular part of the annual display of advertising ingenuity. Instead, the only Apple presence during the Super Bowl came via an ad from Samsung that made fun of those now familiar scenes of people waiting on line to buy the next iPhone or iPad.

For more, see What You need to Know About Siri on iPhone 4S.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

Apple Releases New iPhone 4S TV Spots Focused on Siri

As you settle in to watch tonight’s episode of “Survivor: Republican Presidential Candidate Edition,” which will be airing on Fox News at 9pm with the quaint-sounding title, “Iowa Debate,” it’s worth taking a look at one feature of last Saturday’s episode of the series that didn’t get much attention. That program, which was aired on ABC News, included an interactive real-time feedback feature produced by Yahoo News that — for the first time, ever — not only invited viewers to respond to the show while it was underway, but managed to push a smidgen of that audience feedback back into the live program, where it potentially could have influenced the conversation.

That is, the people who used to be called the audience were actually given a chance to talk back to a television show, by the show itself. [UPDATE: it looks like Fox is doing something similar with its Sioux Falls debate, asking viewers to "Weigh in! Are the candidates answering the questions? During the debate, Tweet with the candidate name and either #answer or #dodge. and watch how the audience responds live."]

Before I go further in describing what Yahoo and ABC did, some disclosure is required. as readers of this site surely know, we’ve long argued for creating meaningful feedback loops using interactive technology, and we have produced several runs of a demonstration of that idea under the banner of http://www.10questions.com”>10Questions.com. and those efforts have led the Knight Foundation to support Personal Democracy’s 2010 version of 10Questions, and also led the Omidyar Network to give us a small planning grant to convene a meeting of political media and technology leaders last August for a lively conversation about ways that organizations and individuals might use tech to open up the 2012 process. Partially as a result of those discussions, the folks at Yahoo News asked us to provide some consulting to them about their online journalism efforts around the election. So, read what follows with that in mind.

While the debate show was underway last Saturday night on ABC TV, Yahoo’s website was featuring a series of live poll questions that reflected the conversation underway on air. (IntoNow, a companion app that Yahoo bought last spring, offered the same option to smart-phone and tablet users.) question 1 was: “What are you hoping to hear the Republican candidates talk about during the debate?” Jobs and the economy beat out health care and taxes by a huge margin of the 29,000 votes that were quickly tabulated. After some discussion of the candidates’ economic proposals, question 3 was: “Are you satisfied with the candidates’ answers on how to stimulate the economy? More than 70% of the 27,500 votes cast said no.

Around this time, I started tweeting what I was seeing from the Yahoo poll, and started wondering if any of this audience feedback would make it back into the actual debate show. and there was plenty of useful fodder. By 55-44, the Yahoo interactive audience said it didn’t like Newt Gingrich’s going after Mitt Romney’s ability to win elections. By 71-29, they said they didn’t like Romney’s $10,000 bet challenge of Rick Perry. and by 67-33, they said they didn’t find Gingrich’s answer to a question about citizen review panels for undocumented immigrants.

But it wasn’t until the last quarter of the program that George Stephanopoulos, co-moderator of the event, tried to inject some audience feedback into the conversation. Alas, he did so quite sheepishly, and didn’t really seem all that enthusiastic about pressing the candidates much after he raised the topic. Here’s the relevant snippet from the transcript:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanna stick with Yahoo because as you– we said at the start, we’re getting real-time feedback from our Yahoo audience. over 12,000 people have already weighed in on Yahoo and ABCNews.com. An– and this is directed at– at Speaker Gingrich and– and– and Governor Romney, because more than 72% say right now they want to hear more from you about your past support for health care mandates.

That’s something that they’re still not fully satisfied with what they’ve heard– (NOISE) from you. And– and Speaker Gingrich– I mean, Governor Romney, let me begin with you because– you were clear. You’ve said you’ve always been against a federal mandate; you supported it in the State of Massachusetts. Where there has been some ambiguity, at least in the past, is whether you think that other states should try the mandate. Back in 2007, you said that you thought it would be good for most states to try it; now you say you wouldn’t encourage other states to try. can you explain that?

GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: States can do whatever the heck they want to do; that’s the great thing about– (APPLAUSE) about our system. I– I think there’s a good deal that we did that people can look at and find as a model, that could–

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: the mandate?

GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: –help other state– if some– if they want to, sure. they could try what they think is best. I– that’s– it’s up to other states to try what works for them. Some will like that; some will think it’s a terrible idea. we had this idea of exchanges where people could buy insurance– from companies, private companies– we have no government insurance, by the way, in our state. It’s all– other than the federal Medicare/Medic– Medicaid programs. It’s all private pay. So people can learn from one another….[etc.]

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Speaker Gingrich– Congresswoman Bachmann pointed out that as– as late as may of this year, you supported some form of the mandate when everyone else had– had come out against it. What finally tipped you over and convinced you that it was unconstitutional?

SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: Well, I think first of all for the federal government to do it is unconstitutional because it means the Congress– the Congress, which could compel you to purchase this item, could compel you to purchase any item. and so the question of freedom would be d– would be missed. and any (MIC NOISE) majority could then decide to make you do virtually anything. I think that’s part of why you’re seeing a dramatic shift back towards limiting the federal government and towards imposing the tenth amendment as a very serious barrier.

I– I’ve been working on health issues since 1974. and I’ve been t– and– and I tried to find a way to break out of where we are, because the fact is the whole third-party payment model, whether public or private, has grown more and more expensive, more and more difficult to sustain. and helped found the Center for Health Transformation that– for that reason, wrote a book called Saving Lives and Saving Money back in 2002.

We need to fundamentally rethink the entire health system to move back towards a doctor-patient relationship…[etc]

At that point, Stephanopolous’s co-moderator, Diane Sawyer, changed the subject to her cough, and whether the government needs to be involved in getting people to take better care of their own health. neither moderator bothered to say anything like, “Thank you Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich for those answers; if you in the audience want to chime in on whether you were satisfied with those clarifications, please go to ABCNews.com or Yahoo.com and vote.” even without that prompt, live votes kept flowing in. the final tally, in fact, shows 28,000 votes in all on the question and a strong swing of more people saying no, they weren’t satisfied with Romney and Gingrich’s answers, than before Stephanopoulos asked his follow-up.

All in all, not a big deal. the ramparts of broadcast journalism did not fall. George and Diane’s perfect coifs did not get disturbed. at best, maybe one percent of the 7.5 million people who reportedly watched the TV show voted on Yahoo’s interactive poll. (The most votes any one question got was about 41,000.) and one can argue that there are all kinds of reasons we shouldn’t make much of these online polls–the ballots can be stuffed by partisans, for one thing. and we hardly want live questioning of prospective presidents turned into a kind of mob stampede. the feedback questions themselves were hardly broad enough to reallyunderstand what people watching might be thinking. But Yahoo’s experiment deserves to be repeated and expanded. If nothing else, last Saturday they showed that there is no technical obstacle to involving a mass audience in a live TV event. Cultural obstacles–like the reluctance of TV “journalists” to share their spotlight with the public–still remain. But as you curl up for tonight’s edition of “Survivor,” and share your random reactions via Twitter, remember that we’re not that far from the vision given eloquent expression by Christopher Locke, one of the co-authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto:

Imagine for a moment: millions of people sitting in their shuttered homes at night, bathed in that ghostly blue television aura. They’re passive, yeah, but more than that: they’re isolated from each other.

Now imagine another magic wire strung from house to house, hooking all these poor bastards up. They’re still watching the same old crap. then, during the touching love scene, some joker lobs an off-color aside — and everybody hears it. Whoa! What was that? People are rolling on the floor laughing. and it begins to happen so often, it gets abbreviated: ROTFL. the audience is suddenly connected to itself.

Letting the Audience Talk Back to the Candidates: What You Missed At Last Saturday’s Presidential Debate [UPDATED]

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