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“The Runner” Trailer for the 2012 Redstone Film Festival.

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Redstone Film Festival 2012, "The Runner"

Our lives are awash in the blue-white light of our smartphone screens. It is hard to walk down a street without bumping into someone, often literally, who is busily typing into their smartphones. More and more Americans are cancelling home phone service in favor of using their cell as their primary number. Servicing or even purchasing a non-smartphone is becoming harder and harder. Our phones keep our schedules, take our photos and videos, store our contacts, and –oh yeah– make phone calls. One of the primary reason we love our smartphones is the ability to keep in contact with friends far away. The pioneer application for this is of course Facebook. Facebook has altered the way this generation socializes. We can keep up with our friends who we may have otherwise fallen out of contact with years ago. Grandma can see all the photos from Junior’s birthday party in Time Square from her comfortable living room in Phoenix. A whole host of  apps have been spawned to give you Facebook on your phone. Each app offers different levels of access and features. Likewise each application has its own unique quirks and shortcomings. Let’s explore a few of them to better our understanding: Blackberry Facebook 2.0 beta Positives Facebook Chat – catching up in real-time New Navigation Grid – easier to find what you’re looking for Negatives Still sluggish for photos – don’t expect to thumb through an album quickly Bugs in chat app –these will likely be ironed out in the near future. Android: Friendcaster Facebook App Positives All in one app, instead of accessing some features through the browser. Tablet friendly taking full advantage of the larger screen Negatives Invasive notifications open the app itself despite what else you might be doing most of the time. Your farm will miss you if you don’t use a browser to keep up with it and your other games. Facebook Version 4 for iPhone Positives Games! You won’t have to open a browser to keep up with your farm and more Apps – access your favorite apps on the go! Navigation and Notification – Send a message or see your notifications or browse without losing your place in News Feed Negatives Scaling for the iPad causes spacing issues Comment bugs – sometimes the posts tease you from just off screen tapping around randomly will often fix the problem Related posts: The Facebook Obsession and Its Effect on Communication [Infographic] Facebook Profile Picture Statistics [Infographic] Study: Facebook photo sharing reflects focus on female appearance

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Facebook App Comparison for Your Smartphone

Just as retail stores are often judged by the brand names they stock, online news portals tend to be judged by the sources of the articles they post. According to a new study by researchers at Penn State and published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly , people who access news articles from credible sources through online portals such as Yahoo News or Google News tend to view the portals themselves as more credible. According to researcher S. Shyam Sundar, online news portals, which are often little more than fancy delivery systems for stories that originated elsewhere, reap most of the benefits of news sites, including enhanced credibility and revenue generation, while assuming little of the risk. He points out that even when the news item turns out to lack credibility, the portal is rarely held liable. The investigators exposed study participants to various online news articles and asked them to rate the credibility of both the online portals the articles were accessed through and the original sources of the articles. To prevent participants from rating the articles based upon the quality of the writing, the researchers presented the articles through what appeared to be two different online portals and attributed them to two different original sources. For the purposes of the study, Google News was chosen as an example of a highly credible portal and the Drudge Report represented a low-credibility online portal. The New York Times served as a highly credible original source, while the National Enquirer acted as its low-credibility counterpart. When participants read an article they believed was from a trusted source, they were more likely to rate the online portal they accessed it through as credible. When they read an article they thought came from a source that lacked credibility, they tended to view the portal as less credible. Unfortunately for sources that were perceived as having low credibility, reading an article on a trusted portal was unlikely to make the reader view the source more favorably. In spite of these results, Sundar noted that readers rarely took note of original sources unless they became involved in the story. When articles failed to engage an individual participant, he or she was unlikely to make more than a cursory investigation into the source of the article and was more likely to make a quick judgment based solely on the perceived credibility of the online portal. It has become more and more difficult for consumers of news to trace the sources of information. When a reader views an article in a print copy of the New York Times, it is very clear where the story came from and who is taking responsibility for its accuracy. When the same article is viewed online, however, the story may have been taken from the original source and channeled through an online portal, forwarded via email and then posted on Facebook. Sources may become murky and may disappear altogether along the way, according to Sundar. “With traditional media it’s fairly clear who the source is,” he said. “But in online media, it gets very murky because there are so many sources.” Related posts: Accents Are Not Perceived as Trustworthy [Study] Newspaper Endorsements Influence Voters [Study] Cancer news articles may contribute to confusion about cancer

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Trusted Sources Lend Credibility to Online Portals [Study]

Hannah’s first vlog for Mugar’s Uncommon Discussion.

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Vlogtastic (ep 1)

A conversation with the Jordanian author, Basma El-Nsour, about her life and the inspiration for her work. All videos in the Conversations with Authors series are brought to you by the BU Libraries and specifically, librarian Diane D’Almeida.

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Conversations with Authors: Basma El-Nsour

Joan Salge Blake, clinical associate professor of nutrition at Boston University, discusses dairy-free and raw diets.

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Nutrition in the New Year: Dairy-free and Raw Diets