There are demos of each under the explanations.

I just read the linked article about the worst movie on IMDb (as of May 1st). The movie is called Gunday (here’s the IMDb link). As the story goes, Gunday’s low rating is the result of a marketing misstep and not a true indicator of it’s aesthetic or enjoyability:

“Gunday,” which came out of the huge Bollywood studio Yash Raj Films in February, isn’t that bad. There are a few large plot holes and unconvincing character motivations, but the dance sequences are top-notch, the costumes are fun, and Irrfan Khan’s portrayal of a world-weary policeman is as good as his fans have come to expect. In India, it’s the top-grossing February movie in Bollywood history. The New York Times’ Rachel Saltz ended her review of “Gunday” by calling it “downright enjoyable.” RogerEbert.com gave it three out of four stars. Variety called it “a boisterous and entertaining period crime drama.”

But the film made a misstep that has doomed it to the bottom of the IMDb pile. “Gunday” offended a huge, sensitive, organized and social-media-savvy group of people who were encouraged to mobilize to protest the movie by giving it the lowest rating possible on IMDb. Of “Gunday’s” ratings, 36,000 came from outside the U.S., and 91 percent of all reviewers gave it one star. The next lowest-rated movie on IMDb — 1.8 stars overall — has a more even distribution of ratings, with only 71 percent of reviewers giving it one star. The evidence suggests the push to down-vote “Gunday” was successful, and that shows just how vulnerable data can be, especially when it’s crowdsourced.

And this is the problem with crowd-sourced sites like IMDb. Is it fair to change even one “1 star” review in this system? Do you mark the movie with an asterisk to let people know that there might be something fishy with the data?

This is the nature of allowing people to vote. Some votes are votes of protest. Some people value cinematography above all else. Others accentuate plot. In this case, voters value a specific political point. Bumps in the data make crowd-sourcing interesting and, perhaps, less dependable.

Personally, I get a little thrill every time I find a little gold nugget of a movie that I really love but which is poorly rated on crowd sourced sites. One of my favorite examples is The Big Picture, directed by Christopher Guest and starring Kevin Bacon with some great cameos by Martin Short, John Cleese, Richard Belzer, and others. The Big Picture spent most of its life rated in the high fives or low sixes, but I found it incredibly enjoyable.

Your mileage may vary. And that’s the beauty of it.

Reuters:

The case underlines the battle between advocates of free expression and supporters of privacy rights, who say people should have the “right to be forgotten” meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the Internet.

The ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) came after a Spanish man complained to the Spanish data protection agency that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy.

The case is one of 180 similar cases in Spain whose complainants want Google to delete their personal information from the Web. The company says forcing it to remove such data amounts to censorship.

Bottom line, the ruling says that if a search on your name results in a link to a site, you have the right to ask that that link be removed from the search results. Presumably, your request will be granted, now by law, if the link reveals personal info that you do not want made public.

This has big ramifications. Will Google, Yahoo, etc. appeal? I suspect they will. If this ruling stands, will it make its way to the US and other jurisdictions? Tough call.

That is just an insane amount of money.

You can also check out Part 1 of this series, which was published last December.

Re/code:

It took me a while to get into Internet-based “streaming” music services. But I’ve finally warmed up to the idea that music files don’t have to be something that I physically possess.

And streaming music services have finally gotten to the point where they offer enough value to offset the occasional interruptions in play or the intrusive ads.

I’ve been exploring some of the lesser-known features of streaming music services like Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Radio and Beats Music. (Beats, of course, may soon be acquired by Apple for $3.2 billion.) There’s a handful of others out there, including Rdio, Songza, Google Play Music and iHeartRadio, but the first four I mentioned are the ones I focused on for this column.

Do you use streaming music services? Which ones? What do you like/dislike about them?

Imagine if poring over your finances were as easy as using your favorite app, or smartphone. – “The Apple of finance,” Quartz.

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Betterment lets you manage multiple investment goals in one delightful place. Our UX and UI are adored by design enthusiasts, separating us from the red tape of other investment providers. Betterment is slick on the outside, with killer technology under the hood, and our free iPhone and Android apps help you stay connected to your diversified portfolio at all times.

Ready to invest? We’re excited to offer readers of the Loop three months of Betterment investment management for free.

This is great, funny, and entertaining.

Looks fun. I don’t use this type of thing on The Loop, but a lot of sites do.

The move is a big upfront expense on Apple’s part, but could pay off in the long run if the company can lure online customers away from retailers such as Amazon.com Inc and Best Buy Inc, industry experts say.

According to retail-intelligence firm StellaService, customers who buy a product from Apple’s online store can get a refund in under a week, versus 10 days previously.

Anything Apple can do to increase customer satisfaction is a win.

Joe Caiati shares his list of favorite tech podcasts. I am always looking for new podcasts to add to the rotation. I now have a few new ones I’m going to explore. Thanks, Joe.

Got your own favorites? Please do weigh in on the comments.

This story was posted in February 2013. It is a fascinating read, made current by the recent rumors of Apple’s possible acquisition of Beats Electronics.

According to the story, Monster Audio (the folks behind Monster cables and the like) did the original engineering work behind the Beats headphones. They also held the patents. As the story unfolds, you learn how what could have been a lucrative deal for all parties slowly unravelled.

Read it yourself, draw your own conclusions, but wow, that is some story.

Reuters:

One of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses tech firms including Apple Inc and Google Inc of conspiring to hold down salaries has asked the court to reject a $324 million settlement negotiated by his own lawyers.

Michael Devine, one of the four named plaintiffs in a class action of 64,000 people, described the tentative settlement as “grossly inadequate” in a letter to the judge in the case.

The proposed settlement is about one-tenth of experts’ estimates of potential damages and is lacking in any penalty, he said.

How different was the original goal versus the announced settlement?

The workers planned to ask for $3 billion in damages at a trial scheduled to begin at the end of May, according to court filings. That could have tripled to $9 billion under antitrust law.

That’s a huge difference.

WSJ (paywall):

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is revising proposed rules for regulating broadband Internet, including offering assurances that the agency won’t allow companies to segregate Web traffic into fast and slow lanes.

The new language by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to be circulated as early as Monday is an attempt to address criticism of his proposal unveiled last month that would ban broadband providers from blocking or slowing down websites but allow them to strike deals in which content companies could pay them for faster delivery of Web content to customers.

Bottom line, the original plan allowed for “paid prioritization” (fast lanes and slow lanes on the net) and the new language specifically disallows it. Hoping this plays out as stated and doesn’t get softened by corrupt influences.

The Daily Dot:

It’s been made clear by the many reports and unnamed sources from every reputed site on the Internet—and by Tyrese—that Beats Electronics will soon be acquired by Apple for around $3.2 billion. But what has not been made clear is why, and why now.

Many have questioned whether Apple has run out of ideas—but this is one of the best decisions Apple has made in years. There are three main reasons why this deal likely happened, and all three show that Apple CEO Tim Cook has a keen awareness of the position his company finds itself in and is willing to make the necessary changes to keep Apple on top.

The author makes some very interesting points. I agree the key to the deal is Iovine.

Bloomberg:

Lee was operated on early yesterday at Samsung Medical Center after being resuscitated and stabilized the previous night at Soonchunhyang University Hospital following an acute myocardial infarction, according to an e-mailed statement from Samsung Group spokeswoman Rhee So Eui.

As to the question of succession planning:

Naming his son as vice chairman “was a clear step” in terms of succession, Heo Pil Seok, Chief Executive Officer at Midas International Asset Management Ltd. in Seoul, said by phone yesterday.

The game is called “Drowning in Problems”. Takes about 10 minutes to play through. Interesting game mechanic.

Some notable progress. When you see the final result, remember these pictures. The land is almost completely cleared. I suspect the trees will return.

Seems to me, the land in the center is at a higher level than the land on the outside of the ring. I wonder if that’s just a trick of the lens or if that’s really true. If so, I wonder what the purpose is there. I love watching this unfold.

A visual walk through the critical events in the creation of the billion dollar Beats empire. A fun read. If this deal with Apple does get consummated, it’ll be interesting to see if Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine become part of the executive team at Apple, as suggested by the Wall Street Journal.

Many thanks to Smile Software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS this week with PDFpen Scan+. PDFpen Scan+ 1.3 offers a redesigned user interface to make scanning simpler. Cropping is fast and precise. Bulk scanning is quicker with post-process image editing. OCR and preview the results, then copy the text for use elsewhere. Share your scanned PDF, with embedded OCR text, by email or via your favorite cloud service. PDFpen Scan+ is universal for iPad and iPhone and is available on the App Store.

Marketing Insight, a South Korean firm that tracks users satisfaction rankings across a variety of factors, compared Apple’s iPhone 5s against Samsung’s latest Galaxy S5, LG G Pro2, Nexus 5 and other models. While Apple overall was significantly above average across every category, Samsung was ranked below average in design, display, processing speed, multimedia speed, size and weight, usability, response to touch, latest tech and UI design.

Sucks to be Samsung.

Email exchanges between National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt suggest a far cozier working relationship between some tech firms and the U.S. government than was implied by Silicon Valley brass after last year’s revelations about NSA spying.

Motherboard:

Snood itself is a lot like Puzzle Bobble. A turret presides over the bottom quadrant of the screen, and you, the player, move this turret with your mouse in an arc from left to right. Pick a trajectory, click the mouse button, and another snood ejaculates onto the playing field, making a satisfying “thoonk” not unlike the pneumatic “thoonk” from an arcade’s air ball cannon. Match three snoods of the same color and type, and they vanish. Knock other snoods away with them—a “two birds with one stone” type of play—and they drop from the screen with a little triumphant fanfare.

I’ve been addicted to this game for years.

In a 69-page decision (you can read it below), the three-judge panel ruled that Oracle can pursue copyright claims against Google for the parts of Java that it used in creating Android. Oracle has argued that Google used the code without authorization.

Google’s not out of the woods yet.

Yeah, I know, this sounds like made up craziness. But wait.

> Tzukuri has implanted a solar-powered 3mm BLE chip into the frame of each pair of sunglasses, which then allows you to pair your sunglasses to your iPhone (no mention of Android, yet). > > Why is this useful, you might ask? Well, similar in concept to Tile, Tzukuri hopes to help you solve a particularly irksome problem when it comes to eye wear – buying a fashionable, expensive pair of shades only to lose them when you are out and about. You should check out the glasses online store https://www.glasseshut.co.uk/ for the most fashionable eyeglasses and sunglasses. > > Once your phone is paired to your shades, your phone will notify you if they ever become separated by a distance of more than 16 feet- indicating that you might have left your phone behind. Or, conversely, if you happen to be wearing your sunglasses but walking away from your cell phone, their app will pick up on this movement and ring loudly, reminding you to retrieve your phone.

I think this sounds useful and, I suspect, a feature that expensive sunglasses will standardize on in the future. Or you can just get the $15 sunglasses off the rack at the drug store.

Oops. That’s a pretty big thing to get wrong.