Steve Jobs bio @ CBS 60 Minutes.

More videos.

Steve Jobs memorial. Jony Ive 48 minutes into.

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On YouTube:

60 Minutes – Part 1.

60 Minutes – Part 2.

On CBS site:

60 Minutes – Part 1.

60 Minutes – Part 2.

Bloom Box explainer

Gizmodo on the Bloom Box

Wikipedia on the Bloom Box

BBC One
Panorama
Wed 30 Jul, 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm 60mins

Nearly six years after its award-winning expose of corruption in horse racing, Panorama returns to the sport of kings to investigate the world of betting. Paul Kenyon reveals why those running the sport are so concerned about gamblers betting large sums of money on horses not to win, but to lose. [*] While ordinary punters risk their cash on picking winners, those in the know are playing a different game altogether.

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[*] A mechanism made ultra convenient by the arrival of “betting exchanges” (real-money prediction exchanges), like BetFair and Betdaq.

Thanks to our commenter for the tip.

Will somebody help us (who don’t live in the United Kingdom) to get to know what will be said that day on the Beeb?

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UPDATE:

- BBC

- BBC

- Guardian

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Resident Publications:

[...] Wolfers predicted that cable news shows would turn to prediction-market experts for analysis in 2008. “My forecast is that they’ll either have someone in the studio whose job it is to track the markets, or the James Carvilles of the world will learn how to interpret the markets, and they’ll integrate that into their commentaries,” he said. [...]

I overlooked the “cable news shows” phrase, last time. Sorry for that. I had the three networks in mind (ABC, CBS, NBC). Also, I thought Justin Wolfers was talking about Election Day, specifically. (My initial thought: “no way”. Because of the leaking of raw polls that send false information to the traders.) He was talking about the whole “2008″ year, instead. I read that article too quickly, last time. I messed it.

MY SECOND THOUGHT: Yes, what he says seems reasonable and in line with what’s happening right now in the US business media. The real difficulty is the jump from the business media (which love markets) to the generalist media (which love polls).

[...] More than 2 million shares have already been traded in presidential primary contracts on Intrade this year. John Delaney, the company’s CEO, is convinced 2008 will be the market’s biggest year yet. “Our ’08 volumes are already approaching the total for ’04 volumes —and we are still 20 months away,” he said earlier this year. “Our own internal prediction market states that 2008 is going to be amazing, with trading volumes on the Intrade presidential futures markets set to exceed by several hundred percent our 2004 volumes.” And 2004, he was quick to add, was itself a record year for the company, which has grown exponentially since it started in 2001.

Part of the reason for that growth is that markets have proved more reliable than polls, said Justin Wolfers, an economics professor who teaches a business school class on prediction markets at the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Iowa’s electronic market has correctly called every presidential race since its inception in 1988 and come within one point of guessing the total percentage of votes received by the winner. Wolfers predicted that cable news shows would turn to prediction-market experts for analysis in 2008. “My forecast is that they’ll either have someone in the studio whose job it is to track the markets, or the James Carvilles of the world will learn how to interpret the markets, and they’ll integrate that into their commentaries,” he said. [...]

Let’s wait November 2008 and see whether Justin Wolfers’ bold prediction becomes accurate —I refer here to the first part of his dual prediction. I am short —if we’re talking of the three networks (CBS, NBC and ABC).

UPDATE: I overlooked the “cable news shows” phrase. Sorry for that. I had the three networks in mind (ABC, CBS, NBC). Also, I thought  Justin Wolfers was talking about Election Day, specifically. (My initial thought: “no way”. Because of the leaking of raw polls that send false information to the traders.) He was talking about the whole “2008″ year. I read that article too quickly, last time. I messed it.

MY SECOND THOUGHT: Yes, what he says seems reasonable and in line with what’s happening right now in the US business-oriented media.

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In another news article, Iowa Electronic Markets’s Joyce Berg says:

We’ve looked at 600 polls in the past. In 74 percent of those, the market has been [more accurate] than the polls.

It’s arrogant for any media company to assume that.

Says Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive, to the Wall Street Journal. And thus, he has decided that CBS should now cross-post his videos to as many video websites as possible. Smart move.

Cross-posting is good for you: it expands the reach of your ideas. If you’re the owner of a solo blog, feel free to cross-post any of your blog posts about prediction markets to Midas Oracle —with a deep link to your original blog post from your Internet site.

Rigged Markets – Free markets are meant to be fair, but are they really?

The smallest investor in the stock market is meant to face the same odds as the richest, and that is what makes free markets free. Free markets are also meant to provide all participants with the same information about stocks, bonds, and currencies – that way all the investors have an equal chance of making a profit. The market also allows investors to pool their resources into mutual or hedge funds, so they can punch way above their weight. Whereas mutual funds are weighted in favour of the small investor, and are highly regulated, hedge funds are far riskier products and are weighted in favour of wealthy people who are seen as sophisticated enough to take risks that ordinary investors cannot. They are hardly regulated at all – so that everybody comes out of the market a supposed winner. In Max Keiser’s latest “viewpoint” film, he argues that hedge and mutual funds are manipulated to benefit brokers, bankers and the richest investors, to the detriment of those with less power and less money. He explains his view that free markets are not in fact free or fair, but in fact rigged – he thinks that even governments have a finger in the free market pie. This episode of People & Power airs from 20 May 2007.

Watch this English-speaking Al Jazeera TV show on YouTube: PART ONE – PART TWO

–> Superb views of the Principality of Monaco, its port, and the billionaires’ yachts there.

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- Al Jazeera at YouTube

- BBC at YouTube

- PBS at YouTube

- NBC at YouTube

- ABC at YouTube

- CBS at YouTube