Authorship recognition software from Drexel University lab to be released December [VIDEO]

Two competing software tools focused on ‘authorship recognition’ from a Drexel University computer science group are scheduled to be released publicly for the first time at a conference in Berlin at the year’s end.

The Drexel Privacy, Security and Automation Lab
work, led by Dr. Rachel Greenstadt and PhD student Michael Brennan, began in 2009 with research on the shortcomings of software used to uncover the identity of an individual based on writing style, like word choice and sentence structure.

“We have come a long way since then and are currently working on two tools that can be used both to recognize and to anonymize authors,” said Brennan, who organized June’s Random Hacks of Kindness and will organize another again in December. See the sidebar below for details. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly have sponsored both events.]

Yes, at the next Chaos Communication Conference in Berlin in late December, Greenstadt and Brennan will unveil two pieces of software, each meant to outdo the other.

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IndyViews: Independents Hall report on coworking members

Old City coworking space Independents Hall has released its first research project called IndyViews, what co-founder Alex Hillman calls “a compilation of experience and worldview personas from within our membership.”

Download the report here [PDF].

Hillman describes the motivation behind project, which was conducted by Valerie Wilcox:

We’re always introspective, but we do it most when we’re thinking about growth. The house project put us into that mode, and the original goal was to produce something to help with the house. What we ended up with was some reinforcement of goals and values, which are the tools we use for hard decision making around growth efforts. Especially with the complexities of the house, I see this as an extremely valuable set of tools to have freshly renewed.

Also, we’re headed into a redesign of our branding and our website, putting a heavy heavy focus on “member stories” as the primary method of communicating Indy Hall. This research project reinforced that the stories members tell are the most compelling, and they’re so consistant with our “planned” marketing message that we want them to take center stage. It’s a complicated and kinda risky project to pull off, but I think the result is going to be fantastic.

Finally, I personally think that more coworking spaces should be conducting their own research. We’re going to publish our research framework to try to spur more things like this from other coworking crews.