Brown Lotto trick 'confuses' fans

Derren Brown: 'It was just a trick'

Many fans and critics have been left confused by illusionist Derren Brown's explanation of how he appeared to predict Wednesday's lottery results.

Some 4.6m viewers saw him claim to have asked 24 people to guess the six Lotto balls and use an average of the total for each ball to predict the draw.

But some mathematicians have dismissed his explanation as "complete nonsense".

And on blogging site Twitter one fan said he was "still confused", while another called it a "massive letdown".

Split screen trickery

On Brown's own Twitter account, he said: "Well there you go. I trust all is clear now."

He also added that his blog, which has been set up for people to comment on his tricks, has received 5 million hits.

However, it is currently not working.

Wednesday's show on Channel 4 attracted 2.7 million people - beating the actual National Lottery Live Draw on BBC One, which 2.4 million tuned in for.

Brown successfully produced the correct numbers during the The Live Event programme, at the same time the actual numbers were drawn on the lottery live show.

Mathematically it is complete rubbish. It is a bluff on his part

Roger Heath-Brown, Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford

He then promised viewers they would discover the secret of the trick on Friday's show.

During How To Win The Lottery - which attracted a peak of 4.6 million viewers - he revealed that he had worked out the lottery numbers by asking a group of 24 people to guess them.

Once he had their answers Brown said he added the numbers up for each ball and divided them by 24.

However, Roger Heath-Brown, Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford, has dismissed Brown's explanation.

"Mathematically it is complete rubbish. It is a bluff on his part," he said.

And David Spielgelhalter, professor of public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge added: "There is a difference between guessing between the weight of an ox and guessing lottery balls, which is un-guessable.

"That is just a clear wind-up and complete nonsense. There is absolutely no way he did that."

Other theories, that have been suggested in the newspapers, claim Brown used split screen trickery or a false wall to help him complete the stunt.

Andrew Billen of The Times newspaper rated the show two out of five, saying Brown has turned from "most intriguing man on television to the most irritating".

However, he added: "It was, of course, still one hell of a trick — far too good for him to give away."

Twitter critics of the explanation show include Markpirie, who said: "I'm still confused about what way he did it to be honest."

Awwchristy called the 38-year-old a "massive letdown" and KimGVille said: "Is it just me or was Derren Brown's explanation last night very disappointing?"

But some fans enjoyed Brown's stunt.

Michaelvjjones posted on his Twitter page that the show had been "very interesting & entertaining".

Xolani1990 added: "Derren Brown is pretty cool... I can see why people are so skeptical [sic] about him, but I think he's on to something here."

You own your tweets, says Twitter, but we can use it too

New Delhi, September 12: You own your tweets, says Twitter, but we can use it too. Call it a twitter-esque way of cleansing its Terms of Service of murky jargon or a ploy to avoid the sort of hullabaloo that Facebook last year found itself in. Twitter has revised its Terms of Service to clarify among others the legalese about the ownership of tweets: "what's yours is yours — you own your content."

 

On its website Twitter says, “You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed)”.
“This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your content” it further says.
But here comes the truth, “You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use”.
And says further, “Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services”.
As to whether the 140-character tweets come under the ambit of copyright laws is a bone of contention in itself, discussion on what Twitter means when it says “you own your content” are picking up in blogosphere.
There are certain commentators who opine that the twitter-speak of ownership may just be an attempt to placate famous twittering authors and does not exactly mean it. As short phrases don't qualify for copyright protection under U.S. Copyright law, they say, Twitter has the privilege to come up with a book a featuring ‘selected’ tweets.

Twitter gears up for adverts in your tweets

New terms of service open the door to monetisation of SNS

By J Mark Lytle, Tokyo

 

In a move that was widely predicted, Twitter has opened the door to making money by placing advertising on users' tweets.

The microblogging site's co-founder Biz Stone wrote of the move on the company's official blog earlier this week when he described the reason for changes to Twitter's terms of service.

Providers and partners

The new terms, which all users have to agree to if they use the site, contain the possible key to Twitter's financial future:

"In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the services, you agree that Twitter and its third-party providers and partners may place such advertising on the services."

Options open

Without specifying the placement of any future ads, Stone said: "We leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open, as we've said before."

If advertisers are happy to risk placing their products alongside the unpredictable user-generated content that forms the core of Twitter, then opening up access to the site's 40 million-plus monthly visitors could prove very lucrative indeed.

Via Reuters