“This is a tremendously important improvement for consumer protection,” says Andrea Matwyshyn, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University. “The Copyright Office has demonstrated that it understands our changed technological reality, that in every aspect of consumers’ lives, we rely on code,” says Matwyshyn, who argued for the exemptions last year.

Prices are almost certain to rise, if history is any indication. John Kwoka, an economist and antitrust expert at Northeastern University, studied 1,000 mergers over two decades and reported that 80 percent of the transactions resulted in a price increase.  

“Investment in wine and spirits is fun,” says Coleen Pantalone, a personal finance professor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston. “But it is risky. These are highly illiquid investments and they only increase, if you are right, over the long haul.”

After a man was arrested for allegedly beating a husky at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s North Station this week, many came forward and offered to take ownership of the 9-month-old dog. Included on that list are police from Northeastern University.

The intersection of sports and politics can be fraught for owners who run the risk of alienating their presiding governments or fan bases if they are too closely identified with a polarizing candidate of cause, said Roger Abrams, a Northeastern University professor who’s written multiple books on sports and politics. Owners “will get their glory […]

Peter Furth, a traffic expert at Northeastern University, said drivers who travel through the Weston and the Allston-Brighton tolls will probably be hit the hardest, according to the state’s calculations. And if you are a late riser, look out. “In all these cases, the people stuck with the greatest delay will be those arriving at […]

The intersection of sports and politics can be fraught for owners who run the risk of alienating their presiding governments or fan bases if they are too closely identified with a polarizing candidate of cause, said Roger Abrams, a Northeastern University professor who’s written multiple books on sports and politics. Owners “will get their glory […]

Using social media to predict outcomes of elections has become increasingly popular because of the amount of data available publically. In September, Nick Beauchamp, an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University, published a paper about his experiment applying AI to more than 100 million tweets in the 2012 election. He found that this […]

Designing decisions in a way that nudges but does not force consumers to make better choices offers a way to alleviate many of society’s problems. Defaults are one way to nudge consumers. They can automatically enroll people in a designated option unless someone makes an active decision to opt out, or they can nudge people […]

There are two ways to interpret this trend. Economists Alicia Sasser Modestino, Daniel Shoag and Joshua Ballance believe that employers became choosy during the Great Recession in order to take advantage of the abundance of people looking for work and to screen out low-achievers. They call the process “opportunistic upskilling,” and they have shown that […]

That’s all speculative since the effects of the merger will unfold years after the feds bless the union — in ways that are likely hard to envision now, given the fast changes in technology and consumer behavior. Yet recent research shows that mergers, even if approved with conditions by regulators, lead to higher prices for […]

There are challenges to making it work in any practical way. Timothy Bickmore, a professor at Northeastern University, says one of the biggest is capturing all the different cues that may be relevant to an interaction, including facial expressions and body language. This may be especially tricky on mobile devices, although in theory a smartphone […]