By Laura Northrup
Assistant Editor, Consumerist
Unless you’ve just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn’t good for you.
Pick of the Day
Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty
Monday, November 23, 2009
Cellphone Entertainment Takes Off in Rural India
By Eric Bellman
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
In the furthest reaches of India’s rural heartland, the cellphone is bringing something that television, radio and even newspapers couldn’t deliver: Instant access to music, information, entertainment, news and even worship.
Marketers Find Web Chat Can Be Inspiring
By Emily Steel
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
International Business Machines and a handful of other major marketers, including casino operator Harrah’s Entertainment and software giant Microsoft, are experimenting with developing ad campaigns based in part on what consumers are chatting about on the Web.
For decades, advertisers have relied heavily on sometimes-dated consumer surveys and focus groups to provide grist for their ads.
China to Claim Half of Online Game Market, Report Says
By Juliet Ye
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Videogames are serious business in China. The country’s online game market will reach 41 billion yuan ($6 billion) by 2010, accounting for half the global market, according to newly released data from Cnzz.com, a Beijing-based data analysis firm.
The Cnzz.com report says that almost two-thirds of China’s 338 million Web users are now online gamers. The online-game industry, which currently accounts for more than half of the total Internet economy, will see strong annual growth at a rate of 20 percent in future years, the report says.
Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages
By Julia Angwin and Geoffrey A. Fowler
Reporters, The Wall Street Journal
Wikipedia.org is the fifth-most-popular Web site in the world, with roughly 325 million monthly visitors. But unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police it are quitting.
That could have significant implications for the brand of democratization that Wikipedia helped to unleash over the Internet — the empowerment of the amateur.
EarthLink Customers Suffer Email Outages
By Marisa Taylor
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
EarthLink email customers experienced outages over much of the weekend, according to numerous online complaints.
Starting Friday, Twitter users began to post updates about service outages. Alex Mendez tweeted “33:40 minutes on the cellphone dealing with TW / earthlink. UGH,” and Diane Fischler wrote, “Not getting email messages again. Woke up to about 60 left over from yesterday’s Earthlink outage, now seems to be down again. Who else?”
What Happened to Second Life?
By Lauren Hansen
Writer, BBC News Magazine
Once upon a time Second Life had a Twitter level of hype.
Maybe Instead of Two Cars, You Just Need a Car and a Bicycle
By John Gruber
Editor, Daring Fireball
One thing that strikes me about Chrome OS and Litl is that neither bother trying to do everything Windows or Mac OS X can do.
AP Copies Google: “If You Can’t Beat ’em, Join ’em”
By David Weir
Blogger, bnet
In what I must admit is a shocking turn of events, the Associated Press has moved beyond attacking Google and others it has branded as content “thieves” to embrace a page from its opponents’ playbook.
Glasses-Free 3-D Set to Grow, Thomson Reuters Says
By Lauren Goode
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The term “3-D” has been largely synonymous with Hollywood blockbusters, buttered popcorn and ill-fitting cardboard glasses since the 1950s, when three-dimensionality was introduced to draw TV owners into theaters.
Over the past 20 years, 3-D-capable devices like set-top boxes as well as 3-D programming have become available at home. A lack of standard broadcasting formats, relatively little content and the need for 3-D glasses, however, have kept it from a broad audience.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Almost Famous: Elemental Technologies’ Sam Blackman
By Drake Martinet
Intern, All Things Digital
A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: We caught up with Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies at the San Francisco NewTeeVee Live conference. Elemental Technologies hopes to become a major player in the future of online and over-the-air video through its high-performance encoding technology.
Start-Up Employees Tell All…in 140 or Fewer Characters
By Scott Austin
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Working for a start-up is hard enough. Trying to wittily describe “the unique entrepreneurial culture that sets their company apart and inspires them to go to work each day”–in 140 characters or less–is equally challenging.
That was the task set by the National Venture Capital Association and job board StartUpHire, which asked for Twitter-esque submissions from start-up employees in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Sony Bets on Online Push
By Daisuke Wakabayashi
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
As Sony Corp. scrambles to reassert its technological relevance, Chief Executive Howard Stringer is betting on a strategy for the electronics giant that focuses on adding online content to more of its gadgets.
Speaking at the first joint public appearance by Sony’s new management team since a shake-up in February, Mr. Stringer said the Japanese giant is “moving faster than we’ve ever moved” to meet parallel challenges.
Almost Famous Update: Now-Out-of-Beta Brizzly Hires Facebooker and Translates Tweets
By Drake Martinet
Intern, All Things Digital
Brizzly, the Web-based Twitter client from Thing Labs, covered in Almost Famous two weeks ago, begins public beta today.
In addition to opening its “expanded” Twitter interface to the world at large, the start-up is offering an on-the-fly translation tool for foreign tweets. And it has hired former FriendFeeder and current Facebooker Ben Darnell.
“Son, I Used to Pay Thousands of Dollars for Textbooks…”
By Scott Austin
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Remember paying astronomical prices for college textbooks that, once class was over, had only one possible use: as paperweights?
To the relief of parents everywhere, shelling out $182 for Principles of Biochemistry may become a thing of the past. Several recently funded start-ups make it cheaper, or in some cases free, for students to obtain books.
China Mobile Counts on 3G for Its Growth
By Lorraine Luk
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
China Mobile Ltd., the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, is pinning its hopes on new third-generation services such as mobile television and mobile readers to drive growth amid increasing competition and falling voice revenue.
Some Courts Raise Bar on Reading Employee Email
By Dionne Searcey
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Big Brother is watching. That is the message corporations routinely send their employees about using email.
But recent cases have shown that employees sometimes have more privacy rights than they might expect when it comes to the corporate email server. Legal experts say that courts in some instances are showing more consideration for employees who feel their employer has violated their privacy electronically.
Google Removes Offensive Obama Image; Was It Justified?
By Matt McGee
Blogger, Search Engine Land
Saying the host site was serving malware to users, Google has removed a controversial photo of First Lady Michelle Obama from Google Image Search.
IBM Reveals the Biggest Artificial Brain of All Time
By Douglas Fox
Writer, Popular Mechanics
Scientists at IBM’s Almaden research center have built the biggest artificial brain ever–a cell-by-cell simulation of the human visual cortex: 1.6 billion virtual neurons connected by 9 trillion synapses.
Is Local the New Social Now?
By Mercedes Bunz
Media Reporter, Guardian
Several reports from the US make the point: local is the new buzzword in the land of web entrepreneurship.
Featured Partner
Alternate-reality games flourish at the grassroots
By Daniel Terdiman
Editor, Geek Gestalt, CNET
While big ARGs like I Love Bees and The Beast get most of the ink, there has been a steady stream of games built for very small audiences, without corporate sponsorship.
Tech in Pictures
Almost Famous
Elemental Technologies’ Sam Blackman
By Drake Martinet
Intern, All Things Digital
A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: We caught up with Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies at the San Francisco NewTeeVee Live conference. Elemental Technologies hopes to become a major player in the future of online and over-the-air video through its high-performance encoding technology.
Featured Video
Jackson vs Bean from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
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