Leave it to garrulous Vice President Joe Biden to be both naughty and nice when it comes to the Internet - all in the space of a week. Than again, he's not alone. At the end of the year, there were plenty of naughty and even some nice.
On Dec....
Jack Hidary | Posted December 23, 2009 | Technology
Research in Motion (RIM), the company which makes the Blackberry line of addictive phones, had nothing to say anywhere on its web site as many users globally experienced outages.
Given the vast impact of such an outage, users would expect to see an status update on the RIM home...
Alan Elsner | Posted December 23, 2009 | World
Twenty years ago on Christmas Day, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed after a summary trial. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, anyone can view the highlights of the proceedings on YouTube.
The Ceausescus had ruled Romania with an iron hand, presiding over what...
Todd Zuniga | Posted December 23, 2009 | Books
When Opium's QuickFix with Jiggle Technology iPhone app launched, our announced goal was to hit #1 in the App Store's Books section (though our more-realistic, secret goal was to simply trump "Self-Help Classics" at #20). We banged on doors, made all the necessary social networking noise, and when...
Jonathan A. Schein | Posted December 22, 2009 | Technology
"Necessity is the mother of invention," as the saying goes. Apparently the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is taking this notion seriously in the realm of sustainability if their latest program is any indication. The USPTO issues patents to inventors and businesses as well as trademark registration for products...
Katherine Goldstein | Posted December 22, 2009 | Green
For all of us in the media who were on the ground in Copenhagen, we're beginning to recover from the whirlwind we just experienced. As reactions and postmortems pour in from journalists and environmentalists from around the world, I want to focus on story behind the story: how new media,...
Jeffrey Berman | Posted December 22, 2009 | Entertainment
Sisyphus had it easy compared to us screenwriters.
If the Writer's Guild Strike of 2007 taught us anything, it's that you don't have to wait for the studios to green light your project to get something made. Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and Felicia Day's The Guild are two shining...
Jim Louderback | Posted December 22, 2009 | Technology
I recently gave up the G1 Android Phone for the brand-spanking new Blackberry 9700. I've been using the 9700 for the last month and overall I'm very happy. But it's not perfect -- and whether you end up with an iPhone/G1 or something like a Blackberry is a very personal...
Daren Tsui | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
When it comes to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, it's all turf wars and cattiness, the trash talk only put on hold for the occasional air kiss and photo op. Sound familiar? Maybe like Paris and Nicole? Lauren and Heidi?
That's right -- I'm saying Hollywood and Silicon Valley (and by...
Cassandra M. Bellantoni | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
Are you tweeting your good cheer this year? Putting up Facebook photos for those long distance relatives? Are you sending email Christmas cards to save paper, postage, time, the world? I love to hear from friends, so thank you all for the cat playing jazz piano holiday tunes, really! Yes,...
Jose Antonio Vargas | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
Technology has never looked so human in film.
After all the online buzz (some good, others bad), after all the focus on box office receipts (as ever, Deadline's Nikke Finke has the most comprehensive run-down), after all the attention on whether Hollywood's reigning techno-geek could create a worthy...
Jeff Goldstein | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
Thought I'd try something completely different with this post. It's a challenge to you! If folks like it, I can post one every month, each providing conceptual understanding of some facet of our world or the greater universe. It's based on my philosophy that building bridges to the familiar --...
Mark Blankenship | Posted December 23, 2009 | Media
How often do the pop charts become a tool for a social statement? This week in Britain, that's just what they are.
Every year in the U.K., the pop singles chart that's dated for Christmas week is a very big deal. Music fans and media outlets attach enormous...
Andy Plesser | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
Justin.tv, the big live Web video site, which says it has 35 million monthly views, will launch a pay-per-view platform next month for a few content creators and then roll it out across the entire network in Q2.
This would mark...
Greg Mitchell | Posted December 21, 2009 | Entertainment
My monthly posts here on the world of Web series have proven quite popular so I'm back with another edition in a year-end look around.
In the past, I've probed the growing popularity of Web comedy and dramatic series, suggesting they were a growing threat, down the road a...
Teryn Norris | Posted December 20, 2009 | Green
In a major departure from conventional climate wisdom, Thomas Friedman argues in today's New York Times that the UNFCCC framework is broken and should be replaced by a global competition in the clean-tech industry, which he says the United States can and should lead. "Let the Earth Race begin,"...
Daisy Whitney | Posted December 21, 2009 | Technology
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- YouTube recently added automatic captioning to its videos, in a move that has far-reaching implications for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, international users, and publishers who seek increase search optimization.
I traveled down to Google's headquarters...
Dr. Jim Taylor | Posted December 17, 2009 | Technology
Pete Cashmore, the founder and CEO of Mashable, a well-read social-media blog, suggested in a recent CNN column that the real-time Web is one of the top 10 Web trends of 2010. Real-time Web means being able to send and receive information almost instantaneously....
Leslie Harris | Posted December 17, 2009 | Technology
This week, four Google executives defend themselves in Italian court against charges of criminal defamation and privacy violations associated with a video posted by a user on Google Video. Italian prosecutors are seeking jail time for the executives, blatantly ignoring established liability safe harbors for ISPs and content...
William Brindley | Posted December 17, 2009 | Impact
Executives at companies as diverse as Wal-Mart, FedEx, General Electric, Toyota, McDonalds, Disney and Costco know that in order to achieve business success, they not only need to win the hearts and minds of customers, they also need to operate efficiently. Often the two go hand in hand. Companies spend...
Art Brodsky | Posted December 23, 2009 | Technology