Posts under ‘News’

AP: Fines to Rise for Indecency in Broadcasts. Congress gave notice to broadcasters on Wednesday that they would pay dearly for showing material like Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” passing legislation that would multiply indecency fines 10 times. Congress also gave notice — as if we needed it — that rather than deal […]

Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft for a company called PodTech. Interesting move, to say the least. Congrats to Robert, who’s doing the right thing.

Amy Gahran, on the Poynter site, asks if competition has outlived its usefulness in news gathering: Imagine: someday a Pulitzer Prize might be awarded jointly to an enterprise reporting team spread across several news organizations. This convergence has already occurred. The New York Times collaborated with Frontline on a brilliant series of articles/broadcasts, and won […]

Linux Devices: Nokia turns cellphones into webservers: “If every mobile phone or even every smartphone initially is equipped with a webserver, then very quickly most websites will reside on mobile phones.” Interesting possibilities for citizen media in this — talk about real-time updating, among other things.

NY Times: Internet firms are asked to keep search records. Justice Dept. tells executives it may need data to counter terrorism and child porn. This is roughly akin to having them follow you around everywhere you go with a video camera, watching everything you do, including in your home, just to have a record later […]

The Wall Street Journal’s D Conference was notable for several things, but key among them was Martha Stewart asking Sony CEO Howard Stringer why she had to have so many different chargers and add-ons for her various devices. (And, she noted without apparent irony, separate sets for all of her houses.) Stringer, who was clearly […]

Jon Garfunkel: Constructive Activism. From my safe seat in the cradle of liberty, Boston USA, I’m not near any of the physical protests, but I do have a keen eye about what’s happened online. And in my capacity as an occasional journalactivist, I’ve pitched a hand as well. Now I’d like to share what I’ve […]

Wall Street Journal: Yahoo Defends China Cooperation. Yahoo’s Terry Semel faced tough questions from Walt Mossberg — and the audience — over the search company’s decision to comply with requests for user data from the Chinese government, which has used the information to pursue dissidents. I’m one of the audience members who asked Semel a […]

I’m at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, where Bill Gates was talking last evening about the future of mobile phones that handle many other functions including video, writing, etc. He referred to these gadgets as — I’m not joking — “Reality Acquisition Devices” that will, if I understood him correctly, be […]

I’m at the NetSquared conference (being held at Cisco in San Jose), getting ready to join Ethan Zuckerman, Hong Eun Taek and Michael Rogers on a panel called From a Voice in the Wilderness to the Wisdom of Crowds. I’d like to see nonprofits and interest groups use conversational technologies to do a better job […]