Media 2.0 Reader

Bits: The Broadband Gap: Why Is Theirs Faster?

By SAUL HANSELL — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:23:09 PDT

Many countries have faster and more widely available high speed Internet service than the U.S. It has a lot to do with their urban density, not our poor technology.

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Compact Disc turns 30, MP3 doesn't bother to send a gift

Darren Murph — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:47:00 PDT

We're not quite sure how much related celebrating went on this past weekend, but the iconic Compact Disc managed to hit the big three-oh. The IEEE was credited with presenting its prestigious IEEE Milestone Award to Royal Philips Electronics for its contribution to the development of the CD, and as the story goes, the award coincides with the 30th anniversary of the "historic demonstration of the first CD prototype codenamed 'Pinkeltje' on March 8th, 1979." While many would argue that the CD is...

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Digital Domain: When Everyone’s a Friend, Is Anything Private?

By RANDALL STROSS — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:36:12 PST

The popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites has promoted the sharing of all things personal, dissolving the line that separates the private from the public.

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Acclimated to Severe Turbulence

John Gruber — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:28:43 PST

Philip Greenspun: This evening’s New York Times was worrisome. An inset box showed that the S&P 500 had fallen 4.25 percent for the day, wiping out roughly a year of investment returns. A few months ago this would have been the top story. Today, however, it did not even make the front page. For context, consider this, from Harper’s Index: Number of times in 2008 that the S&P 500 closed up or down 5 percent in a single day: 17 Number of times between 1956 and 2007 it...

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Obama taps Julius Genachowski to head the FCC

Donald Melanson — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:18:00 PST

As widely expected by most folks who speculate on such things, President Obama has now formally nominated lawyer and former venture capitalist Julius Genachowski to head up the Federal Communications Commission and fill the slot vacated by Bush appointee Kevin Martin. Among other things, Genachowski's nomination is particularly notable given his support for net neutrality, which he made quite well known during the Obama campaign in his role as a top technology advisor. Of course, if and when he...

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Basics: An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-Mail Messages? Read On

By FARHAD MANJOO — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:46:12 PST

Suggestions for maintaining an empty in-box, a goal that has tantalized many since the dawn of e-mail.

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Amazon to Sell E-Books for Apple Devices

By BRAD STONE — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:28:05 PST

Owners of iPod and iPhone Touch can download free software that will provide access to the 240,000 e-books on Amazon.com.

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A Google Search of a Distinctly Retro Kind

By NOAM COHEN — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:41:37 PST

Google is spending $7 million on a global print campaign to alert writers that it intends to digitize every book.

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More on Community Development Ideas - Ohio

Steve — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:43:27 PST

[Wed. March 4, 2009 11:30am Thai Time] Sunny, a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in Nepal and returned to Anchorage to become a math teacher and now works at UAA, forwarded an article from NPR. It's about two young men who have returned to their rural Ohio hometown to help out after a plant closure put people out of work. This is the kind of local community empowerment and idea creation and implementation that I've tried to get at in the two pieces on Rural Alaska. Here's a snippet,...

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50 Twitter Tools and Tutorials For Designers and Developers

Paul Andrew — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:10:36 PST

by Paul Andrew Twitter appears on innumerable personal and professional websites nowadays, whether it is a simple “Follow me” badge in the header or a display of the author’s latest tweets in the sidebar. No longer a fad, Twitter is now a necessity for every website, not just for sharing your thoughts and keeping in touch with people, but also for marketing, advertising and even searching. But you may be wondering, How can I make Twitter work the way I want on my website? Below, we present...

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YouTube Symphony Orchestra winners are announced

A Googler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:26:53 PST

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog) Today we are proud to announce the winners of the world's first online collaborative orchestra. The global YouTube community and a judging panel containing members of the world's most renowned orchestras have selected over 90 talented musicians to be part of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Together, these professional and amateur musicians play 26 different instruments and come from 30+ countries and territories on six continents. To grasp the level of...

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Apple iPhone controls over 66% of all mobile web use

(author unknown) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:20:00 PST

In its first detailed look at web market share for cellphones, a research firm has found that Apple's iPhone represents a staggering 66.61 percent of mobile traffic while its competitors have only just gained a foothold.

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Google Puts Small Ads on Pages of News Site

By MIGUEL HELFT and BRIAN STELTER — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:50:07 PST

Newspapers, already reeling from advertising revenue losses, are wary of Google’s latest move.

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Broadcast TV Faces Struggle to Stay Viable

By TIM ARANGO — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:32:45 PST

Networks still pull in the biggest audiences, but they are losing the cultural and the financial battle to cable.

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Earthal Eclipse?

Steve — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:53:42 PST

[Friday, February 27, 2009, 11 am Thai time] My son sent me a link to slashdot, which linked to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency site with this picture of what they call a Lunar Eclipse. (There's lots of other good stuff there including diagrams.) This was taken from the moon with the earth blocking the sun. There's also this link to a video of the event. Be patient, it is all black at the beginning. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Japan Broadcasting...

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CBS streaming free TV programming to iPhone users

(author unknown) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:00:00 PST

CBS Mobile has released TV.com, a free new mobile application that allows iPhone and iPod touch users to watch full episodes of select CBS shows and other programming over WiFi or 3G mobile networks.

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Drilling Down: Tweeting? Odds Are You Live in a City

By ALEX MINDLIN — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:17:24 PST

A survey on Twitter and other microblogging sites shows that users of social networking services tend to cluster around age 25 and live in cities.

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50 Free High-Quality Icon Sets

Daved Brosche — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:59:40 PST

By Daved Brosche, Naveed Javaid and Smashing Editorial Team When it comes to freebie designs, beautiful icons sets are tops. Designers scour for these free treasures more than anything else. You can use icon sets in Web applications, website designs and on your desktop. If well designed, they make a great impression on others. Beautifully designed icons also prove the quality of a designer’s work, so many designers make theirs freely available online, thus giving their work more exposure. In...

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With Four More Months to Switch, Hundreds of Television Stations Are All Digital

By BRIAN STELTER — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:01:02 PST

More than 400 stations have stopped broadcasting in analog form, months before the rescheduled transition to digital TV.

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Liberty Media rescues Sirius XM from bankruptcy

Darren Murph — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:05:00 PST

We guess those bailout talks with DirecTV weren't so futile after all, huh? The satcaster's parent company, Liberty Media, has just stepped in to rescue Sirius XM from the clutches of bankruptcy, providing a $530 million life raft that it will use to pay off looming debt payments and keep operations humming. Liberty will write a $280 million check immediately, of which $171 million will go straight to debtors. Another round of funding (to the tune of $250 million) will be available to Sirius XM...

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