A new technology promises to turn cellular phones into mobile blogging tools.
The application, called “Rabble,” streamlines the now-cumbersome process for publishing text or images from a cell phone to a Weblog. It also creates a way to search mobile blogs for items of interest — from homes for sale in a particular neighborhood to updated tour information for a favorite band.
What will they add to cell phones next?
The Hilton hotel chain will be introducing clocks with patented, easy-to-set alarms and station presets.
Hilton will install 250,000 new clocks in 975 hotels across six of its brands from March through July. Hampton Inn clocks will not have the jacks for portable music players.
The clocks, developed by a unit of Timex, include four preset buttons offering local pop, country and rock stations as well as news. Other buttons allow users to set the time in any of seven time zones.
To ensure that hotel occupants aren’t startled by an alarm set by a previous guest, the alarm must be reset each night. That’s easy: The three required steps are printed on the front of each clock.
I’ve never stayed in a Hilton, but maybe I’ll get to stay in a Hampton Inn and try out the new clock radios.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) Flash Drives are replacing CDs, floppy disks and giant e-mail attachments. These key-chain size gadgets are sold for as little as 10 dollars.
USB drives are showing up everywhere, from major electronics retailers to campus bookstores. No. 1 PC maker Dell now lets shoppers substitute a USB drive instead of a floppy drive on some computers. About 98 million are expected to be sold worldwide this year, a 57% increase from 63 million in 2004, researcher In-Stat says.
I just recently got one and I can’t live without it!
The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming more accessible and interactive.
Suggest to an old-school journalist that Weblogs have anything to do with journalism and you’ll be met with howls of derision. Amateur bloggers typically have no editorial oversight, no training in the craft, and no respect for the news media’s rules and standards. Does the free-for-all renegade publishing form known as blogging really have anything to do with journalism?
Questions from Supreme Court justices today indicate that the recording industry may not get the industry-friendly ruling it’s looking for, which in turn will keep the marketplace open to further technological innovation.
During a lively argument, justices wondered aloud whether such lawsuits might have discouraged past inventions like copy machines, videocassette recorders and iPod portable music players - all of which can be used to make illegal duplications of copyrighted documents, movies and songs.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the same software that can be used to steal copyrighted materials offered at least conceptually “some really excellent uses” that are legal.
Justice Antonin Scalia maintained that a ruling for entertainment companies could mean that if “I’m a new inventor, I’m going to get sued right away.”
The Supreme court is set to hear arguments dealing with file sharing later today.
File-sharing supporters say a ruling against the software companies could effectively give the entertainment industry a legal veto over up-and-coming gadgets; they fear the threat of expensive lawsuits could hamper development of new devices.
James Miller at TCS predicts that the MSM, who have been repeatedly battered by the new media, will begin to fight back soon.
It’s a universal law of capitalism: when an industry faces a new and significant threat to its profits and powers it turns to the government for protection. Well, bloggers who write on current events are challenging the mainstream media (MSM), the most politically well-connected industry in America. Watch for the MSM to start using their political influence to burden bloggers.
Miller says the MSM will look to campaign finance reform–where courts have already trashed the First Amendment, libel law, and copyright law as their primary weapons in the conflict.
Hat Tip: TKS
John Hinderaker from Power Line, one of the key blogs that covered and helped drive the Rather scandal, describes how and why blogs can be so powerful at mobilizing information:
All of the information came from our readers, and our role was to assemble it, review it, select what seemed to be the most interesting, point out conflicts where there were conflicts and publish it to an audience that within a matter of hours was numbering in the millions.
That goes back to the point about our readers knowing a lot more than we do. The world is full of smart people, and what the Internet gives us is the opportunity to pull together thousands of little bits of information that those people have in a widely scattered way.
…block Fox News. The Seattle Times reports on a new device the blocks FNC from TV sets.
It’s not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News Channel. The creator of the “Fox Blocker” contends the network is not news at all.
Kimery says he has sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets.
He’ll need to sell many more than 100 though. As the article reports, FNC averages 1.62 million viewers to CNN’s 805,000.
Andrew Stuttaford at NRO reports on a European case where an Austrian writer has been found guilty of blasphemy in Greece and may be extradited to and imprisoned there for publishing a book that was perfectly legal in his country.
The case is another example of how liberty is being diminished across the Atlantic, but Stuttaford asks an intriguing question about the implications of Internet publication in Europe.
What, for example, if a writer posts an article on the internet that is perfectly legal in his country, but contravenes the law elsewhere in another EU state (perhaps one of those ludicrous, but increasingly fashionable and increasingly repressive laws directed against ‘xenophobia’)? If that article is then downloaded in that country, is there a chance that its author could find himself extradited, convicted and silenced?
I think there is.
Vlogging is the new way to blog. It involves putting video onto blogs. Of course it seems simple, but it is causing a buzz in the world of blogging.
es, that’s vlogging as in Vladivostok, thus creating a neologism even more awkward than blog. On its surface the vlog is simple: adding video to personal Weblog publishing. For now, vlogging remains an embryonic phenomenon with probably less than a few thousand regular practitioners worldwide. But it already raises a raft of interesting issues ranging from intellectual property protection to the future of text on the Web.
The current range of vlog content on the Web varies as widely — perhaps even more widely — than its text counterpart. The oeuvre ranges from some very slickly-produced material (the daily rocketboom.com starring an actress who previously appeared on NBC’s The Restaurant) to a wide range of personal idiosyncrasies: a vlogger eats a grapefruit; video of a 1999 Silicon Valley pool party; a vlogger goes jogging; some guys in L.A. meet for coffee.
This is an interesting site. Apparently they have meetings with journalists from all over the world. I think the information on online journalism is quite interesting.
The 6th International Symposium on Online Journalism was held April 8-9, 2005 at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Materials from the event will be posted on this website. Come back soon as video of all the sessions will be posted in their entirety. Real-time news coverage of the two-day event is now available below in our news index. Presentations that were made during the symposium have also been posted. Presentations are presented in the order in which they appeared in the program. Research papers from the Saturday sessions are now available on the site in PDF format. Come back to the site often as more information about the symposium will be posted.
One of the most liberating characteristics of blogs is the freedom the author has to write on the basis of her or her biases and interests. Ideally, readers who are sympathetic to that writer’s perspective visit regularly. Good beginning bloggers write for themselves, and then let the audience catch up with them.
Captain’s Quarters has become an intersting case study in audience awareness. Now that Captain Ed has amassed a large audience, he’s wondering how he should adjust his blog to his readers’ interests.
I’d like feedback from CQ readers about what you see as my responsibility to you, and the limits of editorial control. I’m not going to comment on it myself until I read your feedback in the comments section.
For the record, my editorial policy is fair game for criticism, as far as I’m concerned.
Hindrocket at Powerline observes that those video clips of Schiavo are giving people reason to doubt the many doctors’ diagnoses.
I think that the biggest reason why so many people have been passionately engaged in the Terri Schiavo case is the video footage that millions have seen. I think pretty much anyone who sees it thinks–she’s not dead. Severely disabled, yes. Dead, no. Deliberately starving her would be a terrible thing. That’s how I reacted to it, anyway.
Predictably, mainstream news outlets are trying to defuse the video’s impact.
Surely this would be a much different fight if it were confined solely to text.
As if Dan Rather’s sloppy memo handling weren’t enough, the Washington Post is touting a “Republican” memo that contains a pretty tacky political take on the Schiavo case.
The memo appears impossible to trace, and we’re left to take the reporter’s word for its origin, though he’s not actually saying anything.
Darcie is reviewing Ocean’s Twelve on her site.
Next time you’re in the mood to watch a movie, and you want to see a lot of nice-looking actors, witty dialogue, pretty good action sequences, and a good ending—do the wise thing, and watch Ocean’s Eleven again.
Apple has issued a security update for the OSX v10.3.8 that fixes several problems with the system including the web browser Safari.
Apple explains that the Cyrillic letter “a” could be used in place of the Latin letter “a,” making it difficult for a user to tell if they are at a real Web site or a malicious imposter website that’s designed to look like the real one. These sites can be used to collect account numbers, passwords and other personal information.
The update provides a user-editable list of scripts that are allowed to be displayed natively in domain names. The default list does not include Latin look-alike scripts (Cherokee, Cyrillic, and Greek) that could be used to trick users into navigating to malicious sites.
The Government strikes a blow at online journalists.
“What underlies this decision is the publishing of information that at this early stage of the litigation fits squarely within the definition of trade secret,” Kleinberg wrote. “The right to keep and maintain proprietary information as such is a right which the California Legislature and courts have long affirmed and which is essential to the future of technology and innovation generally.”
Free speech advocates and attorneys for the reporters criticized the ruling, insisting that all journalists should enjoy the same legal protections as reporters in mainstream newsrooms. Among those are protections afforded under California’s “shield” law, which is meant to protect journalists and encourage the publication of information in the public’s interest.
Apple takes a bite out of journalism.
The popular Playstation 2 will soon have a mini-me when Sony releases the PSP (Playstation Portable) on Thursday. This hand held devise will be able to play music, movies and of course play video games. The graphics and resolution are said to be outstanding and our hunger for small handheld forms of entertainment will be fueled—to those who can afford and are willing to spend more than $250 on the new technology.
After an extremely successful product launch in Japan, Sony is about to hit the United States with a miniature marvel of engineering that promises to revolutionize the way people amuse themselves while on airplanes, in waiting rooms, or simply walking down the street.
For more information and details on the PSP visit the official site.
Jim Geraghty is reporting that Johnathan Klein, of pajamahadeen CBS fame, is now promoting a CNN segment that reports on blog activity. This is the same guy who told Fox News:
These bloggers have no checks and balances… You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.
They guy’s a fast learner.