Retailers, technology companies looking to avoid 'creepy factor' in figuring out what consumers want -- chicagotribune.com

Michael Redding describes the get-to-know-you game between man and machine as a version of "Name That Tune."

Take, for example, someone who lands on an online retailer's home page and enters a search term. The Web site can identify the person's rough location and a bit about what the shopper wants to buy. With those two notes, the site can start figuring out who the visitor is...

Hulu posts 47% gain in October

Over-the-top video provider Hulu racked up 856 million users on its Web site in October for a 47 percent gain over the previous month, according to comScore.

The average Hulu viewer watched 20.1 videos during the month of October, which was also an all-time high for Hulu...

U.S. delays new ban on Internet gambling - USATODAY.com

WASHINGTON (AP) _The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are giving U.S. financial institutions an additional six months to comply with regulations designed to ban Internet gambling.

The two agencies said Friday that the new rules, which were to take effect on Dec. 1, would be delayed until June 1 of next year. A key Democratic opponent of the ban on online gambling praised the action and said it would give Congress time to overturn a law passed in 2006 when Republicans controlled Congress...

Taiwan plans to roll out e-readers in schools - PC World

Taiwan's Ministry of Education plans to offer e-readers to schoolkids on the island next year as part of efforts to further digitize schools and promote reading.

The e-readers are part of a five-year, NT$50 billion (US$1.55 billion) budget earmarked for information technology in classrooms. Currently the ministry is reviewing designs for e-readers and doesn't yet know how many it will purchase for next year, a representative said...

Black Friday e-commerce sales jump 11 percent - InternetNews.com

With the holiday shopping season kicking into high gear, online retailers are off to a healthy start, with sales on the day after Thanksgiving up 11 percent from last year.

On Black Friday, the unofficial kick-off of the holiday shopping season, consumers spent $595 million online, compared to $534 million the same day last year, according to online metrics firm comScore...

Kindle outselling all other Amazon wares - InternetNews.com

As if to remind the industry the industry that amid a crop of new entrants, the Kindle still holds pole position in the e-reader market, Amazon offered an unusual glimpse into the sales of the device.

The normally cagey e-commerce giant announced today that November was a record month for Kindle sales, though it declined to divulge specific figures...

Minnesota counties look to speed up internet service | Prairie Business Magazine | Grand Forks, ND

State leaders often talk about two Minnesotas, a well-connected Minnesota around the Twin Cities and a less advanced Minnesota elsewhere.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Internet service, something more and more Minnesotans see as essential as electricity and telephones...

Virtual assistants help professionals handle the heavy load - South Florida Business Journal:

Robert U. Craven has been the CEO of large companies and led teams of employees working from corporate offices. But, when he scaled back to launch ScalePassion LLC, a professional coaching company, Craven found he needed one part-time employee: an administrative assistant to take on much of his day-to-day planning, organizational and technology needs.

It didn’t matter whether the employee was on site or remote. So, Craven hired a virtual assistant to handle tasks that otherwise would have consumed his time and focus...

CRE: Valley cities test online plan checking in construction lull - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

The cities of San Jose and Santa Clara are testing software that moves plan checking completely online, a system that offers substantial savings and convenience for developers and the cities.
It is also a green move that eliminates the piles of documents that are typically printed for projects.

The newly developed software, called Greenvue Fusion, was created by CSG Consultants Inc., a San Mateo firm that offers engineering and consulting services for municipalities. It is giving San Jose and Santa Clara a free trial of the package, which normally costs about $2,500 per license, with a small maintenance fee for upgrades. The software is already paying off for developers who have tried it...

Cloud computing goes green underground in Finland - washingtonpost.com

HELSINKI (Reuters) - In the chill of a massive cave beneath an orthodox Christian cathedral, a city power firm is preparing what it thinks will be the greenest data center on the planet.

Excess heat from hundreds of computer servers to be located in the bedrock beneath Uspenski Cathedral, one of Helsinki's most popular tourist sites, will be captured and channelled into the district heating network, a system of water-heated pipes used to warm homes in the Finnish capital...

Signal fading on radio traffic reports - USATODAY.com

CORONA, Calif. — For more than 20 years, Mike Nolan was known to radio listeners as the "eye in the sky." He flew over Southern California freeways in his single-engine plane, reporting on the nation's worst traffic.

These days, he broadcasts about traffic snarls and lurking gridlock without leaving the ground — without even leaving his home in this Los Angeles suburb. Sitting in a chair behind computer monitors and a television, Nolan gathers traffic data and broadcasts live on two radio stations a day...

Proposed law could punish employers for snooping on Facebook - Phoenix Business Journal:

Bosses who check out their employees’ or job applicants’ Facebook or Twitter pages could get into trouble under a new federal law that protects workers’ genetic information and medical histories.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which went into effect Nov. 20, bars employers and health insurance providers from discriminating against individuals based on their genetic information and personal and family medical histories. The federal law is aimed at protecting an employee from getting fired or not hired because, for example, their boss finds out they have a genetic disposition toward a certain disease...

Stressing the Web, ‘NewsHour’ begins an overhaul - NYTimes.com

ARLINGTON, Va. — Until recently, the employees who worked on the Web site of “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” on PBS were based in a building a brisk five-minute walk through city traffic from their on-air colleagues. The Web and television staffs interacted only at Mr. Lehrer’s annual holiday party. “They were all the recognizably young ones,” said Linda Winslow, the show’s executive producer.

But in early November, the staffs were merged into a single 20-person bullpen, with four adjacent digital editing bays carved from what had been the correspondent Gwen Ifill’s office...

Commemorating an important anniversary the interactive way

"To help raise awareness about Ohio's pivotal role in Civil War history, the Ohio Historical Society and the Cleveland State University's Center for Public History and Digital Humanities recently launched www.ohiocivilwar150.org to commemorate the upcoming 150th anniversary of the war in 2011 to 2015.

The Web site is a collection of information as well as a dynamic tool for the public, educators and local history groups to collaborate and share their knowledge of Ohio's fascinating Civil War history...

Bargains, ease of online shopping boost 'Cyber Monday' | The Columbus Dispatch

Tomorrow isn't the biggest online shopping day of the year, but there is no doubt that "Cyber Monday" is the day when online shopping steps into the spotlight.

The day's reputation has grown along with shoppers' appetite for using a computer to buy something. It's considered the bookend to Black Friday, the mad-dash shopping spree that occurs the day after Thanksgiving...

Zero-liability policy protects bank customers from phishing - NYTimes.com

THE e-mail message from the bank looks real. It isn’t.

Law enforcement agencies that oversee computer security are well versed in the many permutations of “phishing,” the scam in which fraudsters try to lure people to a counterfeit replica of their bank’s Web site, for example, and have them part with their user names and passwords. But even the professionally wary can be gulled — or close to it. Just ask Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

Avoid the crowds and save money online - washingtonpost.com

We've tested and picked Web sites we think are easy to use and will help you save money this holiday season. Take a look:

-- Find the lowest price. Dealio (http://www.dealio.com) has a larger retail search than rival sites offer and provides coupon codes with a thumbs-up/thumbs-down review.

Pronto.com fetches prices from more than 25,000 online merchants, including eBay. PriceGrabber.com offers prices on products from nearly 13,000 merchants...

Online tool helps sort, decipher medical bills | The Columbus Dispatch

This scenario might sound familiar: You open your mailbox to find a letter from your health insurer, a doctor or the hospital. Instead of opening it, you toss it on the pile of mail that can be dealt with later.

"A medical bill is not one of the things you want to open first," said Elaine Christen, an Ashtabula resident. "I may not open it for three to four days, maybe a week." Unless you know your health insurance inside and out, she said, medical bills can be confusing and intimidating.

But an online program through Medical Mutual of Ohio helps Christen organize her bills, understand how much she owes and for what service, know what to do if there's a billing error and pay doctors and hospitals on time...

Vevo music video service hits the Web Dec. 8 - USATODAY.com

NEW YORK — Rio Caraeff isn't just preparing to introduce a new company on Dec. 8 when he launches Vevo, a long-awaited online music video service backed by Vivendi's Universal Music and Sony Music.

His effort to build a business around one of the Internet's most popular video genres represents a new focus for the beleaguered music industry – one in which advertisers are more important than retailers...

Bonobos, a pants retailer, seeks to banish the saggy bottom - NYTimes.com

WHEN women try on pants, the first thing they do is turn around and look over their shoulders into the mirror. If Andy Dunn has his way, men will soon do the same.

Mr. Dunn, the co-founder and chief executive of Bonobos, an e-commerce company that sells men’s pants, is on a mission to give American men a complex about their backsides. The pants’ distinguishing feature is that they eliminate the sagging bottom of ill-fitting trousers...

Africa's media explosion

Charles Muigai is concerned that two years after violence broke out in Kenya following disputed elections, Kenyans have done little to avoid a repeat in the 2012 elections. Muigai said Kenyans are not having in-depth discussions about what happened.

“Post-election violence has been the hardest topic to discuss,” Muigai said. “A lot of Kenyans do not read beyond the headlines.” Even in the diaspora, Kenyans still distrust each other. Mingling across ethnic groups is rare. Muigai said he wants to change that. He spent $5,000 of his own money to build an Internet radio station in Dallas, Texas, to give Kenyans a medium they can use to discuss various issues...

A new kind of company, a new challenge for feds - washingtonpost.com

One is a giant of the entertainment world -- a tangle of television networks, a film studio and a stable of hit shows. The other is a cable colossus, the nation's largest provider of cable TV and Internet access. Together, the possibilities are endless.

And that prospect has caught regulators' attention...

Kindle, Nook and other e-readers to take off in 2010 - PC World

Will 2010 be the year of the e-reader? It sure looks that way. Amazon continues to improve its popular Kindle lineup, and Barnes & Noble claims it can't keep up with customer demand for its new Nook e-reader.

Meanwhile, a host of competitors, including the Sony Reader and lesser-known products from Plastic Logic (Que), Foxit Software (eSlick), and others, promise to give e-reader fans plenty of options...

Five tips to shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday securely - PC World Business Center

This Friday is Black Friday--officially kicking off the 2009 holiday shopping season. Online attackers and malware developers know how to capitalize on current events, and the rush to find great holiday bargains offers a prime opportunity to exploit eager shoppers. Here are five tips to help you shop online securely.

1. Start with the Basics. I realize that it seems redundant and cliché, but the first step in protecting yourself and your computer this holiday season is to make sure your computer is patched and secure...

What we can be thankful for about broadband in America

Beyond eating criminal amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving is the time of year we're supposed to give thanks for what we have.

To that end, I wanted to take a moment to point out the facets of America's broadband ecosystem that we can be thankful for...

Minnesota High Speed Broadband Task Force - High-speed Internet access for MN

Minnesota High Speed Broadband Task Force

Notice: The Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Report is now formally released and available to the public. Please click here to download a PDF version of the document...

Dakota future: Promoting Dakota County in Minnesota

In January 2009, Dakota Future announced our goal to achieve designation as an internationally recognized Intelligent Community by 2012. Accordingly, we have now organized our economic development efforts around broadband development, knowledge workers, innovation, digital inclusion and marketing.

Our board of directors, membership and stakeholders include representatives of our local business community, our area colleges, city and county governments, chambers of commerce and workforce partners. This interchange of ideas and opportunities creates an atmosphere of collaboration, problem solving and optimism for the future...

Retailers extend bargains throughout holiday season - NYTimes.com

Attention shoppers: It might pay to just sleep in this Black Friday.

The conventional wisdom is that the most stupendous bargains of the year are to be had on the Friday after Thanksgiving. But the marketplace has become so packed on that crowded shopping day that some retailers are shifting their strategy...

The face of your dreams is a beauty app away - NYTimes.com

TAYLOR DISHER, a 22-year-old marketing student in Toronto, recently found a useful way to shorten her beauty routine. Rather than try on sticky layers of lip gloss in a drugstore aisle, she leisurely tested 20 different shades of gloss on her train commute to school using an iPhone app called MakeUp.

“I’m not a big makeup person, but the app looked kind of fun,” said Ms. Disher, who downloaded MakeUp from the Apple App Store several weeks ago. Using its facial recognition technology, she was able to apply rounds of pixelated gloss onto her pixelated lips (on an uploaded photo of herself) until she found a perfect posy pink...

Butterballs or cheese balls, an online barometer - NYTimes.com

If you are in Oregon this Thanksgiving, you stand a better than average chance of encountering Tofurkey. More people in New York are looking for caterers to prepare the holiday meal than anywhere else in the country. Live in the Southeast? Brace yourself for a big scoop of broccoli casserole.

And no matter where in the United States you are, don’t be surprised if the host molds refrigerated breadstick dough and bakes it into a cornucopia centerpiece. It is the break-out hit recipe of the season at Allrecipes.com, the nation’s largest cooking Web site...

WSCC: Standing out

Washington State Community College is changing to meet the evolving demands of higher education. So far, many of these efforts have been met with success, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been growing pains. As with nearly every industry in the Mid Ohio Valley, the local college is seeing that quality and affordability are no longer enough to remain competitive.

Chief Information Officer Eric Koast says improvements to distance learning programs and an online one-stop to access the college’s technical resources are providing students with more opportunities than ever before. Koast explained that the college has also recently purchased and installed a new video conferencing lab. Washington State has provided the Morgan County Learning Center with broadband internet access in order to be able to offer more classes to students who in the past were hindered by the drive to campus...

The best way to streamline RUS: fast-track partial loan guarantees

As I argued last week, the second round of the broadband stimulus is in trouble if the only changes it makes are expanding eligibility and extending the time available to apply. NTIA and RUS have had enough trouble dealing with 2,200 applications; it's worrisome to think what might happen if 10,000 show up on their doorstep in round two.

I'm not trying to suggest that eligibility shouldn't be expanded, just that we also need to find solutions for streamlining the approval process and getting money out the door more quickly. But we do have to be careful as we need to make sure we only fund the right projects and that we maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars.

Honolulu police posting DUI mug shots on Internet - washingtonpost.com

HONOLULU -- Mug shots of drunken driving suspects are landing on the Honolulu Police Department's Web site, creating a virtual wall of shame long before suspects get their day in court.

Supporters say the experiment in public humiliation to be launched Wednesday should be used elsewhere in the nation if it reduces the number of drunks on the road...

E Reader competition between Amazon, Barnes Noble and Sony heat up - Industry News - Portfolio.com

Is there an e-reader on your gift list this year? It wouldn’t be a surprise—the technology press touts that the 2009 holiday shopping season (actually, all of 2010) will see the ascent of the e-reader as the ultimate mobile accessory, delivering novels and newspapers to a public clamoring for convenience

Once a boutique, almost novelty device, the e-reader market is steadily filling up. According to an August report from the Association of American Publishers, electronic-book sales increased 177 percent, to $96.6 million, over 2008 numbers...

AEP gets stimulus grant for $150 million 'smart-grid' project | Columbus Dispatch Politics

About 110,000 central Ohio customers of American Electric Power soon will have advanced-technology meters, giving them the ability to track when they use the most power and thus reduce their electricity bills.

It's all part of a $150 million demonstration project to install "smart-grid" technology for customers across a 150-square-mile swath of AEP's service area, an effort government and company officials say will reduce energy consumption, save money and create jobs.

The technology allows customers to track their electricity usage via a wireless Internet connection. Future versions may allow utilities to charge lower rates during the times of day with the lowest usage. That would encourage customers to do certain tasks, such as running the dishwasher and washing machine, at different times to reduce stress on the power grid...

Group of publishers is said to be building a newsstand online - NYTimes.com

A consortium of magazine publishers including Time Inc. and Condé Nast plan to jointly build an online newsstand for publications in multiple digital formats, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

The formation of a new company to run the online newsstand — sometimes characterized as an “iTunes for magazines” — may be announced in early December. Time, Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith all intend to be equity partners in the new company, although the deals have not yet been signed...

Cohen presses for action to bridge America’s digital divide | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

With Internet speeds and access in most of the developed world leaving the United States in the dust, America's low-income and minority households are particularly at risk of being left behind in the digital world, CWA President Larry Cohen told the Minority Broadband Summit in a keynote speech Wednesday.

The event was sponsored by the Alliance for Digital Equality, a coalition of corporate, consumer, public policy and other organizations including CWA that is pushing for broadband expansion in rural and inner city areas. The summit brought together policy makers, media and others to address the critical issues facing underserved communities...

AT&T: Healthcare embracing telepresence - Telecom News Analysis

The U.S. healthcare industry, under pressure to get a handle on costs, is embracing telepresence as one means of reducing expenditure, according to AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).

The resulting cuts in travel costs, and more productive collaboration among medical professionals, are just two of the factors driving increasing demand for telepresence in the health sector, making it more popular than most remote diagnostic applications, according to Alan Benway, AT&T's executive director of product marketing management for telepresence. (See AT&T Helps Center...)

Modified bluetooth technology has telemedicine potential | PwC CommunicationsDirectNews.com

An Indian research team claims that a telemedicine system based on a modified version of the Bluetooth wireless protocol can provide faster and more reliable patient assessment data transfers between mobile devices. The team reports that the system could potentially transfer patient data, such as medical images, to a healthcare provider's mobile device at speeds almost four times as fast as conventional Bluetooth technology and without the risk of intermittent connectivity problems.

Telemedicine is a rapidly developing clinical technology that allows medical information to be transferred via telephone or the Internet or for analysis or consultation. However, there are drawbacks to using direct connections between monitoring devices and healthcare providers, not the least of which are the intermittency of wired and wireless connections in many locations...

Woman to fight insurance company over Facebook - USATODAY.com

MONTREAL — A Canadian woman on sick leave for depression said Monday she would fight an insurance company's decision to cut her benefits after her agent found photos on Facebook of her vacationing, at a bar and at a party. Nathalie Blanchard said Monday she was diagnosed with major depression and was receiving monthly sick-leave benefits until payments dried up this fall. When Blanchard called her insurance provider, Manulife, to find out why, she says she was told the Facebook photos showed she was able to work.

"If you have insurance, be careful. This is a major battle and it's not going to be easy," Blanchard, 29, said in a telephone interview from her home in Bromont Quebec. She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on Facebook, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a holiday.
Blanchard said Manulife told her it was evidence she is no longer depressed...

LinkedIn aims to show up in more places online - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

LinkedIn is hoping to let its users tap into their professional network across the Web.

On Monday, LinkedIn will make its technology available to software developers who want to use it in their own sites and applications. By incorporating information about someone’s professional profile and connections, LinkedIn can make those sites more useful, said Adam Nash, LinkedIn’s vice president of search and platform products...

Row 44's in-flight Internet service gets off the ground -- latimes.com

Billions of dollars and scores of top engineers with the world's largest aerospace company couldn't get it to fly.

But now a tiny, 25-employee firm in Westlake Village thinks it has found a way to make in-flight Internet access via satellite finally take off...

Verizon introduces telehealth collaboration services for health care industry

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – November 23, 2009 – Time, distance and cost often hamper efforts to link patients with the right health care expert, causing further concern for those needing to consult with faraway doctors. Verizon is answering this need with new services for physicians, hospitals, clinics and insurers that enable providers to "see" patients through video consultations, as well as other collaboration services.

Verizon's portfolio, Telehealth Collaboration Services, enables health care providers to consult remotely with patients and other providers, offer continuing medical education and training to medical professionals, as well as help health care administrators avoid costly and time-consuming travel through the use of collaborative technology...

Best practices in broadband-based economic development « Blandin on Broadband

This session brought Brad Woodside, Mayor of Fredericton, New Brunswick (Canada) and Elies Lemkes-Straver of Brainport Operations and Kees Rovers of Close the Gap both from Eindhoven, the Netherlands to talk about broadband as a vital tool in their communities. Both were named Top Seven communities by the Intelligent Community Forum. (Moderated by Bill Coleman)...

Sezmi blends broadband, broadcast to take on cable giants - San Francisco Business Times:

Sezmi Corp. is in a race to take over your TV set in the Internet age. The Belmont startup says it has a time-tested advantage over its extensive competition: over-the-air broadcasting.

The company’s goal — for which it has raised more than $75 million — is to displace existing cable and satellite television providers with a low-priced offering that delivers live television, premium content and selected Internet access over a hybrid national broadcast-broadband network. “This is an alternative for cable and satellite (television) service,” said co-founder and CEO Buno Pati. “It is meant to be a replacement...”

Best Buy reaches out to teens through charitable-giving program - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

Best Buy Co. Inc.’s charitable arm, the Best Buy Children’s Foundation, has taken a somewhat radical shift. The consumer-electronics retail giant, which spends nearly 1.5 percent of its pre-tax earnings on philanthropic efforts, is giving young teens the responsibility for steering much of the company’s $30 million in annual giving via the @15 campaign.

@15’s concept is simple. Performers, such as Taylor Swift, Fallout Boy and Common, serve as spokespeople for the campaign, luring 13- to 15-year-olds to @15’s Web site with pitches and events. From there, teenagers create profiles, interact on forums, complete activities and earn points...

'Augmented reality' fuses your world and the Web - washingtonpost.com

The cameras on some new phones don't show the world as you've known it.

Instead of just viewing the usual landscape of people, places and things on their screens, you see circles, rectangles and icons floating on top of the scenery. Tap one to display a snippet of Internet data about whatever lies behind that tag. As you look around, the view on the phone's display shifts accordingly, presenting new shortcuts to whatever the Web knows about your surroundings...

Skip the crowds: Online shopping tips for Black Friday - PC World

You probably already know that many Black Friday bargains are available online too. Rather than brave the elements or risk being trampled at 5 a.m., it's much more pleasant to shop from the comfort of home. Save the Kevlar vest for another day.

We asked a few expert bargain-hunters how online shoppers can score the best deals on Black Friday. Here's their advice...

Twitter turns on geolocation functionality - PC World

Twitter is now allowing its externally-built applications to provide geolocation features to end users, after announcing its intention to do so in August.

The functionality is provided via a specific geotagging API (application programming interface) that external developers can use to build geolocation features in their applications...

Barnes & Noble’s Nook sold out for the holidays - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

It’s shaping up to a be very merry holiday season for Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader. Earlier this week, we reported that Sony could not guarantee that its new Daily Edition Reader would reach online buyers in time for Christmas.

Now Barnes & Noble says that preorders of its stylish new Nook e-reader have exceeded expectations, and that the company has sold out of its initial supply of devices...

Kate Lister on how broadband will transform Telework | Broadband for America

The concept of telecommuting—or more specifically the use of technology to replace the daily commute—hasn't really caught on the way its advocates have hoped. Yes, more and more companies are allowing occasional home-based work, but the reality is that only a few million U.S. employees consider home their primary place of work.

We recently spoke to Kate Lister, co-author of Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley, 2009), about the future of telecommuting. She predicts that a combination of factors including the ubiquitous availability of high speed broadband, economic recovery, environmental concerns, and workforce shortages will conspire to create a perfect storm for telecommuting over the next ten years...

Get ready for the South Korean Smart Grid firms

Back when I was a broadband reporter for Red Herring magazine, I took a trip to Seoul and did the classic story on how South Korea kick-started its economy with government investment into blazing-fast broadband pipes that created its world-leading mobile and web industries. South Korea’s broadband buildout may hold some interesting lessons for the U.S. smart grid rollout, as I’ve noted before.

But the country could also take a leading role in the smart grid market, with South Korean smart grid firms competing directly against the companies in Silicon Valley that are developing the next-generation of smart grid tools...

Wikipedia, iPhone among top Internet moments - InternetNews.com

The launch of Wikipedia, emergence of the iPhone and the election of U.S. President Barack Obama were among the 10 most influential moments on the Internet in the past decade, according to the annual Webby awards.

Other events singled out by the New York-based International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which has presented the annual Webby awards since 1996, were the Iranian election in 2009 when protests demonstrated the power of Twitter and other social network in reshaping democracy...

Facebook becoming online video hub - InternetNews.com

The conversation around online video has traditionally been dominated by YouTube, and rightly so. After all, the Google-owned property claims somewhere between 10 times and 20 times the traffic of its nearest competitor, depending on what metric is applied and who's doing the measuring.

But Nielsen has compiled an analysis that highlights the rise of Facebook as a major hub for online video, leading the pack in a trend of broader use of video on social-networking sites...

Sony's Hirai hopes for quick start to online content service - PC World

Sony is hoping to launch its planned online content service early next year and expects it will give the company an advantage in the increasingly competitive consumer electronics market, the executive heading up the project said Friday.

"I'd like it to get off the ground as quickly as possible," said Kaz Hirai, executive vice president of Sony and head of its Networked Products & Service Group, in an interview at the company's Tokyo headquarters. "Earlier in the year is more preferable..."

LifeTuner: How AARP came to serve twentysomethings - BusinessWeek

On Oct. 27, AARP, an organization founded to promote the needs of 50-and-older Americans, turned youthful, unveiling a financial planning Web site and online community designed for 25-to-34-year-olds.

Visitors to the free LifeTuner site can post questions, find advice from financial experts, and use tools to manage their credit-card debt or plan for retirement...

Broadband buffet: Last call for consumers? - BusinessWeek

Get ready for the next generation of fiber coming to the home, delivering 10 Gbps downlink and 2.5 Gbps uplink, shared among 32 locations. Verizon will announce next year that its labs have achieved a huge improvement over the 2.5 Gbps down and 1.2 Gbps up that the company is currently deploying.

But get ready to dig deeper into your wallet, too. Even if demand for broadband isn't breaking the Internet, it's surely forcing ISPs to rethink how they charge for such a valuable service—even Verizon...

Free broadband comes to Spain and Finland - FierceTelecom

Once again, the Europeans are one-upping the Americans on the broadband delivery front. While the U.S. remains embroiled in arguments on how it should realign the Universal Service Fund (USF) to subsidize voice services in rural markets, the Finnish and Spanish governments are thinking broadband should be part of a universal service mandate.

The two countries have set a common goal: by 2011 any resident in Finland or Spain will be able to get an affordably-priced 1 Mbps connection...

OneCommunity closing Akron broadband consulting office | Business - cleveland.com - - cleveland.com

OneCommunity, the Cleveland non-profit broadband Internet provider, is closing an office in Akron that offered broadband consulting services to communities across the country.

The Knight Center for Digital Excellence was founded with a $4.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in early 2008. At the time, the Akron-based foundation also pledged $10.5 million to fund the center for five years...

Google adding automatic captions to YouTube videos - USATODAY.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Think of it as closed captioning for the new media world. Google said Thursday it is introducing automatic, machine-generated captions for videos on its YouTube site. The new service, being launched this week, is intended to make online videos accessible to the deaf and hearing-impaired.

Hundreds of thousands of videos on Google sites already contain caption tracks that users have created and added manually with Google's existing captioning service. But with 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, most videos on the site still lack captions...

Time Warner Cable names marketer for NE Ohio

Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio division recently promoted Elizabeth Watson to senior director of marketing. Watson, who joined Time Warner Cable in 1989 as a marketing coordinator, was director of marketing since 1998.

“Liz possesses a vast amount of background in finance and marketing Click here!. That experience, combined with her passion for cable, makes her a proven asset to Time Warner Cable,” said Vin Zachariah, Regional Vice President of Operations, Time Warner Cable Northeast Ohio...

Voice, video, data: Which one should you give away?

As growth in the broadband market continues to slow, due to depressed housing starts, a weak economy and a nearly saturated market, competition is intensifying between cable and telco providers, which are increasingly using promotions and giveaways of one service to win the larger residential bundle.

The latest example is Verizon Communications’ offer this week of six months of free DSL to customers who sign up for a one-year contract...

FCC moves to speed wireless buildouts - InternetNews.com

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously today to approve new rules that aim to speed the deployment of wireless networks by clearing the red tape carriers face when they look to build new infrastructure facilities.

The FCC vote established what in the wireless industry is known as a "shot clock" for state and local governments to approve applications to build new cell towers and install antennas...

Research shows 20 percent of households worldwide to be connected by year’s end « Knight Center Community Connection

If there were any lingering doubts that broadband is truly the future world platform for innovation, the information technology research and advisory company Gartner Inc. put some of those to rest with their recent projections on worldwide broadband penetration.

Overall, Gartner projects 422 million (about 20 percent) households worldwide will have a fixed broadband connection by the end of this year, a roughly 11 percent increase from the number of households that had a fixed broadband connection at the end of 2008...

A knack for getting things done - MariettaTimes.com

Mike Ritter, who recently completed his master's degree in public administration at Ohio University, is taking over many of Tamburini's community development duties at the Extension Service.

Ritter, an Athens area resident, has been meeting with local officials to get to know their needs. "I've already been able to help with some litter cleanup issues for townships, and I'm working to pull people together to expand broadband Internet throughout the county. I think that's a real catalyst to bringing companies and jobs into the county," he said...

Howdy, WiMAX: Sprint launches in Austin, San Antonio

As previously announced, Sprint-Nextel Corp. on Monday rolled out WiMAX mobile broadband wireless in Austin and San Antonio, Texas.

The rollout continues for WiMAX operator Clearwire Corp. and its investors. Sprint owns a 51 percent stake in Clearwire and is acting as an MVNO on the Clearwire network. “Sprint 4G” service is positioned as the next generation of the carrier’s existing 3G services, and Sprint offers a dual-mode 3G/4G modem...

American Express to enter market for online payments - washingtonpost.com

American Express on Wednesday said it had agreed to buy the online person-to-person payment provider Revolution Money for $300 million, the latest move by one of the credit card giants to add a service that has been increasingly in demand by consumers, especially younger ones.

Revolution Money is one of the start-ups under Revolution LLC, the umbrella company launched in 2005 by AOL co-founder Steve Case, who said he wanted to create companies that empower consumers. Revolution Money is an electronic alternative-payment company, somewhat like PayPal, that allows users to securely move money across the Internet. Former AOL executive and longtime Case friend Ted Leonsis is the company's chairman, and former American Express chief executive James D. Robinson III sits on the board of Revolution Money, which was founded in 2007...

Computers make stock screening easy - USATODAY.com

Q: Do you know any free websites where you can screen stocks based on their "forward" price-to-earnings ratio?

A: When investors go shopping for stocks to buy, they often look for investments that meet certain criteria. Poking through thousands of stocks one-by-one looking for those criteria would be brutal.

That's where computerized stock screening comes in. Stock-screening tools filter the universe of stocks for the criteria you request. You can build stock screens to look for stocks of companies with large piles of cash, for instance, or other business traits, such as an attractive valuation measured by price-to-earnings ratio...

Building an online bulwark to fend off identity fraud - NYTimes.com

A clotheshorse racked up thousands of dollars in mystery charges on a friend’s credit card. Phantoms emptied your uncle’s bank account. Someone took out a car loan in your colleague’s name and stuck her with the bill.

Identity fraud has been on the rise, as criminal cunning may be mixing with desperation during the downturn. Schemes seem to multiply daily, as scammers often half a world away dream up new ways to steal data to enrich themselves. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, 9.9 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2008, up from 8.1 million in 2007...

Cincinnati Bell sells cell towers to American Tower - Dayton Business Journal:

American Tower Corp. said Wednesday it is buying 196 wireless communication towers from Cincinnati Bell Inc.

The towers are located in Ohio and Kentucky, according to a news release. American Tower will pay $100 million for the acquisition, which is expected to close by Dec. 30...

Social media like Twitter change customer service - USATODAY.com

SAN FRANCISCO — When Wes Harper's high-definition cable service went on the fritz a few months ago, he hopped on Twitter and tried to reach Comcast's customer service reps.

At the time, it seemed the best course of action, given Comcast's sterling reputation on the social-media service...

Senator goes after Web membership clubs

The U.S. Congress needs to take action to protect consumers tricked into signing up for membership clubs that charge a monthly fee when they buy products or services from other Web sites, the chairman of a U.S. Senate committee said Tuesday.

Many legitimate Web sites selling items such as flowers or airline tickets have partnered with companies that lure consumers into signing up for monthly payments after being promised cash-back rewards, said Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee...

EU reports rise in broadband Internet lines

BRUSSELS — The European Union says 6 million more people in the bloc signed up to broadband Internet access over the last year.

It said Wednesday there were 119 million broadband subscriptions across the 27-nationEU in July 2009, up from 113 million a year earlier. That means that that nearly one in four people in the EU, or 23.9 percent, can access the Web at higher speeds — far off an EU goal for one in three households to have broadband by 2010...

Apple Macs no safer than PCs from computer phishing attacks - Technology Live - USATODAY.com

Mac users get victimized by a certain, very active segment of the cyber underground -- phishers -- just as often as PC users, says Randy Abrams, director of technical education at antivirus firm Eset.

And Macs that are allowed to tie into Windows-centric company networks can help elite phishers spread malicious attacks, adds Timothy Armstrong, security analyst at Kaspersky Lab...

Luxury firms move to make Web work for them - NYTimes.com

BERLIN — The luxury goods industry, struggling through a recession that has threatened some well-known names with extinction, is trying to cast off the kid gloves that have hampered its efforts to get a grip on technology.

Because of continuing legal battles over online sales of counterfeit goods, concerns about undermining carefully honed brand images and a history of costly failures, many in the fashion business remain wary of the Internet. But executives say that attitudes are softening as brands realize that the Web provides one of the last untapped sources of potential growth...

Choosing the small screen of a smartphone for e-reading - NYTimes.com

With Amazon’s Kindle, readers can squeeze hundreds of books into a device that is smaller than most hardcovers. For some, that’s not small enough.

Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget...

The danger of marketing prescription drugs online -- latimes.com

Google, Yahoo and the pharmaceutical industry are pushing to change how prescription drugs are hawked online. That's not a bad thing necessarily.

The danger is that all the happy, sunny marketing pitches could end up front and center on the Web and on Twitter, while all the nasty, scary side effects are relegated to cyber-ghettos that consumers never see...

Is ‘Free’ Wi-Fi really free?

MELBOURNE, Fla. – Many coffee shops and restaurants offer free Wi-Fi access as a service to their patrons, but more operators are saying that they expect customers to purchase something when using the service, Florida Today reports.

Some establishment have posted formal rules about using free wireless Internet, while others have unwritten expectations. More people are disconnecting high-speed Internet service at home and going to locations with free Wi-Fi, making a sticky situation for operators who want to fill tables with paying customers...

Web 2.0 Expo: O'Reilly warns of Web war -- InformationWeek

The Web, which began life as an open community where information and tools were freely shared across geographic, political, and social boundaries, is in danger of becoming segmented into a federation of closed camps led by a handful of increasingly powerful vendors, said Internet pundit Tim O'Reilly.

"We're heading back into an ugly time," said O'Reilly, during a keynote address Tuesday at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City...

Cyber warfare warning sounded -- InformationWeek

The world is arming for cyber war and better defenses must be planned for and implemented.

McAfee, a computer security company, makes this claim in its Fifth Annual Virtual Criminology report, released on Tuesday...

NACo | Bill aims to modernize voter registration

Voting reform advocates — along with many in Congress — believe that the nation’s current voter registration policies are out-of-date, inaccurate and costly. These inefficiencies, they argue, can lead to voter disenfranchisement.

However, even well-intentioned efforts to modernize the voter registration process are countered by claims that doing so will open the door for increased voter fraud and impose an impractical, one-size-fits-all unfunded mandate on election officials across the country. These conflicting positions were evident at the Oct. 21 hearing before the House Subcommittee on Elections that focused much of its attention on the Voter Registration Act of 2009 (H.R. 1719)...

W.Va. consumer advocate, staff oppose phone deal - The Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Some key state regulatory officials are opposing Frontier Communications Corp.'s plan to buy Verizon's wire line business in West Virginia and 13 other states.

The Public Service Commission's staff and Consumer Advocate Division recommended the merger's rejection in filings Monday with the PSC...

Apple tablet speculation reignited by CNN report - PC World

What mythical product will simultaneously kill off the Kindle, iPod, Zune, iPod, Nintendo DS, and a whole slew of cheap netbooks?

Oh, and during recharges, it'll save newspapers and magazines, reinvent TV viewing (and maybe deep-six the cable guys), and make mobile Web browsing a lot more enjoyable with a lot less finger dragging and pinching...

Buckeye taps Kabel-X for FTTH trial

Buckeye Cablevision, with the help of Kabel-X USA, is set to deploy a fiber-to-the-home trial in its Toledo, Ohio, system. Buckeye said it will transition an existing subdivision to an FTTH solution without construction of new facilities in the easements.

In the Toledo area, Buckeye provides video, voice and data services to approximately 150,000 subscribers...

Verizon ratchets up promos; DSL free for 6 mos.

In an effort to draw data customers away from cable operators, Verizon Communications is offering its DSL service for free for six months to subscribers who sign a one-year agreement.

Verizon’s DSL offer runs until Jan. 16 and includes the following tiers: 1 Mbps, 3 Mbps and 7.1 Mbps.

Utah’s Utopia moves forward with user-owned fiber

Utah’s multicity public fiber network, Utopia, is moving forward with a new model in which individual users pay the cost of connecting their homes with fiber.

Late last week, the Brigham City Council approved a $5.5-million plan to extend the wholesale fiber network throughout its streets. The city itself is putting up just $655,384 of that cost, while business and residential customers who want fiber are putting up the rest...

Wipro uses wireless to monitor patients remotely

Indian outsourcer Wipro has designed a gateway that uses GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) wireless technology to collect data remotely from medical devices such as blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, pedometers, and weighing scales available with patients.

In remote areas in India, GSM coverage is better than that of broadband or fixed-line dial-up connections, said R. Manimaran, general manager of the medical devices unit of the Wipro Technologies business of Wipro...

Study: Most won't pay for newspaper, magazine content online

Bad news for newspaper and magazine publishers hoping to boost their flagging businesses by charging for content: Most consumers in the U.S. won't pay for it.

That's the finding from a new study from Forrester Research, which polled around 4,700 U.S. consumers, 80 percent of whom indicated they're unwilling to pay for access to newspaper and magazine articles and other content...

Ohio's Buckeye Cablevision pushes Fiber To The Home - 2009-11-16 21:06:42 | Multichannel News

Buckeye Cablevision will initiate a fiber-to-the-home deployment in its Toledo, Ohio, system using Kabel-X USA's process for deploying fiber through existing coaxial cabling.

Buckeye plans to switch an existing subdivision from coax to a fiber-to-the-home solution without construction of new facilities in the easements. The Kabel-X system -- developed by the Austrian parent company and introduced in the U.S. last year -- removes the coax cable's center conductor and dielectric material by injecting a proprietary fluid to provide a conduit for fiber-optic cable...

Cordray sues to shut down BlueHippo’s unfair practices

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a lawsuit today against BlueHippo Funding, LLC and BlueHippo Capital, LLC (collectively BlueHippo) charging the joint companies have violated Ohioans’ consumer rights with the companies’ sale of home computers through layaway and credit sales agreements.

“BlueHippo targets and takes advantage of consumers who believe their credit isn’t good enough to obtain a computer in any other way,” Cordray said. “BlueHippo lures consumers into contracts that are unfairly one-sided in BlueHippo’s favor, while failing to disclose important terms and conditions...”

Are femtocells dead on arrival? | Telecompetitor

Femtocells are one of those products that, at least conceptually, look to have disruptive traits. The idea of putting a mini ‘cell tower’ in individual homes and businesses, greatly boosting indoor wireless coverage, certainly could be seen as accelerating ‘cord cutting’ behavior – perhaps in a game changing way. But not so fast.

ABI Research is cutting its forecast on femtocell shipments. ABI now says 55% fewer, from 790,000 units to 350,000 units, will ship in 2009. They also expect 2010 to slowdown. “We expect that deployments in 2010 will pick up but will be slower than expected – our data suggests about a 40% reduction on previous estimates.” Hardly a hyper accelerating trend...

Verizon launches new holiday promotions | Telecompetitor

Verizon is hoping the holiday season bodes well for consumer electronics (HDTVs and computers in particular), which they hope in turn, leads to more FiOS subscriptions.

“Some large retail chains already are announcing discounts on TVs, digital cameras, laptops and other home electronics for the holiday shopping season,” said John Wimsatt, senior vice president of marketing for Verizon Telecom in a press release...

Steve Haber talks up Sony Readers in Kindle's backyard

Amazon.com's Kindle often gets credit for spurring the electronic book market, but it's sometimes overlooked that Sony had an e-reader on the market a full year before the first Kindle launched. Today I chatted with Steve Haber, the president of Sony's digital reading division, who spent the day in Seattle — Amazon turf — to talk up his company's new lineup of reading devices (the $199 Reader Pocket Edition, $299 Reader Touch Edition, and soon-to-be-released $399 Reader Daily Edition)...

Rewiring an old fund for rural broadband | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural

Over the past two weeks, as health care legislation passed by a hair through the U.S. Congress, other policy changes have steadily unfolded that will improve the fortunes of rural community broadband.

The Yonder reported last week on how a flood of federal money to smart-grid projects can aid rural broadband efforts. Now Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) have drafted legislation to reform the Universal Service Fund (USF), a program that collects money from telecommunications companies and distributes it to communications programs in underserved areas. Boucher and Terry want to divert a portion of this nearly $7 billion fund to support broadband projects in rural areas.

UTOPIA trailblazing new opportunity for user-owned fiber

An exciting development has occurred recently in the world of fiber deployment. A new model is emerging in Brigham City, a city of less than 20,000 in northern Utah, for how user-owned open fiber networks can be financed and deployed.

It used to be that the only way you could get fiber was if you were lucky enough to have a private provider lay it or to live in a city that did it itself. Today in Brigham City, for $3,000 you can buy your own fiber. And in fact more than 1,600 local residents have already bought in to this new opportunity...

The virtual doctor visit: Health monitoring at home - washingtonpost.com

Every morning at 10 a.m. sharp, Juanita Wood, 87, taps "okay" on a screen to start up a device that takes her blood pressure and transmits the information to her medical clinic. At 10:30 a.m., her husband, Arthur, 91, touch-starts his own device, neatly lined up next to hers. The machine calculates his blood pressure and weight and sends them off, along with a blood sugar count that he enters by hand.

The Woods, of Catonsville, Md., are participants in one of several pilot projects that home health-care providers, retirement communities and others are conducting to see if high-tech but simple devices can help doctors closely monitor aging patients at home in a way that will help control problems before they escalate and cut back on the need for costly long-term care and hospital admissions -- especially repeat hospital visits for chronic conditions...

Everyman offers new directions in online maps - NYTimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — They don’t know it, but people who use Google’s online maps may be getting directions from Richard Hintz.

Mr. Hintz, a 62-year-old engineer who lives in Berkeley, Calif., has tweaked the locations of more than 200 business listings and points of interest in cities across the state, sliding an on-screen place marker down the block here, moving another one across the street there. Farther afield, he has mapped parts of Cambodia and Laos, where he likes to go on motorcycle trips...

Redefining “access” - broadband for those with disabilities | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

FCC officials and disabilities advocates gathered at an FCC field hearing on November 6 to discuss how to make broadband accessible for those with hearing, visual, and physical disabilities.

The consensus? Broadband could provide incredible benefits to the disabled community after overcoming a few unique challenges...

Broadband plan considers bridging the digital gap | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

The persistent divide between those who enjoy high speed Internet at home and those who do not is increasingly problematic, according to a report from the US Broadband Coalition. The report, "Bridging the Gap," details specific recommendations to increase broadband adoption and use.

Fortunately, according to Brian David of the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Coalition, the digital divide will be a prime target of the initiatives outlined in the FCC's National Broadband Plan, to be released in February...

Could this finally be the season for Web TV? - USATODAY.com

NEW YORK — You have good reason to be skeptical when someone says millions of ordinary television viewers are about to start surfing the Internet on the living room's electronic hearth.

We've heard that Web-on-your-TV convergence promise for more than a decade, with ambitious efforts to make it happen including AOL TV and WebTV Networks. Each time, the optimists have been wrong...

IBM and AT&T unveil cloud computing services - Business Center - PC World Business Center

Today's weather report for the Internet: increasing cloudiness with a chance of strong winds (of change). IBM and AT&T both announced new services to compete for a share of the projected $46.4 billion market--a market predicted to grow to over $150 billion over the next 4 years--in the progressively crowded arena of cloud computing.

IBM and AT&T announce new services to join the crowded cloud computing marketIf imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Amazon should be very flattered. Amazon has more or less defined the market and has a relatively successful model for offering server capacity and storage space from the cloud. Both IBM and AT&T are closely following the Amazon blueprints to duplicate that success...

Ohioans to receive restitution in Vonage settlement

11/16/2009(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — As a result of a multi-state settlement filed today with Vonage, one of the nation’s largest providers of Internet-based phone service, Ohioans will now be eligible to receive refunds for issues dating back five years. The settlement, signed by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, requires Vonage to give refunds to eligible consumers who have filed complaints dating back to January 2004 as well as those who will file complaints through March 16, 2010.

“Through this settlement, Vonage is held accountable for customer service and advertising practices that led Ohioans to be confused and dissatisfied,” said Cordray. “As a result, consumers who had an issue with the company as far back as 2004, still have the opportunity to get a refund by filing a complaint with my office within the next 120 days...”

Virgin Mobile expands prepaid mobile broadband offerings - FierceBroadbandWireless

Virgin Mobile USA said it has expanded its prepaid mobile broadband service into more retail locations. As of Dec. 1, Virgin Mobile said its Broadband2Go, which uses Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network, will be available at Best Buy Mobile, RadioShack stores, Sam's Club kiosks via RadioShack, Walmart.com and Target.com.

The MVNO, which is in the process of being bought by Sprint, also said it is lowering the price of its USB modem by $50 to $100. When Virgin Mobile first debuted the service in June the Novatel MC760 USB device cost $150...

Blue Nile visionary starts new e-commerce venture - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

Maveron missed out nearly a decade ago when it failed to make an early investment in Blue Nile, an online jewelry retailer that’s now valued at more than $850 million.

But Maveron co-founder Dan Levitan isn’t going to let that happen again. The Seattle venture capital firm is currently incubating a secretive e-commerce startup led by Mark Vadon, the co-founder of Blue Nile Inc. who held the CEO reins during that company’s hyper-growth phase from 1999 to March 2008. “I turned him down twice for Blue Nile, like an idiot,” said Levitan, when asked about working with Vadon. “I’d say it was a mistake, and hopefully I am smart enough to learn from my mistakes...”

Conversions trial for paper to electronic records will bring triumph - Kansas City Business Journal:

Scott Coons well knows the trials — across multiple industries — of trading out paper records for electronic ones. Coons is CEO of Shawnee-based Perceptive Software Inc., which makes document-management software for many industries, including health care. Coons says the job is quite attainable for the health care industry, even though it’ll probably take more than one product to be thorough.

“It’s not going to be a huge task if you pick the right technology,” Coons said. “Does it involve some money and time? Yes. But at the end of the day, it’s all about providing the best care possible, and if you pick the right software, you’ll be able to do that...”

Twitter geeks to report on Monday space shuttle launch - USATODAY.com

CAPE CANAVERAL (AP) — Fingers will be flying when space shuttle Atlantis blasts off Monday: About 100 of NASA's geekiest fans will be on hand, pecking away at iPhones, BlackBerrys, laptops and other Twittering gadgets.

They plan to let loose with electronic messages — provided they aren't so swept away by the afternoon liftoff that they fall uncharacteristically silent for a moment or two...

What about mobile broadband and cell coverage? « Blandin on Broadband

What about mobile broadband and cell coverage? It’s question that has come up quite a bit for me lately.

I don’t have an answer but I had a few moments in the last two weeks to realize that tackling it will help bridge a digital divide and ignoring it is going to widen it...

Expanding and accelerating the adoption & use of broadband throughout the economy « Blandin on Broadband

On Friday the 13th, the US Broadband Coalition released their most recent report, Expanding and Accelerating the Adoption & Use of Broadband Throughout the Economy: A report of the adoption and use working group: US Broadband Coalition: Policy Options to the Federal Communications Commission. I’m giving the whole title as it gives a lot of context...

Columbus' Toobla creates a visual library to find favorite folders of online content | The Columbus Dispatch

Save a link on the Web and then, months later, try to remember where you put it. Most likely, you can't.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem that local Internet startup Toobla.com hopes to solve...

Craigslist becomes useful tool for real estate brokers - Denver Business Journal:

Denver-area commercial real estate brokers are capitalizing on the growing online shopping trend by marketing properties on Craigslist.

Craigslist also appeals to brokers in this down economy because its commercial real estate postings are free...

Executives use blogs and social media - Industry News - Portfolio.com

Ross Martin's business cards say he's senior vice president, MTV 360 Development and Productions, but according to his own description, his job involves, meeting with "the most fascinating people in the world." "In. The. World," he emphasizes.

"And they are in and out of this building," he says, gesturing around his corner office on the 23rd floor of the Viacom unit's headquarters at 1515 Broadway on a recent afternoon. "You can't keep it to yourself..."

At checkout, more ways to avoid handling cash or plastic - NYTimes.com

For almost as long as Americans have been hearing about jetpacks and picturephones, they have been hearing that money — bills, coins and plastic cards — might cease to exist, or at least become a novelty.

Instead of leather wallets, consumers could, sooner than they think, carry virtual wallets, with their credit card and bank information stored on remote computers that are accessible everywhere and anytime. They could use them whenever they want to buy something, whether on the Web, on cellphones or at cash registers...

Glyde aims to simplify online sales of used media - NYTimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — People whose old books, CDs, DVDs and video games are collecting dust on their shelves will soon have another way to resell them on the Web.

On Monday, Glyde, a start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., plans to introduce a Web site intended to make it simple for people to buy and sell used media products...

USDA Secretary Vilsack announces $13.4 million in Community Connect broadband grants

11/15/09 Boston - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on Friday, November 13, the selection of 22 projects in 10 states to receive $13.4 million in broadband community connect grant funds.

The Broadband Community Connect fund, administered by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been funded by congressional appropriations in recent incarnations of the Farm Bill. The Broadband Community Connect program is not funded by the Recovery Act (ARRA), which also directs RUS to administer the USDA's portion of the total $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program...

Berners-Lee's foundation wants the Web to improve life - PC World

The World Wide Web Foundation, Tim Berners-Lee's latest brainchild, is now officially open for business and involved with two initial projects, as it embarks on using the Web to empower people worldwide and bring about positive socio-economic change.

Berners-Lee, the Web's inventor and founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, made the announcement on Sunday at the 2009 Internet Governance Forum in Egypt...

Voter registration - A better way | The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio's county boards of elections spend more time and money shuffling paper around in an outmoded voter-registration system than on anything else. That's why a priority for legislators considering election reform should be to modernize and simplify the way voter registrations are created and updated.

Of the many worthy suggestions to emerge from the past year's worth of discussions on how to change Ohio's elections, two would markedly improve voter registration: Allow voters to register online and update voter-registration rolls by electronically transferring reliable data to elections officials from other state-government databases. Both ideas are included in Substitute House Bill 260, expected to pass the Ohio House soon...

Technology takes the guesswork out of sailing into stormy weather - washingtonpost.com

There are times when I wish I'd been born 100 years ago instead of 64 and could have lived my active years without the Internet and satellites, BlackBerrys, cellphones and computers cluttering the landscape. This is not one of those times.

Because if you turned the calendar back 30 or 40 years, I'd have spent last week bashing into monstrous head seas in the North Atlantic in a small boat, probably a leaky, wooden one, bound for Bermuda in survival conditions with no communications, no weather information, no way of knowing when or whether the dreadful storm would end...

Blogging moms wooed by food firms -- latimes.com

Reporting from Los Angeles and Fort Wayne, Ind. - On most days, Andrea Deckard can be found in her home office, digging through stacks of coupons and grocery receipts for money saving tips and recipes that she can share with readers of her Mommy Snacks blog.

That is, when the stay-at-home mom isn't being wined and dined by giant food companies...

FCC misses two key barriers for broadband adoption

The FCC just released their top five barriers to broadband adoption. They are:

- The affordability of service
- The affordability of hardware
- Lack of digital and technical literacy
- Lack of awareness of the relevance and utility of broadband
- Inability to use technology and apps due to physical or mental disabilities

While I don't disagree that these are all barriers, I think the FCC has missed two of the biggest barriers to universal broadband adoption...

Ohio.com - Medina police use Facebook to catch suspect

Medina police have found Facebook.com the perfect place to revisit old friends they haven't seen in a while.

The department is using the popular Internet social network to seek out suspects wanted on warrants...

Google and partners revise terms of digital book deal - NYTimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Google and groups representing book publishers and authors filed a modified version of their controversial books settlement with a federal court on Friday. The changes would pave the way for other companies to license Google’s vast digital collection of copyrighted out-of-print books, and might resolve its conflicts with European governments.

RidgviewTel will run Wi-Fi in Longmont | Boulder County Business Report

LONGMONT - After seizing DHB Networks Ltd's wireless Internet infrastructure in Longmont for back taxes owed by the company and its predecessor, Boulder County on Thursday sold the property for about $122,000 to recoup lost taxes.

Nicolae Toderica, the sole bidder in the public auction, purchased DHB's assets for the minimum bid price of $121,770. Toderica, a RidgeviewTel LLC investor, hired the broadband development company to manage the citywide wireless Internet network in Longmont...

FDA takes on social media drug promotion - InternetNews.com

Drug makers, Internet companies and nonprofits called for clarity on what is a gray area for U.S. health regulators: how drug promotion on Twitter, Wikipedia, blogs and other social media can be regulated.

The two-day Food and Drug Administration hearing aims to find out if the agency needs to specifically regulate how drugs and medical devices it oversees are promoted on the Internet...

Cable guy late? Tweet about it | Article | Homepage articles

Instead of watching helplessly while bloggers beat up on it, Comcast tweets its way to better customer relations

Got a problem with your digital cable or Internet? Operators are standing by to help—on Twitter...

Emergency Broadband Network debated

Two FCC members Thursday touted the urgent need for the creation of a national broadband public safety network that would enable emergency first responders to better communicate with each other. During an FCC field hearing on the issue, Commissioner Michael Copps said while it's "a problem crying out for a solution," he does not see a grand solution on the horizon.

His call for urgent action on the issue was echoed by his Republican colleague, Meredith Attwell Baker. Calling it one of the most important items on the FCC's agenda, she said, "We must get this done..."

New media, technology & Internet use in Indian country « Blandin on Broadband

On November 19, 2009, Native Public Media and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative will release New Media, Technology and Internet Use in Indian Country: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses, one of the most extensive studies of on the ground technology use, access, and adoption in Native American lands.

Demonstrating the great need to include Native Americans in the discourse around the National Broadband Plan, the report combines both a survey of Native American technology use amongst 120 tribes, normed against other national surveys, and in-depth case studies of six successful projects exhibiting Digital Excellence in Native America...

Lost or stolen smartphone? Find and erase it remotely - USATODAY.com

Your smartphone is small, shiny and expensive. That makes it an attractive target for thieves. And, it isn't just the phone itself you need to worry about.

Your smartphone contains a treasure trove of sensitive data. Think about the data that's stored on your phone. A determined thief could probably uncover credit card numbers. He could find passwords and various account numbers...

Travel travails? Social media are your friend - USATODAY.com

Though still the exception, more travelers are finding that social media outlets can be effective ways to get companies' attention — and responses.

When a visa snafu marooned honeymooners Bethany Thomas and Dmitri Zagidulin in Frankfurt en route to St. Petersburg last week, their journey had all the makings of a disaster: a tepid response from their travel agency, Expedia, a closed consulate and luggage that had gone on to Russia without them...

Ed Hardy’s tattoo art is booty for digital pirates - NYTimes.com

Don Ed Hardy, the famed tattoo artist, must smell good. Make that really good. Ed Hardy-themed perfumes have become some of the most popular fragrances in the world with retailers buying $85 million worth of them so far this year.

Mr. Hardy’s colorful and exotic tattoo designs-cum-artwork seem to help sell just about anything. Cruise around the local mall or online and you will find Ed Hardy sweaters, jeans, shower curtains, golf carts, nasal strips and lollipops...

MPAA shuts down entire town's Wi-Fi over single illegal download - WiFi - Gizmodo

The citizens of Coshocton, Ohio are without their free Internet after a single download prompted the Motion Picture Association of America to shut down the town's municipal Wi-Fi network.

This is by no means the first time the MPAA has stepped on the little guy in their crusade to eradicate piracy, but it is a particularly egregious instance of it. The free Wi-Fi network in Coshocton, Ohio supported anywhere from "a dozen people a day to 100 during busy times," all of whom are left without Internet after the shut down. As nations like Finland move to make broadband access a legal right, it is unfortunately clear that some powerful people in our country still consider it a privilege and not a necessity...

IBM rolls out mobile shopping software -- InformationWeek

IBM (NYSE: IBM) on Thursday introduced software that it says will allow consumers to shop online through mobile devices more easily while letting retailers reach customers more effectively.

The software, the Mobile Store component of WebSphere Commerce 7, includes social networking features and hooks that retailers can use to add personalized messages and offers to individual consumers...

Google helps you find a flu shot -- Swine Flu -- InformationWeek

With flu vaccines in short supply, Google is stepping up to help people find places to get immunized by launching a flu shot finder application for Google Maps.

Flu Shot Finder is at www.google.com/flushot, and it works similarly to any other Google Maps application. Enter your address, press the "Go" button, and the application lays out icons on a map showing where to find flu shots in your area. The icons are shaped like hypodermic needles and color-coded: Red for seasonal flu shots, blue for H1N1 shots, and two-tone for both...

Wi-Fi LANs connecting on campus -- 802.11n Wireless -- InformationWeek

Even as 802.11n wireless LANs gain in popularity, one particular market has quickly emerged in the front of the pack -- college campuses. A survey of 24 universities conducted by wireless networking company Meraki has revealed that higher education institutions are deploying 11n networks at a much higher rate than most other markets.

The Meraki survey, released this week, was based on a survey which compared 10,000 randomly selected devices at 24 colleges with 10,000 randomly selected devices in general use. The survey found that students consume 3.3 times the bandwidth as typical Wi-Fi users. The study seems to support a survey by the Wi-Fi Alliance that said high school students often pick colleges based on wireless accessibility...

Femtocells struggle to catch on -- Femtocells -- InformationWeek

The market for femtocells in 2009 is not as strong as expected, and ABI Research said Thursday it would be scaling down its estimates for the space by about 55%.

Femtocells are essentially miniature cell phone towers that tie the owner's wired Internet connection to a mobile operator's network, and can boost cellular and mobile data reception within a home or office. These devices are being advertised to consumers to help reception, as well as to enterprises as a plank in their fixed-mobile convergence strategies. AT&T, Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless have all released commercial femtocells, or devices that offer femtocell-like abilities, but ABI estimates only about 350,000 femtocells will be shipped by the end of the year...

Clicker.com aims to become Internet's TV guide

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Web surfing is becoming more like channel surfing as television shows, movies and music videos pour onto the Internet. That's why pointing people to their favorite TV episodes and flicks could emerge as the next big opportunity in Web navigation. Former online search executive Jim Lanzone is hoping to lead the way with Clicker.com, a free service debuting Thursday.

"We are trying to build the ultimate programming guide for the coming age of Internet TV," said Lanzone, who ran IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com until last year...

AT&T Ohio marks two-year anniversary of statewide video reform legislation

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T* today announced that AT&T U-verse(SM) TV is now available to more than 25% of households in AT&T Ohio’s traditional wireline service area. In the past two years, AT&T U-verse TV has redefined the television experience for Ohio consumers by using a 100 percent digital platform that enables new, innovative features and provides a desired alternative to cable services. AT&T now exceeds the minimum deployment requirements of Ohio Senate Bill 117 (S.B. 117).

"Senate Bill 117 was an important step for Ohio to level the playing field in the competitive telecommunications industry, and the result has been millions of dollars of investment in Ohio’s digital infrastructure and new jobs for Ohioans," said Tom Pelto, President, AT&T Ohio. "While S.B. 117 was critical for Ohio for jobs and investment, the telecom modernization bills presently pending represent the next logical step, and history can repeat itself and bring Ohio even more jobs and investment..."

Clearwire reports a total of 173,000 mobile WiMAX subs at end of 3Q - FierceBroadbandWireless

The world finally knows how many mobile WiMAX subscribers Clearwire has.

The operator had previously indicated it wasn't ready to break those numbers out from its pre-WiMAX subscribers, but now that it is operational in 13 markets, the operator apparently felt comfortable announcing 173,000 mobile WiMAX subscribers at the end of the third quarter. Still, it's unclear just how many mobile WiMAX customers were added in the third quarter. Clearwire recorded a total of 44,000 net subscriber additions in the quarter, surging up from 8,000 in the year-ago period. The company had a total subscriber base of 555,000, up 18 percent from the year-ago period and up from 511,000 in the second quarter...

Google drops storage prices for Gmail, Picasa - InternetNews.com

Google announced it has "dramatically" lowered the price it charges for online or cloud storage. Instead of the old $20 per year price tag, Google is now charging $5 per year for 20 GB.

The search colossus also said it now offers storage of up to 16TB...

With Facebook as alibi, Brooklyn robbery charge is dropped - NYTimes.com

The message on Rodney Bradford’s Facebook page, posted at 11:49 a.m. on Oct. 17, asked where his pancakes were. The words were typed from a computer in his father’s apartment in Harlem.

At the time, the sentence, written in street slang, was just another navel-gazing, cryptic Facebook status update — meaningless to anyone besides Mr. Bradford. But when Mr. Bradford, 19, was arrested the next day as a suspect in a robbery at the Farragut Houses in Brooklyn, where he lives, the words took on greater importance. They became his alibi...

Motorola: LTE will catch up with WiMax -- LTE, WiMax wireless -- InformationWeek

Which high-speed wireless infrastructure will win the increasingly intense horse race between WiMax and the Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile standard? For the answer InformationWeek turned to Motorola's Bruce Brda, whose company is supplying much of the foundation products for both network technologies. "Both WiMax and LTE can succeed," said Brda in an interview.

Although most of the world's major carriers have said they will eventually move to LTE, Brda believes that WiMax has such a big head start that it will lead deployments for a few years, and not just for a few months, as many have speculated.

Why Google is buying AdMob - BusinessWeek

In a move likely to give a big boost to the mobile-phone ad market, Google announced on Nov. 9 that it's buying AdMob, a provider of mobile ad technologies, for $750 million in stock.

If approved, the acquisition would provide Google (GOOG) with a key set of technologies to expand its advertising business beyond search-related text ads that make up the bulk of revenue. "Google could have built this itself, but this gives them a head start," says mobile analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "It will thrust Google into the forefront of mobile display ads..."

Broadband stimulus grant awards ramping up as unemployment rate hits 10.2%

With unemployment hitting 10.2 percent, the Obama administrating announced plans to push broadband stimulus funding awards of over $7 billion sooner, rather than later.

However, the administration also announced that only one more round of funding applications will be accepted, versus the original two planned...

Report: Wi-Fi hotspot connects surge to 1.2B

In-Stat today released a report that indicates the Wi-Fi hotspot market is entering a revival period. The company said that renewed interest from communications providers and increased usage among both business and leisure users will contribute to massive growth in the next couple of years.

In-Stat estimates that hotspot usage will increase in 2009 by 47 percent, bringing total worldwide connects to 1.2 billion...

New Web site allows users to watch free online concerts

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A new Web site allows music lovers to watch concerts for free online, choosing from five different camera angles as they watch.

BillboardLive.com says its new concert-viewing Web site offers visitors different perspectives on performances by Alicia Keys, Usher, David Archuleta, Daughtry and other artists yet to be announced...

Residents push city for Wi-Fi

LONGMONT — Residents pleaded with Longmont City Council members Tuesday night to do whatever they can to keep wireless Internet service an option in Longmont. But the city can’t do much.

The city does not own the existing wireless network and cannot legally operate it for retail purposes. But someone could own the system components come Thursday morning, when the Boulder County treasurer’s office will auction off DHB Networks’ equipment...

Services such as Fliqz, 360 help businesses get videos online - USATODAY.com

If you're one of the estimated 25,000 small businesses in America, then – whether you realize it or not – video is in your future.

"Whether you're a hot-dog vendor in Boston or design firm in Santa Fe, you will be producing video for the Web," says Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. "Video is how your customers will find you..."

Schools shun Kindle, saying blind can't use it - washingtonpost.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

The National Federation of the Blind planned to announce Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students...

Business travelers refuse to pay airlines for Wifi - Business Travel - Portfolio.com

I scream, you scream, we all scream for in-flight Internet. And a few domestic airlines are rushing to provide the sky-high WiFi service we demand. There's just one problem: We don't want to pay for it. Not even a little bit.

Almost 18 months after they first began wiring planes for WiFi, carriers have outfitted around 600 domestic aircraft with one of the two existing flavors of airborne Internet. But they're right back where Boeing and a passel of international airlines were in 2003: They've built it, but no one is coming. Or, to be more precise, very few passengers are putting their money where their Internet appetite is...

Logitech buying LifeSize to break into videoconferencing - NYTimes.com

In a move to break into the videoconferencing market, Logitech International has agreed to buy LifeSize Communications, a start-up that makes high-definition videoconferencing equipment, for $405 million in cash.

LifeSize, which is based in Austin, Tex., sells videoconferencing tools that cost less than most other products on the market. The high-definition video is so clear that viewers can see scribbles on Post-it notes...

China proves to be an aggressive foe in cyberspace - washingtonpost.com

One day in late summer 2008, FBI and Secret Service agents flew to Chicago to inform Barack Obama's campaign team that its computer system had been hacked. "You've got a problem. Somebody's trying to get inside your systems," an FBI agent told the team, according to a source familiar with the incident.

The McCain campaign was hit with a similar attack...

Amazon releases Kindle for PC -- E-Book Readers -- InformationWeek

Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) on Tuesday released software for buying and reading digital books on a PC and synchronizing the downloads with other devices, including Amazon's Kindle electronic reader

The Kindle for PC application is Amazon's latest attempt to attract new customers and hold on to existing ones through expanded portability of its e-books. Amazon is under increasing pressure from rivals, particularly Barnes & Noble, which is taking pre-orders for its Nook reader announced last month. That device is scheduled for release at the end of the month...

inCode predicts telecom’s top trends in 2010

Professional services firm inCode Telecom has released its top 10 telecom predictions for 2010, the latest installment of the company’s annual list of technologies, businesses trends, equipment and applications likely to affect consumers and businesses.

“The industry is at an inflection point that is perhaps more significant than at any juncture in North American telecom history,” Rob Chimsky, inCode Telecom’s vice president and CTO, in a prepared statement. “Incremental revenue is shifting from voice to data. However, threats from new competitors offering ‘over-the-top’ business models emphasizing value delivered by applications directly to consumers, rather than simple connectivity, will reshape the industry...”

Twitter, LinkedIn join forces - InternetNews.com

LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network, has teamed up with short-messaging phenom Twitter to couple the features of the two services and provide a broader distribution channel for people's professional activities.

"The business use case of Twitter is turning out to be very important," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a video explaining the tie-up. "More and more people are finding the persona they create for themselves on the Web is part of their resume..."

Google's holiday gift: Free airport Wi-Fi | Wireless - CNET News

Google said Tuesday it will subsidize free wireless network access in 47 airports from now until January 15--and indefinitely in the airports of Burbank, Calif., and Seattle.

The promotion, in cooperation with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, and Airport Marketing Income, is the latest effort to use free Wi-Fi to boost a brand. Among others: Yahoo is sponsoring Wi-Fi in Times Square in New York, and Google is sponsoring Internet access on Virgin America flights during the holidays...

Intel offers an e-reader, with a difference - Digits - WSJ

Electronic gadgets that help people enjoy digitized books are all the rage. Most share one assumption — that their users can read. Not so the latest offering from Intel.

The company Tuesday announced the Intel Reader, a device about the size of a paperback book that is designed to digitize printed text and read it aloud to users. Intel is not targeting book lovers who want to lighten their briefcases and backpacks; its audience, the company says, is people with poor eyesight, dyslexia or other conditions that make reading difficult or impossible...

What's green and square and sits on your Web page? ShareThis

Sharing isn't just for kids anymore. Thanks to a Cincinnati start-up, it's now one of the hottest ways for grown-ups to keep their friends up to date on their favorite things on the Internet. If you've been sharing content with your Facebook friends or email contacts then you've probably seen the little green symbol from ShareThis, a young start-up that hopes to become the big name in online sharing.

Much like Google 10 years ago, which dominated the world of Web searching, ShareThis, founded by Tim Schigel, wants to be the ubiquitous choice of Web surfers to share information from visited websites with their friends and contacts...

Movie download forces shutdown of free Wi-Fi | coshoctontribune.com | Coshocton Tribune

COSHOCTON -- A free service enjoyed by hundreds has been shut down due to illegal activity conducted by one individual.

"It's unfortunate that one person ruins it for those who use the service legitimately," Commissioner Gary Fisher said...

Alcatel-Lucent's Triple Play Express solution helps regional operators in North America cost-effectively introduce IPTV | SYS-CON AUSTRALIA

ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- TelcoTV -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today introduced its Triple Play Express (TPE) solution for Regional Operators, allowing them to drive incremental revenues, compete more effectively and position themselves for the future by cost-effectively providing state-of-the-art voice, data and IP video services to local and regional communities - all while building a foundation for the delivery of even more advanced IP-based applications.

Alcatel-Lucent's TPE solution is tailored to regionally-focused operators, utilities and municipalities in North America, all of whom want to avoid installing a system that is too large, or too complex for their needs. Instead, they are looking for an end-to-end solution to quickly launch interactive TV services - fitting the size of their subscriber base, and providing them with the foundation for delivering other revenue-generating, IP-based applications at a later stage...

Lafayette and the LITE Center gaining national recognition

I've been remiss in not keeping you all up to date on the latest excitement coming out of Lafayette, LA. In the last few weeks they've been receiving a lot of national recognition for the many innovative things happening in the heart of Cajun country.

In September Forbes ranked Lafayette as the 8th best city in the country for job growth in the 4th quarter of '09. And then in October Fortune Small Business pegged Lafayette as the second best mid-sized markets in the nation for small business startups. These combine to show that Lafayette's overall economy is strong and growing...

Students lead fiber optic work — Baton Rouge, LA

CARENCRO — High-speed fiber optic technology offers a new frontier in computing. Among the explorers: students at Carencro High School’s Academy of Information Technology. “The increase in speed and quality will revolutionize everything we do in the classroom,” said Elijah Parker, 17, a junior at Carencro.

Parker is among the students in the academy being groomed by local tech professionals to use fiber technology through a project called FiberKids...

Internet virus frames users for child porn

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses – the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen...

Rupert Murdoch on pay walls - Pressed - Portfolio.com

When News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch speaks, his words tend to take on an oracular quality, as if the man's wisdom is as old as the world itself. (That's just one of the perks of being worth $4 billion. It might also be because at 78, he's nearly as old as the world itself.)

So when Murdoch speaks about the Internet, people listen. Take the interview he did with David Speers of Australia's SkyNews this weekend. (Speers opens the interview by conceding that News Corp. owns part of the network...)

Burberry looks online for ways to gain customers - NYTimes.com

LONDON — Angela Ahrendts still remembers when she bought her first Burberry trench coat. She was 21 years old, had just finished her studies in Indiana and was looking for a smart but warm coat to wear for her first job at a small men’s wear firm in New York.

Those raincoats, a 95-year-old fashion icon, remain Burberry’s best-selling item, and Ms. Ahrendts — who now runs the company — is hoping to move the quintessentially British brand into the age of the Internet to attract a new generation of shoppers...

Googling can mislead people seeking health information - washingtonpost.com

It always starts out innocently enough -- for example, with an eye twitch. It's just a little tic, but it keeps coming and going over the course of a few weeks, and so I decide to do a little medical investigation online.

I plug "recurrent eye twitch" into my friendly search engine and, after several hours poring over a range of health-related Web sites -- skimming over likely explanations such as fatigue, stress and too much caffeine in favor of dozens of worst-case scenarios, and growing increasingly panicky all the while -- I am utterly convinced that I have multiple sclerosis, at the very least, and quite possibly Lou Gehrig's disease...

Discovery Communications launches science news Web site - washingtonpost.com

Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications announced Monday that it has launched a new Web site dedicated to reporting science and technology news.

Just as Discovery's television shows sometimes focus on the latest scientific findings from far-flung locales around the globe, so will the news site focus on archaeological discoveries or fresh theories about the workings of the universe...

Hadoop crunches Web-sized data -- Cloud software -- InformationWeek

As the World Wide Web has exploded into millions of sites and billions of documents, the search engines that purport to know about everything on the Web have faced a gargantuan task. Sure, more spiders can be activated to crawl the Web and collect information. But what system can analyze all the data before the information is out of date?

The answer is a cluster-based analysis system, sometimes referred to loosely as a cloud database system. At the Cloud Computing Conference and Expo Nov. 3 in Santa Clara, Calif., representatives ofYahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) explained how they use Hadoop open source software, from the Apache Software Foundation, to analyze the Web...

Internet use increases social connectivity -- Internet -- InformationWeek

Contrary to what many people believe, Internet use does not foster social isolation, but actually enhances the size and diversity of people's social networks, a U.S. study found.

Rather than pull people away from social settings, neighborhoods, voluntary associations and public spaces, use of the Internet and mobile phones led to greater participation in those activities, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project report released Thursday...

A bridge to somewhere « ArchitectureBoston

David Lazer: You just said the last big national effort was the highway system, but what about the Internet? Doesn’t that qualify as infrastructure? I’d say absolutely yes. Obviously, it’s revolutionary, but what makes it especially interesting in this discussion is its potential interplay with more traditional forms of infrastructure.

For example, it allows us to collect information in a very decentralized fashion so we can use our existing infrastructure more efficiently or develop a new infrastructure that is smarter...

Flu outbreaks could put Internet on life support -- chicagotribune.com

Like many big organizations, Comcast Corp. is taking precautions to halt the spread of H1N1 flu. For one, it has distributed bottles of hand sanitizer to employees.

But Comcast, the nation's largest residential Internet provider, with 14 million high-speed subscribers, may have a bigger problem if the flu leads to rampant absenteeism by students and workers. All those people may be online at home simultaneously, a recent government report warned, causing an Internet meltdown...

Report: Online holiday sales to grow 8% - Business First of Columbus:

Online sales will be the growth engine for the retail industry this holiday shopping season, according to a new report from [CompanyWatch allows you to receive email alerts with stories related to your companies of interest.

You can watch up to ten companies at a time.

] Forrester Research Inc.

While traditional retail sales are expected to show no gain from a year ago, U.S. online retail sales will grow 8 percent to $44.7 billion this Christmas, analysts from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester are projecting. That growth would follow a 5 percent year-over-year gain in online spending in last year's holiday season...

Connecting libraries is crucial - and possible | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

Speed Matters partner Connected Nation conducted scientific surveys of library Internet users during much of 2009. Disproportionately, single parents, minorities, low-income residents, and adults with disabilities rely on the public library as their primary Internet portal.

Also, library Internet users are more likely to search for jobs online, communicate with government officials, engage in local and community events, and access healthcare information...

Report: A minority of US homes will have high-performance broadband in 2015 | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

The Fiber-to-the-Home Council released a report that evaluated the nation’s current and future broadband capabilities and the benefits of maintaining networks to meet those future needs.

The study, done by the CSMG consulting firm, made the following observations:

* At current course and speed, high-performance broadband will be available to a minority of US homes by 2015 and many homes will have only one provider of such service...

ITIF: Gov’t must get involved to promote broadband adoption | Speed Matters – Internet Speed Test

A new report by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) president Robert Atkinson urges policymakers to take steps to increase broadband adoption. The report points out that while 92 to 94 percent of Americans can subscribe to broadband, only approximately 65 percent have done so.

An ITIF briefing on October 30 explored policies that might improve those figures. The report suggests that the government "fund a competition for ISPs to attract new subscribers in low-income communities" to increase adoption rates...

Businesses weigh value of creating iPhone applications for promotions or sales - Business First of Louisville:

While Chaz Rough sleeps, someone around the world is buying the iPhone/iPod application created for his YogaMazing brand of yoga lessons. And Rough, who also owns a St. Matthews yoga studio called YogaMazing, likes that idea very much.

For companies weighing the idea of creating mobile applications, Rough’s success offers a lesson, he said. You don’t need a big corporation behind you to do well. “I make more money teaching in the virtual world than in the studio,” Rough said...

Telecommuters pose challenges for companies - Dayton Business Journal:

With the rise of smart phones and laptops, an increasing number of jobs can be done from anywhere. That means more employees are spending fewer hours in the office. In 2008, more than 17 million employees worked remotely at least one day a month, up 39 percent from 2006, according to a study commissioned by Arizona-based global human resources association WorldatWork.

The changing work structure can yield operational savings for companies as well as boost morale as employees enjoy the freedom from lack of supervision. But employees working away from the office also can pose problems for companies. So Dayton-area experts recommend companies avoid telecommuting pitfalls...

E-reader for recipes seeking holiday upswing - Austin Business Journal:

A 4-year-old Austin company is expecting the rising interest in electronic books to boost the sales of kitchen-based electronic recipe readers that were launched last year.

Key Ingredient Corp. is planning to quintuple the number of Demy e-reader devices it sells during the upcoming holiday season. The company launched the e-readers in 2008 as a way to distribute some of its 142,000 recipes that are available on its Web site, similar to Apple Inc.’s iTunes Web site...

Delaying that deposit? Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union says phone it in - Austin Business Journal:

A major credit union in Austin plans to launch in January a first-of-its-kind tool that will enable members to deposit checks using their cell phones.

The service launch by Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union will mark the first time such technology is available to nearly all cell phone users, regardless of the service provider, industry analysts say. Randolph-Brooks, the area’s No. 1 credit union in terms of overall assets, plans to start testing the Web-based product with employees this month before releasing it to qualified checking account holders...

HTC to intro smartphone with built-in WiFi router - FierceBroadbandWireless

The HTC HD2 smartphone, which includes an embedded WiFi router, is expected to make its debut in the U.S. early next year, giving devices like MiFi a run for their money.

The HD2 uses the Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS, and in Europe and Taiwan is capable of handling the 7.2 Mbps HSPA version. HTC said the device will come to the U.S. in early 2010 with an unnamed major operator...

Hilton guests get handy new apps - USATODAY.com

Want to order a burger and beer from room service before you check into your hotel so dinner is waiting for you?

Guests at Hilton, Embassy Suites and Doubletree hotels will be able to do that using a new iPhone and iTouch application that parent Hilton Worldwide is announcing Monday...

Sony offers `Cloudy' early to people with its TVs - washingtonpost.com

LOS ANGELES -- In a bid to sell living room electronics and spur buzz for "Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs," Sony Corp. is offering the movie for free to U.S. buyers of its Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players starting Monday.

People who buy that equipment will be able to watch the movie in any 24-hour window from Dec. 8 until it is released on DVD and Blu-ray disc on Jan. 5...

PC users open doors to such worms as Conficker, Taterf - USATODAY.com

A year after it first slithered onto the Internet, the Conficker worm remains as virulent as ever, despite an unprecedented eradication campaign. Meanwhile, a similar, though less heralded worm, Taterf, is gathering steam.

Conficker and Taterf may be unstoppable, barring sweeping behavior changes by companies and consumers – which is unlikely. "The sad fact is worms and viruses would be wiped out if everyone used best security practices," says Eric Sites, chief technology officer of anti-virus firm Sunbelt Software...

EchoStar's ViP-TV to deliver video transport service to Ohio-based IPTV provider CT Communications

ENGLEWOOD, CO -- (Marketwire) -- 11/09/09 -- EchoStar Satellite Services L.L.C., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), announced today an agreement to deliver its ViP-TV(TM) video transport service to CT Communications, an independent telephone company in Ohio.

CT Communications will receive transport of up to 46 IP-encapsulated high definition TV channels to its IP headend. The announcement was made in advance of this week's TelcoTV Conference and Expo in Orlando, Fla...

China's 'netizens' holding officials accountable - washingtonpost.com

A severed finger sparked an online uproar that went viral. And very quickly, rattled authorities here took note.

The story of Sun Zhongjie, a 19-year-old driver who chopped off his finger to decry police entrapment, shows how the Internet has become an effective tool of public protest in this tightly controlled country...

Rent the Runway offers designer dresses in the Netflix model - NYTimes.com

For many women, a $1,000 dress is something they admire in the pages of a glossy magazine or see draped on the frame of a celebrity — not an item hanging in their closet.

But a nascent Web site called Rent the Runway is hoping to make high-end fashions much more accessible and almost as easy as renting a movie from Netflix...

Nonprofit site, Texas Tribune, begins as big news hits state - NYTimes.com

On Thursday afternoon, when word came about the shootings that left 13 people dead at Fort Hood, just up the road from Austin, it seemed like a made-to-order test for The Texas Tribune, a brand new 12-person Web-based newsroom.

The big coverage on the site, TexasTribune.org, on Friday was not about the aftermath of the shootings, but the 50 highest paid state employees and an exclusive about a state representative who had switched parties...

Best Buy prepares for a shift to downloads -- latimes.com

Walking between rows of DVDs at the Best Buy store in West Hollywood, Brandy Moore admits that she doesn't always buy the shiny discs anymore since she started downloading movies and TV shows from Apple's iTunes Store. There's just one problem: She hasn't figured out how to watch them on her TV.

"I have a friend who's going to come over and set that up for me," the 34-year-old Los Feliz resident says. "I'm not a computer nerd..."

A Web presence needs sizzle, my nizzle -- InformationWeek

On the Web, entire economies and cultures emerge with surprise. The less creative or visionary watch and try to follow, as if there's a secret formula to be revealed to the most astute observer. People look at the NetFlix corporate culture Google (NSDQ: GOOG) free lunch program, and Obama open government mantra and say: It worked for them, it will work for us. There's some truth in that, but the success variables are never the same. Ultimately, each business must create its own wave.

Success on the Web, like The White Rabbit, is alluring in its urgency and its insistence on its path. Words like "crowdsourced," "social," and "sticky" are simple labels for complicated ingenuity. Anyone who sets out to create The Next Big Thing invariably fails compared with those who create something out of real social need, or passion. There's no hidden button for "Go Viral" on the Web, and there's no magic formula to replicate what happens when something does. Take new social media buzz factories, FarmVille and FourSquare...

City wanted option to run Wi-Fi

LONGMONT, CO — City officials knew DHB Networks, which offers wireless Internet services in town, was struggling. And they wanted to have the legal right to step in and run Longmont’s Wi-Fi system if the company could no longer do it.

But city officials couldn’t come right out and say that during the campaign season that ultimately led to the defeat of the city’s telecommunications ballot question 2C. And by the time it became public that DHB Networks was in trouble, it was less than a month before Election Day...

The computer gets more like the TV every day - washingtonpost.com

The online video service Hulu added a long-overdue feature last week: A "coming soon" page designed to give the site's millions of users a heads-up about when they'll be able to watch the next new episode of "Fringe" or "Parks and Recreation" in their Web browsers.

Ever since it launched in 2007, as a joint offering by News Corp. and NBC Universal, the site has been remarkable for its way of enhancing the channel-surfing experience with some of the added frills of Web surfing. Got a favorite show coming up? You can now get Hulu to send you an e-mail reminder...

Minnesota bloggers need more broadband!

Last fall, Nebraska Works ran stadium ads during an important college football game that draws a lot of out-of-state fans. Approximately 14,000 users visited the web site set up for the campaign and nearly 800 people requested job applications and Nebraska living packets.

Wood’s department also piggybacked onto Nebraska’s nationwide “Genuine Nebraska” tourism campaign by creating links from the tourism web page to “Work, Play and Stay” pages that itemize Nebraska’s cost of living and quality of life. In the future, Nebraska Works would like to target military personnel affected by base closures, as well as to continue its job fairs and targeted advertising...

Speculative fiction novelists find success with online donations | PBS

Over the years, many authors have tried versions of the online donation model, with mixed results. But one specific genre of writers, speculative fiction, seems to be experiencing a moderate level of success.

Back in 2000, Stephen King became one of the first major authors to offer a book online using an "honor system" to solicit donations. The book was called "The Plant," and was based on a series of chapbooks King had sent around to his friends in the '80s. He placed the first chapter in various downloadable formats on his website, and downloaders were expected to donate $1 by mail or credit card. King said that as long as 75 percent of readers donated, he would continue to post new chapters...

Minnesota Broadband Task Force recommendations are unveiled! « Blandin on Broadband

The Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Report is unveiled today. (Get it here!) It’s been more than a year in the making.

It’s a consensus document, which is admirable given the strange bedfellows who worked together to create the report and the trend toward people insisting on what they want without consequence or compromise...

Broadband adoption is about value more than price

Yesterday I had the great fortune to tag along with Gary Evans and his team from Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) as they embarked on a series of meetings in DC to discuss broadband policy.

While lots of interesting issues were touched on, the one that kept drawing my attention was HBC's assertion that while they're not the low price provider in any market they serve, they're the dominant provider in every community they're in...

The goods may be virtual, but the profit is real - NYTimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley may have discovered the perfect business: charging real money for products that do not exist.

These so-called virtual goods, like a $1 illustration of a Champagne bottle on Facebook or the $2.50 Halloween costume in the online game Sorority Life, are no more than a collection of pixels on a Web page...

Telepresence: An innovation hotbed?

Robert C. Hagerty, CEO of Polycom, discusses why he thinks videoconferencing and telepresence (essentially very high-quality videoconferencing) will spark invention and new business partnerships...

Free shipping key to online retailers amid recession and as holidays approach -- chicagotribune.com

Online shopping, long a bright spot in retail, has hit a bump in the cyber road.

E-commerce retail sales, excluding travel, fell 2 percent to $29.6 billion in the third quarter compared to a year ago, marking the first time on record that online sales have tumbled two quarters in a row, according to a report released Thursday from ComScore Inc...