I.B.M.’s Watson - Computers Close In on the ‘Paris Hilton’ Problem - NYTimes.com

Concluding paragraphs of a John Markoff AI reality check

Similar design decisions about how machines are used and whether they will enhance or replace human qualities are now being played out in a multitude of ways, and the real value of Watson may ultimately be in forcing society to consider where the line between human and machine should be drawn.

Indeed, for the computer scientist John Seely Brown, machines that are facile at answering questions only serve to obscure what remains fundamentally human.

“The essence of being human involves asking questions, not answering them,” he said.

I.B.M.’s Watson - Computers Close In on the ‘Paris Hilton’ Problem - NYTimes.com

After ‘Jeopardy’ - The Boston Globe

A snapshot from the author of a recent book about Watson; also see this article for results of the first round

There’s no guarantee that Watson’s technology will provide the question-answering technology for all the industries IBM has targeted. Maybe competing companies or IBM itself will come up with cheaper, smarter, or more flexible systems. But a new generation of language-savvy machinery will soon be hunting down answers for us. Some will be wrong, some stupid. We human beings, exercising our still-unparalleled brainpower, will be the judges of that. Once you regard this technology as a powerful supplement to human cognition — and not a replacement — Watson suddenly starts to look much friendlier.

After ‘Jeopardy’ - The Boston Globe

Google's Search Gold Mine Could Tap Out - BusinessWeek

Some speculation about Google’s vertical ambitions

Google continues to generate the lion's share of its sales—over 96 percent—in search. Yes, the company has shown glimmers of financial diversity in mobility (Android), video advertising (YouTube), and browser software (Chrome). Each platform could help reduce the company's outsized dependence on search advertising. But search pays for everything Google does: Most of the company's offerings are free, such as YouTube and Chrome, and few generate ad sales. Pretty much nothing Google does other than search, AdWords, and AdSense turns a profit. For now, Google looks well-defended. Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing remains a distant second. Still, only 18 months ago Bing didn't exist. In December, Google served 69.4 percent of U.S. search results while Bing served 24.4 percent.

Google's Search Gold Mine Could Tap Out - BusinessWeek

Nokia’s Ice Castle Melts as ‘Boring’ Phones Force R&D Cuts - Businessweek

Check the link below for more Nokia analysis

At $4 billion a year, it is more than twice Apple Inc.’s entire $1.78 billion R&D budget. At least a third of it goes to Symbian and MeeGo platforms that Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop said last week Nokia is retreating from in favor of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone 7. Elop plans “substantial” R&D spending cuts as he struggles to claw back ground lost to Apple’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android-based devices.

Nokia’s Ice Castle Melts as ‘Boring’ Phones Force R&D Cuts - Businessweek

Zynga Valuation Rises to Over $7 Billion - WSJ.com

Not just playing games

Social-gaming company Zynga Inc. is holding discussions with potential investors about raising around $250 million in new funding in a deal that could value the three-year-old start-up at between $7 billion and $9 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

In April Zynga filed papers authorizing the issuance of new stock that valued the company at about $4 billion.

Zynga Valuation Rises to Over $7 Billion - WSJ.com

Nokia Says It Will Get 'Billions' From Microsoft | Nick Wingfield | Voices | AllThingsD

That will help to offset the Nokia stock drop following the announcement last week

Nokia Corp. will receive “billions of dollars” in financial support from Microsoft Corp. over the early years of their partnership to help market and develop Nokia phones using Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, according to Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop.

Nokia Says It Will Get 'Billions' From Microsoft | Nick Wingfield | Voices | AllThingsD

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Rushing the net: Nokia’s coming fight to the Finnish - Cringely on technology

Some insightful Cringely speculation.  AT&T is already selling the iPhone 3GS (8 gigabyte) for $49.

Here is the transition we are likely to see. Cheaper smart phones are coming. There was a story just this week about Apple announcing a cheaper smart phone this summer. I can see it now: at the WWDC in June Apple will announce the expected multi-core, 4G, international-ready, whiter-then-white, 1.2-GHz iPhone 5, but the “one more thing” will be a repackaged, smaller form-factor, $29 iPhone 3GS. Nokia has to not only have a response to this move by Apple, they must preempt it with an earlier announcement of their own.

Nokia (and Microsoft’s) survival in the phone market is dependent on staking out the lower end of the market where people buy on price as much as features and brand loyalty is less of an issue. Apple is heading there and Android is there already. Only by rushing the net — by following the time-honored Microsoft technique of throwing bodies and staggering amounts of money at a problem in a market-changing way — can these companies remain relevant in the mobile space.

But they have only one chance to make it work and they’ll have to take that chance before June.

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Rushing the net: Nokia’s coming fight to the Finnish - Cringely on technology

Could Apple Be Your Next Phone Company?: Tech News and Analysis « [GigaOM]

Interesting times ahead for Apple iPhone service provider partners

Apple’s plans to once again change the dynamics of the mobile world are becoming clearer. Bloomberg reported today that the device maker has plans for a universal SIM card that I first reported on in October, and Apple is seeking a way to make it possible for consumers to pay for mobile access from multiple carriers via iTunes. The result of that hardware shift and business model change turns Apple into its own mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and puts Apple, instead of the carrier, in control of the customer relationship.

Could Apple Be Your Next Phone Company?: Tech News and Analysis «

WikiLeaks Angry About Former Staffer’s Book - NYTimes.com

Apparently “involuntary transparency” isn’t for everybody…

WikiLeaks said it was taking “legal action” over a tell-all book to be released Friday by a former staff member that is critical of its founder, Julian Assange, and says the Web site was disabled by a spate of defections last year.

The former staff member, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, is a German computer scientist who was a prominent spokesman for WikiLeaks before falling out with Mr. Assange last summer. In “Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website,” he writes of tensions between WikiLeaks’ core members and Mr. Assange.

WikiLeaks Angry About Former Staffer’s Book - NYTimes.com

Book Review - 'Virtually You' and 'Reality Is Broken' - NYTimes.com

Lead paragraph from a review of two polarized books

Humanity is migrating to cyberspace. In the past five years, Americans have doubled the hours they spend online, exceeding their television time and more than tripling the time they spend reading newspapers or magazines. Most now play computer or video games regularly, about 13 hours a week on average. By age 21, the average young American has spent at least three times as many hours playing virtual games as reading. It took humankind eight years to spend 100 million hours building Wikipedia. We now spend at least 200 million hours a week playing World of Warcraft.

Book Review - 'Virtually You' and 'Reality Is Broken' - NYTimes.com

Shorter E-Books Show Promise for Mobile Devices - NYTimes.com

More changes in the book business

The Atavist is among the growing number of organizations that are cultivating a certain niche of writing — stories and articles that are longer than a typical magazine article but shorter than a novel — in the hope that they will find a comfortable home on the glassy screens of evermore prevalent mobile devices. “Word counts are getting shorter in most magazines,” said Mr. Ratliff, who is also a contributing editor to Wired magazine. “On a mobile device, we shouldn’t be bound by those constraints.”

The attention spans of readers — many of us, anyway — are actually not getting shorter, Mr. Ratliff says. The problem lies elsewhere, he adds: “It’s the platform.”

Shorter E-Books Show Promise for Mobile Devices - NYTimes.com

RIM Said to Plan PlayBook Software to Run Google Apps - Businessweek

tbd if/how this will work

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company aims to make the PlayBook stand out against Apple Inc.’s iPad and a rising number of competing devices. By offering a tablet with the security and messaging of BlackBerry smartphones and the wide choice of Android apps, RIM may be able to woo customers who would otherwise opt for alternative devices, said Tero Kuittinen, an analyst with MKM Partners LLC.

RIM Said to Plan PlayBook Software to Run Google Apps - Businessweek

Nokia to Use Microsoft’s Cellphone Operating System - NYTimes.com

It’ll be interesting to see more financial details of the deal, at some point

“It looks like a good deal for Microsoft, but far riskier for Nokia,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “It’s choosing a new platform and an unproven one in Microsoft’s smartphone software.”

Dropping Symbian, Nokia’s operating system, will be temporarily disruptive to Nokia’s product plans. About 200 million phones around the world use Symbian and the company expects to sell another 150 million more before halting its development and switching to Windows. Investors were skeptical of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership. Nokia shares dropped 14.2 percent in Europe. Microsoft shares closed down 0.9 percent.

Nokia to Use Microsoft’s Cellphone Operating System - NYTimes.com

Apple Is Said to Work on Cheaper, More Versatile IPhone Models - Businessweek

More on the rumored Apple iPhone market expansion plans

While Apple has aimed to unveil the device near mid-year, the introduction may be delayed or scrapped, the person said. Few Apple employees know the details of the project, the person said. Apple often works on products that don’t get released.

The prototype was about one-third smaller than the iPhone 4, and it had no “home” button, said the person, who saw it last year.

Apple would sell it at a low price mainly because the smartphone will use a processor, display and other components similar to those used in the current model, rather than pricier, more advanced parts that will be in the next iPhone, the person said. Component prices typically drop over time.

Apple Is Said to Work on Cheaper, More Versatile IPhone Models - Businessweek

Nokia at the crossroads: Blazing platforms | The Economist

The charts below highlight the real issue for Nokia – and all other Apple competitors

This changed with the emergence of smartphones, in particular Apple’s iPhone, which appeared in 2007. Nokia still ships a third of all handsets, but Apple astonishingly pulls in more than half of the profits, despite having a market share of barely 4% (see charts, below). More Americans now have smartphones than Europeans. As for standards, Verizon, America’s biggest mobile operator, is leading the world in implementing the next wireless technology, called LTE.

Nokia at the crossroads: Blazing platforms | The Economist

Nokia to Use Microsoft Software in Smartphones - NYTimes.com

More Nokia/Microsoft details

Mr. Elop described the relationship with Microsoft as a broad strategic alliance that would extend beyond using Microsoft Phone software on Nokia smartphones. Nokia’s mapping software, Nokia Maps, will also be used in the Microsoft Bing search engine, Mr. Elop said. Nokia’s Ovi software services business, a major effort by the company to match Apple, will disappear and become part of Microsoft’s Marketplace application and services platform.

Nokia’s one-year collaboration with the chip maker Intel, called MeeGo, to produce a new generation of Nokia smartphones, will become a long-term open-source project designed to develop new kinds of devices, Mr. Elop said. The collaboration failed to produce a cellphone in its first year. Mr. Elop said Nokia planned to introduce a MeeGo model this year.

In a related development, Mr. Elop announced the departure of Alberto Torres, a Nokia board member and the executive vice president responsible for MeeGo.

Nokia to Use Microsoft Software in Smartphones - NYTimes.com

John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Apple apparently not planning to cede any major mobile Web market segment

Apple is reportedly working on another new iPhone–a smaller device designed to compete with the proliferation of cheaper smartphones running Android. Sources who’ve seen a prototype of this iPhone…Nano tell Bloomberg that it’s about one-third smaller than the iPhone 4 and that Apple is considering selling it for about $200, off contract thanks to a Universal SIM–if it decides to release it at all.

Apple Reportedly Working on Smaller iPhone | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Microsoft's Ballmer and Nokia's Elop Issue Joint Letter on Parnership | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

A big and bold bet – see the article link below for more details

It’s officially official.

Nokia has posted a letter to its Web site from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and its CEO Stephen Elop outlining the partnership between the two companies.

[…]

In the letter, the two CEOs talk about what each brings to the table and promise a tough fight in their uphill battle against the Apple iPhone and Google’s Android.

“There are other mobile ecosystems,” the two wrote. “We will disrupt them. There will be challenges. We will overcome them.”

Microsoft's Ballmer and Nokia's Elop Issue Joint Letter on Parnership | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Austan Goolsbee Explains Obama's Wireless Plan In Three Minutes | Arik Hesseldahl | NewEnterprise | AllThingsD

I’ve been assuming Google will eventually address this need; also see this article for more details

Austan Goolsbee is the Chairman of The President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and in the video below, part of a regular series called “White House White Board,” he explains the National Wireless Initiative the President Obama outlined in Michigan yesterday. (Has anyone thought to call this thing ObamaNet yet? If not let me be the first.)

Austan Goolsbee Explains Obama's Wireless Plan In Three Minutes | Arik Hesseldahl | NewEnterprise | AllThingsD

App Tells Your Friends What You're Watching - Technology Review

In a word: yikes; this sort of “social” surveillance won’t always be opt-in/user-controlled, and it won’t stop at TV show detection… 

Sitting at home in front of the TV could soon become an altogether more sociable experience. A new iPhone app can identify the show you're watching just by analyzing a few seconds of audio, making it possible to automatically share your TV viewing choices with friends through Facebook and Twitter. It only does this when the app the user presses a button to activate it.

App Tells Your Friends What You're Watching - Technology Review

louisgray.com: Why We Brought my6sense to Twitter.com via Chrome

my6sense moves beyond iPhones and Android phones; see the post link below for more details from my6sense marketing VP Louis Gray (my current “digital intuition level” is merely “excelling,” but I’m working on it…)

If you understand our focus - to implicitly determine your interests based on those items you read and skip, or act on in the Twitter.com interface (such as favorites, retweets, replies, etc.), you know we are trying to reduce the amount of time you spend culling through updates that aren't of interest to you. When people see the difference between the chronologically ordered timeline and the personally ordered timeline from my6sense, the difference is clear. Sometimes the stream may toss up surprises or items that aren't a clear fit, but no software is perfect. The good news is that we're listening to all the feedback, positive and negative, and hoping to make a real impact on the way we all consume and share content.
I hope you'll try our new extension and see how we can improve your Twitter.com experience by bringing the best updates from your friends and brands to the top. You can find the Chrome extension at http://m6s.com/chromeweb.

louisgray.com: Why We Brought my6sense to Twitter.com via Chrome

Lastest iOS 4.3 beta hints at gaming on Apple TV [The Next Web]

I expect Apple will also start selling Apple TV-optimized monitors in its 300+ Apple stores

The success of gaming on Apple’s iOS devices shows how keen the company is in that genre, to a point that even standalone handheld gaming consoles are actually considering the iPod Touch and the iPhone as competition. Now it seems as though Apple is ready to take on home consoles as well with the latest hunches about the Apple TV’s future in gaming.

A report from Engadget claims that a new code found in the latest iOS 4.3 beta 3 firmware for Apple TV hints the possibility of online gaming. According to the site, several references have been found pertaining to “ATVGames” and “ATVThunder” that point to a controller of some sort, leaderboards, a way to schedule games, and a store front. Well that sounds a lot like Game Center and the App Store, doesn’t it?

Lastest iOS 4.3 beta hints at gaming on Apple TV

App Can’t Replace Confession, Vatican Says - NYTimes.com

tbd how many Catholics will now change religion platforms, in order to gain full iPhone support…

A new application being sold on iTunes, “Confession: a Roman Catholic App,” cannot be used as a substitute for confession with a priest, the Vatican said Wednesday.

[…]

But some media reports cast the app as a “virtual priest” for Catholics who do not have time for church, prompting the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, to respond, “One cannot speak in any way of ‘confession by iPhone.’ ”

App Can’t Replace Confession, Vatican Says - NYTimes.com

Tim Wu, Creator of the Term 'Net Neutrality,' Joins the Federal Government - NYTimes.com

I expect this is a move many people working for Apple, among other companies, will track closely

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday named Tim Wu, author of the book “The Master Switch,”  a senior adviser for consumer protection and competition issues that affect the Internet and mobile phones.

[…]

A press release issued by Columbia said Mr. Wu, who now teaches copyright law, communications and criminal law, would take a leave of absence from the university; he will start working with the F.T.C.’s Office of Policy Planning in mid-February. His job will be to assist the agency with “long-range competition and consumer protection policy initiatives,” the release said. It also said he would advise government employees on new legal cases associated with the Internet.

Tim Wu, Creator of the Term 'Net Neutrality,' Joins the Federal Government - NYTimes.com

HP dangles developer carrot with WebOS PCs | Relevant Results - CNET News

Maybe HP has a secret plan to offer WebOS  on server clusters as well, since it’s apparently operating in a parallel universe wherein Apple, Google, and Microsoft don’t exist…

Almost two hours into an event ostensibly scheduled to reveal HP's new smartphones along with the TouchPad tablet, HP Executive Vice President Todd Bradley dropped a bit of a stunner. HP has long said since acquiring Palm that it planned to use WebOS in a variety of devices, but until today few realized it intended to drive the software into its PC lineup.

"I'm excited to announce our plans to bring the WebOS to the device that has the biggest reach of all: the personal computer," Bradley said. And with that, many in the tech industry stopped wondering whether the TouchPad was really good enough to compete with the iPad and started wondering about how the world has been changed.

HP dangles developer carrot with WebOS PCs | Relevant Results - CNET News

A.I. expert Ray Kurzweil picks computer in 'Jeopardy' match - USATODAY.com

Perhaps, post-singularity, we will all be better at Jeopardy

Q: How significant is this match in the quest for artificial intelligence?

A: It'll be seen as a major threshold. The key to human intelligence is really mastering the subtleties of human language, things like puns and jokes and metaphors. And if you look at the queries in Jeopardy you see they're quite complex and subtle, and exactly what's being talked about is not so clear. Watson appears to be able to get it very well, as well as the best players.

Q: And the winner will be?

A: I think Watson has the inside track. But if it doesn't win, it will come close, and it will come back and win in the very near future. Because it's only going to get better. And humans are not getting better.

A.I. expert Ray Kurzweil picks computer in 'Jeopardy' match - USATODAY.com

Update: Evernote for Android « Evernote Blogcast

Lots of new Evernote for Android updates – including one that addresses my biggest frustration with the earlier Evernote Android client (check this page for a video overview of the new editor features)

Edit styled notes from your Android device

Now, you can edit any note in your account, whether a text notes, webclip, snapshot, or audio note. You won’t see that pesky “Append or Copy” popup ever again. This feature works by maintaining the styling of whatever element you decide to edit. For example, if you edit a bulleted list, the next line you create will also be a bullet; if you edit a section of bold text, then the content you add will also have bold text; and so on. You can also now edit web clips, notes with images, and any other note that’s already in your account.

Update: Evernote for Android « Evernote Blogcast

H-P Plans TouchPad to Rival iPad - WSJ.com

No pricing, no precise schedule, no future (imho)…

The new products, unveiled in San Francisco on Wednesday, include a 9.7-inch tablet called the TouchPad, the Pre3 smartphone designed for office workers and the smaller Veer smartphone, which is about the size of a credit card. The phones have touchscreens and sliding keyboards, and all of the new devices run the WebOS operating system that H-P acquired last year when it bought Palm for $1.2 billion.

[…]

The Veer phone won't be available until spring, and the tablet and Pre3 until summer. H-P didn't disclose pricing information for any of the devices or say which carriers will provide service for the phones.

H-P Plans TouchPad to Rival iPad - WSJ.com

Twitter's Suitors Talk in Billions - WSJ.com

Strange days indeed

Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at Twitter Inc. in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks have so far gone nowhere, these people say.

But what's remarkable is the money that people familiar with the matter say frames the discussions with at least some potential suitors: an estimated valuation in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $10 billion.

[…]

Twitter's Suitors Talk in Billions - WSJ.com

Nokia and H.P. Play Catch-Up - NYTimes.com

Tomorrow’s Nokia update will be a pivotal company milestone

Most Nokia smartphones run on the much-criticized Symbian operating system. To get Nokia to switch, Google and Microsoft are offering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of engineering assistance and marketing support, according to a person who has done consulting for the company and was told of the talks.

Mr. Elop joined Nokia last September, and was recruited from Microsoft, where he was a senior executive. “But the obvious choice for Nokia is Android,” Mr. Colony said. “Microsoft would be the higher risk path.”

Nokia and H.P. Play Catch-Up - NYTimes.com

The Atrix 4G offers muscular multitasking - The Boston Globe

Hiawatha Bray on the Motorola Atrix; check the article link below for a video overview of the Atrix laptop and HD dock scenarios; the Atrix appears to be the Palm Foleo vision brought to full fruition

The Atrix, which runs Google Inc.’s popular Android operating system, is surely the most muscular multitasking platform that ever fit into a shirt pocket. Attach it to the optional docking station, with its keyboard and 11.6-inch screen, and the Atrix 4G becomes a capable, light-duty computer that also makes phone calls.

Remember the netbook craze of a couple years back? Well, here we go again, only this time it has speed dial.

The Atrix 4G offers muscular multitasking - The Boston Globe

Smartphones 'out sell' PCs for first time • The Register

Computing and communication get more personal and more mobile

According to the device counters at IDC, makers of smartphones shipped 100.9 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2010, an 87.2 per cent increase from the 53.9 million units that were consumed in the final quarter of 2009. For the first time, smartphones have surpassed PCs in terms of number of units shipped in a quarter. In Q4 2010, with the PC market recovered but losing some steam, PC makers shipped 92.1 million units, a year-on-year increase of only 5.5 per cent.

For the full year, consumers and businesses together bought 302.6 million smartphones, up 74.4 per cent from the 173.5 million units that went out the door in 2009. PC still reigned supreme for the full year, however, with a total of 346.2 million units shipped in 2010, up 13.6 per cent over 2009's levels.

Smartphones 'out sell' PCs for first time • The Register

How the Internet Gets Inside Us : The New Yorker

Excerpt from an excellent recent book survey

All three kinds appear among the new books about the Internet: call them the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers. The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think that we would have been better off if the whole thing had never happened, that the world that is coming to an end is superior to the one that is taking its place, and that, at a minimum, books and magazines create private space for minds in ways that twenty-second bursts of information don’t. The Ever-Wasers insist that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others—that something like this is going on is exactly what makes it a modern moment. One’s hopes rest with the Never-Betters; one’s head with the Ever-Wasers; and one’s heart? Well, twenty or so books in, one’s heart tends to move toward the Better-Nevers, and then bounce back toward someplace that looks more like home.

How the Internet Gets Inside Us : The New Yorker

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest 'burning platform' memo? (update: it's real!) -- Engadget

Perhaps Nokia will also soon have a company-town headquarters campus in Silicon Valley

"The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable." This is just one of many, many pieces of stark knowledge allegedly dropped by recently-appointed Nokia CEO Stephen Elop -- formerly of Microsoft -- in a roughly 1,300-word memo to the company's employees that we've received today. Though we can't vouch for the authenticity, it's notable that the memo contains a portion previously reported by The Register and heard by sources at TechCrunch Europe, so it would seem that we've simply received the whole thing. Elop goes on to suggest that his company is "standing on a burning platform" and must "change [its] behavior," suggesting that the adoption of a non-homegrown platform like Android or Windows Phone 7 is a more realistic possibility than ever before.
Update: We've now heard from multiple trusted sources that this memo is indeed real, and was posted to an internal Nokia employee system. That makes it one of the most exciting and interesting CEO memos we've ever seen -- and we're absolutely dying to see how Elop plans to shake things up.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest 'burning platform' memo? (update: it's real!) -- Engadget

Facebook to Build its own Real Life Facebook-ville | FT tech hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

But will Facebook have employee housing, as Google reportedly plans to? 

While many Facebook employees are just a few years past decorating their college dorm rooms, the seven-year old company is now renovating a new 9-building, 57-acre campus it plans to move into this summer.

Facebook’s staff is growing faster than its current offices in Palo Alto can handle, so the company announced today its intention to move seven miles up the road to the former Sun Microsystems headquarters in Menlo Park.

[…]

The company also purchased an additional 22 acres of nearby property from a General Motors affiliate, connected to the main campus by an underground pedestrian tunnel, for further expansions.

Facebook to Build its own Real Life Facebook-ville | FT tech hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

Brier Dudley's Blog | Bing bites Google back, jumps 6% | Seattle Times Newspaper

Hmm…

Maybe this is why Google's been publicly trashing Bing.

Microsoft's underdog search engine saw a jump in market share over the last month, increasing its U.S. market share 6 percent, according to an Experian Hitwise report today.

Google's U.S. market share fell 2 percent over the same period. No doubt it's because Bing was siphoning off searches for terms like torsorapy and mbzrxpgjys.

Brier Dudley's Blog | Bing bites Google back, jumps 6% | Seattle Times Newspaper

Living | Borders book store frantically tries to escape sorry ending | Seattle Times Newspaper

Accelerated evolution in the book business

The company reported a net loss of $74.4 million for the quarter ended Oct. 30 and has had financial losses every quarter for the last three years. Borders' chief bricks-and-mortar rival, Barnes & Noble, also has been struggling financially.

"The superstores were viewed by the independent bookstores as dinosaurs that came to kill them — and they did," said Al Greco, a book-publishing expert and professor of marketing at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration. "Today, it looks like the big bang has hit and now the dinosaurs are in peril."

Living | Borders book store frantically tries to escape sorry ending | Seattle Times Newspaper

Apple’s New iPad in Production | Yukari Iwatani Kane and Shayndi Raice | Voices | AllThingsD

There will probably be a lot of used iPad 1.0 units available soon; see this wsj.com article for a more detailed iPad market snapshot

Apple Inc. has started production of a new version of its iPad tablet computer, said people familiar with the matter.

The new device will be thinner, lighter and will come with a faster processor, more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, said the people familiar with the matter. It will have a front-facing camera for the first time for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the new iPad’s display will be similar to the first iPad, they said.

Apple’s New iPad in Production | Yukari Iwatani Kane and Shayndi Raice | Voices | AllThingsD

Why We Invested in Groupon: The Power of Data « Greylock VC

Data management for fun and profit (via All Things Digital)

Groupon will not be the first or the last organization to compete and win on the power of data. It’s happening everywhere around us. Turn on your TV on Sunday afternoon to watch football. Behind the scenes the coaches are relying on data scientists and proprietary algorithms to decide which players to draft or trade for, and whether to kick a field goal or go for it on fourth down. At least that’s how the New England Patriots work, and they’ve done pretty well. Closer to home, we see deep data initiatives at Greylock companies. Facebook, Pandora and Redfin use data to connect you with friends you’d forgotten about, recommend songs they know you’ll love or help you figure out when a home is over-priced.

Why We Invested in Groupon: The Power of Data « Greylock VC

Mother and teenagers disconnect from their technology and thrive in expected and unexpected ways - The Boston Globe

The Winter of Our Disconnect is a timely reality check, especially if you have teenaged children

Maushart’s narrative contains loads of eye-opening scientific data about how digital technology has changed our living patterns. Maushart winningly blends the personal and the scientific, and her narrative tone throughout is amusingly self-effacing. Her teenagers roll their eyes when she explains how things were different when she was young. “In my day,’’ she says, “if you wanted to play violent interactive games, watch inappropriate content, and converse with dodgy strangers, you had to wait for a family reunion.’’

Mother and teenagers disconnect from their technology and thrive in expected and unexpected ways - The Boston Globe

Obama to seek electric car tax break - The Boston Globe

Glad to see this

President Obama will propose that consumers receive a $7,500 tax credit for electric cars at the dealership, reducing the sticker price.

[…]

The administration will also propose grants for as many as 30 municipalities to build infrastructure to recharge electric vehicles. The budget plan will also include new research and development investments in electric drive, battery, and storage technologies, Sandalow said.

Obama to seek electric car tax break - The Boston Globe

BBC News - Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app

Be sure to carefully read the privacy policy…

The Catholic Church has approved an iPhone app that helps guide worshippers through confession.

The program - called Confession - went on sale last week through iTunes for £1.19 ($1.99).

Described as "the perfect aid for every penitent", it offers users tips and guidelines to help them with the sacrament.

Now senior church officials in America have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first.

BBC News - Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app

Facebook Gets a Short-Term Memory, to Keep You Commenting - Technology Review

Check the article link below (and this Facebook blog post) for some details on how Facebook engineers addressed the challenge

Facebook may be about to suck up even more of your time. Two weeks ago a feature rolled out that I'm told many users may not have noticed, but that is predicted to soon have them interacting with each other more on the the social network.

That feature was instantly updating comments, and it turns every piece of content on Facebook into an instant messaging chat room. Any time you add a comment to, say, a photo or status update it will now appear instantly in front of anyone else looking at that same page.

[…]

Switching to live updating may seem a small change from a user's perspective. But the engineering decisions Deeter and colleagues had to make illustrate how complex it is to operate a site with more than half a billion users.

An excerpt from the Facebook Live Commenting post:

So we needed a push-based approach. To be able to push information about comments to viewers, we need to know who may be viewing the piece of content that each new comment pertains to. Because we serve 100 million pieces of content per minute, we needed a system that could keep track of this "who's looking at what" information, but also handle the incredible rate at which this information changed.

Write Locally, Read Globally

Storing these one-to-one, viewer-to-content associations in a database is relatively easy. Keeping up with 16 million new associations per second is not. Up until this point, Facebook engineering had built up infrastructure optimized for many more reads than writes. But now we had flipped the game.

Facebook Gets a Short-Term Memory, to Keep You Commenting - Technology Review

Finally: Facebook Co-Founder Opens the Curtain on Two-Year Old Asana [TechCrunch]

Check the article link for more details and this page for Asana’s impressive team/board/advisor roster

But all that said, this is in no way another “Facebook for the enterprise.” There’s no list of friends, no events, no photosharing. Asana isn’t about making the workplace “fun” or making it social for the sake of social. Its not about organizing your social graph. It’s about helping people work together more efficiently– cutting out reliance on email, cutting down on the need for those endless meetings, easily assigning and tracking tasks in one instance that is always up to date, because unlike those lame corporate wikis, people are living in the app. Moskovitz and Rosenstein are clear: If they don’t accomplish that, they have failed.

Finally: Facebook Co-Founder Opens the Curtain on Two-Year Old Asana

Sprint to Add Kyocera Echo, a Two-Screen Smartphone - WSJ.com

I suspect this phone is a leading indicator of future mobile device mainstream trends; check this Sprint page for more details

Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to unveil a smartphone late Monday that includes a twin set of touch screens that give the device a pseudo-tablet design, according to a person familiar with the device.

The device, called the Echo and made by the U.S. unit of Japan-based Kyocera Corp., features two 3.5-inch touch screens that can be stacked side by side.

Sprint to Add Kyocera Echo, a Two-Screen Smartphone - WSJ.com

True Confessions of a Digital Hoarder - NYTimes.com

Some interesting feedback in the article comments; none yet on personal information management tools such as Evernote and OneNote

I’ve missed important e-mails about family health matters, queries from editors and pings from sources. Earlier this week, I just happened to be staring into the abyss of my bloated e-mail inbox when a note floated in about last-minute drinks with a good friend who happened to be in town for the night. Had I not been looking at Gmail at that exact moment, there’s a good chance I never would have seen it.

I’ve tried a few different tactics with little success, including tags and labels in Gmail, priority inboxing software and archiving on a semi-regular basis. But frankly, I’m drowning in it.

This is where you come in, readers, because I need all the help I can get.

True Confessions of a Digital Hoarder - NYTimes.com

Groupon Backpedals After Viewers Fail to See Humor, Compassion in Super Bowl Ads | Tricia Duryee | eMoney | AllThingsD

Oops…

From what we’ve heard, the Chicago-based company doesn’t believe the commercials were misguided, but rather that it made a mistake by not directing folks to a Web site, where it was raising money for certain causes and matching up to $100,000 in donations. The site, SaveTheMoney.org, should have been mentioned in the commerciasl instead of expecting consumers to make the jump on their own from groupon.com to a link on the side of the page.

UPDATE 2: In a blog post today, CEO Andrew Mason tried to address the feedback. “We would never have run these ads if we thought they trivialized the causes–even if we didn’t take them as seriously as we do, what type of company would go out of their way to be so antagonistic?”

Groupon Backpedals After Viewers Fail to See Humor, Compassion in Super Bowl Ads | Tricia Duryee | eMoney | AllThingsD

Kindle Post US: Early Preview of Free Software Update for Kindle

Excerpts from an overview

We’re excited to tell you about some new features coming to the latest generation Kindle and Kindle 3G:
•    Public Notes – This feature lets Kindle users choose to make their book notes and highlights available for others to see. […]

•    Real Page Numbers – Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class.  Rather than add page numbers that don’t correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we’re adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book’s print edition.

Check the link below for more details, and a comment thread controversy about the impression that the update may not be available for Kindle 2

Kindle Post US: Early Preview of Free Software Update for Kindle

J.P. Morgan Analyst: HP's WebOS App Ecosystem Is "Uncertain" | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Perhaps HP will pursue an Android app run-time option, as RIM is rumored to be doing for its Playbook tablet

As J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote today, the ubiquity of HP’s related app ecosystem is uncertain. Whatever hardware the company rolls out on Wednesday needs to spur developers to embrace webOS. “Otherwise,” said Moskowitz, “there is risk that HP introduces a suitable device with a strong operating system, only to be deficient in attracting end users’ ‘eyeballs’ because of a weak applications and content ecosystem.”

J.P. Morgan Analyst: HP's WebOS App Ecosystem Is "Uncertain" | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

You've Got Mail! Except When You Don't - BusinessWeek

In other AOL news…

"It's become so out of fashion that horrible, horrible things can happen to AOL e-mail and nobody even notices," says Rob Beschizza, the managing editor of Boing Boing, a popular technology and culture blog that made no mention of the meltdown. Danny Shea, senior media editor at the Huffington Post, says that outages on popular services quickly earn their own hashtag—a way to mark tweets relating to a specific event—and a spot on Twitter's list of popular topics. "If it were Gmail, the #GmailFail hashtag would be trending immediately," says Shea.

[…]

AOL, which was once the dominant e-mail provider in the U.S., is now the fourth-most popular service, according to comScore, with 25.2 million unique visitors in December 2010, trailing behind Yahoo! (93.9 million), Gmail (51.2 million), and Hotmail (45.7 million). The site continues to shrink. Since December 2009, AOL has suffered a 19.5 percent drop in unique visitors.

"When you see somebody who has an AOL e-mail address, you think, 'haven't you heard of Gmail or Yahoo or other Web-based e-mail?'" says Daniel Sieberg, a technology reporter for CBS News, ABC News, and MSNBC. "You think, 'Please, come into the 21st century.' "

You've Got Mail! Except When You Don't - BusinessWeek

Former WikiLeaks Colleagues Forming New Web Site, OpenLeaks - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

OpenLeaks is not the only site inspired by the success of WikiLeaks. Dozens of smaller leaking sites — some focused on specific topics, like the environment, or particular regions — have sprung up in recent months with the aim of encouraging whistleblowers.

It is, perhaps, the realization of a vision Mr. Assange outlined on his blog in 2006, the year he founded WikiLeaks. He imagined a world where “mass leaking” left unjust governments “exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.”

Former WikiLeaks Colleagues Forming New Web Site, OpenLeaks - NYTimes.com

AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Another AOL reincarnation; check the link below for more details

In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post Co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Google v Bing: The Hiybbprqag Affair | James Gleick

Excerpt from a Google/Bing perspective

I believe we have something important to learn from this affair, but not so much about the relative ethics of the people at Microsoft and Google. It’s time to learn a lesson about the surfstream. We define the surfstream as the aggregate of everybody’s clickstream. The clickstream is everything, more or less, that you type. The gaggle of Googlers typing hiybbprqag made one fleeting, minuscule contribution to the surfstream. A drop in the ocean.

One chunk of the surfstream is the aggregate of people’s searches on Google. It’s a big and valuable and informative chunk, and you can see why Google would resent Microsoft’s making use of it, even if Google itself monitors clickstream data through its own toolbar. Is Microsoft looking over Google’s shoulders? Indirectly, yes, but I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s looking over our shoulders. It is watching Internet users, en masse—everyone, that is, who breezes through this innocent-looking dialog box:

Google v Bing: The Hiybbprqag Affair | James Gleick

BBC News - Are governments closing the net around web freedom?

Check the article link below for a timely reality check including perspectives from the suddenly ubiquitous Evgeny Morozov and Sir Tim Berners-Lee

At Campus Party in Brazil last month, Al Gore called on the public to act in preserving what he believes is a system vital for democracy.

"Defend the internet," he said.

"Do not let it be controlled by governments or by large corporations. It is a network of people."

But there are signs that the web is becoming dominated by the few.

According to web analytics firm Compete, the top 10 websites were responsible for 31% of US page views in 2001, rising to around 75% in most recent estimates.

Facebook alone accounts for around a quarter of all US internet traffic.

BBC News - Are governments closing the net around web freedom?

Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension - NYTimes.com

Check the article link below for a timely technology + education snapshot by Randall Stross

“Unlocking the Gates,” by Taylor Walsh (Princeton University Press) is a recently published history of M.I.T.’s online venture, as well as those of Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of California, Berkeley, and others. Comparing the book’s case studies, I found that Carnegie Mellon seems to have made the most progress in developing fully self-contained online courses. Anyone can use them free, with the proviso that Carnegie Mellon doesn’t offer credit.

Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension - NYTimes.com

Apple Patents a Stylus to Reach Students - NYTimes.com

I’m also still betting we’ll see a smaller-screen iPad, despite the Steve Jobs “sandpaper” comment, once Android slate sales patterns permeate the Apple Reality Distortion Field

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s founder, has repeatedly said that a pen on a tablet is a sign of failure. During an iPhone product presentation in 2007, and again in 2010, Mr. Jobs said, “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” But that should be taken with a grain of salt, from the salt shaker used when you heard Mr. Jobs say that the company would never build an e-reader, phone or inexpensive computer, and later released all three products.

So why would Apple add a stylus to an already successful iPad? According to a person who works at Apple on the iPad and is not allowed to speak publicly about the company’s coming products, the reason to add the stylus is to reach a wider number of children in school. “It’s one of the barriers for school kids and college students to purchase an iPad where they want the ability to take notes by hand and draw in class,” the individual said.

Apple Patents a Stylus to Reach Students - NYTimes.com

Wallflowers at the Revolution - NYTimes.com

Another timely reality check in “The Net Delusion” context

This provocative debate isn’t even being acknowledged in most American coverage of the Internet’s role in the current uprisings. The talking-head invocations of Twitter and Facebook instead take the form of implicit, simplistic Western chauvinism. How fabulous that two great American digital innovations can rescue the downtrodden, unwashed masses. That is indeed impressive if no one points out that, even in the case of the young and relatively wired populace of Egypt, only some 20 percent of those masses have Internet access.

Wallflowers at the Revolution - NYTimes.com

A look at how digital gaming may provide lessons for improving ourselves and the world - The Boston Globe

Accentuating the potential positive

As gaming and real life converge, Jane McGonigal’s “Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World” is the right book at the right time. McGonigal proposes a fascinating and provocative, if troubling, manifesto that adds to our understanding of the appeal and potential power of digital games.

McGonigal’s central thesis is this: Reality is discouraging, unproductive, disconnected, and broken in about a dozen other ways. Meanwhile, electronic games are already “fulfilling genuine human needs,” she writes, in ways that our real lives often fail to. If lessons learned from Call of Duty or Wii boxing were applied to everyday life, could reality be “fixed”? Could day-to-day drudgery be slayed?

A look at how digital gaming may provide lessons for improving ourselves and the world - The Boston Globe

Book Review - The Net Delusion - By Evgeny Morozov - NYTimes.com

Excerpt from a timely book review

Morozov urges the cyberutopians to open their eyes to the fact that the ­asocial pursuit of profit is what drives social media. “Not surprisingly,” he writes, “the dangerous fascination with solving previously intractable social problems with the help of technology allows vested interests to disguise what essentially amounts to advertising for their commercial products in the language of freedom and liberation.” In 2007, when he was at the State Department, Jared Cohen wrote with tragic wrongheadedness that “the Internet is a place where Iranian youth can . . . say anything they want as they operate free from the grips of the police-state apparatus.” Thanks to the exciting new technology, many of those freely texting Iranian youths are in prison or dead. Cohen himself now works for Google as the director of “Google Ideas.”

Book Review - The Net Delusion - By Evgeny Morozov - NYTimes.com

E-Book Sales Rise in Children’s and Young Adult Categories - NYTimes.com

I suspect the availability of games on the Kindle doesn’t hurt…

That scene may be slowly replaced by tweens and teenagers clustered in groups and reading their Nooks or Kindles together, wirelessly downloading new titles with the push of a button, studiously comparing the battery life of the devices and accessorizing them with Jonathan Adler and Kate Spade covers in hot pink, tangerine and lime green.

“The young adults and the teenagers are now the newest people who are beginning to experience e-readers,” said Matthew Shear, the publisher of St. Martin’s Press. “If they get hooked, it’s great stuff for the business.”

E-Book Sales Rise in Children’s and Young Adult Categories - NYTimes.com

The Site for Books & Readers - Shelfari

Amazon is exploring social reading scenarios; found via a post in an Amazon blog.  I couldn’t resist – my public profile (currently “30% complete” according to Shelfari)…

Based in Seattle, Shelfari introduces readers to our global community of book lovers and encourages them to share their literary inclinations and passions with peers, friends, and total strangers (for now). Shelfari is a gathering place for authors, aspiring authors, publishers, and readers, and has many tools and features to help these groups connect with each other in a fun and engaging way. Our mission is to enhance the experience of reading by connecting readers in meaningful conversations about the published word.

Shelfari’s members:

• Build virtual bookshelves to express themselves to their friends and to the world
• Discover books that are popular in their trusted circles of friends
• Influence peers by rating and discussing books online
• Discover and learn from people with similar reading tastes
• Participate in online book groups to further explore literature and share ideas
• Interact with and learn from authors

Shelfari was officially launched in October 2006 and was acquired by Amazon.com in August 2008.

The Site for Books & Readers - Shelfari

Speculation of Alliance With Microsoft Lifts Nokia Shares - NYTimes.com

I’m still betting on both Android and Windows Phone devices from Nokia

Shares of Nokia, the mobile phone market leader, climbed for a fourth day on Thursday amid speculation that the company may be poised to announce a software alliance with Microsoft designed to revive its struggling U.S. smartphone business.

Nokia’s shares have risen more than 4 percent since Monday when an analyst, Adnaan Ahmad of Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, urged the Nokia chief executive — and former Microsoft executive — Stephen Elop, to form an alliance that would put Microsoft’s Phone operating system on Nokia’s advanced smartphones.

Speculation of Alliance With Microsoft Lifts Nokia Shares - NYTimes.com

Want to Read The Daily? No iPad, No Problem! - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

Well, that didn’t take long. The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s big push into iPad-based publishing, was introduced on Wednesday. And on Thursday morning, an unsanctioned Web site appeared with links to every article in The Daily, free on the Web.

The site, called The Daily: Indexed, was created by Andy Baio, a programmer and journalist based in Los Angeles. He said in an interview that the project took him “about 20 minutes” to build.

Want to Read The Daily? No iPad, No Problem! - NYTimes.com

Too Lazy Or Busy To Read? Topicmarks Summarizes Long Texts For You [TechCrunch]

The future will be abstracted…

Using semantic text extraction and personalization technologies, Topicmarks extracts text from the .pdf, .doc, .html and .txt documents that you upload, copy/paste, email in or enter the URL of. The service then gives you the option to view the “Overview,”"Facts,”"Summary” and”Keywords” of the document as well as “Properties” where you can see the original source. You can also interact with the “Overview” in a multitude of ways, including searching by key word and adding more or less text to the summary as needed.

Too Lazy Or Busy To Read? Topicmarks Summarizes Long Texts For You

The Larry Page Era at Google is Going to Be Aggressive | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Some interesting speculation

While I have no idea if it was his decision to let loose the dogs of algo-war on Microsoft, many with knowledge of how Google manages its public persona observed to me this week that this was just the kind of popping off that the outgoing Schmidt often tried to mitigate and soften.

But such bravado will play well with Google’s elite and pampered engineering corps in Silicon Valley.

And, in any case, PR considerations have never really been the point for Page, who cares not for how it might come off in the media (which he largely disdains anyway).

The Larry Page Era at Google is Going to Be Aggressive | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

75,000 job applications flood Google - The Boston Globe

The allure of the Googleplex is still strong

The flood of resumes topped a previous high set in May 2007 by 15 percent, said Aaron Zamost, a spokesman for the Mountain View, Calif. company.

Google, which had 24,400 workers at the end of 2010, said last week that it would add more than 6,000 employees this year.

75,000 job applications flood Google - The Boston Globe

Honeycomb Is The First Shot Fired Along Apple’s Bow [TechCrunch]

Excerpt from another battle-of-the-super-slates preview

Honeycomb changes this and brings the Android tablet to nearly the same level as the iPad with a robust backed-in feature set. Everything from the totally redesigned the UI with live multitasking, mulitple tool bars and a whole host of new apps is different from iOS. It’s by far the most dramatic update since the Android platform launched and in many ways, it looks and works totally different from anything else currently on the market.

Even the Android Market got a fresh set whitewash. The new web version packs features that allows developers to better promote and describe their wares just in a similar fashion as iTunes. The web version even allows users to buy apps online, which will then automatically download to the phone or tablet.

Honeycomb Is The First Shot Fired Along Apple’s Bow

Data Market: Get graphed data on (almost) anything [The Next Web]

Check the article link below for more details and an intro video

Want to know the 1990 CO2 emissions in Botswana? Or the tonnage of potatoes yielded in Ireland every year? Well you can do that and a lot more on DataMarket.com. Data Market is a new entrant in the data space that just launched globally. It lets you search through different datasets, visualize a them on a graph and compare between datasets. Data Market pulls in 100 million time series from many sources including the UN and World Bank.

Data Market is very easy to use and unlike some other competitors you can get a lot for free. They have collected together a large set of data.

Data Market: Get graphed data on (almost) anything

BBC News - Google eyes Apple in tablet war

Check the article link for a snapshot comparison; also expect the iPad will be updated within the next couple months

But will Honeycomb help Google slay Apple, which has a new iPad out in the coming months?

That depends, says Ina Fried, senior editor of AllThingsD and the Mobilized blog.

"It's a combination of what's the speed, what's the price of the device, what type of apps will be available and when.

"This is about other people's products competing with the iPad. Clearly Google is putting a lot of resources into Android and with this first entry it's going to be a fun thing to watch," Ms Fried told BBC News.

BBC News - Google eyes Apple in tablet war

U.S. Tries Open-Source Model for Health Data Systems - NYTimes.com

Interesting open * times

The Direct Project, officials say, is not a conventional standards-setting group with committees, meetings and rounds of voting. “We won’t see the rapid innovation we want to see using the traditional way,” said Dr. Douglas Fridsma, head of standards at the federal health information technology office.

An open-source pioneer, Brian Behlendorf, was recruited as an adviser on how to set up and govern the project. Mr. Behlendorf, now the chief technology officer for the World Economic Forum, was a creator the Apache Web server, one of the most widely used open-source software programs.

The health project’s work was guided by a principle Mr. Behlendorf calls “do-ocracy” — convince people not with words, but with working code.

U.S. Tries Open-Source Model for Health Data Systems - NYTimes.com

Verizon’s iPhone Doesn’t Drop Calls - NYTimes.com

Another verdict on the Verizon iPhone; see the link below for a detailed AT&T/Verizon comparison

Yes, that’s a lot of footnotes and “yes, buts.” Even so, most people don’t care about overseas compatibility or simultaneous calling and surfing or Verizon’s tactics. They want an iPhone — an iconic, beautiful, fast, elegant iPhone — that doesn’t drop calls.

Now, after years of pining, they have it at last.

Verizon’s iPhone Doesn’t Drop Calls - NYTimes.com

Bing Setting the record straight - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

Excerpt from a response by Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Online Services Division

Google engaged in a “honeypot” attack to trick Bing. In simple terms, Google’s “experiment” was rigged to manipulate Bing search results through a type of attack also known as “click fraud.” That’s right, the same type of attack employed by spammers on the web to trick consumers and produce bogus search results.  What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove? Nothing anyone in the industry doesn’t already know. As we have said before and again in this post, we use click stream optionally provided by consumers in an anonymous fashion as one of 1,000 signals to try and determine whether a site might make sense to be in our index.

Now let’s move the conversation to what might really be going on behind the scenes.

Bing Setting the record straight - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

Apple iPhone 4 for Verizon Review | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Walt Mossberg compares AT&T and Verizon iPhone services

Bottom line: In my tests, the new Verizon version of the iPhone did much better at voice calling than the AT&T version, and offers some attractive benefits, like unlimited data and a wireless hot-spot capability. But if you really care about data speed, or travel overseas, and AT&T service is tolerable in your area, you may want to stick with AT&T.

Apple iPhone 4 for Verizon Review | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Dell tablet would be great — a year ago - The Boston Globe

Hiawatha Bray is not a fan of the Dell Streak 7…

Can a product get bigger and smaller at the same time?

Dell Inc. has managed this unfortunate feat with the Streak 7, a new tablet computer that has a lot more real estate than its predecessor, but a good deal less charm.

I’m biased, because I liked the good old Dell Streak 5. Then again, I’m one of the few people who did; it flopped with consumers.

Dell tablet would be great — a year ago - The Boston Globe

iPhone app store, Amazon Kindle: Why e-book sellers should stop playing by Apple's rules. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

Excerpt from a timely Apple reality check

That's bad news for Amazon, which has made iPhone and iPad compatibility the centerpiece of its Kindle strategy. It's also bad news for all of us who'd assumed that Apple would be totally fine letting users bypass its store if we wanted to use our iPhones and iPads as e-readers. Stupid us! In the long run, though, I wonder if Apple's e-book restrictions might end up improving our devices by revealing—once and for all—the downside of the app-store model. Anyone selling "content" for mobile devices—books, games, movies, songs, magazine articles, anything—should be wary of Apple's motives here: The company seems unlikely to rest until it gets a cut of every transaction. Lucky for all of us, there's a perfectly good alternative to the App Store. It's called the Web, and Apple doesn't own it (yet).

iPhone app store, Amazon Kindle: Why e-book sellers should stop playing by Apple's rules. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

Smart Meters, Science and Belief - NYTimes.com

Another amygdala reality check, via Joe Maguire’s excellent Information Pleas blog

The absence of scientific evidence doesn’t dissuade those who believe childhood vaccines are linked to autism, or those who believe their headaches, dizziness and other symptoms are caused by cellphones and smart meters. And the presence of large amounts of scientific evidence doesn’t convince those who reject the idea that human activities are disrupting the climate.

What gives? A recovering journalist, David Ropeik, who is an instructor at the Harvard University extension school and the author of a book, “How Risky Is It Really?” offers one explanation.

He uses peer-reviewed science to explain the limits of peer-reviewed science as a persuasive tool.

Humans, he argues, are hard-wired to reject scientific conclusions that run counter to their instinctive belief that someone or something is out to get them.

Smart Meters, Science and Belief - NYTimes.com

Internet returns to Egypt | FT tech hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

The new normal in Egypt

Internet services returned to Egypt on Wednesday morning, with even previously blocked sites such as Twitter available.

The move comes as the Egyptian army encouraged protesters against Hosni Mubarak’s regime to return to normal life.

Internet returns to Egypt | FT tech hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

Google Takes Street View Into Art Museums - NYTimes.com

Check the article link below for more details and a video and here for the Google Art Project site

Now that Google has conquered a majority of the earth’s major streets with its Google Street View project, the company is starting to move inside. It’s  creating the Google Art Project, a virtual equivalent of 17 major art museums, including the the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Britain and the National Gallery in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many others.

Google Takes Street View Into Art Museums - NYTimes.com

U.K. Begins E-Book Pricing Probe - WSJ.com

We haven’t yet read the final chapter on the Apple-assisted agency pricing model

The investigation comes after months of haggling between book publishers and online retailers over pricing for electronic books, sparked by the rise of devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad and Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle. Book publishers, having watched music companies falter as Internet distribution cannibalized in-store sales, have moved quickly to protect their business.

That in part has led to the "agency pricing" model, the same system that has come under antitrust scrutiny by attorneys general in Connecticut and Texas.

An interesting twist, later in the article:

Unlike other European countries, many of which prevent retailers from selling books at discounted rates under laws meant to protect independent booksellers, the U.K. generally does not regulate the retail prices for books. That makes the British book market similar to that of the U.S.

U.K. Begins E-Book Pricing Probe - WSJ.com

Google Accuses Microsoft's Bing of 'Cheating' - WSJ.com

A timely reminder, from wsj.com

Google in the past has been accused by some technology observers of copying Bing's user interface, including its home page, a left-hand navigation bar on the results page, and the look of its image search feature, among other things. Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about whether it copies Bing.

Google Accuses Microsoft's Bing of 'Cheating' - WSJ.com

Apple Tightens Rule on E-Book App Developers - NYTimes.com

Watch for a “Pay 30% more as a gift to Apple” option in a future version of the Kindle clients for iOS (that would of course be in addition to the increased prices you’re already paying because of Apple’s iBook store deals with publishers, which forced Amazon to raise prices)

Apple confirmed Tuesday that it would require app developers that sell e-books outside of their iPad and iPhone apps — through a Web site, for example — to also sell the books inside those apps. And purchases that originate in the app must be made through Apple, which keeps a 30 percent cut.

Apple said it was newly enforcing an existing rule, one that will force Amazon, Sony, Google and other e-book sellers to change the way their apps work.

Apple Tightens Rule on E-Book App Developers - NYTimes.com

Bing Thoughts on search quality - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

An excerpt from Microsoft’s response to Google’s cheating accusation

We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users.

To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.

Bing Thoughts on search quality - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

Ahead of Verizon iPhone, T-Mobile Announces Samsung Galaxy S 4G, Details G-Slate Honeycomb Tablet | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Impressive, but I doubt many people will switch to T-Mobile for the phone

The main advantage of the new Galaxy over its predecessors is its speed, with the ability to take full advantage of T-Mobile’s upgraded HSPA+ networks (earlier “4G” devices have run at fast speeds, but not the full theoretical maximum network speed, T-Mobile said). The new Galaxy phone, which will launch later this month, also adds a front-facing camera for video chat as well as support for mobile HD television content. T-Mobile won’t say how much it will cost.

Ahead of Verizon iPhone, T-Mobile Announces Samsung Galaxy S 4G, Details G-Slate Honeycomb Tablet | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Borders poised to file for bankruptcy - The Boston Globe

A sad milestone for bookstore fans

Borders Group, the second-largest US bookstore chain, may file for protection from creditors as soon as next week, according to three people familiar with the matter. It will likely close at least 150 stores, one person said. The people declined to be identified because the proceedings aren’t public.

Borders poised to file for bankruptcy - The Boston Globe

Google says rival cheats on searches - The Boston Globe

This should prove interesting…

Google is accusing Microsoft Corp. of cheating as the two duel for Internet search supremacy, but Microsoft denies the charge, saying it’s just using all the tools available to lessen its rival’s dominance.

The dust-up between the two companies grabbed the spotlight yesterday at an event sponsored by Microsoft about the future of Internet searches. Microsoft’s practices have even wider implications now that its technology powers Yahoo Inc. searches in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico.

Google says rival cheats on searches - The Boston Globe

Amazon to offer Oracle's database in the cloud - Computerworld

Oracle Database in the cloud – but not from Oracle

Oracle's database will be available in the second quarter as part of Amazon Web Services' Relational Database Service, the companies announced Tuesday.

The move comes shortly after Salesforce.com announced Database.com, a pay-as-you-go product that is also powered in part by Oracle's database. Like Amazon's other cloud infrastructure offerings, the upcoming Oracle database service will feature hourly fees, with no long-term contract required.

Amazon to offer Oracle's database in the cloud - Computerworld

The Mobile Tsunami is Near: Blame Netflix and Apple: Tech News and Analysis « [GigaOM]

A bit surprising to see edit comments in a GigaOM post; not so surprising to see Cisco projecting a 26-fold increase in the need for … Cisco’s products

Think mobile data demand is big today, with 94 million smartphone shipped this year and 5 billion mobile subscribers? Well, Cisco ( s csco) says it’s going to get a lot bigger by 2015, with worldwide mobile data traffic set to increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month. That’s 75 exabytes annually by 2015 [MIGHT WANT TO THROW IN AND/OR LINK TO A DEFINITION OF EXABYTE]. Last year, I called it the mobilpocalypse, but this year, I’m going to say it’s a looming tsunami, driven by everyone’s favorite bandwidth hog, web video, and the proliferation of mobile devices. In short, we can blame this wave on Netflix on the iPad.

The Mobile Tsunami is Near: Blame Netflix and Apple: Tech News and Analysis «

Facebook's next big media move: Comments | The Social - CNET News

More Facebook Manifest Destiny?…

Facebook is planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks, according to multiple sources familiar with the new product. This new technology could see Facebook as the engine behind the comments system on many high-profile blogs and other digital publications very soon.

The company is actively seeking major media companies and blogs to partner with it for its launch, part of a bigger media industry move spearheaded in part by the recent hires of Nick Grudin and Andy Mitchell, media business development executives with respective track records at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Facebook's next big media move: Comments | The Social - CNET News

Meet the Microworkers - BusinessWeek

Also see Mechanical Serfdom is Just That

The idea of breaking up a job into small pieces and then using the Internet to find workers to do those tasks was pioneered by LiveOps about a decade ago and Amazon.com's (AMZN) Mechanical Turk in 2005. LiveOps lets call-center workers sign on for shifts in 30-minute increments and then uses the Web to route calls to them. Mechanical Turk pays per task—often less than 50 cents—for quick jobs like checking Web pages for errors or transcribing audio recordings.

The trend, which goes by many names—crowdsourcing, the human cloud, microwork—uses the Internet to access workers around the world for short-term projects that pay a few bucks to hundreds of dollars per hour. The tasks might require a few minutes or a few days to complete. Benefits to companies include finding large numbers of workers to complete projects quickly, finding niche expertise, saving money, and making better use of in-house resources. It also lets Western workers, in places with a high cost of living, compete directly with those in developing markets. For many freelancers, microwork gives them unprecedented flexibility to work almost anywhere at any time.

Meet the Microworkers - BusinessWeek

Google Builds Service for Egyptians as Others Struggle - Digits - WSJ

Interesting times

In a boost to the free speech crowd, Internet giant Google entered the fray on evening of Jan. 31 and launched a new service that lets people post Twitter messages via old-fashioned landline phone service, which still works in Egypt.

The “speak-to-tweet service” will let people in Egypt tweet a message by making an international phone call, the company says. Simply leave a voicemail on a Google-supplied international phone number and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. The service was cooked up over the weekend by engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company Google acquired last week.

Google Builds Service for Egyptians as Others Struggle - Digits - WSJ

Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store - NYTimes.com

If Apple starts taking 30% for all purchases made via its devices, even if not purchased from Apple stores, the Google Android community should start sending Apple thank-you cards

Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store.

Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division.

The move could affect companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad tablet and offer free mobile apps so customers can read their e-book purchases on other devices. An iPad owner, for instance, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon.

That may now change.

Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store - NYTimes.com

Apps Customize How Users Read Content Online - NYTimes.com

The async Web for readers

“We were never about stripping ads or being an ad blocker,” said Richard Ziade, who created the original Readability tool as well as the second-generation version. Instead, he said, the company has been wondering: “Can we come up with a mechanism to make the experience of reading on the Web better, but also support content creators and publishers?”

Readability is one of many services experimenting with the future of reading. A wave of applications, including Pulse, Flipboard and My Taptu, are responding to changes in how people prefer to read on the Web, putting articles and blog posts into cleaner or more attractive visual displays.

Nate Weiner, founder of Read It Later, a Web and mobile service that saves articles to be read offline, said there was a larger shift under way, one that mirrors the move to digital from print. Instead of thumbing through the newspaper over breakfast, he said, people like to read articles from many sources on their commutes or in the evening, often using mobile devices.

Apps Customize How Users Read Content Online - NYTimes.com

Motorola Goes After Apple in Super Bowl Teaser for Xoom Tablet | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Classic – see the article link below for more details and the teaser video

In its iconic “1984″ Super Bowl ad for the Macintosh, Apple went after IBM, pitching itself as an alternative to a monoculture of cookie-cutter computers. Fast-forward 27 years and Motorola is trying to use the same approach to attack Apple.

In a Super Bowl teaser ad posted to YouTube on Monday, Motorola pitches its forthcoming Xoom tablet as an alternative to Apple’s iPad.

“2011 looks a lot like 1984,” Motorola says in the ad, which features an image of the Earth surrounded by Apple’s white headphones. “One authority. One design. One way to work. It’s time for more choices.”

Motorola Goes After Apple in Super Bowl Teaser for Xoom Tablet | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

OpenID: The Web’s Most Successful Failure | Webmonkey | Wired.com

A Web identity reality check

The main reason no one uses OpenID is because Facebook Connect does the same thing and does it better. Everyone knows what Facebook is and it’s much easier to understand that Facebook is handling your identity than some vague, unrecognized thing called OpenID. That’s why, despite the impressive sounding billion URLs and 50,000 sites supporting OpenID, it pales next to Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect has been around less than half the time of OpenID and yet it’s been adopted by some 250,000 websites, is available to the hundreds of millions of Facebook users and has the advantage of Facebook’s brand familiarity.

OpenID: The Web’s Most Successful Failure | Webmonkey | Wired.com