Thursday, May 19, 2005
Are blogs more propaganda than press-worthy?
Ars Technica: An interesting read, and in case of the Big Party, its very true. From the article: “We can say that if people still have that idea that the bloggers are the new fifth estate, that the bloggers are the new kingmakers, that’s not the case.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:10 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
IBM to fix bad quarter by axing 13,000 jobs
The Register: “The actual layoff range provided by IBM stretches between 10,000 and 13,000 workers, who will be axed via both voluntary and involuntary means. These actions will lead to IBM taking between a $1.3bn and $1.7bn charge in its second quarter.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:12 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Surprises Lurk in Satellite Snaps
Wired News: “Although satellite imagery has been generally available in one form or another for years, Google’s launch of the image database it got when it purchased Keyhole last fall is likely to dramatically increase public interest in the technology…”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:02 PM / Comments (0)
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Europe will land on Mars in 2013
Lucy Sherriff reports for The Register: “The main objectives of the € 500m mission will be to search for past or present Martian life; to learn more about the source of the atmospheric methane, and find out whether Mars is still seismically active.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:32 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Google updates mapping service
Ars Technica: “Google already had the coolest map service out there, and now they’ve upgraded it with satellite imagery. When you map a location, you can now switch to a satellite view that shows you an actual photo. The satellite view can be dragged and zoomed, just like the regular map.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:24 PM / Comments (0)
Monday, April 4, 2005
What a Little Moon Dust Can Do
Wired News: “If the Bush administration’s plan to set up a base on the moon is to become a reality, scientists will first have to devise a way to deal with a tiny but ubiquitous enemy: lunar dust.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:47 AM / Comments (0)
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Google going all-you-can-eat with Gmail storage
Ars Technica: “Gmail users rejoice, for Google will soon doubled your quota… When you combine that guesstimate with the extraordinarily low cost of hard disk storage and the ease of adding capacity to Google’s sophisticated distributed file system, then it becomes obvious that a 1GB email storage quota—and certainly a 2GB quota—is really just a marketing gimmick.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 02:57 PM / Comments (0)
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Netspeak good for English, experts say
Knight Ridder Newspapers: “The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language,” said David Crystal, a historian of language at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom. “It’s the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the written language and a new motivation for child and adult literacy.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:12 PM / Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Dark matter doesn't matter, say scientists
Lucy Sherriff reports for The Register: “The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate because of ripples in space-time that stretch beyond the observable edges of the universe, according to a paper published in Physical Review Letters. This theory runs counter to current scientific thinking, which holds that so-called dark energy is responsible for this phenomenon.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:50 PM / Comments (0)
Monday, March 14, 2005
Why it is hard to share the wealth
Jenny Hogan reports for New Scientist: “The rich are getting richer while the poor remain poor. If you doubt it, ponder these numbers from the US, a country widely considered meritocratic, where talent and hard work are thought to be enough to propel anyone through the ranks of the rich.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:32 PM / Comments (0)
The endgame
Guardian Unlimited interviews Garry Kasparov: “When Garry Kasparov announced his retirement from chess last week, after more than 20 years as the world’s best player, he left the sport reeling. In his first major interview since the news, he explains how he plans to take on a challenge of even greater complexity - politics in his native Russia.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:28 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, March 11, 2005
Garry Kasparov retires from professional chess
Chessbase News: “The winner of Linares and the world’s strongest chess player, Garry Kasparov, has just announced his retirement from professional chess. His games in this tournament were the last in a career that has spanned thirty years, twenty of which were spent on the top of the world ratings list. Here are details and a video clip.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:36 AM / Comments (0)
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Google Responds to Cloaking Accusations
Matt Hicks reports for eWeek: “Google has taken the unusual step of removing some of its own Web pages from its Web index after reports that the pages used a search-optimization method frowned upon by the search engine.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:21 PM / Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Wiki Becomes a Way of Life
Wired News: “Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has 490,000 articles — in English alone. All together, including its French, German, Italian, Chinese, Spanish and many other versions, it has well over 1.3 million entries. Among those 16,000 contributors, there are some whose involvement goes far beyond the call of duty. These are the hard-core Wikipedians who spend long hours writing articles, or tweaking existing ones.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:47 PM / Comments (0)
Google Caught Cloaking and Keyword Stuffing?
Threadwatch: “A short while ago, Threadwatch member Adam_C discovered what for all appearances seems to be Google pulling dirty SEO tactics on it’s own pages and thus going against it’s own guidelines in an effort to rank highly within it’s own results.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:38 PM / Comments (0)
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Kilogram Poses Weighty Problem
Wired News: “Like its six basic-units-of-measurement siblings before it — including the meter — the kilogram may be moving toward a new definition based on a universal constant. The kilogram has long been understood to equal the mass of its prototype.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:46 PM / Comments (1)
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Google movies: now playing
Google Blog: “If you love movies, you know which films these phrases refer to. Now, thanks to our new movie feature, Google web search knows too. Just in time for the Oscars, we’ve created a new ‘movie:’ operator that enables you to find movie-related information faster and more easily, whether you’re looking for titles or actors, director or genre, famous lines or obscure plot details.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:16 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, February 18, 2005
Google denies PHP search?
Nitesh Dhanjani writes for O’Reilly Developer Blogs: “Google won’t let you look beyond the first 10 results if you request it to find URLs that point to PHP resources. This is most likely Google’s response to recent worms that have been using Google to look for vulnerable versions of PHP code.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:16 PM / Comments (0)
Thursday, February 17, 2005
A parent's primer to computer slang
Mircosoft teaches parents the intricacies of leetspeek: “While it’s important to respect your children’s privacy, understanding what your teenager’s online slang means and how to decipher it is important as you help guide their online experience.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:57 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, February 11, 2005
Google to host Wikipedia?
From the Wikimedia page: “Google Inc. has made a proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects. The terms of the offer are currently being discussed by the board. The developer committee has been informed of some of the details via email. A private IRC meeting with Google is planned for March, 2005. Please note that this agreement does not mean there is any requirement for us to include advertising on the site.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:22 PM / Comments (0)