Legal Research

Dan Declares Blogging Bankruptcy

I was out of the office last week.  It’ll take me forever to write up each of these individually, so here’s a digest of interesting stuff, in no particular order:

Japan, Sweden and Netherlands Lead in Broadband
More sky is falling news.  The bad news: the U.S. didn’t make the top 10 list of countries.  The good news: we’re faster than Bulgaria.

Survey Indicates 69% of Internet Users Already Making Use of Cloud Computing
Survey of 2,200 U.S. adults in Spring 2008.  The top 3 uses are:
- Webmail (Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail) - 56%
- Photo-sharing (Flickr, Picasa, etc.) - 34%
- Online applications (e.g., Google Docs) - 29%

Hackers attack Large Hadron Collider
The hackers were “one step away” from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine.  Turns out the hackers weren’t necessary: CERN busted the collider themselves.

Virginia: Spam Law Struck Down on Grounds of Free Speech
Spammer Jeremy Jaynes’ 2004 conviction was overturned by the VA Supreme Court because the law “is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

comScore: Almost 10 Percent in US, UK Now Doing Mobile Search
About 21 million Americans (15% of the population) search on their mobile phones.  The number would be higher if Jenkins would get me an iPhone.  Please contribute to the “Buy Dan an iPhone” fund.

Amazon’s IMDB Finally Adds Video Content. I’ll Give It Three Stars
Now you can view 6,000 free movies and TV shows from Hulu, CBS, Sony Pictures Television, and independent filmmakers.

Snip! Nearly One-Fifth of Homes Have No Landline
According to Nielsen, 17% of households have already ditched their landline.
It’s harder to find people if they don’t have an entry in the White Pages.  Lately I’ve been using Intelius (has a cellphone directory available for a charge), ReferenceUSA (from my library), and Wink (finds social network pages such as Facebook and LinkedIn).  Related story.

Google Launches Audio Indexing
No, we’re not talking about your YouTube vid of little Timmy uttering his first words.  Right now, they’re only indexing political content.  (Yawwwwwn.  Wake me when they index something worthwhile.)

Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!
I’m speechless.  I have no speech.  Somewhere Newman is smiling.

Sergey Brin (Google Co-Founder) is Now Blogging
#$%^*&^# super-achiver.  As if running the world’s greatest company isn’t enough.  Nooooo … now he wants to blog.  Anyway, the post LRRK2 is worth a read.

How to Protect Your Email from Hackers
All you people named Sarah, listen up!

Who Are the Richest People In Tech?
Bill Gates is worth 10 times what Steve Jobs is worth.  Does that seem right to you?

FTC Challenges Reed Elsevier’s Proposed $4.1 Billion Acquisition of ChoicePoint, Inc.
“The Federal Trade Commission today issued a complaint charging that Reed Elsevier Inc.’s proposed $4.1 billion acquisition of ChoicePoint Inc. would be anticompetitive and in violation of the antitrust laws, as it would combine the two largest providers of electronic public record services to U.S. law enforcement customers.”  [The combined companies would control over 80 percent of the approximately $60 million U.S. market].  “To eliminate the anticompetitive effects of the proposed acquisition, the FTC will require Reed Elsevier to divest assets related to ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) electronic public records services to Thomson Reuters Legal Inc. (West), within 15 days after the proposed acquisition is consummated.”

The keywords John McCain and Barack Obama are buying on Google
“The terms reveal what the politicians’ Web-savvy advertisers believe is on the public’s mind.”  Hmmm … I don’t see “miserable failure” anywhere on either list.

Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Ads - Made on a Mac
No comment necessary.

Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down.  It Frees Our Minds.
Commentary on Nicholas Carr’s article in The Atlantic Monthly, Is Google Making Us Stupid?  The author even gives us a Twitter summary of Carr’s 4,175-word article: “Google makes deep reading impossible. Media changes.  Our brains’ wiring changes too.  Computers think for us, flattening our intelligence.”  BTW, Carr is the author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, which I hope to review in this blog in a couple of weeks.

Texting Is Stupid
John Battelle talks about how he wants voice-activated text messaging.  Why didn’t I think of that?

More Commentary on the Google-Yahoo Deal
Following up on my previous post, there’s a bunch of back-and-forth from the NY Times, TechCrunch, and Search Engine Land.  Oh, and the Association of National Advertisers has released the text of its letter to the DoJ.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on September 22, 2008 (boomark / email).