Archive for March, 2008

Edit wars come to spy agencies’ Intellipedia

Caption: This partially redacted screen snapshot of Intellipedia, a Wikipedia-like site used by the U.S. intelligence community, hints at the severity of edit wars between executive branch agencies.

WASHINGTON, D.C.–It turns out that the federal government’s Intellipedia, a classified Wikipedia just for spies and spooks, is as prone to altercations as is its public counterpart.

[Editor's note: [...]

Bluepulse, MySpace: Better cell phone socializers

(Credit: Bluepulse)
What’s the difference between Bluepulse and Facebook Mobile, MySpace Mobile? Unlike the others, whose services were adapted from the Web site to the WAP site, Bluepulse was born on cell phones, its engineering team focused solely on designing a simple, useful social network anyone can use on a Web-ready phone.
New features
Three new features [...]

Report: Microsoft has no plans to raise Yahoo bid

Microsoft is not planning to raise its multibillion-dollar offer for Yahoo, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Citing sources close to the company, The Journal is reporting that Microsoft believes that time is on its side. The original bid is looking better given the downturn in the economy and a falling [...]

Google’s April Fools Day Joke, Gmail Custom Time?

UPDATE 4:10 PT April 1: It’s up! Check out Gmail custom time to see how Google uses an “e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality.”

It looks like we are getting a preview of Google’s April Fools joke for Gmail a little early tonight. Google put the [...]

BrightSource Energy signs whopper solar contract with PG&E

BrightSource Energy will build 500 megawatts’ worth of solar thermal power plants for Pacific Gas & Electric in California, and the contract contains an option for PG&E to order another 400 megawatts on top of that.

The deal is the largest yet in the solar thermal world when the option is added. PG&E earlier inked [...]

ChaCha lets you, literally, ask a question

ChaCha, the human-powered Web search service, is launching a new service on Tuesday that will allow you to ask your question over the phone instead of having to type it.

To use the new service you can call 800-224-2242 (which spells “chacha”) and specify the information you want. ChaCha then sends you a text message [...]

Mozilla celebrates 10th anniversary

Ten years ago Monday, Mozilla was launched and its source code was first made available to the public. Out of Mozilla came such projects as Firefox, Thunderbird, and Bugzilla (close to the heart of many a CNET News.com editor, er, or maybe just a few).

Mozilla is summed up this way in [...]

Dell prepares to axe 900 more jobs

A large number of Dell employees face an uncertain future as the PC giant prepares to close one of their manufacturing facilities. The plant located in Austin, Texas will shortly be cut in order to reduce operating costs, ironically the facility was designed and built to reduce costs in the first place. Once the [...]

TechCrunch acquires Tiger Beat, renames it CrunchKids

In a stunning move that caught the blogosphere off-guard, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington announced Monday that his fast-growing blog empire is acquiring the venerable teen magazine and Web site Tiger Beat from the magazine’s parent company, Laufer Media.

Exact terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Arrington made it clear he intends to shut down [...]

Microsoft teams up with Safran for Xbox Live video

Microsoft understands that going forward, having the same titles side by side with the PlayStation 3 is not going to be enough to give them a competitive edge. With PS3 console sales picking up quite a bit in recent months, the 360 instead enjoys of an already large user base that is unlikely to [...]