Top Items:
John Markoff / New York Times:
Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching — A new company founded by a longtime technologist is setting out to create a vast public database intended to be read by computers rather than people, paving the way for a more automated Internet in which machines will routinely share information.
RELATED:
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Freebase Will Prove Addictive — Danny Hillis' latest venture, Metaweb, is about to unveil its first product, the aptly named freebase, tomorrow. While freebase is still VERY alpha, with much of the basic functionality barely working, the idea is HUGE. In many ways, freebase is the bridge between …
Nick / Rough Type:
Freebase: the Web 3.0 machine — Artificial intelligence guru Danny Hillis has launched an early version of the first major Web 3.0 application. It's called Freebase, and its grandiose epistemological mission is right up there with those of Google and Wikipedia.
Discussion:
Scripting News
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
MYSPACE NEWS, IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME [UPDATE] — MySpace is preparing to launch an integrated news service—with self-aggregating content and social bookmarking—in the coming weeks. MySpace members will be able to post the stories on their profiles, discuss, promote …
RELATED:
Reuters:
MySpace goes all out for content — News Corp is "in very active negotiations with all the media companies" to bring their content to its MySpace property, the firm's top interactive-media executive said on Wednesday. — Currently, only shows from News Corp-owned Fox, such as 24 and Prison Break …
James Quintana Pearce / PaidContent:MySpace To Launch News Service, May Need Age Checks
Discussion:
Reuters
John Markoff / New York Times:
Palm Responds to the iPhone — Palm Inc., the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple's new iPhone. — The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago …
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Music's New Gatekeeper — From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music's unlikely power brokers. Our reporters on the horse-trading that can turn unknowns into stars. — Every day, the roughly one million people who visit the iTunes Store home page are presented …
Discussion:
PaidContent
Mad4 Mobile Phones.com:
Patent: Google Phone knows what you want before you search — Our patent gurus have discovered an interesting patent filing from Google that could reveal the applications they are planning for the Google phone. Alternatively this technology could even debut in the iPhone when it is released in June.
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
What the Verizon Verdict Means for Vonage — The patent-infringement decision spells financial woe for Vonage and could stymie customer growth. It may also augur future legal headaches — Web-calling outfit Vonage suffered a major setback on Mar. 8 when an eight-person jury found it guilty …
RELATED:
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? — Due to fallout from a recent computer catastrophe at work, I had the opportunity to salvage 2 GB of memory. I installed the memory in my work box, which brings it up to 4 gigabytes of RAM— 4,096 megabytes in total. But that's not what I saw in System Information:
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News.com:
Austin, beware: The SXSW geeks are back in town — In the wee hours of a Texas morning last March, two of the world's most creative geeks, armed with Bluetooth and a vacuum, set out to subject one innocent frog to a certain future as roadkill. — Animal activists can rest easy.
Tariq Malik / SPACE.com:
Orbital Express: Prototype Satellites Primed for In-Flight Service — Two prototype spacecraft, one wielding its own robotic arm, are poised to launch spaceward late Thursday on a three-month mission to test methods for robotically refueling satellites in Earth orbit.
I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS:
The Great Apple Video Encoder Attack of 2007 — Maybe you have wondered, as I have, why it takes a pretty robust notebook computer to play DVD videos, while Wal-Mart will sell you a perfectly capable progressive-scan DVD player from Philips for $38? In general, the dedicated DVD player …
Michael Kanellos / CNET News.com:
Adobe eyes fraud-busting tools for Photoshop — In the near future, it could be a lot easier to see if those pictures of the person you've been talking to on Match.com have been retouched. — Adobe Systems' Advanced Technology lab is working on plug-ins for Photoshop that would detect whether …
Mike Musgrove / Washington Post:
Music Industry Tightens Squeeze On Students — The recording industry is dusting off an old tactic in its never-ending effort to crack down on pirated music: Target the college kids. — So far this year, the music industry's trade group has sent out hundreds of complaints to students …
Darren Waters / BBC:
Virtual worlds set for shake-up — Technology editor, BBC News website, San Francisco — Big media firms are rushing to copy the success of online games like World of Warcraft, a conference has been told. — Millions of dollars are being spent trying to emulate the massively multiplayer online game …
Discussion:
TechnoLlama
Newlaunches.com:
SeaGrand Gene Sound adds a digital touch to your Vinyl — Seagrand Japan has announced the Gene Sound TAS-100 which can play your good old Vinyl records and Audio / MP3 CD's. In addition to this it has a SD card slot and a USB connector, so you can put in your favourite Vinyl which is converted …
