U.S. limits fines for profanity
If President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney can blurt out vulgar language, then the government cannot punish broadcast television stations for broadcasting the same words in similarly fleeting contexts. That, in essence, was the decision Monday, when a U.S. federal appeals court struck down a government policy allowing stations and networks to be fined if they broadcast shows containing profanities. Although the case was primarily concerned with what is known as "fleeting expletives," or blurted profanities, on television, both network executives and top officials at the Federal Communications Commission said the opinion could gut the commission's ability to regulate any speech on television or radio. Kevin Martin, the chairman of the FCC, said the agency was now considering whether to seek an appeal before all the judges of the appeals court or to take the matter directly to the Supreme Court. The decision, by a divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, was a sharp rebuke to the FCC and to the Bush administration. For the four television networks that filed the lawsuit - Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC - it was a major victory in a legal and cultural battle they are waging with the commission and its supporters.

Ask.com Enhances Search Format
Ask.com, the search engine owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, launched today a new way of presenting search results that combines text, video, image, maps, news entries and other types of results on one screen. In Ask's new format, standard results in the middle are flanked by suggested terms to help users refine or expand their queries on the left and relevant matches from a broad range of other content -- from videos to maps to music -- on the right. A search for "Detroit," for instance, will pull up not only Web pages with information about the city, but also the current time and weather in Detroit and a video clip of the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. Similarly, a search for "Rolling Stones" will bring up photos of the band and its logo, news articles, event listings and links to audio clips of songs. Ask has developed a technology it calls "morph" to determine what types of content to show for a given query. It ties queries to the types of results that others who have searched for the term generally have clicked on.

YouTube to will pay for local TV programming
YouTube has reached a revenue-sharing deal with Hearst-Argyle Television whereby local TV stations will be paid when users of the video-sharing site watch their programming. YouTube, a unit of Google, and Hearst-Argyle said in a statement Sunday that they would share advertising revenue on news, weather and entertainment videos from five TV stations - the first time YouTube has paid for local TV programming. Hearst-Argyle television stations in Boston, Sacramento, Pittsburgh. Baltimore and Manchester, New Hampshire, will begin posting local video content to dedicated channels on YouTube. YouTube will also distribute Hearst-Argyle's new digital video initiatives, including high school football, basketball and local amateur entertainment, the companies said. Hearst-Argyle, which owns 29 local TV stations in the United States, will take an undisclosed cut of the advertising revenue YouTube earns when its users view clips, a spokesman said. The New York-based company owns local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and MyNetworkTV. It reaches roughly 18 percent of U.S. households with televisions.

FCC looks to improve cellular 911
The Federal Communications Commission wants to make emergency calls on cellphones more reliable. Cellular companies need to provide more accurate information to police and firefighters who are trying to locate people calling 911 from mobile phones, according to the FCC. But exactly how to measure compliance and achieve this goal is still up for debate. Last week, the FCC said it would seek public comment from the industry and public safety organizations on several issues that it believes could improve the accuracy of what's known as enhanced 911 service, or E911. One proposal, supported by the FCC, would require cellphone operators to measure the accuracy of their location technology in smaller geographic areas. The commission is also looking at requiring mobile operators to use a hybrid solution that combines both GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite receivers in handsets and network-based location technologies to help pinpoint the location of callers. The FCC said all accuracy requirements would also apply to voice over Internet Protocol services, such as Vonage, that allow people to move their service to new locations. The new proposals, which if passed could cost the cellphone industry a lot of money in network upgrades, have stirred debate among cellphone companies and organizations representing public safety entities. While all agree that improving the accuracy of E911 is important, they disagree about how to measure its effectiveness and how to actually improve it.

Listen for free at Lala.com
Lala.com, a Silicon Valley-based digital music start-up, is launching an iPod-compatible online music service that offers free online song play in a bid to get customers to buy music downloads. The start-up is launching the service with artists from the fourth-largest music company, Warner Music Group, which will sell songs and albums without digital rights management. To prevent illegal distribution, downloads will be possible only to an iPod. Lala is also in talks with other major record companies to expand the service with more music, the company said. Lala is free and does not carry advertising. The company hopes to make up for the licensing costs of playing the music online with sales of songs.

Airline Sensor Could Pinpoint Germs
A new system that uses a computer program and sensors could identify passengers responsible for the release of chemical agents in a terrorist attack or the unintentional release of germs or a virus, such as the tuberculosis-infected man who recently flew on international flights. The current system works using a minimum of four chemical sensors and a computer program to trace hazardous airborne materials back to the source. The system has been tested in a section of a standard-sized aircraft cabin that has first-class, business and coach seating for 210 passengers. The technique they used is called "inverse simulation," a mathematical model that takes into account certain airline cabin variables, including airflow patterns, air velocity and temperature and the concentration of gases and particles suspended in the air. Depending on the variables, chemicals disperse in a particular pattern.

Lawyer ratings site not without objections
A venture capital-backed Web site called Avvo that launches Tuesday claims to offer a "game-changing" alternative to the Yellow Pages for anyone interested in hiring a lawyer. Avvo's plan is ambitious: to award a numeric score to every attorney in the United States, along with a profile, client recommendations and peer endorsements. "It's the most critical piece of guidance that we provide," Mark Britton, a former vice president of Expedia who is Avvo's chief executive, said about the numeric score. "It's our assessment of how good a job that lawyer is going to do for you." Avvo says it has received $14 million in funding, including money from Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners, co-founded by Microsoft alum and Avvo board member Brad Silverberg. In tests, however, Avvo's pages seemed to be riddled with bizarre errors, profiles of attorneys who have been dead for more than a century and inexplicable scores in which some felons received better ratings than law school deans and internationally renowned litigators.

Amazon Deep Dives into China
Amazon.com, the world's biggest online retailer, will raise spending on its money-losing unit in China to bolster sales in the largest Web market behind the U.S. The Chinese Web site, renamed Joyo Amazon.cn today, is the company's fastest growing by sales, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos told reporters in Beijing, without providing figures. Amazon bought the Beijing-based unit formerly known as Joyo.com Ltd. for $75 million in 2004. ``With something growing this fast and doing this well, as far as investment goes, we would like to double down,'' Bezos said. ``Double down is a term used in backgammon, which means when you like the odds, you want to increase the investment.'' He declined to provide figures. New products and markets helped Seattle-based Amazon, founded by Bezos in 1994, raise earnings estimates for this year. The company will increase spending in China on warehouses, bicycle couriers and inventory to boost sales of products including books, watches, electronics and makeup, Bezos said. In the first quarter, Joyo ranked second in the local online retail market with a 12 percent share, behind Dangdang.com with 18 percent, according to Beijing-based researcher Analysys International. Sales in China's electronic commerce market may more than triple to 18.83 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in 2010, from 5 billion yuan in 2006, the research firm said. The company allows cash-on-delivery payment in more than 330 Chinese cities, where most packages are sent by bicycle to speed up delivery in congested areas. More than 70 percent of orders choose that payment method because credit card usage is not widespread, said Wang Hanhua, president of the Chinese unit. Amazon is ``actively looking at how to take advantage'' of rising credit-card use, Wang said. China is the only market where Amazon has kept the local brand in its official name because it is ``established,'' Bezos said. Amazon's warehousing space in China totals 35,000 square meters, equivalent to the size of four soccer fields.

Get Smart, Play Lumosity
Lumosity is a brain fitness program from Lumos Labs which is designed to improve cognitive function through a series of web-based games and exercises. In developing Lumosity, Lumos Labs worked closely with leading neuroscientists from Stanford and UCSF to design and experimentally test the program. In a randomized, controlled study, the exercises were shown to have statistically significant effects in improving memory and attention. Brain games are wildly popular in Japan and Europe, the Ninentendo DS Brain Age has sold millions of copies. The delivery of similar functionality online is the logical next step and although they might not be the most engaging games, that’s not the goal here.

Average user rating

   (0 vote)