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26 Mar 2010 14:50

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Tech: Hundreds of communities want a piece of Google’s fiber

  • 600 communities have requested
    to get in on the company’s fast internet plan
  • 190,000 responses from individuals
    have hit the company’s collective inbox source

25 Mar 2010 09:32

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Tech: One more and it’s a trend: GoDaddy pulls out of China, too

  • They claimed it was the result of restrictive new rules. GoDaddy, a domain-registration service, is one of those services that’s so broadly used that it’s hard to imagine an Internet without it. But China’s gonna get the chance, after GoDaddy balked at new rules for registering .cn domains, including color photos of those registering. As a result, they will no longer register new domains. Crazy. source

25 Mar 2010 08:59

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Tech: Content-aware fill in Photoshop is like whoa

  • We’re pretty sure this new feature in the latest Photoshop is totally real (and not an April Fools’ joke like some have suggested), but man, is it ethically questionable. Worth1000 and Fark might enjoy it, along with a few ad firms, but for editorial photos, it’s like a minefield. Skip to about the 2:50 mark to see the dude remove an entire TREE.

25 Mar 2010 01:41

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Tech: The word of Steve Jobs: E-mails come down like commandments

  • Over the last few weeks, Steve Jobs has been sending e-mails to random human beings left and right about Apple issues big and small. It’s bizarre and fascinating because his company is so secretive, and in the case of the “no,” it actually breaks big news (the guy who sent that was asking if he could tether his iPhone to his iPad, something which hadn’t been disclosed). “Almost every Mac Web site had picked it up,” said Jezper Söderlund, the music producer who asked the question, “and the biggest newspaper in town wrote about it. We had more visits to my Web site in 12 hours than we had all year. It was crazy.” Dear Steve: Do you like our blog? We hope you do. Your company makes good computers. Sincerely, Julius. source

24 Mar 2010 22:37

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Tech: Wikipedia went down today, and the world somehow survived

  • And so we remember Thursday, March 25, 2010 as the day every English speaking student failed their research papers.
  • Wikipedia commenter “Jimmy” • Regarding the server meltdown that the site had earlier today. The meltdown, which knocked out the site’s European data center, caused the server not to load for many users. It was due to overheating probably caused by someone looking up this article. “This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects,” a blog post on the downtime said. source

24 Mar 2010 11:18

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Tech: Facebook gets crap for allowing people to upload stranger photos

  • It’s apparently a huge privacy thing. Facebook – and Google, for that matter – allow you to upload photos and videos of people not on the site, without their consent. Now the Swiss and German governments are all up in arms about this, apparently missing the fact that you can do this on any other site on the Internet. Just to prove this point, we grabbed this photo from Flickr of some dudes at a party. We don’t know them, but they seem like they’re having fun. source

23 Mar 2010 10:25

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Tech: Opera decides to have fun with their iPhone app’s uncertain state

  • Opera Mini for iPhone submitted today. When do you think Apple will approve it?
  • Opera’s official Twitter account, @opera • Regarding their playing with fire and submitting their Opera iPhone app, which would directly compete with Mobile Safari to some degree (though they’ve been careful to note the differences in speed and approach). Opera is being downright clever about this, creating a contest where people suggest when the app will be approved by Apple, and giving away an iPhone to the winner. Clever bastards. Might as well have fun with uncertainty. source
 

23 Mar 2010 10:19

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Tech, World: So, what can you get away with on China’s Internet, anyway?

  • no You can’t use
    sites like Twitter, Facebook, or many
    blogs, because they can spread info quickly.
  • yes Many English
    papers critical of
    China, including
    The New York Times, are easy to
    read in China.
  • yes Despite China
    making an effort to
    block porn on the
    mainland, many
    porn sites are fairly
    accessible.
  • yes People roam
    the Chinese
    interweb and
    get paid to make
    comments by
    China. source

23 Mar 2010 10:00

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Tech: The 3DS: Nintendo’s going third-dimensional with its next portable

  • No photos, just a press release. It’s secret. Nintendo has this way of pushing a new technology that’s never been tried in video games before and turning it into a smashing success. The latest? The 3DS, a backwards-compatible variant of the DS series which uses 3D screens. It could be super-interesting. source

22 Mar 2010 19:54

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Tech: Virgin Galactic test flight: Well it’s not a galactic virgin anymore!

Richard Branson’s spaceship didn’t go into space on its airplane-aided journey, but it’s a huge step for the for-profit space program, which starts in 2012. source