2005-2014

Most of the time these days, when I scour the "media" looking for a sign of hope about mankind, I inevitably trip over a discouraging spew of waste matter passing as news of importance. Historically, the name we give this offal is propaganda. Its spewers are often reporter-impersonators. The Defense Department, CIA, and White House have been hiring these performers in large numbers lately to...

The New York real-estate boom is claiming a different kind of casualty, according to an article in Sunday's New York Times. Keying off a new report issued by the Center for an Urban Future, Jennifer Steinhauer noted that, thanks to high housing prices, many of the creative types who work in Manhattan-centered fields like advertising, publishing, and the arts are being priced out of the city. This...

Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopaedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article. The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its...

The founder of the world's leading online encyclopaedia today conceded that "editing your own entry on Wikipidia is generally not a good thing", after it was shown that he had amended his entry 18 times. In the latest twist of controversy to affect the volunteer-compiled online resource, Jimmy Wales told Times Online that he regretted repeatedly revising the encyclopaedia's entry on himself. "I...

EC VICE president Margot Wallstroem has accused Microsoft, Yahoo and Google of having flexible morals when it comes to dealing with China. Writing in her bog, Wallstroem criticised the three companies for helping China silence its domestic critics. She said that Vole, Yahoo and Google were matching their morals to suit new markets and had words such as "ethics" and "corporate social responsibility...

A proposed $1bn deal between search engine Google and internet portal AOL could significantly damage the reputation of Google as an objective search engine. The deal will see AOL content receive preferential ranking with Google search results in return for a stake in AOL. The new deal will see Google provide AOL with search technology and replaces an existing marketing deal between the two...

The battle for the hearts and minds of email users is underway with the world's largest internet companies racing to be the first to deliver improved access, navigation and web feeds into new products. Both Microsoft and Yahoo! have architected entirely new web-based email offerings while Google continues to stuff ever more features into Gmail to fend off the looming competition. The latest...

Yahoo is changing the way it displays its Sponsored Search listings, bringing them more in line with Google’s sponsored search results. On Jan. 18, Yahoo debuts a "streamlined design that will make the search results displayed on Yahoo even easier for consumers to read," according to an e-mail sent to Yahoo Search Marketing clients. The main change is that descriptions will be shortened to 70...

European regulators have justified their antitrust case against Microsoft in new guidelines on policing companies' abuse of a dominant market share. The latest dispute between Microsoft and European officials focuses on trade secrets. In a 72-page "discussion paper" on monopolies, the European Commission, the antitrust enforcer of the 25-nation European Union, said trade secrets deserve less...

America's journalism schools and newspaper publishers refused to aid Jewish refugee journalists who were fleeing Hitler, a leading Holocaust scholar has revealed. Another scholar has described how leaders of elite American universities not only ignored the plight of Jews under Hitler in the 1930s, but actually engaged in actions that helped enhance the Hitler regime's image in the West. Professor...