Rolltop Computer--The Future?

How would you like to be carrying
one of these around instead of a laptop?

Don't Cover Insurgency, Afghan Officials Say

Last Friday may be the last time anyone sees live coverage of firefights in Kabul. Afghanistan's intelligence service told reporters Monday that the press will no longer be allowed to cover Taliban attacks while they are in progress, because such coverage "does not benefit the government." Even to film the aftermath will require permission from the intelligence service.

Expect protest from both foreign and Afghan journalists, who believe people have the right to know what is happening in their world.

Abu Dhabi:The Beginning

An amazing documentary from the early 1970s. Enjoy.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Photography: When is it real? When is it fake?

In the olden days, photographers enhanced their photos in the darkroom. Art directors have long cropped photos for size and to emphasis certain aspects of the original frame. So how far can a photographer or an editor today go in manipulating an image and under what circumstances?

The "invented reality" in two winning photos in Modern Photography's 16th Annual Readers Contest raised some questions. Winners in the "Action/sports" and "Travel/Places" categories were composites.

The New York Times technology columnist discusses in Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real? The answers may surprise you.

Google Executives Found Guilty of Privacy Violations

An Italian criminal court judge found three Google executives guilty of privacy violations Wednesday in what may be a landmark case in Internet freedom. An Associated Press story reports, "This could help define whether the Internet in Italy is an open, self-regulating platform or if content must be better monitored for abusive materials." And it's likely not to stop there.

The judge ruled that three Goggle executives did not act quickly enough in pulling down a video --uploaded by some teenagers - showing bullies abusing an autistic boy. The video, which immediately went to the top of the most-viewed list, was posted before Google bought YouTube.

Google says it's impossible to prescreen thousands of hours of footage uploaded daily to sites like YouTube and considers the ruling a threat to freedom on the Internet. Not censorship, argue the prosecutors in the case, but balancing freedom of expression with the rights of an individula.

Google will appeal.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future - The New York Review of Books

Here is a long and learned discussion about the future of the book with some observations about international copyright.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future - The New York Review of Books

Goggle Goes Mobile

Here's a headline to strike terror in the hearts of telephone companies around the world:

Google sees its future in mobile technology

And that was the headline of a business story in the print edition of The National last week datelined Barcelona. In a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress, Google's chief executive said straight out that the internet search giant is going Mobile, because that's where the action -- and the advertising potential -- is. He pointed out that Mobile users are going online eight times faster than users of desktops did a decade ago. Google is finding that more than half of its search engine queries come for mobile phones.

So Skype (see previous post) isn't the main worry of the mobile network folks. Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants.