by Laura Sydell

During a meeting last week with Google's Co-Founder Sergey Brin I asked him about a question posed by several of our blog readers: Should we trust Google with our personal information?

Brin told NPR that he can't see any reason that people shouldn't trust Google. He points out that his company successfully fought back the Department of Justice's attempts in 2006 to subpoena user search records in connection to a DOJ effort defending the Children's Online Protection Act.

Brin says that, frankly, Google isn't that interested in the nitty gritty of everyone's life.

"The kinds of things we do is we aggregate things. So we'll compute we got five percent more searches today than yesterday. And we're even able to deduce things such as Google flu trends, which is able to predict or estimate how many flu cases there might be in a particular state at a given time based on search query trends."

Of course, Google is the company that has as its unofficial company motto, "Don't be evil."

That isn't enough for Cindy Cohen, a staff attorney at the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. She doesn't doubt Brin's sincerity. But, Cohen says, "Even if you believe that the Google of today would never, ever do the wrong, I don't think it's wise to assume that the Google of tomorrow will be the same."

Cohen says EFF wants Google to put in writing terms for privacy around its Google book searches. Right now the EFF is suing Google over privacy issues related to Google's book scanning efforts.

Brin wouldn't say what they plan to do about the EFF law suit. But he did say that he doesn't think the way to protect user privacy is to go after individual companies.

"We would love to have clearer laws. There are things like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act which are somewhat outdated and could definitely use updating. We're definitely big fans of bigger, better privacy protections."

Brin also said he believes people are actually more at risk of losing control over their personal information through paper records than through online information.

Don't toss that USB drive. Make it a high-tech bookmark! (Omar L. Gallaga / NPR © 2009)

By Omar L. Gallaga

USB drives (or "Flash drives" as we used to call them) made transporting data so easy so quickly that we've already skipped the part where we mourn that we are in a new era in which we take them for granted.

They became cheap and roomier in storage space at a breakneck pace. Now, they are carelessly attached to keychains; they litter our desk. We only ever care about them when data we need is stored in one of them and and the device is misplaced.

If you're like me, you have at least five or six of them, of varying capacities, in junk drawers or in work bags. It's silly to throw them away. But it's even sillier to let them sit around, unused. Here's five things you can do to get more use out of these devices than simply using them to schlep data around or back up your files (BO-RING!).

(Five great ideas after the jump!)

Continue reading "Five Alternate Uses For Extraneous USB Drives" >

Now that's what I call "augmented reality!" (Wright Bryan / NPR)

By Wright Bryan

I tend to look for and use practical apps on the iPhone; think sports scores, financial markets data and news. All Tech contributor and editor Eyder Peralta has other priorities.

This morning he turned to me and started talking through the animated mouth of a pink bunny. This was my introduction to the MouthOff iPhone app.

While everyone seems to be talking about using "augmented reality" to interpret the world around them, I like the idea of using augmented reality to change how the world looks at me.

A sample sale in New York City's East Village. (masck / Flickr)

By Ryan Kellett

This week we're borrowing a photo from NPR's Planet Money Flickr Pool. They collect photos that show the state of the economy. Submitted back in July, this photo shows a shop that once sold AT&T mobile services but is now a sample-sale site.

But not all tech outposts are closing up shop. Microsoft is busy opening its retail outlets in Scottsdale, AZ, and Mission Viejo, CA. The tech giant is even hiring people to be its answer to the Apple Store "geniuses."

Small-gadget stores (for instance, those selling cellphones) might have an easier time with what NPR's Eyder Peralta sees as the "we'll happily mail it to you" problem. Earlier this month, Eyder wrote about the unsatisfying experience of shopping at big box stores that don't carry the product in-store but instead direct you online for purchase.

Be sure to submit your own tech photos to the All Tech Flickr Pool to be considered for our periodic posts of more user photos right here on the All Tech blog.

Apple's new Mac OS X Snow Leopard. (Apple Inc. © 2009)

By Omar L. Gallaga

By the time you read this, Apple's new operating system update, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, will be officially released, about a month earlier than was originally anticipated.

So far for the Mac faithful, word is good. Although the $29 software upgrade is minor compared to some of Apple's larger operating updates in the past, it is built to save disk space, speed up tasks like opening up applications, and lay the ground work for software that takes advantage of multiple processor cores and the OS's 64-bit architecture.

Most impressive to me: that Apple actually put a picture of a snow leopard on the box for the software.

I ordered a copy of the update, but haven't received it yet to take a look for myself. (Tip: it's slightly cheaper than retail, $25, on Amazon.)

But there are plenty of early reviews to chew on: Here's what David Pogue of the New York Times, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and the Apple experts at Macworld think of the new OS.

The consensus seems to be: a cheap, no-brainer upgrade for Mac users with newer computers that adds some welcome tweaks, but nothing earth-shattering for those who don't know an OS from a USB port.

By Ryan Kellett

"SEND ANNA TO SCHOOL," reads the Facebook message headline. I click on it, half expecting any number of my Teach For America friends to be asking me to sponsor their classrooms or for PeaceCorps friends to be asking the same for Senegalese school children.

No, "Anna" is Anna Gallagher from Worcester, MA, and a classmate going into her second year at Middlebury College in Vermont. She's using Facebook to reach out to her peers for tuition money, $3,500 to be exact. She writes,

I've been debating on whether or not to do this, 'cause it seems a bit low and desperate, but I need money. I am $3,500 away from going to Middlebury in the Fall. The school costs $52 grand, so I'm not too far off. I am maxed out on loans, and so are my parents, so I'm reaching out to friends and family to try and do a little fund-raising. I have 360ish friends, and if I got $10 from everyone, I could go!

Is Anna brilliant or foolish for making her case online?

Anna is taking the old idea of a letter writing campaign for sponsorship and adding social media. Through Facebook she's making her call-to-action to friends, but is also appealing to others she may not have met before. Her original appeal went out to 390 people on Facebook. It has now reached the eyes of over 2,000, mostly with help from others in the community inviting their friends to participate.

But it feels taboo to be talking about money and tuition so openly. University financial aid is designed so that you can't pick out which students are paying their own way and which students are getting help. For a student to single herself out is more than brave. Anna sees it this way:

Money should be talked about more. And education is the most important thing in the world. I want to attend the school that I love. No one should be blocked from their education with the constant worry of coming up short. I'm not ashamed, as long as I end up at Middlebury in two weeks with the money. I'm doing what it takes.

Anna doesn't have much time before the start of the Fall semester. And that's partially why she said she turned to Facebook:

E-mail seems more personal and a Facebook event is general. I need a larger impact than a few phone calls and some personal e-mails.

Raising money to get to school isn't new nor is raising money through Facebook in general. But together, Anna's plea for raising tuition via Facebook is surprisingly compelling. Consciously or not, she's effectively using social media by harnessing her online community in an authentic way.

And it works. So far she's raised $1,700 with e-mails of support and checks arriving daily. She promises poetry for her donors as her way of saying thank you.

By Laura Sydell

Here's a follow up to yesterday's blog entry. In addition to interviewing an author who wants more money out of the Google book settlement, I will be talking to Google co-founder Sergey Brin at 2 PM Pacific Time today. So, I thought I'd ask our NPR All Tech Considered fans if they have any questions for Mr. Brin about the Google book settlement or anything else. Post them here and I'll add them to my list.

By Laura Sydell

Today, I went and interviewed Professor Pamela Samuelson at UC Berkeley's Law School for a story on Google's effort to digitize all the world's books. She reminded me that scholarship remains a lofty pursuit. Samuelson is part of a growing group of people who object to a pending settlement between Google and the Author's Guild over how to divide the income Google makes from digitized books.

I confess to being completely surprised to hear Samuelson say that she doesn't want the money and neither do a whole group of other scholars.

"A lot of academic authors never really wrote those books for the money in the first place," says Samuelson. She says what many scholars want is for their ideas to reach a large number of people.

If the current settlement is approved, Samuelson says people will have to pay for access to digitized versions of work by scholars who feel it's more important for people to see their work and share their ideas than it is for them to make a few extra pennies. The problem with the settlement says Samuelson is that the Author's Guild doesn't genuinely represent all authors as a class.

For those who haven't been following this case, here's a little background. Google began scanning the world's books into its database. The Author's Guild sued them saying that Google needed permission from its authors. The case didn't go to trial and the two sides reached a $125 million settlement to make sure that authors got paid when people purchased or accessed their books online. The agreement must still get the seal of approval from a federal judge who could ask the parties to modify it after hearing objections from people like Samuelson.

So tomorrow I'm off to do an interview with someone from the National Writer's Union. His problem? They aren't paying authors enough money. These writers are a fickle group aren't they?

ScanCafe CEO Sam Allen. (ScanCafe © 2009)

By Omar L. Gallaga

In this week's All Tech Considered, we take a peek at your old photos and how they can make the transition from old albums and shoe boxes to the digital world.

We talked to ScanCafe.com about their photo scanning and restoration services, although there are plenty of other options if you're looking to bring your photos and videos to the 21st century. Among them:

• As owner Scott Crossen points out in a blog comment for the segment, his company DigMyPics.com does its photo scanning in the U.S. His company and ScanCafe have exchanged words in the past.
• Sheet-fed scanners like the HP Scanjet N6010 aren't perfect, but they might speed up batch photo processing over the traditional flatbed scanner.
• Data Robotics, makers of the Drobo storage/backup device I mentioned in the piece.
• A few photo storage/sharing sites: Shutterfly, Flickr, PhotoShelter, DotPhotoPro, Snapfish, SmugMug.
• Pixorial.com, recently launched, will convert your home videos by mail and allow you to edit them online.
• All Tech's Flickr group, where you can contribute to our photo exhibit project.
• Several options from Pinnacle for getting video footage onto your computer.

Got more sites and tips? Please post them in the comments.

In the above video, comedian Ben Stiller explains Twitter to a befuddled Mickey Rooney. While this may not have the laugh-per-minutes you'd expect from Stiller, there's a refreshing lack of easy jokes and genuine bafflement from both stars about the social network's popularity.

Enjoy the late-Friday afternoon diversion.

by Laura Sydell

AT&T says it wasn't us. The wireless carrier sent a letter to the FCC in response to an inquiry about Apple's decision to keep Google Voice out of its app store. The FCC is looking into whether or not AT&T and Apple are conspiring against competition.

Google Voice is an application that ties all your phone numbers into a single Google phone number. It lets users manage and make calls and send text messages at a cheaper rate than the AT&T phone service connected to the iPhone. It seems to have a VoIP ability and that means is you can make phone calls using AT&T's network without being charged by AT&T.

AT&T is the exclusive carrier of the iPhone.

About three weeks ago, Apple rejected the Google Voice app from its app store. At the time, Apple claimed that it was pulling the app because it duplicated features that were already on the iPhone.

Even if Apple didn't talk to AT&T before it pulled the plug on the Google Voice app, AT&T isn't really blameless here. Just read the letter that AT&T sent to the FCC AT&T says that there is a clause in their contract that requires Apple to pull down applications that use its network for phone services.

It is also interesting to note that on page 8 paragraph 2 of AT&T's letter to the FCC it says it is reviewing its ban on phone applications such as Skype or other VoIP.

Apple says it has not rejected Google Voice but it's just reviewing the situation.

It's an interesting case because it provides fodder to the critics of the current wireless system who say that the carriers have too much control over the devices that use their networks. Tim Wu at Columbia Law School believes that the carriers should not be able to control the applications users put on devices any more than the phone companies can tell you what kind of phone to put on your land line.

By Eyder Peralta

So, yeah, this is an advertising for Sony Vaio, but it's pretty funny.

By Laura Sydell

The romantic idea of the lonely writer has been taking hits from the Internet for a while. I've already been hearing about the authors who post their manuscripts online to get reader feedback before they publish it. Now, FastPencil, a Silicon Valley start up for writers who want to self-publish, has added a feature that sends out status updates on Twitter and Facebook whenever you revise your manuscript. The idea here seems to be that you can get feedback on changes you make while you are writing.

To me this raises some really interesting questions about what it means to be a writer or an artist. Certainly, collaboration has always been part of the process. Every story I write for NPR passes through an editor first, and the same is true of every book published. But, how many editors do we need? Is there going to be anything left of a singular artistic vision? What would have happened if Samuel Beckett had Twittered the the latest updates for "Waiting For Godot"? The play was a flop initially. Maybe he would have had an immediate hit if he'd brought in a whole group of his friends and associates every time he made a revision. No doubt he did some of that, but his friendship group was likely more limited by the technology of the time. I can't help but wonder if we would have lost out on the singularity of a vision that sprung from Beckett's mind or if it would have been very different if he'd run it by 1000 of his dearest friends first.

I suppose we've been focus grouping movies for years and maybe this is going to be focusing grouping for books.

FastPencil was founded to give writers a way to publish books without going through a traditional publisher. FastPencil will publish an actual bound book for as little as $5.00 dollars and they offer services to help you through the publishing process.

According to Venture Beat the company has raised under a million in angel funding and has six employees.

I don't know if this company will make it but I suspect this is just the beginning of using social networks for immediate feedback on a manuscript.

The new $299 PlayStation 3 Slim is much smaller than the original game console. It debuts in early September. (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)

By Omar L. Gallaga

The above photo is what the new Sony PlayStation 3 Slim looks like, a streamlined version of the company's flagship game console. It debuts in early September for $299 in a pricing move that has been long-anticipated as Sony competes against Nintendo's wildly popular Wii console and Microsoft's Xbox 360.

You can read my thoughts on the pricing situation (which goes into effect today on the older 80-Gigabyte non-slim version) and see a video from the company's CEO about it over on Digital Savant.

Is it just me or does the new design remind anyone of an all-black Trapper Keeper? Don't believe me? Check out this photo.

The QWERTY keyboard revisited. (jblyberg / Flickr)

by Ryan Kellett

It's been awhile since we've featured a user-submitted photo from our All Tech Flickr Pool. Today we selected a photo of a keyboard at the Singapore National Library. Singapore has four official languages (English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil), two of which are not based in a strict-form alphabet system. Do Singaporeans use a QWERTY keyboard too?

Yes. The QWERTY keyboard is far-and-away the world standard, but every time I travel abroad using an internet cafe, I'm impressed to see variations on that standard. And it's not just displaced shift and alt keys, some Qwerty keyboards in foreign countries lack certain punctuation or letters. The reason for that is because the keyboard is programmable and in other countries, those keys are assigned to different characters in a different language. Some paste other characters, strokes, or symbols on their physical keys to identify the alternatively-programmed key's function. Even still, there may be multiple input methods for the same language. Chinese, for instance, can be inputted in a number of different styles that use the english alphabet or an overlay of strokes all on a QWERTY keyboard.

So next time you read an email from a friend traveling abroad, cut them some slack for their jumbled messages. Typing from a often dimly lit cyber cafe anywhere from Laos to Israel, their keyboard may be more unfamiliar than you think.

This week's All Tech Considered (and follow-up conversation) feature a kid-run tech site called OmniTechNews. We also talked about these topics:

• Banjo master Tony Trischka (in the video above) has opened his online school, The Tony Trischka School of Banjo. Not only does he offer lessons on the instrument, but also interacts with students by way of video responses.
• Online music pioneers Radiohead, who recently released two online-only songs, say they probably won't tackle any full-length album projects anytime soon.
• The new NPR News app is out and getting a good response.
• Our prior entry about USAA's deposit-via-iPhone app.
• The video game industry had a bad July, but may rebound with The Beatles: Rock Band, due out September 9th.

By Eyder Peralta

ReadWriteWeb has the skinny on a new browser backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. It's apparently dedicated to browsing Facebook.

They write:

Why does the world need a Facebook browser? A cynical and sarcastic answer would be "because Facebook is the internet and the internet is Facebook."

By Andy Carvin

The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that they have settled out of court with two Tennessee school districts sued on behalf of local students for blocking classroom access to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Web sites. The lawsuit, as we reported last May, alleged that Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools violated the rights of three students by denying them access to LGBT sites, yet continued to allow access to sites that advocated "reparative therapy" programs that attempt to change a person's sexual orientation.

As part of the settlement, the school districts agreed to unblock the LGBT Web sites. If the districts re-block the sites at any time, the ACLU says it will bring the case back to court.

"We are pleased that a favorable agreement has been reached with the school departments without the need for further litigation. The schools rightly realized that students should be able to access the important information available on the educational Web sites that were being blocked," said Catherine Crump, the ACLU's lead attorney on the case. "This is an important step towards eliminating unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination."

When I found out that USAA, a bank my wife uses, had a new Deposit@Mobile feature allowing you to deposit checks via an iPhone camera, I was incredibly excited.

Then I found out she only has a credit card with them, not a checking or savings account. Plus, she has no iPhone. Excitement dimmed. I really wanted to try it out and tell you about it.

Luckily, it is for situations exactly like this that we have Internet video: the YouTube clip above (from the company itself) walks you through the deposit-via-iPhone feature, which is nothing short of amazing. What else will we soon be able to do by camera phone? Will getting your picture taken at the DMV be a thing of the past? Perhaps you'll be able to qualify as a beauty pageant contestant with just a few keystrokes on your phone. Three words: whole-body teleporation!

It's stuff like this that makes me giddy about the future.

Edited, Aug. 13, to add: USAA tells me today that checks totaling $1.5 million have been deposited by customers via the iPhone app since it was released Tuesday.

With a little training, some patience and a headset, it's possible to write with your voice. (Paulo Lopez / NPR)

By Joshua Brockman

The thought of being able to dash off e-mails, compose a letter or even write a book by speaking -- without ever having to tap away at a keyboard -- seems like a dream out of a sci-fi film.

I've been test-driving the Professional version of Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking ($899), which is geared for corporate clients since it supports multiple users and allows for using one's voice to complete a larger menu of PC operations. The Preferred ($199) version works just fine for most consumers, and the company offers this version with either a Bluetooth headset ($349) or a portable digital recorder ($249). There's also a standard version ($99). ( Courtesy Nuance Software)

But that reality is anything but far, far away, as I found out from testing Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking software (the latest version is 10.1), which can be used almost anywhere you might find a blinking cursor.

With a little bit of training (about 15 minutes), some patience and a headset, it's possible to jump on the fast track toward writing with your voice.

The software comes with a comfortable headset that works quite well to capture your voice without all the noise around you. All versions of the software allow you to control the mouse and search the Web by voice and even dictate browser links.

But the real power of the software is word processing. I began my trial slowly, testing it out by sending a few e-mails each day.

Then, I had a pizza incident.

I burned the fingertips on both of my hands after reaching for a piping-hot pan. I was out of commission -- for typing at least -- for the better part of a week. What was I to do?

Continue reading "Beyond Talk: Voice Recognition On Deadline" >

By Omar L. Gallaga

This week's All Tech Considered segment is all about green homes. We take a look at a Boston remodeling project and discuss resources for those who are looking to buy a more energy-efficient home or want to work on their own home to reap the benefits of lower energy costs and a lessened environmental impact.

Here are a few of the Web sites and resources mentioned in the piece:

• Amy Empson's My Green Casa, where users can submit their green remodeling projects and see how others did their own home improvements.
• Houston Eco-Broker Elizabeth Edwards-Musa's Turning Houston Green features not only info about the Houston housing market, but some solid Webinar videos with tips and statistics.
• Good national resources: Green Building Advisor, the EPA's Web site and the U.S. Green Building Council.
• What is LEED certification? And does it really mean anything or should it go farther?
• A peek at green housing innovations.
• Environmentally friendly pre-fab homes were supposed to be the next big thing. What happened?
• Green building and the recession.
• More on ways to remodel and keep it green.

Got more tips or resources to share? Post them in the comments.

By Eyder Peralta

Maybe it's because I have a newborn at home, but I found the question our friends over at The Two-Way are asking fascinating. They ask: When do you go online?

The New York Times reports that Americans are logging on way earlier than they used to:

Arbor Networks, a Boston company that analyzes Internet use, says that Web traffic in the United States gradually declines from midnight to around 6 a.m. on the East Coast and then gets a huge morning caffeine jolt. "It's a rocket ship that takes off at 7 a.m," said Craig Labovitz, Arbor's chief scientist.

Akamai, which helps sites like Facebook and Amazon keep up with visitor demand, says traffic takes off even earlier, at around 6 a.m. on the East Coast. Verizon Wireless reported the number of text messages sent between 7 and 10 a.m. jumped by 50 percent in July, compared with a year earlier.

So it turns out, I'm not alone as I give the baby her 6 AM bottle and catch up with the news on my phone. When do you hit the web?

By Ryan Kellett

I have a confession to make: I don't own a smartphone.

These days more than ever, my trusty flip phone feels like an embarrassment when friends ask why I'm lost in the city or colleagues ask why I haven't checked-in over the weekend. Worse still, I am now petrified of how phone disparity can tear people apart.

So when I got a chance to test the Blackberry Tour on Verizon, I had high expectations. I now could geo-tag photo uploads, access Facebook on the way to New York, bang out email on the commute home and look-up maps of where to eat. Finally, I would be able to join the smartphone gang -- technology's equivalent to the cool kids group.

But when I showed-off the new top-of-the-line Blackberry to friends, I got a universal sigh. They'd play with it for a few seconds and hand it back saying it was "nice." Even my own mother said it was just like her several-year-old Blackberry, just thinner.

As it turns out, the smartphone class has a pecking order of appeal. iPhones stand somewhere near the top in sleek and sexy. Blackberries are seen as the workhorses, silent and unattractive. Android phones are for the geeky and open source.

So with the underwhelming show of support from friends and family, I started disliking my Blackberry for all the wrong reasons. It's a solid smartphone that feels good to hold as well as type on, but I couldn't help but dwell on how the world-phone capabilities were unnecessary for the average consumer and multimedia would be so much easier on an iPhone.

I was looking for more than functionality in trying a smartphone; I was going for a lifestyle upgrade. But I also realized that "cool-factor" isn't a good enough reason to switch to a smartphone. It's superficial and downright wrong to think that your phone can change your personality and maybe even worse to think you bought the hype.

So, I'm back to the flip phone, except this time without embarrassment.

The Blackberry Tour is available from Verizon Wireless and Sprint for $199 with a two-year contract. (Georgia Rhodes / NPR)

By Ryan Kellett

The Blackberry Tour by Research In Motion is a long-awaited Blackberry update for the Verizon Wireless network. It's billed first and foremost as a 3G "global smartphone" and is most suited to the international traveler, hence the name "Tour."

But it's not only targeted at the international traveler. Last weekend, I walked in to a Verizon Wireless store in downtown Manhattan and every employee had a badge on promoting the new Blackberry device. Splashy ads announced the device's tagline "Take Life With You."

The Tour is certainly a great upgrade for those on Verizon with older Blackberries, but the real question is whether the Tour is right for the growing breed of smartphone consumers. Can the device hold its own against the likes of the iPhone and HTC MyTouch?

Continue reading "Review: The New Blackberry Tour" >

It turns out on Google, love is in fourth place. (Laura Sydell / NPR)

By Laura Sydell

Google's "auto suggest" provides a nice window into the public consciousness at a given moment in time. Right now, it seems Twitter is number one on everyone's mind and love doesn't even rank in the top three. Google's auto suggest works largely based on the popularity of certain searches at a given moment in time. When you type a question into Google, the search engine will automatically start to fill in the blank based on the most popular searches following that phrase. The most popular search terms after a phrase like "what is....?" will come up.

I recently tried typing, "what is?" and found myself feeling a little sad. :-(. Right now, Twitter is the first word after "what is." It's followed by "my ip," "my ip address," and "love" ranks number four. Of course, the auto suggest will change based on what people are trying to find out at a given time.

Perhaps we could stage a world wide rebellion and millions of people could start searching for "what is love?" Well, maybe that's a little corny but it's still a more interesting question for me than "What is Twitter?"

If you want to have fun just try searching other questions and see what comes up, "Who are? Where are? What are? It's a fun exercise.

Facebook officials believe yesterday's denial of service attack was directed at one user: A Georgian man who goes by the name Cyxymu and is being called by some bloggers the first "digital refugee." This is a screenshot of his Twitter feed. (Eyder Peralta / NPR)

By Eyder Peralta

This morning brought some clarity to yesterday's denial of service attack that brought down Twitter and slowed down Facebook. Cnet quotes Facebook's chief security officer saying the attacks targeted a single Georgian blogger: Cyxymu.

Jon Foreman, a product manager here at NPR who speaks Russian, took a look at Cyxymu's Twitter and Live Journal sites and, for the most part, found posts that seemed fairly tame. On his Live Journal, he linked to the biggest collection of photographs of the Georgia/Abkhazia conflict and linked to a full list of Georgian recipes.

On his Twitter page, which has only 41 updates, Cyxymu blames the Russians for the attack and apologizes for the trouble. Keep in mind those are his accusations and we still know very little about who is behind all of this.

There's plenty of coverage out there right now, but by the far the most interesting comes from Evgeny Morozov, who blogs for Foreign Policy and has been following the story for a while.

Morozov wonders if Cyxymu is the first digital refugee and boils down the potential reasons for the denial of service attack.

He writes:

For those who do not follow the Russian-speaking blogosphere, I should point out that CYXYMY is not a crusading investigative journalist who produces breaking stories that challenge the regime; he's more of a pundit who has very articulate and predictably Kremlin-bashing views on the regional conflicts. His blog is also somewhat of a news hub: he has done an amazing job of keeping his followers in the loop as to what happens in Abkhazia and Georgia, the two regions that are not exactly in the center of media attention (even in Russia). He's definitely NOT the blogosphere's version of Anna Politkovskaia; it is his opinions and visibility - rather than his revelations - that have made him an important target.

Thus, I think that the attackers' real goal was humiliation, not censorship (however, more on the censorship part at the very end). A secondary goal was to generate awe-inducing headlines about Russia's cyberpower all over the Web; there is no better way to do it these days than to make Twitter inaccessible for a few hours.

Cyxymu's Live Journal page was unavailable at the time of publishing, but the cached version is still accessible.

UPDATE: The Guardian has landed an interview with Cyxymu.

UPDATE: Listen to Liane Hansen's interview with Evgeny Morozov after the jump.

Continue reading "The Target Behind Yesterday's Denial Of Service Attack" >

You couldn't even post about wanting to get a burrito while Twitter was out of commission on Thursday, says Woot.com. (Clipart.com)

By Omar L. Gallaga

A denial-of-service attack hit Twitter and Facebook Thursday morning, causing frequent status updaters and Twitterers to keep it to themselves for a while.

While most people just grumbled about it and went to check if MySpace still exists, the creative folks at Internet fire-sale emporium Woot.com shared on their site the ways they were killing time while Twitter was down. Among the gems were, "Yelling I'M THINKING ABOUT GETTING A BURRITO as loudly as we can," and "Going to the bathroom without telling anyone."

Did the Great Thursday Morning Twitter and Facebook Outage of Mid-'09 affect you personally? I wonder sometimes if we'll one day see a baby boom caused not by power outages or natural disasters but by social networking downtime. Guess we'll find out in about nine months.

Opera Software co-founder and CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner (Katie Hayes / NPR)

By Wright Bryan

It seems that everyone (but Microsoft) is talking about a future based on open Web standards that blur the line between the Web and the desktop environments. Google is leading the charge, but it's a fight with a long history and a growing horde of supporters. Among them is Opera Software, a nimble stalwart of the browser continuum.

From its earliest days, the 14-year-old Norwegian company has specialized in producing Web browsers. While Microsoft dominated the desktop with Internet Explorer, Opera has worked around the giant from America. The company has had its greatest successes building browsers for mobile devices and for alternative platforms like the Nintendo Wii.

But the anticipated release of their next browser for the PC (they support Windows, Mac and Linux) has many taking notice again of Opera for the desktop. Opera 10 -- currently in beta development -- will be bundled with a technology platform dubbed Unite. The goal of Unite is to turn any PC into a Web server able to deliver services to any other device on the Internet.

Whether or not Opera 10 and Unite catch fire, the company is on an upward trajectory. It is regularly seeing double-digit growth in revenues and has added more than 200 employees in the last 18 months, bringing its world-wide total to more than 700 people.

The company's co-founder and CEO, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, was in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago and we took the opportunity to learn more about a company that isn't as well known in the United States as it is elsewhere.

Here's what we found out:

Continue reading "Opera: A Survivor Whose Time Has Finally Come?" >

By Laura Sydell

Engineering firm AeroVironment is working on a flying robotic spy that will look like a hummingbird. The company has been awarded a 2.1 million dollar contract from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) program.

The company got the contract after a successful test flight of its wing propelled aircraft. Check it out here:

The aircraft's wings are pretty small and like a hummingbird's they allow it to hover, fly up and down and sideways. The test vehicle is surely not yet a dead ringer for a hummingbird and AeroVironment says the battery life needs to be improved. But, they claim they are on their way to developing a vehicle that will look like a live bird. The NAV program was specifically designed to create vehicles that work in and out of doors and that mimic nature so that they can be used on reconnaissance missions in urban environments. The possibilities of this device are interesting. Imagine sending in a hummingbird to listen in on the conversations of top world leaders. Of course, there are also frightening sides to such an easily undetectable device especially regarding domestic spying.

ESPN's Ric Bucher gets the word out. (Ric Bucher / via Twitter)

By Omar L. Gallaga

Ric Bucher, who covers the NBA for ESPN and ESPN.com, said in a Twitter post today that the sports giant is prohibiting Twitter posts that don't serve the network. Bucher has more than 18,000 followers on the site.

If true, this would seem to suggest that while ESPN may understand the difference between a fade-away and a cross-over dribble, it absolutely doesn't get Twitter. In fact, the network that built itself on not just flashy graphics, but also goofy nicknames for sports figures, is acting like a teacher trying to keep students from passing notes in class.

Idle chit-chat and non-promotional conversation is kind of the point of Twitter, not whatever branding and synergistic strategy might be laid out in such an (alleged) memo.

Sure, we kind of expect that from the Marine Corps (Tweet bad info and someone could die) or from the generally clueless NFL, but ESPN?

If you're in sports journalism and you can't have a regular, non-ESPN-serving conversation with the brilliant Twitter personality Shaquille O'Neal over the social network, you probably aren't doing your job anyway. Now we'll just wait and see if the memo pops up on a sports blog.

Edited to add: The Big Lead, among other blogs, has posted the ESPN Twitter memo. It was said to have come directly from ESPN's PR reps.

Not In Stock: Sometimes you just have to wait to get what you want. (nsub1 / via Flickr)

By Eyder Peralta

A couple of months ago, I went into Best Buy looking for a fridge. We knew roughly what we wanted, but online, you can't get a feel for something that big. You can't be sure that "stainless steel" and "stainless look" are really the same thing. You can't really tell if a jug of milk will fit in the side shelf.

So my wife and I ventured to the brick and mortar home electronics giant, only to stand there puzzled looking at exactly one fridge.

The clerk cheerily told us, "We don't have any for you to actually look at, but you can look through a huge selection right here on this computer."

At the time we were preparing for our first child, so we'd been doing lots of shopping, but as the weeks went by, I walked into many a store to get the same response: "Nope, it's not at the store, but we'll happily mail it to you. Nope we don't carry it, but you can order it online. Yes, we do have a yellow model, but you'd have to order it online. "

Don't get me wrong, the convenience of shopping online is great. But not too long ago online stores were used to buy out-of-print British books about the Nicaraguan civil war, not everyday essentials.

Continue reading "The Web Makes Brick-And-Mortar Stores Big Boxes Of Disappointment" >

Tim Tate (Cory Turner / NPR)

By Cory Turner

Here's a sneak peak at Monday's All Tech segment. We'll hear from two VERY different voices of the tech world. The first is Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame. It's an interesting interview - tune in to hear Newmark discuss the recent flap over Craigslist's "Erotic Services" category. Actually, "discuss" isn't quite the right verb.

Mom Does Desserts Best (Anything Photographic)

Dreaming Of Ophelia ( Anything Photographic)

We'll also hear from artist Tim Tate. He's an unusual animal in the art world: a true craftsman (his medium: sculpted glass) whose most compelling work is a hybrid of Old World art and New World tech. His forte is the reliquary - a glass case shaped like a bulb usually meant to hold a keepsake of some sort. Imagine the kind of case your father used to keep his father's old pocket watch. But, in Tate's reliquaries you'll find sculpted glass ornaments and - here's the kicker - a tiny video screen and player.

The reliquaries are generally themed and the videos match the theme. When I visited Tate, he was showing off one of his newest reliquaries, "Dreaming of Ophelia" - inspired by Shakespeare's Ophelia. Notice the straight jacket made of sculpted glass perched atop the reliquary, then the sculpted crowns and sacred heart inside. On-screen plays a looped short film of a woman's face, submerged underwater. Tate shoots all of his own films - with the help of area photographer/videographer Pete Duvall.

For more of Tate's work, you can check out his Web site. Also, he co-founded The Washington Glass School and Studio - where he does most of his work and where he teaches and provides studio space to other professional and aspiring glass artists in the D.C. area.