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The Media

AOL Picking Up Journalists Shed By Conventional Media 94

Posted by timothy from the save-us-aol-kenobi-you're-our-only-hope dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "David Weir writes on Bnet that the thousands of journalists being let go from newspapers, magazines, and television networks have increasingly been showing up on AOL's payroll — over 1,500 in the last eighteen months — a number AOL expects to double or even triple over the coming year. 'Over time, talent is a fixed cost,' says Marty Moe, Senior Vice-President of AOL Media. 'You can syndicate it, distribute it as you scale. Furthermore, we are already the largest branded content company in the US, with an audience of 75 million domestic uniques. At our size, we can leverage the cost of our publishing and content management systems along with the talent and make the whole thing do-able on an advertising model.' Weir writes that AOL's turnaround started three years ago via the acquisition of Weblogs, Inc., and its set of branded verticals, including Engadget in technology, Autoblog covering the auto industry, and Joystiq covering gaming."

Comment Re:As usual, marketing was the problem (Score 2, Informative) 268

by eosp (#28760499) Attached to: Negroponte Sees Sugar As OLPC's Biggest Mistake

Added to all the other problems you said, OLPC should have realised that putting a damn computer in the hands of some country's kids is completely missing the point when the kids have probably no electricity, not even basic healthcare, no sanitation, little or no education, and perhaps barely enough food. Forget the computer ---- there are far bigger problems to solve first.

This objection has been raised several times, and is still wrong. OLPC isn't meant for the countries where feeding one's children is the largest problem. They're meant to target populations where (for example) food and clean water are generally available but the education is poor.
Science

Repulsive Force Discovered In Light 176

Posted by kdawson from the push-me-pull-you dept.
Aurispector writes in with news that the Yale team that recently discovered an attractive force between two light beams in waveguides has now found a corresponding repulsive force. "'This completes the picture,' [team lead Hong] Tang said. 'We've shown that this is indeed a bipolar light force with both an attractive and repulsive component.' The attractive and repulsive light forces Tang's team discovered are separate from the force created by light's radiation pressure, which pushes against an object as light shines on it. Instead, they push out or pull in sideways from the direction the light travels. Previously, the engineers used the attractive force they discovered to move components on the silicon chip in one direction, such as pulling on a nanoscale switch to open it, but were unable to push it in the opposite direction. Using both forces means they can now have complete control and can manipulate components in both directions. 'We've demonstrated that these are tunable forces we can engineer,' Tang said."

Comment Re:Why are we deprived of this in North America? (Score 3, Informative) 578

by eosp (#28300783) Attached to: Microsoft Will Ship Windows 7 in Europe With IE Unbundled
If I recall correctly, the API:s that expose browser components (e.g. to Windows Help) were designed with the intention of making rendering engines pluggable. Thus, Windows Help could at some point in the future use Mozilla to render if Mozilla wrote a bit of code and Microsoft finishes this API.
The Almighty Buck

$33 Million In Poker Winnings Seized By US Govt 465

Posted by samzenpus from the mine-now-I-take-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A New York Times story reports that, 'Opening a new front in the government's battle against Internet gambling, federal prosecutors have asked four American banks to freeze tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to people who play poker online. ... "It's very aggressive, and I think it's a gamble on the part of the prosecutors," Mr. Rose said. He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, as opposed to the money of the companies involved.' Many players are reporting that their cashout checks have bounced."

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