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Submission + - Mr. Schmidt Goes to Washington: a Look Inside Google's Lobbying Behemoth (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by barlevg
barlevg writes: In May 2012, in the midst of an FTC investigation into Google's search practices, the law school at George Mason University in Northern Virginia hosted a conference attended by congressmen, regulators and staffers. The topic: competition, search and social media. What none of the attendees of the conference knew was that Google was pulling many of the strings behind the event, even going so far as to suggest invited speakers.

This event, as documented in The Washington Post is just a snapshot of the operations of one of the largest and highest spending lobbying entities in DC, a far cry from the one-man shop it started out as nine years ago, from a company "disdainful" of Washington's "pay-to-play" culture.

Submission + - Racing To Contain Ebola (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ebola, one of the most deadly diseases known to humans, started killing people in Guinea a few months ago. There have been Ebola outbreaks in the past, but they were contained. The latest outbreak has now killed over 100 people across three countries. One of the biggest difficulties in containing an outbreak is knowing where the virus originated and how it spread. That problem is being addressed right now by experts and a host of volunteers using Open Street Map. 'Zoom in and you can see road networks and important linkages between towns and countries, where there were none before. Overlay this with victim data, and it can help explain the rapid spread. Click on the coloured blobs and you will see sites of confirmed deaths, suspected cases that have been overturned, sites where Ebola testing labs have been setup or where the emergency relief teams are currently located.'

Submission + - PC Gaming Alive and Dominant (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars reports on a panel at PAX East which delved into the strength of the PC as a platform for games, and what its future looks like. The outlook is positive: 'Even as major computer OEMs produce numbers showing falling sales, the PC as a platform (and especially a gaming platform) actually shows strong aggregate growth.' The panelists said that while consoles get a lot of the headlines, the PC platform remains the only and/or best option for a lot of developers and gamers. They briefly addressed piracy, as well: 'Piracy, [Matt Higby] said, is an availability and distribution problem. The more games are crowdfunded and digitally delivered and the less a "store" figures into buying games, the less of a problem piracy becomes. [Chris Roberts] was quick to agree, and he noted that the shift to digital distribution also helps the developers make more money—they ostensibly don't have everyone along the way from retailers to publishers to distributors taking their cut from the sale.'

Submission + - Former Microsoft CTO Creates Exclusive $80 App for iPhone/iPad

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: Nathan Myhrvold is a former Chief Technology at Microsoft back when the company’s CEO was Bill Gates. Now, Myhrvold is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, as well as the principal author of Modernist Cuisine which he now brought to the iOS world exclusively for $80. His six volume foodie encyclopedia, called the Modernist Cuisine is also one of the most expensive cooking encyclopedias, the original six volume version retailing for $500 , with the two-volume that followed after that selling for $115. Now, Nathan and his team have transformed their huge food encyclopedia into an iPhone/iPad app. It’s not just a digital book, but rather an expensive $80 interactive app that can do more than just provide recipes. The interactive digital cookbook is the fruit of a development team of 10-15 people that have worked over nine months on the project. The app contains 37 technique videos, 416 recipes and 1,683 photos.

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