Human gamers make computers smarter
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Computers are all-powerful but rather dumb, says MacArthur genius grant winner Luis von Ahn. The Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist wants your help in making machines smarter. He's just launched a new Web site - GWAP - which stands for "Games With a Purpose." He's asking Internet users to play a series of simple games designed to help computers learn how to better recognize images, understand the content of audio files, and what humans find beautiful.
New site aims to help fund local, investigative journalism
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The Knight Foundation has announced the winners of its annual Knight News Challenge -- a contest that funds projects to advance journalism through digital technology. Among the 16 winners dividing $5.5 million in prize money is spot.us, which aims to help pay for local investigative reporting by asking the public for financial support through micropayments.
Where Google goes next
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Google is making a ton of money and spoils its well-paid employees with free gourmet food and massages. Still, some top talent is walking out the door. Adam Lashinsky writes in Fortune magazine that brain drain is one of the problems confronting Google as it transforms into a mature company.
Consumer groups criticize Web sites for manipulating children in the name of profit
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Consumer Reports Webwatch and the Mediatech Foundation recently gave video cameras to parents from 10 families and asked them to videotape children visiting their favorite game Web sites, like Webkinz and Nick Jr.
Study author Warren Buckleitner, editor of the Children's Technology Review, says the videos show children being manipulated too often, and being brought to tears by enticing offers that ultimately disappoint.
Eee PC reviewed
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Electronics company Asus shipped more than 700,000 Eee PC's during the first quarter of 2008, and predicts sales of at least 1.2 million of the ultraportable computers during the second quarter.
A new model with a nine-inch display goes on sale today, and comes with either the Linux or Windows operating systems.
The Eee Pc is one of a growing number of very small computers, inluding the HP Mini-Note and the Everex Cloudbook. Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the St Paul Pioneer Press has been testing the 7-inch Eee PC model, which is about the size of a an average hardcover book.
Neil Young felt helpless without Blu-ray
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Cinnamon Girl, Mr. Soul, Cowgirl in the Sand and other Neil Young song characters will soon take up residence on Blu-ray. Young announced this week he'll release his entire music archive on Blu-ray discs, a sign that the discs' capabilities could be building appeal among musicians as well as movie studios.
Guest: Aram Sinnreich, NYU Steinhardt
What does the Sprint-Clearwire deal mean for consumers?
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Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are resurrecting their plan to build a new super-high-speed mobile Internet network. A similar deal fell apart last year, but this time it's backed by big-time investors including Google, Comcast, Time Warner.
Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will combine their wireless broadband units to create a $14.5 billion communications company that will develop a mobile network based on a technology called WiMax. It's like Wi-Fi but the signals travel much farther and can blanket entire cities.
Guest: CNET News.com writer Maggie Reardon
The hidden story behind government contract for battle bots
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iRobot makes the well-loved robotic vacuum cleaner called Roomba - and it also builds robots for the military for doing dangerous jobs like handling bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. iRobot recently won a Pentagon contract worth up to $300 million to build new robots, but the company had to go to court to get the deal done. That's because the military initially gave the contract to a former iRobot who was employee accused by iRobot of stealing its designs, according to a story in the most recent issue of Wired.
Guest: Noah Shachtman, Wired
Goodwill seeks help to deal with e-waste
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Goodwill Industries says Americans donate 23 million pounds of computers, printers, TVs, cell phones and other gadgets to Goodwill stores every year. Up to a third of the donated devices don't work, and that's giving the job-training charity a headache.
Readers review the news
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NewsTrust is a nonprofit service attempting to help people find good journalism online by subjecting stories to the scrutiny of volunteer citizen reviewers. NewsTrust members rate stories from news sites and blogs based on journalistic principles like fairness, sourcing and context.
Computer science has an image problem
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Computer science: Not jut for geeks.
That's a message the Association for Computing Machinery is hoping to spread as part of a project to polish the image of technology careers.
John White, CEO and executive director of the computing trade group, says fewer students are studying computer science in college , and too many tech jobs are going unfilled, because young people don't have an accurate picture of the computer scientist.
The ACM, along with the WGBH Educational Foundation, will soon begin a public relations project called "New Image for Computing," which is designed to highlight the appeal of computer science education and careers to young people.
Ubuntu seeks the mainstream
