The Illusion of Search Casey Chan at Gizmodo.com suggests in this brief post that Google.com “barely shows real search results” on an initial results page, devoting a lot of screen real estate instead to Google services. According to the linked study at Tutorspree, the problem is only exacerbated on smaller screens, and searching for products and services appears to put ...
Once again, Pandora internet radio is attempting to use an act of Congress to lower the royalties it pays artists, and once again, musicians are speaking out against both the tactics and the two-faced approach being taken by CEO Tim Westergren to pay lip service to his respect for artists while sticking his already well-greased palm into their back pockets. ...
In this TEDTalk, Jean-Philippe Vergne spends sixteen minutes proving one thing: that piracy is the wrong word for mass, digital copyright infringement. Those who operate torrent and similar sites should never have been called pirates, a word charged with romance and all too easily embraced as a badge of honor and charming rebelliousness. Never mind the fact that even this ...
One of my favorite observations by David Foster Wallace is about television, which he describes as essentially “watching furniture.” As a recovered-TV-junkie (20+ years clean), I have long appreciated the sentiment; however, by contrast, the detachment involved in old-school TV viewing may be healthier for some than the two-way mirrors we use in our wired lives. Our screens of many ...
“Use the new technologies for the old purposes.” Addressing the 2013 graduating class of Brandeis University, New Republic literary editor Leon Wiesseltier offered a beautiful and timely defense of humanism, the purpose of seeking knowledge, and the arts and humanities. His speech is reprinted at the New Republic site here under the title “Perhaps Culture is New the Counterculture.” It’s ...