From the latest Pew Internet and American Life survey…
WASHINGTON, November 2, 2005- American teenagers today are utilizing the interactive capabilities of the internet as they create and share their own media creations. Fully half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the internet could be considered Content Creators. They have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.
This morning’s Observer column on Redmond’s half-assed foray into web services.
Some years ago Harvard academic Clayton Christensen wrote a riveting book entitled The Innovator’s Dilemma, which explored the question of why large, successful companies cannot cope with disruptive technologies. In it he shows that even well-managed firms with established products miss the next big wave in their industries unless their leaders know when to abandon their traditional business practices.
The first chapter in Professor Christensen’s book is entitled ‘How can great firms fail?’ Watching Gates & Co fudging the issue of web services on Tuesday suggested a simple answer: easily.
… and King’s College choir were being smartened up for the photoshoot — no doubt for their next album cover. Snapped yesterday afternoon at the back gate.
People were punting on the Cam today. And not getting frostbite, either. Where’s this cold weather we’ve been promised?
Now you really couldn’t make this up. Some genius has filed United States Patent Application to protect the “Process of relaying a story having a unique plot”. The Abstract reads:
A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters comprises: indicating a character’s desire at a first time in the timeline for at least one of the following: a) to remain asleep or unconscious until a particular event occurs; and b) to forget or be substantially unable to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time until a particular event occurs; indicating the character’s substantial inability at a time after the occurrence of the particular event to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time to the occurrence of the particular event; and indicating that during the time period the character was an active participant in a plurality of events.
[Link via BoingBoing.]
Yep. According to MobileMag,
Today [Thursday, November 3] Samsung Electronics unveiled the world’s first 8.0 megapixel camera phone, the WCDMA SPH-V8200. Ki-Tae Lee, President of Samsung’s Telecommunications Network was the first to demonstrate the Samsung SPH-8200 model.
Fine example of savage indignation in the current issue of The Economist. Excerpt from a rant, er, Leader on the importance of free trade:
In Washington, DC, home of a fabled “consensus” about poor countries’ economic policies, a bill before Congress devised by one of New York’s senators, Charles Schumer, threatens a 27.5% tariff on imports from China if that country does not revalue its currency by an equivalent amount. In Mr Schumer’s view, presumably, far too many Chinese peasants are escaping poverty. On November 4th George Bush will escape the febrile atmosphere along Pennsylvania Avenue by visiting Argentina to attend the 34-country Summit of the Americas. There he will be greeted by a rally against “imperialism”, by which is meant him personally, the Iraq war and the Free Trade Area of the Americas which he espouses. Among the hoped-for 50,000 demonstrators will be Diego Maradona, who as a footballer became rich through the game’s global market and as a cocaine-addict was dependent on barrier-busting international trade; and naturally his fellow-summiteer, Hugo Chávez, who is using trade in high-priced oil to finance his “21st-century socialism” in Venezuela.
I like that, er, crack about Maradona.
Andrew Brown is furious about unfixed bugs,
Just what I’ve been looking for — Free Open Source accounting software. Alas, it only runs under Windows — as Quentin has just pointed out. Sigh.
This image, from Andrew Hudson-Smith’s fascinating Blog, shows the output of a 3D simulation of what would happen to London in the event of a rise in sea-level. The commentary says:
South London is built on marsh land and is thus more prone to flooding. We have produced a movie that illustrates sea level rise in metres. It clearly picks up the moat around the Tower of London within a metre increase and then follows on to flood most of the Waterloo/South Bank area of London. The movie does not take into account flood defences, merely a direct sea level rise.
