New York Times technology correspondent
Former Newsweek technology writer
Author, Gearheads
Humongous Brad Stone, porn star
Chairman of Families Worldwide
Garden landscape equipment firm
Member, Sly and the Family Stone
Jennifer Granick, Executive Director Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
Loki the Schnoodle, hedonist and layabout
Mr. Boodles, neighborhood security
You are currently browsing the Brad’s Sketchpad weblog archives for October, 2006.
Unmasking Fake Steve, from the August 6th New York Times.
Web Site for Teenagers Has X-Rated Link, from the July 11 New York Times.
The Mystery of the Missing Car, from the August 2006 issue of Wired magazine.
Netflix Guilt, from the July 12th Plain Text on Newsweek.com.
In this week’s Newsweek, I talk to Barry Diller, and get the lowdown on how he’s using search engine Ask.com to combine elements of his other Internet properties, such as Citysearch and eVite. It’s part of our recurring series on “Managaing Change.”
Sites like YouTube and MySpace can run themselves ragged manually pulling copyrighted content from their services. But in the future, for legal and practical reasons, the process will have to be automated. In this week’s Plain Text, I write about acoustic fingerprinting, and companies like SnoCap and Audible Magic. The firms administer databases of copyrighted songs and then scan the online services for matches - a sprawling high tech version of the familiar card game Go Fish.
Ever wonder where all those cool, somewhat invasive aerial and satellite photographs come from on services like Zillo.com, Google Earth and MSN Virtual Earth? I write about the birds-eye photographers in the enterprise section of this week’s Newsweek.
Also in this week’s magazine, as part of our Health for Life package, I take a look at the advanced technology in use at Denver Health. Though the community hospital services everyone who shows up at its doors - even those without insurance- it’s managed to piece together one of the most advanced technology networks in the nation.
On Friday the Sci-Fi Channel’s superb series, Battlestar Galactica, begins its third season. My enthusiasm for this show knows no limits. In my latest Plain text column, I have written an in-depth, nerd-credential-cementing appreciation. The new episodes subversively draw themes and images from the War against Terror and Col. Tigh, in particular, is at his Rumsfeldian best.
The Internet’s largest video site has a record-label deal, a taste of advertising revenue and the attention of anxious old-media. I write about YouTube and its remaining challenges in this week’s Newsweek.