Internet

Review: 'MacHeads,' a documentary on the Mac faithful

It's a long-established truism in technology journalism: That stories about Apple are pretty much guaranteed to do better than just about any other subject.

And why? It's certainly not because of the total size of the user base of Apple products. Rather, as has been very well chronicled in newspapers, magazines, online and in books, the passion felt by the community of Apple users far outstrips its size.

Now, with the release of MacHeads, you can add movies to the roster of media documenting the full fervor of the Mac faithful and their particular brand of do-it-yourself brand … Read more

Wikimedia Foundation: Jimmy Wales 'absolutely' not out

Updated January4 at 3:04 p.m.: This story has been changed to correct the number of members of the Wikimedia Foundation's board.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is "absolutely" not out of a job at the Wikimedia Foundation, according to the foundation's director of communications.

On Saturday, Valleywag editor Owen Thomas reported that Wales was "out of a job," writing, "Imagine an online encylopedia anyone can edit -- and no one can run. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's...cofounder, is no longer a board member of the site's nonprofit foundation. Who's in … Read more

'Make' magazine debuts television series

Following on the success of their hit do-it-yourself magazine, the people behind Make will now bring their efforts to public television.

On Saturday, Make: Television will debut, a partnership between the magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television. All episodes will also be available for DRM-free download in HD, on YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, and Blip.tv.

"Make: is the DIY series for a new generation," a release about the new show began. "It celebrates 'makers'--the inventors, artists, geeks, and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The … Read more

Finding rare songs on YouTube

In the small hours of a summer night when I was in college, I heard a song play on San Francisco's famous Live 105 that seemed, at the time, one of the most profound, melodic, and catchy tunes I'd ever come across.

It was called Dancing on the Planet, and even back then--in the late 80s or early 90s--a rare track I never again heard on the radio.

For years, it was jammed in the back of my memory, always there as this incredible song that I just had to find.

Some time after the Google era kicked … Read more

Internet or sex, which would you choose?

Just how reliant are you on the Internet?

Nearly half of the women questioned by Harris Interactive said they'd be willing to forgo sex for two weeks, rather than give up their Internet access, according to a study released Monday by Intel, which commissioned the survey.

While 46 percent of the women surveyed were willing to engage in abstinence verses losing their Internet, only 30 percent of the men surveyed were willing to do likewise.

The U.S. survey, which queried 2,119 adults last month, found that the gap grew even wider for both men and woman who … Read more

Wikia Search having problems

It looks like there's a bit of trouble over at Wikia Search this morning.

The search portal, run by Wikia, the for-profit wiki service co-founded by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, was returning "Service Unavailable" error messages about 10 percent of the time, during a test I ran on both Firefox and Safari.

The rest of the time, the service seemed to be working mainly as it should, though from time to time, the search page would only partially load.

The error message would return when loading the Wikia Search home page, and read, "Error 503 Service … Read more

Is the video game industry recession-proof?

It would be tempting for those in the video game business to take some recent news--for instance, that October sales were through the roof, or that the latest World of Warcraft expansion broke the all-time record for single-day PC game sales--as proof that their industry may be immune from the deep despair confronting the global economy.

And indeed, that seems to be exactly what many people in the industry are choosing to believe: that in rough times, people always spend money on entertainment, and that as entertainment goes, video game software and hardware offer much higher value than other options. … Read more

Google to present millions of photos from 'Life' archives

Life magazine announced Tuesday that is is making more than 10 million of its archival photographs publicly available through a partnership with Google.

The archive includes many iconic images from throughout the 20th century taken by famous photographers like Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White, and Dorothea Lange.

Currently, many of the photos--searchable by keyword--are available through Google Image Search. And many more will be added in the coming months, Life said.

The project mirrors one introduced in January in which Flickr began hosting thousands of images from the U.S. Library of Congress as part of its "The Commons" … Read more

Boing Boing launches game blog Offworld

Boing Boing, famous for its sassy, culture-centric approach to tech blogging, has launched a game site called Offworld.

For years, Boing Boing was one of the most popular blogs around, and with the rare exception of a guest writer or two, it was written entirely by a group of four accomplished co-editors.

If you were interested in the culture of technology, there was a pretty good chance that Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, David Pescovitz, and Mark Frauenfelder were your heroes. Even as other blog networks, such as Gawker Media and Weblogs, sprouted up, Boing Boing stuck to its original, successful … Read more

Six Apart lays off 8 percent of workforce

Tuesday was not a good day for the San Francisco Bay Area's new media community.

The latest bad news to hit was word that blogging software developer Six Apart has laid off about 8 percent of its 200-plus staff. In a post on the company's public blog, CEO Chris Alden announced the cuts, writing, "We are reducing the size of our full-time staff by around 8 percent and are making some organizational changes as we prepare for 2009."

Though Six Apart seems to be growing--"with Q4 2008 on track to be our biggest revenue … Read more