It's Just a Fantasy, but Real Life Is Always in Play. The thriving Alternate Reality Gaming scene mixes promotions with puzzles created for their own sake. By Charles Herold. [New York Times: Technology]
6:04:47 PM    

Your Broadband E-Mail, Retrieved on the Run. Is there a way to get e-mail and Internet access on my laptop while I am traveling?. By J.d. Biersdorfer. [New York Times: Technology]
6:03:55 PM    

On the Slopes, High-Tech Sensors Probe for an Avalanche. Researchers say computer-based techniques could help make avalanches easier to forecast. By Anne Eisenberg. [New York Times: Technology]
6:03:09 PM    

The Perils of Online Job Sites. Posting a rÈsumÈ on the Internet is an accepted strategy for many job seekers, but doing so can attract more than just potential employers. ID thieves and marketers look for e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other personal information. First in a series by Kendra Mayfield. [Wired News]
6:02:02 PM    

U.S. Set for Mobile Game Invasion. A common sight in Europe and Japan -- cooler-than-thou teens and pinstriped businesspeople jabbing madly at their cell-phone keypads as they play mobile games -- may soon become standard in the United States. Elisa Batista reports from San Jose, California. [Wired News]
6:00:24 PM    

Mac users get more ISP choices. United Online, which sells low-cost Net access via the NetZero, Juno and BlueLight brands, announces its first Mac software, and broadband provider Covad expands its support. [CNET News.com]
5:59:42 PM    

Singapore implicated as piracy hub. The city-state has been a success story in fighting pirated movies, but an industry association warns that Singapore could just be shipping the problem out of the country. [CNET News.com]
5:58:44 PM    

Warning -- if you install SimCity 4, keep the disks. It won't run without them. Arrrgh. I threw them away. Last night I tried to launch the app. It asked for the disk. Oy. I suppose I could go dig through the dumpster. But that would be humiliating. I guess the whole copy protection thing is kind of humiliating. [Scripting News]
5:57:10 PM    

Don Box gave a speech saying enough specs, let's focus on apps. That's something I can get behind. That's been my song for quite some time. [Scripting News]
5:56:26 PM    

Zooming in on the nanoscale. A new imaging technique has produced a picture of some of the smallest things ever seen by scientists. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]
5:54:33 PM    

Games' copy protection cracked in days, says newsletter. StarForce struts its stuff [The Register]
5:54:09 PM    

Weaning off Google.

Pete Prodoehl: "What about a Google-Free Friday?"

BTW, I am making an effort to wean myself off Google. It's hard to do. To be honest I wish it wasn't the prudent thing to do. I'm using AllTheWeb. Also going to check out AltaVista. But I still think of Google as authoritative. And when I look in my logs, I see it's delivering the traffic, not the others.

There's an essay lurking in here, but I've been reluctant to write it. Here's what it would say. Up till now Google has done really well with the low-key, we-let-our-software-speak-for-us approach to public relations. But that method doesn't work now. People are confused about what Google is.

Now the vast majority of people don't know enough to know that anything has changed. So it's not really a problem, unless you believe that word spreads. That's how Google became famous, because people who really understood the Web understood how good it was and told their friends, and they told their friends and so on. But I don't know what to say.

I've seen Blogger as a respected competitor for almost four years. I've seen Google as a valuable utility, but never as a competitor. I have no words from Google to explain how they want me to understand that.

And as a user I'm confused. I thought of Google as a search engine, not a portal. I thought that was the point. Search is important enough to make a company that just does search. But hosting? Site creation? Blogging? I don't see the connection.

There's been so much speculation, but none of it makes sense to me. The Web doesn't require or even support this kind of integration. It could be that I'm missing something, but I don't think so. To think that Google would do something unweblike -- that's hard for my mind to believe. But there you have it. Confusion.

And to think that when I have chosen in the past to link to a Google query that I was helping a competitor against search engines that don't compete with us in writing tools, well there you go -- that's my motivation to explore the other search engines, and that's why I feel my trust was betrayed by Google.

[Scripting News]
5:53:30 PM    

Mad antipiracy bot sics BSA on OpenOffice FTP site. University of M[cedilla]nster in conspiracy to distribute free software [The Register]
5:52:11 PM    

£7m computer chip hijack fails. Robbers are forced to abandon a hijacked lorry carrying computer equipment worth millions after being spotted by police. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]
5:51:32 PM    

Internet traffic to double each year [InfoWorld: Top News]
5:51:00 PM    

Leslie Walker reviews news aggregators and RSS. [Scripting News]
5:50:00 PM    

Dave Aiello wants a pure RSS search engine. [Scripting News]
5:48:51 PM    

Media Plot Online War Coverage. With the Internet a fixture in American life, U.S. news outlets plan ways to use it to expand coverage in the event of war with Iraq. [Wired News]
5:48:06 PM    

Pseudo spins hip-hop TV show on Kazaa. Digital broadcaster Pseudo.com is turning the tables on Hollywood, with plans to release a weekly TV show hosted by rap star Ice-T on Internet file-sharing network Kazaa. [CNET News.com]
5:47:37 PM    

Gartner warns against uncertified Wi-Fi [InfoWorld: Top News]
5:47:01 PM    

EarthLink calls the cops. The Internet service provider has a new strategy for its wireless division: selling to law enforcement and other emergency-services agencies. [CNET News.com]
5:46:18 PM    

Paypal customers target of apparent scam [InfoWorld: Top News]
5:45:44 PM    

Sony CEO interested in buying Palm [InfoWorld: Top News]
5:45:16 PM    

Data thieves nab 55,000 student records. Online attackers steal information on students and faculty from insecure database servers at the University of Texas at Austin. [CNET News.com]
5:44:38 PM