Internet & Media

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has won $40,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for correctly finding the locations of 10 red balloons scattered across the U.S.

Launched on Saturday, the DARPA Network Challenge released the 10 red balloons into the air, then dared contestants to find their latitude and longitude by the end of the day. Since no one person could track down all 10 in just one day, the point of the contest was to see how participants would use the Internet and social networking to team up with others to solve … Read more

On2 Technologies has filed an update with the SEC on its proposed merger with Google, hoping to put to rest some key questions.

On2, which makes video compression software, announced Monday that the update includes certain key highlights about the merger and some frequently asked questions.

On2 agreed on August 5 to be acquired by Google for $106.5 million, a deal already approved by its board of directors. The terms call for each share of On2 to be exchanged for 60 cents worth of Google common stock.

With its board anxious for investors to approve the deal, On2 outlined some of the risks … Read more

Facebook users are too willing to give out their personal information, security firm Sophos has found.

According to Sophos' Australian team, which conducted a study to see how likely Facebook users were to offer up personal information, 41 to 46 percent of the 100 people Sophos contacted "blindly accepted" friend requests from two fake Facebook users created by the security firm.

After becoming friends with Sophos, the security firm was able to access up to 89 percent of the users' full dates of birth, all of their e-mail addresses, where they went to school, and more. Half of … Read more

Yahoo announced on Monday a new consumer tool called "Ad Interest Manager."

BoomTown is going to ignore the could-it-be-duller name for the feature, which--Yahoo said in a press release you can see below--gives users a "central place where Yahoo visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity and make easy, constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo Ad Network."

What fortuitous timing, since the first of three of the Federal Trade Commission's "Exploring Privacy: A Roundtable Series" begins Monday in Washington, D.C.

And, of course, … Read more

On August 1, 1981, a cultural and entertainment juggernaut flickered onto TV screens and rocketed out of obscurity with these six words: "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll."

With that, the iconic cable network, MTV, was launched and a popular entertainment category--music videos--was born. Now, 28 years later, MTV has largely abandoned the genre and the record industry is preparing for the debut of a possible successor.

On Tuesday, video start-up Vevo is scheduled to launch. Supported by three of the top four largest record companies (sources say EMI has agreed to provide content to the site) and … Read more

Facebook has formed a safety advisory board comprised of five Internet safety organizations that will consult with the social-networking site, the company said Sunday.

Facebook said it plans to meet regularly with the advisory board to review the existing safety resources it provides its users, develop new materials, and seek advice on best practices for safety in general.

"We believe that the only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications and public policy, said in a statement. "The … Read more

Apple has acquired struggling streaming music service Lala, an Apple spokesman told CNET News on Sunday.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed the acquisition but did not disclose the terms of the deal or what the company intends to do with the 4-year-old Lala. The company scans users' hard drives and creates a duplicate music library that owners can access from Web-enabled devices. The company also sells songs for a dime each.

CNET News reported Friday that Apple was close to finalizing the sale and that one of the reasons Apple was interested in acquiring Lala is to obtain some of the company's payment and fulfillment systems, … Read more

(Updated 11.35AM PST Monday, with comment from Amazon)

There's a wonderful Borders bookstore in the middle of London's Oxford Street. Or at least there was. I went there in September and suddenly it was no more. Indeed, the U.K. arm of Borders recently reached for a form of bankruptcy protection.

So how interesting that one of the greatest successes in online book retail, Amazon, is rumored to be troubling real estate agents in its search for retail premises in the U.K. According to London's impeccable Times, Amazon is looking for very fine locations in … Read more

You may need a little Xanax after observing this. Equally, you may never want to take any drugs ever again.

For Quentin Tarantino, he who makes movies that contain blood, gore, and many homages to Asia, recently shot a TV spot for the Japanese cell phone company Softbank.

As well as an astute grasp of Japanese, you need to have a very firm grasp of existential philosophy to fully appreciate this spot. Without an astute grasp of Japanese, I can tell you that this is the latest in a series of spots that features the White family.

Just to give … Read more