cnn

Report: Fake story about Steve Jobs planted by teenager

The fake story submitted to CNN's iReport site that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack was the work of an 18-year-old, according to a report.

Bloomberg is reporting that investigators have determined that the teenager planted the story on CNN's user-generated news site. But they have found no evidence that the suspect attempted to profit from the sharp drop in Apple's stock that occurred after Silicon Alley Insider picked up the CNN posting and published it before verifying whether it was true. The suspect was not named, but the Securities and Exchange Commission has … Read more

Q&A: Henry Blodget on redemption, Eliot Spitzer, and taking criticism

Words like "scumbag," "fraud," and "crook" once trailed after Henry Blodget's name anytime it came up in Silicon Valley. The budding Web-publishing mogul, who was once a superstar tech analyst before being accused of securities fraud, has spent the past five years trying to recover his credibility. Last week, his efforts may have suffered a setback.

This interview began in August, when I sent Blodget the questions. He e-mailed his answers on Wednesday, two days before Silicon Alley Insider, the technology news blog Blodget co-founded, wrote itself into a controversy. A member of … Read more

Who's to blame for spreading phony Jobs story?

"Unedited. Unfiltered. News."

That's the slogan CNN chose for its user-generated news site, iReport.com, a place designed to tap into the citizen journalism craze. At iReport, any member of the public is allowed to post stories, ostensibly as part of the cable network's news operation, simply by providing an e-mail address. CNN and citizen journalism are being criticized after someone used the site on Friday to spread the false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a serious heart attack.

The bogus story sparked a minor panic on Wall Street before Apple had a … Read more

EIC Squared: Will the tech sector melt down in the economic crisis?

In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I talk about how the economic crisis will impact the tech sector. Both the House and Senate have passed the bailout package, but the legislation doesn't mean that tech or any other industry sector will reverse the downward spiral. Tech companies and financial analysts are rapidly cutting estimates to prepare for a potential nuclear winter in the global economy.

We also discuss Microsoft's forthcoming moves into cloud computing and the state of citizen journalism following the fake Steve Jobs heart attack story that showed up on … Read more

Jobs heart attack rumor not true, Apple stock swings

Apple has denied a rumor posted on CNN's iReport page that Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack Friday morning.

The unsubstantiated rumor, posted on the "citizen journalism" section of CNN called iReport, caused a sharp drop in Apple's stock price around 7 a.m. PDT before company representatives were able to deny the charge. Blogs such as Silicon Alley Insider initially published the rumor as written on CNN with the 21st century fig leaf--a question mark at the end of the headline--but updated its story after hearing from Apple representatives. CNN has since removed the post … Read more

Why the online Bigfoot claims are true

Because you are alive and online, you will probably have already heard that two hunters in Georgia claim to have discovered the body of Bigfoot, the legendary big, hairy, well, thing.

Many commentators, including CNET's redoubtable Caroline McCarthy, have expressed a soupcon of skepticism about the veracity of the discovery.

I can, quite naturally, understand such doubt and redoubt. Journalism is a dubious business.

And Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two hunters who claim to have discovered the big-footed body, have, unfortunately, created a YouTube video in which they presented a supposed expert, a Dr. Van Buren from … Read more

Don't click that headline, security researchers warn

A flood of e-mails pretending to be from MSNBC contain links to malicious software, security companies warned Wednesday.

According to an MX Lab blog post, subject lines always start with "msnbc.com - BREAKING NEWS" then are followed with a variety of possible headlines, including: "Google launches free music downloads in China"; "Plane crashes into prep school, hundreds of kids killed"; "Please give your opinions for change"; and "US Dollar hits 6-year high, further gains expected."

The Web address http://breakingnews.msnbc.com is valid if you type it into … Read more

CNN prints headline T-shirts

CNN is now printing one-off American Apparel headline T-shirts. The new feature (in beta) allows you to order them from the CNN web site -- with the headline, time-stamp, and CNN logo on it.

Pretty cool. CNN gets it. Their T-shirt campaign exhibits all the key ingredients of contemporary marketing genius.

Instant: Merchandising in real-time, tangibly tied with world news.

Artificially scarce: The headlines are only available to be printed while the headline is in the current news section.

Customizable/hackable: The T-shirts are customizable. You can put your own headline on them simply by changing the text in the … Read more

CNN.com survives random outages

Although CNN escaped a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack planned for Saturday, the site has experienced either random outages or inflated response times over the last 72 hours, according to one Internet research company.

Netcraft reported Tuesday that during a three-hour period on Sunday morning, the CNN.com site was unavailable from its listening post in Pennsylvania. And on Monday, the site experienced inflated response times. CNN.com did suffer a minor DDoS last Thursday, but recovered by limiting access from certain geographic areas, mainly Asia.

Also on Tuesday, The Dark Visitor, a site that tracks Chinese hackers, said a downloadable … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 707: Space is cancelled

The Russians have canceled their space tourism program, because space is too serious to monetize. Also, Skype offers unlimited long-distance on...phones. VoIP is so dead. You heard it here first. In other news, Microsoft bonanza: Windows predictions, welcoming ethical hackers, and burning down your house. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 707

Skype offers unlimited long-distance plan http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN2141013920080421

Google tops Microsoft, Apple in brand power http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9924273-7.html

Britannica makes content free with widgets, publisher registration http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9923867-7.html

Hackers cancel attack on CNN http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144850/hackers_cancel_attack_on_cnn.html… Read more