Media

Rocketboom struggling to get going again

In the immediate aftermath of the Amanda Congdon/Rocketboom kerfuffle last week, Andrew Baron, the majority owner of the popular videoblog, insisted he would have the site back up and running Monday.

Well, Monday came, and it wasn't up yet. But he promised it would be going up Tuesday.

And here we are on Tuesday, and Baron's promise is not looking so good.

Instead, he's got a very short video with the traditional Rocketboom introduction and its iconic world map background, only to conclude with a baseball catcher flying across the screen and making a breaking glass … Read more

Time may be nigh for font rebellion

The pen--or in this case, the pixel--is proving again to be mightier than the sword in the Web 2.0 revolution. That, at least, is our interpretation of the open-source movement in type design.

The subject of proprietary vs. public fonts has been the object of much debate for years among Web designers and developers, so it is a natural issue for social-networking dynamics. And recent circumstances may have created a particularly opportune time for rebellion: Earlier this year, some reviewers noted that Microsoft had apparently dumped Times New Roman as the font of choice in beta versions of Office … Read more

Women in IT pose for movie calendar

Some women are launching a rather racy calendar to promote females in IT.

The IT Screen Goddesses Calendar 2006-2007, featuring female IT professionals posing as film icons, will be released in Queensland, Australia, at Movie World on Aug. 11. In the meantime, pre-orders can be made through the IT Goddess Web site.

Sonja Bernhardt, a co-founder of Australian Women in IT (AWISE), is a spokesman to the IT Screen Goddess Initiative, and also one of its models.

"We are doing this to smash through the perception of the geeky technologist," says the IT Screen Goddess Initiative Web site.… Read more

Panda eats. Webcam shoots. Nobody leaves.

A barrage of Panda cam visitors has forced the National Zoo Web site to boot people off every 15 minutes.

Tai Shan, the giant panda born in captivity at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 2005, has just turned 1. The son of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian is a subject of interest to more than 22 million people. That is how many have visited the Panda cams since Tai Shan's birth, according to a spokesman for the National Zoo.

The two Web cams focus on the outdoor habitat where Tai Shan … Read more

Paper clip guy to get his house

It looks like Kyle MacDonald, the 26-year-old Montreal man who set out to trade a single red paper clip for a house, has accomplished his ambitious goal.

MacDonald will be giving his most recent trade-- a movie role--to the city of Kipling, Saskatchewan in exchange for a two-story farmhouse, according to his blog, "one red paperclip." The deal will become official once MacDonald shakes hands with the mayor of his new home town on Wednesday, exactly one year after he announced his endeavor, he wrote.

"One red paperclip. One house. One year," he wrote, of his … Read more

We want to watch commercials, we just don't know it yet

ABC is talking about employing a technology that would prevent DVR owners from doing what they presumably bought the device for: skipping commercials.

If Mike Shaw, ABC president of advertising sales, gets his way, cable companies would force us to watch ads. "I would love it if the MSOs (multi-system operators), during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward (button)," he said in an interview Wednesday, according to MediaPost (membership required).

In fact, there are companies out there cooking up ways to do that. Philips recently received a patent for … Read more

Friendster awarded social networking patent

Troubled Friendster has been awarded a broad patent covering social networking that could cover activities of rival sites, the Red Herring reported on Thursday.

"The U.S. patent, which was awarded June 27, is extremely general, and would seem to cover the activities of many other sites, especially those like LinkedIn that allow people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation," the article says.

Asked whether Friendster would sue, President Kent Lindstrom said "It's way too early to say...We'll do what we can to protect our intellectual property."

After a … Read more

Google Earth launches Tour de France tie-in

There might be no Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour, but never fear--Google Earth has a new way to keep you interested in the famed cycling race.

Google has made a downloadable file, available on the Tour's official Web site, that maps the winding course onto Google Earth's satellite imagery. Cycling fans can browse day-to-day information, learn fun facts about the places that the riders traverse, and even use Google Earth's 3D feature to get an idea of just how steep those Alps climbs are.

Rocketboom loses its famous face

It's been all over the blogosphere Wednesday and our partners over at ZDNet covered it as well, but it's still worth noting here that Amanda Congdon, the increasingly famous face of the very popular videoblog Rocketboom, has left.

According to a video she posted under the rubric, "UnBoomed," Congdon alluded to a falling out between her and her partner, Andrew Baron--who she said owns 51 percent of the venture to her 49 percent.

And indeed, on Rocketboom itself today, readers found an announcement of the split.

Baron is saying the divorce had to do with Rocketboom'… Read more