Media

Comic book illustrator Robert Crumb is suing Amazon.com for alleged misuse of his artwork, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (free registration may be required). The Times reports that, until 2003, the e-commerce giant is accused of using Crumb's well-known "Keep on Truckin'" design on its site when users performed a search with no results.

Crumb's lawyer, Jules Zalon, told the LA Times that Amazon took down the illustration immediately upon request, but the two parties have yet to agree on how Crumb should be compensated for the time in which Amazon … Read more

Amazon.com has launched a program that lets authors whose books are sold on the Web site write blogs that appear above reader reviews and excerpts on the pages that sell their books, The New York Times reported.

About a dozen authors are participating in the program, called Amazon Connect, with the goal of creating more of a connection between authors and their readers and, obviously, selling more books, the article said.

While writing may come naturally for most of the authors, at least one said she had some reservations about writing an online journal. "I come from a … Read more

An Ithaca College dean is encouraging students to use their cell phones for more than just talking.

The school is offering a $5,000 prize for the best 30-second movie shot on a cell phone, according to an Associated Press article.

"Historically, we've always had students thinking bigger and bigger. It's gone from radio to television to the movie screen, to the era of blockbuster films. All of a sudden, things have reversed and everything is getting smaller," said Dean Dianne Lynch.

The latest move to mobile in film is part of a larger, international trend, … Read more

Earthcam, a company that sells software for viewing and distributing Webcam images, announced its selections for the top 25 Webcams of 2005 on Tuesday.

Among the picks are Webcams showing the British Antarctic Survey's ship James Clark Ross, the Department of Motor Vehicles in Anchorage, Alaska, a living room with lights that can be turned off an on over the Internet, Los Angeles beaches, and the Swedish city of Skelleftea.

A blogger whose Internet site became a forum for Los Alamos National Laboratory employees to vent about management problems said he's shutting the site down a half year from now.

Doug Roberts, who retired from LANL in 2005 after working at the New Mexico laboratory for 20 years, said Monday he'll shut down his LANL: The Real Story site on July 1. Roberts launched the site Dec. 28, 2004, as a place to publish letters critical of lab management that the lab's internal newsletter refused.

The blog drew national media attention as an aggregation of often anonymous … Read more

Samsung is betting that the future of the big screen will be cast a little mobile one.

This week, the cell phone maker quietly introduced AnyFilms.net, an experimental site designed to support "the production of cell-phone oriented films," according to the Web site. Anyfilms.net showcases what Samsung calls "ubiquitous films," or short films that can be viewed anywhere, anytime on the cell phone, by up-and-coming filmmakers like Alex Merkin and starring HBO's "Entourage" lead, Adrian Grenier.

In a novel new format for film, the site also lets visitors build their own … Read more

Over the last few years, the open-access, free encyclopedia Wikipedia has become one of the best-known and most-used reference sources on the Web. And for good reason: It has nearly 900,000 articles in English alone, and millions more in dozens of other languages.

And because of its community's self-policing nature, in which members take it upon themselves to vet many entries, it is nearly as accurate as the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica.

But over the past couple of weeks, Wikipedia has been dealing with a widespread discussion about its accountability and its credibility. On the one hand, some have … Read more

One of the features I've always admired about TiVo is the so-called "season pass," which lets you set up auto-recording for an entire season of a program.

The wonderful thing about the feature is that it allows for the occasional switch in day or time, or the two-hour special or whatever might happen that would change a program's usual length or slot in the schedule.

For example, during the NCAA basketball tournament, CBS always moves "Survivor" from its usual 8 p.m. Thursday position to Wednesday nights. A "Survivor" season pass would … Read more

Some eBay users were plenty ticked off on Monday when they couldn't log on to the site to do business.

The users affected were prevented from logging on for as long as an hour and others were required to continuously log in. The delays angered many sellers who are amid their busiest selling period.

According to a post on the auction site's message boards, the glitch was caused by the rolling out of new computer code last week. The problem affected a relatively small number of eBay users, according to eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.

Engineers at eBay thought … Read more