common

Getty Images, one of the stock photography powerhouses, has switched on a program by which selected Flickr photographers can license their images to paying customers.

In earlier days of the microstock business, in which photographers license images over the Internet for relatively low prices through sites including Getty's iStockphoto, there was speculation Flickr might jump into the market. After all, there's plenty of good material, and it's often already tagged for easier categorization.

Instead, though, Flickr and Getty announced a partnership in which Getty taps Flickr photographers it believes have potential to sell their photos through Getty. … Read more

Action spy dramas increasingly feature a computer geek character who accesses everything from satellite imagery to floor plans to convenience store security cameras, then feeds the data to his team, saving the day. This type of work, it turns out, is easier said than done.

Two agencies are trying to make it easier to access and blend Web-based snoop-scoop. The U.S. Joint Forces Command and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are sponsoring an annual demonstration called Empire Challenge, which "seeks to improve interoperability of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities" among end users.

One of last year's Challenge … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices will reduce its stake in the manufacturing operations it spun off in October, as it adjusts to repercussions of the financial crisis.

This follows a fourth-quarter warning earlier this month when the chipmaker revised its revenue estimate downward.

And like the shares of many companies, AMD's stock price has been in a free fall. Dropping from over $7 back in June to $2.10 on Monday.

Monday's action revolves around Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC)--which Mubadala backs.

ATIC has equal voting rights with AMD in the newly formed … Read more

NEW ORLEANS--Don't let anyone ever tell you that New Orleans is doing just fine three years after Hurricane Katrina.

Sure, it's true that some areas of the city, like the French Quarter or the Garden District, seem back to normal, with swarms of tourists, drinks flowing, and the leisurely pace and laid-back attitude the city is famous for on full display. And it's also true that there are parts of town where you'd never know anything bad happened.

But in the Lower Ninth Ward, the poverty-stricken part of New Orleans that took the biggest hit from … Read more

NEW YORK--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University law professor and co-founder of the new Change Congress project, gave the audience at the Personal Democracy Forum conference a brief history lesson on Tuesday morning. His message: government corruption is nothing new.

On a massive display screen, he loaded up a portrait of legendary New England statesman and eventual Secretary of State Daniel Webster, whose professional conflicts of interest would have been enough to make even the most lukewarm of political bloggers cringe.

"Bribery wasn't even a crime in our Congress until 1853. The 19th century was a cesspool of this kind … Read more

The Smithsonian Institution has begun adding historical photos to The Commons, Flickr's project to host publicly held images.

The Smithsonian added 800 photographs from its collection of 13 million images, and 1,200 more will be added in coming months, Yahoo said in a Thursday announcement.

"Our goals in participating in The Commons on Flickr are to expose new, larger, broader and younger audiences to our photographic collections and help them discover more of the Smithsonian educational resources," said Richard Kurin, the acting undersecretary for history, art, and culture, in a statement..

Flickr launched The Commons with the Library of Congress … Read more

Declaring digital sales a success, rock veterans Nine Inch Nails have released another online album, The Slip. Unlike their last album, this one is totally free, and, according to front man Trent Reznor, is a thank-you to the band's fans.

The Slip is available from Nine Inch Nails' Web site in a number of DRM-free formats: MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAVE. The band is also streaming the album on music social network iLike.

In March, no longer affiliated with a record label, Nine Inch Nails released its album Ghosts I-IV on its Web site. An assortment of payment options … Read more

Today on the Real Deal podcast, Tom and I interviewed Colette Vogele, attorney, Fellow at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, and host of the Rules for the Revolution podcast. We started to cover the concept of copyright from the perspective of the content producer separately from that of the consumer, but found that the line between the two is increasingly fuzzy. We all consume content. But with digital technologies, almost every one of us also produces, copies, or otherwise mangles the content that we are consuming.

We talked with Vogele about this, and went over not just the … Read more

The Web enables anyone to communicate with the masses, even serial killers.

Charles Manson, convicted murderer and leader of the infamous Manson Family, has released the digital album One Mind over the Web.

Manson, who ordered the deaths of actress Sharon Tate and seven others including Tate's unborn son, has issued the album under the Creative Commons license, which means anyone can listen or copy it as long as they don't use it for commercial purposes.

It's doubtful that anyone would want to buy Manson's music. Indeed, one of the reasons that Manson sent his minions … Read more