ten must read stories that can be digitally downloaded Forbes.com - Magazine Article
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The Digital Download
Ten Must-Read Tech Stories
05.06.05, 12:38 PM ET
Beyond The Book's Cover
As one of the Web's premier retailers, Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) hasn't stopped tweaking the data mining it uses to sell us more stuff. To wit: its Statistically Improbable Phrases feature, which gives bookworms a glimpse into the unique construction of great authors--from Herman Melville's "pagan harpooneers" to Malcolm Gladwell's "adaptive unconscious." SIPs don't just entertain bookworms, says Amazon; they also draw users into books that they may not otherwise consider buying.
Surfing At The Speed Of Google
As Amazon.com endeavors to accelerate the speed with which we input out credit-card numbers, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) is looking to accelerate the speed of the Web as a whole with its Web Accellerator program, now in beta. The software uses the power of servers worldwide to get Web pages to load faster on individual computers. The Accellerator stores frequently visited Web sites, so expect a privacy outcry similar to the one that emerged when Google launched its desktop search.
Vindicating Gore
Google may be co-opting the Internet, but finally Al Gore gets some credit for inventing it. Gore, who once made what proved to be the very embarassing claim to have invented the Internet, really did push through a fair amount of legislation that helped build the Information Superhighway (a phrase he really did invent). He'll be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Webby award for his legislative efforts by Vint Cerf, who actually helped assemble the World Wide Web.
IT's Crystal Ball
Former Harvard Business Review Editor Nicholas Carr is tweaking information technology's status quo yet again with his recent prediction of "The End Of Corporate Computing" in in the spring 2005 issue of The MIT Sloan Management Review. In the piece, he contends that "information technology is undergoing an inexorable shift from being an asset that companies own--in the form of computers, software and myriad related components--to being a service that they purchase from utility providers." This shift, he predicts, will have a profound impact on technology providers of every stripe.
Los Alamos Meltdown Via Blog
Bloggers are changing the nature of national elections, so why not the U.S. federal government's ultra-secret nuclear weapons laboratory? Barbed wire rings the lab's perimeter, and federal agents monitor on-site communications closely. But scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are engaged in a very public and sometimes nasty debate about the lab's future on a blog, and may succeed in forcing out the director, G. Peter Nanos.
The Scobleizer Speaks
The business world is also hopping on the blogging bandwagon, with Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) leading the way. Forbes.com sat down with business blogging pioneer Robert Scoble this week to discuss how he manages to publicly criticize his bosses Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, while still toeing the corporate line.
All The News That's Fit To Surf
Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) as the Web site of record? Someday, perhaps. This week CEO Terry Semel landed CNET Networks Editor-in-Chief Patrick Houston to expand technology news, an effort that will likely include introducing original Yahoo! content. Yahoo! is already one the Web's most heavily trafficked news sites.
The 800-Pound Gorilla
Anti-spyware outfit Webroot this week released estimates that spyware generates revenue of about $2 billion annually for the Web's underworld. The statistic, while surely inexact, lends some credence to the theory that the weight of so much malware could eventually shut down the Internet.
American Grafedia
A New York University grad student is bringing sidewalk scrawl online with the Web site grafedia.net. In addition to the usual graffiti on New York City sidewalks and streets, there are now entire e-mail addresses underlined in blue. Passers-by who text-message or e-mail the address from their phones or computers receive an image--thus melding our physical and virtual worlds.
Piercings Would Be Out Of The Question
Another electronic art form is on the wane. For years, engineers have been etching microscopic images onto the chips they design--the engineer who created the semiconductors on the two Mars rovers, for instance, adorned them with renderings of the Warner Bros. cartoon character Marvin the Martian. Alas, the likes of Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) and Agilent Technologies (nyse: A - news - people ) won't stand for this kind of thing any longer, but rebellious technicians can take heart and visit several online chip graffiti galleries.
