Top Items:

Digging Fraud — Recently it was brought to our attention that several users have created accounts to mass digg and promote stories. While these accounts appear to be valid, they have in certain instances been used for automated in-order (scripted) digging.
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The Digg Backlash (or when the wisdom of crowds turns into the madness of the masses) — Update: DIGG did the right thing and turned a bunch of spammers off. The spammers are upset—total non-issue. Rock on TeamDigg... and don't let the bastards get you down!


Artist's family asks Google to take down Thursday's `painted' logo — After angering authors last fall with a wide-ranging book-copying project, Google may now be alienating some visual artists as well by allegedly reproducing famous works in drawings on the search giant's home page.
Discussion:
IP Democracy, Vitalsecurity.org, Digital Inspiration, Search Engine Watch Blog, Valleywag and Guardian Unlimited
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Google takes down Miro image — A representative of the family of Spanish surrealist Joan Miro asked Google to remove the art from its homepage today. — Google's homepage carried an image containing elements of several of Miro works. Theodore Feder, president of Artists Rights Society …

AIM — Here's where a mash-up between Web 2.0 and the MSM gets interesting, or kind of sad, depending on your perspective. In the morning, someone blogs that AOL is working on a social networking competitor to MySpace. People link to it. Others link to the links.
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More Details on AOL's "MySpace Killer" — Ted Leonsis at AOL writes about the recent AOL "MySpace Killer" rumors. Here are the additional details he gives: … I've done some digging, though, and it appears that a "MySpace Killer" is exactly what AOL is trying to build.


Google in China: The Big Disconnect — The World Wide Web, Abridged: Patrons in an internet cafe in Beijing. Chatting about sports, posting entries to blogs — fine. Visiting pro-democracy sites — no way. — For many young people in China, Kai-Fu Lee is a celebrity.

Initiative — There's no other way for me to start this other than by firing away: Last week I left my full-time job at Joyent, for the sole reason so that I can write Daring Fireball as a full-time job. — Two years ago, when I made tentative steps in this direction …

Analysis: Blocking Skype Won't Be Easy — Editor's Note: The ongoing "net neutrality" debate over whether telecommunications carriers have the right to add surcharges to third-party providers of premium services brings up another issue: just how hard is it to block these applications, anyway?
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Think Skype traffic is easily detectable? No it's not, expert tester says
Discussion:
NevilleHobson.com


A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab — Today I'll stop my 3rd person perspective. I'm going to write a little bit more about what I do to help MacBU ship great software and provide some color around what's it's like to work on Mac software at Microsoft. Often when we have press events …

Google Announces First Quarter 2006 Results — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - April 20, 2006 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2006. — "Google had an exceptional quarter with strong growth and profitability, from both Google properties and the network …

EFF stands up for online journalists' rights in Apple v. Does — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told a San Jose, California appeals court Thursday that denying protections for confidential sources would deliver a dangerous blow to online journalism and independent media.


The Virtues of a Second Screen — Fervent computer gamers and the detectives on "N.C.I.S." do it, but I had no plans to add a second monitor to my computer system — not until I bought an upgraded video card for my PC and noted it had output connections for two monitors.

G4 and G5-optimized Firefox 1.5.0.2 now available — Dans "mozilla and firefox", mercredi, le 19 avril 2006, à 12:56 PM EST. … Man, I really wish the Mozilla guys would stop pooping out these teensy version updates. At any rate, optimized builds of Firefox 1.5.0.2 is now available for G4 and G5 processors.


UK drivers trust GPS more than their own eyes — We've heard reports before about the dangers of driving while under the influence of GPS, but it looks like drivers in the UK have taken trust of their navigation units to the extreme. Twice in the space of the last two weeks …


Seagate Leaks 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 Details … A PDF accidentally showed up on Seagate's website earlier today with the latest details on perpendicular desktop hard drives — Seagate insiders contacted us early this morning with a few snippets of information (PDF) concerning the upcoming Barracuda 7200.10 series hard drives.