Why hello there! Well, fancy that, yours truly is editing the DigitalDigest® once again and in a week where in the real world jungle-hating, chesty non-entities dominated the headlines, we aim to provide an oasis of calm reflection and mild amusement by filling your heads with the latest in digital goings-on. This week: newspapers saved from recycling bin, the dark side of the web and a rather unusual, if extremely sad, wedding.
Extra! Extra! Newspapers saved by Satan’s minions!
Hooray! At least for now…Newspaper websites all over the world are (sort of) rejoicing at the news that The Dirty Digger and The Borg have joined forces to announce a revenue sharing deal for traffic referred to news sites by upstart search engine, Bing. A lifeline for news content or just another way to Rupe to line his pockets with crumpled fivers?
Government Digital Britain Bill spells misery for freeloaders
This week saw the parliamentary debate over the proposed ‘Digital Economy Bill’. Based on the year long report by Lord Carter, it sets out the government’s vision for a wide-ranging set of issues surrounding the digital economy in these shores, from copyright to digital television and beyond. Controversial in both things included and left out, not least the threat of permanent disconnection from the Internet for repeated illegal filesharing, or the lack of a provision for funding broadband infrastructure by levying a broadband tax, the bill threatens to become law before the end of this parliament
You will know the power of the dark side
Great investigative piece from The Grauniad on the dark side of the internet: Freenet, a place where your total anonymity is assured and where, content-wise at least, pretty much anything goes. As the ‘net cruises towards greater censorship and control, with big sites such as Google and Yahoo bowing down to pressure from repressive governments, the existence of the ‘deep net’ becomes more important; but how much freedom is too much?
9/11 as it happened: Wikileaks publishes pager intercepts throughout the whole terrible day
Text pagers, while uncommon over here, are often used in the US by persons operating in an official capacity to communicate with one another. Wikileaks have compiled a definitive list of all pager intercepts for a 24-hour period, starting from 3AM on the morning of September 11th 2009. Ranging from Pentagon employees to members of the NYPD, this provides the definitive account of how events on that unforgettable day unfolded.
Pointless contextual search ads…Now with 15% extra annoying!
Muted trumpets announce the latest innovation by search and advertising behemoth, Google: new search formats for their contextual advertising. With new video, shopping and Google Maps integration flavours available, advertisers will be scrambling to take advantage of this new technology to find ways of persuading you to part with your hard-earned readies.
Apple help glum Brits celebrate confusing American concept of ‘Thanksgiving’
‘Happy Thanksgiving!’ – a phrase guaranteed to be greeted by confusion and ambivalence by most Britons. But not any more! Shiny, plastic and brushed aluminium geek overlords, Apple, are launching a US Thanksgiving-related custom that people on these grey and damp shores might actually give a hoot about: Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving where shops and stores slash prices like crazy for 24 hours only! This is officially a ‘Big Thing’ in the US, so big in fact that people have died in the name of low, low prices.
At the time of writing, there are no discounted prices, but those of you with nice big limits on your credit cards might want to take advantage. Oh, and by the way, I could really do with a new Macbook Pro…just sayin’.
And finally…Japanese man fulfils the dream of millions of unpopular boys
From the early days of ogling Chun Li’s thighs to drooling Lara Croft’s pneumatic ‘talents’, fancying make believe videogame characters has been a rite of passage for the spotty, asthmatic, overweight and painfully single across the world. Now, bizarrely-named Japanese videogame enthusiast, Sal9000, has taken this childish fixation to its inevitable logical conclusion: by marrying Nene Anegasaki, suspiciously young-looking virtual star of computer game, Love Plus. Read more about the Internet’s new First Couple here. Just don’t think too hard about what they’re going to get up to on their honeymoon.
Remember, my friends: live long and prosper!
This has been this week’s DigitalDigest®
