Federal officials are beginning work on a comprehensive inventory of the nation’s radio spectrum in hopes of finding more capacity for wireless high-speed Internet connections.
Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski said his agency is working closely with the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to catalog current spectrum usage.
The FCC and NTIA hope to identify airwaves that could be reallocated for wireless broadband services, including the cutting-edge 4G services now being rolled out by the big mobile carriers.
Microsoft’s Azure platform grows
Microsoft Corp. is teaming up with computer makers to try to make its Windows Azure cloud computing system attractive to government and big corporate customers.
Microsoft said last week that PC makers Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Japan’s Fujitsu have set up what Microsoft is calling Azure appliances, or networks of servers in their own data centers running Azure. Now the PC makers, which also do technology consulting, can add cloud computing to their menu of services.
Google donates to library projects
Google Inc. is giving researchers nearly a half-million dollars to test the academic value of its online library.
The grants announced Wednesday will be used to help pay for 12 humanities projects studying questions that will require sifting through thousands of books.
Google is hoping the research will validate its long-held belief that making electronic copies of old books will bring greater enlightenment to the world. The company’s critics have argued that the Internet search leader has trampled over copyright laws.
The winners of Google’s “digital humanities” awards include a project at George Mason University seeking to draw a more accurate portrait of the Victorian age through a deeper analysis of the vocabulary used in the books from that period.
Reddit turns to users for help
Though it’s owned by a large media company, Reddit needs money, and it’s turning to its loyal audience for help.
Reddit, which Conde Nast’s Wired Digital bought in 2006, lets readers post links to articles, blogs, photos and other Web content. They can then click on arrows to push the links up and down the site’s rankings.
Reddit says it needs money to buy more servers to handle its increasing traffic.
But Reddit says it won’t get the money it needs from Conde Nast because the site doesn’t bring in enough ad revenue. The ads it runs are small and unobtrusive — not very lucrative — and that isn’t something Reddit wants to change, said Chris Slowe, Reddit’s senior programmer, on Monday.
Sites aimed at today’s Web-savvy users experiment with other forms of making money. Some sell T-shirts and merchandise; others offer premium services for a fee.
Associated Press
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