Got an opinion? Keep it to yourself.
Yahoo quietly pulled a discussion feature from its news site in recent weeks. Before, readers were allowed to post comments on individual news stories. The message boards were suspended, according to a note from Yahoo’s general manager for news, Neil Budde, because they allowed “a small number of vocal users to dominate the discussion.”
Commenters on Yahoo message boards are not a mild mannered bunch – they can range from thoughtful and articulate to downright loony. Comments on any random Yahoo news story might have included bizarre rants about the war in Iraq or odd observations about Jon Stewart’s hair.
Yahoo says it is taking comments on news stories offline until it rolls out discussion forums based on news topics, which it hopes, will “foster a better discussion for all of our readers.”
Stem cell research gets a boost: The Wisconsin foundation that holds patents covering U.S. embryonic stem cell research will waive some of its fees to encourage more industry-sponsored research.
The changes follow criticism from scientists who said the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s fees and its licensing system were driving some investment overseas.
Scientists around the country hailed the policy changes, which will let researchers share their cells for free and allow companies to sponsor research at universities without having to obtain licenses that cost up to $400,000.
“The notion of reducing fees and sharing cell lines and enabling companies to sponsor research at academic institutions is a good thing and should help push the research forward,” said Brock Reeve, executive director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
The Wisconsin foundation controls three patents covering research by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist James Thomson, who in 1998 became the first to grow and isolate human embryonic stem cells. The patents are broadly written to cover the cells and research techniques used by many American scientists.
Novel’s text is made up from text messages: A novel whose narrative consists entirely of mobile phone text messages has been published in Finland.
“The Last Messages” tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.
His messages, and the replies – roughly 1,000 altogether – are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic. “I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think,” said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland.
Little-used “.um” yanked as an Internet domain name: The list of Internet domain names just got shorter.
The Internet’s key oversight agency decided recently to yank “.um” – for U.S. “minor outlying islands.”
No one was using it anyhow, and the organization that has run “.um” – the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute – no longer wanted to bother.
So the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided unanimously last week to eliminate it entirely, bringing the list of domains to 264. There are still separate domains for larger U.S. territories, including “.gu” for Guam and “.vi” for the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Internet has seen new domain names such as “.eu” for Europe and “.travel” for the travel industry in recent years, and ICANN is reviewing a proposal to create an online red-light district under “.xxx.”
Microsoft extends its Windows XP support: On the eve of the consumer launch of its new Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft Corp. is extending the period in which it will offer support for the previous version, Windows XP.
Consumers who own Windows XP machines already were entitled to get customer service on the software up until April 2009. That date reflects Microsoft’s policy of curtailing its support for an edition of Windows two years after a new version hits the market.
On Wednesday, however, Microsoft said consumers who still have Windows XP running after April 2009 will be entitled to five more years of “extended support.” In the extended plan, consumers will still get security fixes, but instead of free service from the Microsoft help desk, they will have to pay for most assistance.
Microsoft said the move was meant to bring the support policies for consumers in line with what businesses already have.
Add The Politico to the list of D.C. might-like-to-reads: Even for a city obsessed with politics, no one would claim that the nation’s capital suffers from a lack of political reporting.
But political junkies and Beltway insiders looking for news have yet another option with the launch this week of a free tabloid and companion Web site.
The Politico aims to distinguish itself not only by hiring top political journalists from The Washington Post and elsewhere but also by integrating a variety of media.
The front page of the newspaper provides multiple plugs for the Web site, where readers can find blogs, video and breaking news. Politico reporters and editors also will appear on local and national television and radio.
Of course, nearly every media outlet is expanding onto the Web and other media. The Post has been among the most aggressive, with a lively Web site and a radio station, Washington Post Radio.
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