Morning Media Summary
The following is a roundup of the morning’s media. We hope you will make a daily stop at Open Market to read the latest updates.
Tech:
U.A.E. Goes Back on Blackberry Ban:
“The United Arab Emirates said Friday it has reached a “regulatory compliant” solution with Blackberry maker Research In Motion, averting a ban on key Blackberry services that would have come into force Monday.”
Microsoft and Adobe: The blind leading the blind to victory:
“The tech press was abuzz yesterday when the New York Times reported a high-level confab was underway between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen — and that a potential merger was on the table. The short-sighted see nothing but downside in such a tie-up, ignoring the management genius that such a move would represent. After all, if your company has a glaring weakness, the best way to plug that hole is to find a business partner with a very similar problem, right?”
Mozilla Releases Firefox 4 Beta For Android / Maemo:
“Mozilla has released the first beta of its Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo. The browser is based on the Firefox 4 core and should be released in the same time frame as the big brother.”
Spammers Using SHY Character to Hide Malicious URLs:
“Spammers have jumped on the little-used soft hyphen (or SHY character) to fool URL filtering devices. According to researchers at Symantec Corp., spammers are larding up URLs for sites they promote with the soft hyphen character, which many browsers ignore.”
Twitter Tracking Sniffs Out Political “Astroturf”:
“Political campaigners have dealt in dirty tricks and smear campaigns since politics was invented, and the usual defense is political as well. This time around computer scientists will step into the fray and offer a way to tell what is truly grass-roots and what is not.”
French ISP ‘Free’ Refusing To Send Out Hadopi Notices To Users [Updated]:
“At the beginning of September, we noted that some French ISPs had indicated that, as the French three strikes process began, with the Hadopi agency sending out its tens of thousands of “first strike” notices, they would ignore the requests. It appears that may be happening. Apparently the French ISP “Free” (which, as I discovered last time I was in France and tried to connect to its WiFi, is not actually free) has decided that it will not pass along the warning notices to users:”
Global Warming / Environment:
From Diversity to Sustainability: How Campus Ideology Is Born:
“Recently I came across a photograph of students at an event gathered around a cake that bore the iced command, “Celebrate Sustainability!” Clearly the candle had been passed. For more than a generation, cakes at campus events have tutored students to “Celebrate Diversity!” Something has changed—besides the frosting.”
Data demonstrates that Tropical Cyclones are pretty low:
“Current Year-to-Date analysis of Northern Hemisphere and Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) AND Power Dissipation Index (PDI) has fallen even further than during the previous 3-years. The global activity is at 33-year lows and at a historical record low where Typhoons form in the Western Pacific. Also see additional blog posting with recognition given to Rush Limbaugh’s tropical cyclone knowledge…”
Cuba, Bahamas push ahead with offshore oil plans:
“Plans in Cuba and neighboring Bahamas to develop offshore oil fields may open big new oil frontiers at the doorstep of the United States, but the Cuban project has sparked opposition in next-door Florida reflecting the usual antagonistic U.S.-Cuba politics. Some Florida political leaders have asked U.S. President Barack Obama to find a way to stop Cuba’s drilling, but so far the White House has stayed out of the issue. Cuban oil exploration plans continue on the communist-led island, where significant fresh drilling is expected to begin early in 2011.”
Insurance / Gambling:
New Dutch Government Shows Interest in Regulating Online Gambling:
“The new right-wing coalition government in the Netherlands has expressed an interest in legalizing online gambling in the European nation, where over 500,000 Dutch citizens are said to gambling online despite the practice being illegal.”
Health / Safety:
Colony Collapse Disorder Causes: Nosema Ceranae Fungus And Insect Iridescent Virus Found As Possible Suspects in Mysterious death of Honey Bees:
“Researchers have a pair of new suspects in the mysterious collapse of honey bee colonies across the country.”
191,000 Lipitor bottles recalled for musty odor:
“Pfizer Inc said it recalled 191,000 bottles of its top-selling Lipitor cholesterol fighter following reports of a musty odor coming from some bottles of the medicine made by a third-party supplier.”
Zimbabwe’s health service need $700 million:
“Zimbabwe’s health minister says the southern African country needs $700 million to restore health services shattered by a decade of political and economic turmoil.”
Hot new idea from New York: Let’s ban sugary drinks for people on food stamps:
“It’s designed as a two-year temporary program so city officials can study the effects and it would only reach beverages, not other forms of junk food, since they’re allegedly the main drivers of obesity.”
Study: Your Weight Affects Your Salary:
“In a country plagued by obesity, eating disorders, and the all-too-common pressure to simply look good, a new study finds that your waist size can play a role in your wallet size.”
Economics:
PayPal Founder Offers Students $100,000 To ‘Stop Out of School’:
“Claiming that colleges “don’t teach much about entrepreneurship,” Thiel is offering up to 20 winners — under the age of 20 — $100,000 grants to fund new businesses.”
Nonprofits Unable To Keep Up With Growing Suburban Poverty, New Report Say:
“The national recession has had a suffocating impact on the middle class, with high rates of unemployment, home foreclosure and other hardships pushing families into poverty.”
72,000 stimulus payments went to dead people:
“A government investigator says 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison.”
Unemployment Probably Rose as U.S. Companies Limited Hiring:
“Unemployment probably climbed in September for a second consecutive month as slower U.S. growth prompted companies to limit hiring, economists said before a report today.”
Legal:
Danny Lampley Arrested: Lawyer Charged With Contempt For Staying Silent During Pledge of Allegiance:
“When a Mississippi judge entered a courtroom and asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, an attorney with a reputation for fighting free speech battles stayed silent as everyone else recited the patriotic oath. The lawyer was jailed.”
Harry Reid: It is ‘my constitutional duty’ to spend federal money:
“In a jab at Angle, who thinks the federal government should be dramatically scaled back and fulfill only those duties expressly enumerated in the Constitution, Reid argued it is his “constitutional duty” to spend federal money.”
Great news: Federal judge finds ObamaCare mandate constitutional:
“The worst part? This really is well in line with the Supreme Court’s ridiculously expansive Commerce Clause jurisprudence. You can’t opt out of interstate marijuana commerce by growing and using your own at home, so why should you be able to opt out of interstate health insurance commerce when you’re bound to use medical facilities somewhere at some point?”
Federal judge upholds key provisions of health care law:
“A federal judge in Detroit today upheld key provisions of President Barack Obama’s landmark health reform law.”
Justice Breyer on Originalism, the Media and the Court:
“Breyer wasn’t trying to be curt or unfriendly, but rather has learned the importance of staying on message — his message — during his current series of media interviews to promote his new book “Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View.”
Labor:
Dems cash-poor tale of woe ignores $250 million coming from unions, liberal groups:
“But unions and liberal groups have said for months that they are spending what amounts to more than $200 million in this election cycle, and an updated count — including a verification with major labor groups that their commitments still stand — shows that amount to be more than $250 million now”
S.E.I.U. Wins Vote Against Rival Union Kaiser Permanente:
“The Service Employees International Union decisively defeated a rival union that was seeking to represent 43,000 employees who worked for Kaiser Permanente in California, the National Labor Relations Board announced Thursday night after counting the votes.”
Transportation/ Land Use:
Christie cancels $8.7 billion Hudson River tunnel project on lack of funds:
“New Jersey Governor Chris Christie canceled a planned commuter-rail tunnel to New York, saying the initial $8.7 billion cost might have reached as high as $14 billion.”
Rice Eminent Domain Overhaul Legislation Advances:
“A bill sponsored by Senator Ronald L. Rice which is intended to create more openness and fairness for homeowners under the eminent domain process was approved by the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee by a vote of 3-1, with one abstention.”
Palo Altans show opposition to bullet train station:
“By a show of hands — or lack thereof — Palo Altans told the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Thursday night something their elected officials had already signaled — Palo Alto is not interested in playing host to a bullet train station.”
Photo via: Alex Barth