THE decision by the United States and Israel to develop and then deploy the Stuxnet computer worm against an Iranian nuclear facility late in George W. Bush’s presidency marked a significant and dangerous turning point in the gradual militarization of the Internet. Washington has begun to cross the Rubicon. If it continues, contemporary warfare […]
Na Imprensa Internacional
European media and technology leaders urged national governments on Wednesday to “wake up,” saying they needed to overhaul regulations for the digital era or risk falling further behind in a sector critical to generating sorely needed economic growth. “Change, fueled by the Internet and convergence, is happening at lightning speed, and sadly, we have […]
The Obama administration has survived a train wreck. We’re not so sure about the media. During the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over Obamacare in March, CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin famously said this: “This was a train wreck for the Obama administration. This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. All of […]
Rupert Murdoch has a few things in common with Warren Buffett. They are both 81, they both love newspapers and they both run public companies named after their worst investments from the past. Mr Buffett’s is Berkshire Hathaway , a New England textile company, Mr Murdoch’s is News Corp . The difference is that […]
Can celebrity and fashion save Pakistan from its dark image? That’s the proposition of Hello! Pakistan, a glossy new magazine that has opened a new window into the lives of the country’s gilded elite, and rekindled an old debate about their role in a troubled society. Hello! Pakistan is the local edition of the […]
With the debut of Aaron Sorkin's new show The Newsroom on HBO this Sunday, I've been thinking about the best film depictions of journalism in American history. Any 'best-of' list is inherently subjective, but you definitely don't need to be a journalist to appreciate the sense of purpose these classic films provide. So without […]
Mexico will elect a new president on Sunday, completing a 90-day campaign in which the media has been one of the key issues. Traditional news outlets have been sharply criticized for playing favorites — most notably Televisa, the largest Spanish-language TV network in the world. The ledes of a couple Guardian stories lay out […]
THE greatest bird news of our lifetime occurred at the height of the George W. Bush administration. In April 2005, amid a pageant of flags and cabinet ministers in Washington, John Fitzpatrick, the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, announced that an ivory-billed woodpecker had been spotted for the first time in more […]
In 2005 when their city drowned, the staff of the New Orleans Times-Picayune stayed in it longer than common sense and simple prudence would dictate. People who had lost homes, loved ones, and their city itself concentrated on gathering the news and putting it out. They finally left huddled in newspaper delivery trucks, water […]
Ryszard Kapuscinski: A Life. By Artur Domoslawski. Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Verso; 464 pages; $34.95 and £25. Buy from Amazon.com RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI’S colourful writing, especially about Africa, gained him a global reputation in the early 1980s. He became celebrated for his descriptions of Haile Selassie’s tenebrous court in Ethiopia, the overthrow of the shah […]
Aaron Sorkin's new show is unpleasant, heavy-handed, and often inaccurate. "He's not going to look like an elite Northeastern prick?" a cameraman asks MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer), a cable news executive producer, at the end of the first episode of The Newsroom. The "he" is Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), a formerly bland anchor who […]
Wikipedia was founded on the notion the Internet is a self-correcting machine: by harnessing collective intelligence through an open-source platform, the facts will ultimately come to light. But a new study shows that collective intelligence generally produces biased information, except in a narrow range of circumstances. Northwestern’s Shane Greenstein and the University of Southern […]
Andrew Sarris, who loved movies, is dead at 83. He was the most influential American film critic of his time, and one of the jolliest. More than anyone else, he was responsible for introducing Americans to the Auteur Theory, the belief that the true author of a film is its director. Largely because of […]
Complicating its efforts to accelerate advertising revenue, Facebook has agreed to make it clear to users that when they click to like a product on Facebook, their names and photos can be used to plug the product. They will also be given a chance to decline the opportunity to be unpaid endorsers. The changes […]
Who hasn’t received a sketchy alert that they’ve won an African lottery, inherited millions from a long-lost relative in Eastern Europe or had a security breach of their bank account? Old high school classmates aren’t the only ones making connections on Facebook. The crooks are too. There’s the Osama bin Laden death video that […]
The best job I’ve ever had was as an editorial writer at The Birmingham News in Alabama in the early/mid 1990s. It was a perfect combination of boss, colleagues, place, subject matter, and time of life. I left in 1995 because my then-fiancée (now-wife) had taken a job in Washington, D.C., and I was […]
What is happening with all these breaches of our national security? Why are intelligence professionals talking so much—divulging secret and sensitive information for all the world to see, and for our adversaries to contemplate? In the past few months we have read that the U.S. penetrated al Qaeda in Yemen and foiled a terror […]
Hewlett-Packard is laying off 27,000 people. Yahoo is treading water. Facebook IPO shares got flipped and then flopped. Has Silicon Valley reached the end of the line? Will everyone just develop me-too iPhone apps? I knew just the guy to prove otherwise. The entrance to his building is littered with the gaudy red, blue, […]
A report published by the Interacting Advertising Bureau, an association that brings together the main web sites and Internet portals in Brazil, said that the Internet has surpassed newspapers and has become the second-most preferred medium for advertising investments in Brazil during the first quarter of the 2012 year, reported iG. The research was […]
ONE American in three aged 65 or older uses social networks, says a new report by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank. But it is the small surfers, not the silver ones, who are currently making waves. Facebook is examining ways to allow children under the age of 13 to use its service, with […]