journal

North Korea pardons Current TV journalists

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issued a "special pardon" to two Current TV journalists who were recently charged for perpetrating "hostile acts" against the communist state, according to various news reports.

We "are overjoyed by the news of their pardon," the journalists' families said in a statement.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton reportedly arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Tuesday in a publicly unannounced visit to meet with Kim. During this meeting, the North Korean leader ordered the two prisoners released, according to the Associated Press.

"While this solely private mission … Read more

Basic note maker

Debrief offers users a fast way to take down notes and stay on top of their ideas. With its simple layout and directions, this tool will find many fans.

The program's interface may initially worry some, but they will soon discover most of the icons crowding the top of this program are unnecessary. A few minutes of experimenting and clicking around will serve the user much better than a trip to the Help file, though it's available. The program functions primarily as a note-taker. Users click on an icon to write a note and treat it like a … Read more

Report: Apple, RIM squeeze huge smartphone profits

Apple and Research In Motion bring in big bucks from their smartphones, thanks in large part to heavy subsidies from the cellphone carriers, says a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal.

Last year Apple and RIM made up only 3 percent of global cellphone sales, but took in 35 percent of operating profits for the market, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff. This year Modoff expects the cellphone market for the two firms to grow to 5 percent, and winning 58 percent of total operating profits, according to the Journal (subscription required).

The high subsidies charged by major … Read more

Masterfully manage your notes

Tinderbox is a professional-grade information-management tool for creating, organizing, using, and sharing notes--especially large or complex sets of data, whether you're composing a novel, drafting a presentation, or performing academic research. Tinderbox has a very visual interface that provides a lot of flexibility, giving you multiple options for viewing notes (in map, outline, chart, treemap, or explorer windows), which you can drag and drop into hierarchical "containers" along with various contextual properties and links. A powerful, open-ended system of "agents"--basically, persistent searches--scans your notes continuously, identifying patterns or attributes and then executing macro-like actions. … Read more

Record your thoughts

The developers behind MacJournal admit that you can use a traditional word processor or text editor for journaling--but they say that's like Lance Armstrong using a bike from Wal-Mart to race in the Tour de France. Aside from the fact that Armstrong would probably still kick butt on a Wal-Mart bike, they've got a point: MacJournal is one of the best journaling programs available for the Mac, with a huge range of features that are useful whether you're keeping a journal for yourself, taking notes for classes or meetings, organizing random snippets of info, or prepping blog … Read more

Open source gets its first legal journal

As a law student doing my thesis on open-source licensing (PDF), it was nearly impossible to find any substantive legal papers on the topic. In fact, the only one I can remember is Ira Heffan's excellent "Copyleft: Licensing Collaborative Works in the Digital Age" from Stanford Law Review in 1997.

This week, in a sign of just how far open source has come in the past decade, the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSSLR) was launched, aiming to "bring the highest standards to bear in analysis and comment on all aspects of Free … Read more

Less is more. The tweet(ed) revolution.

Looking at the many positive responses it received, Pico Iyer’s recent NY Times blog post on "The Joy of Less" appears to have struck a chord:

"But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes … Read more

Wall Street Journal plans micropayments model

The Wall Street Journal is expected to begin charging nonsubscribers micropayments for access to individual articles, according to a report Sunday in The Financial Times.

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Journal, told The Financial Times that "a sophisticated micropayments service" will launch this autumn. The system would charge small fees to occasional users who may not be willing to pay more than $100 a year for a subscription to WSJ.com, Thomson said.

The Journal is one of the few large daily newspapers still managing to charge for online content. The New … Read more

Google: We're good for journalism

Google is under attack for profiting from content produced by newspaper executives, magazine publishers, and The Associated Press, but the company's Marissa Mayer on Wednesday sought to convince the U.S. Senate that Google adds to journalism, too.

The most recent attack, by Forbes.com Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, decried "the parasitical nature of its business model" and asserted that Google makes about $60 million a year directing people to the Forbes site.

Mayer, who is vice president of search products and user experience and manages Google's search and Google News sites, wants people to see … Read more