February 10, 2006

To see the future of media, go to Slashdot.org - Feb. 10, 2006

If you want to see the future of media, go to Slashdot.org.

Two things distinguish it — it’s the most popular news and information site with the tech cognoscenti, particularly programmers and engineers. And all of its content is created by its users.

Actually, no. Slashdot is viewed with increasing suspicion by tech cognoscenti because of the credulous approach of the editors. And, of course, having content created by users is nothing new or special.

This article just makes Fortune look like an old-media dinosaur.

I love charismatic megafauna and follow news about them with great interest. I want to see them preserved. But the discussion is not going to get very far until people on the conservation side acknowledge a fundamental truth. To farmers and to parents with small children, food or 2)dangerous pests who fully deserve the immediate death penalty. Peaceful co-existence ain’t gonna happen.,

it’s this line of thought that leads me to support Pleistocene rewilding.

Google bringing search to historical manuscripts | InfoWorld | News | 2006-02-10 | By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

History buffs can search George Washington’s manuscripts online today for terms like “revolution,” but only thanks to the tireless workers who transcribed the hand-written documents into digital form.

Soon, many other hand-written historical documents could be made available for the public to search — and through considerably less effort — if a research project funded by Google (Profile, Products, Articles) and being executed by three universities works out as planned.

The project, announced by Dublin City University (DCU) on Thursday …

… is an unfortunate piece of credulous puffery. Microsoft has patiently invested tens of millions of dollars in handwriting recogntion over a period of many years. It’s still tough. Google is very late to the game.