] GUILDERLAND, N.Y. (AP)--Officials at a mall where a man
] was arrested for refusing to remove an anti-war T-shirt
] asked Wednesday that trespassing charges against him be
] dropped.
]
] Police said managers from Crossgates Mall called and
] asked that the complaint against Stephen Downs be
] withdrawn. Police Chief James Murley said he would
] support the mall's decision.

Mall Wants to Drop Peace T-Shirt Charges

] Nader takes on the SEC, will a campaign be next? Bit by
] bit, Ralph Nader does what he does best, annoying those
] who abuse power. This last year, he has kept with
] advocacy that is in parallel with smart campaign strategy
] and the creation of the SEC watchdog group is an example
] of that. The Greens are still debating him in the forums,
] wondering if he is still their guy. Maybe they should be
] asking if he's OUR guy?

Nader takes on the SEC, will a campaign be next? | Metafilter

] A man was charged with trespassing in a mall after he
] refused to take off a T-shirt that said "Peace on Earth"
] and "Give peace a chance."
]
]
] Mall security approached Stephen Downs, 61, and his
] 31-year-old son, Roger, on Monday night after they were
] spotted wearing the T-shirts at Crossgates Mall in a
] suburb of Albany, the men said.
]
]
] The two said they were asked to remove the shirts made at
] a store there, or leave the mall. They refused.
]
]
] The guards returned with a police officer who repeated
] the ultimatum. The son took his T-shirt off, but the
] father refused.

Newsday.com - Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt

] Last week, Google unveiled a new method of distributing
] its paid listings, placing them on web pages, as opposed
] to the traditional means of inserting them into search
] results. The new product, Google Content-Targeted
] Advertising, will likely accelerate the already rapid
] growth of contextual advertising. It also sees Google
] offering its second non-search product within a month,
] following on the company's acquisition of blog-firm Pyra
] Labs.
]
] Contextual advertising isn't new, yet in preparing to
] write this article, I also failed to find any good
] definitions for it. Do a Google search for "contextual
] advertising," and you might come away feeling that it may
] be unethical and has something to do with "scumware."
] Doesn't sound very attractive, does it?

Google Throws Hat Into The Contextual Advertising Ring

] When 50 Cent's LP, Get Rich or Die Tryin', dropped on
] February 6, it was something like the 20th release of his
] career, though the first official album you could find
] from the rapper on the shelves at your favorite record
] store.
]
]
] 50, the latest star to come out of Eminem and Dr. Dre's
] Shady/Aftermath camp, had already found great success in
] the music industry. But not that music industry. The
] other music industry, the one where labels don't exist
] and there are no highly paid Lizzie Grubmans to publicize
] your new release, where the CDs are sold by vendors
] hawking them off dirty blankets on city streets, and
] bootlegging is encouraged. Welcome to the world of
] mixtapes %u2014 artists as big as P. Diddy use mixtapes
] as radio for the streets, and new rappers will do
] anything they can to get on them if they want to make a
] name for themselves.

MTV.com: Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry

] The business of providing Internet search technology has
] come full circle and is hot again after waxing cold
] during the new-media wars of the 1990s. If anything, the
] reversal of fortune shows how wobbly Web business models
] still are, highlighting how nobody has truly figured out
] which businesses belong together online.
]
] Consider the recent action in the online search industry:
]
] Yahoo Inc. said two months ago that it would pay $235
] million to buy Inktomi, which provides Web search results
] to portals such as Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN. That was a
] switcheroo for Sunnyvale's Yahoo, which started life as a
] human-edited Web directory and played down the value of
] automated search as it evolved into an online media
] company.

Internet search technology finds new life / Welter of deals shows portals giving industry a serious second look

] Education experts warned yesterday of the potentially
] damaging effect on literacy of mobile phone text
] messaging after a pupil handed in an essay written in
] text shorthand.
]
] The 13-year-old girl submitted the essay to a teacher in
] a state secondary school in the west of Scotland and
] explained that she found it "easier than standard
] English".

The teenager's essay began: "My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kds FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc." Translation: "My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York, it's a great place."

Telegraph | News | Girl writes English essay in phone text shorthand

] Every year, Chris Hoofnagle organizes the US Big Brother
] Awards under the auspices of a public interest group
] called Privacy International. "These are awards we give
] out to government institutions and businesses who've done
] the most to invade our privacy," says Hoofnagle, who also
] serves as deputy counsel for the Electronic Privacy
] Information Center (EPIC), another public-interest group
] concerned with maintaining civil rights on the Internet.
]
] The awards won't be announced until March, but Hoofnagle
] recently received a nomination that he found particularly
] worthy of investigation. Representatives of a Web site
] called Google Watch sent him an e-mail complaining about
] privacy infringements by none other than the Web's most
] popular search engine. Basically, the e-mail accused
] Google of disseminating spyware. Google, the message
] said, was using its Toolbar application to collect reams
] of information about the surfing habits of the world's PC
] users.

Is Google Invading Your Privacy?

] Douglas Meisner, Sr. Product Manager Jasc Software,
] explains the new features in Paint Shop Photo Album in
] our exclusive audio interview.
]
] Jasc Software released the public beta version of Jasc
] Paint Shop Pro 8, a photo and graphics editor that
] combines automatic and precision photo editing and
] graphic design tools with an integrated learning system.
]
] Jasc AfterShot, the photo program we use at the New
] Digital Reporter regularly, is morphing into Paint Shop
] Photo Album (MSRP: $49, March). AfterShot is the only
] image utility on the market that allows the editing and
] recording of photo audio annotations.

The New Digital Reporter

] The third generation of all-singing, all-dancing mobile
] phone services has hit the UK high street but for the
] moment without the handsets needed to use the network.
]
] The new service will include person-to-person video
] calling, global positioning and interactive entertainment
] with video clips and games.

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