] 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

] In order to promote wireless networking, Intel is
] dedicating an entire advertising campaign to its Centrino
] processors
]
] Intel on Monday will begin coaxing notebook buyers to
] "unwire" as part of a new, multimillion-dollar ad
] campaign designed to introduce the Centrino family of
] chips.
]
] Intel, which plans to introduce the new chip family at a
] 12 March event in New York, will kick off the Centrino
] campaign with teaser TV ads.

ZDNet |UK| - News - Business - Story - Intel ad campaign cries 'Unwire'

] When Mazda decided to bring back its legendary RX sports
] car a few years ago, it feared it would be eating the
] Nissan Z%u2019s dust. The resurrected Z would hit the
] streets a year ahead of the RX-8. To get a jump on the
] competition, Mazda considered running RX-8 teaser ads.
] But still, that didn%u2019t seem enough to overcome the
] deafening buzz the Z was generating.

Pixels to Pavement

] Some might call it child's play, but the art 16-year-old
] Veronica Varos creates for her Web sites using Paint Shop
] Pro is anything but childish.
]
] Veronica, who taught herself HTML at age 12, has been
] designing Web graphics using Paint Shop Pro for the past
] four years. What started out as a way to pass the time
] has turned into a profitable hobby for the Pennsylvania
] teen.
]
] Veronica's Web adventure began with her interest in
] music.
]
] "She's a big Hanson fan," Linda Varos, Veronica's mother
] said, "She's been real involved with them since they
] first launched. We let her get so involved with the
] Hanson community online because it offered some semblance
] of safety."
]
] It was seeing other Hanson sites on the Web that first
] piqued Veronica's interest in Web and graphic design.

Pennsylvania Teen Creates Award-winning Web Graphics with Paint Shop Pro

] TOKYO -- Sega Corp., grappling with a plan to merge with
] a pinball-machine company, now has two huge potential
] suitors mulling their own bids for the ailing videogame
] maker: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and videogame giant
] Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS), Friday's Wall Street Journal
] reported.
]
] The two U.S. companies are separately exploring the
] possibility of buying all or parts of Sega, according to
] people familiar with the situation. These people stressed
] that the two potential suitors have yet to hold formal
] talks with Sega, and no deal appears imminent.

Smartmoney.com: Breaking News: Microsoft, Electronic Arts Mull Separate Bids for Sega

] Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can
] perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than
] 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It
] runs on DNA.
]
] A year ago, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of
] Science in Rehovot, Israel, unveiled a programmable
] molecular computing machine composed of enzymes and DNA
] molecules instead of silicon microchips. Now the team has
] gone one step further. In the new device, the single DNA
] molecule that provides the computer with the input data
] also provides all the necessary fuel.

Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes

] SAN FRANCISCO (TMS) - The parties at Salon.com have been
] rather lean lately.
]
] Late last year, the pioneering online magazine celebrated
] its seventh anniversary with a small gathering in its
] downtown office here. In 1999 Salon had leased two floors
] in a new office tower just off Market Street. With bare
] concrete underfoot and exposed ducts and wiring overhead,
] the office was all dot-com swagger with stunning city
] views to match Salon's ambition as a public company that
] would leverage its brand into spinoff businesses in
] everything from television to software.
]
] Those grand visions never came to pass. Instead, the
] greatly shrunken Salon staff in November was lifting
] margaritas in toast to its unlikely survival. "Almost
] from the beginning," Salon founder David Talbot wrote in
] a note posted online, "our little magazine has carried on
] its back a host of doomsayers, idly kicking our sides
] with their heels as they enumerated the reasons our days
] were numbered. No one wanted to read serious articles
] online, much less pay for them. Only sites that
] specialized in finance or tech coverage would survive. We
] were too literary, too edgy."
]
] Talbot wasn't at the party; he was on the road trying to
] raise money to keep the lights on.

The Beaufort Gazette: Salon.com clings to dot-com swagger

] Harvard University has given the former software
] executive a fellowship at its Berkman Center for the
] Internet and Society, part of Harvard Law School, in
] order to head up the new Blogs at Harvard Initiative.
] Winer, who studied math at Tulane University before
] collecting his master's degree in computer science from
] the University of Wisconsin, will instruct Harvard
] students and faculty in the art of posting daily
] dispatches to the Web.
]
] Before becoming blogging guru to the academic elite,
] Winer founded and was chief executive of Millbrae,
] Calif.-based UserLand Software, which specializes in
] content-publishing tools and services. He wrote or
] contributed to a number of relevant specifications,
] including SOAP, XML-RPC, RSS and OPML. He is perhaps best
] known for launching Scripting News, one of the Internet's
] longest-running Web logs

Blogging Goes To Harvard