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The way I see it, when the next deranged soul chronicles his preparations for murder by posting a video to YouTube in the way that Saari did, perhaps the clips will help authorities stop him. YouTube can act as an early warning system.

After spotting several threatening videos allegedly posted to YouTube by student Matti Saari, Finnish police tracked down and questioned the 22-year-old man on Monday. Authorities there are now answering questions about why they freed Saari, who on Tuesday gunned down 10 classmates and then killed himself at the vocational school he attended.

YouTube bans graphic violence and pornography and removes such content once flagged by users. In most cases, the site doesn’t work proactively to censor speech. To be sure, there are plenty of videos at YouTube advocating the destruction of one group or another.

YouTube this week handed authorities in Finland an opportunity to stop a mass killing.

I think it’s better to know your enemy, especially when he or she might be preparing to harm you.

Screen shot taken from murder suspect's video

There’s no question that hate speech and threats of violence are disturbing and ugly. But if YouTube starts scrubbing the site of such videos, then the public has less information about those who promote these ideas.

An example of that preventive characteristic may have come as I write this. The Associated Press is reporting that police in Sweden on Thursday arrested a 16-year-old-boy after viewing a suspicious clip he allegedly posted to YouTube.

The sick trend of school shootings continues: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and last November’s Jokela High School Massacre, also in Finland. What was different this time was that police were in a position to prevent the slaughter once they saw Saari’s videos on YouTube. The clips featured Saari firing a handgun and making threats. One showed him pointing a gun at the camera and saying: “You will die next.”

In the wake of last November’s slaughter at Jokela High School by Pekka-Eric Auvinen, when the high school student went on a shooting rampage that left nine people dead, some argued that YouTube should do more to block hate speech or clips that promote violence. The thinking here is that YouTube may be the vehicle that inspires and emboldens teens and others to take lives. I’ll just point out the obvious: School shootings were occurring long before YouTube hit the scene.

But there has been a debate about whether videos like the ones Saari posted should even exist on YouTube. Following the latest shooting, YouTube’s “hand’s off” approach toward such content is once again under scrutiny.

He told the Daily Mail: “You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day.” But would that mean I would be forced to watch The Young and the Restless? Every day? Even in meetings? Perhaps not. These devices would, apparently, be voice-activated.

Apparently, most of the technology to make this happen already exists.
Which leads me to believe that someone may have secretly implanted these lenses into my eyeballs. And the TV is on the blink.

Mr. Pearson also believes that we’ll have digital tattoos. No, not ones that say “Momma, I love you.” Rather, ones that pick up the feeling of whatever is happening onscreen and transferring it to your nervous system.

I have no reason to believe that this woman's TV contact lenses are stuck to her eyeballs.

You see, Ian Pearson, a man whose job title is ‘futurologist’, claims that in 10 years’ time, we will all be able to insert a TV screen onto our eyeballs via contact lenses.

I am all for progress. But I am also all for my eyeballs. I went to the eye doctor the other day, and he said those strange flashes in my eye were nothing serious.

Now I’m thinking I’m part of an experiment, one I know nothing about.

(Credit: CC Orin Optiglot)

I think I’ll give Best Buy’s Geek Squad a call and ask them to check my eyeballs out.

Which might be amusing, if one were watching, say, the Golden State Warriors pummeling the hapless, witless Utah Jazz. But a little more concerning if one were enjoying a rerun of Friday the 13th. Or another rivetingly truthful interview with Alex Rodriguez. Or any love scene featuring Keanu Reeves.

The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners. Steve Krausz, general partner for the VC firm, is joining Trusteer’s board of directors.

Trusteer, a provider of Web security services, has raised $6 million in Series B venture capital funding, the company announced on Wednesday.

The timing might seem odd for funding a company that serves the financial industry given the economic downturn propelled by the credit crisis. But Krausz said the market opportunity is significant for Trusteer’s software, which protects online banking, brokerage, health care and retail applications from fraud, even when a user’s computer is infected with malware.

But this much is clear: telling the boss that you’re saving the environment in the process is not likely to be the clincher. Ever.

I heard it said at one of the sessions how IT compensation plans now hinge on how successful you are doing projects faster and doing them more inexpensively. That’s why SaaS advocates believe their timing couldn’t be any better. Maybe that’s misplaced optimism; we’ll see as the year progresses.

By then, I counted eight people–eight–in the ballroom (not including the speaker). Most of the folks attending this two-day kaffeeklatsch couldn’t be bothered with a topic that obviously bored them silly. No matter that
green tech at its most basic is technology done with a low environmental impact. For some reason, a discussion of low-energy technologies, virtualization, and improved cooling techniques weren’t enough to hook them.

Good idea but, well, maybe another day.

As I sat in a cavernous ballroom in San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis Hotel scribbling down notes, it dawned on me that I was one of, literally, a handful of people listening to the lecturer. At most, there were 10 or 15 of us–a pity because as he faced a sea of mostly empty seats, Randy Bias, a technology strategist for GoGrid, a supplier of cloud computing infrastructure, offered up a convincing brief on the energy-saving advantages of virtualization and why it makes sense to offload server functions to the cloud.

He was followed on stage by Adrian Bowles, a director at Datamonitor, who was equally eloquent about why there are compelling business reasons to rip up the procedures of hardware provisioning that IT followed until the recession (some call it a depression) hit. “The old days of ‘buy it, plug it in, and run it’ are probably gone forever,” Bowles said, proceeding to lay out a hard-headed case on behalf of going green.

As they used to say back in my Brooklyn neighborhood, whaddya gonna do? But truth be told, I was puzzled by all the no-shows. It wasn’t as if the other sessions being held at the same time–”SaaS marketing in a downturn” and “Architecting and delivery for SaaS success”–were so much more thrilling.

(Credit:
CNET News)

OpSource is hosting a very timely conference in San Francisco this week on software-as-a-service. What with the meltdown in the economy and continuing concern about the cost and environmental impact of energy use, there’s interest in how cloud computing will impact the IT world.

And what better way to cut through the hype over the so-called green aspects of SaaS than to assemble veteran technologists who might share their experiences with the uninitiated? That’s the usual format: People ready to impart knowledge to people eager to receive knowledge.

Could it be that “green” remains too squishy a concept for most of these red-blooded show-me-the-money types? I buttonholed one attendee in a hallway, who agreed as he was munching down a free ice cream provided by the show’s sponsors. But the proverbial man on the street interview doesn’t suffice.

Alain Lieury, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes in Brittany, France, surveyed a group of 10-year-olds and concluded that homework, reading, or playing Scrabble or sudoku produced benefits that matched or beat the supposed memory-enhancing properties of such titles as Big Brain Academy, Brain Training, and Brain Age.

We’ve contacted Nintendo to get a response to Lieury’s study and will update this post as soon as we hear back.

The latter game contains several types of puzzle challenges designed to stimulate and keep the gray matter “young” and sharp.

“If it doesn’t work on children, it won’t work on adults,” Lieury said.

(Credit:
Nintendo)

“The Nintendo DS is a technological jewel. As a game it’s fine,” the Times Online quotes Lieury as saying. “But it is charlatanism to claim that it is a scientific test.”

Before and after the course, the kids were given tasks including logic tests, memorizing words on a map, doing sums, and interpreting symbols. Researchers found that children using the Nintendo DS system didn’t show any significant improvement in memory tests. They did do 19 percent better in math, but so did the pencil-and-paper group, while the fourth group did 18 percent better.

Of course, some will surely argue that brain games–even if their long-term benefits aren’t scientifically proven–beat out first-person shooters or watching MTV when it comes to a beneficial use of time. And in the end, Lieury’s findings pretty much back reviews by CNET, at least of Brain Age: “Does Brain Age actually make you smarter? We have no idea, but it’s still an interesting puzzle game available at a budget price.”

In the meantime, as the debate continues, have you or your kids played any of Nintendo’s brain games? If so, did you spot any cognitive improvements?

Lieury, a memory specialist, split 67 10-year-olds into four groups, according to the Times Online. The first two took part in a seven-week memory course on a Nintendo DS game console, the third did puzzles with pencils and paper, and the fourth went to school as usual.

Nintendo’s brain games may not help put your kid on the Nobel Prize track after all, according to one professor who put the titles to the test.

Can the mind-bending activities in games like Big Brain Academy make you smarter? The debate continues.

It’s easy to discuss the issues we face now. The economy is in trouble, there are wars being waged across the world, and more people are losing their jobs with each passing day. But what about the significant issues we face five to ten years from now when the technology industry is being hammered by draconian policies and questionable regulations? By then, it might be too late.

The Internet is the lifeblood of the world. Without it, we would be thrown back into the Stone Age. Why? The world runs on it. In just a few short years, the Web has become as important to our lives as water. Can you imagine what would happen if the Internet suddenly disappeared? Almost every single company in the world would be crippled. The entire online industry would die in one day and the stock market would crash. We would be sent into financial turmoil and start fighting over scraps as supermarkets and stores became unable to communicate with vendors.

Look, I’m the first one to say that politicians should care deeply about war and the implications of sending our troops overseas and I fully believe that we should care about the well-being of our citizens. But the economy is just as important as those issues, and technology, in my opinion, is the most important sector in our economy.

The United States is supposed to be the world’s leader. But how can we expect to maintain that title if our own leaders don’t recognize the position they’ve put us in?

And yet, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama have spent considerable time talking about technology or how to help start-ups in Silicon Valley grow. Neither candidate has discussed the implications of the U.S. having some of the slowest broadband speeds among developed countries in the world. Neither candidate has said much about how their friends in Congress were instrumental in creating laws and tax codes that make it absolutely impossible for a smart CEO to launch an IPO, and in the process, ruin our ability to compete across the world.

Maybe I have a vested interest in seeing technology take center stage in American politics. After all, I believe that it’s the most important industry in the world, thanks to the Internet and the billions of dollars it generates for the economy each year, but I know many disagree. Some say that the health care industry matters more than technology and others believe the environmental industry takes the cake. Good arguments can be made for any industry, but I think more politicians need to see the value of technology.

But just because that happens, it doesn’t make it right.

Check out Don’s Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.

With election day fast approaching and Americans running to the polls to cast their vote for the next president of the United States, I thought it was an appropriate time to discuss when (if ever) technology will take center stage in American politics.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe technology will ever take center stage in American politics. It’s too difficult of an issue for politicians who need to worry about war, poverty, and health to even consider caring about in a difficult campaign. And let’s face it–more pressing issues usually come up that put technology on the back burner.

Now, I understand that and I’m betting you do too. But when will politicians finally realize that caring about technology really does matter and they can’t just set it aside like it’s a fringe concern?

I may be talking to myself and chances are, not one politician will listen, but I’m calling on every politician who cares about this country and wants to see the U.S. succeed economically to recognize the policy mistakes that are being made and develop a real understanding for this industry so they can right those wrongs.

If they don’t, we will face an economic and political crisis that could have serious implications long into the future.

Although it stumbled in 2004 when Bush won the presidential election handily over Senator John Kerry, MoveOn’s influence helped Democrats take control of both houses of Congress in 2006 and see President Barack Obama become the 44th president of the U.S. Liberal rating: 5 out of 5

Conservative sites

Since then, Drudge Report has become a daily haven for conservatives who want to take aim at liberals. It works: Drudge Report has over 3 million unique visitors each month, according to its internal figures. Conservative rating: 4 out of 5

That said, Huffington Post does feature many more news stories than it did in the past and most seem to be more objective than those found on other left-leaning sites. But once you dig into the comments and columnist commentary, it becomes blatantly clear that Huffington Post still has a solid liberal following and it does its best to cater to that group. Liberal rating: 3.5 out of 5

FactCheck.org
FactCheck.org is a self-proclaimed “nonpartisan” site that tries to hold politicians accountable. And by providing a wealth of research, it does a fine job.

Disclosure: Political Base was founded by CNET Co-Founder, Shelby Bonnie

Instead of espousing one side’s beliefs, FactCheck.org tackles a politician’s record or major issue and sets the record straight. It performs in-depth research to find out if both sides are being truthful in their statements on a subject and allows the reader to formulate their own opinions off the collected facts. It’s a great source for those who want to cut through all the politics.

Drudge Report
Drudge Report may just be a collection of links, but critics say they tend to lean to the right. Perhaps that’s because Matt Drudge, the site’s founder, became famous by being the first source to break the Monica Lewinsky scandal after Newsweek decided not to publish it.

Daily Kos
Started in 2002 by Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos provides liberals with an outlet to express their anger with the right. The blog is filled with left-leaning opinions on the day’s topics and traces its roots back to “those dark days when an oppressive and war-crazed administration suppressed all dissent as unpatriotic and treasonous.”

Sites for liberals

LiberalOasis
If you’re looking for one of the most liberal sites on the Web, look no further than LiberalOasis. The blog has a stated goal of “revitalizing liberalism” and provides commentary on the political world each morning.

Unlike National Review, which reports on the news, The Weekly Standard’s writers opine on the political events from the week and the site is populated with columns written specifically for the print version of the magazine. Because of that, it doesn’t offer much unique online content. Regardless, it’s still a popular destination for those who don’t want to spend money on the subscription. Conservative rating: 4 out of 5

TownHall
The self-proclaimed, “No. 1 conservative Web site,” TownHall provides political commentary and analysis from more than 100 leading conservative columnists to “amplify those conservative voices in America’s political debates.”

As the organization’s “About” page explains, MoveOn.org “conducts major campaigns, from its work to protect the Supreme Court from a hard-right justice to its campaign to defeat the right wing and elect moderates and progressives in 2008.”

Malkin first started as a newspaper reporter over a decade ago. Since then, she has become a well-known conservative thinker, nationally-syndicated columnist, and author of three antiliberal books. She updates her blog daily with antiliberal and right-leaning opinions. Conservative rating: 5 out 5

It must be working. The site has more than 2 million daily visits and a full list of paid staffers that churn out content. Liberal rating: 5 out 5

The Nation
The Nation proudly calls itself “the flagship of the left.” It should: the publication, which has been operating since 1865, frequently attacks conservative thinkers (a recent blog post pokes fun at conservative pundit, William Kristol, for losing his column in The New York Times op-ed page) and heaps praise on the left.

The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard made its debut in 1995. Since then, the publication, which is edited by William Kristol and Fred Barnes, two Fox News contributors, has become one of the leaders in the conservative punditry space.

Political Base
Political Base is a structured wiki that allows readers to edit much of the text, giving the site’s community the opportunity to compare data, while still creating and editing the political content. The site is broken down into money, people, issues, elections, and other categories and each features posts taking one side or another.

TownHall takes aim at the barriers between news and opinion and provides an arena for conservatives to espouse their opinions on the state of the world. The site is often updated with discussions on why President Obama’s policies may hurt the world. Conservative rating: 5 out 5

Not every political site has an agenda, however. Here are sites that, by not taking anyone’s side and focusing on in-depth research, provide a nonpartisan view of the world of politics.

Huffington Post
Although Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post’s founder, claims her site does its best to provide content outside politics, the vast majority of its visitors go there for liberal commentary on world events.

The Nation provides readers with videos, podcasts, and a student section where it aims to enlighten those in post-secondary schools. All the while, it plans to “wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation.” Liberal rating: 4 out of 5

Project Vote Smart
“Picture this: thousands of citizens (conservative and liberal alike) working together, spending endless hours researching the backgrounds and records of thousands of political candidates and elected officials to discover their voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographical data (including their work history) and evaluations of them generated by over 100 competing special interest groups.”

Now that the U.S. has witnessed a peaceful transfer of power, some in the country are saying that it’s time to unite. And while that may be possible for some, others still frequent political commentary sites that aim to sway public opinion in one way or another.

Armed with more than 10 writers, Spot-On provides readers with viewpoints from both sides of the aisle and allows its writers to say whatever they think. The content is individually liberal or individually conservative, but taken together, the site’s vision is nonpartisan.

National Review Online
National Review Online is the online version of the conservative magazine of the same name. Designed for the Republican or conservative, the site features news, commentary, and opinion on some of the most important political happenings of the day.

The vast majority of those posts take aim at conservative thinkers and Republicans in Congress, while being apologetic to left-leaning politicians and ideals. The site also features a Links section for those who want more content from liberals and features posts from other sources across the Web that fall in line with its agenda. Liberal rating: 5 out 5

That’s Project Vote Smart in a nutshell. The organization provides outstanding information on every current or prospective elected official and does what it can to inform the public about the respective person’s entire history. Its research is exhaustive and its accuracy is never put into question. Project Vote Smart is one of the best nonpartisan sites on the Web.

Political Base also provides information on political candidates, including public data on campaign donations and a full listing of celebrity donations. The site features commentary from all sides. And although some posts are extremely liberal and others are extremely conservative, the simple fact remains: the site provides all views.

There are people on both sides of the political fence–left or right–that use the following sites as sources for their own political understanding and to help them formulate their own agenda. To those folks, these biased sites provide value. But to some, nonpartisan sites are important and they want to hear the unbiased truth. Either way, politics is an extremely contentious business. And whether you’re looking for liberal-leaning posts on the greatness of President Obama or conservative discussions on the problems with the president’s stimulus package, you can find it all in the following sites.

MoveOn.org
More of a political action committee than a content site, MoveOn.org has enjoyed growing popularity thanks to hard-hitting commentary on former President Bush and other major Republican figures.

The National Review is widely considered one of the most influential conservative publications in the world and as it explains in its “About” page, it constantly aims at providing the “right’s take” on political issues facing the world. Conservative rating: 4 out of 5

Spot-On
Spot-On originally started in 2003 as a forum for Chris Nolan, the site’s founder, to express her opinions on politics. Since then, the site has grown into a syndication platform where clients can acquire articles on the site and place them into their own publication.

Nonpartisan sites

Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin may be just one person, but her conservative punditry has ignited fierce debate across the Web.

In a company blog announcement, Spotify did not get specific about the extent of the breach. Here’s part of the post:

The company, based in Europe, was not immediately available for comment so it was unclear how many of its users were affected or to what extent. But in an article published by Britain’s Guardian, the newspaper’s technology correspondent reported that “thousands of users’ personal details may have been stolen by hackers.”

Along with passwords, registration information such as your email address, birth date, gender, postal code and billing receipt details were potentially exposed. Credit card numbers are not stored by us and were not at risk. All payment data is handled by a secure 3rd party provider.

If you have an account that was created on or before December 19, 2008, we strongly suggest that you change your password and strongly encourage you to change your passwords for any other services where you use the same password.

Hackers were able to penetrate Spotify’s computer network, potentially exposing the personal information and passwords of some of the music service’s users.

At the time of this writing the bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce. The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act has no co-sponsors.

The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (H.R. 414) would “require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken.” What’s more, the bill would prohibit such handsets from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The text of the bill is short, and King’s office has not released any public statements. Yet, the reasoning behind the legislation is clear. The text states that “Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone.”

If you think the biggest problem with a camera phone is the poor quality of the photos, a member of Congress might make you think again. Earlier this month, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would ban camera phones from having a silent mode when taking a picture.

I usually spend my video-allocated cash on other formats, but there is one place where Blu-ray will always win out for me: rentals. I won’t stream films, and I won’t rent DVDs. Blu-ray is the only format that I will rent from my local video store or get from Netflix. It’s as simple as that.

When the price difference becomes negligible between the two formats on store shelves, that’s when I’ll start buying Blu-ray films by the bushel. But until then, Blu-ray’s niche in my entertainment life is in rentals, where the price difference is slight, and the relative quality is great.

The same is true (in most cases) when I stream films through my Apple TV. More often than not, the “HD” film doesn’t look nearly as nice as it should, and part of that is due to the fact that those films are available only in 720p, but the other part is that, well, they’re just not that great over a streaming solution.

And I’m starting to believe I’m not alone. According to market research firm Adams Research, film studios witnessed a 23.4 percent decline in DVD and Blu-ray sales during the fourth quarter of 2008. Although the company didn’t break out sales of Blu-ray and DVD, and failed to mention why it believed this happened besides the economy, I don’t think that it’s a stretch to say more folks are switching to Blu-ray and choosing rentals over retail.

At this point, when I’m ready to start watching a film at my house, I want the most value for my money. I can’t get that with streaming services today because so far, at least in my experience, their ease of use is overshadowed by their general lack of outstanding visual and audio quality. And I won’t rent DVDs because it doesn’t make much sense, when Blu-ray films are available in the next shelf over for $1 or $2 more. The price difference is so small that it makes perfect sense for me to look for the film on Blu-ray.

In my long search for great visuals, I’ve decided to rent Blu-ray films. Notice how I said rent? Yeah, well, I still won’t buy them–they’re too expensive.

It’s the perfect rental format.

According to Nielsen VideoScan figures for the week ending February 22, Blu-ray captured 10 percent market share, and sales were up 29.31 percent over the same week last year. DVD captured the remaining 90 percent share, but its revenues were down almost 12 percent, year over year.

Granted, that’s just one week’s figures, and it doesn’t mean much in the broader sense, but if you look at previous weeks, those figures are much the same. In fact, Blu-ray is slowly gaining ground on DVD, and its 10 percent share is actually an impressive figure, given its history.

Sony’s Blu-ray Disc is arguably overpriced and overhyped, and it probably won’t be nearly as successful as DVD, but I came across an interesting tidbit of information over the weekend that may make some change their minds about the success of the high-definition video format.

Blu-ray simply looks best on my HDTV. It may not provide a huge value jump over DVD, and more often than not, the difference in picture quality is negligible, when I compare it to a film in my upconverting DVD player, but for $1 more at my local Hollywood Video or Netflix, it’s worth using the next-generation format and finding those certain films that really do look much better on Blu-ray than anything else (I’m looking at you, “Dark Knight”).

I’ve had too many lackluster experiences with streaming films. More often than not, if I stream a film through my cable video-on-demand box, it will look grainy, and its quality is the same as DVD even though it’s advertised as an HD film. I watched “W” recently via a stream, and along with an absolutely ludicrous story, I found that the film’s visual and audio quality were downright awful. But the worst part was having paid $4.99 for a DVD-quality film that was supposed to be in high definition.

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