mike

WASHINGTON--When the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, established via the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, last week held a meeting at the U.S. Department of Commerce to discuss how to best protect kids online, members may not have been expecting to talk so much about offline behavior.

The 29-person panel, which includes representatives of Internet companies, academia, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies appointed in April by U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, offered recommendations ranging from self-protection to cyberbullying prevention. The common themes: exhibiting the same self-awareness and outward sensitivity online … Read more

Mike Volpi's battle with his former employer Joost is now headed to court.

Joost announced on Friday that it has filed a lawsuit against Volpi, alleging that the former CEO used trade secrets and other confidential information in a bid to acquire a majority share in Skype from eBay.

The lawsuit comes just days after Joost relieved Volpi of his duties as chairman and a member of the board, saying that it was investigating his actions while he was chairman.

The fracas has its roots in the complicated relationship between online video provider Joost and VoIP provider Skype.

Joost … Read more

Heaping criticism and scorn on media companies has worked well for Mike Masnick, operator of the popular blog Techdirt.

Masnick is the firey commentator who blasts copyright owners and anyone else he believes has failed to accept that in the Digital Age most of the control now rests with consumers. He strongly maintains, however, that there are still ways for entertainers, artists, and journalists to make money. They just have to be developed. Plenty of people disagree with him of course.

Still, there's no denying that his brand of criticism has resonated with the growing number of techies, bloggers, … Read more

Former Joost CEO Mike Volpi has been stripped of his post as chairman and removed from the board by a shareholder vote, the online video service confirmed Saturday. Joost also said it is investigating Volpi's actions during his time as chairman and chief executive.

Joost was co-founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who also co-founded Internet phone company Skype. Volpi left Joost as CEO a few months ago, taking a position in July as a partner at Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm. Index Ventures is part of the consortium that earlier this month signed a deal with eBay to acquire a 65 percent stake in Skype, … Read more

Plenty of news to talk about, but first we recap our weekends. We all used the holiday weekend differently: Jeff sailed a boat (in the sun!) on the Potomac river; Wilson became the only Asian Agent Double Oh Nothing for Her Majesty's Secret Service, and I had the unfortunate experience of actually laboring at work on Labor Day. Hear all the juicy details on the first half of the show.

Next up, we talk about Google's latest product, a version of the popular Monopoly real estate game that uses Google Maps as a giant playing board! Turns out that this isn't the first role-playing game to incorporate the popular online mapping Web site: users found a way to play RISK using Google Maps when it first debuted in 2005!

Speaking of things to come, we always like taking a look into the future, so this week in time travel, we bring you Boondock Saints 2! Every male born after the year 1970 should be well aware of the original Boondock Saints, which featured two brothers on a mission to cleanse their city of scumbags--classic story, but something about the theatrical gunfights and archetypal characters made it into a cult classic. We're excited about the new one, even though it doesn't feature Willem Dafoe.

Finally, in typical Monday show fashion, we delve off into a trip down memory lane and rediscover our love for Beavis and Butthead, who recently made a short comeback to promote Mike Judge's latest film "Extract." Surprise! Wilson hates it. All that and more on today's episode of The 404!

At the end of this last weekend's activity in and around the Carfax 250 in Michigan, Dodge president and CEO Mike Accavitti officially declared that the car manufacturer was dedicated to contributing vehicle and automotive technology to NASCAR. Although economic crises and bankruptcy have made it ideal for Dodge to scale back their resources and direct contributions to the sport, Dodge maintains that they will continue to represent within the arguably biggest auto racing league in the world.

Currently, Dodge backs two multicar teams in NASCAR - Penske Championship Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports. Three stars who are and/… Read more

The results and fighting from this past weekend's Carfax 250 wasn't the only NASCAR-related news in the last few days. It's not a secret that many NASCAR drivers aren't happy with the modifications made to NASCAR vehicles, often referred to as the "Car of Today" (which is sometimes abbreviated as CoT). As recently as this last Friday, famed driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. addressed NASCAR sanctioning officials pleading for further development of the so-called "CoT" as a suggestion to improve the sport in terms of drivers' use and how the drivers compete. Despite … Read more

Nortel Networks CEO Mike Zafirovski, who led the company into bankruptcy protection earlier this year and oversaw the sell-off of its wireless assets to Ericsson, will reportedly leave Nortel within weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing "people familiar with the matter."

Nortel representatives did not immediately respond to e-mail seeing confirmation of and comment on the report.

Zafirovski was hired in 2005 to help turn around the company, much like he had done for Motorola's cell phone division. Initially, he had some success building profits from selling wireless gear to U.S. operators. Under … Read more

I've suggested before that Index Ventures could well be the "best venture firm in Europe." Index has one of the most interesting investment portfolios of any venture firm on the planet, having invested in companies like Skype, Openads, Oanda, DimDim, and others.

Today, Index became even more interesting, adding Michelangelo ("Mike") Volpi to its investment team as a partner based in London. Volpi was most recently the CEO of online video company Joost, but made his name as the mergers and acquisitions maestro at Cisco, where he oversaw 75 acquisitions.

Given Volpi's background as … Read more