washington

WASHINGTON--I now know the real reason why Google just moved its 20-person crew here into a 22,000-square-foot work space: to host sprawling, glowing parties, of course.

On Thursday night, a few hundred familiar faces in the technology policy scene--a slew of think tank, advocacy group, and trade association folks; abundant congressional staffers; a smattering of government officials; journalists and public-relations flacks--braved unrelenting sleet and rain to see the search giant's new downtown digs awash in dim lighting that changed from one rainbow hue to another as the hours passed.

Google employees, on the whole, may be overwhelmingly Democratic … Read more

The Washington Post has backed off a story that erroneously accused the recording industry of trying to criminalize ripping CDs to a computer.

The Post issued a correction Saturday, more than a week after the paper triggered a wave of media coverage by claiming that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was trying to outlaw the very common practice of copying music from a CD onto a computer or iPod.

"A Dec. 30 Style and Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer … Read more

An executive with the music industry's lobbying group engaged in a verbal sparring match on Thursday with the Washington Post columnist who alleges that the organization is trying to outlaw the practice of copying CDs to a computer.

National Public Radio hosted in on-air debate between Marc Fisher, the Post columnist, and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The way I saw it, Fisher was ill advised to debate. What was exposed was a reporter who doesn't want to admit to making a mistake and has dug his heels in. Meanwhile, according to … Read more

It's late on Wednesday evening and the Washington Post has yet to correct a story that accused the recording industry of trying to paint law-abiding music fans as criminals.

But the paper should make things right and soon.

Marc Fisher, a Post columnist, wrote on Sunday that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asserted in a legal brief that anyone who copies music from a CD onto their computer is a thief. The document, filed last month, was part of the RIAA's copyright suit against Jeffrey Howell, an Arizona resident accused of illegal file sharing.

Quoting from … Read more

Pageflakes has just updated their service this morning with a handful of new features. The company is calling this latest release "Blizzard." Users now get their own profile page and can link up with other Pageflakes users as friends. They can also browse through users by interest, based on items they've put together on their customized Pagecasts. The goal is to make the service feel like less of a solitary experience and make it easier to share user-created Pagecasts.

Also new is the option to completely customize a page. There are themes and simple color arrangements for users to pick from, and a tool to create your own. In the same vein, there are now media pages from third-party content providers and sponsors, nearly identical to what competitor Netvibes rolled out with their Universes feature in mid-April. Pageflakes is launching this feature with themed content pages from CNN, AOL, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post, among others.

To help users find content to add to their pages, Pageflakes has also redone their widget gallery, which they call "flakes." There are about a quarter of a million widgets, which is about twice that of Netvibes.

The Blizzard release also opens up the door to users of Apple's Safari browser, who up until now have been unable to access the site. However, there's no news on whether an iPhone-friendly version of the start page service is in the works. To see more shots of the new features, click the read more link below.

Previous Pageflakes coverage: Pageflakes community gets traction Roundup: single page aggregators Pageflakes CEO wants to take on Yahoo Start here: Pageflakes meets the metagators

… Read more

It's great to see Rob Curley just some of the attention he deserves. Rob, VP of Product Development at washingtonpost.com/Newsweek Interactive delivered a keynote at OSBC 2007 and made my day. Now Fast Company has a special feature on him.

In light of a dying newspaper industry...

...along comes Curley, unburdened by pieties about "how we've always done it." Unlike previous ink-stained generations, he and his mostly young charges practice journalism with software code, video, podcasts, audio, slide shows, blogs--whatever works. Multimedia storytelling comes as naturally to him as satire did to Mencken. Likewise, … Read more

There's already a federal indictment of a woman accused of running a call girl ring in Washington D.C. A deputy secretary of state, Randall Tobias, has resigned. Tobias admits to using the services of Pamela Martin & Associates only for back rubs. Deborah Palfrey, the woman who ran Pamela Martin services, is gaining some notoriety in the blogosphere.

Palfrey is threatening to call many prominent D.C. men into court to testify on her behalf. Clearly, Tobias would happily back up Palfrey's claim that her service was about massage and fantasy, not prostitution.

So where are the … Read more

One of our biggest complaints with the Apple TV was the dearth of HD video content. The product is capable of streaming 720p high-definition video, but to date, all of the movies and TV shows at Apple's iTunes Store are encoded at a "near DVD" resolution of 480p. But HD content has finally arrived on iTunes--and it's free. The Washington Post announced today that its online HD video podcast--which is shot in 720p high-definition--will now be available through iTunes.

We downloaded the two most recent episodes of the podcast--Edwards Family Values as well as Contamination … Read more