penalty

Justice Department closes probe into Google Street View

Google released information today that the U.S. Justice Department investigation into the company's use of wireless networks while working on the Street View project closed as of last May.

This information comes within a report that the Internet giant filed with the Federal Communications Commission today, according to Bloomberg. The Justice Department decided, "it would not pursue a case for violation of the Wiretap Act," Google said in the filing.

There have been a handful of government investigations into how Google's Street View cars collected the personal and private data of individuals via wireless networks … Read more

Iran may have committed cyber-attack on BBC

Just days after watchdog group Reporters Without Borders named Iran as one of the "Enemies of the Internet," the BBC is now claiming to be the victim of a cyber-attack possibly perpetrated by the Iranian authorities.

The news source says that two of its satellite feeds into Iran were jammed earlier this month coinciding with a denial-of-service attack in which some parts of the BBC's e-mail and Internet services were unavailable. The director-general of the BBC Mark Thompson will be giving a speech to the Royal Television Society shortly, in which he plans to explain how the … Read more

Saudi blogger's tweets could cost him his life

Saudi Arabian blogger Hamza Kashgari tweeted last week about an imaginary conversation with the Prophet Mohammad, writing he "loved the rebel in you" and that he "loved some aspects of you, hated others."

Little did Kashgari know that these tweets could culminate in his possible death sentence.

Shortly after his tweets, tens of thousands of angry commenters denounced Kashgari and demanded his punishment.

"The only choice is for Kashgari to be killed and crucified in order to be a lesson to other secularists," commented an online reader of al-Madina newspaper Abu Abdulrahman, according to … Read more

The game is on the line...

Goaaal! is a soccer shootout arcade game, in which you try to rack up the best score possible by taking successive shots on goal.

The interface is simultaneously simple and tricky: you have a fixed view, facing the goal (and the goalie), and you just flick your finger to kick the ball. The trickiness comes from mastering accuracy (requiring much trial and error), learning how to fire on the ground versus in the air, and figuring out how to put spin on the ball by flicking from one side or the other. You can also reposition the ball by holding … Read more

Don't move!? or the science of inaction

If you're a frequent reader of this blog, you might have noticed that I'm an avid soccer fan who doesn't let an opportunity pass to draw analogies between the "beautiful game" and the other big game: business. As such I was riveted by Clive Thompson's "Goalkeeper Science" piece in last week's New York Times Magazine's "Year in Ideas" issue. Based on research examining the behavior of soccer goalkeepers facing penalty kicks, Thompson concludes that "inaction may be the biggest form of action" (Jerry Brown).

The study, … Read more

Duplicate content: Separating the penalty from the filter

Several weeks ago at SMX West I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with Brian White from Google. White works on Matt Cutts' Web spam team, tirelessly working to make Google's search results the best they can be, ensuring the best user experience. Quite a hefty task indeed.

You'd think that someone who spends his days fighting the never-ending battle that is Web spam might be a bit negative or jaded. If that is the case, he does an amazing job hiding it. Instead, he was upbeat and you could feel the excitement in his voice as he spoke. Here's a guy who loves what he's doing and truly wants to not only improve the searchers' experience on Google, but wants to make the Web a better place. You can't help but like a guy who's fighting the good fight.… Read more