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Some Hospitals Not Just Encouraging Mobile Phone Usage, But Installing Technology To Make It Easier
Remember how hospitals were banning mobile phones out of a fear that the signal would interfere with medical equipment? That turned out to not be much of a problem and soon doctors from around the world were clamoring for the right to use their own mobile phones. A recent study even found tremendous benefits in allowing mobile phone usage in hospitals, including better communication among staff members and lower error rates, thanks to that improved communication. The latest is that some hospitals aren't just allowing mobile phone usage, they're making it possible by installing local antennas to make it even easier for mobile phones to work. The hospitals point out that this is likely to lower the likelihood of interference, as the mobile phones don't have to broadcast as strong a signal if the "tower" is so close. Then, of course, there's the benefit of having happier patients who can more easily stay in touch with friends and family (and also making it easier for those...

Bubble 1.0 Hype Ideas Brought Back To Life By 2.0 Companies
It's been amusing watching all of the ridiculous PR-generating gimmicks from the original dot com bubble come back to life over the last couple years from new companies who are either using the same playbook or too new at the game to know that it's been done before. For example, remember the online travel startup TravelZoo? In order to enter the already overcrowded online travel market and still get some traction, the company promised shares of stock to early users. While there were plenty of questions about the legality of this, it appears that the company played by the rules and didn't violate any kind of securities law (which seems surprising, since offering any kind of shares in a private company usually requires an awful lot of very specific hoops that you need to jump through) -- and it even paid off for some users of the site who were able to make some money. Unfortunately, the gimmick ended up costing Travelzoo a lot more than it expected. Either way, there's some...

Pockets Of Private Equity Still Very Much Alive
Fears of a credit crunch have put a chill on fresh private equity activity, while several pending deals are thought to be in trouble. But there are still signs of life in some parts of the industry. There continues to be strong interest in medium-sized media deals, as funds that specialize in this area continue to raise money and make moves. Considering the challenges facing many media companies, it makes sense that private equity investors would think there's an opportunity to pick up assets at a bargain, reformulating them into something of more value. Obviously, the private equity industry isn't going to grind to a halt. Deals that are predicated on nothing more than cheap credit will become rare, but investors will always be on the hunt for undervalued companies that can be turned around.

Canadian Supreme Court Tosses Out Politician's Libel Lawsuit Against Yahoo
Earlier this year, we pointed out that a member of the Green Party up in Canada was apparently suing a ton of websites just for allowing comments about him that he did not like or find to be true. There were some really bizarre aspects to the case -- which seemed to highlight those of us in the US should be happy about section 230 of the CDA protecting service providers from the actions of their users. Canada doesn't have similar protections, and this guy sued Yahoo, Wikipedia, MySpace and many others, not because of anything those sites did, but because he didn't like messages posted by users of those sites. In fact, the guy seemed rather quick on the lawsuit trigger, leading many to accuse him of doing this to hide criticism, rather than to fend off actually libelous statements.While many of those cases are still in process, Michael Geist (who is apparently also being sued by this guy) lets us know that the British Columbia Supreme Court dismissed (with costs) the libel...

Apple Announces New iPods, Cue Fanboy Frenzy, Navel-Gazing
Apple refreshed its iPod line today, announcing the long-expected touchscreen iPod among other things. The event was pretty wide-ranging, with a lot to chew on. The biggest early news was the announcement that iPhone owners will be able to create ringtones from songs they've purchased from the iTunes Music Store... for an additional 99 cents on top of the cost of the downloaded track. Perhaps this is an attempt by Apple to throw a bone to disgruntled record companies, but it's likely to call attention to legions of mobile handsets other than the iPhone that will let user set MP3s and other types of audio files as ringtones for free. Apple also sliced the price of the 8GB iPhone by $200, to $399 -- indicating that demand has slowed as demand among diehard Mac fans and other early adopters has been filled. The price cut is probably also a reaction to the iPod Touch, which appears to be an iPhone without any phone, and a similar 8GB model of it has been priced at $299. This may...

Court Agrees That Pulling Content Out Of The Public Domain May Violate The First Amendment
This one comes as a bit of a surprise. The third in Larry Lessig's triumvirate of copyright cases may present his first serious court victory on these issues (and it potentially could come back to help the second case as well). A little history first. A few years back, Larry Lessig took a copyright case to the Supreme Court. The so-called Eldred case challenged recent changes to copyright law by Congress, stating that the repeated extensions to the length of copyright violated the Constitution, which guaranteed that copyright should only last a "limited" time. The Supreme Court disagreed with Lessig and Eldred, saying that Congress was within its Constitutional right in extending copyright. However, the case opened up some potential arguments to be discussed in later cases -- and Lessig has taken full advantage of that. The key point that the court made was that Congress' actions can be scrutinized under the First Amendment when it changes the "traditional contours of...

Police Realizing Craigslist Is A Resource, Not A Problem
Last month, we noted that Atlanta's mayor was wrongly blaming Craigslist for child prostitution, saying that Craigslist needed to take responsibility for preventing that kind of activity. The problem, of course, is that Craigslist isn't to blame. It's merely the platform. Not only that, by being such a popular platform it should have made it easier for police to target those who were actually doing something wrong. In fact, it looks like many other areas of the country realize that Craigslist is actually quite a useful tool. Police in a variety of places have now learned to track down those who are breaking the law on Craigslist. They aren't blaming the site, but recognizing how it helps them better capture criminals. It's nice to know that the misguided views of Atlanta's mayor aren't widespread.

The Buzz Over New Battery Technology... And The Questions Raised By Its Patents
The Associated Press is running a story that's getting some buzz about the venture capital-backed secretive startup EEStor, who claims to have created a technology that can replace electrochemical batteries for things like automobiles. According to the article, if the technology worked as planned, it could mean the ability to create an electric car that would need a five minute charge and could then run for 500 miles without gasoline. Impressive, right? But, the claims seem so outlandish that they certainly should raise the inner skeptic in many people. The technology could very well be real, but there should be a bit more proof before everyone just believes it. And reports of delays in getting the technology to actually work are hardly confidence boosting.However, what's most interesting about the AP coverage is that it focuses in so much on the patent that EESTor holds on this technology. However, it does quote a few skeptics who question whether or not anyone can actually...

Business 2.0 Finally Dead... For Real This Time
Business 2.0 was a has gone through a variety of changes over the years. I still remember when it launched to great fanfare (and silly mysterious billboards along Highway 101) in 1998. At the time, no one could figure out why the world needed another tech business magazine, when pretty much everyone was perfectly satisfied with Wired, Red Herring and Upside. Of course, soon afterwards even more tech business magazines started to show up, including Time Warner's horribly named eCompanyNow and the popular Industry Standard (which launched at about the same time as Business 2.0, if I remember correctly). With the dot com bubble still inflating, these magazines soon were thick with ads, but people began ignoring them, as the articles tended to get worse and worse. Then the the dot com bubble burst, and many of the magazines went out of business in a flash, including The Industry Standard, Red Herring and Upside. Business 2.0 put itself up for sale, hoping to avoid the fate...

Is Technology Making Everyone Shy?
We've seen technology blamed for all sorts of things over the years, but this may be the first time we've seen the rise of gadgets blamed for a "shyness epidemic" (via The Raw Feed). Apparently, the number of "shy" people out there is increasing -- though, the article is quite short on details. It only says that 40% of people used to report being shy, and these days 50% do. However, it doesn't say when that change happened or look into whether or not there's any sort of self-reporting bias for this data. Instead, it appears that folks just want to blame technology, saying that the lack of face-to-face or voice communication means that people are somehow losing the ability to be comfortable in those types of interactions. It would be nice to see this backed up with a little more than just the fact that more people self-report being shy -- though, it's certainly possible that these gadgets do put up a shield that prevents people from getting over shyness. It would just...

Some Reasonable Advice On Facebook At Work From British Trade Unions
We've seen a bunch of ridiculous reports lately blaming Facebook for lost productivity and saying that nearly half of all companies now ban Facebook at work. Those studies were both biased and misleading -- often coming from companies that were trying to sell filtering solutions to companies. Over in the UK, however, it's nice to see the Trades Union Congress (TUC) there say that banning Facebook at work is going too far and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, the group recommended that companies come up with some straightforward usage policies. All in all, the group's comments seem quite reasonable, noting that there are benefits to these services and banning them outright is simply an overreaction. The report also notes that banning sites like Facebook won't stop employees from slacking off at times and it probably won't even stop them from figuring out ways to get to Facebook. Instead, it makes more sense to focus on encouraging them to use social networking...