Eight Questions: Rebecca MacKinnon, “Consent of the Networked”

As Beijing bureau chief for CNN in the late 1990′s, Rebecca MacKinnon witnessed first-hand the arrival of the Internet in China and the Chinese government’s struggle to control a technology some predicted would help bring about the end of Communist Party rule.

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Still Waiting on Office for iPad? OnLive’s New Subscription Service Has Office, Flash and More.

For those of you still holding your breath while you wait for an official Microsoft Office app to come to iPad, here’s something that might help in the interim: OnLive Desktop Plus, a premium, $4.99-a-month version of the OnLive Desktop app for iPad and other tablet devices. The newest version of the app offers a cloud-based Internet Explorer 9, Adobe Flash, and PDF capabilities, in addition to the full Office suite and the “accelerated browsing experience” that OnLive created for fast pushing and pulling of data on a remote-access desktop.

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Sony PlayStation Vita Launches in U.S., Europe

Sony’s new handheld gaming product, the PlayStation Vita, goes on sale today in Europe and the U.S. Following its initial launch in Japan in December, the device was plagued by some reported bugs, including crashes and gameplay lags, but Sony quickly issued a software update to address the issues. As The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Boehret notes in her review of the Vita, the 3G and Wi-Fi capable Vita costs $299; the Wi-Fi-only version costs $249.

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Zynga Ad Exec Manny Anekal Leaves for Mobile Start-Up Kiip

Manny Anekal, who headed up brand advertising for Zynga, has left the company. He’s now chief operating officer at Kiip, a start-up that hands out “branded rewards” to mobile games players. Business Insider reported the move earlier. Prior to Zynga, Anekal had run ads at Electronic Arts and Massive, the game ad start-up acquired by Microsoft.

The U.S. Army’s Guide to Pinterest (Really)

Better than an infographic!
army pinterest

Facebook Profiles Found to Predict Job Performance

Could Facebook be used as a reliable job-screening tool?

Foursquare Tries a Bicoastal Approach to Engineering

In what seems to be a novel approach for a company of its size, Foursquare splits its engineering teams between San Francisco and New York, with teams working together remotely using video conferencing and frequent cross-country visits.
foursquare_portal

New Yorker Editor David Remnick Likes Technology, but He Loves Print: The Full Dive Into Media Interview

“The New Yorker — you roll it up, you put it in your bag. It’s quite easy; it’s pretty good technology.”
david remnick dive

What Happened to the Future?

To many investors, visionary entrepreneurs come off as naïve or worse — isn’t it safer/easier/more profitable to create a(nother) social network for cat fanciers than to try to cure cancer, defeat terrorism, or organize the world’s information?

Bruce Gibney, in a post on the Founders Fund Web site entitled “What Happened to the Future?”

Twitter Ramps Up Self-Serve Ads, With an Assist From American Express

Twitter’s cautious entry into advertising is picking up velocity.
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