Web-Based Amateur Private Eyes Enhancing Store Security

A new business attempting to help small retailers minimize shoplifting by harnessing the power of the Internet with existing security camera technology is showing some initial results as it works to improve stability and reliability. Internet Eyes is meant to help small stores that have CCTV installed but that lack the manpower to monitor the video feeds constantly.

BoomTown as Judge Judy, Um, Judge BigApps

With All Things Digital Global HQ located in the heart of the Castro in San Francisco, BoomTown tries hard not to judge–even that dude who likes to come into the Starbucks naked. But I made an exception to be a judge for an innovative civic geek contest that New York City is doing for the second year called BigApps 2.0, opening up a whole mess of government information and letting software developers have at it. And how much do you want to bet there will be a bed-bug app submitted this year?

Turnabout Is Fair Play: BoomTown Decodes Rupe's Journalism-Is-Not-a-Free-Cow Op-Ed!

Last week, BoomTown translated an opinion piece written by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published in The Wall Street Journal that focused on defending the search giant from criticism that it was, well, killing journalism. One of the louder critics, in fact, has been Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., who has leveled a series of high-profile verbal attacks on Google. Last week, Murdoch published his own piece in The Journal, in which Google was never mentioned by name. So in the interest of equal-opportunity balloon-pricking, I must also render Murdoch’s post through my decoding machine, because it’s only sporting!
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New From Microsoft: Live Search SearchGimmick!

Microsoft’s Live Search Cashback–“The Search That Pays You Back!”–must have had at least some short-term positive effect on Microsoft’s search business because the company is augmenting it with another rewards program. Now, in addition to receiving Cashback rebates on certain purchases of products found through Microsoft’s live.com Web search, users can win prizes as well.

Big BI Buy for Big Blue

Does Android Dream of Developer Sheep?

Odd, isn’t it, that Google will award up to $30 million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, but it’s willing to pony up just $10 million to spur interest in development of its new Android platform for mobile devices. Apparently Google’s dominion over space figures higher [...]