Think the semantic web is all hype with no bite? Paul Allen backed semantic startup Evri will announce tomorrow that it has been acquired, we've learned from a reliable source. The service specializes in extracting the names of people, places and things from raw streams of text in order to facilitate smart user navigation and related content recommendation. The company launched a striking new version of its website earlier today. Evri launched just short of two years ago and raised $8 million..   show all text

David Robertson Ross, a passionately patriotic Scot, specialised as a writer and historian in the story of the great Scottish hero, Sir William Wallace. In 2005, to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Wallace's execution, he trekked the 450 miles from Robroyston in Glasgow to London, retracing the route his hero followed to his grisly execution in 1305.

I use Google Reader a lot — not only to stay on top of the news, but also to find interesting blog posts and articles. I’m always telling my friends about Google Reader, and while some of them love it, others don’t want to take the time to set it up. For those of you who fall into this second category, we’re announcing Google Reader Play, a new product that makes the best stuff in Reader more accessible for everyone. Reader Play is a new way to browse interesting stuff on the web, customized t..   show all text

The digital humanities are well represented this week at the National Council for Public History annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. By my count, fully nine of the approximately ninety sessions, workshops, working groups, and posters are either entirely or partially dedicated to the web and other digital outlets for public history. This equals the nine digital history sessions on the program at the much (many times) larger American Historical Association in January. Here’s the list with times ..   show all text

The more heterogeneous the community of an online chat channel, the more chances the channel has to survive over time. This has been concluded in a new joint study carried out by researchers of the University of Haifa and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “This study has shown that an essentially social characteristic significantly influences the survival chances of an online community,” says Dr. Daphne Raban of the University of Haifa who took part in the study. The study, headed by Dr..   show all text

The App Store censorship horse may have been beaten to death, but mainstream German media—whose iPhone applications have been censored by Apple because of its content—are not surrendering. I'm glad. In fact, I hope they win this war. More »

As many in the Twitterverse have dubbed this week, the battle of location based apps continues, as both Gowalla and Foursquare release yet another update to their iPhone apps today. And these are some big guns coming out to accompany the various real-life incentives, contests and whatever else these the two companies can do to take the focus at this year's SXSW. Both apps are will showcase new design features the companies are calling "fresh" and other such things, and while they surely are, ..   show all text

Mattel is planning versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters in a promotion for the television series as well as for Barbie.

Let’s try a demonstration, before this series on history at play gets any more high-falutin’ and theoretical than it already is. Here is an exercise in playful historical thinking, based on years of professional training and SSHRC-funded research. You can do it yourself, right now, although like most forms of play it will be more fun and rewarding if you involve a friend or two. Ready? Who would win? Why? And here’s the multiplayer version: Find someone who disagrees with you. Try to convin..   show all text

Whenever I meet someone who finds out that I work on the directions team for Google Maps, the first question I'm asked is often "So when's Google Maps going to add biking directions?" We're big biking fans too, so we've been itching to give you a concrete answer. I don't want to keep the good news a secret any longer, so the answer is: right now! Today we've added biking directions and extensive bike trail data to Google Maps for the U.S. My team has been keeping close tabs on all the public ..   show all text

Do you like prairie voles? Are you curious about the process of earning a Ph.D.? Possibly just a touch of both? Then tune in today, starting at 10 central, for what Science magazine's Science Careers Blog is calling the first live-streamed dissertation defense (at least, that they've ever heard of). The adventurous academic is Danielle Lee of the University of Missouri, St. Louis. The dissertation is entitled: An Investigation of Behavioral Syndromes and Individual Differences in Exploratory..   show all text

The Renaissance, Europe's period of cultural, political and scientific rebirth, began in Florence around 600 years ago. At Google we're interested in a (small “r”) renaissance of a different kind — a digital one. Since the launch of Google Books, we’ve been working with libraries and publishers around the globe to bring more of the world's books to more readers around the globe. Any school child should be able to access the works of Petrarch, Dante or Vico (or, if they're so inclined, Machiave..   show all text

I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too. In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.” My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own..   show all text

WASHINGTON—Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions of dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words unsure of what to do next.