Webstock 2009 Ben Goodger on Google Chrome Ben Goodger, who leads the UI team of Google Chrome, presented today at the Webstock conference about browsers. He said that Google decided to build Chrome simply because "browsers suck". Existing browsers were too slow (especially with javascript heavy apps), there are too many crashes, too easy to get pwned (security issues), and UIs… Richard MacManus View comments
Events Guide ReadWriteWeb Guide to the SXSW Web Awards Finalists Next month Austin, Texas will fill to the brim with geeks from all around the world gathered to attend the South by Southwest Interactive festival. While smaller than the Music part of SXSW, Interactive is very big and very fun. One part of the event that always goes over our heads, though, is the annual Web Awards. Everyone gathers into a big… Marshall Kirkpatrick View comments
NYT Intellipedia: Intelligence Agencies' Wiki Suffers Midlife Crisis Did you know that the U.S. intelligence agencies use a wiki to share information? The Intellipedia project was launched in April 2006. Sixteen agencies of the U.S. intelligence community have access to it and use it to share information. According to a new report, however, the Intellipedia project is going through a bit of a midlife crisis right… Social Frederic Lardinois View comments
News The Great Gig in the Sky: Using Flickr for Astronomy Flickr hosts a wide range of beautiful images, but a new project built on top of Flickr's API only focuses on photos of the night sky from amateur astronomers. The Astrometry.net project constantly scans the Astrometry Flickr group for new images to catalog and to add to its open-source sky survey. At the same time, this project also provides a… Frederic Lardinois View comments
Features How Japanese Newspapers are Trying to Save Themselves Hint: They're Using iPhone Apps The newspaper industry is in a downward death spiral, having been severely impacted by new technologies, the ubiquity of internet access, and a rise in citizen journalism. Here in the U.S., some papers are filing for bankruptcy, others are close to doing the same, and there's even a proposal to give the newspaper… Sarah Perez View comments