Morning Xtra: Myspace Cuts Jobs, NASA Sending Rocket to the Moon
NASA to Blast Rocket Into the Moon, Study Resulting Huge Explosion
In order to determine if water exists under the Moon's polar surfaces (a controversial topic among lunar scientists), NASA has decided to launch a Centaur rocket booster 'Deep Impact'-style into the Moon at 5,600 mph. The six-mile-high explosion will allow a probe to analyze never-before-seen sections of lunar material. We're making it official: Coolest. Mission. Ever. [From: Slashdot]
MySpace Fires 400 Employees
Times are tough for the original social-networking blockbuster Myspace; the NewsCorp-owned site has seen limited growth compared to Web 2.0 darling Facebook and recently announced it will lay of 30-percent of its staff. This announcement comes amid a glut of structural changes at the company, which this year saw its CEO replaced by [gasp] a former Facebook executive, Owen Van Natta. [From: Marketwatch]
Microsoft Admits Defeat in Web-Video
Get out your white flags. Microsoft is admitting defeat in the Web video world. According to CNET, Microsoft VP Erik Jorgensen announced yesterday that the company will be scaling back its little-known YouTube competitor Soapbox, which failed to grab a foothold in user-generated video content. Also on the chopping block is the company's financial software 'Microsoft Money.' Chalk it up to bad economic times. [From: CNET]
Twitter Investor Says Links Equal Twitter Gold
Twitter investor Fred Wilson spoke yesterday to attendees of the '140 Characters Conference' in New York City about the value of all those tweets. According to Wilson, the real money to be made from Twitter will be found in links, since they often come from people you trust. He believes this is enough to challenge Google for search relevancy. But, given Twitter's recent slowdown, we're not even sure the site will survive after the media buzz dies down -- let alone challenge the reigning king of the Web. [From: TechCrunch]
Germany Rebuilding the Berlin Wall Online?
Speaking of Internet access as a basic human right, Germany's ruling parties have agreed to start censoring portions of the Web that contain child pornography. We're all for limiting child pornography, but here lies a slippery slope. Internet activists around the globe are rallying to prevent this measure, and popular blog BoingBoing has gone so far as to call the proposed ban the "Internet Berlin Wall." After all, if you cut off one illegal Web activity, who's to say you can't do the same for something more benign (namely: filesharing), especially when corporate interests become intermingled? [From: BoingBoing]
U.K. Wants to Eliminate Up to 80-Percent of Illegal File Sharing
Following the music industry's apparent victory over popular torrent-sharing site Pirate Bay last month in Sweden, Europe is taking swift steps to appear proactive in the fight against illegal file sharing. The U.K. recently jumped into the fray with the release of its Digital Britain report, which calls for an 80-percent reduction in illegal downloading. The report also entreats the government's Office of Communication (OfCom) to work with the music industry to find commercial solutions to the problem -- such as the solution proposed by the recently partnered Universal Music Group and Virgin Media that we reported on in this column yesterday.
If that magic 80-percent reduction isn't reached, Britain might then opt for stricter punishment for offenders, including reduced bandwidth and a potential "three strikes and you're out" program. France recently passed a law (amid plenty of worldwide controversy) that suspends a violator's Internet access after "three strikes," but the country's highest court struck down the provisions (and, in doing so, took significant steps towards establishing Internet access as a basic human right). [From: DMW Media]
