Skip to Content

Try your hand at the Spore Creature Creator and win free stuff from Big Download!
AOL Tech

Posts with tag wikipedia

Russert Death Leaked On Wikipedia Before Official NBC Announcement

by Will Safer, posted Jun 23rd 2008 at 2:02PM

Tim Russert

Good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster.

That's the lesson learned by the folks at NBC when news of their colleague Tim Russert's death found its way onto the Web before the network had made an official announcement.

Immediately following long time political reporter and NBC News Washington Bureau chief Russert's sudden collapse on the job, the NBC News team made a decision to keep news of his death quiet– and asked other media outlets to do the same – until his family, which was still on vacation in Italy, could be notified.

The news of Russert's death, however, did not remain a secret, as his Wikipedia entry was updated 40 minutes before NBC went official with the announcement.

A junior-level staffer at the Web news company Internet Broadcasting Service (IBS) saw the Russert information as it was fed out across the NBC affiliate network and, thinking the news was already public, updated Russert's Wikipedia page.

As this happened, multiple Twitter posts circulated around the Web with the same news, and even the New York Times Web site reported news of Russert's passing about five minutes before NBC made the official announcement over the air.

NBC was not happy with the leaks, and while the Wikipedia update was accurate, a senior member at IBS logged on and deleted all references to Russert's death, changing the entry back to present tense, despite the pending official announcement. To placate NBC, IBS has disciplined the junior staffer with at least a suspension and possibly with a firing. [Source: Silicon Alley Insider]
  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 1 Comment

Internet Access = Increasing Stupidity?

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 12:15PM

Internet Access = Increasing Stupidity?The Internet has truly become the greatest repository of human knowledge in the history of mankind -- and that's despite the flood of smut and fluff that quite successfully overshadows educational sites such as Wikipedia. The Internet is, in fact, so impressively powerful a repository of information that many fear it's making them more stupid, a topic columnist Nicholas Carr explores in his latest piece for The Atlantic.

Carr talks about his shortened attention span as a side-effect of his increasingly wired life; he believes the spread of the blog post has re-tuned his brain to skim anything that isn't finished in two paragraphs or less, and cites plenty of others struggling with the same issue.

Ironically enough, his article is four pages long, exploring the origin of the issue and tracing it back to the splintering of people's jobs during the Industrial Revolution, then speculating forward to a time when we'll have Google access wired into our brains. It's an interesting read, but don't tackle it all in one sitting -- that's an awful lot of words. [Source: The Atlantic]
  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 3 Comments

Google Maps Gets Enhanced

by Tim Stevens, posted May 29th 2008 at 8:51AMBreaking News

Google Maps Gets Enhanced
Google Maps has well and truly established itself as the king of online mapping tools, and it's obvious its host, the king of search engines, isn't content to let the site rest on its laurels. The site has just added some new features, enabling you to view photos, videos, and Wikipedia entries of whatever location you're looking at. This is functionality they added to their Google Earth application last year, but that requires a desktop installation and isn't quite as quick to use as their web-based tool.

Now, by clicking the "More" button on Google Maps, you can select to look at photos (which includes videos), and Wikipedia entries as well. They appear as thumbnails or little 'W' logos on the map. A click brings up the photo or an excerpt from the Wiki right there in the page, with of course links outward to view the full image or article. Finding videos is somewhat hit-or-miss, since they just look like photos, but the pictures at least are very useful -- if only for finding what that hotel you booked for your trip actually looks like. [Source: Google Maps via makeuseof.com]
  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 0 Comments

French Publisher Launches Wikipedia Competitor, En Français

by Tim Stevens, posted May 15th 2008 at 11:45AMBreaking News

French Publisher Launches Wikipedia Competitor En FrancaisWikipedia is the world's free and open encyclopedia. Anyone can go and read its articles, and, likewise, anyone can edit and write them. It contains content written in 253 different languages, including French, in which, at current count, there are 654,000 (plus) articles (compared to the 2.3 million articles in English). But more than a half million entries is not enough for French publishing group Larousse, which has announced that it is launching its own free online encyclopedia that it hopes will compete against, and best, its American-founded competitor.

The Larousse project will get a jump-start injection of 150,000 articles from the company's own print encyclopedia, which it will enable people to expand upon and augment with other articles. Like Wikipedia, anyone will be invited to contribute. Unlike the generally anonymous Wikipedia, however, any contribution in Larousse's Wiki-esque encyclopedia will be marked with the name of the contributor. Similarly, articles that have been posted cannot be freely edited, though it remains to be seen just who will have the ability to change them, and how.

The free Larousse online encyclopedia will be made available sometime later this year. We think competition is good, but until Larousse takes its concept international (and to dozens of languages), it won't give supporters of Wikipedia too much reason to worry. [Source: The Independent]
  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 1 Comment

German Publisher to Publish Print Version of Wikipedia

by Will Safer, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 4:57PMBreaking News

Bertelsmann to publish print version of Wikipedia.

Make room on your bookshelf for Wikipedia.

German publisher Bertelsmann will publish in September a printed, bound version of the German Wikipedia, compiling and condensing the most referenced entries on the German version of the popular collaborative reference Web site.

"The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia," will carry a price tag of 19.95 euros, or about $32.

The German version of Wikipedia has about 750,000 separate articles. 'The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia' will have about 25,000 entries, each about 15 lines each, and the whole book will be about 1,000 pages.

Wikipedia online is a constantly updated, collaborative effort, so the book version is intended to be a snapshot of the current interests of German users. Bertelsmann assigned a staff of 10 people to identify which articles would be included, condense them, and then do a round of fact-checking. This last point may be interesting to readers who know that Wikipedia is sometimes criticized for allowing bad information to appear on its pages. The German Wikipedia site, however, is regarded as the most accurate of all the Wikipedia sites.

Bertelsmann will give one euro to to Wikipedia for every copy of the book that is sold. [Source: The New York Times].
  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 0 Comments

British Village Attacked By Wikipedia Vandals

by Blake Besharian, posted Apr 17th 2008 at 9:12PMBreaking News




The Wikipedia entry on the tiny town of Denshaw says that it's a small village in the northwestern corner of England consisting of a few farmhouses, an inn, six pubs, and a two-classroom schoolhouse. Until recently though, Wikipedia also said it was home to a population infested with tapeworms and an inn filled with prostitutes. Sounds like an exciting place -- well, it would be, if any of that were true.

Recently, Denshaw has been the subject of some nasty Wikipedia hoaxes. Anonymous users have posted that the village consists of four obese and malnourished residents, who suffer because the hills block out all but a few hours of sunlight daily. Other attacks have included a post that "none of the girls there are fit" and that the local brass band competition is celebrated by "cow shooting, rock rolling, and sheep hurling".

The residents of Denshaw have a surprisingly lighthearted take on the whole thing. "I think it's absolutely hilarious," says local parish councillor Ken Hulme, who originally discovered the Wikipedia spoofs. "The BBC could do with finding out who's responsible and giving them a job as a scriptwriter."

Looks like John Siegenthaler could take a page from their book. [Source: The Daily Mail]

  • Read
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 2 Comments

Colorado Toll Road May Require Online Registration

by Will Safer, posted Mar 13th 2008 at 3:25PM

Interestate 70 in Colorado between Denver and the ski resorts to the West.

If you're seeking a Rocky Mountain High, you may soon need to pay the piper -- or at least invite a few friends along for the drive up the mountainside to avoid a proposed toll for Interstate 70 in Colorado.

State Senator Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat, has proposed turning I70 into a toll and HOV highway on Sundays throughout the year and on weekends during the peak ski season. The reason? Folks driving to and from the ski resorts clog the interstate so much that locals actually refer to the weekend traffic as a rush hour. Plus, all those cars are competing with 18-wheelers, making the road crowded, slow and a little dangerous.

To come up with a solution, Romer asked the public to engage in a "Wikipedia"-style, collaborative process to shape the proposed bill, allowing constituents to log on to groups.google.com/group/fixI70now so they could comment on his idea and make suggestions. While Romer didn't take every suggestion the public made, he does say the collaborative online discussion has shaped the proposal he'll put before the legislative body.

In short, his bill, if made law, would create weekend travel restrictions and tolls for a portion of I70 and ski resorts, requiring drivers to either have passengers on board to meet HOV requirements of at least three passengers or pay a toll. Truckers wold have to pay a toll during the restricted times no matter what. The goal is to reduce traffic by 10 to 15 percent.

There's another catch that is rankling a few Coloradoans, too. Before starting a journey up the mountain, drivers would have to register online so the state could measure traffic flow. If you're reading this article, then clearly this wouldn't be a problem for you -- you have access to a computer and an Internet connection. But what about those folks who still haven't completely joined the digital age?

Still, the bill is not in its final stage and he does promise to incorporate more suggestions made through the online discussion group.

From Daily Camera.

Related links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 2 Comments

Wikipedia Founder Breaks Up With Girlfriend Via Wikipedia

by Tim Stevens, posted Mar 4th 2008 at 1:11PM

A Very Wikipedia BreakupDumping someone via text message is cruel. Dumping them via Facebook status message, for all your friends to see, is even more cruel. But dumping someone by updating a Wikipedia page that all the world can see, well, that's an entirely different realm of cruelty. Alas, that's exactly what Wikipedia co-founder Jim Wales did to announce the termination of relations with his fling, former Fox News correspondent Rachel Marsden.

The whole story rides a tawdry wave of sexy chat transcripts and accusations of improper behavior among the hallowed keepers of the Wiki. Wales admits meeting Mardsen after she made complaints to the site about some things posted on her Wiki page. The two later met and started a relationship, at which point Wales says he banned himself from any involvement in future edits of Marsden's page. Apparently, however, things started to go sour when Wales indicated the two were separated via an update to the globally public Wikipedia itself (originally posted here), only telling Mardsen herself directly (via IM) later.

Marsden, rather irate about the dumping, turned around and leaked some sexy chat transcripts to Valleywag in which, among other things, the two lovers plan out their sexual antics and discuss privacy concerns regarding Google. She then followed that up by posting some of Wales' personal items on eBay, a likewise unclassy move but, given the circumstances, perhaps not entirely unwarranted.

From The Register and Valleywag



Related Links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 72 Comments

Happy Birthday Wikipedia

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jan 17th 2008 at 8:34AM

Happy Birthday Wikipedia
It's hard to believe but this week Wikipedia is only 7 years old. Just 2,561 days ago the free and editable by every one encyclopedia that has become a staple in so many people's lives didn't exist.

In that short time, Wikipedia has gone from interesting experiment, to a fairly reliable source on an absurdly broad range of subjects. As of this morning the English version counts over 2.1 million articles in it's database.

For all the controversy surrounding the reliability of the open-source knowledge encyclopedia, it has certainly proven its worth. Some studies have found Wikipedia to be just as reliable, or more reliable than many commercial, peer-reviewed tomes, and the site can be credited with helping to jump start the user-generated content revolution we all know as "Web 2.0".

While we would never say that Wikipedia is perfect, we sure are glad it's here.

From Wired

Related links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 0 Comments

New Jack Black Film 'Destroys' the Internet

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Nov 28th 2007 at 5:45PM

New Jack Black Film Destroys the Internet
The upcoming Michel Gondry-directed Jack Black vehicle 'Be Kind Rewind' is set to hit theaters on January 25th, which means it's promotion time. In the film, Mos Def and Jack Black are forced to re-film or 'swede' a pile of films after a magnetized Jack Black accidentally erases every video in the rental shop.

So in keeping with the film's premise, the web site for the motion picture erases the Internet. Then, in a rather cutesy fashion, the site presents you with several 'sweded' versions of popular web pages to use, including Google, Wikipedia, a social networking site called MyFace, and Flickr, among others.

Check out the site for some interesting web fun. Even if it all just amounts to an interactive advertisement, at least the movie looks cool.

From Valleywag

Related links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 3 Comments

How to Find Out Who Is Editing Wikipedia Entries

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 15th 2007 at 1:21PM

Fox News Caught Editing Own Wiki EntryWikipedia is one of the most impressive social experiments to come out of the Internet, but there will always be a cloud of doubt hanging over the user-generated-encyclopedia site in the minds of those who don't trust its open nature. Anyone can log in and make changes and, of course, everyone does, including employees of Fox News, who saw fit to make a slight change to the entry about the decidedly conservative-minded news source.

The change involved removing a quote from Al Franken that was captured on NPR's 'Fresh Air.' The original Fox News article included this line: "Franken said that Fox's case against him was 'literally laughed out of court' and that 'wholly (holy) without merit' is a good characterization of Fox News itself." After the edit by someone from within the Fox News organization, the entry read thusly: "Franken said that Fox's case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales."

Oops.

The means to find these questionable edits comes from a tool called WikiScanner, which lets anyone browse article edits and find their source. This, of course, has resulted in a slew of entertaining finds, many of which are listed at Wired's Threat Level blog. Here are a few of our favorites:

From O'Reilly Radar

Related Links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 2 Comments

Wikipedia More Accurate Than Britannica?

by Tim Stevens, posted Jul 24th 2007 at 1:39PM

Wikipedia Correcting BritannicaIn an interesting twist that's sure to set some tenured academics a grumblin', the hive of minds behind Wikipedia have worked up a list of errors in 'Encyclopedia Britannica' that Wikipedia, naturally, has correct. There are 50-odd entries in the list, ranging from a bogus birth date for Pink Floyd's Roger Waters to more scientific matters, like incorrectly stating that the solid version of nitroglycerin is more sensitive to jostling than the liquid.

This is an unofficial follow-up to the controversial 'Nature' article which found Wikipedia was nearly as accurate as Britannica, an article which elicited a vehement response from the slighted publication (PDF). It seems this intellectual spat is bound to go on for a number of years to come ... somewhat at odds with the nature of the Wikipedia organization, which purports to be all about teamwork and open discussion.

From Slashdot and Wikipedia

Related Links:
  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 2 Comments

Wikipedia on CD

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 26th 2007 at 9:39AM

Wikipedia on CDOnline reference resource Wikipedia is being burned to CD for use in classrooms and by people with no or limited Internet access.

For anyone unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it's kind of like an online-only version of Encyclopedia Britannica except without a long history of spectacularly annoying television ads, and without the same level of credibility or expertise. That's because instead of professional editors writing and researching its pages, each of Wikipedia's millions of entries can be edited, added to or deleted by anyone. That doesn't exclude psychos, pranksters or even you.

The advantage of this collaboration is that Wikipedia's pages can evolve along with current events. The static version, therefore, will be whittled down to just 2,000 pages that focus on such subjects as geography and literature, which don't have a habit of changing too often. The entries will also be sanitized of any crude language or other signs of vandalism.

The CD is available for $14 (plus shipping, of course!) through the project's website.

From USA Today


  • Permalink
  • Email this
  • SHARE
  • 0 Comments


    AOL Tech Network



    Latest Reviews from CNET.com

    CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

    Top Product Reviews

    Weblogs, Inc. Network

    AOL News

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

    Joystiq
    Download Squad
    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
    BloggingStocks
    Xbox 360 Fanboy
    Autoblog
    Big Download Blog
    AOL Sports Blog