Finance Geek

Promising a mix of revenue and flexibility, the startup will offer independent filmmakers a direct route to movie fans.

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Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world’s largest search engine, is now “99.9 percent” certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times reports.

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Slacker, the critically praised interactive radio service our readers helped us discover in ‘07, plans to launch an on-demand subscription service combining elements of Pandora, Rhapsody and Spotify in the next few months, Wired.com has learned.

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Minnesota seeks to distinguish itself in the increasingly reality TV-esque race to convince Google to build a high-speed fiber optic network there with a video featuring junior US Senator (and former comedian) Al Franken. It’s funny stuff, but also serious business as Google shakes up the notoriously uncompetitive ISP business just by showing up.

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Some folks who don’t seem to listen may just have a lazy ear. A new study in rats shows that short-term hearing impairments at any stage of life can lead to rewiring in the part of the brain that processes sounds, making the ear seem as if it is loafing on its duty to make sense from noise

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How Andrew Breitbart — Matt Drudge’s former right hand — fights the vast left-wing conspiracy by infiltrating the media machine.

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The formidable triumvirate of Amazon, Dell, and Google is apparently poised to give iTunes the first serious run for its money just as the iPad is about to take Apple’s downloadable media megastore where no computer has gone before.

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Google is actively negotiating with China over web censorship according to CEO Eric Schmidt.

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The Nasdaq peaked at 5,049 on March 10, 2000, then it promptly nosedived and hasn’t come near that level since. Here’s a look at the era that launched — and crushed — a million dreams.

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Spending on digital advertising is poised to surpass print for the first time in 2010, according to a new study prepared even before the announcement of Apple’s iPad, with all of that hardware’s game-changing potential. But another view is: So what? It’s bound to happen soon if not this year.

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Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right — with those feelings particularly strong in South Korea and China — and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey.

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Apple fanboys (and maybe girls) have struck again in New Jersey — this time breaking into a Best Buy ninja-style to steal $26,000 in notebooks. Six months ago and an hour away an Apple Store was knocked over for an even bigger haul. Coincidence?! Yeah, probably …

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Google is haunted by the notion that the same disruptive forces which transformed it from a garage project by two kids maxing out their credit cards into a global superpower in 10 short years could render them irrelevant. Just like that.

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Ever wonder how Jimi Hendrix would have covered Lady Gaga? The day is approaching when you should be able to find out, thanks to Zenph Sound Innovations’ technology for analyzing and recreating artists’ musical styles.

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Netflix has renewed its interest in the iPhone as a video streaming platform, with a survey asking its customers how much they want an app for the iPhone (and, almost certainly, the iPad). The proposed app would allow them to watch thousands of movies and television shows for about the price of one movie ticket per month, with no need for a traditional cable or satellite subscription.

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