Finance Geek

On paper, it’s a no-brainer: Prisoners have mobile phones they are using to run gangs, call friends, and intimidate witnesses. It’s technically possible to jam the phones, but the 1930s law setting up the nation’s telecommunications bureaucracy makes this illegal — and a bill that would allow it is in legislative limbo.

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Twitter CEO Evan Williams announces a plan to bring status updates to a variety of other websites. His keynote presentation at SXSW does not get a wow from his audience, Many critics weigh in on — ironically — Twitter.

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Pulling from the subscription service’s vast library of more than 7 million songs, the newly announced apps for iPhone and Android will let users download as many as their phones will hold.

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New features in the planned update will let users play locally stored songs, leading to better performance and longer battery life. Get an early look at tweaks in the pipeline.

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SHANGHAI/BEIJING - Google says it remains in talks with Beijing about censorship of its Chinese-language search portal but is adamantly opposed to the practice amid mounting signs the company could soon shut the site.

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If dipping into your life savings to develop that great idea or project isn’t an option (as in, you don’t have savings), the crowdsourced fundraising service called Kickstarter just might be your only financial hope.

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A new type of wire service acts as a middleman between freelancers and big media companies, with the aim of firing up free speech in the Middle East and other regions.

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

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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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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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