The latest, most interesting highlights of web 2.0 news:
Show Notes:
Web Trend News Brief 2007-04-04
Amazon Patents Humans Assisting Computers
theodp writes "Amazon's latest patent, the Hybrid Machine/Human Computing Arrangement, reads like scary sci-fi, with claims covering the use of humans 'of college educated, at most high school educated, at most elementary school educated, and not formally educated' to perform subtasks dispatched by a computer. From the patent: 'For examples, the task on hand requires French speaking humans, and Task Server has requested that each subtask be performed by at least 10 humans with a past accuracy record of at least 90%.' Yikes."
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/106439614/article.pl


FCC says 'no' to cell phones on planes (AP)
AP - Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070403/ap_on_go_ot/cell_phones_airplanes
InfoWorld - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has ended a proceeding that would have allowed mobile phone calls on airplanes, for now ending the possibility of phone conversations during flights.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070403/tc_infoworld/87399

Class Action Suit: Microsoft Used Deceptive Marketing (PC World)
PC World - Microsoft Corp. unfairly labeled PCs "Windows Vista Capable" even when the computers could only run the most basic form of the operating system, according to a lawsuit filed against the software giant on Thursday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070403/tc_pcworld/130372

New Algorithms Improve Image Search
bc90021 writes "Electrical engineers from UC San Diego are making progress on an image search engine that analyzes the images themselves. At the core of this Supervised Multiclass Labeling system is a set of simple yet powerful algorithms developed at UCSD. Once you train the system (the 'supervised' part), you can set it loose on a database of unlabeled images. The system calculates the probability that various objects it has been trained to recognize are present, and labels the images accordingly. After labeling, images can be retrieved via keyword searches. Accuracy of the UCSD system has outpaced that of other content-based image labeling and retrieval systems in the literature. One of the co-authors works at Google, where the researchers have access to image collections at the largest of scales."
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/106397205/article.pl

FBI checks gambling in Second Life virtual world (Reuters)
Reuters - FBI investigators have visited Second Life's Internet casinos at the invitation of the virtual world's creator Linden Lab, but the U.S. government has not decided on the legality of virtual gambling.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070403/wr_nm/secondlife_gambling_dc

Microsoft releases emergency software patch (AFP)
AFP - Microsoft on Tuesday released a high-priority software patch intended to fix a dangerous vulnerability in its Vista and Windows operating systems.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070404/tc_afp/usitinternetsoftwarehackercompanymicrosoft

VoteForTheWorst.com has 'American Idol's' number
With a little help from Howard Stern, the Web site backs singers of whom the hit show's judges are not terribly fond.

http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-6173028.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1023_3-0-5&subj=news

Blog Spotlight: MySpace Will Hold Presidential Primary
TechCrunch: MySpace has more registered members than Mexico has people. If it was a country it would be the 11th largest in the world. So while it may be a major marketing event for MySpace to say it’s holding a presidential primary next January, you can be sure the candidates will take it seriously.
The MySpace primary will be held on January 1 & 2, 2008, before any of the official state primaries. Every user will be asked to vote for their favorite candidate.
Most of the candidates already have MySpace pages. See, for example, Hillary Clinton (7,468 friends), John Edwards (16,921 friends), Rudy Guiliani (private profile), John McCain (3,596 friends) and Barack Obama (89,465 friends). See all of the candidates here.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/106272328/
CNET coverage also: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6172862.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1023_3-0-5&subj=news