wikipedia

The 404 310: Where BOL wishes it was The 404

There's been a lot of tension between Buzz Out Loud and The 404 for the last couple of months, but today, it's all on! We're sick and tired of the "Bore Out Loud" stealing our women (*ahem* Natali Del Conte) and our joke show titles. We've never been as crass as to have "urine" in one of our show titles. We got pretty bad, though, with having "tickling the Bonch." But we really did tickle CNET editor Bonnie Cha that day.

It's official! We. Are. The. Four. Oh. Four: High-tech, low-brow. That's right. That's the winner to our tagline contest. Also, here are the winners to our Justin Yu photo caption contest (in order) for a copy of Wheelman for the Xbox 360:

What, the Hubble Telescope is down?! Don't worry, just tell me what you wanna look at. The 404's Justin Yu was taken into custody shortly after molesting a lumberjack, a 90-year-old woman, and robbing a Radioshack in Chinatown last evening. Luckily, there was no evidence of d*cktopping at any of these crime scenes. All the single printers, all the single printers!

In today's episode, we've got proof that gamers who play action-oriented video games have better vision than non-gamers. A man dies after trying to get healthier with the Wii Fit. Chinese people are spying on your pr0n collection and the NSA. Let's hope the Conflicker doesn't end the Interweb before they find too much dirt. The Pirate Bay joins Facebook. And finally, Encarta dies a slow, painful death after being stabbed by Wikipedia.

EPISODE 310 Download today's podcast | Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe in RSS… Read more

Microsoft closing the book on Encarta

Microsoft has quietly confirmed that it is getting out of the encyclopedia business, ending its long-standing Encarta product.

As noted by Ars Technica, the software maker says it will discontinue all its online Encarta products by October, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will run through the end of the year. It will also stop selling Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium, paid software products that included the online encyclopedia.

In a posting on its Web site, Microsoft said that the move reflected the change in the way people use reference material. It didn't mention Wikipedia by name, but … Read more

British children to study Twitter in school

The British are looking very hard in the mirror these days. Perhaps it is related to the belief that the country is running out of money.

In any case, who would have thought that they would choose to give up mandatory education about the Second World War and begin teaching their children about Twitter and Wikipedia?

The plans, leaked to the dastardly press (perhaps some devious cove just twittered a tiny URL to a password-protected site), give children relief from having to learn too many dates, place names, and pesky scientific formulas. You can google all that nonsense, anyway.

But … Read more

The 404 283: Where we eat Brooke Showell's bacon-bit cupcakes

From Urban Baby, Brooke Showell joins us on the show today to teach us where babies come from and how to take care of them. Along the way, Wilson learns that babies don't come from the stork or out of a trash can. Apparently, urban babies don't sell drugs either. Brooke says kids are learning how to use BlackBerrys before they can poop by themselves. This causes Jeff to reconsider having kids in his life. One last props for Ms. Showell: She brought us cupcakes! With bacon bits (not really, but Justin got really excited)!

We don't … Read more

The 404 270: Where we better have a wiki page by the end of this show

The 404 is a big supporter of open-source information, so we invite our buddy Nic Hill, director of Truth in Numbers: the Wikipedia Story, to shed some light on the site and its ongoing controversy. He gives us the full rundown on how Wikipedia works, his experience working on the film, and his travels around the world expounding the merits of information and community.

Free digital content is an intrinsic right, or at least it should be. That's the Wikipedia.com ethos, and we're still in the dark about how the site actually works. Luckily, Nic Hill is … Read more

Google taking security a little too seriously?

It looks like Google is marking all of its search results with this warning: "This site may harm your computer."

If you click on a Google result link in spite of the warning, you get an interstitial page with an additional warning: "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!"

Clicking the warning itself will take you to this page, which explains: "This warning message appears with search results we've identified as sites that may install malicious software on your computer."

The server(s) that hosts that page seems to be … Read more

Daily Tidbits: Wikipedia users asked to edit 'Wikipedia' book

"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" by John Broughton has been made available for free on Wikipedia, O'Reilly Books, its publisher, announced Tuesday. The book is being delivered in Wiki format, which means users can edit the text as they see fit. Peter Meyers, the "Missing Manuals" managing editor, said O'Reilly may use those edits in a second edition, if it's made available. If you want to read the book (or improve it), it's available now on Wikipedia's help page.

AllFacebook, a blog that covers the world of Facebook, launched a tool Tuesday … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 897: Talk to the Palm

Oh snap, as they say. Palm has decided to get all vague in Apple's face about patents. Molly's back and she's hazelnut brown. And we determine that tech is, in fact, pretty sucky. All that and more, if you can get your sucky tech to work long enough to listen. Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 897

Microsoft extends Windows 7 beta http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212902415&cid=iwhome_art_Opera_mostpop http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/01/23/general-availability-for-the-windows-7-beta-to-end.aspx

How many versions of Windows 7 will there be? … Read more

Wikipedia considers limiting user edits

Just as Encyclopedia Britannica is moving in the direction of user-based entries, Wikipedia might soon be clamping down on theirs.

Wikipedia is apparently considering instituting a new editorial process that would put better safeguards in place and require all updates to be approved by a "reliable" user. The so-called Flagged Revisions process would allow registered, trusted editors to publish changes to the site immediately. All other edits would be sent to a queue and would not be published until they get approved by one of Wikipedia's trusted team of editors.

The proposal comes in the aftermath of … Read more

Encyclopedia Britannica to allow user edits

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Encyclopedia Britannica President Jorge Cauz said that the encyclopedia's free, online version, Britannica.com, will soon be allowing user edits and additions to its pages. This system is not yet live, but according to the Herald should be within the next day or so.

Registered users will be able to make corrections, or add entirely new sections to encyclopedia pages--much like Wikipedia. The big difference, however, is that Britannica.com's editing and approval system will be managed by its own editors and contracted staff instead of power users. According to … Read more