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MTV has just launched a new social-networking community for youth activism, ThinkMTV, which is designed to network members both online and offline around causes ranging from climate change to HIV/AIDS. While as a standalone network it's not particularly momentous or innovative (although few names come to mind in the "social networking with a social conscience" space that specifically target the MTV demographic), ThinkMTV is worth noting because it's the first major operation to be unveiled as part of MTV parent company Viacom's new Flux social networking initiative.

MTV representatives told CNET News.com in … Read more

Teen-oriented virtual world Zwinky has expanded its e-commerce operations so that members can use real-world cash to pay for virtual goods. Starting Monday, credit cards and PayPal accounts can be used to purchase the in-game "ZBucks" currency, which members could heretofore only earn by visiting certain in-world locations and winning games. The cash will then go on new "ZCard" shopping cards which members will be able to use at the in-world retail hub, the--wait for it--Zwinchester Mall, which contains stores like the Z-Loft trendy furniture outlet and "Like Dat," a boutique branded with the … Read more

The heat rays go marching one by one by...well, that's about it for now.

Raytheon said Tuesday that its Active Denial System 2 is now in the hands of the customer, the U.S. Air Force. Should it ever get beyond the evaluation stage, the ADS technology could be one of the very first directed-energy weapons fielded by the military. It looks like a satellite dish, works something like a microwave, and isn't supposed to cause any lasting harm.

What it's intended to do is beam short bursts of millimeter waves (which are smaller than the … Read more

The Samba team has released an early look at a new version 4.0 of the open-source file-sharing software that's geared to mesh more tightly with Windows networks.

Samba reproduces Windows protocols used by file and print servers, letting Linux or Unix operating systems handle some tasks a Windows server ordinarily would. The most notable feature of the Samba 4.0 alpha release is support for Windows Active Directory logon technology used since Windows 2000, project leaders said last week.

The feature has been under development for years. The Samba group released a version of Samba with the Active Directory support … Read more

There's a reason why SpywareBlaster made last year's list of best free security and spyware programs. The free spyware prevention utility blocks ActiveX controls, tracking cookies, and ads on Internet Explorer and blocks cookies and ads on Firefox. Take a look at the program's features in the video below, and check out other First Look videos on popular software products.

Editors' note: This blog initially misspelled the name of a writer from Wired. The writer is Eliot Van Buskirk.

Watermarking has been in the news twice in the past week. First, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk revealed that Universal will insert watermarks in the DRM-free files it's distributing through Rhapsody, Amazon.com and other online stores.

Then, Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it's licensing audio watermarking technology developed by its research division to a company called Activated Content. (Microsoft Research used to be devoted entirely to building technology that would later be incorporated into Microsoft products, but a couple … Read more

Every few months, a contingent of New York digital media entrepreneurs known as the Founders Club gets together and hosts a mixer for several hundred people to celebrate the start-up spirit of the local tech industry. The end result, as one might imagine, is a mixed bag of "big media," venture capital and finance types, start-up entrepreneurs, and members of the press.

On Tuesday night, the Founders Club threw its third event at the Frank Gehry-designed InterActiveCorp (IAC) building in Manhattan's West Chelsea neighborhood. I've put together a slideshow of some photographs from the event; a … Read more

My colleague Phil Ryan has posted an entry over at our Crave blog about some new permit proposals in NYC that will undoubtedly make it a lot tougher for people to take photos and video of the city they love.

I'll quote Phil here: "The new rules require permits for any shoot that includes two people or more for a period of longer than 30 minutes and restrict tripod use to ten minutes, including set up and break down times. I don't know about you, but for a complicated shot, it can take me ten minutes just … Read more

When you think of a parenting and technology blog, you might expect lots of posts about new gadgets for kids. But I have found that the biggest impact that technology has had on my "parenting" life isn't in my relationship with my child, it's in my identity as a mother. And rather than being about gadgets, for me technology is primarily about relationships and sharing information.… Read more