Socialwok Takes A Stroll In The Google Apps Marketplace
2010-03-09 21:59:02
Tonight, Google launched its Google Apps Marketplace, an online storefront for Apps products and services. Here are our notes from the announcement. And of course, the marketplace is launching with a number of pilot partners (50 to be exact). One of those partners happens to be recently launched Socialwok, a product that ads a social layer to Gmail and other Google products. At last year's TechCrunch50 conference, Socialwok made a big splash, winning the award for best demopit startup and launching its enterprise-friendly, FriendFeed-like layer for Google Apps. The web-based application was praised for launching a social network that wrapped around the very unsocial Google Apps. And the startup just launched a gadget to allow users access all the features of Socialwok without leaving Gmail. Socialwok in the the Google Apps Marketplace allows organizations to use their existing Google Apps accounts to login into Socialwok and create a social network for their domains to share within Google Docs, Google Calendars, Google Spreadsheets and other Google objects in feeds. For example, with the Socialwok Gmail gadget, users can view, post and comment on various feeds in their organization right from Gmail.

Call to halt NHS medical database
2010-03-09 21:48:42
Doctors' leaders urge ministers to halt the development of a medical records database for patients in England.

Christians flee after Nigeria's massacre (AFP)
2010-03-09 21:48:27
AFP - Fresh gunfire has sent Christian villagers in Nigeria fleeing as a senior official accused the country's military chiefs of having ignored warnings about last weekend's massacre.

MetaLab Accuses Mozilla Of Plagiarizing Its Design (Updated)
2010-03-09 21:39:52
Andrew Wilkinson of MetaLab has just written a blog post accusing Mozilla of plagiarizing the design of its FlightDeck editor. To make matters worse, Wilkinson says that MetaLab actually bid on creating the design for FlightDeck months ago, but was turned down by Mozilla. While Wilkinson is understandably upset, at this point,it looks like the plagiarized image is just a mockup on the Mozilla wiki — not the actual product (though it's obviously still in bad taste). We've reached out to Mozilla for a comment. You can see a screenshot comparison from Wilkinson's blog post below. Update: Here's a comment from Mozilla, stating that the copy-and-paste design was a proof of concept:

Workers urge faster rebuilding at ground zero site (AP)
2010-03-09 21:30:31
AP - Hundreds of construction workers raised a rallying cry of 'Build it now!' on Tuesday, gathering with elected officials at the World Trade Center site to urge a quick rebuilding of the complex.

Pa. woman accused of recruiting jihadists online (AP)
2010-03-09 21:30:24
AP - A suburban woman 'desperate to do something' to help suffering Muslims has been accused of using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas, even agreeing to move to Europe to try to kill a Swedish artist, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Pope's brother: I ignored physical abuse reports (AP)
2010-03-09 21:30:23
AP - The pope's brother said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that he slapped pupils as punishment after he took over a renowned German boys' choir in the 1960s. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir but did nothing about it.

Ohio State janitor's gunfire kills co-worker, self (AP)
2010-03-09 21:30:21
AP - An Ohio State University janitor who was about to lose his job walked into a maintenance building for his early morning shift Tuesday and shot two supervisors, killing one of them and fatally shooting himself. No students were hurt.

Feds to probe cause of runaway Prius in California (AP)
2010-03-09 21:30:13
AP - The government sent investigators Tuesday to examine a Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway, and Toyota said it wanted to interview the driver as the besieged automaker dealt with a high-profile new headache that raised questions about the safety of its beloved hybrid.

Fawcett omission from Oscar segment no accident (AP)
2010-03-09 21:28:47
AP - The executive director of the film academy said Tuesday that Farrah Fawcett wasn't included in the Academy Awards' In Memoriam segment because the actress was better known as a TV star.

Democrats doubt deadline on healthcare (Reuters)
2010-03-09 21:23:35
Reuters - Congressional Democrats on Tuesday cast doubt on their chances of meeting the White House's March 18 deadline for voting on a stalled healthcare overhaul, but said they are moving as fast as they can.

Obama backs bipartisan crackdown on healthcare cheats (Reuters)
2010-03-09 21:09:20
Reuters - President Barack Obama, making a final push for healthcare reform, will back bipartisan plans to stamp out waste in government-run medical programs for the old and needy, the White House said on Tuesday.

Live: Google Apps Marketplace Launches At Google Campfire One
2010-03-09 21:04:54
Tonight, Google is hosting one of their Campfire One events at their headquarters in Mountain View, CA. They're using the event to launch their new Google Apps Marketplace. This is the app store that business applications can use to reach the more than 25 million people and 2 million business that use Google Apps for their domains. Here are the links to our extended coverage on the Google Apps Marketplace: Google Apps Marketplace: Instantly Connect Your App To 25 Million Users, Profit. Socialwok Takes A Stroll In The Google Apps Marketplace Web-Based Productivity Suite Zoho Finds A Place In The Google Apps Marketplace Below, find our live notes from the event.

Accused Letterman extortionist pleads guilty (Reuters)
2010-03-09 21:03:09
Reuters - A television producer pleaded guilty Tuesday to trying to extort million from U.S. talk show host David Letterman by threatening to reveal his affairs with women who worked on his late-night program on CBS.

Inmate reoffending 'costs £10bn'
2010-03-09 20:55:17
Reoffending by thousands of criminals serving short sentences in England and Wales costs up to £10bn a year, says a report.

Amazon Wields Gift Certificates To Pacify Frustrated Comic Book Fans
2010-03-09 20:36:44
Over the last few days, a strange situation has been brewing between Amazon and a sizable number of comic book fans. On March 7, Bleeding Cool broke the news of an apparent Amazon sale featuring high quality hardcover Marvel graphic novels at bargain-basement prices of .99, when their retail prices were more along the lines of 5. Alas, it turned out to be a pricing error. Amazon could have simply canceled the orders (which is common practice for online retailers), but instead, it tried to do right by its users and said it would honor some of the orders. Except it didn't actually have enough books in stock to do what it promised, leading to another wave of frustration from the comics fans. Now Amazon is looking to smooth things over with some dollar gift certificates. The tale is a bit complicated. After word of the apparent sale began to spread, plenty of comics fans began to snatch up the books as quickly as they could, causing some of the graphic novels to climb toward the top of Amazon's best seller lists.

Leaping off the page - Belgian paper prints '3D edition'
2010-03-09 20:35:26
A Belgian daily has issued what is thought to be Europe's first 3D newspaper - complete with cardboard viewing glasses.

SXSW Interactive: Because hell doesn’t have enough promotional stickers
2010-03-09 20:34:25
Later this week, thousands of ironic t-shirts will be arriving in Austin for the 16th annual South By Southwest Interactive festival. At about this time, it's traditional for tech publications to publish handy guides to 'surviving SXSWi' - packed with useful advice that's basically interchangeable with that for any other festival since the beginning of time. 'Drink plenty of water!' 'Prepare for some late nights!' 'Plan ahead to make sure you don't miss anything!' 'Pack sturdy shoes!' 'Always use a condom!'. Useful advice for SXSWi, certainly, but also applicable for Oktoberfest, Glastonbury, Woodstock and the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia (although for the latter, replace 'shoes' with 'sandals' and 'condom' with 'sprig of silphium'). This year, though, I decided to use my experience of past SXSWi's to produce something more useful. A very specific and completely foolproof guide on surviving this year's event. And here it is... Tip One: Don't go to South by Southwest Interactive.

Ring may be giant 'impact crater'
2010-03-09 20:26:56
Deforestation has revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, according to Italian scientists.

More schools likely to be failed
2010-03-09 20:25:57
More schools in England are being judged as inadequate in Ofsted's new-style inspections, figures are expected to show.