The singles culture, in other words, is making it easier for me to experiment with a band, to “date it,” if you will, before I “marry it.” It’s also letting me go very broad with bands that I already like: to pay the band to experiment. (I’ve never met a Radiohead /Thom Yorke or Morrissey single that I wouldn’t buy, though the quality of the tracks varies wildly.)

Did we like music more back when we had to pay for it in bulk?

Yes, some like Pink Floy

Web publishers can now design AdSense ads–groups of Google AdWords text ads displayed by third-party publishers on their Web sites–with the HTML browsers used by smartphones in mind, Google announced Monday in a blog post. Advertisers had been able to run smaller mobile ads that older mobile phone browsers could handle, but they’ll now have an option of showing a more sophisticated ad on a more sophisticated browser like those used by the iPhone, the Palm Pre, and Android phones.

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• Honeywell’s Wind Turbine, a power generator aimed at the home market that, while costing $5,500, is expected to produce high-efficiency power in a small package.

Popular Mechanics magazine on Thursday will unveil its fifth-annual Breakthrough Award winners, an august collection of designers and products that could do much more than their share to change the world for the better.

• LEHR’s Eco Trimmer, part of a line of propane-powered garden tools. This is,

AT&T told federal regulators on Friday that it played no part in Apple’s decision to keep the Google Voice application from the App Store, while Apple said it never actually rejected the application.

“We welcome AT&T’s willingness to take a fresh look at authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone over AT&T’s 3G network,” Skype said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “Skype hopes this is a step forward in enabling consumers to be able to use Skype together with their iPhones and

As news broke this week that Microsoft and Nokia would be partnering to (brace yourself!) port Office to Nokia phones, followed by the equally momentous (or not) news that (sit down for this one!) Microsoft will replace Entourage with Outlook for Mac OS X, I couldn’t help but agree with Larry Dignan’s assessment of the Nokia deal:

Google may be resorting to some of Microsoft’s most frustrating practices, using its strong products to prop up weak siblings, but at least thos

(Credit:
Foreground Security)

“Generally speaking, by nature, Flash (SWF) content is powerful, active content and should be handled with the same care as other active content technologies, such as JavaScript, to ensure a site’s design does not become vulnerable to abuse scenarios. Adobe has always advised that allowing arbitrary uploads or attachments of Flash (SWF) content to trusted domains should not be performed due to potential abuse scenarios, such as the ones outlined by Mike Bail

But where’s the business?
Screenr is a production of the New York company Articulate, which makes e-learning tools, primarily for corporations. CEO Adam Schwartz told me Articulate has about 20,000 paying customers for its software and services. Screenr, he said, is a first step in the company’s creation of a new group of e-learning products, which he compares to the popular software-based screencast products from Camtasia. But with Artculate’s focus on education, the tools will be “more

MySpace has enlisted the services of media strategy firm Media Link to work on improving its advertising product, Van Natta’s blog post added. Media Link is run by Wenda Harris Millard, the former sales exec from Yahoo and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

A report earlier on Thursday had suggested that Millard would be hired by MySpace outright; that was erroneous, as it turns out.

Following rumors and reports earlier Thursday, the announcement was made in a

Meanwhile, Microsoft said Tuesday that it is investigating another zero-day issue, this one a reported flaw in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Greenbaum noted that Microsoft has yet to issue a patch for a zero-day flaw in Internet Information Services that was made public last week. “Until a patch for this is issued, as a temporary workaround we suggest IT administrators using IIS 5.0 and 6.0 turn off anonymous write access immediately,” Greenbaum said. “We also recommend using a fi

When IBM researcher Don Eigler picked up and moved the first individual atom 20 years ago today, he paved the way for what arguably was the smallest publicity stunt ever: Big Blue’s logo made from a precise arrangement of 35 Xenon atoms.

(Credit:
IBM)

“We did the introduction, and we’re in chapter 1,” Eigler said. “This is way off in the future, if it ever comes about. I cannot conceive, under the best circumstances, this is going to happen in 10 or 15 years.”

An