PCIN.net Update

From the New York Times:

For Internet companies doing business in China, a piece of a booming market has not come without compromises.

A series of episodes showing that the companies were bending to the restrictive demands of Beijing — filtering words like “democracy” or “human rights” from Chinese versions of a blog product, or censoring certain concepts from their China-based search engines — has leaked out from users inside China.

And as questions were raised after each new revelation, companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems invariably offered a variation on a common chorus.

From Wired News:

“Don’t work too hard,” wrote a colleague in an e-mail today. Was she sincere or sarcastic? I think I know (sarcastic), but I’m probably wrong.

According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I’ve only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.

“That’s how flame wars get started,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. “People in our study were convinced they’ve accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance,” says Epley.

From TBO.com:

Tiny silicon chips were embedded into two workers who volunteered to help test the tagging technology at a surveillance equipment company, an official said Monday.

The Mexico attorney general’s office implanted the so-called RFIDs - for radio frequency identification chips - in some employees in 2004 to restrict access to secure areas. Implanting them in the workers at CityWatcher.com is believed to be the first use of the technology in living humans in the United States.

From the New York Times:

As digital electronics have invaded Toyland, putting video projectors and cellphones into the hands of 7- year-olds, companies that cater to preschoolers have deliberately sat on the sidelines, determined to hold up the wall between adult technology and children’s play.

But the wall is about to come crashing down.

At least that is how it will look from the floor of the America International Toy Fair, the industry’s biggest annual trade show in the United States, which begins tomorrow at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

Fisher-Price, synonymous with Elmo and Power Wheels, will introduce a digital music player and digital camera for children ages 3 and older that will be sold during the 2006 holiday season.