SOURCE: FORBES Media Blogging Beyond The Spin Cycle Steve McGookin, 10.08.04, 2:55 PM ET It's official. The spin cycle has now overtaken the news cycle. The opening debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry was predictably characterized by the usual spin-alley frenzy of rebuttal, pre-buttal and slant. The same, no doubt, will be true of their second debate, scheduled for this evening. But this year, all of that is augmented by a constant stream of real-time analysis from ...

SOURCE: NETSCAPE Poll: Youth Tie Bush, Draft Reinstatement WASHINGTON (AP) - In spite of denials by the Bush administration, half of young Americans believe President Bush wants to reinstate the military draft, a national poll suggests. The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 51 percent of adults age 18 to 29 believe Bush wants to reinstate the draft. Eight percent said Kerry supports bring back the draft, and 7 percent said both want to. A fourth of those polled said...

SOURCE: FORBES Krispy Kreme's Sticky Situation Elizabeth MacDonald, 10.08.04, 1:25 PM ET NEW YORK - Krispy Kreme Doughnuts announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission notified it yesterday that it is investigating the company, without specifying any further details. The SEC had already opened up an informal inquiry in July into Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Krispy (nyse: KKD - news - people ), famous for its sugary doughnuts. Krispy Chief Operating Officer John Tate l...

SOURCE: NETSCAPE Microsoft Looks to Expand Windows at Home By MATTHEW FORDAHL SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Efforts by Microsoft Corp. and the PC industry to expand into to the living room will get a boost next week as they show off technologies that try to balance Hollywood's piracy fears with the appeal of digital media. In Los Angeles, Microsoft is expected to unveil Windows Media Center Edition 2005 for entertainment computers as well as other software and gadgets that seek to simpl...

SOURCE: NYTIMES Who's There? How Parents Can Be IM Watchdogs By LARRY MAGID Published: October 7, 2004 INSTANT messaging and online chat are well on their way to ubiquity. Some 41 percent of all Internet users use IM to communicate in real time, according to comScore Media Metrix, a research group that measures Internet demographics. Among users ages 12 to 17, the proportion is even bigger: 55 percent. For parents, this raises the question of controlling the risks associated...

SOURCE: NETSCAPE Scary News About Teen Girls Who Date Nearly one in five sexually active teenage girls in the United States say they have been physically abused by a date in the past year, Reuters reports of a study released by the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass. These same girls are also more likely than other teen girls to become pregnant or engage in risky sexual behaviors, such as having more than one partner over a short period of time. It's not clear if ...

SOURCE: NETSCAPE Dell to Recall 990,000 Laptop Power Adapters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dell Inc. will recall about 990,000 power adapters for some of its laptop computer models because of a risk of overheating, which could lead to a fire or electrical shock, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Friday. Dell has received seven reports of incidents involving the AC adapters overheating, but no injuries were reported, the government agency said. The recall covers a...

SOURCE NYTIMES Taking Their Game to the Next Level EYES ON THE PRIZE Tournaments that pay have sprung up worldwide. Matt Leto, left, won $20,000 in an event last year. Charlie Pyo, third from left, and Team 3D, right, taking part in the World Cyber Games' American finals. By ERIC A. TAUB Published: October 7, 2004 MASSAGING his hands like a pianist preparing for a concert, Zyos steadied himself on the plain metal chair, staring intently at the television perched on a table ...

SOURCE: NYTIMES It Takes a Gadget to Test a Gadget By SANDEEP JUNNARKAR Published: October 7, 2004 AT the entrance to the library of the Consumers Union testing center here sits an apparatus that resembles the innards of a piano, but with an angled plank, some rotating levers and strange knobs protruding all around. As it turns out, the device was built in the 1930's for purposes neither musical nor particularly technical. It tested the wear and tear on socks. Consumers Un...

SOURCE: NYTIMES Still Exploring After Martian Winter, Rovers Send Back More Signs of Water By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Published: October 8, 2004 Aging but still on the go, climbing in and around craters, tapping into the mysteries of strangely cracked rocks, the two roving vehicles Spirit and Opportunity have explored Mars about three times as long as originally scheduled and keep finding evidence of past liquid water shaping the now arid surface. Mission officials reported yester...

SOURCE NYTIMES Connecting Paper and Online Worlds by Cellphone Camera IN A SNAP Cellphone cameras can gather information in public settings for personal use. Focusing on symbols called SpotCodes can launch a wireless service that can, for example, check a flight's departure time. By DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER Published: October 7, 2004 CAMBRIDGE, England WHEN you think of a public information kiosk, your mental picture might include greasy touch screens, broken trackballs and f...

SOURCE: NETSCAPE Adidas Takes on Nike with U.S. Deal By Ulf Laessing FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German sports goods firm Adidas-Salomon sees a recovery with rising sales in its key U.S. market, it said on Tuesday, as it took on archrival Nike on its home turf by sponsoring the U.S. soccer league. Adidas Chief Executive Herbert Hainer said at an investors' meeting that he expected a "noticeable" sales rise in the key U.S. market in 2005 with profitability also rising. Adidas, known...

With on-line sales the hits or what a hit is can be transformed. Why, because with the internet, everything can be displayed. In a stroe for example, all the movies in the world just can not be stored, let alone in the US. Another example, a hit could be something like "Titanic" and movies like it. But "Caddyshack" with Rodney Dangerfield is a cult classic. It too gets sales. If you had a store, you would pick "Titanic" is you were running out of shelf space, but that is not the same with ...

Before going into the linked article, I have seen these Google challengers before. Some of them have nice search engine results. For example, Mooter has a site that uses clustering or topics. Mooter.com When i search for classic model cars, Mooter gives me this page that shows clusters of different topics. Car parts, racing, die cast, blue book and even maps. The cluster I would have picked is die cast but I could have (or another user) picked car parts or racing or went a totally diffe...

SOURCE: NY TIMES On Italian Isle, Migrant Plight Draws Scrutiny By IAN FISHER and RICHARD BERNSTEIN Published: October 5, 2004 OME, Oct. 4 - Hundreds of migrants from Africa in rickety boats have landed in the last few days on Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island, and the Italian government is responding quickly and contentiously, sending most of them back to Libya almost immediately, by airplane. The crossing to Italy is a treacherous one for the thousands of poor and desperate...