Lewis Lazare: After the release last week of the considerably less-than-stellar "Chicago Surprises" video -- shown to International Olympic Committee members in Beijing -- came word Wednesday the Chicago 2016 Committee is reaching out to all the city's citizens and asking them to create their own video take (60 seconds or less) on why Chicago is the best place to host the 2016 Olympics. A special channel has been established at Chicago2016.org that will allow video makers to post their finished efforts online.
When Barack Obama announces his choice for vice president, the real payoff may come during the next few months -- one text message at a time. Obama's campaign plans to break the news of the Democratic candidate's vice presidential pick to people who have signed up to receive e-mails and text messages from the campaign.
Brad Spirrison: Two years ago, InnerWorkings went public by using the Internet to bring together buyers and sellers of commercial print jobs. The company today is harnessing its proprietary software and network of more than 6,000 suppliers to profitably impress upon larger customers including John Deere, Kraft and Walgreens the value of its services.
Sandra Guy: Food follows a circuitous route to get to food pantries and homeless shelters for people in need. America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest food-bank network, uses Worknet Inc., a Naperville-based technology firm, to host its computer servers that route food and make sure the food is delivered fresh.
Andy Ihnatko: I've owned exactly one really nice pen in my life: a $150 Lamy 2000 fountain pen. It looked nice, held a huge amount of ink, it was fun to write with. And three seconds after a friend borrowed it to write down a phone number, she sent it sailing over a balcony. Two flights of stairs later, my suspicions were confirmed: A concrete sidewalk is indeed harder than a 14-carat gold nib covered in platinum.
Consumers looking to save money on their cell phone bills can find help from a new online tool from the Citizens Utility Board that automatically analyzes individual wireless bills.
Some 90,000 Chicago Public Schools students will eventually be able to use their student IDs to catch the L. Under an expansion of a program approved Wednesday by the CTA, CPS high school students will receive new IDs that grant them reduced fares and can be used like CTA "Chicago Cards'' on trains and buses.
SEATTLE---- Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it will add the former chief executives of Viacom and Nextel Partners to its board of directors as part of the company's deal to ward off a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
CUPERTINO, Calif.---- Firefighters have put out a blaze that burned for more than three hours at the headquarters of computer maker Apple.
Lewis Lazare: Thanks to humorous commercials that are part of the new OfficeMax back-to-school ad campaign from the Escape Pod/Chicago, we now know New Yorkers don't like being paid for purchases with pennies.
Brad Spirrison: I dread it when I'm invited to corporate golf outings. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sport and take pride in an ability to recite every line from "Caddyshack." The problem I have is an inability to play the game with any degree of competency. It is no fun trying to develop business relationships while chasing a ball around the course for four or five hours.
Illinois Tool Works announced Monday that it intends to sell software business Click Commerce and decorative surfaces business Wilsonart.
Sandra Guy: Ammar Haq had never paid attention to the message underlying a neighborhood's lack of banks and proliferation of currency exchanges until he took an honors course at Elmhurst College. "You don't see one bank for miles," said Haq, a 22-year-old senior majoring in biology, describing a class tour of a bank-less Chicago neighborhood. "You see storefront churches and fast-food places and currency exchanges." Haq, who grew up in Lombard and whose parents are from Pakistan, took the eye-opening tour as part of the course "Prophets: Visions of Social Justice."
Marco knew he was in trouble when the character he played in an online fantasy game began to infiltrate his dreams. "When you start having fantasies about a fantasy world, you know you're starting to develop a problem," said the 19-year-old north suburban resident, who was nearly kicked out of college because he spent too much time playing games online.
LAS VEGAS -- A federal judge has ordered three college students to cancel a presentation at a computer hackers' conference showing security flaws in the automated fare system used by Boston's subway.
These are two local treatment groups that offer specialized treatment for Internet addiction:
Sample questions from the Internet Addiction Test by Kimberly Young, director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery
Sandra Guy: It's a back to basics back-to-school year in electronics shopping, because there is no "must-have" item this year, experts say. "We haven't seen one product that teenagers are gushing over. Most of the text-messaging products and miniature computers have already been on the market for a while," said Kathy Grannis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation in Washington, D.C.
Notebook PCs made for the back-to-school college market are usually as boring and practical as a pair of brown back-to-school pants. ASUS bucks that trend with the new ASUS eeePC 1000H . . . a compact Windows XP subnotebook with a comfortable screen, an Intel processor, 80-gig hard drive and up to eight hours of battery life.
Sandra Guy: Motorola's new co-chief executive and head of its mobile phone unit, Sanjay Jha, said Monday he will make important decisions on the Schaumburg-based cell phone giant's maligned software technology platforms in the next 90 days and aim to quickly launch the kinds of handsets that consumers demand. Jha, 45, will earn base pay of at least $1.2 million, receive a bonus of $2.4 million and get an ownership stake in a new, stand-alone Motorola handset business.
Brad Spirrison: In today's nervous economy, it pays to learn the ways of interactive advertising. While "traditional" media industries struggle to find sustainable business models for the 21st century, technology research firm IDC forecasts that worldwide spending on Internet advertising could nearly double to $106 billion by 2011.
Sandra Guy: Today's sometimes rude, crude, lowbrow culture proves to P.J. McGuire that her etiquette business is in desperate demand. "I'm trying to change our society one person at a time," said McGuire, 28, who attended finishing school in her native Lima, Ohio. McGuire remembers being raised in a "prim and proper atmosphere" by parents who grew up in Mississippi steeped in Southern manners. "I ended up going to charm school twice," she said. "I started at age 5, but I was too young to get it. The second time, I was about 7."
A divided Federal Communications Commission has ruled that Comcast Corp. violated federal policy when it blocked Internet traffic for some subscribers and has ordered the cable giant to change the way it manages its network. In a precedent-setting move, the FCC by a 3-2 vote on Friday enforced a policy that guarantees customers open access to the Internet.
Andy Ihnatko: Y'know, I wake up and I have no idea how my day is going to go until I drag my MacBook into the bed and take my first look at the world. On Monday, Cuil.com went from being a new search engine that I was somewhat aware of to a viral news item that I was sick to death of hearing about. Blog after blog, news site after (ibid), message board after (ditto).
BEIJING---- Olympic organizers unblocked some Internet sites at the main press center and media venues Friday while others remained off limits for journalists covering the Beijing games.
Sandra Guy: Is a Motorola cell phone spinoff inevitable? Analysts continued to ask that question Thursday after the Schaumburg-based cell phone giant reported a profit and better-than-expected cell phone shipments in the second quarter. The stock climbed 12.5 percent on the news, to close at $8.64. Speculation that Motorola would keep the cell phone business and spin off other units started earlier this week.
LOS ANGELES -- The Phoenix spacecraft has tasted Martian water for the first time, scientists reported Thursday.
BOSTON -- Scientists working to help astronauts regain balance after extended flights in zero gravity say they've found a way to use the research to help elderly people avoid catastrophic falls.
NEW YORK -- Scrabulous is back on Facebook, but now it has a new name, new rules and circular tiles that could help its makers skirt legal claims from the owners of Scrabble.
Sixteen Chicago area students raced at the speed of sunlight Wednesday afternoon at Daley Center Plaza. Although only 10 years old, Trequan Johnson of Maywood said he understands the danger of relying on fossil fuels. "If we continue using fossil fuels, we won't have enough fuel for anything else later," he explained.
Sandra Guy: Skokie tech innovator Ifbyphone is giving marketers and small businesses a fast, cheap, Web-based way to set up a virtual call center in the form of an application to be unveiled at the digital Ad:tech conference in Chicago next week. Call centers are more often associated with overseas sweatshops, but Ifbyphone's Lead Distributor service, starting at $15-to-$40-a-month with 100 minutes of call time, can enable businesses to hire Americans to answer calls or make requested customer calls in their homes.
There have been beggars on the streets since streets were made of mud, but the biggest proliferation of panhandlers has taken place on the Internet, where you'll find tens of thousands of them, especially lately.
Motorola is separating its second-largest division, Home and Networks Mobility, into three businesses, in a move that could allow the Schaumburg-based wireless-telecom giant to keep its cell-phone business and spin off its other divisions, according to company and analyst reports.The Home and Networks Mobility unit would be separated into modems, Internet-based video, and television set-top boxes and other equipment required for digital video, the report stated.
Brad Spirrison: Small, non-profit dance companies like the Chicago Tap Theatre in Andersonville can ill-afford to stick their toes into risky commercial ventures. So when the nine-dancer company published a glossy photo book last year, it turned to Lulu.com to help illustrate its story.
Sandra Guy: Doctors, scientists, physicists and researchers will enjoy technologically advanced workspaces once two new buildings take shape at the University of Chicago. The latest advances in the Hyde Park university's grand renewal efforts are a $375 million Center for Physical and Computational Sciences and a $700 million New Hospital Pavilion for the University Medical Center. The advances are long past due, university experts say. "Since the last time the university built a building for astronomy and astrophysics, the Cubs have won the Series twice," said Rocky Kolb, chairman of the astronomy and astrophysics department.
Andy Ihnatko: 'Good God, Andy! How is it that you're only just now getting around to talking about Pandora, an Internet radio service that launched nearly three years ago?" Hey! I have a personal life, you know? Do you think that 5,000-piece LEGO Ultimate Millennium Falcon over there just assembled itself? Besides . . . I had my reasons.
WASHINGTON---- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s $3.3 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will mean millions of subscribers will be able to receive programming from both services, while executives say it will create huge cost savings for the industry.
The incessant hype surrounding Apple's iPhone has all been about its sleek design and ease of use. But as many would-be 3G iPhone buyers are discovering, one thing that has been surprisingly difficult since the second iteration of the iPhone debuted is actually getting one.
NEW YORK---- With the market for electronic books still relatively sleepy, Sony Corp. is trying a new tack: untethering the latest model of its e-book reading device from its own online bookstore.
SAN FRANCISCO---- Facebook Inc. is introducing more tools to help the software applications fueling the online hangout's popularity and is promising to intensify its efforts to weed out programs that violate its rules for protecting users' privacy.
After a lengthy delay that kept 2,100 portable radios in mothballs, the Chicago Fire Department is finally making the switch to a $22 million digital radio system designed to prevent a repeat of communications breakdowns at a deadly Loop high-rise fire.
