Headlines

At Cornell University, researchers are using a Wiki to study online civic participation. The basic idea is to use a Wiki as the web site for a fictitious candidate in the Presidential election and for anyone to chime in and shape the policies, background and news behind the campaign.

Now and then, Fox News makes a stab at living up to its "fair and balanced" tag line. At other times, the cable network's operatives throw off all pretense, let their neatly trimmed hair down and do what they seem to love best -- blame all of the world's evils on those pointy-headed, America-hating liberals.

Whether the next president is John McCain or Barack Obama, the telecom industry can expect some policy changes, according to Washington insiders speaking at the Comptel fall trade show and convention here this week.

Silicon Valley insiders call it the O'Reilly Radar: Tim O'Reilly's uncanny ability to spot a technology revolution before it happens. But lately the entrepreneur, investor and book publisher has been busier trying to incite the next one.

Spacious and airy, the newsroom of the National seems a newfangled journalistic field of dreams, with its stylish furniture, flat-panel monitors and roomy, uncluttered desks. Though the new United Arab Emirates newspaper has a daily circulation of only 70,000 to 90,000, it has grand ambitions and leaders who are bullish on print journalism.

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) has purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS. The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Sources say the Obama camp is also in talks with NBC and Fox.

According to their position statements on the issues, Sen John McCain (R-AZ) is against Network Neutrality and Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) is for it. This makes it one of the few technology issues on which the candidates clearly disagree.

Broadcast television stations in Hawaii are in serious discussions to make the digital TV transition on Jan. 15 -- more than a month before the rest of the country -- partly to avoid disturbance to the nesting habitat of the dark-rumped petrel near existing analog broadcast towers.