Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called “October surprise” that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election. http://www.newsweek.com/id/157439

After Palin and Allen met, VECO contributed $5,000 to the Palin campaign for lieutenant governor. The contribution came in ten $500 donations made over a two-day period in late December in Allen’s name and those of his executives and a couple of their spouses. The donations added up to 10 percent of all the money […]

theodp writes “Is Google preparing to launch its own Navy? In its just-published application for a patent on the Water-Based Data Center, Google envisions a world where ‘computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be […]

Revolution Radio writes “BetaNews has a short description of what we might expect from Governor Palin regarding technology issues. She demonstrated her familiarity with the internet by initiating an online education program for state workers, using the web for government transparency, and a supporting the general concept of ‘long-distance distribution of services’ (similar to net […]

Anti-Globalism sends us to a Wall Street Journal for a report that Dell plans to sell its factories in an effort to revamp its production model. Quoting:
“Dell’s plants are still regarded as efficient at churning out desktop PCs. But within the industry, company-owned factories aren’t considered the least expensive way to produce laptops, which have […]

angelheaded tips a Wired story about the resignation of Bob Dykes, CEO of net eavesdropping firm NebuAd. NebuAd has encountered financial troubles lately as the privacy controversy surrounding the company’s tracking methods has driven communications companies away. Over in the UK, Phorm responded to the NebuAd news by affirming that it is making progress […]

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin proudly described herself as a “hockey mom” in her speech to the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, and the label has been a favorite of both headline writers and her sign-waving fans in St. Paul. So, which is the more important voting demographic?http://www.slate.com/id/2199361/

While America’s respectable media focus on John McCain’s acceptance speech to the Republican faithful, blogs and gossip sites continue to lead the feeding frenzy surrounding the National Enquirer’s allegation, reported here yesterday, that McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband’s business partner.http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/uselection,0,sarah-palin-affair-big-media-stays-quiet-as-lover-named,43515

Version 2.2.1 of the Contiki operating system has just been released. The Contiki operating system is designed for wireless deeply embedded systems that have memory on the order of a few kilobytes and a power consumption on the order of a few milliwatt. Within these severe resource constraints, Contiki provides a low-power multi-hop TCP/IP stack, […]

Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, who has been testing Google’s Chrome browser for a week next to the latest version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, concludes “With the emergence of Chrome, consumers have a new and innovative browser choice, and with IE8, the new browser war is sure to be a worthy contest.” Many […]