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Apple Takes Down Palestinian Intifada App After Israel Protests

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, June 23 2011

“Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected.” That's ... Read More

Is an Apple Patent the Death Knell of Mobile Video in Protests? [Updated]

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, June 16 2011

O'Reilly Media's Tim O'Reilly says that a new Apple patent on infra-red technology that could block the use of cellphone cameras could have disastrous implications for activism. "Think for a moment about the ... Read More

Why Apple Tracker-Gate Is the Future of Journalism

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, April 22 2011

What an unnamed iPhone user's location file looks like after being run through programmers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden's iPhone Tracker app. There have been some grumbling in tech circles ever since Apple ... Read More

No Offense: Apple Un-Approves 'Gay-Alternative' App

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, March 23 2011

Annnnd...there goes Exodus International's "freedom from homosexuality" app. Change.org had 150,000 signatures on their petition. Apple offers more of a peek into its motivation than it has in the past, ... Read More

Plea Made to Apple Over 'Gay Alternative' App

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, March 21 2011

Another dust-up over Apple Inc. allowing a potentially objectionable app into the iTunes store, this time one from Exodus International geared towards "freedom from homosexuality." Change.org has a petition of ... Read More

A Spot of Tech with the PM's Toast

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, October 14 2010

From the UK Conservatives' Flickr feed: "The Prime Minister David Cameron has a piece of toast and checks the web on an iPad." Read More

Senate GOP Campaign App Now with Foursquare and More

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, September 23 2010

The National Republican Senatorial Committee announces that it has today released the latest build of its iPhone, iPad, and iPod app, an upgrade that adds some greater interactivity to the last iteration. Read More

Why You Can't Have a Moneybomb App

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, September 21 2010

Photo credit: Florian Leroy Read More

Democrats Release iPhone and iPad Apps

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, June 24 2010

Now you never need be disconnected from the Democratic Party. The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America launched today iPad and iPhone apps. Read More

News Briefs

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Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

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CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.

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Copyright Fights Heat Up Again Around Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) today re-released part of a previously leaked February 2011 draft of the U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact on his KeepTheWebOPEN website, as he joined calls by advocacy groups to make the currently ongoing deliberations about the treaty more open.

The United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are all involved in negotiating the agreement, which include provisions about intellectual property and copyright that will play a role in the developing global online economy. A 12th round of negotiations on the deal is now under way in Dallas, Texas. Issa is encouraging users to use his MADISON platform to comment on the document, which the website Knowledge Economy International obtained and released in March 2011.

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House Republicans Relaunch Speaker.gov

House Speaker John A. Boehner's office on Tuesday pulled the wraps off of the Speaker's overhauled web site just in time for a major policy speech about House Republicans' stance on any debt limit negotiations in the coming year. GO

We're All Journalists, Indeed: Obama Campaign Guests Checked Mobile Phones at the Door

Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed, studiously reading pool reports from President Barack Obama's recent campaign fundraisers, catches something: the Obama campaign, per Washington Post pooler David Nakamura, appears to be collecting mobile phones from event attendees at the door, and storing them in plastic bags. At least, that was the case at a Monday event in New York City.

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Americans Don't Elect to Use Americans Elect; 3rd Party Hits Wall?

Is Americans Elect, the third ballot line cum party that hoped to use the Internet to nominate a centrist ticket for president in 2012 dead? It certainly looks that way. But before anyone starts writing the post-mortem, remember that it has ballot lines in half the states--and those could be used by renegade factions in 2012, or possibly in 2014 to run candidates for Congress. GO

Lori Compas, Netroots Challenger to Wisconsin Senate Republican Scott Fitzgerald, Posts Irreverent YouTube Riposte, And It Takes Off

Lori Compas, a Democrat who's challenging Wisconsin state Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) in the state's June 5 recall election, had a rather unusual Mother's Day this year: She spent at least part of the day making a YouTube video with her family. GO

Romney Campaign Targets Obama's Barnard Commencement Speech With Google Ads

New York City area web users looking for details about Barnard College's Commencement Ceremony, where President Barack Obama gave the Commencement Address earlier this afternoon, are also likely to have encountered a targeted ad calling out "Obama's Wasteful Spending" on Mitt Romney's website, as Emily Schultheis from Politico first reported. While she suggested it was targeted at only the zip code where the college is located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, it also showed up on a search for a zip code located in Queens, while accessing the Internet from Lower Manhattan. But it did not show up for an Internet user located outside the New York area. GO

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