working

When one thinks of gadgets for use in the bedroom, one doesn’t think of a laptop. But then again, one may not be British. According to a survey by Credant Technologies, a quarter of UK employees can’t keep their hands off their mobile devices for work purposes, even in bed. Of those who work until it’s time to sleep, 57 percent spend 2-6 hours a week at it despite their partners finding it “very annoying.” So much for eating crackers, eh?

Sharon Waxman formerly of the New York Times and the Washington Post, and now writing for the Wrap says that she went to a party at Arianna Huffington's mansion and spoke with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Far from the idle chit chat about the weather, she claims that Schmidt told her about Google's plan to roll out a system in six months that would bring "high-quality news content" to users without them actually looking for it.

On the last day of 2008, Vodafone, the mobile telecommunications company, had 289 million customers.  Now, a new report indicates that Yahoo might be on its way to becoming Vodafone's default search provider in Europe. 

We love to talk about the successes of online video. The viral nature of a good campaign can mean significant impact to the bottom line of a company. Just ask Blendtec. Most are familiar with the “Will it Blend” video phenomenon that still has legs after almost 2 years.

The phrase "private pre-alpha" hasn't ever before been used to describe something on Murdok, and it conjures up overkill images of two guys whispering to each other behind six-foot walls.  But that's how a new service backed by Pierre Omidyar and Randy Ching was until recently classified, and the small amount of information that's since leaked looks rather interesting.

In San Francisco last night, Six Apart (who recently launched data portability initiative Motion) hosted a roundtable to discuss the future of activity stream standards. In attendance were people from Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, Nokia, Plaxo, Comcast, and others.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch asks if Apple is building a search engine, pretty much creating rumors and squashing them all within a few paragraphs. The story is interesting to note, though.

The death of print used to be a hot topic, and after the first signs of a recession appeared, predicting print's downfall became absolutely fashionable.  But an examination of the Los Angeles Times's display ad revenue reveals that it's doing a good job of adapting.