Idea Lab

Five Steps to Foster Innovation in the Newsroom

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Last month, Dan Pacheco asked for readers' ideas on How to Foster Innovation in Newspapers. He was speaking at an upcoming Knight conference and was looking for feedback to augment his presentation. I didn't have a chance to respond in time to help him, but it's a subject I've been thinking about a lot over the past year as part of The Next Newsroom Project. I'm sure there are plenty of doubters who think newspapers are a lost cause at this point when it comes to innovation. Fine. But it's important to understand that this question is one that any...

• August 5, 2008
• 11 comments

Tell Me You Hear the Writing on the Wall?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Microsoft's Tell Me subsidiary announced the launch of a new audio service for the BlackBerry which allows the user to conduct local business search, get directions or traffic information, etc. using voice commands. Apparently, by uttering a singe word like "coffee" your GPS enabled Blackberry will do an automatic search (in this case via Microsoft Live Search) and provide you with the nearest cafe links, directions, phone numbers, etc. That's a cool feature to have, especially as our "smart" phones get smaller and their screens way too damn small to read. Of course voice activated software has been around for...

• April 24, 2008
• No comments

Microsoft Demonstrates that Free Software is about Control of Our Own Future

by Benjamin Melançon
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

This is a follow-up to Amanda Hickman's post on open source free software games. Microsoft made tech news in the past week with reports that schools in Nigeria would use Windows XP rather than the Mandriva Linux on 17,000 computers ordered from Mandriva, a French GNU-Linux vendor. Public statements from Mandriva officials suggested foul play, but not many details were reported. Now, the Nigerian government has overruled the switch, Jeremy Kirk of IDG News Service reported, and his article published online yesterday by Computerworld UK has a lot more information on what actually happened. Nigeria's Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF),...

• November 10, 2007
• 1 comment