“Amazon.com” on The Daily Caller

NEW YORK—In the massive new Barnes & Noble superstore on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, generous display space is devoted to baby blankets, Art Deco flight clocks, stationery and adult games like Risk and Stratego. (more)

The pursuit of machine intelligence means we have to come up with ways to communicate with our computers in a way both entities can understand. But while computers process verbal commands in a straightforward fashion, humans tend to use more sophisticated speech forms, employing slang or symbols to convey an idea. So an Israeli research team has developed a machine algorithm that can recognize sarcasm. (more)

BP disclosed yet another setback in its frantic attempts to control the oil spill that will go down in history as one of America’s worst environmental disasters. There has not been this much oil and slime spilled in a body of water since former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich went swimming in Lake Michigan. (more)

Shaking up the online publishing world, Google reps introduced the company’s new e-book store called Google Editions. Expected to launch in June or July, the digital book store offers features its e-book competitors (Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple) don’t have. The digital book store will be browser-based so users can access e-books on a range of devices–including laptops, iPads and smartphones. Here’s what tech writers are saying about the new development: (more)

“Andy, if we allow those criminals to get away with breaking the law, we’ll just get more of ’em.” —Barney Fife, Mayberry Police, second in command (more)

North Carolina last month began an audit of online businesses, assuming that millions of dollars in sales taxes owed to the state had disappeared into the Internet. (more)

Google has just announced that they will now begin factoring page speed in their search algorithm rankings.  That means the faster a website loads, the higher up they show up in Google searches.  Sluggish sites on the other hand will be knocked down the search rankings even if they have the most relevant information.  While I believe that Google’s latest actions are rational and that it serves consumer interests since no one wants a slow results, it does raise an interesting dilemma for “Network Neutrality” advocates who propagate the myth that all websites should operate at the same speed. (more)

Tiger Woods has become his own cautionary tale, and he’ll make his biggest pitch for redemption yet by playing in the venerable Masters Golf Tournament this week. And what better place to stage his comeback than Augusta National, a place that does not allow women? (more)

American antipathy to taxes is rooted deeply in our nation’s history. So it’s no surprise that lawmakers seek to avoid raising taxes, or at least, seek to raise revenue in ways that avoid the “tax-hiker” label. Instead they call things “fees.” It’s more than just semantics: many states have extra procedural rules for taxes but not for fees, such as requiring multiple votes or public approval. (more)

Obama says we have been “debating” the ObamaCare bill for a year, and now it’s time to ram it through in a down – or up-yours anyway – vote. (more)

Amazon.com has threatened to stop directly selling the books of some publishers online unless they agree to a detailed list of concessions regarding the sale of electronic books, according to two industry executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. (more)

Sarah Palin took a leave of absence from her Russia-watching post in Alaska to become a Fox News contributor. Who could have seen that coming? She represents diversity on Fox as that network’s only non-blonde correspondent. (more)

Congress dragged Toyota to Washington to testify in one of the indignant show trials they so love. I wish they would subpoena themselves and bring Congress before a Senate hearing, under oath and under the hot lights of TV cameras. Then we might get to the roots of most problems in America: too much government intervention, confusing rules, and second-guessing politicians. (more)

(Reuters) – Amazon.com said on Thursday it is launching a new free Kindle application that will give customers access to over 420,000 books on a range of BlackBerry devices. (more)

The Winter Olympic Games began, as they always do, with the Parade of Nations—many of which we have yet to invade. By parading like that, however, they seem to just be asking for it. (more)

In the battle over the pricing of electronic books, publishers appear to have won the first round. The price of many new releases and best sellers is about to go up, to as much as $14.99 from $9.99. (more)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) tumbled more than 7 percent on Monday, fueled by fear that the global online retailer will increase e-book prices as it caves in to pressure from publishers seeking to protect their margins. (more)

Amazon (NSDQ:AMZN).com has capitulated to demands from publisher Macmillan that Amazon charge more for electronic versions of its books than the $9.99 the online retailer charges for e-books today. (more)

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