The American government is scheduled to be text messaging you in a couple of years, but these messages obviously won’t resemble the majority of the estimated 48 billion or so text messages that are sent each month. The Commercial Mobile Alert System or CMAS, has been approved by Federal regulators to utilize text messaging to send emergency alerts.

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Have the tv networks got a hit with their new video content site, Hulu.com? Time will tell, but so far they've managed to sell out their advertising inventory. Plus we can now watch episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter anytime we want online.

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Kai and Charles Huang, the founders of Red Octane, talk about how they went from working in consulting and international trading to creating one of the hottest and influential video games of this era.

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InterAction Laboratories sat down with Mario to talk about how kids have been getting off of the sofa and more physically active while playing video games.

Enclosure

There's a new breed of laptops powered by open source software. Heard of the Asus EEE, the OLPC XO, the HP 2133, or the Everex Cloudbook? Many of these are subnotebooks, designed to be very portable, weighing under 3lbs, and powered by Linux to keep costs down and surf the the web and perform basic productivity tasks more efficiently.

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In November of last year, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Tax Reform Act of 2007, which would expand Maryland’s six percent sales and use tax to “computer services.” This tax is planned to go into effect on July first. There is concern that, with the mobility of IT services, that IT jobs will relocate to neighboring states such as Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia to avoid these taxes. Mario speaks with Tom Loveland, CEO of Mind Over Machines, and founder of the Maryland Computer Services Association. Find out more at Fight the Tech Tax.

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A video game industry political action committee is planned to be operational by the end of March. Part of its mission includes mobilizing the 100,000 plus gamers that are a part of the  Video Game Voters Network, which seeks to defend the rights of the industry and the consumer and to generally receive the same First Amendment protection as books, movies, music, and cable television programs.

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The Webby Awards are widely heralded as the "Oscars of the Internet." Executive Director David-Michel Davies provides his perspective on upcoming trends and developments.

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The Internet has played a large roll in disseminating poltical information quickly. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly a quarter of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, more than double the amount of people from 2004 and forty-two percent of those aged 18-29 regularly learn about the campaign from the internet, making it the number one information source for that age demographic. We’ve seen a candidate like Ron Paul, who gets the least exposure on television, raise the most amount of money during the last quarter. He is also the only Republican candidate to increase his fundraising totals in every quarter of 2007 thanks in part to his supporters’ use of social news sites like Digg and viral videos. Additionally, new sites like Maplight.org are allowing users to examine the connection between campaign contributions and legislative votes, going beyond the official politican blogs and online videos to portray a more transparent view of the candidates.

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Regular blogs are too much work you say? Mario speaks with David Karp, 21 year old founder of Tumblr.com,  and David agrees.

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Two recent sites are taking online dating to the next level. CrazyBlindDate.com allows users to set up a date with a total stranger on short notice. UK-based IceBrkr.com allows a user to text message an attractive stranger in a public place (as long as they are a user) before they make face to face contact.  Lux Nightmare, editor of sexuality, dating, and culture blog Boinkology.com offers her insight and gives some online dating tips.

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Pound of Cure-MD provides mobile clinical diagnostics, health risk assessments, and chronic disease prevention screenings to individuals, communities, employers, and organizations. How is this different from getting a preventative screening at a physician’s office? Mario speaks to Audrey Whetsell, co-founder of Resource Partners Healthcare, Inc., the parent company of several companies that provide health care technology solutions.

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A sampling from Mario's holiday wishlist.

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Donald A. Norman, Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, partner in the Nielsen Norman Group Consulting Firm, and former VP of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group speaks about the problems facing us as we move towards an increasingly automated future.

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Generation Y, the Internet Generation, the Nintendo Generation, and the New Millennials are some of the various names for those born between 1980 and 2000. They are literally the future, and as many of them have recently begun entering the workplace it’s evident that they have very different expectations of work culture and on a generational level, communicate very differently. Mario speaks with Baltimore native Jakob Lodwick, inventor of the "lip dub", and partner in Connected Ventures, a New York based firm that runs CollegeHumor.com, BustedTees.com, and Vimeo.com, a video sharing service that preceded YouTube and is the first to offer streaming HD-quality video.

Here's the lip dub video that acted as an indirect commercial for the company and resulted in hundreds of unsolicited resumes. 

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

An exclusive behind the scenes tour of Connected Ventures.
Connected Ventures Tour courtesy of Jakob Lodwick from ProducerSong on Vimeo.

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How have the music industry, musicians, and tech startups reacted to the rising popularity of the MP3? The answers were found at this year's College Music Journal Music Marathon in NYC.

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Have a cellphone? Ever need to give yourself or someone else a reminder? You might be interested in Jott, which transcribes voicemails into e-mails.

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Joshua Davis, aka Bit Shifter, composes and performs music with a Nintendo Game Boy.

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In an increasingly digital world, have paper comics become obsolete?  The answer was found at the Baltimore Comic Convention.

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The iPod Touch doesn't support Flash, what is Apple up to? Mario speculates on what the future holds with Don Willett, principal of Willett & Associates.

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