Articles

  • Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 1:56pm
    School desk by Ryan McVay/Getty Images.

    The Department of Education is having the most decadent Employee of the Month contest ever. On Thursday it released applications for its $4 billion “Race to the Top” program, a competition designed to reward the states most in line with the Obama administration’s educational values. The idea is to bait states into Obama’s reform agenda with the promise of millions of dollars, and then highlight the ones who do it best.

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    School desk by Ryan McVay/Getty Images.

  • Chrome OS a Week Away


    Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 12:24pm

    Them's the rumors, anyway. According to multiple news reports, Google (GOOG) plans to release its new Chrome operating system some time next week. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington was the first to break the news, and he's got a few details about what might and might not work on the new system.

    • Chris Thompson is a writer living in Brooklyn.

  • Megan McArdle Doesn’t Heart Electric Cars


    Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 12:18pm

    Over at the Atlantic, econoblogger Megan McArdle offers deep skepticism about electric cars in general and Chrysler’s now-defunct E.V. program, ENVI, in particular. OK, she has a point about the promotion of ENVI being a cynical play on the part of Chrysler to secure bailout funds pre-bankruptcy.

    • Matthew DeBord has written about the auto industry for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Car Design News.

  • Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 12:17pm

    The Big Money Editor James Ledbetter leads a discussion with Daniel Gross and Heidi Moore on running bailed out companies, job growth, and Senator Dodd's plan for economic recovery.

    Listen using our audio player below or download the MP3.

  • How Our Response to Y2K Reveals What We'll Do About Global Warming and Swine Flu


    Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 10:14am

    from SlateThe United States came together and responded to the Y2K threat surprisingly well. Why isn't that happening in response to global warming?

    • Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society.

  • Chip War Truce Declared


    Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 - 4:26am

    A truce has been called in the chips war.

    • Bernhard Warner is editorial director of Social Media Influence.
    • Matthew Yeomans runs Custom Communication

  • Twittering Nissan’s New Electric Car


    Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 11:18pm

    Nissan is rolling out its forthcoming all-electric car, the Leaf, for media on Friday in Los Angeles. It's part of the Leaf’s “Zero Emission” tour, which will take the car to other cities. And it’s all happening at Dodger Stadium, where I last was when the Dodgers clinched the NL West title. I’m going to Twitter the event—check it out at @mattdebord—and assuming there’s no ban on Flip video, provide an analysis of what Nissan has to say, with moving pictures.

    • Matthew DeBord has written about the auto industry for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Car Design News.

  • Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 5:42pm
    Photo of Wall Street sign by Getty Creative Images.

    Once there was a simpler time, when pretty much everything that happened in the financial world had a straightforward explanation.

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    • Gary Weiss is a freelance writer and author based in New York.
    Photo of Wall Street sign by Getty Creative Images.

  • Wolfram Alpha Builds Ring Around Google


    Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 5:40pm

    Wolfram Alpha, the computational search engine that offers answers to explicit questions rather than links to sites that might tell you the answer, just got a lot more relevant. And it's all due to the growing antagonisms among Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG).

    • Chris Thompson is a writer living in Brooklyn.

  • Carmakers Hit Twitter Squatters


    Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 5:10pm

    From Automotive News, via Nick Chambers at Gas 2.0: automakers don’t appreciate it when their names are turned into Twitter accounts that have nothing to do with their brands. Evidently, Twitter has been overwhelmed and slow to deal with carmakers’ complaints.

    • Matthew DeBord has written about the auto industry for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Car Design News.