Top Stories of the Week

Remembering Chernobyl | Twenty-five years ago, the sky fell on a corner of Ukraine

Google's Secret Class System

Life in the Googleplex has a fairy tale allure: gourmet food! Ski trips! Giant dessert statues popping up out of nowhere every six months! And if working for the company seems like some alternaworld fantasy dreamscape, well, it kind of is. Just not, it turns out, for everyone. More »

Senator Chuck Grassley Is the Worst Twitter User in the United States of America

Last year, 77 year-old Iowan senator Chuck Grassley vowed to do anything for reelection-including picking up Twitter. We almost wish he hadn't. Grassley's 1,147 tweets are possibly among the most incoherent, confounding, mind-boggling text on the internet. More »

Watch How the Police Raid a Cellphone

Everyone knows the cops have tools to get inside your phone. But what do they do? They suck your iPhone's entire soul in 15 minutes. With one single click. This is what it looks like. More »

The Worst Royal Wedding Merchandise

Every marketing manager and his dog has dreamt up a little royal wedding cash-cow in time for the nuptials tomorrow. But which gift should you buy-either to send to the newlyweds, or to sheath in plastic wrap and bury under your bed for the grandchildren, who'll only wrinkle their noses and toss it in the bin 60 years down the track? More »

What the White iPhone 4 Says About the iPhone 5

I knew Easter was late for a reason this year: The Great White iPhone 4 is finally here. Nearly a year after the launch of the original iPhone 4, plagued by delay after delay, tomorrow you can buy the phone that seemed like it might never exist. More »

iSpy: Apple Will Fix the iPhone Location Problem

Surprise! Apple's broken their silence on the iPhone location tracking controversy with an amazingly self-contradictory Q&A press release. Most notable: they say the massive data cache goes too far, and will be fixed in an impending software update. More »

GIZMODO at 2011 Smart Home – This is it!

As you may have heard, Gizmodo and the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago have partnered to curate the technology for this year's 2011 Smart Home: Green + Wired. The yearly exhibit features guided tours of a modular, eco-friendly home built on the museum grounds and designed to highlight the bleeding-edge of domestic technology. More »

168 Incredible Cellphone Photos

This is the most interesting overall group of photo entries we've had in a Shooting Challenge in a long time. The irony? They were taken on your cellphones.
More »

Which of Us Dies First?

What follows is unedited. These are the words of Teru Kuwayama, a photographer who has been to some of the most dangerous places in the world, at some of the most dangerous times to be there, taking the pictures that allow us to imagine what it's like. He is currently leading the project basetrack, which tracks the deployment of a battalion of US Marines in Afghanistan. The opinions in this piece are his own. The words are provocative. We ask that you read them with an open mind. -Editors More »

14 Ways to Use Dryer Sheets that Have Nothing to Do

Dryer sheets. You probably think their utility ended with soft jeans and cozy socks. Nope! Turns out there's a whole mess of other uses for 'em. More »

500 Taliban Prisoners Just Escaped Through a Long Underground Tunnel-Built Using No Heavy Machinery

In their biggest prison break since 2008, nearly 500 Afghani detainees (mostly Taliban members) escaped from the Sarposa Prison through an underground tunnel, dug from the outside. Now the U.S. military is searching high and low, hoping to corral the escapees back in. The crazy thing is that they built this long tunnel using nothing but basic tools-no machinery. More »

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ABC NewsMail - afternoon edition



Afternoon Edition. Sat 30 Apr 2011
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Top Stories	More Top Stories >
A night of celebration for royal newlyweds London is winding down after royalty and commoners alike spent a long day and night celebrating the highly-anticipated nuptials of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. World watches as William and Catherine wed Take a look back at the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, which was watched by up to two billion people around the world. Catherine changes dress for royal reception Catherine Middleton changed into a strapless white satin gazar evening dress by designer Sarah Burton for the evening party at Buckingham Palace following her wedding, royal officials said. Eight-tiered wedding cake wows reception guests A magnificent eight-tiered wedding cake took centre stage as Prince William and Catherine Middleton celebrated their marriage with friends and family at Buckingham Palace following the ceremony. Police continue Adelaide siege investigation Adelaide police say they have seized a number of items from the two houses at the centre of yesterday's triple shooting deaths at Hectorville.
The Drum	More from The Drum >
Political engagement is a universal constant It's routine to hear people say they hate politics and that they happily live without engaging it at any level, despite most amateur family/office politics being more brutal than anything the professionals have to offer. Politics haters also usually loudly declare their loathing of politicians and how they are the worst of people but after many years of being exposed daily to state and federal politics I think it's reasonable to say that our politicians are fair reflection of our community and no more or less flawed than all of us. You get bread crumbs, they live a merry circus The royal family is an institutional codification of your worthlessness. No matter how you slice and dice it, an aristocracy, by definition, rests on the brute fact that they are royal and you are common. And yet tonight's wedding will attract a television audience of some two billion people, a sizeable proportion of the world's population. How do we explain this? Why such enthusiasm for an event structurally predicated upon the innate inferiority of the very people celebrating it? Aim high for climate change action How can Gillard obtain public and consequently, increased political support for climate change action? Supporters the winner as AFL delivers to the heartland So conditioned is the football community to treating its administration with suspicion and derision, it threatened to miss the magnitude of what was being unveiled. The Chaser's royal wedding commentary: frequently axed questions The people demand answers about the cancellation of The Chaser's Royal Wedding Commentary. So here goes.
World	More World Stories >
Libya's Gaddafi ready for ceasefire, refuses to leave Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi has called for negotiations with NATO to stop the coalition's air strikes against his country. Al Qaeda suspected in Marrakesh bombing A bomb in Marrakesh that killed 15 people was set off by a remote-control device, a minister said on Friday, as it emerged that an Al Qaeda group had warned there would be an attack in Morocco. Libyan tanks launch assault on Misrata Libyan government tanks launched an assault on Friday on Misrata, rebels said, as NATO reported its warships had stopped Moamar Gaddafi's forces from laying mines in the besieged city's harbour.
Science & Technology	More Science & Technology Stories >
Endeavour space shuttle launch delayed The final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour has been aborted just hours before lift-off because of a technical problem. Senate told Port Stephens koalas cannot be saved A Senate Inquiry has been told it is too late to rely on research to save the dwindling koala population in the Port Stephens area, north of Newcastle. Red Centre snakes defy falling temperatures Snake catchers are being kept busy in central Australia despite temperatures starting to cool down.
Environment	More Environment Stories >
Dismay at NSW lack of protection for grey nurse shark Conservationists are horrified by a State government's decision to revoke recreational fishing restrictions off South West Rocks east of Kempsey. Red Centre snakes defy falling temperatures Snake catchers are being kept busy in central Australia despite temperatures starting to cool down. More money for parks, Indigenous rangers The Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Minister says $2 million has been allocated to boost conservation programs and train more Indigenous rangers.
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CNN Breaking News

Death toll from Southern tornadoes now at 340, making it second-deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history.

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CNN Breaking News

A federal appeals court judge granted the NFL's request to restore a lockout amid a labor dispute with players, a court clerk says.

The temporary stay of an April 25 lower court order allows NFL owners to again suspend football operations as they seek to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with the players.

If the players are locked out when the season starts in September, it would be the first NFL work stoppage since 1987, with months of labor and legal maneuvering looming for fans already wondering how a $9 billion industry lacks enough money to satisfy everyone.

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Google's Secret Class System

By Brian Barrett

Google's Secret Class System

Google's Secret Class System Life in the Googleplex has a fairy tale allure: gourmet food! Ski trips! Giant dessert statues popping up out of nowhere every six months! And if working for the company seems like some alternaworld fantasy dreamscape, well, it kind of is. Just not, it turns out, for everyone.

Google drones work under a caste system: employees wear different colored badges to indicate their status. That's not new or surprising, and doesn't really mean much, other than that you can spot a Google intern (literally) a half a mile away. They're the ones in green. White badges are full-timers, and red badges—numbering in the thousands—are contractors. And then, as Andrew Norman Wilson found, when working as a Google contractor from 2007-2008, there are the yellow badges. A class of employee that exists largely apart from the rest of the Google hive, sequestered to building 3.1459~, denied the benefits that nearly everyone else shares in.

Wilson's video-cum-art installation "Workers Leaving the Googleplex" shows the comings and goings of this fourth class, a group that's apparently denied access to the company's outsized privileges. Their jobs? To scan books, page by page, for Google Book Search. Menial, repetitive contract labor, sure, but certainly not any less so than that performed by the red-badged custodians and kitchen staff. So why are they cordoned off? Wilson decided to find out:

I was outside the Google Book Search building, which is adjacent to the building I work in, and had the chance to talk to a few employees while they were leaving work. Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I'm interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs.

His attempts to interview, film, and discover were stymied early on; Google security stopped him, and reportedly the company pressured his bosses to terminate his employment. Which, soon after the incident, they did.

You'll notice that Wilson tilts his lance unsteadily at race and class as the underlying reason why the yellow badges don't get to join in Google's reindeer games. That seems unlikely, frankly, and it's hard to feel too bad for people with reliable jobs just because they don't get to ride a limo shuttle home. There are also other factors—the secrecy of the Google Books project, the menial nature of the job itself—that I'm sure weigh more heavily in the decision to silo these men and women.

But there's a larger point about Google itself here, about a company whose entire image is built on how it treats its workers—even the contracted ones. After all, all contracted employees are expected to adhere to Google's Code of Conduct. Which, by the way, makes it perfectly clear that everyone should share the same advantages:

We are committed to a supportive work environment, where employees have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. Each Googler is expected to do his or her utmost to create a respectful workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination of any kind.

And even though no one's entitled to the kinds of perks Google offers—the kinds that most of us can only dream about—if you're going to offer them at all it seems only right to do so universally. When you don't, you create an artificial class system, inherent bias. That erodes Google's stated values. It cuts the worst kind of corners. And while that's not doing evil, it's certainly not good. [Andrew Norman Wilson; Thanks, Andrew!]

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ABC NewsMail - morning edition



Morning Edition. Sat 30 Apr 2011
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Top Stories	More Top Stories >
World watches as royal couple wed in style Prince William and Catherine Middleton have tied the knot with a mix of glittering pageantry and spontaneity, kissing twice in front of a sea of London revellers and breathing new life into Britain's monarchy. Royal couple seals the deal with a kiss Prince William kisses his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in front of thousands of onlookers on the balcony of the Buckingham Palace. Royal couple says 'I do' Prince William and his bride Catherine Middleton exchange vows and rings at their wedding ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Catherine has dress changed for royal reception Catherine Middleton changed into a strapless white satin gazar evening dress by designer Sarah Burton for the evening party at Buckingham Palace following her wedding, royal officials said. Eight-tiered wedding cake wows reception guests A magnificent eight-tiered wedding cake took centre stage as Prince William and Catherine Middleton celebrated their marriage with friends and family at Buckingham Palace following the ceremony.
The Drum	More from The Drum >
Political engagement is a universal constant It's routine to hear people say they hate politics and that they happily live without engaging it at any level, despite most amateur family/office politics being more brutal than anything the professionals have to offer. Politics haters also usually loudly declare their loathing of politicians and how they are the worst of people but after many years of being exposed daily to state and federal politics I think it's reasonable to say that our politicians are fair reflection of our community and no more or less flawed than all of us. You get bread crumbs, they live a merry circus The royal family is an institutional codification of your worthlessness. No matter how you slice and dice it, an aristocracy, by definition, rests on the brute fact that they are royal and you are common. And yet tonight's wedding will attract a television audience of some two billion people, a sizeable proportion of the world's population. How do we explain this? Why such enthusiasm for an event structurally predicated upon the innate inferiority of the very people celebrating it? Aim high for climate change action How can Gillard obtain public and consequently, increased political support for climate change action? Supporters the winner as AFL delivers to the heartland So conditioned is the football community to treating its administration with suspicion and derision, it threatened to miss the magnitude of what was being unveiled. The Chaser's royal wedding commentary: frequently axed questions The people demand answers about the cancellation of The Chaser's Royal Wedding Commentary. So here goes.
World	More World Stories >
Eight-tiered wedding cake wows reception guests A magnificent eight-tiered wedding cake took centre stage as Prince William and Catherine Middleton celebrated their marriage with friends and family at Buckingham Palace following the ceremony. Catherine has dress changed for royal reception Catherine Middleton changed into a strapless white satin gazar evening dress by designer Sarah Burton for the evening party at Buckingham Palace following her wedding, royal officials said. How the royal wedding unfolded Prince William married Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London on Friday (local time).
Science & Technology	More Science & Technology Stories >
Senate told Port Stephens koalas cannot be saved A Senate Inquiry has been told it is too late to rely on research to save the dwindling koala population in the Port Stephens area, north of Newcastle. Red Centre snakes defy falling temperatures Snake catchers are being kept busy in central Australia despite temperatures starting to cool down. ACT moves on classifying R18+ video games The ACT Government will consider introducing an R18+ classification for violent video games even if other jurisdictions do not reach an agreement.
Environment	More Environment Stories >
Dismay at NSW lack of protection for grey nurse shark Conservationists are horrified by a State government's decision to revoke recreational fishing restrictions off South West Rocks east of Kempsey. Red Centre snakes defy falling temperatures Snake catchers are being kept busy in central Australia despite temperatures starting to cool down. More money for parks, Indigenous rangers The Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Minister says $2 million has been allocated to boost conservation programs and train more Indigenous rangers.
To change your preferences, please enter your email address and click 'Login' here or to unsubscribe click here. © 2009 ABC \| Privacy Policy This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.

The Hats. The Dress. The Sister? Compare Your Top Royal Wedding Moments With Ours

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April 29, 2011

Royal Wedding 2011: Top 8 Moments of William and Catherine's Big Day

Royal Wedding 2011: Top 8 Moments of William and Catherine's Big Day

Take a minute to revisit the hats, the dress and the kiss -- twice. More >

The Royal Wedding Album
The queen, royal family and other attendees witness history at the wedding. More >

Obamas Tour Storm-Ravaged Alabama

President Obama and the first lady are surveying storm damage and meeting with families of victims today in Tuscaloosa, Ala., one of the cities hardest hit by this week's outbreak of tornadoes that have left more than 300 people dead across seven states. ... [continue]

NASA Postpones Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch After Equipment Failure

NASA today postponed the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour for at least 72 hours to investigate the failure of a key piece of technical equipment. ... [continue]