House panel: Why did Google 'airbrush history?'

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Google's replacement of post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its map portal with images of the region before the storm does a "great injustice" to the storm's victims, a congressional subcommittee said.
The House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight on Friday asked Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to explain why his company is using the outdated imagery.
The subcommittee cited an Associated Press report on the images.
"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, wrote in a letter to Schmidt.
Swapping the post-Katrina images and the ruin they revealed for others showing an idyllic city dumbfounded many locals and even sparked suspicions that the company and civic leaders were conspiring to portray the area's recovery progressing better than it really is.
Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesman, said the company had received the letter but Schmidt had no immediate response.
After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles and hurricane victims anxious to see whether their homes were damaged.
Now, though, a virtual trip through New Orleans via Google Maps is a surreal experience of scrolling across an unscathed landscape of packed parking lots and marinas full of boats.
Reality, of course, is very different: Entire neighborhoods are now slab mosaics where houses once stood and shopping malls, churches and marinas are empty of life, many gone altogether.
John Hanke, Google's director for maps and satellite imagery, said "a combination of factors including imagery date, resolution, and clarity" go into deciding what imagery to provide.
"The latest update from one of our information providers substantially improved the imagery detail of the New Orleans area," Hanke said in a news release about the switch.
Kovacs said efforts are under way to use more current imagery.
It was not clear when the current images replaced views of the city taken after Katrina struck August 29, 2005, flooding an estimated 80 percent of New Orleans.
Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery.
"To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Miller said.
Edith Holleman, staff counsel for the House subcommittee, said it would be useful to understand how Google acquires and manages its imagery because "people see Google and other Internet engines and it's almost like the official word."
Google does provide imagery of New Orleans and the region following Katrina through its more specialized service called Google Earth.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Robots sniff out bombs

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- As it increases its use of robots in war zones, the military will begin using an explosive-sniffing version that will allow soldiers to better detect roadside bombs, which account for more than 70 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq.
Fido is the first robot with an integrated explosives sensor. Burlington, Massachusetts-based iRobot Corp. is filling the military's first order of 100 in this southwest Ohio city and will ship the robots over the next few months.
There are nearly 5,000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from about 150 in 2004. Soldiers use them to search caves and buildings for insurgents, detect mines and ferret out roadside and car bombs.
As the war in Iraq enters its fifth year, the federal government is spending more money on military robots and the two major U.S. robot makers have increased production.
Foster-Miller Inc., of Waltham, Mass., recently delivered 1,000 new robots to the military. IRobot cranked out 385 robots last year, up from 252 in 2005.
The government will spend about $1.7 billion on ground-based military robots between fiscal 2006 and 2012, said Bill Thomasmeyer, head of the National Center for Defense Robotics, a congressionally funded consortium of 160 companies, universities and government labs. That's up from $100 million in fiscal 2004.
Fido, produced at a GEM City Manufacturing and Engineering plant, represents an improvement in bomb-detecting military robots, said Col. Terry Griffin, project manager of the Army/Marine Corps Robotic Systems Joint Project Office at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
The bomb-sniffing sensor is part of the robot, with its readings displayed on the controller along with camera images. Otherwise, a soldier would have to approach the suspect object with a sensor or try to attach it to a robot. The new robot has a 7-foot manipulator arm so it can use the sensor to scan the inside and undercarriage of vehicles for bombs.
Officials would not release details of how the sensors work because of security concerns.
"The sniffer robot is a very good idea because we need some way of understanding ambiguous situations like abandoned cars or suspicious trash piles without putting soldiers' lives on the line," said Loren Thompson, defense analyst with the Washington-based Lexington Institute.
Philip Coyle, senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, said the robots could be helpful if they are used in cases where soldiers already suspect a bomb. But he said explosive-sniffing sensors are susceptible to false positives triggered by explosive residues elsewhere in the area, smoke and other contaminants.
"The soldiers can begin to lose faith in them, and they become more trouble than they're worth," he said.
Thompson said all military robots have limitations. Their every move must be dictated by an operator, they can be stopped by barriers or steep grades, they are not highly agile and they can break down or be damaged, he said.
Robots range in size from tiny -- 1.5-pound ones carrying cameras are tossed into buildings to search for insurgents -- to brute -- 110-pound versions move rubble and lift debris.
Fido is an upgrade of PackBot, a 52-pound robot with rubber treads, lights, video cameras that zoom and swivel, obstacle-hurdling flippers and jointed manipulator arms with hand-like grippers designed to disable or destroy bombs. Each costs $165,000.
Army Staff Sgt. Shawn Baker, 26, of Olean, New York, has helped detect and disable roadside bombs during two tours in Iraq. Before the robots were available, he and fellow soldiers would stand back as far as possible with a rope and drag hooks over the suspect devices in hopes of disarming or detonating them.
Two soldiers were killed that way, Baker said. No one in his unit has been hurt or killed while disarming bombs since the robots arrived.
"The science and technology of this has been way out in front of the production side," Thomasmeyer said. "We're going to start to see a payoff for all the science and technology advancements."
IRobot posted $189 million in sales last year, up 33 percent from 2005. Its military business grew 60 percent to about $76 million.
Bob Quinn, general manager of Foster-Miller, said his company has contracts of $320 million for military robots and that its business has doubled every year for the past four years.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Students give up social networks for Lent

By Katie HawkinsCNN
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(CNN) -- For some, it's chocolate. For others, it's coffee or cigarettes. But as this Easter approaches, some young and devout Christians are anxious to return to what they gave up for Lent: Internet sites Facebook and MySpace.
Many users describe the popular social networking sites as addictive, which is why they say giving up these 21st-century temptations is a sincere sacrifice. Members on both sites create profiles and add each other as friends. They can also share messages, photos, videos and personal blogs.
"It's been hard, especially in the beginning," said Kerry Graham, who says she gave up Facebook for Lent. Her boyfriend challenged her to do so, describing her as a "Facebook fiend."
During the first days of Lent, the 23-year-old graduate student admits she had to stop herself from typing the site's Web address nearly every time she checked her e-mail.
Graham, who was raised Catholic, is studying theology at the University of Nottingham in England. She's far from her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, and said the distance has made the sacrifice more difficult.
"If I'm missing someone, there's no real way to let them know," she said.
Catholics and others who observe Lent typically make sacrifices as a way to show religious devotion. Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to Easter and correlates with the 40 days and 40 nights that the Bible says Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting and resisting temptation.
"Some of my friends think it's silly, since people usually give up food," said 16-year-old Emily Montgomery, who says she's given up her access to MySpace. "I wanted to give up something that's really hard for me."
MySpace and Facebook are the largest social networking sites on the web. According to comScore Networks, an online measurement firm, MySpace attracted 64.4 million unique visitors in February. Facebook was the Internet's second-most visited site, with 23.6 average visits per visitor during February.
Montgomery says she spent an average of two hours a day on MySpace, logging onto the site at least four times a day. She's using Facebook as a substitute during the 40-day period.
"Not because Facebook is special -- I think it's boring," she said, explaining that the site helps her to still "feel connected."
"People try to be clever with Lent," said the Rev. Michael J. Dolan, college chaplain at Trinity College and the University of Hartford in Connecticut. "It makes sense that students are giving up these things. By giving up something, you hope to gain something."
Dolan himself has a Facebook account. He says he's friends with more than 130 other members at Trinity and 80 in the Hartford network, and has spoken with many students who have given up social networking sites or online messaging for the Lenten season.
"It's a form of spiritual awareness that allows you to reconnect with God," said Jocelyn Chiu, an Emory University sophomore and active member of her Presbyterian church. "By giving up something that used up so much of my time, I realized that I had been leaving my spiritual life behind."
Chiu gave up Facebook for Lent in 2006 and went one step further this year -- vowing to avoid the Internet altogether. She has only allowed herself to check Emory's internal e-mail for school-related messages.
"I realized how much time I was spending on the Internet," said Chiu. "I needed to make myself focus on schoolwork more."
Too much time online?
Limiting the amount of time spent on social networking sites can be beneficial, according to clinical psychologist Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, director and founder of the Computer Addiction Study Center at Harvard's McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.
She said students who demonstrate compulsive Internet or computer use often neglect schoolwork. In some cases, this behavior results in a lack of sleep, missed meals, poor hygiene and, in some extreme situations, seizures.
Graham said giving up Facebook has helped her distinguish between her real friends and those of "convenience." Montgomery says she now plays tennis and focuses on schoolwork more often, and Chiu has been studying, reading the Bible and spending time with friends.
"It's a nice change," said Chiu. "The human interaction is so much more personal than anything you could have on the Internet."
As Dolan observed, "People are realizing that reality involves people, not pixels."

Review: Microsoft's new mouse offers wrist relief

(CNET.com) -- In 2004, 3M came out with a product called the Ergonomic Mouse. More like an upright handgrip with a tracking pad attached to the bottom, the 3M mouse was notable because it kept the palm of your hand perpendicular to your work space.
That design supposedly relieves the pressure on your wrist's median nerve, the focal point of carpal tunnel syndrome. Microsoft's new Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 is more of a happy medium between 3M's unique design and that of a typical mouse.
Serious sufferers of repetitive stress-related injuries should definitely consult a doctor before using this or any other nonqualified review for medical advice.
We will say that as an alternative input device, we found Microsoft's new mouse comfortable and easy to use, but a few design miscues make us wish Microsoft had given this mouse more thought.
The most obvious feature of the Natural Wireless 6000 is that, unlike standard mouse designs, this model's buttons, wheel, and palm rest upward to the right.
It lends the mouse a unique shape, but it also has the effect of rolling your wrist up off your desk.
Your reviewer will refrain from commenting on any therapeutic benefits this mouse might have, but I'll simply rely on my credentials as a longtime mouse user and say that this design feels less stressful on my wrist.
I also found it easy to adjust to the nonstandard hand position. Once I tweaked the cursor sensitivity in the included software, using the Natural Wireless 6000 became, well, natural.
The only problematic feature about the mouse itself is the location of the thumb buttons. Rather than leaving them next to your thumb, where you'll find them on the standard mice that have them, Microsoft instead elevated them with the plane of the main buttons.
This puts them in the dead zone between your thumb and forefinger, which means you have to move either your thumb or your main finger to get to them. Making such a move interrupts smooth mouseflow, and takes some getting used to to feel which of the two buttons you're actually going to press. Placing the buttons on the thumbrest would have been much more logical.
If the thumb buttons are irritating, the scroll wheel is actually one of the best we've encountered outside of Logitech's superior MX Revolution mouse (Read review) and its flywheel design.
The scroll wheel on the Natural Wireless 6000 feels sturdier than the wheel on Microsoft's Intellimouse 3.0, and its thick, rubberized coating makes the wheel feel satisfying to move. It also has responsive side-to-side tilt-based scrolling, which you'll appreciate if you spend time with wide spreadsheets or other large files.
The Natural Wireless 6000 takes two included AA batteries. We prefer rechargeable wireless mice, and since Microsoft's suggested price for this mouse is $80, it's a little cheap that it uses only standard alkalines.
Fortunately, you can find the mouse for less money from the retailers that sell it. We're also amused by the USB RF receiver, which is almost as big as the mouse itself. We've seen full-sized mouse and keyboard sets that only require a thumb drive-sized USB receiver, so we're not sure why the receiver in this model needs to be so big.
It's certainly not a major issue, and we found set up easy and the connection strength generally reliable, but the design feels like a clunky throwback.
Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Xbox 360 gets a bigger hard drive

REDMOND, Washington (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. will sell a version of its Xbox 360 with a 120-gigabyte hard drive and a souped up high-definition video connection, in a bid to broaden the appeal of its popular console beyond video games.
Earlier versions of Xbox 360 came with 20 gigabytes of storage. But that filled up too quickly with movies, TV shows and games from the Xbox Live Marketplace online store, said Peter Moore, a corporate vice president in Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment group.
The new Xbox 360 Elite will sell for $479.99. Consumers who already own the $399.99 20-gigabyte model will be able to buy a snap-on 120-gigabyte hard drive for $179.99.
Both the new console and the drive are expected to hit U.S. shelves April 29.
Microsoft also added an HDMI connection, which sends high-definition content from the console to the TV without losing picture or sound quality, while also helping prevent piracy.
Xbox 360 was the No. 2 U.S. video game console after Nintendo Co.'s Wii in January and February, according to data from market researcher NPD Group. The Xbox outpaced Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, a $599.99 console that plays Blu-ray DVDs.
Microsoft's decision to upgrade the Xbox 360 is the latest of many steps the software maker has taken to position its products at the center of home entertainment.
Microsoft has incorporated Media Center software, which can turn a computer into a digital video recorder, movie and music player, into all but the most basic version of its new Windows Vista operating system.
And Xbox 360 users can connect the console to their home network, then stream movies, music and other content from computer to the Xbox and television. Unlike Sony, Microsoft hasn't added a high-def DVD player to the console, but consumers can buy an external HD DVD player for the Xbox for $199.99.
On Wednesday, Microsoft also announced deals to bring new high-def video to the Xbox Live Marketplace, including New Line Cinema's film "Snakes on a Plane" and upcoming releases from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's direct-to-video division.
Microsoft's focus on downloadable high-def video sets the effort apart from the competition, said Moore. He said the content fills a gap between cable companies' DVR services for fresh TV episodes, Tivo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.'s standard-definition content available over the Web, and Apple Inc.'s recent move to send iTunes movies and music to the TV from a Mac.
At the core, though, video game players aren't going to choose their system based on its ability to play movies or television shows, said Anita Frazier, an analyst for NPD Group.
"To the extent (the consoles) do other things, it's great, but this industry is all about the games," she said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

iPhone casts shadow over wireless show

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- It says something about the state of the cell phone industry that the product looming largest over the annual wireless show doesn't even exist yet. Never mind that it's coming from a company that's never even made a cell phone.
Indeed, the "preverberations" from Apple Inc.'s plan to bring its addictive design simplicity and elegance to wireless with the iPhone is palpable across a good many announcements slated for CTIA Wireless 2007, which opened on Tuesday.
While the prototype that Apple unveiled back in January instantly drew drools with its slender, sleek looks, the real test will be whether the iPhone's large touch-screen interface rewrites the rules for ease of use when it becomes available in June. As Motorola Inc.'s boom-and-bust fortunes with the Razr show, style isn't everything.
There's sure to be plenty of hyperventilation about mobile video and music at the show. So a core theme emerging among this week's planned product launches is how to make these devices less confusing as they get crammed and cramped with multimedia capabilities.
One such offering comes from a small, youth-oriented cellular service named Helio, a joint venture between Earthlink Inc. and Korea's SK Telecom Co. that on Monday unveiled a $295 handset called Ocean.
Billed as the first "dual-slider," the Ocean marks one of the more radical attempts to help clean the messy intersection between phone calls, text communications, portable media players and mobile Web access.
For making calls, the screen-side of the device can slide vertically to expose a number pad. For typing e-mail, text messages and instant messages, the Ocean can be turned horizontal and slide up along a different track to expose a full typewriter keyboard.
The handset, designed by Helio and made by Pantech, sports some other notable innovations intended to improve the user experience and combat the clunky factor. There's a separate microprocessor to run the media player, an efficiency Helio claims will allow 15 hours of music listening on a single battery charge.
There's also an integrated inbox to display all forms of written communication, combining e-mail, text messaging and instant messaging from the major portals in one place, instead of forcing users to toggle between applications. And while the full keyboard makes for easier text input, the Ocean also features an automatic search function triggered whenever you start typing.
"If you want to search, you want to search. The idea that you have to bring up a search box I think is counterintuitive," said Sky Dayton, Helio's chief executive.
He recalled that at a recent celebrity poker tournament, the people next to him were looking at actress Morgan Fairchild, who was seated at a nearby table. They wondered aloud how old she was, and Dayton got the answer for them within seconds. Without opening any applications, "I just typed into my device, 'How old is Morgan Fairchild?"' he said.
Also trying their hands at cobbling an easier-to-use combination phone and music player are Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Ericsson.
Samsung's lightweight "UpStage," offered in the United States by Sprint Nextel Corp., is a "flip" phone, though not in the normal sense. The device is actually a two-sided candy bar that looks like a phone on one side and an MP3 music player on the other. A "flip" button on the phone's edge is pressed to switch between the two sides.
The phone side has a number pad and small screen for dialing calls and typing text messages, while the reverse features a large screen and touch-sensitive controls to navigate through song lists and view digital photos, video and Web pages.
The $299 UpStage, available for $149 with a two-year Sprint contract, also attempts to address the battery life issue that arises whenever handset makers try to balance size with power capacity. In this case, the price includes a "battery wallet" to slip the device into, providing up to 16 hours of music listening, the companies claim.
Without the wallet, the UpStage weighs just 2.6 ounces and is less than 0.4 inch thick.
Sony Ericsson, owned jointly by Japan's Sony Corp. and Sweden's LM Ericsson, introduced the latest addition to its Walkman phone lineup.
The W580, the first slider Walkman phone, is 0.55 inch thick and weighs 3.3 ounces. Sony Ericsson says the W580 offers up to 30 hours of music play time.
The company didn't announce a price or say which service provider will offer the phone, though it's based on a wireless technology that's only used by AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA among the major U.S. carriers.
Like the vast majority of new devices, all three of these handsets come with Bluetooth wireless to connect with a cordless headset.
Thankfully, the industry group that oversees the Bluetooth standard is using the CTIA show to announce a long-needed simplification in the often frustrating process of "pairing" two Bluetooth-enabled devices to communicate with one another.
Though sometimes it goes smoothly, the initial setup for Bluetooth pairing varies from device to device, with inconsistent menus and security code inputs often tripping up users.
The new specification reduces the number of steps in the pairing process while making the process more intuitive, improving security to prevent wireless intruders and also reducing power consumption, according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.
Under the new procedure, for example, when pairing a headset and phone both configured for the updated standard, all a user would need to do is turn on the headset, select "Add Headset" from the phone menu, and then watch the phone confirm it has found and connected with the headset through an encrypted link.
The improvement, however, won't begin to arrive in products until later this year.
In Apple time, that means after the iPhone.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

TV Guide to launch Internet video search engine

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- TV Guide, which has helped viewers navigate through thousands of TV shows for 53 years, now wants to do the same for Internet video.
Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. will launch a test version next month of an online video search tool that allows viewers to find clips and full episodes of TV shows now being posted on the Web. A formal launch is planned for September.
The tool will not try to aggregate the thousands of user-generated videos featuring pet tricks, skits and other antics being posted on sites such as YouTube and Revver.
Instead, it will scour about 60 Web sites from major networks such as ABC and Fox and other video portals such as AOL and Google to find network and original programming produced by major media companies.
"Everybody says, 'Who's going to be the TV Guide of online video?' and we say, why shouldn't it be us?" said Richard Cusick, senior vice president of digital media at Gemstar-TV Guide. "We're making a bet, but we think it's a safe bet and consistent with our mission."
The company hopes to make money by selling ads on the new search site as well as licensing its technology.
The effort comes amid an explosion of video content on the Web. Sites such as YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., Revver, Grouper, which is owned by Sony Corp., and others attract millions of visitors and feature short clips uploaded by users.
Meanwhile, TV networks and film studios are searching for new ways to distribute their content and grab the attention of online viewers.
On Thursday, NBC Universal, which is owned by General Electric Co., and News Corp., which runs the Fox network, among others, formed a joint venture to distribute their shows across the Web.
The new company will run its own Internet site and syndicate programs to such popular portals as Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
The move reinforced Gemstar's belief that Internet viewers want quick access to high-quality network shows, and there is money to be made by providing a tool to sift through such content.
TV Guide is coming late to the video search game. The head start enjoyed by other companies, most notably Google, could be difficult to overcome, said Rob Enderle, a technology analyst.
"If they don't want to become obsolete, they have to get into the search business," Enderle said, adding that the strength of the TV Guide brand could be a key to attracting users.
But Google is likely to expand its own video search capabilities.
"Today, TV Guide can be better," Enderle said. "But fast-forward two years from now, and you wonder if TV Guide has the resources to compete with Google long term."
The company hopes to learn lessons from the Web that can be applied years from now when video is delivered directly to TV sets through high-speed Internet connections. And it hopes its electronic guide, which already is used on most TV sets and cable systems, will serve to organize both traditional TV content and Web-based shows.
The company is also planning search tools for mobile devices.
"For us, the notion of guidance has changed dramatically," Gemstar chief executive Richard Battista said. "It used to be about TV guidance, but now its about video guidance and TV Guide needs to be the leading provider of video guidance."
Other companies are also entering the nascent field of online video search. Time Warner Inc.'s AOL launched its own search tool using technology from Truveo Inc., which crawls the Web and looks for information surrounding a video on a Web page to make the search more relevant.
Search company Blinkx uses voice recognition and transcription software to find clips, then automatically sends them to subscribers.
Google and Yahoo also provide video search tools. But those are either too broad, returning irrelevant and, in many cases, pirated results, or concentrate too much on user-generated content, TV Guide contends.
The often simple titles of TV shows also complicate search. Someone looking for clips from the Fox show "House" might have to wade through pages of results about homebuilding or mortgage rates.
The TV Guide video search technology, like some other search engines, looks for descriptive words, called "metadata," surrounding a video.
It then marries that information with the vast database compiled over the years for TV Guide's print magazine and Web site. That kind of cross-referencing is designed to provide more relevant results and also allow TV Guide to group results by celebrity, network or genre.
"We can take relatively unstructured Web data, combine it with our very structured TV data and get much more relevant results and start to draw those connections," Cusick said.
The TV Guide search tool will also allow users to save videos in an application that can be 'detached" from the site and sit on the computer screen, allowing viewing at any time.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

'Ask a Ninja,' OK Go win YouTube Awards

NEW YORK (AP) -- The video series "Ask a Ninja" and OK Go's treadmill-choreographed music video are among the winners in the first YouTube Video Awards.
The video-sharing site announced the seven winners from its inaugural awards on Monday, a week after the nominees were put forth for voting.
Each category included 10 nominated videos, which users could rank in order of their liking.
"These individuals put the first stitches in the fabric of the YouTube community," said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing for YouTube.
"Instead of seeing a way to share videos, they saw an opportunity for worldwide visibility and through their success have changed the landscape of how a 'star' is defined."
The power pop band OK Go, perhaps the most professional of the mostly amateur nominees, won most creative video for their "Here It Goes Again" music video. "Ask a Ninja," the popular comedy created by Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, won for best series.
"Ask a Ninja" triumphed over perhaps YouTube's biggest celebrity: Lonelygirl15. That bedroom production finished fourth, behind "Ask A Gay Man" and "Chad Vader."
Terra Naomi won for best music video for her song "Say It's Possible," a one-shot clip of her playing acoustic guitar and singing. Naomi has parlayed her online success into a record deal with Island Records, and will release her debut album this summer.
Best commentary was one of the most hotly contested categories, as it pitted several of YouTube's most high-profile personalities against one another. A vlogger known as "The Winekone" won over Peter Oakley ("Geriatric1927") and Paul Robinett ("Renetto").
A video calling for a "Free Hugs Campaign" won for most inspirational video. Australian Juan Mann's video set off an online wildfire of similar "Free Hugs" campaigns.
Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, also known as Smosh, won for best comedy video. Dony Permedi's animated video "Kiwi!" -- which began as a master's thesis on animation, won for most adorable video.
The winners and nominees are compiled in a gallery at http://www.youtube.com/YTAwards. YouTube says it will later unveil what a YouTube Video Award will look like.
Google-owned, San Bruno, California-based YouTube Inc. was founded in February 2005. Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. recently sued YouTube for $1 billion, claiming the site infringes on copyrights on a "huge scale." Several other media companies have reached agreements to supply YouTube with clips.
According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube attracted 133.5 million visitors worldwide in January.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Dating site asks 'are you hot enough?'

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Jason Pellegrino (an 8.2 on the attractiveness scale) says the problem with Internet dating services is not enough really hot-looking people.
So he and a business partner have created HotEnough.org, a sort of online version of Studio 54, the exclusive '70s disco where gaining admission was a pitiless Darwinian exercise. HotEnough.org is for "fit, good-looking" people.
Prospective members must submit pictures and must be rated an 8 or higher by people already in the club. Once they are in, they are permitted to e-mail other "hotties" for $9.95 a month.
"It's definitely hard to get through that rope, but once you're in, you're in and you're part of the party," Pellegrino said. "But you know there's going to be a lot of people outside waiting."
The 33-year-old said he and his partner, Sean Cohen, created the site after concluding that Internet dating sites attract a lot of brave and desperate people but not particularly attractive ones.
A few months after its launch, membership is just under 1,000, Pellegrino said. In the beginning, only 8 percent of those who applied made the grade, but now about 25 percent of applicants do, he said.
Candidates must send in three pictures, including one full-body shot. Active members rate the pictures online without knowing anything else about the people in them.
"People can say that the site is shallow, they can say it's superficial, but I think we're all a bit superficial when it comes to dating," Pellegrino said.
One of the "hotties" accepted into the club is Jimmy Ziomek, a 29-year-old from New York City who rated an 8.2. Ziomek, who said his job in real estate keeps him from going out much, has blue eyes and light brown hair and goes to the gym four to five times a week.
Using HotEnough.org "saves time and it does the searching for you, narrows it down to the people that you are interested in meeting," he said.
Among those who did not make the cut was Jeanette Ponder, a 28-year-old Internet blogger from East Orange, New Jersey who considered herself an 8 or 9. She said she applied because she thought it would make a good story.
"I got rated at like 5.7," she said. "When you put yourself out there in any situation, even if it's one which you're not taking seriously, it's going to sting."
But she also reasoned: "You cannot make a relationship by being arm candy."
Like it or not, HotEnough.com operates according to a principle that watchers of the singles scene have long recognized: "People tend to end up with partners who match them in physical attractiveness," said Margaret Clark, a professor of psychology at Yale University.
Pellegrino, whose day job as a project manager for a construction company in Maplewood leaves little time for dating, has brown eyes and a bright smile, goes to the gym at least three times a week and gets his stylish haircut touched up every two weeks. He was happy to make it onto his own Web site.
"I see myself more in like the 7.5 range," he said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NBC, News Corp. gang up against YouTube

Media giants pooling resources to create an online video site that will take on Google's YouTube.
By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large
March 22 2007: 4:31 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Media giants News Corp. and NBC Universal announced Thursday that they will create an online video site that will rival the popular YouTube.
News Corp. (Charts), which owns the Fox television and movie studios, and GE (Charts)-owned NBC Universal said their site will include online videos from the company's two film and TV libraries.
Springfield 2.0: "The Simpsons," as well as other hits from Fox, will be a part of the new online joint venture between Fox parent News Corp. and NBC Universal.
Video
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Media giant Viacom is suing Youtube over illegal content on its Web site. CNN's Maggie Lake reports (March 13)
Play video
Executives from the two companies added during a conference call Thursday afternoon that the site will allow users to create their own videos as well but that the main focus will be on their copyrighted content.
"There will be user-generated videos but the emphasis here is on the premium content and we think that's the value proposition here," said NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker.
Fox and NBC's wrongheaded approach
YouTube has quickly become the most popular online video site thanks in large part to quirky short videos submitted by users. YouTube does offer videos from professional media firms as well.
The companies said the new site would feature personalized play lists, social networking functions as well as mashups, which let users create their own videos based on copyrighted content.
News about the joint venture was originally reported in The Los Angeles Times Thursday morning.
The announcement comes a week after another big media firm, Viacom (Charts), said it was suing YouTube and its parent company Google (Charts) for copyright infringement and seeking more than $1 billion.
In a statement, Viacom said that it backed the new site.
"A new online video distribution platform that respects copyrights is a welcome addition to the industry. The venture supports our view that upholding the rights of content creators is the only logical and legitimate path for the creative and technology communities to come together and bring great new online experiences to consumers," the company said in a statement.
Viacom was in talks with News Corp. and NBC late last year about joining the venture but decided to back down, according to reports. But one person familiar with the situation said Viacom may decide to contribute content from its cable channels and film studio to the new site later on.
Viacom sues YouTube for $1 billion
NBC and News Corp. said they will also be working with other YouTube rivals such as Yahoo!, (Charts) Time Warner's (Charts) AOL, Microsoft's (Charts) MSN and News Corp.-owned MySpace to distribute their videos on those Web sites as well. (Time Warner also owns CNNMoney.com.)
"This is a game-changer for Internet video," News Corp. President Peter Chernin said in a statement. "We'll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want - professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live."
During the conference call, Chernin added that News Corp. and NBC were in discussions with both more media companies as well as more Web sites to distribute the videos.
Chernin even said that News Corp. and NBC were talking with Google about having them distribute videos from the News Corp.-NBC joint venture.
"This is obviously not a YouTube killer," Chernin said.
The two companies said that full episodes and clips from hit NBC and Fox shows such as "Heroes," "Saturday Night Live," "24" and "The Simpsons" will be available for free when the site launches in the summer.
Chernin added during the call that consumers would have to pay to watch most full-length movies and that prices would be similar to prices charged on other movie download sites such as CinemaNow, Movielink and Apple's iTunes, where movies typically cost between $9.99 and $14.99.
YouTube rivals: Thanks, Viacom!
The TV videos will include ads, however, and the two companies said that Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco Systems, Intel and General Motors have already signed on as advertisers.
"This venture supercharges our distribution of protected, quality content to fans everywhere. Consumers get a hugely attractive aggregation of a wide range of content, and marketers get a novel way to connect with a large and highly engaged audience," Zucker said in a statement.
Major media companies have been aggressively building up their own video sites to compete with Google and YouTube as they try to cash in on the potentially lucrative online video advertising business. Some companies also have partnerships with Google and YouTube.
Still, it's uncertain if the new site will be able to make significant inroads against YouTube. Some jokingly referred to the NBC-News Corp. joint venture as "Me Too Tube."
The death of the 30-second TV commercial
One media expert said the NBC-News Corp. venture makes sense but disputed Chernin's contention that it was ground-breaking.
"What these guys are talking about is extending TV over the Internet. What they are building is kind of a fraction of a Comcast - it's like an Internet-based cable company with multiple channels," said Todd Dagres, general partner of Spark Capital, a Boston-based venture capital firm focused on media and technology. "How revolutionary is that? I can do that right now with my TV. It's just evolutionary in terms of using other media to distribute content."
Another technology executive said the NBC-News Corp. site needs to do more than just focus on copyrighted content in order to have any chances at success.
"The power of YouTube is that I'm selecting clips and slicing and dicing. It will be interesting to see if this site has the Wild Wild West feel that YouTube does," said Daren Gill, senior vice president of product development for the entertainment group at ChoiceStream, a company which develops software that sets up personal recommendations for users of prominent Web sites like AOL and Yahoo.
"The user experience will be really key as to whether or not this is going to be an also-ran or a major force in online video," Gill added.
But given the marketing dollars that major media companies like NBC and News Corp. can use to promote their online video site, there is no reason why the joint venture couldn't quickly become a top player in user-generated content if the two media firms choose to embrace this market.
"User-generated content needs to be part of anybody's online media offering and YouTube has no corner on the market on that," said Alex Laats, CEO of PodZinger, an online audio and video search engine. "The media companies' advantage is they have large advertising sales forces and marketing departments."
NBC and News Corp. said NBC Universal's chief digital officer George Kliavkoff will lead the joint venture for now until a permanent management team, and a name for the new site, are announced. Zucker added during the conference call that a separate online ad sales force will be created for the site.

Laptops feature secure hard drives

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Seagate Technology LLC, the world's largest hard drive maker, announced Monday the first manufacturer to sell laptop PCs with its new built-in encryption technology.
The hard drives, to be available in laptops made by ASI Computer Technologies, will include a chip that makes it impossible for anyone to read data off the disk, or even boot up a PC, without some form of authentication.
ASI, which manufacturers laptops under its own brand and builds systems for lesser-known PC makers, is expected to put the new technology in its machines within a few months. Other major PC makers are expected to introduce computers with Seagate's secure hard drives later this year.
Lost or stolen employee laptops have cost businesses and government agencies millions of dollars and hurt their credibility, while putting the sensitive information in the hands of identity thieves and other criminals. Dozens of U.S. states require businesses to encrypt computer data.
"I can't help but think that this kind of hard drive would become a standard issue on corporate laptops," said Dave Reinsel, a storage industry analyst at market research firm IDC.
Seagate's DriveTrust technology differs from existing security options, which usually include placing firewalls around computer networks and installing encryption software on systems.
The new technology is embedded directly in the hard drive -- the computer's storehouse of data. It requires users to have a key, or password, before being able to access the disk drive or boot up the machine. Without the password, the hard drive would be useless, Seagate officials said.
Seagate teamed with security software provider Wave Systems Corp. to add an additional layer of tools to make the systems easier for corporations to manage the new kind of security technology.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Analysts: YouTube lawsuit may boost rivals

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Viacom's billion-dollar legal gambit against Google could lead to more media industry lawsuits and give a boost to rival online video services in the emerging marketplace.
Media executives and analysts are awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit against Google and its video-sharing site YouTube, which Viacom said is intended to defend the notion of intellectual property and the concept of the Internet media marketplace.
Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Comedy Central, demanded in February that YouTube pull more than 100,000 video clips uploaded by users on to the online video-sharing service. Google and Viacom had tried and failed to negotiate a deal to allow some of Viacom's content on to YouTube and split the advertising revenues.
On Tuesday, Viacom sued Google and YouTube for more than $1 billion, accusing them of "massive intentional copyright infringement."
"I think that most media companies will let Viacom do the initial heavy lifting," said HDNet owner Mark Cuban, a vocal critic of YouTube, in an e-mail. Cuban has subpoenaed Google for the identities of YouTube users who uploaded unauthorized clips of movies produced by his firm.
"If it becomes apparent that there will be damages, then the floodgates to more suits will open," he said in response to questions about the impact of Viacom's actions.
Google is protected by a law designed to give Web hosts "the safe harbor we need in order to be able to do hosting online," said Alexander Macgillivray, Google's associate general counsel for products and intellectual property.
Other media conglomerates declined to say whether they are also considering legal action against Google, but at least two openly supported Viacom's defense of its copyrights.
Seminal case
"It is clear from this lawsuit that it is time for YouTube to remove unauthorized material from its site," a Time Warner spokesman said. "We are in talks (with YouTube) and hopeful we can work together toward a solution that would effectively identify and filter out unauthorized material and license copyrighted works for an appropriate revenue share."
A spokesman for News Corp., whose Fox TV division earlier subpoenaed YouTube to learn the identities of users who had uploaded copies of "24" ahead of the live broadcast, said: "We support Viacom's rights to protect its own content in whatever way it needs to."
UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff described Viacom's lawsuit as "a seminal event" in relations between the media and Internet industries and in determining how content will be valued online.
What's at stake?
For Viacom, it is "the entire concept of markets and intellectual properties," said its general counsel Michael Fricklas. "YouTube wants to take first and negotiate later. You can't have markets in that scenario," he said in an interview.
But without Google, Viacom would have to go it alone on the Web or turn to start-up sites that are dwarfed by YouTube, the single biggest aggregator of viewers online with 100 million video streams per day.
For its part, YouTube could lose its position as the Web's most popular video site if other media companies band with Viacom and support smaller rivals in the nascent market.
"Google has the potential to lose its dominance in the video market," said Forrester Research's James McQuivey. "AOL Video and Yahoo video are cheering ... This is their chance."
Cuban said there are many alternatives to YouTube that could form partnerships with the media companies while these companies keep control of their content and advertising.
"There isn't any level of promotion on YouTube that Viacom couldn't just purchase outright if they felt there was value to being seen on YouTube," Cuban said in the e-mail.
Viacom, which is revamping its Web strategy, struck a deal in March with Joost, an online video service created by the founders of eBay's Skype and of file-sharing network Kazaa.
Online video service Metacafe's chief executive, Erick Hachenburg, said he sees more opportunities to work with media companies arising out of the dispute.
"It can be good for us," he said. "We haven't built our business on the backs of piracy."
Google shares down
Some analysts say Google needs to do more to reach some accommodation with media companies and other copyright owners.
"Google as the owner of YouTube has way too much invested in its position to not do something," Gartner analyst Allen Weiner said. "This could cost them on Wall Street."
The share reaction was relatively muted on Tuesday, with Google falling 2.58 percent to $443.03 on Nasdaq. Viacom shares fell 0.23 percent to $39.48 on the New York Stock Exchange.
"It's the kind of thing that's more of a press event than an investor event," said associate portfolio manager Larry Haverty of Gamco, a Viacom investor. He added, "If Google wants to get into the entertainment business, they need to play according to rules."
But the delicate balance of power could shift back to Google if it lands a deal with a big media company, RBC Capital analyst Jordan Rohan said.
Viacom's "tactics will work until one of its biggest competitors -- Walt Disney or News Corp. -- sign a deal with YouTube, at which point Viacom will be open to compromise," he said.
Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman said media companies need to strike deals with YouTube and that lawsuits on piracy just delay the inevitable.
"In the long run, the media companies are going up the river without a paddle," Goodman said. "They're fighting a battle they can't win."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Viacom slaps Google with $1 billion lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) -- MTV owner Viacom Inc. sued the popular video-sharing site YouTube and its corporate parent, Google Inc., on Tuesday, seeking more than $1 billion in damages on claims of widespread copyright infringement.
Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed nearly 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube and represents the biggest confrontation to date between a major media company and the hugely popular video-sharing site, which Google bought in November for $1.76 billion.
YouTube's soaring popularity has been a cause of fascination but also fear among the owners of traditional media outlets, who worry that YouTube's displaying of user-uploaded clips from their programs -- without compensation -- will lure away viewers and ad dollars from cable and broadcast TV.
Viacom is especially at risk because many of its shows, which include "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "The Colbert Report" and "South Park" are aimed at younger audiences who also are heavy Internet users.
The lawsuit came nearly six weeks after Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks over licensing arrangements broke down. YouTube agreed at the time to comply and said it cooperates with all copyright holders to remove programming as soon as they're notified.
But since then, Viacom has identified more than 50,000 additional unauthorized clips, Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig said.
In a statement, Viacom lashed out at YouTube's business practices, saying it has "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."
Viacom said YouTube's business model, "which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws."
Viacom said YouTube has avoided taking the initiative to curtail copyright infringement on its site, instead shifting the burden and costs of monitoring the video-sharing site for unauthorized clips onto the "victims of its infringement."
In a statement, Google said it believed the courts will agree "that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders."
"We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger community," Google said.
Other media companies have also clashed with YouTube over copyrights, but some, including CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, have reached deals with the video-sharing site to license their material. CBS Corp. used to be part of Viacom but has since split off into a separate company.
Universal Music Group, a unit of France's Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but later reached a licensing deal with the company.
Bruce Sunstein, co-founder of intellectual property law firm Bromberg & Sunstein in Boston, said YouTube was still in the early stages of what was likely to be a "very long working-out of arrangements" with the owners of broadcast copyrights.
"Finding a way of peaceful coexistence is quite a struggle," Sunstein said. "Google's motto is 'Don't be Evil,' and you could argue that with YouTube that motto is wearing a little thin."
Besides damages, Viacom is also seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.
While YouTube has yet to generate much revenue, its online traffic has been growing rapidly. According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube attracted 133.5 million visitors worldwide in January, up from 9.5 million a year earlier.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Retirees find Wii not just for the grandkids

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Until two weeks ago, Ruth Ebert never had the slightest interest in the video games favored by her one and only granddaughter.
"I'm 82 years old, so I missed that part of our culture. Soap operas, yes. Video games, no," chirped Ebert, who recently started playing a tennis game on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s new Wii video game console at the Virginia retirement community she calls home.
"It was funny, because normally I would not be someone who would do that," said Ebert, who picked up the console's motion-sensing Wiimote and challenged the machine to a match.
"I played tennis, if you can call it that, as a high school student. I had such fun doing it," she said.
Ebert swung the Wiimote just like a tennis racquet and said playing the game reminded her of the feeling she had all those years ago.
While she took the early on-court lead, the Wii beat her in the end. Still, it hurt less than her real-world losses: "I didn't mind losing to a video game. It couldn't rub it in."
Japan's Nintendo has been on a mission to expand the $30 billion global video game market far beyond the children and young males who make up its core consumers.
And the company, a former underdog best known for fun, high-quality games based on off-beat characters like plumbers -- think Mario Bros. -- has sent shock waves through game industry with the unexpected and runaway success of the Wii.
That $250 console has been stealing the show from Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, higher-powered consoles that are much more expensive than the Wii.
While those rivals focused on cutting-edge graphics and high-tech bells and whistles, Nintendo focused on making game play easier, more intuitive and more appealing to a mass market.
That bet paid off.
The Wii outsold the new Microsoft and Sony consoles in January and February and is generating its own buzz with everyone from nuns to cancer patients to toddlers.
There are Wii parties and Wii bowling contests. Players, who often look quite silly and occasionally injure themselves in fits of overzealous play, upload video of their Wii antics to a variety of technology Web sites like GameTrailers.com and Google's YouTube.
"I thought it was tremendous," said Ted Campbell, 77.
Last week he played the Wii for the first time at Springfield, Virginia's Greenspring Retirement Community, where Ebert is also a resident.
The community hasn't yet decided where to keep the Wii, although Ebert has volunteered her one-bedroom apartment, with its big-screen TV.
Flora Dierbach, 72, chairs the entertainment committee at a sister facility owned by Erickson Retirement Communities in Chicago and helped arrange a Wii bowling tournament -- the latest Wii craze.
"It's a very social thing and it's good exercise ... and you don't have to throw a 16-pound bowling ball to get results," said Dierbach, who added the competition had people who hardly knew each other cheering and hugging in the span of a few hours.
"We just had a ball with it. You think it's your grandkids' game and it's not," she said, noting that Erickson paid for the Wiis in its facilities.
Greenspring resident and long-time bowler Sim Taylor said his grandchildren are also great fans of video games.
"I never could understand it," said Taylor, who at 81 has surprised himself by adding video games to his list of hobbies.
That isn't the case with Millicent, his wife of 55 years.
"She sticks with bridge," Taylor said.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistribute

Chatroom users 'egged on father to kill himself live on webcam'

A father-of-two hanged himself live over the internet in Britain's first 'cyber suicide'.
Kevin Whitrick, 42, took his life after being goaded by dozens of chatroom users from across the world who initially believed he was play acting.
But as they watched in horror, Mr Whitrick climbed onto a chair, smashed through a ceiling and then hanged himself with a piece of rope.
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Kevin Neil Whitrick, 42, was found dead by police in Wellington, after being alerted by a web user who is thought to have watched in horror as the man harmed himself
Stunned by what they had witnessed - broadcast on a popular chatroom website used by millions of people across the globe - chatroom users immediately contacted the police.
Officers rushed to the electrician's home in the Wellington area of Shropshire within minutes, smashing down the door to try to save him.

Kevin Whitrick had two 12-year-olds who he visited regularlyBut despite their efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Last night it emerged that Mr Whitrick had been suffering from depression after being badly injured in a car crash last year.
Friends said that the breakdown of his marriage with wife, Paula - with whom he had 12-year-old twins - and the recent death of his father had also been causing him some distress.
Mr Whitrick told users of web-chat site PalTalk what he was going to do two hours before he killed himself on Wednesday night.
He was logged on with around 50 other users to a special "insult" chatroom where people "have a go at each other".
Today distraught users of the site said that they felt sick and had previously thought the web broadcast was a hoax.
They confirmed Mr Whitrick told friends in the internet chat room of his plans to kill himself but, thinking he was joking, they egged him on telling him to make sure the his webcam was on.
Mr Whitrick, using the user-name Shyboy-17-1, switched on his webcam and went ahead with his grisly plan.
One anonymous user said: "He tied a rope around an uncovered ceiling joist and stood on the chair as he tied the rope around his neck.
"Some of us chatroom users, talking to Kevin over text chat, microphones and video tried to convince him to step down, but others egged him on telling him to get on with it.
"We just couldn't believe he was doing it - it was surreal.
"One chatter said: 'F***ing do it, get on with it, get it round your neck. For F***'s sake he can't even do this properly'."
Another user who did not wish to be named said: "When Kevin stepped off the chair and was left dangling, the mood in the chatroom changed and people began to realise what they had just seen.
"We started asking if anyone knew where he lived and saying they should contact the police.
"I think someone contacted the police in their local area but sadly no one could get to him in time."
Shortly after, moderators on the site closed the feed from Kevin's webcam.
'Considerate and kind'
Mr Whitrick had been living in his flat, a converted house, after splitting from his wife Paula two years ago.
The couple, who married in 1988, had 12-year-old twins Lewis and Melissa who live with their mother in a three-bedroom, semi-detached home close by.
They are said to have visited their dad, who worked at family firm RMW electrical services in Shrewsbury, at weekends. His older brother Malcolm Whitrick is an associate director at Shrewsbury Town Football Club.

Kevin Whitrick's sparse profile on the paltalk websiteLast night Mrs Whitrick said: "Kevin was a loving father and family man. He was always the life and soul of the party, an extremely considerate and kind person and loved by many, he will be so sadly missed by us all.
"Unfortunately Kevin had a very serious car accident in July 2006 and had never fully recovered back to full health."
Mr Whitrick's stepmother Betty Whitrick, 74, told the Mail: 'Kevin was a bubbly kind of person, full of fun. I just don't know why he would do this.
"He lived alone but he always cheerful when I saw him. I knew he was very into computers and he also used to like playing bowls."
Detective Chief Inspector Jon Groves who is leading the investigation said: "Our enquiries to date have revealed that Mr Whitrick was using a chat room with a number of other people at the time of his death.
"We are liasing with the internet service provider at this time to contact other users who were online at the time of this incident and who may have information that could assist our enquiries.
"We are also working to ensure that witness support facilities are available to those who may have been affected by what they saw."
Sharon Atwal, who works in a cornershop opposite Mr Whitrick's flat, described him as "subdued" the last time she saw him.
She said: "Every night he'd take eight cans of Boddington's bitter from the fridge and re-stock it with the cans from the shelf. He always seemed quite cheerful.
"On Wednesday night, though, he didn't seem himself and it was the first night that he did not re-stock the fridge. It was as if he knew he wouldn't be coming back.
"He always struck me as very happy, he was friendly and had two perfect kids. I cannot believe he has done this."
Her brother Bobby added: "Kevin has lived in the flat for the past year and I have seen him every day without fail.
"Last week, he told me about his chat room. He was excited and said he had set it up himself. He said he had been speaking to people in Australia on his webcam.
"His two children used to visit at weekends. He had a very good relationship with them and always gave them lots of money to buy sweets."
The case appears to echo that of Brandon Vedas, a 21 year-old from Phoenix, Arizona, who committed suicide online using a mix of alcohol and prescription medication.
In that case people in the chat room egged the young man on, while others tried desperately to find his address.
Local MP for the Wrekin, Mark Pritchard, said: "This is a very sad and rare incident. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family.
"It is important that the use of the internet in this death is fully investigated."

Top Document Scanners

Fujitsu's sturdy ScanSnap s500, which delivers high image quality, takes the number one slot.By Eric Butterfield, PC World
Xerox Documate 152
• Price when reviewed: $595• Text scan quality: Good• Performance: Good• Ease of use: Good• Features: Very Good
Unit includes full-version OCR software and a document management app, but it's slow overall and its image quality is mediocre.(Last Rated: February 19, 2007)
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Microtek ArtixScanDI 2020
• Price when reviewed: $500• Text scan quality: Good• Performance: Very Good• Ease of use: Good• Features: Good
Large flatbed model offers fast speeds and a high-capacity ADF. However, it can't create searchable PDF files.(Last Rated: February 19, 2007)
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HP Scanjet N6010
• Price when reviewed: $500• Text scan quality: Good• Performance: Very Good• Ease of use: Very Good• Features: Very Good
The N6010 scans text quickly, but is slow at handling graphics. It's well priced considering it includes full-version OCR software.(Last Rated: February 19, 2007)
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Plustek SmartOffice PS252
• Price when reviewed: $399• Text scan quality: Very Good• Performance: Very Good• Ease of use: Very Good• Features: Good
Ultracompact scanner offers high image quality and a generous software bundle, though OCR capabilities are limited.(Last Rated: February 19, 2007)
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Fujitsu ScanSnap s500
• Price when reviewed: $495 • Text scan quality: Very Good• Performance: Very Good• Ease of use: Very Good• Features: Good
The sturdy s500 delivers high image quality and includes a document management app, but its OCR software is basic.(Last Rated: February 19, 2007)
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