Driverless cars in England. Perfumes that smell like vaginas in Germany (seriously). New York Times hiring bloggers. Find out why these stories made for great reading in our weekly review of the top Citizen Journalism on Digital Journal.
Technology & Internet
Using the words “dark web” in a headline is always eye-catching, especially since the casual surfer may not know about this world wide nether region. momentsintime informed us about the Dark Web Project that monitors terrorist and extremist websites using tools that analyze harmless-looking pages. Osama better not try to hide on cutelittlekittens.com, because he’ll undoubtedly be found.
Other interesting tech and Web stories included: Amazon launched a DRM-free MP3 store to fight iTunes dominance, Nathalie C reported; the New York Times is jumping on the new media bandwagon even harder by hiring a 22-year-old blogger to write its TVDecoder media section on its site, Wanderlaugh told us; and cgull passed along important news for anyone with an unlocked iPhone. He unearthed an Apple press release that stated, “…many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software.”
Science & Health
A growing trend on DJ is the helpful article on what foods we should avoid. Doing his part in this way was museinspiredart, who let us know about Kraft using a harmful additive in a new butter product. Thanks for the heads up, muse, because I like my food cancer-free.
Other valuable stories in this category worth another a look included: a study on sleeping found that too much shut-eye can hurt a body instead of help it, Planet Janet wrote (once again, the golden number of seven hours of sleep at a night was highly touted); men with lower voices have more children, Wanderlaugh reported, who threw in a comedic flourish to end his informative piece; and Bart B. Van Bockstaele played resident archaeologist with an article on four proto-human skeletons found in Georgia. What’s the big deal? As Bart wrote:
Thanks to this new find, scientists know a little more about the bodies of early men. Skulls are less fragile than other body parts and because of that, little is known about the bodies of early ape-men and man-apes…. It shows that this type of early man looked quite a bit like us, with long legs and hollow feet, ideal for running very long distances and to run after animals. Their upper parts look a lot more ape-like, especially given the way their arms are attached to their bodies.
World
When a comment junkie suddenly becomes a Citizen Journalist, we take notice. And 666divine caught our attention with her article on Italy hoping to fine prostitutes and their johns right on the spot. The piece was noteworthy not only for the bizarre news but also for highlighting some sharp wit 666divine displayed throughout her article. For those of you who might not know, 666Divine has been an active member on DigitalJournal.com since February, and just this week decided to apply for Citizen Journalist status. We encourage everyone to make the brave jump into the realm of community-gathering news!
Several other world stories made headlines this week. Nathalie C found a buried story on a French newspaper discovering news about Israel and the U.S. planning an attack against Iran (as if war in the Middle East wasn’t chaotic enough). Also in the area of U.S. military, Wanderlaugh penned a brilliant op-ed on Army Rangers being suspected of using “baiting” to lure insurgents and then attack them. Sorry, to find out what he means by “baiting” you’re going to have to read the article. It’ll be worth the three minutes of your life.
And finally, the weirdest story of the week comes from museinspiredart: a fragrance that smells like a vagina. Supposedly, the aroma of the genitals is being developed by a German team, who plan on releasing other vaginal scents dubbed “Exotic” and “Eighteen.” Wow. Eighteen? That’s just wrong. Well, actually, so is a perfume that smells like vaginas. That’s not something we can picture women wanting to dab on their neck.
TopFinds Awards
Whenever a rookie starts posting a wide variety of articles like a seasoned Citizen Journalist, the New User of the Week Award is not far behind. Winning this week’s award is fireball11 for posts on the Iran nuclear issue, a Magna Carta auction, a possible Facebook instant-message tool and many others. This newbie writer enlightened us to tech and Net news, while also dipping into politics and crime stories to round out the story range. The writing is crisp and sharp, using applicable quotes and eye-catching photos. Congrats, fireball11, we look forward to more of your journalistic talent!
Speaking of talent, there has to be a heap of writing prowess behind the winner of any TopOpEd Award we dish out. And undoubtedly, a keen eye for detail and powerful statements were behind momentintime’s award-winning op-ed piece, What’s more important to Americans, their children or fighting in Iraq? She based her argument on the billions of dollars President Bush injects into overseas conflicts compared to money proposed to fund a children’s health insurance program. momentsintime clearly laid out her position with statistical evidence, and sources that cite the many times Bush has vetoed bills that supported medical research or educational spending. We are pleased to see CJs covering stories that deserve our attention, even if we don’t live in the country where the articles takes place. Government malfeasance knows no boundaries.
Technology stories are found throughout DigitalJournal.com but is there one article that truly stood out from the pack? We thought so, which is why this week’s TopTech Award goes to geozone for the article Driverless Cars Take to the Road in UK Town. Filled with informative info on driverless cars making an impact in Daventry, England, the article gave us a glimpse into what researchers are doing to curb congestion and pollution in urban centres. geozone laid out the technical aspects behind this innovative automobile:
By linking the computer to SatNav (satellite navigation) software, a 200-yard radius of the car’s surrounding (e.g. other cars, buildings, road conditions, pedestrians) is mapped out. This then enables the computer to dictate how the car should steer and whether it should accelerate, brake or change gears.
Kudos to geozone for penning a post worthy of bookmarking for future reference, after we welcome our new robot overlords.
Finally, recognition should be showered upon a writer always on top of environment, science and health news, and who truly won us over in the latter category this week. Taking home the trophy for TopHealth Award is permafrog for his article on breast cancer linked with alcohol drinking. In fact, permafrog gave readers a solid overview on this issue by posting a day earlier an article on another study that proved how cancer risk increased with booze consumption. The articles were short on opinion and long on data, giving readers a comprehensive summary of what these studies say about this very important health risk. It’s inspiring to see how Digital Journal is shaping up to become a resource for breaking health news, thanks to our dedicated Citizen Journalists.
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Special! Don’t miss this week’s episode of Digital Journal TV where we show you the hottest gadgets from the Sony Expo in downtown Toronto. Featuring: HD TVs, digital cameras, DSLRs, laptops, mp3 players, a dancing “egg” and an upcoming technology so protected, Sony wouldn’t even let us photograph it. Click here to see the show.
