Open-Source Software a Cheap Fix for Hospitals

Mitch McConnell pulling strings for Louisville, angering W. Va senators

(NEWSER) - A war is brewing in the Senate over… college football? Yep. Mitch McConnell is making a zero-hour backroom push to get Louisville into the Big 12, calling officials at the conference’s other schools to sing his beloved alma mater’s praises, sources tell Politico . That’s put him in direct confrontation with Democratic West Virginia senators Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller, because, according to some reports, the Big 12 had already decided to give West Virginia University its last open slot. More»

Jay Rockefeller wants to know if 9/11 victims were hacking targets

(NEWSER) - If journalists working for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. hacked the phones of any Americans, "the consequences will be severe," warns the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who says he's concerned that the hacking "may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans," has called for US authorities to investigate whether US laws were broken, reports the BBC . More»

Segment, suspended in the name of sanity, returns

(NEWSER) - Well, that didn't take long: Not even three weeks after suspending his Worst Person in the World segment in the wake of Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity, Keith Olbermann brought it back. Olbermann announced the segment's return Tuesday, noting that 73% of polled viewers wanted it restored, according to the Hollywood Reporter , and it was back last night. He tried to tone it down a notch by calling it the "(Not Really) Worst Person in the World" and using tamer music, but that didn't last long. More»

Senator wishes FCC could kill cable news

(NEWSER) - Sen. Jay Rockefeller apparently isn’t a fan of cable news. In a hearing on television retransmission consent yesterday, Rockefeller went off-topic to rail against the “endless barking” of a news media that “has all but surrendered to the forces of entertainment.” Then he went off-script to add: “There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and MSNBC, ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’ It would be a big favor to political discourse.” More»

How the giant may be slain

(NEWSER) - Facebook, which this week welcomed its 500 millionth user , is the undisputed king of the Internet. But, warns Ryan Singel on Wired , other giants (think: Friendster, Geocities) have fallen. Here are some of Facebook's potential foes:

• Open Sourcing—New ventures like Diaspora, OneSocialWeb, the Appleseed Project, and WebFinger are experimenting with open-source alternatives. If Zuckerberg keeps invading our privacy , we just might switch.