Battery

THE health care system in America is on life support. It costs too much and saps economic vitality, achieves far too little return on investment and isn’t distributed equitably. As the Obama administration tries to diagnose and treat what ails the system, however, reformers shouldn’t be worried only about how to pay for it.
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HOUSTON — Vesta Clemmons, who is 77 and lives alone, relies on the battered Zenith television in her tiny apartment here as more than just a lifeline to the outside world.
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The New York Times
“It’s like a friend,” she said in her living room, which is also her dining [...]

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A PERSON could go mad trying to pinpoint the moment he lost a friend. So seldom does that friend make his feelings clear by sending out an e-mail alert.
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It’s not just a fact of life, but also a policy on Facebook. While many trivial actions do [...]

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Google’s Internet search service malfunctioned for nearly 55 minutes Saturday morning, upending users around the world with search results that carried false safety warnings and Web links that did not work.
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The company acknowledged Saturday that all searches produced links with the same warning message: “This site may harm your computer.” [...]

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“Did you like this book?” asks the computer. It’s a customer-satisfaction question, but it seems more profound than that.
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Photograph by Kevin Van Aelst

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For adventures in digital culture, don’t miss The Medium, a blog by Virginia Heffernan.RSS Feed #articleInline [...]

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The compact keyboard of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry turned mobile e-mail messaging into an addictive pastime. The slick touchscreen on Apple’s iPhone turned consumers on to phones as pocket-size Web portals.
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Richard Drew/Associated Press
The Axim by Dell suffered from lackluster demand.
Now Dell and other personal computer makers face a [...]

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ROCHESTER (AP) — The Eastman Kodak Company said Thursday it was cutting 3,500 to 4,500 jobs, or 14 percent to 18 percent of its work force, as it posted a fourth-quarter loss of $137 million on plunging sales of both digital and film-based photography products. Its stock tumbled nearly 30 percent.
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Japan’s economic downturn deepened Friday as the NEC Corporation, a computer maker, announced 20,000 job cuts, several companies delivered profit warnings and the latest economic data showed that industrial output plunged.
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NEC announced it would cut more than 20,000 employees at [...]

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The British government outlined plans on Thursday to bring broadband Internet service to every home in Britain by 2012, and proposed ways to support the music industry and other media businesses by cracking down on online piracy.
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Pool photo by Alastair Grant
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, left, and Stephen Carter, [...]

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YouTube and the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent agency, are close to signing a deal that would place the company’s clients in made-for-the-Web productions.
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The deal would underscore the ways that distribution models are evolving on the Internet. Already, some actors and other celebrities are creating their own content for [...]

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