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Iran is getting ready to debate a new law that could potentially send web criminals to the death chamber. The newly proposed bill is aimed to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society,” and would mean that people found guilty of promoting activities such as corruption, prostitution or apostasy online could face the death penalty. Based on wording from the newly proposed law those found guilty “should be punished as ‘mohareb’ (enemy of God) and ‘corrupt on the earth’.”

This would mean that activity as simple as setting up a blog and writing about prostitution could mean death should you be found guilty. Currently Iran has pretty strict Internet rules and they block thousands of sites that are “deemed immoral or religiously and politically inappropriate.” Personally I have no interest in a prostitution blog, but it sounds really bad to think you could be put to death for such a thing.

Read [Gulf News]

Typepad bloggers who use the BlackBerry Curve or the Pearl will have no more reason not to update their blogs a little more often, as Six Apart is bringing its native mobile blogging application to both BlackBerry handsets. This means that these bloggers can now upload photos, manage comments, as well as draft, edit and post to their Typepad blogs directly from their phone.

Whereas before, BlackBerry users were able to use post to their blogs using their phones’ mobile web browser or the email-to-blog feature, now with Typepad’s native application, they can just do the same task without opening their phones browser. The post-to-blog feature is now embedded as one of menus of the their BlackBerry Curve or Pearl. 

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It seems these days with every new and old web service everything is going social.  You have social networks, social bookmarking and of course you have very social services like Twitter.  So with that said what about blog comments, can you make those social?

Enter Disqus (Pronounced like Discuss) and now comments on your blog or comments you put on a blog become part of the social web themselves and give them a life of their own.  Some of the features that highlight Disqus are threaded conversations, posting via email or even mobile, profile that is used on all the blogs you use that use Disqus, the ability to track comment discussions, and of course everyone’s favorites these days widgets!

Are you a blogger and wonder if this type of blogging will work with your blogging platform of choice?  It probably will as Disqus integrates and works with Wordpress, Movable Types, Blogger, Tumblr, and TypePad. As for installation I have found it to be a piece of cake and the support for those who might need it is top notch from others I have talked to.

So make sure to check out Disqus if you are a blogger or non-blogger and socialize your comments.

Read [Disqus]

On Friday, the IOC - International Olympics Committee, gave their official approval for athletes to be able to blog at this year’s summer Olympics in Beijing. However, these athletics cannot publish any media of the event or any material that is Olympic property. The IOC thinks of blogging as a way to expression, which is not like journalism, therefore they don’t have a real reason to ban blogging.

Also, any blog postings by these athletes have to be in the Olympic spirit and be “dignified and in good taste.” I’m not sure how they will find out if someone posts something not in good taste, and then how they would punish them. Furthermore, athletes that were in the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2006 Turin Olympics and had blogs, they were not officially recognized by the IOC, and so this raised some debate. It will be interesting to see which athletes blog and what they blog.

Via [Electronista]

To keep up with the demand for content we are looking for additional writers who are interested in keeping our readers plugged into the tech world. If you have a passion for technology consider joining the team.

To make the cut you must:

• Have knowledge of the industry
• Possess a unique/creative writing style
• Be proficient in the English language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure)
• Be able to contribute a minimum of 20 articles (200-400 words per article) per month
• Stay up to date on current news stories

If interested send an email to jobs(at)dabbledoo(dot)com with your contact information, resume, and an appropriate writing sample (or links to past work). For more information visit our Gadgetell jobs page or our corporate Dabbledoo jobs page.

Ps. - We are also searching for additional contributors for Appletell and Gamertell.

Sony just recently shipped it’s 4.5 millionth Cyber-shot camera phones (model K790/K800) and has now updated the product selection with the K810/K818 Cyber-shot phone. It is a 3.2 megapixel camera including auto focus and Xenon flash which includes applications such as Photo fix help to improve the quality of your pictures after you have taken them, illuminated icons to the side of the main keypad which light up in camera mode, and more. These models support UMTS 2100 (GSM 900/1800/1900), red eye reduction, BestPic, Picture Blogging, and USB 2.0. This model will be available in Q2 2007. In addition, the K818 is a GSM variant intended specifically for China where 3G services are not established. Both will be available in two stylish colors: Noble Blue and Golden Ivory.

The K550 Cyber-shot phone delivers the benefits of the Cyber-shot phone in a compact (14mm thin) form factor. Equipped with a 2.0 megapixel camera with auto focus plus LED photo light and active lens cover. Add to this Bluetooth technology, Memory Stick Micro (M2), PictBridge and Picture blogging and you have a camera phone that takes the complexity out of sharing quality images with friends and family. Simply by sliding open the lens cover, the camera is activated and the Cyber-shot menu appears in the phone’s screen, which at 1.9” serves as a clear viewfinder. Available in Jet Black or Pearl White in selected markets from Q1 2007.

Performancing, the popular blogger portal, is now offering an all new services to add to its existing line of services that include job board, blog posting add on for Firefox and a forum for people to discuss blogging at large. They are now set to offer advertising through their existing web site. They appear to be setup to compete directly with companies like AdBrite, which is currently a major player in that same role.

The only thing that seems to be a little different is their reward system, currently they are paying blogger 70% of the advertising revenue while keeping the rest for themselves. With Performancing’s loyal blogger base it looks like they could really come out well from the deal by some of the lower traffic web sites. I’m sure we will see some casinos try to buy out all of the lower traffic blogs to increase link backs.

It would be a quick and easy way to just make the search engines like your web site just a little better if not get a few clicks out of the advertisements alone. At any rate, the advertising market seems to be getting a little more saturated as more and more companies try themselves out in the market. Google AdSense led the way in the most recent surge and now AdBrite, BitVertiser, Performancing, FM Publishing, PayPerPost and others are trying to pave their own way to the bank in gold.

We just finished telling you how to get podcasts on the go and now I am going to followup with blogging on the go...all from Nokia.

Without downloading or installing any applications, Globe customers can upload photos and video clips directly from their Nokia Nseries device to G-Blogs. The first devices to support this feature are the Nokia N93 and Nokia N73 multimedia computers.

Globe customers can also post entries to G-Blogs directly through Nokia Lifeblog. Nokia Lifeblog is a unique collection and storage solution for personal multimedia content, where, with the push of a button, content from a Nokia handset can conveniently be transferred to a compatible PC or to an online blog. Nokia Lifeblog is available in all Nokia Nseries devices and other Nokia devices such as the Nokia 3230, Nokia 7610, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6630 and Nokia 6260.

Microsoft Word and HTML do not currently get along as nicely as many would hope, thankfully this should change come Office 2007. A lead program manager on the Word software design team, explained on his weblog that Word 2007, the next-generation version of Microsoft Word, will support blogging. When blogging with Word 2007, users will get to use all the well-known Word features, specifically formatting and layout to draft posts. Users will even be able to upload pictures from Word to their blog hosting providers. So far, MSN Spaces, Blogger, SharePoint, and Community Server are supported (our beloved Wordpress has still not been announced).

P.S. - If anyone knows of a Wordpress 2.0 supported plug-in that “cleans-up” HTML we would greatly appreciate it.

Read [AMCP Tech]