Online-Only Publication Nabs Its Second Pulitzer

ProPublica, an online journalism outlet, was announced today as one of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners. This is the organization’s second Pulitzer; its first was awarded in 2010.

ProPublica is an independent nonprofit that syndicates content to various traditional news organizations; however, ProPublica itself operates solely on the Internet. This organization prides itself on its investigative reporting done “in the public interest.”

Last year marked the first time an online-only publication had been awarded the prestigious Pulitzer. ProPublica reporter Sheri Fink was the history-making online journalist to be recognized for her piece on the practice of medicine and euthanasia during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

This year, ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein were recognized in the National Reporting category for “The Wall Street Money Machine“, which contained investigative reporting on how certain Wall Street bankers’ actions worsened the financial crisis. Their reporting was done with help from NPR programs Planet Money and This American Life.

The pair was specifically commended for “using digital tools to help explain the complex subject to lay readers.”

Eisinger and Bernstein beat out competitors from Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal. Reporters from those publications were also nominated in the National Reporting category for pieces on the questionable practices of life insurance companies and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, respectively.

Paul Steiger is ProPublica’s editor-in-chief, CEO and president. On the site today, he wrote, “These awards mean a lot to our staff, especially as all of them reflect the judgment of our peers in journalism. … ProPublica was created to spur reform through journalistic means, and to do this by reporting and writing stories with ‘moral force,’ that is, stories about abuse of power or failure to uphold the public trust. That is our mission, and today’s award encourages us to continue it with increased vigor.”

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/04/19/propublica-pulitzer/

Take & Share Interactive Panoramic Photos With New Bing iOS App

Let’s say you have a lot of cats, and you want to take a panoramic photo of all your precious pets as they scamper about the room. Well now you can, thanks to Photosynth, a new iOS app from Bing.

The free app (which had previously only been available on the web) is extremely easy to use. Just tap to start, and move your device around the room, tapping to capture images of each and every corner of the room.

When you’re done, the app will stitch together all the images into a 360-degree panorama, which you can then share on Facebook, the Photosynth website (where you can actually mouse around the panoramas) or to Bing Maps. By adding your snaps to Bing Maps, you’ll allow others to see them while surfing maps or business results. The image will also save to your phone’s camera roll.

Aside from appealing to overbearing cat owners, we can see this app being extremely useful to everyone from real estate agents to businesses specializing in visual goods (galleries in particular).

The Photosynth app [iTunes link] is available for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs, iPod Touch Fourth Generation, and the iPad 2 running iOS 4.1 and later and will soon be coming to Windows phones.

Will you check out Photosynth?

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/04/19/photosynth/

Extraminds V/s Facebook

Extraminds is a very good Social-Networking Site as compared to other social-networking sites because of their new innovative features like themes, punch a friend, My diary, stalkers and many more. Theme is one of its feature where in the users can put attractive themes that too from different category on his canvas. These themes are very colorful, vibrant and peppy. I am also bored of facebook because I have been experiencing the same old features there. On the other hand Extraminds have various other features like punch a friend, writing pad and stalkers. Punch a friend is one of the feature wherein I can remind my friends of our sweet-sour memories by just punching him with an apt humorous liners. I am very fond of reading and writing so Extraminds has given me a platform to read, write and share my article privately and publicly. Another intresting feature in Extraminds is “STALKERS” this gives an opportunity to the user to check the list of people who have visited his profile. I know every human has two phases of his life, one which he wants to share with his friends and society; second which he wants to keep to himself. So Extraminds has introduced “MY DIARY” feature for everyone where the user can write anything and everything. A password security system has also been given so as to keep it secure. So, if I want to share any page of my diary with my friends privately then
I can do that on Extraminds. I am looking forward for some more attractive features on Extraminds very soon good luck Extraminds.

Source: http://www.extraminds.com/Home.aspx?Logout=123