The Federal Trade Commission plans to crack down on 21st century payola—paying blog writers for good reviews of products.

The FTC will actively go after bloggers who fail to disclose if they’re being compensated for their words. The FTC could then order violators to stop and pay restitution to consumers, or even sic the Justice Department on them for civil penalties.

PC World’s Brennon Slattery:

Nonprofessional product review blogs should maintain the integrity of an Internet community where average citizens can freely share ideas without the threat of being swindled by a massive corporation. By accepting payment and benefits from these companies without specifically stating that is being done violates the trust of a community and serves to destroy its very foundation.

Amen.

You’re not the only one to wonder why President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Jen Sorensen has the only plausible answer (click to enlarge the image).

Doesn’t that make sense?

It’s just a matter of time before Avatar becomes the highest grossing (most popular) movie ever. The regular movie is stunning. The 3D version only more so. From Movie News & Gossip:

Vatican newspaper and radio station are criticizing James Cameron’s 3-D blockbuster for flirting with the idea that worship of nature can replace religion — a notion the pope has warned against. They call the movie a simplistic and sappy tale, despite its awe-inspiring special effects.

It is simplistic. Avatar is good vs. evil. And the special effects are, well, stunning. From the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore:

So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions… Everything is reduced to an overly simple anti-imperialistic and anti-militaristic parable…

No emotions? Didn’t you hate the bad guys and root for the good guys? Remember, it’s a movie, not the Gospel. Vatican Radio:

(It) cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium. Nature is no longer a creation to defend, but a divinity to worship.

Did I mention that Avatar is a movie?

This one belongs in my Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics file. The U.S. Census Bureau says 270-million cell phone subscribers sent an average of 407 text messages back in 2008, double that of 2007. From CBS News:

Americans punched out more than 110 billion text messages last year, double the number in the previous year and growing, as the shorthand communication becomes a popular alternative to cell phone calls.

What’s the problem? The headline, Texting Now More Popular Than Cell Calls. More popular? How? Sheer numbers, not texting time vs. talk time, for sure. That said, we added texting to our iPhone plans to keep in touch with our children.

Interesting stats, though. The average length of a cell phone call is down to 2.3 minutes. The average monthly phone bill remains flat, at about $50. The average teen sends more than 2,000 text messages a month.

YouTube link to a video of absolutely the coolest, if not a bit impractical, way to view subway directions on your iPhone. From acrossair and coming soon to the iPhone App Store.

From the You Can’t Make Up This Stuff™ department, Critical Windows 7 bug risks derailing product launch from Randall C. Kennedy of InfoWorld.

The bug in question—a massive memory leak involving the chkdsk.exe utility—appears when you attempt to run the program against a secondary (that is, not the boot partition) hard disk using the “/r” (read and verify all file data) parameter. The problem affects both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and is classified as a “showstopper” in that it can cause the OS to crash (Blue Screen of Death) as it runs out of physical memory.

Ouch. I wonder how Microsoft’s retail stores will fare compared to the Apple Stores?

It’s a blast from the past. Google, the high technology advertising company, launched a billboard advertising campaign to promote Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office.

Commuters in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston will see a different message promoting Google Apps each weekday throughout August. Called “Going Google”, the campaign targets IT managers stuck in traffic and informs on the benefits of switching to Google Apps.

The billboards are distinctively black text on white background with a simple message in a plain typewriter font.

The new campaign for Google Apps can be widely seen as a direct stab at Microsoft’s productivity and e-mail offerings, explaining the benefits of using cloud computing solutions. Microsoft is also planning to launch Office Web Applications, free of charge, together with the 2010 of its desktop productivity suite.

It’s a good thing we don’t have roadside billboards in Hawaii.