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before i start with the news this week, i want to congratulate and show lots of respect to the blogs, participants, voices, and community that responded and helped out with the jena 6 situation. it truly was really cool to see another example of the black blogosphere, as well its surrounding community, come together and help out those in jena, louisiana. our man, howard witt, has a nice article about the events and how we (again) are changing the face of civil rights.

and to the news…

in a possible sign of things to come with major print mediums, the new york times has announced that it is discontinuing its paid-subscription requirement to view most of its online news website. while its admirable that they have finally caught up to most of the major news outlets on the web, i know that it is a nice gesture when you’re able to read quality articles without forking over any type of long-term paid agreement. (via slashdot)

jay leno has added a hydrogen-powered bmw 7-series to his fleet of cars in order to make his lifestyle more green. the cool thing about the upcoming technology from bmw is that these high-priced, production-ready cars provide less emissions to the fragile atmosphere. the byproduct of using hydrogen gas when driving is that pure water vapor comes out of the exhaust. while it is argued that heated water vapor can still be considered a ‘greenhouse gas’, i’m pretty sure its safer for all us humans and trees than your typical aerosol can or hummer h2 exhaust. read on for more technical details about the hydrogen-powered technological marvels. (via autobloggreen)

the “who’s who” of the web world are gathering this week at the techcrunch40 conference and i’ve perused the techcrunch website to find some neat things. one was an interview that michael arrington did with facebook founder mark zuckerberg. he picked his brain about the future of facebook, how it has grown (and continues to grow) almost at an obscene rate, and if it will ever consider being bought out by a rupert murdoch or m$ or google. zuckerberg replied emphatically ‘no’, and continued to talk about all of the neat little features facebook is planning to implement as it learns more about itself through third-party developer apps and user feedback. of most importance, though, is that facebook has teamed up with other venture capitalists to provide grant money for those who can come up with the best apps for its platform.

google also used the conference to announce the last step in its competition with m$ office tools. google presently is the microsoft powerpoint equivalent and aims to help online users create quick and easy presentations for free. it will become an additional member to the google docs suite which also includes word and excel equivalents.

i also plan to try this new application called mint. it just won an award as ‘best presentation’ at the conference and i’m seeing some good reviews. i’ll post a review of it myself here later in the days.

(facebook, google, and mint via techcrunch)