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Talk of the day

By Times Staff Writer
Published March 6, 2008

Airport diverts Web traffic to wholesomeville

Travelers using Denver International Airport's free Wi-Fi service cannot visit Internet sites that airport officials consider provocative. A report in the Denver Post says the airport is blocking Vanity Fair magazine's Web site, the hipster site boingboing.net and others. Airport spokesman Chuck Cannon says officials decided to block access to potentially racy sites when the airport made its wireless Internet service free in November. Cannon says the airport would rather deal with infrequent complaints about access than handle angry parents whose children might see pornography. Critics say the airport is using the same technology used by repressive regimes in Sudan and Kuwait.

In Zimbabwe, we'd be, like, zillionaires

The Zimbabwe currency tumbled to a record low of 25-million for a single U.S. dollar Wednesday, currency dealers said. With Zimbabwe dollars mostly available in bundles of 100,000 and 200,000 notes, one $100 note bought nearly 40 pounds of local notes at the new market rate Wednesday. Currency dealers said uncertainties ahead of elections scheduled March 29 and the world's highest inflation rate of 100,500 percent annually led holders of hard currency to hang on to their money while the central bank pumped more local cash into the market for election costs.

Cheap laptops fit bill for Birmingham

If $200 laptop computers are good for kids in Peru and Mongolia, why not Alabama? Birmingham's City Council has approved a $3.5-million plan to provide schoolchildren with 15,000 computers produced by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child Foundation, which aims to spread laptops to poor children in developing countries. The foundation says the deal marks the first time a U.S. city has agreed to buy the machines, which also are headed to such countries as Rwanda, Thailand, Brazil and Mexico.

Benz takes trip down memory lane

While the automotive industry focuses on making cars less-polluting yet maintaining performance, Daimler AG provided a reminder at the Geneva International Motor Show of just how far the technology has come. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche rode out onto the show floor on the world's first motorized vehicle, a three-wheel carriage built 120 years ago by Karl Benz. The Benz 3-wheeler was driven by Benz's great-great-granddaughter, Jutta Benz. Benz recounted how her great-great-grandmother, Berta, set off on a 60-mile odyssey from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in the new buggy. "My great-great-grandfather didn't know about it," she said.

Six Flags gets on Dubai thrill ride

Joining Anheuser-Busch in capitalizing on Dubai's oil riches, Six Flags Inc., the world's largest theme park company, has announced Tuesday that it will develop a thrill park in Dubai as part of a massive entertainment and amusement complex in the country known as Dubailand, a 3-billion-square-foot project that will include restaurants, hotels, Universal Studios Dubailand and DreamWorks Animation Park. Groundbreaking on the Six Flags portion is expected to begin in 2009. Anheuser-Busch's plans call for a Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Discovery Cove and Aquatica water parks in an area shaped like Shamu.

[Last modified March 5, 2008, 23:46:41]