The U.S. Government's Chief Innovation Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled Challenge.gov, a sort of public works X Prize, at the Gov 2.0 conference Tuesday. And it was greeted not by the enthusiasm lavished on, say, Pepsi when it launched a similar branded effort, but a smirk. "Unveiling a crowdsourcing initiative at a summit created to demonstrate the most advanced marriages of technology and government? Yawn," wrote Fast Company's Austin Carr. "Ask not what your government can do for originality online, because we haven't seen it yet," Carr quipped. Since when is it government's job to be the …

The next time the Fail Whale pops up while you are attempting fruitlessly to post your missive on what you found floating in your Cheerios, blame Justin Bieber. This according Mashable, which has it from what it's sussed as a reliable source inside Twitter that 3% of of the microblogging services' servers are dedicated to Bieber and Bieber alone. Web designer Dustin Curtis, who originally quoted the stat, tells Mashable, "Every time Bieber tweets, his messages have to be delivered to more than five million people who then endlessly retweet it. Apparently, his account receives more than …

Google and Apple may be very different companies, but they are clashing on every front these days. On the heels of Steve Jobs unveiling the latest iteration of Apple TV, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced the company would launch its own TV service this fall. Sony has agreed to include the service on its screens and Samsung is also reportedly close to a deal with Google. "We will work with content providers, but it is very unlikely that we will get into actual content production," Schmidt said of the gambit to launch Google into the living room. …

In a keynote at Berlin's IFA consumer electronics conference, Google head honcho Eric Schmidt presented his vision for the future of the search giant: Namely a call for consumers to lock it in to Google to rip the knobs off, and let the machines do the thinking. "This notion of autonomous search -- to tell me things I didn't know but am probably interested in -- is the next great stage, in my view, of search." He envisions a future where, among other things, our smartphones are constantly searching our surrounding environment for items of interest. "If …

Media Biz Blogger Steve Rosenbaum recounts the tale of how he scored free tickets to a show from City Winery, a music venue and custom-crush winery in New York City. After posting a video he took of Marshall Crenshaw singing at the venue to Facebook and Twitter, Rosenbaum received an offer via Twitter from @citywinerynyc inviting him back. If ATN had a free ticket to a show for every social mediaite's tale of warmth and cutomer service over Twitter we could fill the Hollywood Bowl. But Rosenbaum makes a salient point when …

Twittering bargain hunters, @uniqlo has got a deal for you. The Japanese clothing retailer, known for its brightly colored affordable basics, has posted a special discounted clothing section on its UK site. Unlike, say, J. Crew, who seems content to post a sale section online, Uniqlo is determining the price by Twitter (sort of). Writing about any of the items on Twitter lowers the price (to a previously set discount). Though Copyranter points out, "Uncertain: if your tweet still lowers the price if you write how butt-ugly you think a particular sweater is."

A Bloomberg report states that North Korea's Dear Leader is throwing some state-supported muscle behind a burgeoning mobile video game market, responsible for, among other games, bowling game based on the 1998 Coen brother's classic "The Big Lebowski." Fox published this and other games developed by the North Korean company General Federation of Science and Technology. But Kim is playing with fire, warns Andrei Lankov, an academic specializing in North Korea at Seoul- based Kookmin University. "These activities help to fund the regime, but at the same time they bring knowledge of the outside world to …

The powers that be at Craiglist are on lock down after deciding to close the site's Adult Services section leading into the Labor Day weekend, reports ReadWriteWeb. The company was responding to pressure from 17 states attorneys general, likely resulted from a torrent of bad press after CNN ran a special it calmly titled "Craigslist and Sex Trafficking" in which CL founder Craig Newmark came off looking poorly (Newmark later blamed his gaffs on mild Asperger syndrome and the fact that he hasn't been involved in running his namesake company in 10 years). Craiglist has covered …

As Search Engine Land reports, Google has introduced a new ad format for search that appears in Google Maps for Mobile, and offers all the targeting capabilities that Maps provides like GPS and triangulation. The ads are similar those Expandable Map Ads for mobile devices that Google unveiled earlier this summer, which begin as a banner and expand when clicked into a map (with the option to get directions or call a business). What's the difference between the two formats? "Beyond location specificity the other big difference is search intent," writes Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling. The …

Apps may be gaining ground (and a lot of attention) among iTunes users, but music is still its central service. According to the NPD Group, which surveyed nearly 4,000 iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch users 13 and over, 82% have purchased music through iTunes (though virtually all of them have downloaded an app for free). More than half of those users (56%), use iTunes exclusively for their music purchases, and a majority of the search time on the iTunes program is for music. That's good news for Apple, which earlier this week announced an update of its iTunes software would …