Most often when people think of the web they think of it as a place to get new information. Companies are told they must constantly update their website while customers and citizens look for the latest updates. But because the web is relatively new, it is strongly biased towards digitally displaying and archiving new
information. What happens when the web gets older? One possibility… it could change how we study history. Again, nothing is different per se — the same old research methods will be used — but what if it is 10 times easier to do, a 100 times faster and contains with a million time the quantity of information? With the archives of newspapers, blogs and other web sites readily available to be searched the types of research once reserved for only the most diligent and patient might be more broadly accessible
The Iranian government, more than almost any other, censors what citizens can read online, using elaborate technology to block millions of Web sites offering news, commentary, videos, music and, until recently, Facebook and YouTube. Search for women
in Persian and you’re told, Dear Subscriber, access to this site is not possible.
Last July, on popular sites that offer free downloads of various software, an escape hatch appeared. The computer program allowed Iranian Internet users to evade government censorship. College students discovered the key first, then spread it through e-mail messages and file-sharing. By late autumn more than 400,000 Iranians were surfing the uncensored Web. The software was created not by Iranians, but by Chinese computer experts volunteering for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has beem suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. They maintain a series of computers in data centers around the world to route Web users’ requests around censors’ firewalls
StudiVZ is a Facebook-style operation and is Germany’s largest web-based social networking site. With the European Parliament elections in sight, the web site recently opened up to established political parties for election campaigning. Not for all parties though, as they chose to ban the Pirate Party
Apparently the Kindle app for iPhone wasn’t enough for Amazon. Monday it was announced on Lexcycle’s blog that the online retailer purchased the company which includes the popular iPhone eBook reader Stanza. According to the Lexcycle blog, there will be no changes to the Stanza application or it’s function as the result of the acquisition. They imply that they hope they will be able to offer more books and services through the Amazon connection
Adding small amounts of metal to spider silk — a material already stronger and lighter than steel — makes it up to 10 times tougher. The scientists devised a way to incorporate zinc, titanium and aluminium ions into natural spider silk. They say the method could one day prove useful for creating super-strong textiles, surgical thread or even synthetic bones
Astronomers have recorded the light of a gamma-ray burst, which they believe comes from the oldest, and most distant object ever observed in the universe. At 13 billion light-years away, the burst occurred when the universe was just five per cent of its current age, or 630 million years old. This provides the first evidence that the young universe, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, was already home to exploding stars and black holes
Apple is building a significant capability to design its own computer chips, a strategy shift that the company hopes will create exclusive features for its gadgets and shield Apple’s work from rivals. The Silicon Valley trend-setter has been hiring people from many different segments of the semiconductor industry, including engineers to create multifunction chips that are used in cellphones to run software and carry out other chores. Apple could use the internally developed chips to sharply reduce the power consumption of its hit iPhone and iPod touch devices, and possibly add graphics circuitry to help its hardware play realistic game software and high-definition videos, people familiar with its plans say
Google launched a new search tool yesterday designed to help Web users find public data that is often buried in hard-to-navigate government Web sites. The tool, called Google Public Data, is the latest in the company’s efforts to make information from federal, state and local governments accessible to citizens. It’s a goal that many Washington public interest groups and government watchdogs share with President Obama, whose technology advisers are pushing to open up federal data to the public
Scientists have rendered objects invisible under near-infrared light. Unlike previous such cloaks
, the new work does not employ metals, which introduce losses of light and result in imperfect cloaking. Because the approach can be scaled down further in size, researchers say this is a major step towards a cloak that would work for visible light
The Justice Department has begun an inquiry into the antitrust implications of Google’s settlement with authors and publishers over its Google Book Search service
The Home Office has been accused of colluding with online ad firm Phorm on informal guidance
to the public on whether the company’s service is legal. E-mails between the ministry and Phorm show the department asking if the firm would be comforted
by its position. The messages show Phorm making changes to the guidance sought by the ministry. Lib Dem Home Affairs spokeswoman Baroness Sue Miller, who has questioned the Home Office about Phorm, said the e-mails were jaw dropping
The Swedish telecom operator Tele 2 plans to erase all data identifying its 600,000 customers, a decision that will undermine the new IPRED law and make the hunt for internet scofflaws more difficult. Starting on Tuesday, Tele 2 will destroy records of IP addresses after they’ve been processed for internal use. It’s a way to secure the customers’ privacy — and, the company likely hopes, to strengthen the ISP’s market position
Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems announced last week is reviving calls for Sun’s open-source OpenOffice.org suite to be spun out into an independent foundation. Oracle is one of the top corporate contributors to Linux and many other open-source software projects. However, that has long been overshadowed by the tens of billions of dollars Oracle reaps annually from proprietary enterprise software, as well as brazen attacks it has made on open-source stalwarts such as Red Hat
The island of Taiwan has just approved new legislation which effectively bans the use of P2P technology to facilitate the distribution of copyrighted works online. The legislation also requires ISPs to start a 3 strikes
regime for file-sharers
A disc that can store 500 gigabytes (GB) of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs, has been unveiled by General Electric. The micro-holographic disc, which is the same size as existing DVD discs, is aimed at the archive industry. But the company believes it can eventually be used in the consumer market place and home players. Blu-ray discs, which are used to store high definition movies and games, can currently hold between 25GB and 50GB. Micro-holographic discs can store more data than DVDs or Blu-ray because they store information on the disc in three dimensions, rather than just pits on the surface of the disc
In Germany, the file-hosting service Rapidshare has handed over the personal details of alleged copyright infringers to several major record labels. The information is used to pursue legal action against the Rapidshare users and at least one alleged uploader saw his house raided
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today ruled out building a single state super-database
to track everybody’s use of email, internet, text messages and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Smith said creating a single database run by the state to hold such personal data would amount to an extreme solution representing an unwarranted intrusion of personal privacy. Instead the Home Office is looking at a £2bn solution that would involve requiring communications companies such as BT, Virgin Media, O2 and others to retain such personal data for up to 12 months
Barbara Ringer believed, above all, that copyrights should protect the creative people in American life — the authors, songwriters and performers whose work was too often printed, plagiarised or broadcast without permission. By 1955, she was writing papers and commissioning studies on how the nation’s copyright laws should be revised. For years, Ms Ringer devoted much of her time to drafting a new, comprehensive copyright act and educating congressmen about why it was needed. Foreseeing the rise of the Internet, she inserted provisions into the law to protect authors from the unauthorized reproduction of their work, even by means not yet devised. The basic human rights of individual authors throughout the world,
she warned in a 1975 speech, are being sacrificed more and more on the altar of … the technological revolution.
Ms Ringer spent 21 years drafting the legislation and lobbying Congress before the Copyright Act of 1976 was finally passed. She wrote most of the bill herself
Copyright term for music recordings must be extended from 50 years to 70 years, says legislation adopted on Thursday by the European Parliament. By adopting the report by Brian Crowley (IE, UEN) with 377 votes in favour, 178 against and 37 abstentions, MEPs voted to increase the term of copyright protection to ensure that performers continue to receive royalties for 70 years from the first publication or performance of their song. The European Commission had previously proposed an extension of the copyright protection up to 95 years. According to Mr Crowley, the compromise reached by the Parliament on 70 years takes into account Council’s resistance and would facilitate an agreement with national governments
A Vietnamese security company has detected what it believes is a new worm that thwarts Google’s security protections in order to register new dummy Gmail accounts from which to send spam. Bach Koa Internetwork Security (BKIS) said the worm was discovered earlier this week in one of its honeypots, the term for a computer set up to catch samples of malicious software. BKIS has named the malware W32.Gaptcha.Worm
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