Internet Use/New Technologies
30 July 2010
Can Surfing the Internet Help You Lose Weight? Time
The Web, it sometimes seems, is a siren specter that lures us into sitting around like some species of houseplant while our trunk grows abnormally wide. Its abundant enticements keep us from doing what we know we should, like, say, making any movement whatsoever or consuming foods that do not come packaged in styrofoam.
Google games pit search giant against Facebook The Independent
Google is spoiling for a fight with Facebook over the fast-growing market for online games, part of the search engine giant's latest attempt to build a social networking business.
29 July 2010
Snapshot of global internet speeds revealed BBC News
A report based on analysis of huge amounts of net traffic has revealed the state of the internet around the globe.
28 July 2010
Is the online news-stand finally set to make money? The Independent
The public's desire for the online coverage of stories from David Beckham's wardrobe to Catherine Zeta-Jones's dress disasters has seen advertisers flock to its site. The growth in online revenues is a welcome development for news services looking to make the internet pay, but some are questioning whether free sites can yet be self-sufficient.
25 July 2010
Facebook's test: Building on ad revenue Washington Post
Facebook may be growing like gangbusters, but the question clouding the storybook rise of Silicon Valley's latest phenomenon is whether it can figure out how to make money at the same pace.
US security chiefs tricked in social networking experiment The Guardian
Anna Chapman need never have bothered with moving to Manhattan to become a sleeper agent for the Russian intelligence service. The experience of another femme fatale, Robin Sage, suggests the 28-year-old spy, who posted raunchy photos on her Facebook profile, should instead have honed her social networking skills.
24 July 2010
Neurons to power future computers BBC News
The way neurons communicate could inspire the next generation of computers.
U.S. looks to improve disabled access to Internet Reuters
The Obama administration on Friday proposed trying to enhance access for people with disabilities to websites for hotels, retail stores and other public sites as well as improve access to movie theaters.
Opinion: When Arabs Tweet New York Times
For young Arabs, new media are more of a stress reliever than a mechanism for political change
India unveils 'laptop' costing $35 The Guardian
India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop", a touchscreen computing device that costs $35 (£23).
23 July 2010
How I became a Foursquare cyberstalker The Guardian
It's the coolest social networking tool in the world. But is the geo-location app Foursquare a stalker's dream? Just how easy it is to uncover the intimate details of a complete stranger's life?
22 July 2010
Times loses almost 90% of online readership The Guardian
The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.
Facebook hits 500m user milestone BBC News
Social network giant Facebook has registered its 500 millionth member, the firm has announced.
21 July 2010
Google images top 1bn page views BBC News
For Google a picture is worth more than a thousand words - it is worth one billion page views a day.
Amazon's ebook milestone: digital sales outstrip hardbacks for first time in US The Guardian
It is an announcement that will provoke horror among those who can think of nothing better than spending an afternoon rummaging around a musty old bookshop. In what could be a watershed for the publishing industry, Amazon said sales of digital books have outstripped US sales of hardbacks on its website for the first time.
Foursquare registers 100 millionth check-in Computerworld
Foursquare, the location-based social-networking service, registered its 100 millionth "check-in" on Monday evening, the company said Tuesday.
Social Networking for Cars New York Times
Meet AJ, the 2011 Ford Fiesta that has been modified so that it can send automatic Twitter messages (and photos) as it drives.
20 July 2010
Sex in Bits and Bytes: What's the Problem? How destructive is Internet porn? Scientific American
Is it possible to have sex with a computer? Well, not exactly, but people can use their computers to engage in a variety of online sexual activities, including hooking up with partners (both virtually and in the flesh) and finding fodder for kinky obsessions.
Facebook hits 500 million users, but meteoric rise has come with growing pains Washington Post
Facebook is expected to say this week that it has reached 500 million users, making it the biggest information network on the Internet in a meteoric rise that has connected the world into an online statehood of status updates, fan pages and picture exchanges.
Facebook could be social pariah in Asia Reuters
As Facebook gears up for a major push in Asia, the social networking giant may learn that good friends are hard to find as it faces privacy concerns in Japan and Korea and heavy-handed censors in China.
VeriSign: Net bandwidth must grow 1,000 times ZDNet
To deal with the flow of information over the next 10 years, the capacity of the Internet will need to increase by a factor of a thousand, according to VeriSign.
19 July 2010
Digital Drugs: How Teens Are Using The Internet To Get 'High' Huffington Post
With a little help from the internet, young people getting high off of "digital drugs," NewsOK reports.
18 July 2010
New paywall costs the Times 66% of its internet readership The Observer
The Times newspaper's website has lost two-thirds of its audience following the implementation of a paywall, according to data published yesterday - a dramatic decline, but not as steep as many had forecast.
As Facebook Users Die, Ghosts Reach Out New York Times
... Facebook, the world's biggest social network, knows a lot about its roughly 500 million members. Its software is quick to offer helpful nudges about things like imminent birthdays and friends you have not contacted in a while. But the company has had trouble automating the task of figuring out when one of its users has died.
16 July 2010
Internet has 'not become the great leveller’ BBC News
"The internet has not become the great leveller that it was once thought it could be," according to Harvard academic Ethan Zuckerman.
