Technology News

Venezuela Denies Plans to Censor Internet

Source: All About Jazz
March 17, 2010

Venezuela is not planning to censor the Web or to shut down social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, officials said on Monday, after President Hugo Chavez called for regulation of the Internet. Opposition leaders, bloggers and media freedom groups are worried Chavez's socialist government is preparing to clamp down on the networking sites or install tight controls such as those used by Cuba, Iran and China. Chavez last week said authorities should act against news and opinion site ...

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Google Appears to Drop Censorship in China

Source: All About Jazz
March 17, 2010

Internet giant denies change, but famous Tank Man picture now accessible. Once censored, the picture could be seen over the Internet in China Tuesday.

Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google's Chinese search engine Tuesday, after the company said it would no longer abide by Beijing's censorship rules. Despite a report in the China Daily that Google China was still filtering content on its ...

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Tech Industry Cheers for FCC Broadband Plan

Source: PC Magazine
March 17, 2010

The FCC's national broadband plan has arrived. After 36 public workshops, nine field hearings, 31 public notices that produced 75,000 pages of public comments, 131 blog posts, and 335,000 Twitter followers, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday finally released its 376-page plan for providing the country with broadband service. The document--which was mandated by last year's stimulus bill--includes recommendations for broadband implementation over the next 10 years, touching on such things as public safety, education, health information technology, spectrum, the ...

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How Privacy Vanishes Online

Source: Michael Ricci
March 17, 2010

If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and email address?

Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae -- birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched. Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly ...

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MOG's Hyman: Subscription Music's Time Has Come

Source: HypeBot
March 16, 2010

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'Dot Com' Domain Celebrates 25th Birthday

Source: PC Magazine
March 16, 2010

Monday marked the 25th anniversary of the .com domain, according to VeriSign. On March 15, 1985, Symbolics.com was the first domain to register via a “.com" address. Though it took another decade for .com to really catch on, there are now 80 million .com Web sites, including 11.9 million e-commerce and online business sites, 1.8 million sports-related sites, and 4.3 million entertainment Web sites. The most popular words to use in domain names are home (1.2 million), online (1 million), ...

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Your New Facebook Friend May Well Be the FBI

Source: All About Jazz
March 16, 2010

The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

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China Without Google: A Lose-Lose Scenario

Source: All About Jazz
March 16, 2010

No maps, less music: China without Google could see loss for surfers, industry.

China without Google -- a prospect that looks increasingly likely -- could mean no more maps on mobile phones. A free music service that has helped to fight piracy might be in jeopardy. China's fledgling Web outfits would face less pressure to improve, eroding their ability to one day compete abroad. The extent of a possible Google Inc. pullout from China in its dispute with the communist ...

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