Comment Re:Actually, no (Score 1) 199
The story of Magnaquench http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/node/7950
Microsoft Sends Flowers To Internet Explorer 6 Funeral 151
Several readers have written with a fun followup to yesterday's IE6 funeral. Apparently Microsoft, in a rare moment of self-jest, took the time to send flowers, condolences, and a promise to meet at MIX. The card reads: "Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft."
After 2 Years of Development, LTSP 5.2 Is Out 79
The Linux Terminal Server Project has for years been simplifying the task of time-sharing a Linux system by means of X terminals (including repurposed low-end PCs). Now, stgraber writes "After almost two years or work and 994 commits later made by only 14 contributors, the LTSP team is proud to announce that the Linux Terminal Server Project released LTSP 5.2 on Wednesday the 17th of February. As the LTSP team wanted this release to be some kind of a reference point in LTSP's history, LDM (LTSP Display Manager) 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 were released on the same day. Packages for LTSP 5.2, LDM 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 are already in Ubuntu Lucid and a backport for Karmic is available. For other distributions, packages should be available very soon. And the upstream code is, as always, available on Launchpad."
Tiny ARM-Based Sensor System Makes Battery Replacement Obsolete 96
An anonymous reader writes "University of Michigan researchers have crammed an ARM Cortex microcontroller, a thin-film battery, and a solar cell into a package that is only 9 cubic millimeters in volume. The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."
Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes After All 269
cremeglace writes with this excerpt from ScienceNOW:
"You've heard the controversy. Particle physicists predict the world's new highest-energy atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, might create tiny black holes, which they say would be a fantastic discovery. Some doomsayers fear those black holes might gobble up the Earth — physicists say that's impossible — and have petitioned the United Nations to stop the $5.5 billion LHC. Curiously, though, nobody had ever shown that the prevailing theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, actually predicts that a black hole can be made this way. Now a computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole."
That said, they estimate the required energy for creating a black hole this way to be roughly "a quintillion times higher than the LHC's maximum"; though if one of the theories requiring compact extra dimensions is true, the energy could be lower.
Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
Submission + - MS Nailed with $200M MS Word Patent Infringement
nandemoari writes: "Microsoft has been slapped by a heavy hand for including a Canadian company's technology in Microsoft Word. A Texas federal court recently decided that the Redmond-based firm infringed on Toronto-based i4i's XML-based patent.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, on Wednesday a Texas judge agreed with i4i's complaint that MS violated the patent through its system for processing Word files via embedded codes that show instructions on how information is presented.
Microsoft's not taking the $200 million ruling lying down. According to Microsoft spokesman David Bowermaster, the company will request that the court overturn the order."
iPhone Antitrust and Computer Fraud Claims Upheld 273
LawWatcher writes "On October 1, 2008, a federal judge in California upheld a class action claiming that Apple and AT&T Mobility's five-year exclusive voice and data service provider agreement for the iPhone violates the anti-monopoly provisions of the antitrust laws. The court also ruled that Apple may have violated federal and California criminal computer fraud and abuse statutes by releasing version 1.1.1 of its iPhone operating software when Apple knew that doing so would damage or destroy some iPhones that had been 'unlocked' to enable use of a carrier other than AT&T."
Comment Re:I thought they were already doing this... (Score 1) 299
One of the reps told me on the phone that if you choose free shipping, your order goes through a delivery tar pit (Delivery is deliberately delayed).
Submission + - Muslims and the digital divide (washington.edu)
catherine odonnell writes: "Aug. 1, 2007 | Politics and Government
Muslim political parties grow online but digital divide continues to widen
Catherine O'Donnell cath2@u.washington.edu
World Information Access Report 2007
The WIA Project investigates causes and consequences of the global digital divide.
Political life in Muslim countries is surprisingly wired, according to researchers at the University of Washington.
In 2000, fewer than 50 political parties from Muslim countries had Web sites. By 2007, there were more than 200 parties represented online, the majority of them secular. The expansion of online politics in the Muslim world outpaces that of the rest of the developing world.
Also in 2000, 40 percent of the world's political parties were online, and 28 percent of parties in developing countries were online, but only 16 percent of parties in Muslim countries were online. Political parties in the Muslim world have quickly caught up, and today 38 percent of the political parties in Muslim and other developing countries are online. These figures likely reflect overall growth of political content in blogs, chat groups and listservs, said Philip Howard, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Washington who with his students prepared the World Information Access Report.
"We only looked for Web sites produced by an official party organization," said Howard.
"It is probably now safe to say that there is a political blogging community in every country, and that in some countries the Internet is the only infrastructure for political debate.
"No dictator has been toppled because of the Internet," Howard added, "but today, no democratic movement can topple a dictator without the Internet."
World Information Access researchers, who review trends in the global digital divide, studied data on political party Web sites from 2000, 2005 and 2007. They covered 212 countries and thousands of political parties — 3,217 parties in 2007 alone.
This boom in online political life in Muslim countries is surprising given the digital divide between rich and poor countries. Wealthier ones have more high-speed broadband service, which means citizens get more information more quickly. In contrast, many citizens in poorer countries continue using dial-up services, which are slower but less expensive.
Other findings from the report:
Many poor governments depend on Web site hosting services in wealthy countries such as Canada and the United States. One-third of all nations maintain some of their government Web sites on servers in the U.S., and one-fourth maintain all of their government Web sites on servers in the U.S.
Three-fourths of national libraries have Web sites but only 54 percent load in the country's national language. For example, Tajikistan's national library offers online access in Russian, but not Tajik. Sixty-nine percent of national libraries load in English but only 20 to 25 percent of the world's people speak English.
Almost every city in the world offers cybercafes or other commercial Internet access, but they cost average people in a developing city twice as much of their daily income as people in a developed city. In wealthiest cities between 2000 and 2005, cost of an hour of Internet access for average people dropped significantly, from 26 percent of daily income to 7 percent. The cost of going online fell as average income rose. In many developing cities, however, cost of going online didn't fall as dramatically, nor did incomes rise as fast. People in those cities spent 40 percent of their daily income to use the Internet in 2000 compared with 14 percent in 2005.
African nations are reforming their telecommunications policies, but surprisingly, the number of Internet hosts in Africa has declined. For several decades, African governments have been encouraged to reform their telecommunications by de-regulating the industry, privatizing telecommunications companies and introducing competition. The number of Internet hosts around the world has grown significantly since 1990, but the portion in Africa has declined because the governments have difficulty creating national infrastructure. In 1990, only 1.6 percent of the world's Internet hosts resided in Africa; by 2005, that number declined to 0.7 percent.
###
For more information, contact Howard at (206) 612-9911 (cell) or (206) 221-6532 or pnhoward@u.washington.edu.
A briefing booklet is available at www.wiareport.org
—- —
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—- —
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Muslim political parties grow online but digital divide continues to widen
Aug. 1, 2007
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Report finds growing inequality across global information society
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Muslim political parties grow online but digital divide continues to widen
Catherine O'Donnell cath2@u.washington.edu
World Information Access Report 2007
The WIA Project investigates causes and consequences of the global digital divide.
Political life in Muslim countries is surprisingly wired, according to researchers at the University of Washington.
In 2000, fewer than 50 political parties from Muslim countries had Web sites. By 2007, there were more than 200 parties represented online, the majority of them secular. The expansion of online politics in the Muslim world outpaces that of the rest of the developing world.
Also in 2000, 40 percent of the world's political parties were online, and 28 percent of parties in developing countries were online, but only 16 percent of parties in Muslim countries were online. Political parties in the Muslim world have quickly caught up, and today 38 percent of the political parties in Muslim and other developing countries are online. These figures likely reflect overall growth of political content in blogs, chat groups and listservs, said Philip Howard, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Washington who with his students prepared the World Information Access Report.
"We only looked for Web sites produced by an official party organization," said Howard.
"It is probably now safe to say that there is a political blogging community in every country, and that in some countries the Internet is the only infrastructure for political debate.
"No dictator has been toppled because of the Internet," Howard added, "but today, no democratic movement can topple a dictator without the Internet."
World Information Access researchers, who review trends in the global digital divide, studied data on political party Web sites from 2000, 2005 and 2007. They covered 212 countries and thousands of political parties — 3,217 parties in 2007 alone.
This boom in online political life in Muslim countries is surprising given the digital divide between rich and poor countries. Wealthier ones have more high-speed broadband service, which means citizens get more information more quickly. In contrast, many citizens in poorer countries continue using dial-up services, which are slower but less expensive.
Other findings from the report:
Many poor governments depend on Web site hosting services in wealthy countries such as Canada and the United States. One-third of all nations maintain some of their government Web sites on servers in the U.S., and one-fourth maintain all of their government Web sites on servers in the U.S.
Three-fourths of national libraries have Web sites but only 54 percent load in the country's national language. For example, Tajikistan's national library offers online access in Russian, but not Tajik. Sixty-nine percent of national libraries load in English but only 20 to 25 percent of the world's people speak English.
Almost every city in the world offers cybercafes or other commercial Internet access, but they cost average people in a developing city twice as much of their daily income as people in a developed city. In wealthiest cities between 2000 and 2005, cost of an hour of Internet access for average people dropped significantly, from 26 percent of daily income to 7 percent. The cost of going online fell as average income rose. In many developing cities, however, cost of going online didn't fall as dramatically, nor did incomes rise as fast. People in those cities spent 40 percent of their daily income to use the Internet in 2000 compared with 14 percent in 2005.
African nations are reforming their telecommunications policies, but surprisingly, the number of Internet hosts in Africa has declined. For several decades, African governments have been encouraged to reform their telecommunications by de-regulating the industry, privatizing telecommunications companies and introducing competition. The number of Internet hosts around the world has grown significantly since 1990, but the portion in Africa has declined because the governments have difficulty creating national infrastructure. In 1990, only 1.6 percent of the world's Internet hosts resided in Africa; by 2005, that number declined to 0.7 percent.
###
For more information, contact Howard at (206) 612-9911 (cell) or (206) 221-6532 or pnhoward@u.washington.edu.
A briefing booklet is available at www.wiareport.org
—
RELATED CONTENT FROM UWNEWS.ORG
Report finds growing inequality across global information society
March 20, 2006
—
MORE UWNEWS.ORG STORIES ABOUT PHILIP HOWARD (pnhoward@u.washington.edu )
RSS news feed: uwnews.org news releases about Philip Howard
Muslim political parties grow online but digital divide continues to widen
Aug. 1, 2007
Hackers get bum rap for corporate America's digital delinquency
March 12, 2007
Report finds growing inequality across global information society
March 20, 2006
Think money in politics got 'reformed?' Just try running for Senate in 2006
Dec. 5, 2005
State ballot measures draw record amounts of cash
Nov. 4, 2005
Who did voters pick on Nov. 2? In some cases, we'll never know
Dec. 9, 2004
Major-party candidates work the Web, while many challengers stay offline
Nov. 18, 2004
Democrats outgunning GOP in e-mail wars, researchers find
Oct. 29, 2004"
Submission + - RIAA Releases Infringing College Rankings
Anonymous Coward writes: "http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8900 .html
Notable is that Purdue is not playing nice with the RIAA."
