158 Archived Topics
Remove Filter  | Just six weeks after Google [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story259442.html"]announced [/URL]its plan to build a gigabit fiber network for a city, more than 1,100 cities have applied, the company [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for-our-experimental-fiber.html"]said [/URL]on Friday. In addition, more than 194,000 individuals responded, Google said. The company has put a map up on its corporate blog showing which …  |
| | A news [URL="http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=135404&provider=top"]article [/URL]was making the Facebook rounds today, warning about a site called [URL="http://www.spokeo.com/"]Spokeo.com [/URL]that aggregates publicly available information. "It can list your address, a picture of your home, how much it cost, how long you have lived there, your approximate age and income, your relationship status and more," …  |
| | About a year [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220410.html"]ago[/URL], three girls fought charges of child pornography -- of themselves -- for refusing to attend 10-hour class on pornography and sexual violence after they were arrested for taking pictures of themselves [I]en deshabille[/I]. Now, the district court not only barred the district attorney from initiating any …  |
| | In preparation for releasing its national broadband plan tomorrow (which is already coming under [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/business/media/13fcc.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1268658134-LNz+NNwd7fnSKyovP4YlZw"]criticism[/URL]), the Federal Communications Commission has started collecting data from users on their broadband [URL="http://broadband.gov/qualitytest/"]performance [/URL]-- a test that is also coming under criticism. Like [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story219530.html"]similar [/URL]testing a couple of years ago, the broadband.gov testing suffers … |
| | 40 million people were without power in the eastern United States, more than 60 million cellphones were out of service, and Wall Street was closed for a week due to a terrorist cyberattack against the United States. No, it didn't really happen. But it could. Coverage of a simulated cyber … |
| | A police officer who posted to a Facebook page criticism of a political movement in which pro-gun advocates openly carry firearms in public has come under fire for claiming, in what he is now saying was a joke, that they should be shot. East Palo Alto Detective Rod Tuason was … |
| | YouTube is coming under criticism for continuing to keep online a ten-minute interview with Scott Roeder, who was convicted after a 37-minute deliberation of first-degree murder for killing Dr. George Tiller, whose Kansas clinic performed late-term abortions. The [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkIw_fqmC1k"]interview[/URL] is by phone but includes a scroll with the text. It … |
| | Perhaps taking the lead from Connecticut Republicans who set up [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story232782.html"]fake[/URL] Twitter accounts and websites for their Democratic opponents, other political campaigns are doing it, too. In California, an intern for the campaign of Beth Krom for Congress noticed that the website of incumbent Representative John Campbell had a misspelled … |
| | As increasing numbers of states are running into budgetary problems, some of them are starting to look at taxing Internet sales. When the Internet first started becoming a commercial entity, Internet sales were exempted from sales taxes in order to help encourage new commercial companies to form on the Internet. … |
| | Online legal experts are salivating over cookies. Specifically, they are leaping to comment on the legal precedents involved over a lawsuit by Dr. Sanford Siegal, creator of the "[URL="http://www.cookiediet.com/"]Cookie Diet[/URL]," and his company, Dr. Siegal's Direct Nutritionals, LLC, against celebrity, model, socialite, and actress [URL="http://kimkardashian.celebuzz.com/"]Kim Kardashian[/URL] over what they allege …  |
| | Interested in following the Obama presidency? There's an [URL="http://itunes.com/apps/thewhitehouse"]app[/URL] for that. Timed for the State of the Union speech next week, TheWhiteHouse is a free application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch that lets users stream video, browse photos, and read text from President Barack Obama's White House. According … |
| | While waiting for [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/post977515.html"]federal legislation[/URL] legalizing online gambling -- a vote that could happen as early as [URL="http://www.pokerheadline.com/2010/01/efforts-are-taken-by-poker-players-alliance-to-regulate-online-gambling/"]next month[/URL] -- individual states are looking to legalize online gambling as well. States such as [URL="http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/article_8a288b86-04b0-11df-8663-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story"]New Jersey[/URL], [URL="http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/263017/california-poker-bill-introduced-next-year-promises-new-pva-chief.thtml"]California[/URL], and [URL="http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2010-01-20/story/florida_legislature_could_take_a_look_at_regulating_internet_poker"]Florida[/URL] are considering legislation that would permit online gambling within their states -- … |
| | Facebook is now being blamed for up to 1 in 5 divorces, according to an analysis performed on an online database of divorce documents. The website, called [URL="http://www.divorce-online.co.uk/"]Divorce-Online[/URL], had Facebook mentioned 989 times out of 5,000 documents, [URL="http://www.journalism.co.uk/66/articles/536960.php"]according to[/URL] Mark Keenan, managing director of the site. The most common reason … |
| | A recent [URL="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1448/latinos-internet--usage-increase-2006-2008"]survey[/URL] by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the percentage of Latinos who use the Internet has jumped, and that a larger percentage of Latinos than blacks now use the Internet. From 2006 to 2008, Internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points, … |
| | Hewlett-Packard is scrambling to respond to an issue brought up by a Dec. 10 YouTube video demonstrating that the facial tracking software used in some of its laptops doesn't recognize black people. HP responded to the issue yesterday [URL="http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/Voodoo-Blog/Customer-Feedback-is-Important-to-Us/ba-p/51351"]in its blog[/URL], and it's starting to go viral today. In the … |
| | Almost [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220055.html"]exactly a year[/URL] after Facebook users complained that the site was deleting pictures of them with their nursing babies, now they're complaining that they can't show pictures of their pregnant bellies, either. The Facebook group [URL="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=86701642170&ref=search&sid=792620396.4283721828..1"]"Allow pregnant women to display pictures of their baby bump!!!!"[/URL] was formed on June … |
| | Teens who take revealing pictures of themselves to send to other teens are getting more than embarrassment: They're getting a criminal record as a sex offender. The problem of revealing teen pictures has been getting a great deal of attention lately, with a [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3651.html"]recent survey[/URL] finding that 36 percent of … |
| | The federal government today [URL="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/vice-president-biden-kicks-72-billion-recovery-act-broadband-program"]made[/URL] the first awards aimed toward improving broadband access in the U.S. In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities … |
| | An increasing number of cities in the United States and Canada are releasing data to developers to use in applications. While regions have released geographic information system (GIS) data for some time, such data required complicated software to use. Cities are now releasing all kinds of data, some of them … |
| | Keeping the Internet safe for satire, the World Intellectual Property Organization [URL="http://didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com/legal.php"]ruled[/URL] that the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com was not a violation of the conservative political commentator's intellectual property. The WIPO [URL="http://reporter.blogs.com/files/decision-d2009-1182.pdf"]ruling[/URL] "dismissed Beck's argument that Internet users could be confused by the domain name and its accompanying Web site," noted … |
| | Here's a switch. Instead of newspapers trying to protect the identities of the people posting to their websites, the newspaper is the one outing them. As [URL="http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-editors-desk/the-editors-desk/2009/11/post-a-vulgar-comment-while-youre-at-work-lose-your-job/"]described[/URL] by editor Kurt Greenbaum of the [I]St. Louis Post-Dispatch[/I], someone posted a vulgar word in the paper's online commenting system, and re-posted it … |
| | If you've ever had Google Maps literally send you up the river or down a sidewalk, you may have wondered whether the company ever actually sees the areas it maps. Now, it does, through an increasing number of volunteers who make corrections and add more detail to maps, according to … |
| | A [URL="http://gawker.com/5367093/mcsteamy-v-gawker-media-llc/gallery/5"]lawsuit[/URL] over a website's [URL="http://gawker.com/5339221/danes-anatomy-mcsteamy-his-wife-and-a-fallen-beauty-queens-naked-threesome"]publication[/URL] of a celebrity threesome sex tape is provoking some [URL="http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/11/does-gawkers-publication-of-mcsteamy-sex-tape-constitute-fair-use315.html"]thoughtful discussion[/URL] about fair use. Not to mention giving PBS, [URL="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2009/11/what_a_celebrity_sex_tape_laws.html?sc=fb&cc=fp"]NPR[/URL], and the [URL="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/mcsteamy-vid-lawsuit-its-a-copyright-beef/"][I]New York Times[/I][/URL] the opportunity to talk about sex tapes. The tape consists of [I]Grey's Anatomy[/I] actor Eric Dane and his wife … |
| | Far from being made superfluous by the Internet, a [URL="http://www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/plftas/2008_2009/index.cfm"]recent study[/URL] by the American Library Association finds that the library is often the only source of free Internet access in a community. More than 71 percent of all libraries (and 79 percent of rural libraries) report they are the only … |
| | The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously earlier this week to outsource its e-mail system to Google Inc., according to an [URL="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/city-council-votes-to-adopt-google-email-system-for-30000-city-employees.html"]article[/URL] in the Los Angeles [I]Times[/I]. The contract is worth $7.25 million and covers 30,000 employees. In June, Washington, D.C. made a similar decision, signing a contract worth almost …  |
| | In addition to funding [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231771.html"]broadband projects[/URL] in the states, particularly in rural areas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, includes funds for [URL="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press/2009/BTOP_mapping_090701.pdf"]collection of state-level broadband data[/URL], as well as state-wide broadband mapping and planning. The project, which will also help create … |
| | The Associated Press [URL="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iuRIVBTLUvW7823FC-fcfhvkSxHgD9BHLF180"]reported[/URL] this weekend that the [URL="http://www.whitehouse.gov/"]official White House website[/URL] has been switched to using the open-source Drupal content management system Using open source will result in improved security -- because more programmers will be looking for errors in the software -- as well as more quickly and … |
| | Twitter, Inc., has shut down 33 fake Twitter accounts created by Republicans using the names of Democratic state representatives, but fake websites using the Democrats' names are still up. The story was [URL="http://current.com/177fi4c"]reported[/URL] in the Hartford [I]Advocate[/I], an alternative newsweekly. State Republican Chairman Chris Healy told the paper that it … |
| | A company that has been attempting to obtain licensing fees from adult companies, as well as other providers such as Internet radio stations and leading satellite and cable companies such Echostar, DirectTV, Time Warner Cable, and CSC Holdings, Inc., has had its [URL="http://www.eff.org/files/acacia-patent-invalidated.pdf"]patent thrown out[/URL] by the U.S. District Court … |
| | In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The deadline for … |
| | The other day I was on Facebook and a chat window popped up from a college friend of mine. [I]Bob: Hey there. How are u doing? Sharon: ok. you? Bob: Am not too good. Im in some kind of deep mess right now Sharon: uh oh. what happened?[/I] What "Bob" … |
| | The 2008 presidential election featured a new emphasis on using the Internet, ranging from raising money to [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story219553.html"]advertising[/URL] to getting support. It's still going on. Facebook, in particular, due to the ease in which people can set up affinity groups, is proving to be a new source of online activism, … |
| | It's been known for a while that current and potential future [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2555.html"]employers[/URL] look at people's profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook. And it's also been known that people are using social networking sites to announce the status of their relationship -- or [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3874.html"]lack of one[/URL]. Now the two … |
| | In its ongoing effort to become the coolest city in the U.S., the mayor of Portland, Oregon, is going to attempt [URL="http://portlandoregon.gov/auditor/index.cfm?c=50265&a=264719"]tomorrow night[/URL] to make it an "open source city," making its data as open as possible while respecting privacy, and buying open source applications when possible. If passed by … |
| | In an attempt to build support for a bill that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress, the online gambling industry is running online ads noting that legal online gambling could raise $48 billion for the deficit-plagued U.S. government. "At a time when the … |
| | Remember [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story219413.html"]Terry Childs[/URL]? He was the network administrator for the city of San Francisco who -- claiming he was protecting the city government's computer system from incompetent coworkers -- changed the system's passwords and then for more than a week refused to give them to anyone, even after being arrested. … |
| | Two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have learned that it is possible to predict which men in social networks are gay, even if they aren't out, based on who their friends are. It's the theory behind [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis"]traffic analysis[/URL], or the process of intercepting and examining messages to deduce … |
| | Back in the day, people would write letters "to be opened only in the event that I am dead." But if most of your life is conducted online, then what? As we age, a number of my single friends have morbidly wondered what would happen if they died. Would anyone …  |
| | If you've used Facebook for more than, oh, five minutes, you've seen a Facebook quiz. "What Greek dance are you?" "Which NFL coach are you?" "Which Diplomacy country should you play?" and so on. (I forget every quiz I see, and I'm up to more than 250 by now.) But … |
| | What, you hadn't heard? "A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties," [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/28/senate-president-emergency-control-internet/"]FOX News[/URL] said breathlessly. (Nice … |
| | The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that not only threw out other cases, but has more broadly set a limit upon the use of data seized in a computer search. The ruling has to do with the "plain view" doctrine, which allows law enforcement to take … |
| | As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, states were required to set up websites in a specific format to explain to citizens how the money was spent. The [URL="http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/ARRAwebreport.pdf"]first look[/URL] at how states have done has come out, and it … |
| | As [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3596.html"]predicted[/URL], a number of cyberbullying laws were put into effect after the suicide of Megan Meier last fall, which left prosecutors unable to charge the Missouri woman who created a fake MySpace person to mock the 13-year-old girl with anything other than violating MySpace's terms of service. Not surprisingly, … |
| | Some users discovered last week that Amazon has the capability to remove books from their Kindle electronic reading devices, even though they were bought, paid for, downloaded, and in the users' possession. Ironically, among the books with which this was discovered was George Orwell's [I]1984[/I], which postulated a society where … |
| | It's said about writers that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. But United Airlines has learned not to get into fights with musicians who have videocameras. As Dave Carroll, of the folk-rock group Sons of Maxwell, reports on his [URL="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=306453459&blogId=498887803"]blog[/URL], it … |
| | If Richard Posner, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, gets his way, blog postings like this one could be illegal. On his [URL="http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/the_future_of_n.html"]blog[/URL], Posner recently suggested that copyright law might need to be expanded. "Expanding copyright law to bar online access … |
| | Following the lead of John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps, President Barack Obama had mentioned in his campaign platform a "Craigslist for Service" (which met with the [URL="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-newmark/a-craigslist-for-service_b_150924.html"]full approval[/URL] of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark). It has now come to fruition with what Obama is calling "[URL="http://serve.gov/"]the summer of service[/URL]." "This summer, … |
| | Given that some courts have found that people can be [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3596.html"]charged[/URL] for violating the terms of service of a particular site, it's important to keep track of what the terms of service are so you don't inadvertently violate them. (Incidentally, some other [URL="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/mass-sjc-tosses-calixte-warrant"]courts[/URL] are finding that violating terms-of-service policies are … |
| | In what may be a first, a company has bought rights to a Facebook page -- in a bidding war, even. OraBrush, a company that makes tongue cleaners, has outbid Hershey's for the rights to the [URL="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Kisses/35152599010?ref=s"]"Kisses"[/URL] public profile, according to the [URL="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/05/27/orabrush-buys-11-million-kisses-fans-marketers-actively-bidding-for-facebook-pages/"]Inside Facebook[/URL] blog. Pricing was not disclosed. The …  |
| | Busy this weekend? President Barack Obama and his IT staff are [URL="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/05/21/Opening/"]asking for ideas[/URL] through June 3 to help make government more open. The call for ideas first went out on May 21. So far, there's [URL="http://opengov.ideascale.com/"]1171[/URL]. People can vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the ideas. "Then on … |
The End.