Clipmarks | wildcat's 'internet' clips

Grid of 100,000 computers heralds new internet dawn

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:14:00 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The Grid is coming

Clip Source: technology.timesonline.co.uk

A network of 100,000 computers providing the greatest data processing capacity yet unleashed has been created to cope with information pouring from the world’s largest machine.

The Grid is the latest evolution of the internet and the world wide web and computer scientists will announce on Friday that it is ready to be connected to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

It is designed for schemes where huge quantities of data need crunching, such as large research and engineering projects. The Grid has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price as a local call. More importantly, it should help to narrow the search for cures for diseases. However, it is unlikely to be directly available to most internet users until telecoms providers build the fibre-optic network required to use it.

Tags: grid, computing, cern

The Internet Is a Brain

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:59:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: There is a lot we can learn from the brain and it can tell us where the Internet is headed next.

There’s nothing magical in the brain (at least that we’ve found thus far), and yet it delivers all our mental capabilities, and emotional ones as well – that’s a very intriguing thought. After all, just as there is no particular reason for this lump inside our heads to appreciate fine wines and music, cry, laugh, reason, love, daydream, and aspire to greater things, there is no reason why silicon or some other fundamental substance (maybe even carbon some day), could not be coaxed into creating something similar.

Clip Source: discussionleader.hbsp.com

The Internet is a brain. There, I said it. It has taken me far too long to publicly utter those words. And not because I don't believe them, but for fear that people will think I am crazy.

So, yes it may sound off-the-wall at first blush, but it's an insight that has helped me develop companies that are collectively worth over a billion dollars. It's an insight that will lead to the development of future businesses worth far more than that. More importantly, it is going to change the world as we know it, revolutionizing the way we think about thought and the way we think about ourselves.

Let’s get concrete about what I mean here. The brain is one of the most complex networks in the world, with more neurons than there are stars in the galaxy. Its hardware is a complex network of neurons; its software a complex network of memories. And so too is the Internet a network.

Its hardware is a complex network of computers; its software a complex network of websites

Tags: net, brain

Grouping Recent Net Books: Internet Optimists vs. Pessimists

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:10:14 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: techliberation.com

A number of very interesting books have been released over the past year or two which debate how the Internet is reshaping our culture and the economy. I’ve reviewed a couple of them here but I have been waiting to compile a sort of mega-book review once I found a sensible way to conceptually group them together. I’m not going to have time to cover each of them here in the detail they deserve, but I think I have at least found a sensible way to categorize them. For lack of better descriptors, I’ve divided these books and thinkers into two camps: “Internet optimists” versus “Internet Pessimists.” Here’s a list of some of the individuals and books (or other articles and blogs) that I believe epitomize these two camps of thinking:

Adherents & Their Books / Writings

Internet Optimists

Internet Pessimists

Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks

Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur

Chris Anderson, The Long Tail and “Free!”

Lee Siegel, Against the Machine

Tags: net books, internet

Is the End of Unlimited Internet Near?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:04:04 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.abcnews.go.com

Get ready to say goodbye to unlimited Internet access.

Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, says it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month.

Last week, Comcast -- the second-largest Internet service provider in the country -- announced that starting Oct. 1 it would officially set a threshold for monthly Internet usage.

In an online announcement, the service provider said that although it already contacts residential customers who use excessive amounts of bandwidth, it had never provided a specific limit. Now, Comcast said it will amend its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of monthly usage.

The company emphasizes that its cap is generous and will only affect about 1 percent of its 14.4 million customers. Experts say these customers might include heavy gamers and those who use a significant amount of bandwidth for creating or uploading video.

Tags: end, unlimited, internet

The era of the American Internet is ending.

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:45:18 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — The era of the American Internet is ending.

Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.

Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.

And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence — and conceivably military — consequences.

“Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge,”

Tags: net, traffic, routing, us

Revealed: The Internet's Biggest Security Hole

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:29:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

Two security researchers have demonstrated a new technique to stealthily intercept internet traffic on a scale previously presumed to be unavailable to anyone outside of intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency.

The tactic exploits the internet routing protocol BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) to let an attacker surreptitiously monitor unencrypted internet traffic anywhere in the world, and even modify it before it reaches its destination.

The demonstration is only the latest attack to highlight fundamental security weaknesses in some of the internet's core protocols. Those protocols were largely developed in the 1970s with the assumption that every node on the then-nascent network would be trustworthy. The world was reminded of the quaintness of that assumption in July, when researcher Dan Kaminsky disclosed a serious vulnerability in the DNS system. Experts say the new demonstration targets a potentially larger weakness.

Tags: internet, security hole

The Cinematic Internet

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:07:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.vimeo.com

[Video]

Eric B. Kim, senior vice president at Intel Corp., announces a new kind of interactive television -- "connected television," beginning with customized TV widgets and ushering in the era of what Intel and Yahoo call the cinematic Internet.

In this 11-minute video, Kim shows off some of the widgets you'll find on upcoming broadband-enabled digital TVs: flickr, twitter, stocks and sports among them.

Tags: internet, tv, intel

Experts: Internet Addiction Growing

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:14:43 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.redorbit.com

The author of a book on Internet addiction says that 5 to 10 percent of the U.S. population is hooked with larger percentages in other countries addicted.

Kimberly Young, clinical director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, told Medill News Service that many addicts are hooked on one particular aspect of the Internet. The major ones include online gambling and gaming, sex sites, compulsive surfers and even addiction to eBay.

Coleen Moore of the Illinois Center for Addiction Recovery said that she has seen young adults who spend 14 to 18 hours a day at their computers. At that point, the Internet is keeping them from work, family life and friendships outside the virtual world.

Young compared the Internet to alcohol. Many people can use it and then turn to something else but some lose control. She said that treatment is in its early stages, depending on therapy.

Tags: net, addiction

The future of reputation

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:54:12 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Full Text

The full text of The Future of Reputation is now available online for free. Click on the links below to download PDFs of each chapter. The front matter to the book is at the beginning of each chapter.

Clip Source: docs.law.gwu.edu

Synopsis

Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.

Longstanding notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance among privacy, free speech, and anonymity, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free

Tags: reputation, net, privacy, gossip

Roadmap For Brain Augmentation via the Internet.

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:55:49 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Once we have hardware connected to the nerves ( our senses and our brain ), then software transforms that hardware into brain augmentation - of the serious sort

Clip Source: www.nanofuture2030.com

Society, now and for the foreseeable future, is a rather resistant beast to change of the status quo. So I doubt any mainstream company will set out to add RAM, splice in processing units, or in any fundamental way try to change our brains. Too dangerous to get “politically incorrect” dumped on your plate.

The cell phone is how it started. And the thing will soon start to blend with the animal as it makes the internet into one of our core senses. The human animal will have taken the latest step in a long march toward “Information Animal”.

We get the internet because everybody wants the internet, and then we get brain augmentation because it helps us get the internet. An upgrade of the familiar, that will usher in the fantastic.

We need to get personal displays of information that are carefully honed to our needs on the job and while we play. First it comes in eyeglasses. The hot fad effect will make them cool once they have a cool purpose

Tags: roadmap, brain augmentation, internet

Is the Internet Bad for Science?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:28:26 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: as always, the answer depends on the person, in this case, who is the scientist doing the research.

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

Using the internet to search for scientific articles is bad for researchers, says University of Chicago sociologist James Evans in an article published today in Science.

His argument is a classic computer-versus-paper library dilemma, updated for science: when researchers search online, they tend to arrive at just a few high-ranking articles. Lost is the breadth of scholarship encountered by old-fashioned, page-turning browsing.

"As more journal issues came online, the articles referenced tended to be more recent, fewer journals and articles were cited, and more of the citations were to fewer journals and articles," writes Evans, who analyzed the citation patterns of 34 million journal articles that went online between 1998 and 2005.

He conclues, "The forced browsing of print archives may have stretched scientists and scholars to anchor findings deeply into past and present scholarship

Tags: internet, science, journals, articles

10 Things Worth Knowing About Chinese Internet

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:41:19 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: linuxblogonline.org

Thanks largely to the Olympics, 2008 will go down in history as a turning point year for China — or, rather, one when the country passed several milestones. It’ll be remembered as a turning point year in Chinese sports history, due to the country getting its first chance to host the Games, and the history of Beijing’s redevelopment, due to all of that has been torn down and built up to ready the city to play host. 2008 will go down as a turning point year in the history of cross-strait relations as well, thanks to the resumption today, after over half-a-century, of regularly scheduled Taiwan-mainland flights. Here, though, we focus on still another thing that 2008 is likely to be remembered as: a turning point year for the Chinese Internet.

In February, China replaced America as the country with the most Internet users.

In June, Hu Jintao became China’s first leader to respond to questions online

Tags: china, net, 2008, olympics, turning point

Will Green Technologies Exceed the Internet as the "Mother of All Markets"?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:13:24 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

We're talking about nothing less than the reindustrialization of the whole planet.

Venture Capitalist, John Doerr,

The legendary venture capitalist, John Doerr is fond of white-boarding the difference in the Internet boom and the coming boom in green technology as follows:

Internet made of: Bits, Pixels vs. Green Technology made of: Atoms, molecules

What is at stake: Finding Friends on FaceBook vs. Life on the Planet

Capital needed: Low, Google needed $25 million vs. High, Hundreds of millions

Time to success: Quick, 3 to 5 years vs. Longer, 5 to 10 years

Market Potential: Large Billions vs. Enormous Trillions

Alternative energy development of more energy-efficient products will create the next great boom cycle. Green tech development will include viable alternatives to oil, including wind, solar, and geothermal power, along with the use of nuclear energy to produce sustainable oil substitutes, such as liquefied hydrogen from water.

Tags: green technologies, internet, market

Firefox Users Most Secure on Internet, Study Reveals

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:43:11 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.crn.com

Mozilla Firefox fans might rest a little easier these days after a study released Tuesday revealed that its users are most secure on the Internet.

The study "Understanding the Web browser threat: Examination of vulnerable online Web browser populations and the "insecurity iceberg," was a collaborative effort conducted by researchers at The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM (NYSE:IBM) Internet Security Services. The research offers a comprehensive analysis of Web browsers, particularly in the area of security. The study's aim was to analyze Web browser preference and behavior for people using the Internet.

Altogether, the study found that less than 60 percent (59.1) of people use up-to-date, fully patched Web browsers. Failure update browsers exponentially increases the chance for remote attacks executed by hackers, the study found.

Tags: browsers, firefox, net

How Global Should the Internet Be?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:23:57 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.businessweek.com

Domain names are a sore point with nations who use alphabets other than Roman. Now, the group that oversees domain names is trying to translate

Lest you think a U.N. meeting to discuss the future of the Internet would be a ponderous, low-key affair, consider this remarkable tale. Back in 2003, when the U.N. held just such an event in Geneva, the delegates unexpectedly decided to close the meeting to nongovernmental officials and to eject a handful of attendees. One of them was Paul Twomey—president of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), a private, nonprofit company that oversees technical aspects of the Internet's address system—who was escorted by guards to the exit.

The surprising turn of events underscored the simmering resentment felt by many nations, especially in the developing world, over the governance of the Internet.

Limitless Domain Names?

Tags: the net, global, domain names