Do you know of someone who has made the Internet better in some way who deserves more recognition? Maybe someone who has helped extend Internet access to a large region? Or wrote widely-used programs that make the Internet more secure? Or maybe someone who has been actively working for open standards and open processes for the Internet? more
Google Inc. today announced via its official blog that the Chinese government has renewed its license and that it will continue to operate in China. Google further notes: "We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it's up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China." more
This year, I joined the crowd in Las Vegas for the all-important event that kicks off everything tech for the year - the 2013 International CES. It's a week where geeks and geek-wannabes from around the world seek inspiration and recharge their creative juices. Consumer brands of all types came out in full force, even with the noticeable absence of Apple and Microsoft's presence. More than 150,000 attendees made the trek to what became a technology mecca for the week... But why should MSOs care about a "consumer" electronics show? more
In a large scale experiments, Russia has attempted to test the feasibility of cutting the country off the World Wide Web, according to reports. "The tests, which come amid mounting concern about a Kremlin campaign to clamp down on internet freedoms, have been described by experts as preparations for an information blackout in the event of a domestic political crisis." more
For the longest time, it was an insurmountable challenge for those in the developing world to be able to afford to legally consume multimedia products. Prices originally set in Dollars, Euros or Yen often received insufficient adjustments to compensate for lower incomes, something that was compounded by local import or manufacture taxes that did little to alleviate matters. more
The draft e-commerce policy paper of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India raises valid observations concerning some of the imbalances, such as, on the excessive advantages gained by the "first movers" in the private sector, which implies advantages gained by the first -mover States on the Internet, on some of the prevailing gaps in the space and also on concerns about the abusive practices by a few e-commerce platforms and vendors. Most of these concerns are best addressed globally... more
Back in a time before most members of Congress or prosecutors knew that there was an Internet, there was Prodigy. Prodigy, as part of its service, ran family-friendly chat rooms that it moderated in an effort to keep kids protected from unfortunate content. In a different Prodigy chat room, some unknown third party said something apparently bad about an investment firm Stratton-Oakmont. Stratton-Oakmont didn't like that very much, and sued. more
With the upcoming celebration of the 50 years of the Internet, I'm trying to figure out how the traditional story misses the powerful idea that has made the Internet what it is -- the ability to focus on solutions without having to think about the network or providers. It's not the web -- thought that is one way to use the opportunity. The danger in a web-centric view is that it leads one to make the Internet better for the web while closing the frontier of innovation. more
U.S. federal court issues preliminary injunction, holding that enforcement of Canadian order requiring Google to remove search results would run afoul of the Communications Decency Act... Canadian company Equustek prevailed in litigation in Canada against rival Datalink on claims relating to trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition. After the litigation, Equustek asked Google to remove Datalink search results worldwide. Google initially refused altogether... more
Today the full original name of the World Wide Web is being seen everywhere as people all around the world join together to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the proposal that Tim Berners-Lee submitted at CERN that led to the creation of the "Web" we have today. While many of our articles here on CircleID focus more on the underlying Internet infrastructure that makes the Web possible, it's good to take a moment to reflect on - and celebrate - the amazing evolution of the Web from those very early days! more
Europol's Innovation Lab released a Tech Watch Flash report on Monday, sounding the alarm on the potential misuse of large language models such as ChatGPT. Entitled 'ChatGPT - the Impact of Large Language Models on Law Enforcement,' the report provides an urgent overview of the implications of ChatGPT for criminals and law enforcement, as well as an outlook of what may still be to come. more
The Energy Internet is based on the same principles as that of the classic Internet except that energy rather data packets are routed between sources and destinations. It sometimes also referred to as mico-grids or nano-grids, but generally these terms are a misnomer as they really refer to a smaller version of the traditional electrical grid. Traditional power systems are passive, hierarchical and for the most part have no intelligence or management. more
A report released today by Public Knowledge points out that their recent analysis indicates filtering Internet content, as advocated by media companies, will not be effective and in fact harmful to the Internet. An accompanying 60-page whitepaper contains the full report including a number of reasons why the user of copyright filters should not be allowed, encouraged or mandated on U.S. Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. more
Releasing new statistics today, the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) announced that by end of 2014, there will be nearly three billion Internet users -- two-thirds of them from the developing world -- with mobile-broadband penetration approaching 32 per cent. Moreover, people from developing countries make up for more than 90 per cent of those who are not yet using the Internet. more
Yahoo today announced it has agreed to pay $50 million in damages and will offer two years of free credit-monitoring services to 200 million people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the massive security breach. more