Technology more essential than sex?
by Jan HarrisIt certainly seems so, according to two separate pieces of research looking at people’s relationship with their virtual world. A US-based study by Women at NBCU, NBC Universal’s female-focused ad sales, marketing and research initiative, asked participants to choose the three everyday activities they could not live without for a month. Both men and women [...]
May 31, 2011
Eutelsat brings high speed Internet to remote parts of Europe
by Jan HarrisEutelsat’s High Throughput Satellite, KA-SAT, today started providing high-speed Internet services across Europe, including remote areas where high-speed broadband was previously unavailable. KA-SAT, which is the most powerful satellite in the world, was launched on 26 December from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. It will provide consumers with download speeds of up to 10 Mb/s and upload [...]
January 17, 2011
Facebook breaches trust by giving away home addresses
by Jan HarrisFacebook has caused another privacy row, this time by making members’ home addresses and mobile phone numbers available to app developers. The problem affects users of two Facebook games, Farmville and Mafia Wars. When members play the games, a pop-up window requests access to contact information, including the player’s address and mobile phone number. If [...]
October 20, 2010
Internet users to pass two billion this year
by Jan HarrisThe Internet is unrecognisable from its origins in the 1960s when the Advanced Research Projects Agency connected four US universities on what was then called the Arpanet. Now, just forty years later, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is estimating that the Internet as we now know it will be used by over two billion people [...]
September 21, 2010
Cyberminder USB solution keeps the kids safe online
by Darren AllanParental supervision of the kids when they’re online is obviously a family priority these days. Most solutions come as part of an Internet security package, or in software form. Cyberminder, a product from Atlantic Surf, takes a different approach. It’s a hardware solution which comes in the form of two USB keys. A blue “supervisor” [...]
May 20, 2010
Computers to master the art of sarcasm?
by Darren AllanSarcasm on the Internet is an often misunderstood art. People often fail to recognise it without the appropriate voice inflections or raised eyebrows. As the famous quote goes, sarcasm on the Internet is like winking on the phone. At any rate, it could soon be the case that computers could be better than humans at [...]
March 26, 2010
Internet cafes to spy on customers for police
by Darren AllanThe Metropolitan police is currently trialling a scheme in the Camden area of London, whereby net cafes are to become digits of the long arm of the law. The measures are part of an anti-terrorism drive, and if the scheme is deemed successful it could potentially expand to the rest of the country. Police are [...]
March 10, 2010
Free website for your business
by Darren AllanBusiness owners who haven’t yet taken the step of setting up a website might be interested to learn about a new scheme which has been set up by Google, BT, Enterprise UK and a number of other partners. Getting British Business Online, or GBBO, is a government backed initiative which aims to do exactly what [...]
November 9, 2008
Yahoo: we’ve failed, buy us
by Brian TurnerIn what is tantamount to an admission of failure, Yahoo is now inviting Microsoft to buy company and its assets: “To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo,” said [Jerry] Yang. “I don’t think that is a bad idea at all, at the right price whatever that price is. We’re [...]
September 6, 2008
Google: trapped in its own search box
by Brian TurnerGoogle as a brand has become synonymous with search – heck it’s even a verb. You don’t use search – you Google for something. Yet Google’s powerful brand connection with search hasn’t allowed the brand to lead in other areas, despite Google’s repeated attempts to broaden its reach. Conversely, other brand names have failed to [...]