Internet Archive

"With the fate of our beloved internet economy allegedly at stake, perhaps it's a good time to examine what Do Not Track is. How did the standard came to be, what does it do, and how does it stand to change online advertising? Is it as innocuous as privacy advocates make it sound, or does it stand to jeopardize the free, ad-supported internet we've all come to rely on?" Do Not Track is inherently flawed because it gives people a false sense of security. Other than perhaps well-known and accountable sites, nobody's going to abide by it anyway. We don't need nonsense like DNT - we need to educate people about that 'private browsing' button. Everybody's already using it for porn anyway; shouldn't be hard to let people know what other things it can be used for.

"In my not-so-spare time I work on a new technology called Hyperaudio. A question I'm frequently asked is 'What exactly is Hyperaudio?'. Well, it can be a lot of things but I often find it useful to distill it into a sentence. I got it down to this: 'Hyperaudio is to audio as Hypertext is to text.' I usually pause at this point because that statement is loaded with implications."

A free, new report from the New America Foundation compares cost, speed, and availabilty of internet connectivity in 22 cities around the world. The report concludes that U.S. consumers face comparatively high, rising connectivity costs, even while the majority have very limited choices -- often only one or two providers. The report argues that U.S. broadband policies need to change, otherwise consumer choice will continue to deteriorate.

"It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens - and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way."

"If you are on Facebook but have never taken a particular shine to Facebook's e-mail capability, Facebook is intent on changing your mind. As of Friday, the company seems to have quietly given or replaced the display e-mail addresses of all of its users with an @facebook.com address, routing any e-mail communiques you would have received back to its own Messages inboxes." Scummy doesn't even begin to describe this.

"Long before the coming of the World Wide Web, the Minitel provided a sort of internet-in-one-country. Long before Facebook, Google or Twitter - millions of French people went 'online' daily to search for information, to book their holidays, chat to strangers or seek cheap (or not so cheap) sexual thrills."

According to StatCounter's figures (whatever they're worth) Chrome is now the most popular browser in the world, overtaking Internet Explorer for the first time. How times change. Let's hope Google, Firefox, and Opera have some good Metro stuff coming up, because IE on Windows 8 has a terrible UI.

"Yahoo's embattled CEO Scott Thompson is set to step down from his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in what will be dramatic end to a controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio, according to multiple sources close to the situation." I can't even bother to feign interest.

Because there aren't enough of these things already: "Today, we're announcing the App Center, a new place for people to find social apps. The App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful." Like I'm giving Facebook my credit card number. I mean, Apple, Microsoft, and Google: fine. But I draw the line at Facebook. Really. I will. And yes, this is sarcasm.

Yeah, this is pretty awesome for us Dutch (all 16 million of them) here in this glorified swamp. Today, our new telecommunications act was accepted by the senate - usually a formality, but still a possible point of failure. Why is this news? Well, this new telecommunications act includes unconditional net neutrality, making us the second country in the world to codify unconditional net neutrality (after Chile). Mobile or regular, net neutrality for all. We're running ahead of Europe here, so hopefully the rest of the EU is going to just copy/paste this one.

"Starting today, users in the United States and UK will be able to add that they're organ donors to their Timelines, and if they're not organ donors, they can find links to official organ donation registries and instantly enroll." A commendable effort, but for some reason, I find it quite creepy, too. What if you leave your Facebook open and someone enlists you? On a related note - if you're not registered as a donor yet, please consider doing so. It might save someone's life.

"Over a year ago, Microsoft executives sent out feelers to Facebook to see if the company would be interested in acquiring Bing, though the overture was not officially sanctioned by Steven A. Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, one of these people said. Mr. Zuckerberg declined, saying Facebook had too much else to concentrate on. Dawn Beauparlant, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, declined to comment, as did Ashley Zandy, a spokeswoman for Facebook." Seems Facebook is smart.

"The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of 'restrictive' walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms." That governments - east and west - are trying to destroy the open web, that we know. As for Facebook and Apple... Well, all I know is that it is completely and utterly impossible to check what information Apple has about you. Unlike Google (more here) and to a lesser degree Facebook, Apple provides zero means to see, export, or delete the information they have on you, associated with your Apple ID or otherwise. In 2012, that's just sinister.

"Unfortunately, Cameron's declaration that the 'free flow of information' can sometimes be a problem, then an aberration, seems to have turned into a pillar of the UK government's 2012 agenda. Despite declaring early on in his term that internet freedom should be respected 'in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square', his government is now considering a series of laws that would dramatically restrict online privacy and freedom of speech." The United Kingdom's crippling nanny state culture reaches the web. A country in deep financial problems, facing pervasise social unrest, censors the web to prevent riots. Sure Cameron, make it so.