Group items tagged

The website was designed by a University of Technology Sydney student named Chris Webster, the website examines the effects and severity of cyberbullying, and offers a wide array of information (types of cyberbullying, Internet safety, mobile phone tips, examples of cyberbullying etc) and surveys on cyberbullying and Internet safety. Cyberbullying causes incredible distress to those who fall victim to it. Cyberbullying does not leave physical scars, however the cruelty of others becomes evident through web pages, social network sites that exist on the Internet, as taunting does not only persist during school hours; but extends to time at home where cruelty is displayed through online text messages, posts, and other outlets that leave an extensive amount of emotional damage.

This article argues that reputation - such as in Apple's iPad - can be more important than need and functionality when it comes to technology. The phenomena of 'the fad' is not new, but is especially relevant with technological products and innovation. It will be interesting to see whether items such as the iPad do fill gaps in a market or are simply fad toys. The iPad's claimed 'killer function' - that of reading and subscriptions - will prove interesting when we look at how the publishing industry repsponds and whether standards much develop for newspapers/books/magazines.

This articles mentions the major highlights of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Communications Report 2008-2009. Among the differents findings, are available some data about mobile service, mobile network, suscribers, wireless broadband, dowloadings, online advertising , expenditures, revenue, etc. It's all about the digital convergence, the Digital Economy and a demand for flexibility.

Gary Kim is referring to a survey made by e-marketer to point out that in the US the disparities in Internet usage between "Asians", "Hispanics", "Afro americans" and "white americans" will have almost disappeared, mostly because of the expansion of mobile phones giving access to Internet.

A coalition of internet companies are pushing for the US federal regulator responsible for communication industries to reassert control over ISPs by seeking to have internet services re-classified under the same rules as telephone services.

Interesting article on The Guardian on how the main British parties use social media. The article, though, treats social media as a fad that may eventually dissolve. The question, though, remains: do political parties know how to use social media?

Unofficial reports of Google's open source VP8 video codec may arguably give other major video codec companies a run for their money- offering internet users good quality video, whilst using smaller bandwidth. But keeping it royalty and patent free for web browsers to use without charge- making it difficult for royalty codecs to compete.

This article discusses how online review sites can be manipulated, and the importance that companies place on 'word of mouth' for reputation. It raises this important issue: online reviews and comments are crucial for the reputation of 'real world' sites, so how can these sites be 'governed'? Or should they be?

Google blames Chinese-backed groups for attacking blogs of political critics. But who can stop this actions, who has the power to, within the current legal framework, do so?

The mobile phone is a tool that can help bridge the digital divide permitting to US teenagers from low income households to access the Internet even if they don't have access to a home computer.

related to this, this article suggests that the humble mobile phone may be slowly eroding the digital divide in third world countries, India in this example. http://inside.org.au/india-mobile-revolution/

Microsoft shares the same point of view on the limitations of the Flash product as Apple. Again, reliability, security and performance were identified as impediments of supporting the flawed software. Speaking about the mobile era Steve Jobs of Apple says 'low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards...' are areas where Flash is not currently accommodating. It's most interesting to watch powerful market players create pressure for change in the internet space. Adobe can ill afford to ignore these criticisms yet it's now taking opportunity to discredit the motives of the multinationals: "Apple's moves to block Flash and other technologies are designed to protect a business model that locks developers and consumers into a single, proprietary stack," Adobe spokeswoman Holly Campbell said.

A document that explores the difficulties of Iranian Cyber Activist to fight against the regime. Explain how Web Pages, Blogs and other internet initiatives like Radio Zamaneh, Jaras and Kalameh have been victims of persecution, filtering, and jail.

He admits that "Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. But MS works closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today's web."

The research found that posting material about political or social issues on the Web and using social networking sites politically are forms of online engagement that are dominated by the young-especially the youngest adults.

Google announced to use SSL to secure user's data, keep it hard for hackers and government to spy on users' searches.

Ofcom has conducted a survey in the UK on the handling of personal data online. The result: In the light of recent news about privacy issues online (Facebook for example) people have become more weary about Internet privacy. The Scottish are the least worried. Also interesting: "about a quarter of internet users say they 'lack confidence' in installing filerting software or security features."

There has been some controversy about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's comments in an online chat from 2006 that surfaced recently. He told a friend that Facebook users were dumb for trusting him and submitting private, personal information on his then-fledgling website. An initiative by four young programmers to counteract the negative effects that Facebook has had on privacy and the ability of users to control the data they put online is Diaspora. It is a decentralised, open source social network that wants to compete with centralised social networks that allow "spying for free". It will be interesting to see whether the initiative really takes off as a viable alternative to Facebook.

The first domain names using the Cyrillic script are now available after Russia was assigned a new Cyrillic domain by ICANN. Ealier that month Arabic script was introduced in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. ICANN regards the new native-script domain names as a tool to make the web more global but critics fear that Russian authorities could be encouraged to follow China's example and introduce Internet censorship.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is really into his digital persona. Now he has a blog. Interesting how he has taken social media communications seriously. 

Collecting web data, who is it helping and who is it hurting. Google Analytics is a prominent free to use service that allows everyone from micro bloggers to corporations to record the statistics for visitors to their sites. Analytics can tell you where visitors are from, what they searched for, and what time they visited. They receive this information from your IP address, and ultimately your visit could potentially be traced directly back to your comptuer. Google has created an add-on to help hid your IP address identity, in a likely effort to protect the company from privacy concerns.