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Can the pace of technological progress continue to speed up indefinitely? Is there not a point where humans are unable to think fast enough to keep up with it? With regard to unenhanced humans, clearly so. But what would a thousand scientists, each a thousand times more intelligent than human scientists today, and each operating a thousand times faster than contemporary humans (because the information processing in their primarily nonbiological brains is faster) accomplish? One year would be like a millennium. What would they come up with?

Downloading the Human Brain

This, then, is the Singularity. The Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.

Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web.

48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access.

"People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line," said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people's behavior. "They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family," she told Reuters.

An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage

The submarine cable cuts in FLAG Europe-Asia cable 8.3km away from Alexandria, Egypt and SeaMeWe-4 affected at least 60 million users in India, 12 million in Pakistan, six million in Egypt and 4.7 million in Saudi Arabia.” A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each.

The first cut in the undersea Internet cable occurred on January 23, in the Flag Telcoms FALCON submarine cable which was not reported. This has not been repaired yet and the cause remains unknown

Recently, Michael Wesch was named national professor of the year for research and doctoral universities. A few weeks later, Vincent Hofer was named a Rhodes Scholar. One teaches cultural anthropology and one studied agribusiness at Kansas State. Jon Wefald longed to hear from anyone interested in either honoree. "Nobody called," said K-State's longtime university president. Instead, intercollegiate sports dominate far more discussions.

Internet giant Google said Thursday it will give $20 million to the first private group to land a roving robot on the lunar surface

For a team to win the $20 million grand prize, its vehicle must ramble at least a quarter-mile over the lunar surface and send video back to Earth. A $10 million second prize is reserved for the first spacecraft that can't rove but still transmits data from moon to Earth.

Here's a dream-come-true for Web addicts: college credit for watching YouTube. Pitzer College this fall began offering what may be the first course about the video-sharing site. About 35 students meet in a classroom but work mostly online, where they view YouTube content and post their comments.

She hopes the course will raise serious issues about YouTube, such as the role of "corporate-sponsored democratic media expression."

YouTube is "a phenomenon that should be studied," student Darren Grose said. "You can learn a lot about American culture and just Internet culture in general."

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