New Scientist: Eight things you didn’t know about the internet

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Thursday, May 7th, 2009 – 23:12 CEST

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2706/27062201.jpg

The internet is a tool that we all use every day. It’s arguably one of the greatest inventions of the last half century. But it’s had a profound impact on the way that we interact with each other and with society around us.

The American magazine New Scientist has taken a quick glance at some of the lesser-known features about the internet, such as:

Who controls the internet?

Could the net become self-aware?

How big is the net?

Is there only one internet?

and four others.

For more information about the history of the internet, be sure to check out the 1999 book by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon: Where Wizards Stay Up Late

Posted in The Internet, USA

Mobile phone service comes to Nauru

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 – 13:28 CEST

It’s hard to believe that even in late 2009, there are still countries, full-fledged independent countries, that do not have mobile phone service.

That list got smaller this week as the Pacific island nation of Nauru finally got access to…

Solar panels prices drop globally

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Friday, August 28th, 2009 – 10:27 CEST

As Chinese production of solar panel equipment has ramped up, the price has precipitously dropped. According to yesterday’s New York Times, panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since last summer, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray.

At…

Internet addiction center opens in a Seattle (USA) suburb

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Friday, August 21st, 2009 – 16:00 CEST

After Internet addiction centers have opened up in South Korea, China, and Japan, now the United States has just opened its first facility in Fall City, Washington, in Pacific Northwest region of the country.

The institution, formally called reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery…

Austrian, Mongolian partner to unearth buried Buddhist artifacts

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Friday, August 7th, 2009 – 08:37 CEST

Last weekend, Austrian online media producer and amateur archeologist Michael Eisenriegler (above) and his Mongolian colleague, Zundoi Altangerel, uncovered two crates worth of irreplaceable artifacts, including manuscripts, Buddhist statues and clothing.

It was shown live and online last weekend at the Hauptplatz in…

Experts Debate Energy Usage of the Lesser Evil: Nuclear vs. Coal

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Thursday, July 16th, 2009 – 18:10 CEST

Earlier this month, the American science magazine Seed conducted an online panel discussion on which energy source is the least evil.

In the United States, unlike Europe, there are only 104 nuclear reactors — representing about 20 percent of all domestic energy…

Reminder: Participate in Online Storytelling!

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Thursday, July 16th, 2009 – 09:42 CEST

In the online world, where our identities are mostly unknown, people don’t always have a chance to meet each other in person. However, we can still create something together.

So, let’s write two stories together in English!

Whether it’s a love story…

American power company plans 51-megawatt wind farm in Colorado

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Monday, July 6th, 2009 – 18:53 CEST

Fresh off the heels of China’s wind announcement, an American power company has just announced that it will be building a 51-megawatt wind farm in eastern Colorado — east of the famed Rockies.

The plant will be built by Duke…

March 18 Movement Fights for Bloggers’ Rights

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Monday, June 29th, 2009 – 17:47 CEST

On March 18, 2009, Iran gained the dubious honor of becoming the first nation in the world to have a blogger die while in custody.

That first victim was Omid Reza Mirsayafi, a 29-year-old Iranian blogger and journalist who wrote largely…

Small-time bike sharing hits Collingswood, New Jersey (USA)

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 – 23:19 CEST

While bike sharing began in Europe and has recently spread to North America, its largely only exists in big cities like Lyon or Montreal.

However, a Philadelphia suburb, Collingswood, is now well into its first year of a small bike-sharing program…

North Korea as Revealed by Google Earth, Citizen Activists

Posted by Florica Vlad, Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 – 16:12 CEST

For many years, citizen activists have been pooling information about North Korea in order to reveal the locations of hidden prisons and other sites of interest in the humanitarian effort to effect greater transparency on the isolated regime.

However, according to…

Facebook Creates Online Civil Society Clashes in Iran

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Monday, May 25th, 2009 – 22:53 CEST

There’s been lots of online activity in the run-up to the Iranian presidential election, which is coming up on June 12.

There’s a four-way election currently going on between the two main conservative candidates, including incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohsen Rezaei,…

US-France Roquefort dispute ends

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Friday, May 8th, 2009 – 09:54 CEST

Telegraph cheese beat writer Henry Samuel brings us the delicious news that the US has finally agreed to drop its 300 percent tariff on the traditional French blue cheese.

For those who hadn’t been following this story as closely as Mr. Samuel, shortly…

Reclaiming Urban Public Space in New York

Posted by Florica Vlad, Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 – 22:32 CEST

New York City has recently began to more actively shape public spaces in the city, implement bike lanes and explore alternatives for dealing with traffic issues.

Various initiatives are in place for the reclamation of urban street space in an attempt…

More bandwidth coming to Africa

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Monday, May 4th, 2009 – 11:09 CEST

There’s been much discussion lately about how Africa’s bandwidth is too little, and too expensive. I’d argue, in fact, that this bandwidth problem, coupled with insane bureaucracy and corruption have kept prices in Africa largely artificially high.

OLPC News makes the…

IBM designing supercomputer that can play (and win?) Jeopardy

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Friday, May 1st, 2009 – 08:27 CEST

We all know that computers can beat humans at checkers, chess and they’re working on go. But what about Jeopardy!, the classic American trivia game show?

For a computer, playing a game like chess is relatively easy compared with a game like…

Google starts to make U.S. public data available, searchable, comparable

Posted by Cyrus Farivar, Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 – 15:49 CEST

Yesterday, Google announced that it would be making a certain piece of data from the American Bureau of Labor Statistics available via its search engine — that is, the unemployment rate in America from 1990 to the present.

Previously, if you’d…