internet

According to a recent Chinese government tally, 253 million people in the country regularly use the Internet, giving China the largest Internet using population in the world. This number is more than double the 137 million users counted just two ... years ago. China has for some time been considered the world's next economic powerhouse. As western nations like the United States slow in production and development, rising countries like China and India are expected to be next in line for huge industry booms. But industry is not the only indicator that these countries are steaming into the twenty- ... (view more)

It appears increasingly likely that Comcast will face a formal rebuke from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its 'throttling' policy in which Internet access was deliberately slowed for those using peer-to-peer download services. The ... FCC won't announce any decision until its monthly meeting on Friday, but Reuters reports five of the nine commissioners have already agreed to uphold a complaint of throttling. (Source: guardian.co.uk ) That won't come as a major surprise, since FCC chairman Kevin Martin had already announced he considered Comcast's actions wrong and that he'd be ... (view more)

Reading, at least in the conventional way of leafing page by page through a book, is at risk and the blame is being placed squarely on the shoulders of the Internet and (of course) television. The decline of reading has fueled a massive national ... debate not only about 'if' we read but 'how' we read. The debate began in 2002 when the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that the number of non-reading adults had increased by 17 million to 89 million adults, roughly one out of three adults. According to the NEA, only 47% of American adults read 'literature', including poems, plays, ... (view more)

In the technological world, few other phenomena are receiving as much attention as "cloud computing". The concept pertains to files and programs that are stored in places beyond the hard drive, existing exclusively in the air around us (or in ... "clouds"). In actuality, this secured data is stored on some kind of encrypted Internet server. All of us have had at least one previous experience with cloud computing. Anytime you use an Internet-based backup service, an online word processor, or send an email using Windows Live Hotmail you are clouding. Microsoft has been staying ahead of their ... (view more)

A surprising study suggests broadband usage may be about as widespread as it's going to get in the United States. It seems comparatively few dial-up users are stuck that way through a lack of availability. Instead, many of them either think ... broadband is too expensive, or flat-out don't want it. The study has been carried out every year for the past decade or so by the Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent think-tank. While broadband use is growing year-on-year, the figures are virtually unchanged since last December, suggesting the market has hit saturation point. (Source arstechnica.com ) ... (view more)

Jupiter Research has recently published the results of an exhaustive research project meant to determine the actual growth of worldwide usage of the worldwide web. Their findings confirm that the Internet is increasingly becoming more accessible to ... the global population, although a vast majority still have not enjoyed the online experience. Jupiter estimates that nearly 1.8 billion people will be online by 2012, representing just under a quarter of the world's population. The most significant growth is expected to be in rapidly-developing countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil. These ... (view more)

A leading cable firm has abandoned plans to monitor its customers' Internet use and sell the results to advertisers. Charter Communications, which is either the third or fourth biggest US cable company (depending on which stats you follow) announced ... the scheme in May. It planned to use the services of NebuAd, a California advertising firm which installs a physical device on an Internet provider's network. This device takes extremely detailed information about each individual customer's web use and then sends relevant adverts directly to their computer as they use the Internet. It's possible ... (view more)

T-Mobile recently announced a new home phone plan that will eliminate the age-old attachment we have to landlines. The new T-Mobile@Home plan will use a wireless router to send and receive calls: "calls are transmitted from a handset to the Internet ... through the T-Mobile router; then, the call is completed through the use of voice-over-Internet-protocol technology." (Source: enews20.com ) Many cell-phone users prefer to retain their home phone and use their cells merely for convenience. Some also feel safer knowing that they have a fail-safe phone line at home, that won't have the problems of ... (view more)

Major recovery organizations have been using the Internet to help individuals recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. An increasing number of support groups are springing up all over the web with one goal: to provide online, 24/7 assistance to ... people recovering from some form of substance abuse. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, almost 2 million people this year will find themselves entering some kind of rehabilitation for abuse of various drugs or alcohol. In the past 70 years or so, these alcoholics and addicts would have left various rehabilitation ... (view more)

Yahoo has added two new domains to its popular email service, allowing customers the opportunity to get the email address they always wanted. The new domains, ymail.com and rocketmail.com, will also function as Yahoo ID's across the company's other ... Internet services, including Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Groups, and Flickr. In a statement released last week, Yahoo said they were opening up the new email designations, the first time they have done so since they started Yahoo Mail in 1997, because the company recognized that people were no longer able to secure more memorable and easily identifiable ... (view more)