Internet Use/New Technologies
16 September 2015
Coming Soon to Facebook: A 'Dislike' Button New York Times
Facebook's famous "like" button, with its silhouette of an upturned thumb, will soon be accompanied by an alternative: a way to "dislike" a post.
15 September 2015
Intelligent machines: Call for a ban on robots designed as sex toys BBC News
A campaign has been launched calling for a ban on the development of robots that can be used for sex.
14 September 2015
Internet-addicted South Korean children sent to digital detox boot camp ABC News
The government sees it as a national health crisis and is now taking drastic measures to help the country's 2 million addicts.
13 September 2015
How eBay built a new world on little more than trust The Observer
Twenty years ago this month, a French-born Iranian-American computer programmer named Pierre Omidyar added an experimental online auction section to his personal website, which at that time focused mainly on the Ebola virus. He called it AuctionWeb because it enabled people to bid to purchase items that other people were advertising for sale. One of the earliest, and most puzzling, sales on the site was of a broken laser pointer, which went for $14.83. The story goes that Omidyar wrote to the buyer asking if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. The guy replied that he was a collector of broken laser pointers. At this point, Omidyar realised he might be on to something.
Watching porn does not cause negative attitudes toward women, contentious Canadian study finds National Post
The idea that pornography leads to negative attitudes toward women is pervasive, helping shape obscenity laws, fuelling censorship attempts and even spawning a recent Hollywood movie.
12 September 2015
Google, Twitter and Publishers Seek Faster Web New York Times
In a world where many people read everything on mobile phones, a few seconds of load time can mean the gain or loss of millions of readers and advertising dollars.
31 August 2015
Woman who claimed she was 'allergic to Wi-Fi' gets disability allowance from French court Daily Telegraph
Marine Richard has managed to score £500 a month in disability allowance from French courts after claiming that she was 'allergic to Wi-Fi'.
#Blessed: The Internet actually makes us happier, science says Washington Post
According to a strain of trend piece popular in certain circles these days, the Web is some kind of social parasite, eating our decency and confidence and good humor away. It's filled us with FOMO; it's made us fake; it's torpedoed love and intimacy.
30 August 2015
Marketing in the digital age: As people spend more time on social media, advertisers are following them The Economist
Earlier this year BMW advertised on WeChat, a popular messaging app in China with around 550m monthly users. But its ads were shown only to those whose profiles suggested they were potential buyers of expensive cars. Others were shown ads for more affordable stuff, such as smartphones. The campaign bruised a few egos. Some of those not shown the BMW ad complained, referring to themselves as diao, or (putting it politely) losers.
28 August 2015
Facebook has a billion users in a single day, says Mark Zuckerberg BBC News
For the first time over a billion people used Facebook on a single day, according to company founder Mark Zuckerberg.
26 August 2015
Vint Cerf: 'Sometimes I'm terrified' by the IoT Computerworld
Vint Cerf is known as a "father of the Internet," and like any good parent, he worries about his offspring -- most recently, the IoT.
25 August 2015
Is this really the beginning of the end for web ads? The Guardian
As you've probably heard, the "infidelity" website Ashley Madison (motto: "Life is short. Have an affair") has been hacked and the personal details of its 33 million users have been dumped on the internet, with predictable results. Reckoning that it's the kind of story that is made for tabloid news outlets, I logged on to Mail Online, and sure enough, they did it proud.
21 August 2015
Facebook's growth just ain't what it used to be Washington Post
Americans' addiction to social media is deepening, according to a new report that found that while Facebook devotion has plateaued, other social networking platforms are gaining in popularity.
19 August 2015
Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web New York Times
The great philosopher Homer Simpson once memorably described alcohol as "the cause of and solution to all of life's problems." Internet advertising is a bit like that -- the funder of and terrible nuisance baked into everything you do online.
13 August 2015
Don’t panic, the internet won't rot children's brains by Andrew Whitehouse, Winthrop Professor, Telethon Kids Institute at University of Western Australia The Conversation
You know the deal: a social phenomenon rises from obscurity to international familiarity within the blink of an eye. Pitchforks are sharpened, torches lit, and higher thought goes out the window. Elvis Presley's hips, the skin revealed by a bikini, Harry Potter's sorcery - you would think by now we'd have learnt to occasionally sit back and thoughtfully stroke our collective chin before writing the eulogy for humankind.
10 August 2015
Just how easy is it to digitally fake a death? Washington Post
Killing someone is easier than you might think, or at least getting them legally declared dead might be.
08 August 2015
Teenagers Keep and Make Friends Online, Pew Says New York Times
Researchers say they have discovered something that teenagers already know: Young people use the Internet to maintain friendships made at school or work, but also to forge entirely new ones with peers they meet while browsing social networks like Instagram or playing a game like Call of Duty.
07 August 2015
Smartphone now most popular way for Britons to browse internet – Ofcom report The Guardian
Smartphones are the UK's most popular device for getting online for the first time, according to industry monitor Ofcom.
03 August 2015
It’s fast, global, engaged and influential – so why isn't Twitter flying? The Observer
How many tech companies are saddled with the problem of enjoying global fame but struggling with lacklustre performance? Not Facebook, which revealed in its results that it has nearly 1.5 billion users logging in each month around the world. Twitter, however, is an example where participation is lagging behind reputation.
02 August 2015
Research Scientists to Use Network Much Faster Than Internet New York Times
A series of ultra-high-speed fiber-optic cables will weave a cluster of West Coast university laboratories and supercomputer centers into a network called the Pacific Research Platform as part of a five-year $5 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation.
30 July 2015
Facebook now used by half of world's online users BBC News
Half the world's estimated online population now check into social networking giant Facebook at least once a month.
29 July 2015
A Steady Percentage of Americans Still Do Not Go Online, Study Says New York Times
For the first 13 years of the decade, Americans embraced the Internet at a whirlwind pace. The percentage of Americans who use the Internet grew to 84 percent in 2013 from 52 percent at the turn of the century, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Paced by Facebook, Customer Satisfaction Up for Social-Media Sites Wall Street Journal
User satisfaction with social media websites is improving, paced by Facebook's success with its mobile app and advertising, according to new data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
19 July 2015
Why the Islamic State leaves tech companies torn between free speech and security Washington Post
When a lone terrorist slaughtered 38 tourists at a Tunisian resort on June 26, the Islamic State turned to one of America's leading social-media companies to claim responsibility and warn of more attacks on the world's nonbelievers.
17 July 2015
Internet of Bins: Wi-Fi to come to New York trash cans The Guardian
The struggle is real. Out and about and the 4G isn't cutting it. People used to cheekily pop into cafes to use the loo - now it's to briefly pilfer Wi-Fi.
