Is The Internet Changing Our Memory?

A recent study by Columbia University professor, Dr Betsy Sparrow, suggests that we are relying less on our memory of a subject and more on our memory of where to find the subject matter. "I don't think Google is making us stupid - we're just changing the way that we're remembering things... If you can find stuff online even while you're walking down the street these days, then the skill to have, the thing to remember, is where to go to find the information. It's just like it would be with people - the skill to have is to remember who to go see about [particular topics]." says Dr. Sparrow.


I'd argue that we've been doing this since we've been able to read and write. We may have faster access to information these days but prior to the internet there were libraries, filing cabinets, and subject matter experts. Don't you agree? Am I missing something here?


Source: bbc.co.uk

US Military Capable Of Restoring Internet Access

If a government intent on thwarting a social uprising of it's populous choses to cut communications, such as Egypt's early response to the recent demonstrations, the U.S. military could conceivably restore services in order to maintain internet access an inviolable human right. 

John Arquilla, a leading military futurist tells Wired that while it might not be that difficult of a challenge technically for the U.S. military which "has a great deal of expertise on rebuilding communications network, but that's ... very different when the government is interested in resisting," Arquilla says. "This is far less an engineering problem and far more a political one." 

It makes total sense that a country facing internal strife might consider such an action as a hostile act, especially if perpetrated by a foreign power. I guess it really should not surprise anyone that the technology already exists, and as an average citizen I am finding some comfort in the fact that does. 

Is Linking To Defamatory Statements The Same As Publishing Defamatory Statements?

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the case of a former political campaign manager who claims that links to defamatory content on other sites is the same as publishing the content on your own site. The case was heard by a judge at the British Columbia Supreme Court and was struck down, but the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the appeal.

David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, said:

"To import liability in those circumstances is to impose just a tremendous burden of liability on all participants in the internet,".

"Not just hosts, not just websites, not just bulletin boards, not just ISPs, but also individual participants, commenters on blogs, commenters in newspapers, newspapers themselves, other publishers who allow anybody to speak on the internet.

"You can just imagine the chilling effect that would have."

This is scary stuff!

Source: CBC

Sweden's Top Level Domain Dissapears Due To Typo

A small but rather far reaching error caused the entire top level domain of Sweden to go missing on Monday, according to Networkworld.com.

"The .SE registry used an incorrectly configured script to update the .se zone, which introduced an error to every single .se domain name," says web monitoring company Pingdom. "We have spoken to a number of industry insiders and what happened is that when updating the data, the script did not add a terminating '.' to the DNS records in the .se zone. That trailing dot is necessary in the settings for DNS to understand that '.se" is the top-level domain. It is a seemingly small detail, but without it, the whole DNS lookup chain broke down."

Sweden's Internet Infrastructure Foundation, which administers the .se domain, issued a statement saying "The cause was an incorrect software update, which, despite our testing procedures were not detected. Thanks to well-functioning surveillance system .SE discovered the error immediately and a new file with the DNS data (zone file) was produced and distributed within one hour. ... The false information that was sent out affected accessibility to all .se domains for a short time. However, there may still be some name servers that have not changed out of misinformation against the real."

The foundation then quickly but quietly posted a help wanted add on Monster.com ;)

New Bill To Give Police Access To Personal Data Without Warrant

At a news conference in Ottawa yesterday, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan announced new bills aimed at providing law enforcement virtually unrestricted access to information gathered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) regarding their customers and their activities online.

According to this CBC article:

"One bill, announced by Van Loan, would require telecommunications and internet service providers to:

• Install and maintain "intercept-capable" equipment on their networks.
• Provide police with "timely access" to personal information about subscribers, including names, address and internet addresses, without the need for a warrant.

Van Loan said the bill won't provide new interception powers to police, but simply update the legal framework designed "in the era of the rotary telephone."

He noted that police can already get the authority to intercept communications, but the network is often incapable of allowing such interception."

In addition a second bill introduced would:

• Allow law enforcement officials to obtain transmission data that is sent or received via telephone or internet if authorized by a production order or warrant
• Require telecommunications companies to keep data related to specific communications or subscribers if that information is needed in an investigation and requested via a preservation order.
• Make it a criminal offence for two or more people to agree to or arrange child sexual exploitation by means of telecommunications.
• Modernize the system for tracking warrants.

I'm all for police getting the tools they need to combat crime, however, "without the need for a warrant." seems a little scary to me...

A Faster More Stable Chrome

Google has taken the wraps off of a new version of their Chrome browser, fixing some 300 bugs and making the rendering of javascript intensive pages up to 30% faster. A few new features have been added such as the ability to remove thumbnails of your most visited sites and auto-fill for forms. Guess it's time to give Chrome another try...

"... Dating Service For Parking Spots"

Two entrepreneurs from Montreal have extended a university project into a business matching drivers up with parking spots and reserving these spots via the internet. "It's a new tool and people have largely been happy with the service, and they like the [website] idea in general." said Philippe Guevremont, who founded maplace.ca with his partner Dominic Chartrand. The website allows users to sign up and enter the particulars of where and when they need a parking spot. The software then finds a spot, reserves it and takes payment by credit card. I wonder what happens when you get to your spot and it's been taken?

Source: Globe and Mail

Florida Woman Watches Via Webcam As Her Home Is Burgalarized

After having been robbed once previously, Jeanne Thomas of Fort Lauderdale Florida had a small video camera installed to allow her to monitor her home from work. Saying that she had a kind of "sixth sense" she logged in to find two men rummaging through her belongings. A call to 911 brought 18 police officers down on the home and the two were apprehended, check out the video and 911 call

Living Life On The Whims Of Others

A young Chinese lady, Chen Xiao, decided in December that she was done making decisions for herself and has taken to the online community to decide how she should spend her days. Refusing only to do anything illegal, immoral or violent, Xiao charges about $3 per hour to carryout the requests of others. "If somebody asks you to do something, something simple, and you do it, it can make you very happy. You can change from a gloomy person to a very bright one. It can help give you a new sense of self-esteem," she told CNN. She's been asked to do all sorts of tasks from spending time with the homeless to photographing the birth of a child. Her motivation? "Every time I had a plan for what I wanted my life to be like, nothing would come of it. It was very disappointing. I figured if other people came up with things for me to do, I might stumble upon something new and better,"

Serious Disruption To Telecom / Internet Service Between Europe, Middle East, and Asia

Three of Four under water cables representing the backbone of telecommunications and Internet connectivity between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have been severed and it may take more than a week to fix the situation. While the cause of the break is yet unknown, there were reported seismic activity before the disruption to service was detected.

"We've lost three out of four lines. If the fourth cable breaks, we're looking at a total blackout in the Middle East," Jonathan Wright - director of wholesale products at Interoute, the company that manages part of the optical fibre network, told the BBC.

"These three circuits account for 90% of the traffic and we're going to see more international phone calls dropping and a huge degradation in the quality of local internet," he added.

"Normally you would expect to see one major break per cable per year. With four you should have an insurance policy. For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern."

Cellphones And Internet Essencial Even In Tough Times

A study conducted last week in Canada and the US by Toronto research firm Solutions Research Group says that North Americans see their cell phones and internet service essential utilities, like water or electricity. "People were saying, 'It's not going to happen - you would have to pry it out of my hands,' that kind of language," said Kaan Yigit head of the research firm. The company has ranked in order the items consumers will be cutting back on in order of most likely to least likely and it shakes out like this:

Ranking consumer targets for cuts:

1. Big-ticket events (eg. concerts, sports)

2. Movie-going

3. DVD buying

4. Magazine subscription renewals/newsstand

5. Cable/satellite TV extras

6. Video game buying

7. Home phone

8. Mobile/wireless phone

9. DVD Rentals

10. Home Internet

Solutions Research Group

Globe and Mail article.

Finland Has Big Plans For Broadband

The government of Finland has outlined a broadband strategy that will see all homes in the country serviced by at least one megabit per second by 2010, with a ramp-up to 100 megabits by 2016. "We are strongly committed to developing an information society, and we want to promote productivity and efficiency," Communications Minister Suvi Linden told Agence France Presse. The Finnish government has pledged one third of the cost of building the infrastructure, an estimated $102 million U.S. of a total $303 million to complete the work. Meanwhile in North America little is being done by government to move the bar. The CBC has more details here.

DNS Flaw Concerns

Brian Prince at PCMag.com says that security researcher Dan Kaminsky has been afraid of what he uncovered in a DNS protocol vulnerability. Kaminsky apparently told reports attending the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas "I spent the last month terrified of large companies having all their e-mail stolen because of a bug that I found," Prince writes in his article, that Kaminsky has explained "it is a game of dominoes—one domino could be redirecting Web traffic to malicious sites, the next could be interception of sensitive corporate e-mail. The possibilities are numerous and problematic." Scary stuff!

Internet Founder Speaks Out About ISPs

Vint Cerf, the man who developed the technical principles on which the internet works, has come out swinging at telephone and cable companies over their attempts to arbitrarily control the infrastructure. "Basically, it's like little kids in a tantrum: 'I'm not going to build this system unless you give me three scoops of ice cream and a pony,'" he said in a video posted on the blog on Tuesday. "My reaction to this is quite negative. It's harmful to the national interest to behave in this way because it is serious infrastructure — it's very much like the road ways." The debate has raged on in Canada this year as phone giant Bell has employed bandwidth throttling techniques that have caught the attention of smaller ISPs who buy capacity from them. "We have to provide incentives that cause those companies to behave differently or create an incentive for a competitor to put in facilities that will compete with them. I want to take away their monopoly mandate," Cerf said. "We have to make it a privilege to build the infrastructure. There has to be a reasonable rate of return, but it cannot be a confiscatory rate of return and it cannot be abused by allowing people to throttle competitors." Vint Cerf now works for Google as senior vice-president. CBC Story here.

Chrysler Announces 'uconnect' In Car Wireless

Chrysler announced Thursday that next years vehicle line will include an optional service known as 'uconnect' that will turn a subscribers vehicle into a rolling hot spot. The system includes a $449 dealer installed wireless router which will connect users to the Internet via the cellular networks. Service will cost $29 per month with a one time activation fee of $35. Besides accessing the Internet, the system will also link with cellular phones and iPods and has an in-car 30-gigabyte hard drive and "navigation and real-time traffic features, controlled by voice recognition or a touch screen." according to CNN. The move is an attempt to compete with Ford's "Sync" system and other 3rd party options. Hopefully we won't have to worry about people facebooking while driving!

Digital camera reunited with owner through e-mail campaign

When Michelle Montgomery found a digital camera outside of Ohio Stadium she didn't turn it in to lost and found. Instead she downloaded an image from the camera and started an e-mail campaign to find it's owner. The original message went out to 14 friends and within 48 hours a match was made. "Think of the way we could use it if we wanted to do something meaningful and powerful in the world," Montgomery is quoted as saying. CNN has the story.

Search for Steve Fossett turns technical

Well known adventurer Steve Fossett has not been heard from since Monday, when he failed to return from a solo flight which originated at an airstrip 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Reno, Nevada. Friends and followers have turned to the Internet to aid in the search by setting up a Mechanical Turk project where volunteers can view recent satellite photos and search for the plane. Fossett made history near where I lived many years ago when his balloon crash landed near Sussex, New Brunswick. Good luck in the hunt to all that participate, my thoughts go out to he and his family at this time. It must be difficult...

Internet enabled exercycle allows you to ride famous courses and challenge others

c|net's news.com tries out the Ergo Bike Premium 8i from Germany's Daum Electronics. The bike packs a lot of technology that enables you to customize your training, train with others over the Internet and view their stats, or load up race profiles that simulate course layouts making you work harder on hills, etc.. The bike is reported to cost $3500 US so it's not for every family but if you are serious about training it may be worth consideration. Watch the c|net video review here.

Half or your online time spent viewing entertainment or news?

According to a study released by the Online Publishers Association and conducted by Neilsen/NetRatings, Internet users spend nearly half of their time viewing news or entertainment content. The results of the survey taken over a 4 year period showed a 37% increase in these activities. The increase is attributed to an abundance of content, faster high speed connectivity, and a proliferation of social networking sites. See the Globe and Mail article here.

Get by with a little help from complete strangers

New York based online charity, Modest Needs, is seeking charity status in Canada in order to make it easier to help Canadian applicants in their own currency, and to be able to issue tax receipts to Canadian donors. The concept is quite simple, applicants describe their short-term financial emergency (under $1000) and the group assesses their situations, if accepted Modest Needs pays creditors or suppliers, the applicant doesn't receive any money directly. I really like this model, it facilitates a communal approach to charitable donating, allowing a large number of small donors to make a big difference in someones live. Like micro loans, these small donations really highlight the power and reach of the Internet. I think most of us would love to help out in some way but often think we don't have the means to really make a difference. Globe and Mail story.