Wikipedia 'Loses' 49,000 Editors

"Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia 'lost' 49,000 of its volunteer editors in the first three months of 2009, University research suggests. The figure compares with a loss of 4,900 over the same period in 2008."

Cloud Storage

"A growing number of companies will automatically sweep your hard drive and keep a copy of the information that is there in the Internet 'cloud.' Many early adopters use Mozy or Carbonite, which allow users unlimited backup space for the cost of a latte each month."

Publishers Forming 'Magazine iTunes'

"Major magazine publishers including Time Inc. and Conde Nast hope to exert some control over digital readership with a joint venture enabling readers to buy copies of the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and many other mags from a single website, the New York Times reports."

Barnes & Noble Says Nook Reader Is Not Ideal for E-Textbooks

"Barnes & Noble says its Nook e-book device, to be released by the end of the month, was not built with college students in mind."

Twitter Eyes Acquisitions, Sees Making Money in 2010

"Micro-blogging site Twitter is interested in making more acquisitions as it continues to grow in popularity, co-founder Biz Stone said on Tuesday."

Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages

"Wikipedia.org is the fifth-most-popular Web site in the world, with roughly 325 million monthly visitors. But unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police it are quitting."

Google Previews Chrome Open Source Operating System

"Internet search giant Google has lifted the lid on its operating system, known as Chrome OS. The free and open source system is initially aimed at low-cost netbooks and does away with many of the features of a traditional program. All applications are designed to run in a web browser and all the user's data is stored on Google's servers.
Engineers from the firm said the first computers running the system would be available before the end of 2010."

Wikipedia, iPhone Among Decade's Top 10 Internet Moments

"The launch of Wikipedia, emergence of the iPhone and the election of U.S. President Barack Obama were among the 10 most influential moments on the Internet in the past decade, according to the annual Webby awards."

Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers

"Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to 'phone book.' And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget."

Microsoft Releases SharePoint, Office 2010 Betas

"The beta versions of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 are now available, Microsoft announced Wednesday at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The 2010 versions of Visio, Project, and Office Web Apps for business customers are also now live at www.microsoft.com/2010. Windows mobile clients are also available in beta via the Windows Marketplace."

New Web Site Makes Internet Time Traveling Easier

"Time traveling is coming to an Internet browser near you. A new Web site called Memento Web will allow anyone curious about what the Internet used to look like to plug in a date and then browse the World Wide Web as it was on that day."

Google Again Leads US Search Market; Bing Gains In October

"Google Inc. (GOOG) again led the U.S. core search market in October, but Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) bing.com also posted market-share gains, according to market research firm comScore Inc. (SCOR). The search leader had a 65.4% share in October, posting a 4% month-on-month rise to 9.4 million core searches. Microsoft's upstart site had a 9.9% share and handled 8% more searches."

U.S. Supercomputers Lead the World

"The United States earned eight of the top 10 spots on the latest list of the world's fastest supercomputers."

STUDY: Most Fortune 100 Companies Don’t Get Twitter

"In August we reported that a large number of Fortune 100 companies have embraced Twitter, but how well are they actually using it? A study released today (PDF) by Weber Shandwick says the answer is not very well, and that the majority of Fortune 100 companies don’t really get Twitter. Though 73 of 100 companies had at least one registered Twitter account (up from 54 reported in an unrelated study released in August), the majority of them weren’t using Twitter effectively to engage their followers, weren’t tweeting often, and didn’t display any personality in their tweets, according to the study."

Report: Countries Prepping for Cyberwar

"Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee."

Bandwidth Battle: How Entertainment is Strangling Education on Higher Ed Networks

"According to recent research, more than three-quarters of all bandwidth consumed on campus is actually taken up with applications that fall into the categories of gaming, social networking, media, file sharing, and Web browsing. Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing all by itself takes up a whopping 22 percent of total bandwidth."

Social Networks Could Help Community College Students

"Social-networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter can help community college students become more engaged in their academics, a http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-11-16-ccsse16_ST_N.htm out today finds."

Start-up Claims its DVDs Last 1,000 Years

"Cranberry's DiamonDisc product holds a standard 4.7GB of data, which roughly amounts to 2,000 photos, or 1,200 songs, or three hours of video, but the media is unharmed by heat as high as 176 degrees Fahrenheit, ultraviolet rays or normal material deterioration, according to the company. DiamonDiscs contain no dye layers, adhesive layers or reflective materials that could deteriorate."

Is Cloud Computing a Credible Solution for Education?

Bruce Schneier "spoke at a special session during this year's EduComm conference held back in June. Panelists also included Jeff Keltner, who heads the global initiative for Google Apps for Education, as well as senior executives from AT&T, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco. They discussed the future of information technology in the 'age of the cloud.'"

100 Useful Links For eBook Lovers

"With ebooks, you can read, stream, and listen to lessons, classic literature, poetry and reference books on the Internet or your mobile device. Here are 100 useful links for ebook lovers."

Internet Execs Teach Vatican Web Skills

"Executives from Facebook, Wikipedia and Google are attending a Vatican meeting to brief officials and Catholic bishops about the Internet and digital youth culture. The symposium, which opened Thursday and runs through Sunday, also will address Internet copyright issues and hacking - including testimony from a young Swiss hacker and an Interpol cyber-crime official. The meeting is being hosted by the European bishop's media commission and is designed to delve into questions about what Internet culture means for the church's mission and how the church communicates that mission to others."

Microsoft's Bing Video Search Revamped

"Microsoft has just announced a major revamping of Bing's video search function and a new partnership with Wolfram|Alpha, the free online data mining service."

Google Offers $5 Storage for 10,000 Photos

"Google has offered online storage for two years, but Wednesday it slashed prices drastically to $5 yearly for 20 GB, from $20 for 10 GB. Google says the cost of hard drive storage dropped, enabling it to lower fees."

Windows 7 Could Hasten Touch-Screen Computers

"As part of the company's recent launch of Windows 7, the vastly improved successor to Windows Vista, Microsoft hopes to usher in a new era for touch-based computing."

Second Life Duty Now Required for Penn State's Online Advisers

"Plenty of colleges have a presence in Second Life. Pennsylvania State University is taking that a step further. Academic advisers at the university’s online campus are now required to be available for meetings with students in the virtual world every week, a Penn State official said during last week’s Educause conference here."

Six Social Media Trends for 2010

"So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive. . ."

Virtual businesses: Going to the Office in Second Life

"As recession-minded businesses cut back on travel for employees, online communities such as Second Life are filling the void. More than 1,400 companies and agencies now use Second Life avatars to hold virtual meetings and conduct training."

Bookless Libraries?

"What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an existential discussion on the definition of libraries, as a gathering of technologists here at the 2009 Educause Conference pondered the evolution of one of higher education’s oldest institutions."

Five New Technologies That Will Change Everything

"Superfast USB, HTML 5, more will emerge as breakthroughs soon."

What Happens When Good Robots Go ‘Bad’?

"Household robots could be a means for spying, vandalism and psychological attacks, according to a study presented at the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing."

Google Providing Better View of Personal Data

"Google is offering a new privacy control that will make it easier for people to see some of the information being collected about them."

Study: Internet Use Won't Cause Social Isolation

"Although technology and the Internet have taken a beating in the past for potentially limiting people's social interaction, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the opposite might be true. According to a Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey, which polled 2,512 adults, the dawn of new technology and the Internet has not caused people to withdraw from society. In fact, the study found that 'the extent of social isolation has hardly changed since 1985, contrary to concerns that the prevalence of severe isolation has tripled since then.' Pew said that 6 percent of the entire U.S. adult population currently has 'no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be especially significant in their life."

Google Unveils Search Tool for Retail Sites

"Google introduced a new Commerce Search tool for retailers on Wednesday to try to make the online shopping experience easier for consumers as the holidays approach. . . With Commerce Search, shoppers can sort data by "category, price, brand, or any other attribute," Google said. Retailers can also offer special attention for specific products to draw consumer attention. The tool includes built-in spell-check and synonyms to help ensure people find the items they're looking for, regardless of how they spell or identify products."

CEO of the Decade: Steve Jobs

"How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley."

The Netflix of Academic Journals Opens Shop

"By opening the largest online rental service for scientific, technical, and research journals, the company Deep Dyve is hoping to do for academic publications what Netflix has done for movies: make them easily accessible and inexpensive for everyone. The Web site has been an academic-journal search engine since 2005 and unveiled its rental program this week. Now anyone can “rent” an article—which means you can view it on your computer without ownership rights or printing capabilities—for as little as 99 cents for 24 hours. Users can also subscribe for monthly passes. Currently the site has 30 million articles from various peer-reviewed journals."

Students Unimpressed with Faculty Use of Ed Tech

"While students and faculty seem to agree on the importance of technology in education, the two groups do not agree on how well it's being implemented. According to new research released Monday, only 38 percent of students indicated that their instructors 'understand technology and fully integrate it into their classes.' Students also rated that lack of understanding as 'the biggest obstacle to classroom technology integration.'"

IT Budgets Take a Hit

"Nearly half of the survey’s 500 respondents — including more than two-thirds of public universities — have pared down their IT budgets in 2009. That figure represents a reversal from 2008, when about half reported budget increases. Only 21 percent put more money into information technology this year. For the first time this decade, financing information technology registered as one of the most pressing concerns among campus technologists."

Google's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a radically changed internet five years from now: dominated by Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time."

The Global Antitrust Battle Over Google's Library

"The case presents a tangle of issues: how to create new markets for old books without shortchanging authors; how to nurture new technology without stifling competition; and how to preserve all that when one company — in this case, Google — is pioneering the revolution and could profit handsomely. One commentator, who supports the original settlement, has called it 'the World Series of antitrust.'"

A New Way of Looking at the World

"An emerging set of tools is making it easier than ever to track and compile all sorts of 'data' and display it in a way that's relatively easy to understand. You can now point your mobile phone at a street and instantly get ratings for restaurants. Or type in your address and find reports of crimes that may have occurred in your neighborhood. It's even possible to track emotions on a national and global scale."

Eight Tech Trends for 2010

"Some of the most innovative, interesting, and, well, strange tech has nothing to do with computing monoliths like Google or Microsoft. And it's just around the corner. Here's our list of the tech trends, products, and innovations that are available today — or coming online shortly — and how they'll affect your life next year."

PCs Shed Pounds and CD Drives, Gain Touch Screens

"Personal computers are changing — and not just because of the recent launch of Windows 7. Visit an electronics store and you might also find laptops are missing a familiar component. You could experiment with new ways of controlling some computers. And you'll see portable PCs slimming down."

E-Readers May Not Solve Publisher Woes Yet

"Publishers hoping to halt a slide in sales with new electronic reading devices will struggle to get consumers to embrace them until the technology improves, experts say."

Internet Believers: Pastors Open Online Churches

"The World Wide Web has become the hottest place to build a church. A growing number of congregations are creating Internet offshoots that go far beyond streaming weekly services. The sites are fully interactive, with a dedicated Internet pastor, live chat in an online 'lobby,' Bible study, one-on-one prayer through IM and communion. (Viewers use their own bread and wine or water from home.) On one site, viewers can click on a tab during worship to accept Christ as their savior. Flamingo Road Church, based in Cooper City, Fla., twice conducted long-distance baptisms through the Internet."

Facebook Spammer Ordered to Pay $711 Million

"A California judge awarded Facebook $711 million in damages against spammer Sanford Wallace for bombarding the Web site with junk messages. . .Wallace, who has also been called the 'Spam King,' accessed Facebook members' accounts without their permission and sent out "phony" Wall posts and messages, the company said."

Web Pioneer Recalls 'Birth of the Internet'

"Kleinrock holds more than a dozen patents and was awarded the National Medal of Science last year by President Bush. In an interview with CNN, the 75-year-old looks back on his achievements and peers into the exciting and sometimes scary future of the Web he helped create."