Internet

Highlighted Internet News Add to NEWS SUMMARY page

WPN

Facebook is the new threat to Google

GUARDIAN Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:05:44 GMT

In the past year, the proportion of traffic to US news sites from Facebook has tripled while that of Google News stayed static More people are coming to US news sites via Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter – supplanting Google News, which had been one of the primary sources of readers, according to research by the metrics company Hitwise. During the past year, the proportion of traffic that Facebook sends to US media sites has tripled from around 1.2% to 3.52%, while that sent by Google News has remained roughly static, at around 1.4%, says Heather Hopkins, North America analyst for Hitwise. The growing power of Facebook also means that publishers which want to demand money from – or alternatively to lock out – Google News because of claims that it "leeches" on their content could do so without fearing a dramatic impact on their reader figures. With more than 400m users, Facebook forms the newest – and most unexpected – threat to Google, say some analysts. Last weekend the search engine spent $5m on a TV advert during the Superbowl, puzzling many who do not see a threat from rival search engines such as Microsoft's Bing, which has less than half of its proportion of search queries. But Hopkins notes in a blogpost for Hitwise that: "Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch. We will continue to watch this space." Murdoch's editors and executives have repeatedly criticised aggregators such Google News, claiming it is leeching off their content by displaying snippets of their work. In the UK, the Murdoch-owned titles have gone as far as blocking access to their sites by Newsnow, a smaller news aggregator. Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, has argued that publishers should take advantage of the traffic that it sends them – pointing out that it sends about 4bn such links per year. But Facebook provides the perfect counterweight, where publishers can choose how much of their content they display and view how well it is followed. Sites such as Facebook and increasingly Twitter contribute hundreds of thousands of visits every month to UK sites, according to analysis by the Guardian. John Minnihan, the founder of the software code respository Freepository, warns that Facebook poses one of the biggest threats to Google on the web. "With recent data showing a large uptick in 'Facebook as home page', [Google] may well indeed need to remind emerging generation who/what it is. In that case, the [Superbowl] ad makes some business sense. Whatever the real reason, it has nothing to do with 'sharing video more widely'. If FB dev'ed an integrated web-wide search engine, think about how much traffic would evaporate [from Google] overnite. That's nightmare stuff." Tellingly, Minnihan's comments were made on Twitter — which Google is rumoured to be trying to compete with in a "social version" of its Gmail webmail product to be launched today. Google has already tried – and failed – to create a world-scale social network with its Orkut product, but been obliged instead to purchase access to Twitter's search results to provide real-time insight into what people are talking about. Facebook's content however lies beyond its reach – and that could be crucial in the forthcoming months as news publishers in the US and UK consider putting up higher paywalls or demanding money from aggregators. Facebook Google Search engines Internet Social networking Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

When the tech becomes unfriendly

BBC Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:11:06 GMT

Technology makes it easy for people to indulge in griefing and cyber bullying.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Webcam viewer spots rhino birth

BBC Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:49:21 GMT

Keepers at a Scottish safari park were alerted to rhino birth by a webcam viewer from Cyprus who called them to say the animal's waters had broken, it emerges.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Libya 'must halt web crackdown'

BBC Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:34:53 GMT

Libya must stop cracking down on opposition websites and other site like YouTube, Human Rights Watch says.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Cambridge benefits as Google starts funding university research

GUARDIAN Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:30:01 GMT

Google has finally joined the ranks of technology companies that invest in university research, and its first $5.7m in Google Focused Research Awards will benefit the University of Cambridge Computer Lab, among others Google has announced its first serious funding for university research, with $5.7m going to 12 projects led by 31 professors at 10 universities. Only one of these is outside the US: the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory will get some funds for its Computing for the Future of the Planet research, led by Professor Andy Hopper. Cambridge isn't saying how much it will get ("a six figure sum"), but grants range between $100,000 and $1.5m. Google is supporting four areas that it says "are of key interest to Google as well as the research community". Half the awards are concerned with energy efficiency in computing -- one of Goole's primary interests -- with the other areas being machine learning, the use of mobile phones as data collection devices for public health and environment monitoring, and privacy. Professor Hopper, whose research comes in the privacy category, says the awards "place no restrictions or constraints on the funded research". However, privacy will be increasingly important to Google as it gets access to ever-larger amounts of personal data. No doubt there will also be spin-off benefits for Google as it increases its contact with bright students -- potential employees -- and introduces them to Google technologies. There's a long tradition of technology companies funding university research, particularly in the US, so it's good to see Google joining in. The Cambridge Computer Lab is based in the William Gates Building, which received "a substantial donation" from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's next door to Microsoft Research Cambridge. Google Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Click and give

BBC Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:56:05 GMT

Fundraising websites are now a popular way of collecting money for a good cause. But what impact have they had on sponsoring people and have they helped charities?

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Apple iPad: Why some will wait for later versions

GUARDIAN Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Along with complaints of brief battery life, reports have also surfaced online that the iPhone 3Gs can get hot during usage Apple's unerring sense for the zeitgeist ensures the company has millions of drooling early adopters queueing up to buy its offerings as soon as they hit the market. But some Apple addicts believe it is better to wait a generation or so with any new device for any problems to be sorted out. And despite enjoying massive success and sales over the last few years, some of the US firm's flagship products have not been entirely trouble free. The iPod nano may have taken the MP3 market by storm when it was launched in 2005, but some early users were quick to report problems. Some complained that the screens broke, while others noted how easily they became scratched. Apple put the broken screens down to "a vendor quality problem in a small number of units" affecting less than 0.1% of all the nanos sold, and offered to replace them. Customers who complained of scratching were advised to "use one of the many iPod nano cases to protect their iPod". More recently the iPhone has come under scrutiny. Along with complaints of brief battery life, reports have also surfaced online that the iPhone 3GS can get hot during usage. In a statement on its website Apple noted that the automatic temperature warning could come on if the device was left in a car on a hot day, left in direct sunlight, or if certain applications were used in hot conditions or direct sunlight for long periods. Apple Tablet computers Sam Jones guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Breakfast briefing: Gates goes for Google, while Sun's Schwartz considers his future

GUARDIAN Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:00:00 GMT

• Bill Gates managed to make plenty of headlines with his comment that Chinese censorship was "very limited" - but he wasn't finished there. Dropping by the offices of the New York Times yesterday, Gates said that Google had "done nothing and gotten a lot of credit for it" (pretty much true) and said he didn't understand the point that Google was trying to make in its wrangle with Beijing (surely disingenuous). • Given his recent email to the troops at Sun Microsystems ahead of the company's takeover by Oracle (a message which urged them to "emotionally resign from Sun"), it's no surprise that speculation is building that Jonathan Schwartz is getting ready to step down from his post. The news could come by Wednesday, when Larry Ellison is hosting an event at Oracle HQ to outline future strategy. • You may know the name of Robin Dunbar from his famous number describing the number of relationships that a primate can viably maintain (it's 150, if you didn't know). But despite suggestions that websites like Facebook could help us broaden our ability to talk with each other, it turns out that the internet doesn't make Dunbar's number bigger. His latest preliminary study shows that while we can maintain many more weak ties thanks to social networks, the number of meaningful relationships doesn't change. You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (@guardiantech, or our personal accounts) or by watching our Delicious feed. Bill Gates Google Internet Sun Microsystems Research and development Social networking Oracle Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

UK top 10 video games chart | Week ending 23 January 2010

GUARDIAN Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:40:00 GMT

Gamers are still dancing the night away this week, rather than shooting people in the face ... Leisure software charts compiled by GfK Chart Track © 2009 ELSPA (UK) Ltd Games Nintendo Sony Microsoft Wii PlayStation Xbox guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

China builds up Great Firewall as economy grows

GUARDIAN Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:24:00 GMT

It is becoming, some people joke, the world's largest intranet. Over the last year, creeping internet restrictions have seen some of the west's best-known services – such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – put off limits to users in China by the Great Firewall. Even using proxies and virtual private networks to leap over the wall has become harder.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

US to seek world cyber crackdown

BBC Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:24:04 GMT

The US is calling for tough action against perpetrators of cyber attacks, after Google is allegedly hacked in China.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Was Twitter brought down by Bill Gates?

GUARDIAN Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:34:16 GMT

A longer-than-usual Twitter outage has prompted speculation about the causes – is Bill Gates to blame? Twitter has been down this morning, which always gets addicts asking themselves two important questions: Whose fault is it? and How long does Twitter have to be down before it prompts a blogpost? (People smarter than me probably have a pre-written story so they can blog it before Twitter comes back up.) The latest extended outage cast suspicion on Twitter newbie Bill Gates, characterised in last night's blog post as pulling in users like a black hole. But that seems a little unlikely, if only because the idea has been punted by the Daily Telegraph. Twitter survived the arrival of Oprah, tweeting live on her TV show, and no Seattle nerd – not even Seattle's richest nerd – has Oprah's mass-market pulling power. (See my graph.) Another theory was suggested in comments to TechCrunch's Twitter-is-down story, and posted by John Carnell at TechnicaVita. He wrote: The last big event around 1 minute before the site failed was that an aftershock in Haiti measuring 6.1 had just struck. I think we might have just seen Twitter overloaded as that single fact was retweeted across the network. Meanwhile, Twitter itself resorted to blaming innocent marine life*, as usual. Its status update said, simply: We are experiencing an outage due to an extremely high number of whales. Our on-call team is working on a fix. Will we ever know the answer? If so, will anyone care? The problem is that when Twitter is down, there's not much for some folk to do except write Twitter-is-down blog posts. However, Twitter being down means that there's no way to tweet those Twitter-is-down blog posts, and thus reach the only audience that gives a hoot. Not you, obv. * See The Story of the Fail Whale at ReadWriteWeb Bill Gates Twitter Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

How will a New York Times paywall work?

GUARDIAN Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:44:25 GMT

If web rumours are correct, the NYT is about to announce a Financial Times-style paywall by metering its online readers The New York Times is said to be close to announcing that it will adopt the Financial Times's system of metered access, under which users are allowed to see a few pieces of content free each month and then asked to subscribe. The debate inside the paper seems settled, at least according to New York magazine's Daily Intel blog, which says that the company's chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, will be announced within weeks. There is speculation that the decision will be announced at the same time as a content partnership for the new Apple tablet computer, which is expected to launch on 27 January. Several magazines have already unveiled digital editions tailored for tablet viewing, but no prominent newspaper has yet followed suit. The advantage attributed to a metered model is that it would allow NYTimes.com to extract money from heavy users while preserving its impressive reach: it had 16 million monthly unique users in Nielsen Online's November figures, enough to rank it fifth – guardian.co.uk, by way of comparison, had 5.4 million users on the same measure. Denise Warren, the general manager of NYTimes.com, has said before: "If we move in this direction, we want to make sure that we're not dipping into the advertising bucket to get money out of the subscriber bucket." The paywall debate started in August last year, when Rupert Murdoch decided to move News Corp's newspaper sites behind a paywall beginning with the relaunch of the Times website in spring. The New York Times has some experience with paywalls. In 2005 it brought in a subscription system called TimesSelect, which asked readers to pay $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year for the paper's opinion columns and web-only writing from big-name writers. It gathered about 227,000 subscribers, from a monthly unique user base then measured at 13 million. But the company brought the project to an end in September 2007, believing that it could make more money with the online advertising revenue from a larger audience. But with the recession forcing cuts in the NYT newsroom, and Rupert Murdoch advocating paywalls in public, the idea came back to life. The internal debate has gone on for months now, balancing the risk of losing traffic – and with it advertising – against the fear that advertising alone will never pay for a journalistic operation on the scale of the New York Times. Advertising decline during the recession has certainly made the idea of a paywall more attractive. The decision will have immense effect on the strategic positioning of the New York Times – and could rearrange the pecking order of English-language news organisations on the internet. "The Times could have fought to become the preeminent news brand on earth, fighting it out with the BBC for that title. Instead, I fear, it will duck into its shell as the Washington Post has," said the American web evangelist and MediaGuardian columnist Jeff Jarvis. The New York Times declined to comment, saying it will announce its decision when it is ready. New York Times Charging for content US press and publishing Digital media Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Mercedes Bunz guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Internet censorship in China

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:04:31 GMT

The creep of internet censorship in China: a timeline of the last 12 months January China launches a crackdown on "vulgar" websites including Google that it says have failed to censor inappropriate content. As the drive intensifies, observers warn it is affecting politically sensitive content too. Later in the month, Chinese media censors the inauguration speech of the US president, Barack Obama: state TV cuts away from the live feed after a reference to communism and leading websites remove the word from translated texts.March China blocks YouTube after denouncing as "a lie" footage appearing to show security forces beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year.June China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail days ahead of the 20th anniversary on the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Later in the month it blocks Google services, with search functions and Gmail inaccessible for over an hour. The biggest news of all is the massive outcry as the government orders PC makers to install its controversial censorship software, Green Dam. Following complaints from internet users, businesses and foreign governments the authorities back down, saying it will not be compulsory.July Internet access is cut across the entire north-western region, home to more than 19 million people, after deadly ethnic riots in its capital. Some sites are later restored but as of January 2010 access remains extremely restricted. Facebook reports access problems and remains inaccessible from China as of January 2010. Later in the month the government says it plans to implement a five-year programme advocating clean online games, starting in 2010. It bans websites featuring or publicising online games that "glamorise mafia gangs".August The government drops its plan to install the controversial Green Dam software on every new computer sold in China, despite official comments the previous month that it would go ahead after all.September It emerges that news websites in China have begun requiring new users to register their true identities before allowing them to post comments.November Obama criticises internet controls during his visit to China, describing himself as "a big supporter of non-censorship".December The government says its campaign against pornography on the web and through mobile Wap sites will continue until May 2010. It later emerges China has issued new internet regulations, including what some interpret as an attempt to create a "whitelist" of approved websites that could potentially place much of the internet off-limits to Chinese readers, and ordering domain management institutions and internet service providers to tighten controls over domain name registration. At the end of the month police say the crackdown on internet porn has brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations during 2009. China Censorship Internet Google Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Hundreds of hits for rape website

BBC Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:30:50 GMT

A police website offering advice and support on rape awareness over the festive season attracts hundreds of hits.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Advert in memory of bullied girl

BBC Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:21:54 GMT

An advert created in memory of a Macclesfield teenager, who took an overdose of pills after being bullied, will be broadcast on the internet.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Nintendo DSi XL gets European launch date

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:41:56 GMT

All the fun of the DSi but bigger - and due in March Nintendo has announced the launch date of its latest DS update. The Nintendo DSi XL, sporting two 4.2 inch screens (93% bigger than the screen on the Nintendo DS Lite) will arrive in Europe on March 5. The overhauled device also boasts a wider viewing angle, and a more pen-like stylus - great for those of us with three-year-olds who lose the small ones down the back of the sofa on a daily basis. The DS newcomer will ship in two colours - 'wine red' and the attractive-sounding 'dark brown'. According to Nintendo's press release, there's "a glossy sheen" on top and a matt finish on the underside, "that provides excellent grip when resting on a table or other surface during gameplay". As an added bonus the unit comes pre-installed with two DSiware titles - Dr Kawashima's: Little Bit of Brain Training: Arts Edition and Dictionary 6 in 1 with Camera Function. The Nintendo DSi Browser is also included to allow for internet access via a Wi-Fi connection. The device has been drawing positive responses from initially skeptical reviewers. Screen quality is apparently excellent, and the larger screens help with the precise moves in games like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. The general consensus is, this is a DS for those who play mostly at home, rather than gamers who want to take their handheld everywhere. Either that or you're going to need a bigger pocket. Games Nintendo Handheld Keith Stuart guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

China attack on Google 'routine'

BBC Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:59:04 GMT

Attacks on companies and individuals in China happen every day say security experts.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Manchester to gain fibre network

BBC Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:33:57 GMT

A new broadband network for Manchester will give local businesses and residents speeds of 100Mbps.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

China responds to Google hacking claims

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:41:03 GMT

• China says it opposes hacking and has suffered cyber attacks • Google feared dissidents were at risk from surveillance Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese service after realising dissidents were at risk from attempts to use the company's technology for political surveillance, according to a source with direct knowledge of the internet giant's most senior management. China this morning issued a statement saying it resolutely opposed hacking and was itself a victim of cyber-attacks, in its first response to Google's hacking claims. In a statement posted on the state council information office website, cabinet spokesman Wang Chen reminded companies of their need to abide by internet controls, citing their "social responsibilities". The remarks did not mention Google directly. The source told the Guardian the company's decision was largely influenced by the experiences of Sergey Brin's Russian refugee background. The Google co-founder "felt this very personally", the source said. "The notion that somebody would try to turn Google's tools into tools of political surveillance was something he found deeply offensive." When it became clear that the cyber attacks were about political surveillance, people at the very top of the company "decided they no longer wanted to participate in this kind of behaviour," said the source. "It was felt that whether it's censorship or whether it's surveillance or threats to people who speak out this is all about suppression of free speech and was something the company no longer felt in conscience they could stand by that." The US government intervened in the confrontation yesterday, urging Beijing to answer Google's claim of a massive hacking attack. Chinese authorities initially responded cautiously to Google's announcement. In the government's first public remarks, an official said it was "seeking more information". The unnamed official from China's state council information office – the cabinet spokesman's office – added: "It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows." It is thought that as many as 20 other companies including internet and mobile phone businesses were also being attacked in order to carry out political surveillance, or industrial espionage, according to the source. Google acknowledged that it might have to withdraw from China. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said: "We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy." Google is understood to want to try to work with Beijing, according to the senior company source, who added it was "hopeful that they can accept that this is a new century, it's a new time. I don't think it's the Chinese government as a whole … but I think there are some left over elements of totalitarianism in China, be it in government or be it in hackers or what not. But those elements – it's time for them to go. It's time the Chinese people had unfettered access to information." In a CNBC interview, David Drummond, senior vice-president of corporate development, chief legal officer, and author of the Google announcement, said: "We are not saying one way or the other whether the attacks are state-sponsored or done with any approval of the state. "We do know that it was very organised and the attack came from China and political dissidents and people interested in human rights in China were clearly targeted." Google spoke to the Chinese government yesterday but has not disclosed what form the contact took or who was involved. "We have talked to the Chinese authorities and we will be talking to them more in the coming days," it said. The Google source said the company decided to move quickly once it realised what was happening because they felt "a moral obligation to....

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google the latest victim of Chinese 'state-sponsored' cyberwar

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:05:00 GMT

MI5 and US intelligence warned their top firms long ago about China's 'government-backed hacking' Just over two years ago the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, wrote to about 300 British firms warning them to be wary of Chinese hackers trying to monitor their systems or break into them remotely via the internet: Rolls-Royce, the jet engine maker, and Royal Dutch Shell had both fallen victim to computer intrusions. It was only part of an ongoing strategy of "information warfare" that China's government – through its People's Liberation Army (PLA) – is carrying out across the world. The latest targets in a scheme appear to be companies in Silicon Valley, where companies including Google and Adobe, which makes hugely popular Flash software (used for the vast majority of video online, such as the BBC's iPlayer and YouTube), have discovered intrusions into the computers where they store their "source code" – the millions of lines of programming, readable by humans, that comprise their software. Those are, effectively, their crown jewels: if they fall into rivals' hands, the programs can be copied, altered, or produced for free under another name. For America's hi-tech firms, the idea that their source code falls into Chinese hands is the worst nightmare: intellectual property protection is notoriously poor in China, and the code could be rewritten into a piece of Chinese software – or even sold on the world market to compete with the original. What makes it most worrying is that the hackers have the sanction of Beijing (though it always denies any link). A briefing paper produced in October by the US military security firm Northrop Grumman for the US-China Economic and Security Commission looked in detail at Beijing's strategy, including a roundup of hacking from China over the past 10 years. Its summary was bleak, predicting a world of "information warfare" via the internet, using a strategy it dubbed "integrated network electronic warfare": "The PLA is training and equipping its force to use a variety of [internet warfare] tools for intelligence gathering and to establish information dominance over its adversaries during a conflict. PLA campaign doctrine identifies the early establishment of information dominance over an enemy as one of the highest operational priorities in a conflict; Inew appears designed to support this objective." Such warfare is carried out by expert hackers with a range of skills: some will know how to hack into web servers, while others are skilled at finding previously undiscovered weaknesses – known as "zero-day vulnerabilities" – in commercial software. Standard antivirus and warning systems simply won't detect their use, meaning that computers can be compromised without warning. Northrop Grumman did not think it was lone hackers with a grudge against the west, either: "The depth of resources necessary to sustain the scope of computer network exploitation targeting the US and many countries around the world coupled with the extremely focused targeting of defence engineering data, US military operational information, and China-related policy information is beyond the capabilities or profile of virtually all organised cybercriminal enterprises and is difficult at best without some type of state sponsorship." In other words: though China might deny it, Beijing is behind the intrusions – such as Titan Rain, the name the Pentagon has given to a series of attacks since 2003 on groups such as Lockheed Martin, Nasa and the Sandia National Laboratories. Or the attempts to "phish" members of the UK parliament in autumn 2005. What makes it obvious that these are state-sponsored attacks, as Northrop Grumman notes, is that the information being targeted is not credit card or bank account details but engineering, source code, and detail about military preparedness and networks. According to the US Air Force, by 2007 the Chinese had "exfiltrated" (copied back to their own computers) at least 10 to 20........

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Timeline: Chinese internet censorship over the last year

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:17:38 GMT

From a crackdown on "vulgarity" to a white list of approved websites January: China launches a crackdown on vulgar websites that have failed to censor inappropriate content including Google. As the drive intensifies, observers warn it is affecting politically sensitive content too. Later that month, Chinese the media censors US president Barack Obama's inauguration speech: state TV cuts away from live feed after a reference to communism and leading websites remove word from translated text. March: China blocks YouTube after denouncing as "a lie" footage that appears to show security forces beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year. June: China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Later that month it blocks Google's services, with search functions and Gmail inaccessible for more than an hour. The biggest news of all is the outcry as the government orders PC makers to install its censorship software, Green Dam. But following complaints from internet users, businesses and foreign governments, the authorities back down, saying they will not be compulsory July: Internet access is cut across north-west China, home to more than 19 million people, after deadly ethnic riots in its capital, Urumqi Some sites are later restored, but as of January 2010 access remains restricted. Facebook reports access problems and will remain inaccessible from China as of January 2010. Later that month the government says it plans to implement a five-year program advocating clean online games, starting in 2010. It also bans websites that feature or publicise online games that "glamorise mafia gangs" August: The government drops its plan to install the Green Dam software on every new computer sold in China, despite official comments the previous month that it would go ahead after all September: News websites in China are requiring new users to register their true identities before allowing them to post comments, it emerges. November: Obama criticises internet controls during his visit to China, describing himself as "a big supporter of non-censorship". December: The government says its campaign against pornography on the web and through mobile WAP sites will continue until May 2010, state news agency Xinhua reported. It later emerges China has issued new internet regulations, including what some interpret as an attempt to create a "white list" of approved websites that could potentially place much of the internet off limits to Chinese readers and ordering domain management institutions and internet service providers to tighten control over domain name registration. At the end of the month, police say the crackdown on internet porn has brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009. China Internet Censorship Google Barack Obama Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google's move on Chinese censorship welcomed by human rights activists

GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:30:00 GMT

Free speech advocates see turning point in corporate America's relations with China Google's decision to reverse its censorship of search engine results in China received a warm welcome in Silicon Valley last night. Human rights campaigners, freedom of speech advocates and dotcom entrepreneurs all applauded the Californian company's decision to stop cooperating with the Chinese government. The move, which threatens to end the internet giant's business in China after four troubled years, was seen by many as a turning point in the relationship between corporate America and Beijing. Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet law at Harvard and a prominent anti-censorship activist, said he thought Google could wield significant influence in a fight to bring more uncensored information to Chinese citizens. "In a world in which we are so used to public relations massaging of messages, this stands out as a direct declaration. It's amazing," he said. "I think the Chinese are going to say, 'bye-bye Google' – but just think about what happens if Google's engineers set about making information as accessible as possible in China." Others agreed the company was beginning what could be a wider shift in attitudes. John Battelle, a former managing editor of Wired magazine who covered the rise of Google in his 2005 book The Search, said others could follow. "In this case, Google is again taking a leadership role, and the company is forcing China's hand," he wrote on his blog. "This is politics at its finest, and it's a very clear statement to China: we're done playing the game your way." While many threw their support behind Google's decision to stop censoring its search index, others – particularly those with significant business interests in China – were more circumspect. Most of the company's major rivals – including Microsoft – refused to comment on Google's announcement, while Yahoo released a terse statement in which it denounced the hacking attacks that Google said had prompted the decision. "Yahoo is committed to protecting human rights, privacy and security," said the company. "We condemn any attempts to infiltrate company networks to obtain user information. We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as internet pioneers must all oppose." Microsoft and Yahoo have been criticised in the past for their activities in China, which have included removing websites belonging to dissidents, and the handing over of information which led to the jailing of several outspoken critics of the government. In 2007, a congressional inquiry criticised Yahoo's complicity in the imprisonment of Chinese journalist Shi Tao, leading to claims that Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang – who was born in Taiwan – had acted as a "moral pygmy" by bowing to pressure from Beijing. But while some leading technology companies have colluded with the Chinese government to silence its political opponents, others have been even more intimately involved in attempts to disrupt and silence dissidents. At the same time that Google was announcing its decision to lift the ban on certain words and phrases, Cisco Systems – which was instrumental in building the systems used in the Great Firewall of China – announced plans to increase investment in its businesses in the country. Sarah Lacy, author of the book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley, and writer for the influential Silicon Valley blog Techcrunch, said Google's decision was a pragmatic example of dotcom realpolitik, pointing out that Google's business was not doing well in China. "They're taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view," she wrote. "I'm not saying human rights didn't play into the decision, but this was as much about business." Google China Censorship Search........

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google challenge to China over censorship

GUARDIAN Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:02:46 GMT

Beijing yet to respond to search engine's move apparently prompted by hacking of human rights activists' Gmail accounts Google has thrown down the gauntlet to China by saying it is no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service. The world's leading search engine said the decision followed a cyber-attack that it believes was aimed at gathering information on Chinese human rights activists. It also cited a clampdown on the internet in China over the past year. Its statement raised the prospect of closing Google.cn and potentially its offices in China. The Chinese government issued its first, cautious response several hours after the announcement, saying it was "seeking more information". In a statement published via the state news agency Xinhua, an unnamed official from China's state council information office ‑ the cabinet spokesman's office ‑ added: "It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows." The two sides spoke . Google confirmed: "We have talked to the Chinese authorities and we will be talking to them more in the coming days." Google acknowledged that its decision to stop self-censoring "may well mean" the closure of Google.cn and its offices in China. That is an understatement, given that to launch Google.cn it had to agree to censor sensitive material, such as details of human rights groups and references to the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The US government upped the stakes when it stepped into the row, with the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, urging the Chinese to respond to Google's hacking claims. Google was in contact with the US state department ahead of its announcement. Department spokesman PJ Crowley said: "Every nation has an obligation, regardless of the origin of malicious cyber-activities, to keep its part of the network secure. That includes China. Every nation should criminalise malicious activities on computer networks." In a post on the official Google Blog, the company outlined a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack in December which it believes affected at least 20 other companies: "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered, combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web, have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all." Human Rights Watch praised the decision and urged other firms to follow suit in challenging censorship. "A transnational attack on privacy is chilling, and Google's response sets a great example," said Arvind Ganesan, director of the group's corporations and human rights programme. In China, some websites carried accounts of Google's decision, although they did not mention the cyber-attacks. News portals were reportedly told to downgrade the issue, although the Guardian saw articles on major sites including Sina.com. But while many seemed to welcome the firm's decision ‑ some left flowers at the entrance to its Beijing headquarters ‑ others attacked it. One poster, Weiwoguyan, wrote: "Since you are in China you need to obey Chinese law … Do not use it to threaten China." A prominent liberal blogger, Ran Yunfei, wrote on his blog: "Google leaving China is definitely not good news." Comparing the decision to dissidents who choose to emigrate, he added: "Those are obedient citizens and [their choice] is satisfactory to the authorities." Google claimed the cyber-attack originated from China and that its intellectual property was stolen, but that evidence suggested a primary goal was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Its inquiry had shown that, separately, the Gmail accounts of dozens of human.......

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

How Google censors its results in China

GUARDIAN Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:44:13 GMT

For the Chinese regime, self-censorship by firms such as Google is frequently more reliable than the official 'Great Firewall' Google does not like to talk openly about the technology behind its censored Chinese search engine, but plenty is known about how the internet giant has filtered material for the past four years. The basic system that the company uses to build its google.cn website is exactly the same as elsewhere in the world: a piece of software – known as a spider – that travels around the web, reading the pages it finds and putting them into a sprawling search index. In most countries, the spider simply collects everything it finds online and files it away in Google's vast library. But for its Chinese site, Google has very specific rules about which pages and websites it keeps in the index, and which it leaves out. The local government keeps a list of words and phrases that it has banned from local search engines, such as human rights, genocide and 4 June (the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre). The Communist party also blocks a number of swear words and sexual phrases that it believes to be "vulgar" or "harmful". But in addition to the basic list of banned terms provided by the country's internet censor – which is called the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC) – Google also employs two other methods to screen out information likely to be deemed dangerous by the government in Beijing. First, Google can block entire websites known to carry so-called offensive content. This allows blanket bans of large sites, particularly news websites, which may carry stories and pages that trouble officials. A basic search for any content carried on the BBC, for example, is highly unlikely to turn up any results. Secondly, the company will remove specific web addresses – single pages within a larger site – that are known to carry dangerous content. This method is used to effectively erase information from websites whose complete absence would leave a gaping hole, leaving users the impression of a fully functioning website that just has a few missing pieces. Google is far from being the only company that has worked under with self-censorship inside China. As well as homegrown companies, who must comply or be run out of business, foreign corporations such as Microsoft and Yahoo have acted to censor themselves. With the threat of intervention looming over the heads of those who fail to successfully filter out dangerous information, companies often act extremely conservatively – removing more than officials have demanded – to avoid any chance of offending the CIIRC. The benefits of this panopticon system for the Chinese government are clear, particularly since self-censorship is often even more pernicious and successful than its own attempts to filter the web. The Chinese government's own "Great Firewall" – part of the Golden Shield Project first mooted in the late 1990s – is in many respects a hit-and-miss technology. Its application is often uneven and regionalised: users in some parts of the country will find certain websites and keywords blocked, while others elsewhere may be able to access the same information without problem. But when self-censorship takes place, as it has with Google since 2006, there is no difference, no fault lines and no variations, because the questionable information simply never goes into the record. The overall result means that whereas a Chinese visitor to google.com may find that certain pages or results simply do not load when clicked, anyone using google.cn will see a different set of sanitised answers (Google.com links to a Wikipedia page about the protests; Google.cn links to an inoffensive page that says the rumoured riots "did not happen"). So while a search of Google.com produces a broken facsimile of the internet, anyone searching Google's Chinese website for information about the Tiananmen Square massacre would never know that pages had been........

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google pulls out of China: what the bloggers are saying

GUARDIAN Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:31:00 GMT

China's bloggers support Google's decision to challenge censors but some criticise its tactics Chinese bulletin boards and microblogs have been buzzing all day with chatter about Google's announcement. The vast majority either supported Google's decision to challenge the censors or expressed regret at the possible loss of a cherished search engine, but there was also criticism of the US firm's business tactics. Here is a translation of selected posts on the Sina microblog, which is inside the Great Fire Wall: "Just heard Google may quit China. I couldn't believe it. Google has become a trusted friend. Whenever I've got a question I refer to it. You might say I grew up with Google. I hope this unexpected news is not true. If Google really gives up on the Chinese market, it will be a big loss for Chinese netizens." Celilia Jing. "Google quitting China is a case of survival of the fittest. If you can't hack it, then you are knocked out. Baidu must be laughing secretly. Although they have also just been attacked by hackers, they can now have a bigger share of the cake because Google is gone." Liangjian99. "Do Chinese people really need Google so much? It's only a symbol. Don't be so stupid and arouse the public feeling." Da Jiang "Google can't leave China! Since last year, I have been using so many of its products for work. How can it leave? I feel sad, but I am practical. I will try to find alternative software so that I don't need to climb over the firewall to use the English version." yaolaner. "China is a country governed by the rule of law. As long as you are in China you must obey Chinese law and be supervised by the government. Do not threaten China. I think that is the bottom line and if they cannot manage that, then I won't use Google in the future. weiwoguyan. On the Twittersphere, which is available in China only to those who are willing and able to get around the Great Fire Wall, Google was widely applauded, though there was some cynicism about its business motives. "Technology genius, you can never use your talent in a big intranet monitored by bureaucrats. You can only do nothing or do evil. Please go abroad, for the sake of China's future!" @mranti. "Compared with Yahoo's past behaviour, such as [former Yahoo boss] Yang Zhiyuan handing over dissidents' email details, Google statement is very manly. How can anyone not love Google!" @newsinchina Google China Internet Censorship Privacy & the media Twitter Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

'Iranian Cyber Army' hackers paralyse Chinese search engine

GUARDIAN Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:54:22 GMT

'Cyber Army' hackers target Baidu sparking retaliatory attack from Chinese hackers, but internet users puzzled by online battle Hackers calling themselves the "Iranian Cyber Army" paralysed China's biggest search engine this morning, sparking a bizarre online battle as Chinese hackers apparently retaliated by targeting Iranian sites. Last month the group attacked Twitter, which has been used by Iranian opposition supporters. But Beijing and Tehran are allies and it was not immediately obvious why hackers targeted Baidu, which commands over 60% of the search market in China. Some Chinese internet users speculated that it might be in retaliation against Chinese Twitter users who have used a £CN4Iran hashtag to express their support for reformists. Although Twitter is blocked in China, it is used by several thousand people there through proxies or virtual private networks (VPN) – networks that use the internet to connect remote sites or users together. "It's the same warning showed to twitter.com … but I'm not very sure how you would connect this to £CN4Iran. Baidu is a very weird choice," said Michael Anti, an influential Chinese blogger. The search engine is widely regarded as having good relations with the Beijing government and has never been associated with sensitive content. That led other internet users to speculate that foreign hackers were attempting to discredit Iran. China's state-run People's Daily website reported that Baidu's website began redirecting to a site attributed to the Iranian Cyber Army at around 8am (midnight GMT). The People's Daily site published a screen grab showing a message reading "This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army", alongside a picture of the Iranian flag. Other users said they could not open the Baidu site, but it was back up and running by around 11.30. In a statement, the company said: "Services on Baidu's main website www.baidu.com were interrupted today due to external manipulation of its DNS (Domain Name Server) in the US. Baidu has been resolving this issue and the majority of services have been restored." As news of the attack spread, other hackers targeted Iranian websites. On the room98.ir website, beneath a large Chinese flag, a message from the "Chinese Honker Team" read: "This morning your Iranian Cyber Army intrusion [sic] our baidu.com … Please tell your so-called Iranian Cyber Army … Don't intrusion Chinese website about the United States authorities to intervene the internal affairs of Iran's response … This is a warning!" A message on the iribu.ir website read: "The People's Republic of China long live … Oppose splitting Safeguarding unity." Other targets reportedly included the website of a national wrestling team. "They seem to be choosing them randomly – the content is in Farsi, so they don't necessarily know what they are," said Anti. Although the message left on Twitter by the Iranian Cyber Army suggested it was sympathetic to the government, experts told Reuters last month that it was unlikely Tehran was involved. Hacking China Iran Search engines Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

'Iranian cyber army' hits Baidu

BBC Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:23:01 GMT

The hackers who took Twitter offline last year have now targeted China's most popular search engine, Baidu.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google News puts experiments on front page – and stops adding AP stories

GUARDIAN Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:09:48 GMT

Google gives its visual news experiments greater prominence, while quietly ceasing to update its AP content Google integrated two of its news experiments, Fast Flip and Living Stories, into the US homepage of Google News today. Living Stories, a project developed with the New York Times and the Washington Post, is on the upper right next to Top Stories, while Fast Flip (picture above) is right down at the bottom of the page. Both experiments should now see their audiences widen considerably. "Encouraged by the positive feedback we've received from users and partners, we decided to expose the service to more potential readers by integrating it with the US English version of Google News," software engineers Jack Hebert, Matthew Watson and Corrie Scalisi wrote about Fast Flip on the Google news blog. Fast Flip is Google's visual approach to news aggregation and was introduced in September. It features about 50 newspapers, magazines, web outlets, newswires and TV and radio broadcasters from the US and the UK. "Fast Flip is still in Google Labs, so we'll continue to experiment with the format. But so far we've found that the speed and visual nature of the service encourages readers to look at many articles and, for the ones that catch their interest, click through to the story publishers' websites." Meanwhile, it has become apparent that new Associated Press stories are no longer appearing on the site, which has hosted them since 2007. Google hasn't added new AP content since December 24. Asked for the reason, Google was somewhat evasive: "We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. Some of that content is still available today. At the moment we're not adding new hosted content from the AP." Google hosted material produced by the AP along with other news agencies directly on Google News for 30 days from August 2007, but the agreement is set to expire at the end of January. As AP and Google are in the process of renegotiating their licensing agreement, paidContent suggests this might be not be a good sign on the progress of the talks. The search engine has ongoing licensing agreements with the Canadian Press, Agence France Presse and the UK's Press Association, as well as with several members of the European Pressphoto Agency. Associated Press Digital media News agencies Google Internet Search engines Mercedes Bunz guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

CES 2010: Privacy no longer a social norm, says Facebook founder

GUARDIAN Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:58:24 GMT

The rise of social networking online means that people no longer have an expectation of privacy, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Talking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this weekend, the 25-year-old dotcom chief executive of the world's most popular social network said that privacy was no longer a "social norm". "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," he said. "That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." Zuckerberg said that the rise of social media online reflected changing attitudes among ordinary people, adding that this radical change has happened in just a few years. "When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'." "Then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way, and just all these different services that have people sharing all this information." His statement may not be a surprise, particularly since it helps to justify the company's recent - and highly controverisal – decision to change the privacy settings of its 350m users. But it also represents a remarkable shift from where the Californian company originally started out. Launched in 2004 as an exclusive network for Ivy League students, the site grew in part because allowed people to communicate privately – or at least among small groups of friends. The constant tug of war between public and private information that ensued led to a series of embarrassing incidents where individuals published information online thinking it was private, only to have it reach the public. These episodes are partly the result of the way people use Facebook, which has changed its service on several occasions in recent years. Each time the site brings more information into the public domain – and at each point it faces a series of protests and adverse reactions from users. Moves included the decision in 2006 to introduce the "news feed" – an update of people's activities that is now central to Facebook's service. A year later it launched Beacon, a contentious advertising system that allowed advertisers to track your activities online. That eventually led to a $9.5m court settlement, but it did not prevent the company from bringing in new privacy changes in December that one campaign group called "plain ugly". In his talk at CES, however, Zuckerberg said it was important for companies like his to reflect the changing social norms in order to remain relevant and competitive. "A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built," he said. "Doing a privacy change for 350m users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do." "But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it." Not everybody agrees. Marshall Kirkpatrick of the technology industry blog ReadWriteWeb said Zuckerberg's statement was "not a believeable explanation" and pointed to the company's complicity in changing the way people think about online privacy. Meanwhile, others have rejected the idea that younger people, in particular, are less concerned about privacy. Last month Microsoft researcher and social networking expert Danah Boyd told the Guardian that such assumptions often misunderstood the reasons that people put private information online. "Kids have always cared about privacy, it's just that their notions of privacy look very different than adult notions," she said. "As adults, by and large, we think of the home as a very private space… for young people it's not a private space. They have no control over who comes in and out of their room, or who comes in and out of their.....

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Couch time may cut life short, study suggests

CTV 12 Jan 2010

If you ever needed a reason to turn off that sitcom and go out for a walk, here's one: a new study finds that for every hour of TV someone watches, their risk of dying early from heart disease goes up more than 10 per cent.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

'Twitter Oscars' open for public votes

GUARDIAN Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:52:59 GMT

The voting has begun for the second annual Shorty Awards – which honour the best writers on Twitter Oh no. Oh yes! And it's serious! Yesterday, the voting for the second annual Shorty Awards honouring the best writers on Twitter began. Categories range from serious topics such as government, health and politics to lighter ones such as music, culture, celebrities and humour. At March's awards ceremony the winners will be revealed – after they have been determined by a combination of popular vote and the members of the Real-Time Academy of shortform arts and sciences including the MIT Media Lab's director Frank Moss, the President and CEO of the Knight Foundation, Alberto Ibargüen, and the Creative Commons, CEO Joi Ito. Yes, it is serious and not a PR stunt. In fact, the Shorty Awards do a good job to be the Twitter equivalent of the Oscars. Anyone can nominate people and organisations who have excelled on Twitter over the past year. To nominate, Twitterers can send a tweet which should at least include #shortyawards @username #category and a creative reason for the nomination, or simply use the voting box on the website. There are 26 official categories from journalist to news and tech, food, advertisement, apps or customer service completed by community-created ones. The rules are simple: to vote or receive votes you need to have a valid, active and public Twitter account. That's it. Campaigning is allowed – and I guess necessary – to finish among the five users with the highest rank in each official category who become finalists. Last year's awards received more than 50,000 nominations. Among the winners were Nasa in the science category for tweeting the unmanned Mars Phoenix Lander mission and @PeggyOlson, of Mad Men, in the advertising category. March's awards ceremony will be held in New York. It is still unknown who will be speaking and presenting gongs. So get voting, Twitterers. There's a free flight to New York up for grabs for the winners, and of course the glory of holding aloft a Shorty. Twitter Digital media Mercedes Bunz guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Talk to Google's new cell, it types texts

PRESSTV Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:00:03 GMT

Google has launched its Nexus One, the newest Android-powered phone equipped by a voice-enabled keyboard for text fields as a serious competitor to the popular iPhone.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Hollywood actor Vince Vaughn weds

BBC Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:45:16 GMT

Hollywood star Vince Vaughn marries his girlfriend Kyla Weber in a small, private ceremony near Chicago.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Facebook blocks 'social media suicide' website

GUARDIAN Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:34:36 GMT

Dutch project enables users to automatically unfriend people and delete profile on social networks Bored by the status updates of your friends? Want to get rid of your online teenage years and delete your MySpace account? Tired of living your life so that you have something to tweet about? Then get reality back, and commit social media suicide with Web2.0 Suicide Machine. The Dutch website created by your unfriendly neighbourhood medialab moddr_ is designed to end users' social lives on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn in a spectacular way. No, users don't just delete their account. The website makes a feast out of the decision as it shows you how it unfriends person after person on Facebook, or removes bit by bit the people you follow on Twitter. We all know that social media were never meant to replace social life, but their purpose was to make it richer. However, now that the initial euphoria about social media is over, people are starting to use them more effectively or are stopping using them at all. To commit social media suicide you only need to select the social network on the website, enter the user name and your password. You even can send out your last words, which are displayed alongside your profile picture on a memorial page that Suicide Machine maintains. The project seems to be quite successful. Since its launch in December, 56,243 friends have been unfriended, 202,386 tweets have been removed and 856 people quit their online lives, according to Suicide Machine's figures. But Facebook didn't see the funny side of the site. The social network, which has just announced it has 350 million members, started to prevent its use by blocking Suicide Machine's IP address yesterday, thus making it impossible to use the website to unfriend people. The crew behind Suicide Machine, computer students and hackers from Rotterdam, have started work on the problem. Last week Facebook shut down Seppukoo, a service that enabled users to automate the process of deleting their profile. So while Suicide Machine works well with Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace, the only option for Facebook is at the moment to die hard. Social networking Digital media Facebook Twitter Mercedes Bunz guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Google celebrates Isaac Newton's birthday with a falling apple doodle

GUARDIAN Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Today, Google has a surprising animated logo to celebrate the birthday of one of the world's greatest scientists, Sir Isaac Newton, who was born on Christmas day in 1642 Sir Isaac Newton's birthday* is being celebrated today by a "Google doodle" that shows an apple falling from a tree: an event that inspired him to formulate his theory of gravity, and established him as one of the world's greatest scientists. Google frequently commemorates events by changing the logo on its search page. Newton's doodle is unusual in being the first to include an action – a falling apple – and in having a photographic quality. Newton's idea was that the force of gravity didn't stop at pulling apples to the ground, but extended into space; wouldn't it go as far as the moon? Newton was then able to show by calculation what he already believed: that the moon's orbit could be explained by the gravitational pull of the Earth. The theory of gravity and three laws of motion, described in Principia Mathematica in 1687, went against traditional ideas that must have seemed "obvious" to many non-scientists. First, it was evident that the moon kept circling the Earth without any "motive power" beyond gravity to keep it going. This broke with Aristotelian physics, which assumed that some sort of force was necessary to keep things in motion. Newton's theory of gravity also explained the moon's influence on the tides, "for there will be a stronger attraction upon that part of the water that is nearest to the body, and a weaker upon that part which is more remote," he wrote. Second, gravity was an invisible force that extended over vast distances: its influence could be shown even on the planets in the solar system. To some, this seemed like a supernatural or even an occult idea. Newton's theory of gravity and three laws of motion enabled people to make mathematical models and therefore to predict or confirm physical observations, but how gravity works and what it actually "means", if anything, are different issues. "It is enough," wrote Newton, "that gravity really exists and acts according to the laws that we have set forth and is sufficient to explain all the motions of the heavenly bodies and of our sea." But the implications of this simple statement are profound. Newton is saying that the universe operates in a rational and predictable way, and its workings can be described mathematically without any reference to mythology, theology or religion. Many people still find this idea challenging more than 300 years later. * Newton was born on Christmas day, 25 December 1642 under the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and still in use in Britain. We changed to using the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which was after Newton's death in 1727. Google is celebrating the Gregorian date today, but it's not one that Newton would have recognised. Google doodle Google Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Speculation rife on Google phone

BBC Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:05:08 GMT

Gadget blogs and news sites speculate that Google will unveil an own-brand phone at a 5 January press conference.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet

Facebook Deletes Cindy Sheehan's Invite to CIA Drone Protest

NARCONEWS Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Cindy Sheehan said Facebook deleted an invitation to the CIA Drone Protest in Langley, Virginia, scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010. Sheehan said "the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations." Sheehan joins a powerhouse of women activists to lead the CIA Drone Protest, including Cynthia McKinney, Ann Wright, Kathy Kelly and Debra Sweet.

"We had an event with over 250 confirmed guests and it was deleted by Facebook," Sheehan said. "We are going to the source of one of the big problems in the US Empire -- the CIA -- to protest its extra-judicial killings of people in Pakistan. We are against the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and manned aerial vehicles, but we believe that it is very dangerous that the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations," Sheehan said.

The protest will focus on the civilian deaths from drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the role of private contract mercenaries in the killing of civilians, carried out in the name of the US.

Breaking News » Science and Technology » Internet