A new online game called Superstruct started running this week, and challenges players with "superthreats" such as disease pandemics, refugees displaced by global warming, and evil computer hackers, that threaten civilization. As Discover magazine reports, the game, from the Institute for the Future, hopes to harness the so-called wisdom of crowds to predict doomsday scenarios and come up with ways to deal with them.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
The effort to provide free WiFi connections for low-income residents of San Francisco is proceeding apace, the city says. Mayor Gavin Newsom and wireless router company Meraki said this week they're adding wireless coverage to 12 low-income housing projects in the Tenderloin neighborhood, CNET News says. Meraki says about 150,000 of the city's 860,000 residents are on its network, and it will be a few more years before the entire city is covered.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
A group of MBA students has developed a Broadband Quality Score for 42 countries and found that the only country with enough bandwidth capacity to meet its needs in the next three to five years is Japan. Ars Technica reports that the score includes upload and download speeds and other measures. The United States, the study found, has slightly more capacity than it needs right now, but not enough to handle future demands, which will include visual networking, high-density streaming, consumer telepresence, and large file sharing.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
By John Bicknell, CQ Staff
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman is claiming victory in his effort to persuade Google to crack down on violent Islamist videos posted on YouTube.
The Connecticut independent senator said in a statement Thursday that new YouTube guidelines bar videos that incite people to violence.
from Governing.com Idea Center
Come November, presidential, gubernatorial, legislative and local races won't be the only items on the ballot. Initiatives and referenda will top ballots in more than a dozen states, and a new Web site, Ballotpedia, aims to help voters navigate these measures.Google is one of a group of investors pouring $60 million into a startup company that hopes to use satellites to deliver Internet access to developing countries. O3b Networks, based in the U.K.'s Channel Islands, plans to launch up to 16 satellites by the end of 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal. The satellites could provide service to Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
People who use Twitter to comment about Kodak or General Motors might be surprised when the companies Twitter back at them. BusinessWeek reports that those businesses, as well as others such as JetBlue, Dell, Comcast, and Whole Foods, have started to monitor the microblogging service for mentions of their companies. When they see a mention, their customer service departments respond to the sender, asking if there's anything they can do to help.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
by Mark Stencel, Governing.com
For many local governments, the Wi-Fi gold rush ended last November. That's when Internet service provider Earthlink announced that "significant further investments" in its municipal wireless business did not make sense for its shareholders.
Earthlink's news was no surprise. Earlier, the Atlanta-based company had announced big layoffs and vague plans for reorganizing its municipal broadband group. Since Earthlink was the leading corporate player in the field, its troubles did not bode well for community wireless initiatives, some of which were abruptly put on hold.
In an effort to identify more potential voters, both the Obama and McCain campaigns are engaging in online behavioral research, trying to target voters, donors, and volunteers by their individual interests. BusinessWeek says that neither campaign will discuss its strategy in detail, but that the effort is sophisticated enough in its tracking to raise concerns among privacy advocates.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
If round-the-clock cable channels and blogs that cover both the ideological and credibility spectrum aren't enough, now voters can keep up with the presidential campaign by follow what others say about the candidates on Twitter. TechCrunch reports that Stephen Taylor, a Canadian blogger and political analyst, has put together a website and a Facebook application called govtweets. The site scrolls a constant update of tweets mentioning the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
