CQ Politics | Innovations - The Web: July 2008 Archives

Social Networking May Stimulate Science

July 31, 2008 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new social network site, Labmeeting, is designed to let scientists easily upload their papers and lab notes to be shared with other members of their research team. TechCrunch tells us the site was started by Harvard graduate Mark Kaganovich with a $500,000 in seed round funding and opened last week to anyone with a college email account. His hope is to spur researchers to talk with each other more.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Shaping the Next Generation Internet

July 31, 2008 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A project to re-think the Internet from the ground up has received $12 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. The Associated Press reports that the money will go toward developing prototypes for the Global Environment for Network Innovations, a testbed to try out new networking ideas. Actual construction of GENI would cost about $350 million.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Internet Can Be Upgraded Privately, FCC Member Says

July 29, 2008 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Federal Communications Commission has been looking for ways to deal with the problem of peer-to-peer file sharing eating up much of the Internet's bandwidth. But Robert McDowell, a member of the FCC, argues in an essay in the Washington Post that the government should leave the issue to unregulated groups of engineers. Those groups, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, have done a good job of solving previous issues that threatened the viability of the Net, he says.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Republicans Tap Web for "Micro" Donations

July 25, 2008 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Republican National Committee has come up with a new way to raise funds on the Internet. Working with the Boston-based company FreeCause, they've developed a toolbar for the Yahoo browser that lets users donate two or three cents to the committee each time they do an Internet search. The New York Times reports that the money actually comes from advertisers, and will be tracked to make sure no one donor exceeds federal donation limits.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Obama Outperforms McCain in Cyberspace, Survey Says

July 22, 2008 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The number of visitors to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's web site surged by more than 90 percent in June, but didn't come close to what his Democratic rival got, according to the online tracking service Compete. Wired reports that McCain got 807,518 unique visitors in June, but Barack Obama got 2.5 million in the same month. What's more, the survey found, visitors spent nine minutes on Obama's pages for every minute they spent on McCain's.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Obama Pushes Cyber Security

July 17, 2008 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bush administration hasn't done enough to combat cyber-espionage and other online crime, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says. In a speech at Purdue University, Obama said he'll make network security a top priority, and appoint a National Cyber Advisor, according to Wired.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

In Shaky Economy, Bartering on the Web Grows

July 17, 2008 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With credit markets tight and consumers having less cash to spend, a number of companies are turning to the Internet for a different way to do business--bartering goods and services. The New York Times reports that about 450,000 companies are involved in barter networks, and companies are popping up to handle the transactions. One barter company executive tells the paper that bartering is a good way to conserve cash.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Huge Physics Project Leads to Super-Speed Network

July 17, 2008 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's Internet capacity will seem incredibly limited in a decade or two, but some of the steps needed to increase bandwidth are being previewed in a large-scale physics project in Switzerland. As CNET News reports, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has built an ultra-high-speed network so scientists can share massive amounts of data collected from the world's largest particle accelerator, scheduled to go online next month. The people who built the network are learning how to handle data moving at speeds about 1000 times as fast as the average home broadband connection.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Internet Security Problem Secretly Fixed

July 14, 2008 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week several companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, simultaneously released a set of "patches" designed to correct a security flaw in the Domain Name Server system, which controls Internet addresses. CNET News talks with Dan Kaminsky, the security researcher who found the flaw and kept it secret from the public while steps were taken to correct it. CNET Columnist Robert Vamosi believes the decisions Kaminsky made are a model for dealing with such potentially high-risk security problems.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

The Information Superhighway Comes to a Highway Near You

July 3, 2008 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A recent announcement by Chrysler that it will begin installing wireless connections in all Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge models signals that the Web is truly going worldwide, argues the Christian Science Monitor. The cost? About $600 to start and then a $29 monthly fee.

Meahwhile, several airlines hope to make money by providing wireless access on flights(from satellite signals, air-to-ground connections or cellphone towers). And, at least one Boston-to-New York bus service lets riders log on.

Web picks posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Company Aims to Sum Up the Web

July 2, 2008 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A startup company is trying to cut through the vast fields of information on the Internet by producing easy-to-use summaries. Pluribo has developed an add-on for the Firefox browser that summarizes user reviews on Amazon.com. It looks for similar words in different reviews and picks out bits it thinks are important, Webware reports. The company hopes to expand its technology to other areas soon.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Internet Bandwidth Market Proposed

July 1, 2008 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An exchange market, on which companies could buy and sell unused bandwidth, could improve the efficiency of Web use and lower prices, a United Nations proposal says. Hamadoun Toure, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, the UN body responsible for communications standards, tells the New York Times that such an exchange is his dream. He hopes the exchange could help bridge the digital divide in developing countries.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com

Unsafe Browsers Widespread on Internet

July 1, 2008 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A full 40 percent of people surfing the Internet are doing so with outdated versions of Web browsers that are vulnerable to attack, a study shows. The study, conducted by Google, IBM, and the Communications Systems Group in Switzerland, found 576 million people using unsafe browsers, the Washington Post reports. More than half of all Internet Explorer users had outdated versions, the report found.

Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com