internet

Hit the road.

That's the message that Matt Harding's feet tap out as he romps around in front of African elephants, lounging walrus and confused Buddhist monks in the video montage "Where the Hell Is Matt?" The clip, which features Harding doing a signature jig in exotic locations around the globe, became an online blockbuster after he posted it last year to YouTube.

The video has made Harding a source of inspiration to anyone with a desire to light out on their own world tour. He is now working on a sequel and visited San Francisco'… Read more

A soon-to-expire ban on Internet access taxes must be made permanent by Congress, two cabinet-level Bush administration officials urged Wednesday.

In a joint statement, U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Treasury Department Secretary Henry Paulson said the "vast potential economic and social benefits of electronic commerce" depend on immortalizing an almost decade-old moratorium on Internet access taxes and discriminatory e-commerce taxes.

"Preventing the taxation of Internet access will help sustain an environment for innovation, ensure that consumers continue to have affordable access to the Internet, especially high-speed Internet, and strengthen the foundations of electronic … Read more

In journalism as in technology, one learns early to K.I.S.S. ass. That is, you Keep It Short and Simple, or end up feeling like an ass. So what's with the convoluted naming convention from some tech vendors? Take, for example, the "Yur.Beat Fusion Stream" from Singapore-based Yuraku. Who needs a lobotomy after that?

Names aside, Yuraku claims this is the world's first portable wireless Internet radio with full multmedia features. And there lies the catch. Want Internet radio? Well, you need a wireless hot spot to connect to. Although once online, you … Read more

Dr. Web helps you minimize contact with unsanitary files before you download them, by scanning them in advance and letting you know before it lands on your desktop if the file has a clean bill of health or if you should put on your biohazard suit before handling the innocuous-looking critter.

… Read more

It's not the most innovative name but the concept may be revolutionary. Metaplace, a virtual community that is currently being tested for launch in spring 2008, was one of the most talked about start-ups at the TechCrunch40 Conference. The new platform allows anyone to build a virtual world from scratch -- for the web or even mobile applications -- without any programming knowledge. Like other virtual communities such as Second Life, There, Entropia Universe, or World of Warcraft, the Metaplace worlds can be used for gaming, socializing, and e-commerce. And they come with the usual community features: forums, user … Read more

With more and more people blaming the technology industry, and most importantly, the Internet, for the current state of affairs, I'm happy to see that at least one study agrees with me in claiming that the Internet is really not the sewer of society.

According to a study conducted by the Gambling Commission, the Internet has not led to an increase is gambling addictions. Whew. For a second there I actually thought the Internet would be blamed for yet another issue in society. But, then again, I'm sure someone will come up with a study to combat this one and attack the Internet for all it's worth.

But getting back to online gambling--will this finally let the monkey off the backs of the online gambling sites that provide yet another outlet for people to waste money? I doubt it. Regardless of what you believe, the same groups who are attacking Web sites for promulgating a whole new type of gambling will continue to do so for their own survival.

As for me? Well, my question is simple: why do we care that people are gambling online?… Read more

Congressional action on a soon-to-expire ban on Internet access taxes may be slow going at the moment, but members of the head of the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force says he believes there are enough votes to make the law permanent.

"People use the Internet to access information and purchase goods and services," Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) said in a call with reporters on Thursday morning. "It is not appropriate to tax someone for walking into a library or a shopping mall. On that rationale, we should not be taxing the Internet."

If Congress lets … Read more

"All publicity is good publicity" It may have been true at some point, but it certainly is not true today. Nor will it be true forever more.

Instead, the motto has changed to "All Publicity is Abused Publicity"

The reality is that in todays ultra competitive chase to get your attention , if something you say or do is seen by more than 100 people, someone is going to attempt to re-purpose it to their own benefit or amusement.

In essence, the internet has put us all under a form of digital arrest.

"Everything we say … Read more

It's September, so it's time for Internet security companies to release their annual reports and surveys about the threats seen in the first six months of the year. The reports from IBM, Arbor Networks (free registration required), and Symantec (in PDF) each looked at different areas of the Internet in specific but generally found that botnets are on the rise, and that the tools used for attack have gone professional with less noise from mere amateurs. Two of the reports went to find the top three vendors most affected by newly disclosed vulnerabilities were Microsoft, Apple and Oracle, … Read more