Internet - SlashGear

‘Internet’ Stories

Obama’s geeks speak out on SOPA

Chris Davies, Jan 14th 2012 Discuss [12]

The US government has responded to the internet uproar over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), promising that any acts challenging piracy will not go to the House of Representatives without consensus being found first. "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response," President Obama's IP, technology and cybersecurity chiefs wrote today, "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." Read The Full Story

Google “mortified” at Kenya database raid

Chris Davies, Jan 14th 2012 Discuss [5]

Google is "mortified" that its Getting Kenyan Businesses Online team raided the database of a local startup for crowd-sourced business details, the company has said, and is investigating the use of false claims about its rival. "We've already unreservedly apologized to Mocality" Nelson Mattos, Vice-President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets at Google told us, after the startup revealed server logs and an investigation of its own that suggested staff at Google call centers in Kenya and India had been grabbing leads from Mocality's database and using them to promote their own business. Read The Full Story

Research suggest web addicts brains really are wired differently

Shane McGlaun, Jan 13th 2012 Discuss [2]

Researchers in China have been conducting research on a group of men and women ranging in age from 14-21. All 17 of the people in the study are classified as internet addicts. The researchers scanned their brains and looked for differences in the brain of the alleged addicts and those of normal people that aren't considered web addicts. Read The Full Story

Pirate Bay changes from torrent file hosting to magnetic links

Shane McGlaun, Jan 13th 2012 Discuss [4]

If you are the pirating sort that likes to download torrent files from Pirate Bay, some changes are coming. Apparently, Pirate Bay is making some moves to reduce the bandwidth needed for the site and allow fans of the site to access the website offline. Traditionally the site has hosted the torrent feeds for download. Read The Full Story

Bing buoyant as Google search suffers further investigation

Chris Davies, Jan 12th 2012 Discuss [6]

Microsoft's Bing search engine has overtaken Yahoo! search, digital tracker comScore reports, though the gap between it and Google's increasingly noticeable market dominance continues to grow. Bing had 15.1-percent of the core US search market in December 2011, the stat company says, putting it 0.7-percent ahead of Yahoo!'s falling share. However, Google rose 0.5-points to 65.9-percent, responsible for two thirds of the 18.2bn US searches made, and faces calls for FTC investigation for potential antitrust behavior. Read The Full Story

UK backs internet of Things Project

Shane McGlaun, Jan 12th 2012 Discuss [0]

The government in the UK is putting some money behind the Internet of Things project that seeks to help accelerate the connection of things and processes to the internet. Ten firms in the UK were each given £50,000 out of the Technology Strategy Board kitty for working on the project. The money granted is intended to be used to create apps and services needed for the project. Read The Full Story

Google Search plus Your World pulls Google+ into results

Chris Davies, Jan 10th 2012 Discuss [2]

Google has launched Search plus Your World, an awkward title for what amounts to social context in the search engine. Thanks to integration with Google+, the updated search box now pulls in photos and posts from a user's own account and those of the people they've circled, as well as making suggestions of other people they might be interested in following. The result is more tailored search results, Google says, that use the expertise and opinions of your friends to get you better answers. Read The Full Story

BitTorrent Share to compete against DropBox in the game of cloud storage

Christen McGregor, Jan 6th 2012 Discuss [7]

With cloud computing on the rise, BitTorrent Inc., has created its own service to compete with DropBox and other file sharing services. BitTorrent Inc. is widely known for its peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, BitTorrent. Thursday marked an important day for the company with the launch of Share. With other services such as DropBox, SkyDrive, and Box.net available, Share will have some competition, but Share offers its users what others cant. Read The Full Story

Vint Cerf contends Internet not a human right

Chris Burns, Jan 5th 2012 Discuss [2]

Computer scientist Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf, recognized the world over as one of two "fathers of the internet," has this week contended that it's not technology or even the internet that should be considered a human right, instead simply categorizing them as tools to work with such basic rights as communication. "Technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself," he noted, taking the position that if we continue to broaden what it means to have a human right as including technology, that we'll not put enough faith and/or pressure on the technology industry and the engineers responsible for ensuring universal, safe internet access for us all to do so. Read The Full Story

Most flagged Facebook photos aren’t inappropriate says Facebook

Shane McGlaun, Jan 5th 2012 Discuss [1]

I can only imagine the number of pictures on Facebook that are flagged as inappropriate each day. Facebook is now offering up a bit of detail on all those flagged photos. As it, turns out most of the photos that users flag aren’t inappropriate, rather the majority of the pics are just of unflattering angles or situations. Read The Full Story

Groupon’s Updated Merchant Center Launched

Christen McGregor, Jan 4th 2012 Discuss [0]

Groupon's merchants have been offering great deals to consumers since it's launch in 2008, but one question that has remained in the air surrounding Groupon is, how good is the website for the merchants. Since 2008 Groupon has expanded its merchant base from Chicago to more than 150 markets in North America and 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America. Based on that information alone it seems Groupon is doing quite well. Lets go back and address the original question - is Groupon good for the businesses providing the deals? Read The Full Story

Yahoo! makes ex-PayPal chief Scott Thompson new CEO

Chris Davies, Jan 4th 2012 Discuss [1]

Yahoo! has officially made ex-PayPal chief Scott Thompson its new CEO, the company has confirmed, with Thompson taking up the new role - as well as a board position - on January 9 2012. The potential hire was rumored this morning with insiders tipping its announcement as imminent; according to Yahoo!, his "primary focus will be on the core business" and will include decisions on "specific investments or dispositions of assets" as the company attempts to turn around its ailing fortunes. Read The Full Story