ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A radical new approach to thwarting Internet censorship would essentially turn the whole web into a proxy server, making it virtually impossible for a censoring government to block individual sites.
The system is called Telex, and it is the brainchild of computer science researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Waterloo in Canada. They will present it Aug. 12 at the USENIX Security Symposium in San Francisco. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A full 25 percent of blog posts about politics occur on sites that are primarily about something else, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Information. And when authors post about politics, their readers reply and engage with the political content of the posts.
The researchers say they have uncovered a significant repository of political discourse that is largely being ignored. They will present their findings July 19 at the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media in Barcelona. (more…)
*UA researchers have uncovered evidence in ant colonies suggesting that social networks may function differently than previously assumed.*
Be it through the Internet, Facebook, the local grapevine or the spread of disease, interaction networks influence nearly every part of our lives.
Scientists previously assumed that interaction networks without central control, known as self-directed networks, have universal properties that make them efficient at spreading information. Just think of the local grapevine: Let something slip, and it seems like no time at all before nearly everyone knows. (more…)
*AWS customers can now access a highly available DNS system with pay-as-you-go pricing and no minimum usage commitments*
SEATTLE, Dec 06, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today announced Amazon Route 53, a Domain Name System (DNS) web service giving developers and businesses a highly available and reliable way to route Internet traffic to web applications by translating human readable names into numeric IP addresses. Amazon Route 53 can be used to route end users to multiple AWS services including Amazon EC2, an Amazon Elastic Load Balancer or an Amazon S3 bucket, and to infrastructure outside of AWS. The Amazon Route 53 global network of DNS servers is designed to automatically respond from the optimal network location, resulting in low DNS query latency for end users. Route 53 features a familiar, self-service design with an affordable pay-as-you-go model where customers pay only for managing domains through the service and the number of queries that the service answers. To get started using Amazon Route 53, visit: https://aws.amazon.com/route53. (more…)
There are many pros and cons to the issue of the Internet’s influences on education, and experts have called it everything from the hemlock of higher education to an innovative boon. While it’s probably neither of these extremes, there are some high and low points of the Internet’s role in higher education that can be observed on their own. By enabling students to take advantage of the positive elements of the Internet for educational purposes and restricting the detrimental sides of the Web, academic success can become a more widespread reality.(more…)
*Helps networks to keep pace with exploding number of internet users — from people to machines*
ARMONK, N.Y., – 09 Nov 2010: IBM today announced a new chip-making technology that can be used to create advanced semiconductors that can keep pace with the exploding number of internet-connected devices and the tidal wave of data they are generating.
The Cu-32 Custom Logic offering employs unique IBM technology — designed by IBM Research — to dramatically increase the memory capacity and processing speeds of chips used in fiber-optic and wireless networks, and in such gear as routers and switches. The technology can help manufacturers and network operators handle the data deluge driven by consumers’ appetites for smart phones and other Web-connected devices. (more…)
Children as young as age 2 are seeing more fast food ads than ever before, and restaurants rarely offer parents the healthy kids’ meal choices, according to a new study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The new evaluation, the most comprehensive study of fast food nutrition and marketing ever conducted, shows that fast food marketers target children across a variety of media and in restaurants. In addition, the study finds that restaurants provide largely unhealthy defaults for the side dishes and drinks that come with kids’ meals. The detailed findings of this study will be presented in Denver today during the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting. (more…)
*Australians Watched an Average of 7 Hours of Online Video Per Viewer during Month*
Sydney, Australia, September 9, 2010 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its July 2010 rankings of the top video properties in Australia based on data from its comScore Video Metrix service. The report found that 81 percent of Australia’s Internet population viewed video online in July, with an average viewer watching more than 7 hours of video during the month.
