Google missed a deadline to re-register as an "internet content provider" (ICP) in China last night, which observers say is a sign that it is preparing to shut down its search engine there.Google UK denied the reports, saying that the ICP licence - required by the Chinese government for companies which want to operate a website inside the country - only has to be renewed annually before the end of March. "It's a bit early for such speculation," said a spokesman.But the timing follow weeks in which a growing number of reports have suggested that negotiations with the Chinese government over its stated intention to stop censoring search results in the country have reached an impasse.
Google missed a deadline to re-register as an "internet content provider" (ICP) in China last night, which observers say is a sign that it is preparing to shut down its search engine there.
Google UK denied the reports, saying that the ICP licence - required by the Chinese government for companies which want to operate a website inside the country - only has to be renewed annually before the end of March. "It's a bit early for such speculation," said a spokesman.
But the timing follow weeks in which a growing number of reports have suggested that negotiations with the Chinese government over its stated intention to stop censoring search results in the country have reached an impasse.
This image of the open star cluster NGC 7380, also known as the Wizard Nebula, is a mosaic of images from the WISE mission spanning an area on the sky of about 5 times the size of the full moon. NGC 7380 is located in the constellation Cepheus about 7,000 light-years from Earth within the Milky Way Galaxy. The star cluster is embedded in a nebula, which spans some 110 light-years. The stars of NGC 7380 have emerged from this star-forming region in the last 5 million years or so, making it a relatively young cluster.
Last week the Independent ran a feature with the exciting headline "I was a hooker who became an agony aunt". Sounded fascinating. Another tart with a heart story, perhaps? No, reading the piece indicated the headline was wrong.
Last week the Independent ran a feature with the exciting headline "I was a hooker who became an agony aunt". Sounded fascinating. Another tart with a heart story, perhaps?
No, reading the piece indicated the headline was wrong.
First impressions of Papua New Guinea tend towards the idyllic - flying over islands and atolls of white beach and emerald water, across green rolling hills backed by thickly-forested mountains. Then the people themselves, open and generous, not just full of smiles but easily reduced to giggling, as I learned on my bumpy local flight from Port Moresby to Lae where I was to visit a family support centre run by the humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). There, my romantic idyll was abruptly shattered. The first patient I saw arrive was a woman with three deep blows of a bushknife to the back of her head and her lip and right cheek close to being severed from the rest of her face. She had had a quarrel with the second wife of her husband, she claimed. Really, just a quarrel. For an organisation well-versed in the violent consequences of warfare, this sort of violence from within the family came as a shock.
First impressions of Papua New Guinea tend towards the idyllic - flying over islands and atolls of white beach and emerald water, across green rolling hills backed by thickly-forested mountains. Then the people themselves, open and generous, not just full of smiles but easily reduced to giggling, as I learned on my bumpy local flight from Port Moresby to Lae where I was to visit a family support centre run by the humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
There, my romantic idyll was abruptly shattered. The first patient I saw arrive was a woman with three deep blows of a bushknife to the back of her head and her lip and right cheek close to being severed from the rest of her face. She had had a quarrel with the second wife of her husband, she claimed. Really, just a quarrel. For an organisation well-versed in the violent consequences of warfare, this sort of violence from within the family came as a shock.
The sleeping giant is back. With yesterday's announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 I believe we are seeing the rise of Phone 7 as the iPhone killer. Forget Android, this is the one you need to pay attention to. Why? Scale, style and apps are the key reasons. Not to mention one of the longest computing heritages and a suite of services that range from business to entertainment, browsing and searching. The Windows Phone 7 hooks this all together in a way that puts the market on its head. Instead of emulating what others have done, Microsoft has taken a radical approach to the phone. I give you 7 reasons why I believe this is the one.
The sleeping giant is back. With yesterday's announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 I believe we are seeing the rise of Phone 7 as the iPhone killer. Forget Android, this is the one you need to pay attention to.
Why? Scale, style and apps are the key reasons. Not to mention one of the longest computing heritages and a suite of services that range from business to entertainment, browsing and searching.
The Windows Phone 7 hooks this all together in a way that puts the market on its head. Instead of emulating what others have done, Microsoft has taken a radical approach to the phone. I give you 7 reasons why I believe this is the one.
US regulators have unveiled the nation's first plan to give every American super-fast broadband by 2020.The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has submitted the plan to Congress, said broadband was the "greatest infrastructure challenge". It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home. The FCC's goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now
US regulators have unveiled the nation's first plan to give every American super-fast broadband by 2020.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has submitted the plan to Congress, said broadband was the "greatest infrastructure challenge".
It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home.
The FCC's goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now
Home Office Identity Minister Meg Hillier is now pitching ID cards as a weapon against social exclusion, and has mysteriously truffled-up nearly 6,000 extra ID card enthusiasts, meaning enrolments will hit 10,000 next week. Was it not just last week she said they'd only had 4,307 applications? Yes it was. Furthermore, says Hillier, in an article this week in the satirically-titled wonksheet Progress Online, 62,000 people have requested application packs. "We've had to expand capacity to meet demand." Which does rather suggest that the Home Office had been expecting the Manchester ID card rollout to be the dismal failure it looked and felt like until yesterday. But good lord minister, Manchester's on fire after all.
Home Office Identity Minister Meg Hillier is now pitching ID cards as a weapon against social exclusion, and has mysteriously truffled-up nearly 6,000 extra ID card enthusiasts, meaning enrolments will hit 10,000 next week. Was it not just last week she said they'd only had 4,307 applications? Yes it was.
Furthermore, says Hillier, in an article this week in the satirically-titled wonksheet Progress Online, 62,000 people have requested application packs. "We've had to expand capacity to meet demand."
Which does rather suggest that the Home Office had been expecting the Manchester ID card rollout to be the dismal failure it looked and felt like until yesterday. But good lord minister, Manchester's on fire after all.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and a pro-copyright group have given up their fight to get telecoms outfit Telenor to block access to The Pirate Bay in Norway. The rights' holders have twice failed to convince Telenor to comply with its demands to cut off the BitTorrent tracker decentralised peer-to-peer network site. According to Computer World, which cites a statement (Norwegian only) on performing rights society group TONO's website, any appeal against the case has now been dropped. TONO and IFPI were understood to be considering bringing the case to Norway's supreme court after losing two rounds in the Norwegian court system against Telenor, which refused to play nice on the issue. The IFPI said pursuing the ISP through the courts any further would be a waste of money, reports CW.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and a pro-copyright group have given up their fight to get telecoms outfit Telenor to block access to The Pirate Bay in Norway.
The rights' holders have twice failed to convince Telenor to comply with its demands to cut off the BitTorrent tracker decentralised peer-to-peer network site.
According to Computer World, which cites a statement (Norwegian only) on performing rights society group TONO's website, any appeal against the case has now been dropped.
TONO and IFPI were understood to be considering bringing the case to Norway's supreme court after losing two rounds in the Norwegian court system against Telenor, which refused to play nice on the issue.
The IFPI said pursuing the ISP through the courts any further would be a waste of money, reports CW.
The net has spawned two new ways to create and consume culture.The first is the wide-open door for amateurs to create. This is blogging and online art, wikipedia and the maker movement. These guys get a lot of press, and deservedly so, because they're changing everything.The second, though, is distracting and ultimately a waste. We're creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not).Imagine if people went to the theatre or the movies and stood up and walked out after the first six seconds. Imagine if people went to the senior prom and bailed on their date three seconds after the car pulled away from the curb.The majority of people who sign up for a new online service rarely or never use it. The majority of YouTube videos are watched for just a few seconds. Chatroulette institutionalizes the glance and click mentality. I'm guessing that more than half the people who started reading this post never finished it.
The net has spawned two new ways to create and consume culture.
The first is the wide-open door for amateurs to create. This is blogging and online art, wikipedia and the maker movement. These guys get a lot of press, and deservedly so, because they're changing everything.
The second, though, is distracting and ultimately a waste. We're creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not).
Imagine if people went to the theatre or the movies and stood up and walked out after the first six seconds. Imagine if people went to the senior prom and bailed on their date three seconds after the car pulled away from the curb.
The majority of people who sign up for a new online service rarely or never use it. The majority of YouTube videos are watched for just a few seconds. Chatroulette institutionalizes the glance and click mentality. I'm guessing that more than half the people who started reading this post never finished it.
Chatroulette institutionalizes the glance and click mentality.
There's a bit of hyperbolic non sequitor.
Culture has been getting faster and shallower for hundreds of years,
Voyeurism: Postulated holocene epipalaeolithic mannerism to peep-show post-modernity
and I'm not the first crusty pundit to decry the demise of thoughtful inquiry and deep experiences. The interesting question here, though, is not how fast is too fast, but what works?
No, the interesting question here is, who buys his books? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
I didn't even finish his post.
Culture has been getting faster and shallower for hundreds of years
It's all that Shakespeare's fault, writing dirty stuff for the groundlings.
The rot started with Chaucer. Or perhaps Catullus.
I'm still not sure about that Aristophanes.
There has been a growing fury about the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case, but much of that fury hangs upon an odd reading of the Court's opinion. The Court, it is said, has given corporations all the rights of "persons." It has elevated these artificial beings into entities "endowed by their Creator" (us) "with certain unalienable rights," including the right to free speech. No doubt the Court has a long history of recognizing the "person" in "Inc." But this current wave of criticism is hard to understand, because the Court's entire Citizens United opinion hung upon the fact that the First Amendment says nothing about who or what is to get the benefit of its protection. It simply bans certain kinds of regulation. As Justice Scalia put it in his concurrence: "The Amendment is written in terms of `speech,' not speakers." Thus, the government is blocked by the First Amendment from constraining the free speech of any entity, whether that entity is a corporation or a dolphin.
There has been a growing fury about the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case, but much of that fury hangs upon an odd reading of the Court's opinion. The Court, it is said, has given corporations all the rights of "persons." It has elevated these artificial beings into entities "endowed by their Creator" (us) "with certain unalienable rights," including the right to free speech.
No doubt the Court has a long history of recognizing the "person" in "Inc." But this current wave of criticism is hard to understand, because the Court's entire Citizens United opinion hung upon the fact that the First Amendment says nothing about who or what is to get the benefit of its protection. It simply bans certain kinds of regulation. As Justice Scalia put it in his concurrence: "The Amendment is written in terms of `speech,' not speakers." Thus, the government is blocked by the First Amendment from constraining the free speech of any entity, whether that entity is a corporation or a dolphin.
Earlier this month, Justice Secretary Jack Straw confirmed plans to tackle the notoriously high costs of defending a UK libel case by slashing the "success fees" that law firms can charge when prosecuting an alleged libel on a no win, no fee basis. The Press Gazette yesterday reported that, in response: A newly formed group, Lawyers for Media Standards, is threatening to seek judicial review over Justice Secretary Jack Straw's plan to cut the maximum success fee which lawyers working on Conditional Fee Agreements cases can charge. The group has demanded that Straw drops his plan to reduce success fees by ninety per cent in so-called no-win, no-fee cases and re-open the consultation which preceded his announcement. Lawyers for Media Standards outlined the threat in a letter sent to Straw, earlier this month, by law firm Collyer Bristow. It's worth noting at this point that defending a UK libel case currently costs 140-times the European average, and that as a result defendants who lack the financial means to pay these costs are effectively denied their right to a fair trial.
Earlier this month, Justice Secretary Jack Straw confirmed plans to tackle the notoriously high costs of defending a UK libel case by slashing the "success fees" that law firms can charge when prosecuting an alleged libel on a no win, no fee basis.
The Press Gazette yesterday reported that, in response:
A newly formed group, Lawyers for Media Standards, is threatening to seek judicial review over Justice Secretary Jack Straw's plan to cut the maximum success fee which lawyers working on Conditional Fee Agreements cases can charge.
The group has demanded that Straw drops his plan to reduce success fees by ninety per cent in so-called no-win, no-fee cases and re-open the consultation which preceded his announcement.
Lawyers for Media Standards outlined the threat in a letter sent to Straw, earlier this month, by law firm Collyer Bristow.
It's worth noting at this point that defending a UK libel case currently costs 140-times the European average, and that as a result defendants who lack the financial means to pay these costs are effectively denied their right to a fair trial.
Middle-class kids are taught from an early age that they should work hard and finish school. Yet 3 out of 10 students dropped out of high school as recently as 2006, and less than a third of young people have finished college. Many economists attribute the sluggish wage growth in the U.S. to educational stagnation, which is one reason politicians of every stripe call for doubling or tripling the number of college graduates. But what if the millions of so-called dropouts are onto something? As conventional high schools and colleges prepare the next generation for jobs that won't exist, we're on the cusp of a dropout revolution, one that will spark an era of experimentation in new ways to learn and new ways to live. It's important to keep in mind that behavior that seems irrational from a middle-class perspective is perfectly rational in the face of straitened circumstances. People who feel obsolete in today's information economy will be joined by millions more in the emerging post-information economy, in which routine professional work and even some high-end services will be more cheaply performed overseas or by machines. This doesn't mean that work will vanish. It does mean, however, that it will take a new and unfamiliar form. Look at the projections of fiscal doom emanating from the federal government, and consider the possibility that things could prove both worse and better. Worse because the jobless recovery we all expect could be severe enough to starve the New Deal social programs on which we base our life plans. Better because the millennial generation could prove to be more resilient and creative than its predecessors, abandoning old, familiar and broken institutions in favor of new, strange and flourishing ones.
Middle-class kids are taught from an early age that they should work hard and finish school. Yet 3 out of 10 students dropped out of high school as recently as 2006, and less than a third of young people have finished college. Many economists attribute the sluggish wage growth in the U.S. to educational stagnation, which is one reason politicians of every stripe call for doubling or tripling the number of college graduates.
But what if the millions of so-called dropouts are onto something? As conventional high schools and colleges prepare the next generation for jobs that won't exist, we're on the cusp of a dropout revolution, one that will spark an era of experimentation in new ways to learn and new ways to live.
It's important to keep in mind that behavior that seems irrational from a middle-class perspective is perfectly rational in the face of straitened circumstances. People who feel obsolete in today's information economy will be joined by millions more in the emerging post-information economy, in which routine professional work and even some high-end services will be more cheaply performed overseas or by machines. This doesn't mean that work will vanish. It does mean, however, that it will take a new and unfamiliar form.
Look at the projections of fiscal doom emanating from the federal government, and consider the possibility that things could prove both worse and better. Worse because the jobless recovery we all expect could be severe enough to starve the New Deal social programs on which we base our life plans. Better because the millennial generation could prove to be more resilient and creative than its predecessors, abandoning old, familiar and broken institutions in favor of new, strange and flourishing ones.
...one of which appears to be the 'wander the planet doing odd jobs for food and lodging while waiting for something better to emerge, and making friends and accruing life experiences more stimulating than queuing for dole money or watching your mailbox for that job interview from all those applications you sent out'.
it's odd yet makes perfect sense. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Most observations thus far are that the post-1982 set is ill-equipped to work or contribute to society in most meaningful ways despite sincere earnestness. They are the "everyone gets a trophy for playing" generation with the obvious and predictable consequences. Meanwhile the jaded gen-xers who saw through the right-wing lie as early as twenty years ago are actually the ones growing into the decision-making positions of society that will determine how we come out of all of this.
The corporate media, meanwhile, continues to demonstrate its utter irrelevance by fixating on a bunch of 22 year-olds, falsely connecting them with tools like Twitter (which is not particularly popular with people under 35). This is burying the slew of articles that were coming out in 06/07 that featured the appalled reactions of employers who were getting their first-taste of the entitled recent college grads who all expected to be hired into 60k/year management positions for having achieved a bachelor's degree from a US college.
The disconnect from reality one finds in this generation would be disturbing did it not so closely mirror the cynicism of the group just older than them. The millennials are eager to contribute and lack strong original ideas of their own. They will be easily led to whatever gen x decides is of value. This dynamic should become readily apparent within 5 years.
What the media reports are identifying with these Millennials is a rejection of most of the assumptions and values that went with the economy and work practices of the second half of the 20th century. Some of what is reported is a cynical response to an economy that is built upon piracy and does not actually reward hard work or creativity, some of it is an expectation of basic levels of economic and financial security, and some of it is a belief that people should be able to do work that makes them happy. There are levels of interrelatedness between those factors, and likely others that I've not mentioned.
What I see in the media reports about Millennials is an anger that we won't lower our horizons, abandon our dreams, and suffer through life like everyone else. The other generations currently on the stage all experienced an economic crisis that forced them to scale back their personal dreams and ambitions.
So far, from what I have seen, Millennials are unwilling to do this. What some see as a disconnect from reality is in fact a rejection of reality and a desire to produce a different reality. So far Millennials lack access to resources to realize this, but are starting to find ways to do it anyway.
It's a generation that has a deep potential for radicalism, but of a constructive sort. I should think that ought to be embraced, especially when polls of American Millennials show us to be a very progressive group supportive of a strong public sector and deeply hostile to the right-wing, whereas "Gen X" is the most Republican-friendly generation in the country. And the world will live as one
Genuinely revolutionary technological innovations are rare, and when they appear, there is a long time lag before they begin to transform the economy and daily life. The steam engine was used for nearly a century to pump water from British mines before it was successfully applied to manufacturing and transportation. The gasoline-powered car was invented in the 1880s, but mass automobile use had to wait until the 1920s in the U.S. and the 1950s and '60s in Europe and Japan. There was a similar delay between the invention of the computer and the microprocessor and the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if there are dramatic breakthroughs in nanotech or biotech tomorrow, we may not enjoy the benefits for decades, or generations. Technology has been remarkably stagnant in the areas of transportation and energy. As energy expert Vaclav Smil has pointed out, global jet transportation relies on the gas turbine, which was developed in the 1930s, and global shipping uses the diesel engine, invented in the 1890s. The fastest commercial airliners ever to fly reside in museums. The most cost-effective forms of mass transit everywhere, except for a few dense urban areas, are buses and planes. Whether the heat source is coal, natural gas or nuclear energy, most electricity today is generated by a variant of the steam turbine that has been around since the 1880s. The wind turbine and the solar-thermal and photovoltaic technologies beloved by greens are old enough to qualify for Social Security. And these elderly technologies are limited to those privileged enough to live in industrialized countries. A substantial minority of the human race still derives heat and warmth from wood and dung.
Genuinely revolutionary technological innovations are rare, and when they appear, there is a long time lag before they begin to transform the economy and daily life. The steam engine was used for nearly a century to pump water from British mines before it was successfully applied to manufacturing and transportation. The gasoline-powered car was invented in the 1880s, but mass automobile use had to wait until the 1920s in the U.S. and the 1950s and '60s in Europe and Japan. There was a similar delay between the invention of the computer and the microprocessor and the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if there are dramatic breakthroughs in nanotech or biotech tomorrow, we may not enjoy the benefits for decades, or generations.
Technology has been remarkably stagnant in the areas of transportation and energy. As energy expert Vaclav Smil has pointed out, global jet transportation relies on the gas turbine, which was developed in the 1930s, and global shipping uses the diesel engine, invented in the 1890s. The fastest commercial airliners ever to fly reside in museums. The most cost-effective forms of mass transit everywhere, except for a few dense urban areas, are buses and planes.
Whether the heat source is coal, natural gas or nuclear energy, most electricity today is generated by a variant of the steam turbine that has been around since the 1880s. The wind turbine and the solar-thermal and photovoltaic technologies beloved by greens are old enough to qualify for Social Security. And these elderly technologies are limited to those privileged enough to live in industrialized countries. A substantial minority of the human race still derives heat and warmth from wood and dung.
