Tory MP Louise Mensch backs social network blackouts during civil unrest
Louise Mensch, the Conservative MP and one of parliament's more active Twitter users, has backed David Cameron's call for social networking services to be shut down temporarily during civil disorder. Mensch, the MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire and a novelist, used Twitter to call for a "brief temporary shutdown" of Twitter and Facebook to stop unfounded rumours being spread, as she said had occurred in Northamptonshire last week during the riots that spread from London to several cities across England. "Common sense. If riot info and fear is spreading by Facebook & Twitter, shut them off for an hour or two, then restore. World won't implode," she said. On her Twitter feed, she added: "Northamptonshire police advise me that much of their time and resources were wasted answering false alarms due to soc media rumours. At the time, tweeted people should think hard before putting the phrase 'rumours of' into a tweet. Nonsense rumours about W'boro [Wellingborough] = 999 calls."
Superfast broadband gets ready to go UK-wide
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will fire the starting gun on the race to turn Britain's internet "not spots" into hot spots this week by allocating a £530m fund for broadband-starved communities. Cornish fishing villages, Welsh valleys and Cumbrian farmsteads will all have access to high-speed internet within four years if telecoms companies add their money to the state pot and consumers show interest. Hunt is expected to announce how the money, diverted from the BBC to create a digital Britain, will be shared among 40 areas including English councils, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A further £300m has been promised after 2015.
The PC is dead, says the man who invented it
Back in the late 1950s, the then head of IBM, Thomas J Watson, was rumoured to have predicted a potential world market for "maybe five computers", an estimate that illustrates how radically the role of the computer has changed. Now, on the 30th anniversary of the first IBM PC, one of its 12 designers has taken to the internet to herald the PC's imminent passing. "They're going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs," wrote Dr Mark Dean, admitting that back on 12 August 1981, when his IBM 5150 was unveiled at the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom in New York, he didn't think he'd live long enough to witness its decline.
Virgin Media Offers Free Spotify Unlimited For Existing Customers
Virgin Media has teamed up with Spotify to offer an exclusive package for existing customers, a 12 month subscription to Spotify Unlimited although there's some confusion over what exact Spotify package is included. On the offer page, Virgin Media mentions the Spotify Unlimited package which is worth £4.99 per month but then claims down the same page that it comes with a £9.99 per month, which is what the Premium package offers. Note that Virgin Media customers with a 50Mbps broadband service or higher qualify for the Spotify offer which is valid until the end of August; after the 12 month period, users will be automatically reverted back to Spotify Open.
Christian schools snoop on students
Exclusive Christian schools in Australia have created a storm of biblical proportions by snooping on their students through their facebook accounts. According to the Sydney Morning Herald swanky schools of the religious right are using internet monitoring companies to read what students are saying on social networking sites. Stephen Harris, the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, says it is really important for him to be on the blower to tell parents late at night if their children have posted something ungodly. He said that his school policy now extends the concept of the school playground to any environment in the social media platform where a student of the school or a teacher is identified by "either name, image or inference". In short his powers are omnipotent, just like Jesus. After all, if God can see into a student's heart, soul, and networking account, why shouldn't the school which has been appointed by God do the same thing.
Spanish fight to singe Google's beard
A Spanish campaign for the right to be forgotten is gathering momentum. More than 90 cases of people who want information deleted from the web, now have the backing of their government and it has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its data protection agency. The case is in court now, and apparently is being closely watched by the EU which is keen to see how much control its citizens will have over information they posted, or which was posted about them, on the web. The European Union's justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, said she wanted to give privacy authorities greater power to tell Google to sling its hook.
Anonymous launches 'Operation Britain'
The online band of merry hackers known as Anonymous has decided to join in the spirit of rioting youth on UK street by bringing its own form of non-violent protest to British web properties. In a missive aimed at "Citizens of Great Britain" (actually we're subjects, guys) the outfit catalogues the crimes of the criminal classes that rule our roost and have begun putting together a list of potential targets, ranging from Barclays Bank through Vodafone, arms dealer Lockheed Martin to the likes of MPs Nadine Dorries and Louise Mensch. "Each government that hides behind the facade of your fake democracy has in reality been the puppet of international big business and media propagandists, the Anons point out. "Agents of the establishment use fear, misdirection, intimidation and even violence to perpetuate their hold over the population and, worst of all, the tax revenue of your fellow citizens regularly goes towards bankrolling the government sanctioned class war against you."
Linkedin claims it informed users of opted-in ad scheme
Linkedin has responded to reports that it was flogging data to advertisers without its users' knowledge. Yesterday it was reported that Linkedin could face legal trouble for automatically opting-in its 100 million or so users to a programme that gives advertisers access to personal details. Not surprisingly this has caused an uproar similar to that at Facebook when it launched its Beacon ad delivery system. Now Linkedin has moved to reassure its users that it takes their privacy seriously. Linkedin's Ryan Roslansky said that the company informed users of changes to its privacy policy back in June, mentioning "the new ad format's opt-out policy". He added that Linkedin never shares personal information with third party advertisers and that the firm makes it easy for users to opt-out of the scheme. Roslansky ends his post by saying, "Trust is the foundation upon which the Linkedin platform is built. We'll continue to work hard to earn and maintain your trust, while delivering the most valuable and relevant experience we can."
Americans Taking to QR Codes
14m mobile phone users in America, representing 6.2 per cent of the total mobile audience, scanned QR codes or barcodes on their phones in June, according to figures from comScore. The study also analyzed the source and location of QR or barcode scanning, finding that users are most likely to scan codes found in newspapers or magazines, and on product packaging, and do so while at home or in a store. A demographic analysis of those who scanned a QR or barcode with their mobile phone in June revealed an audience that was more likely to be male, young to middle-age and upper income. Men were 25 per cent more likely (index of 125) than the average mobile user to scan QR codes, representing 60.5 per cent of the scanning audience.
RIM fails to get support for PlayBook 4G in the US
The challenges continue for RIM, which has seen its share price more than halve since the start of the year. US mobile operator Sprint had announced at the start of the year that it would be offering the 4G version of the BlackBerry Playbook tablet this summer. Now, according to a Dow Jones report, Sprint has abandoned those plans, leaving the PlayBook 4G without a single network in the US. "It's an interesting concept, it just hasn't caught on with business customers as much as they would like," said Paget Alves, president of Sprint's business markets group. "There are so many tablets in the market, it creates confusion for the average customer." Sprint's 4G network is mainly based around Intel-backed WiMAX technology, but most other 4G networks are based on LTE. BlackBerry seems to have decided to make a virtue out of necessity.
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