IN DEPTH:  INTERNET CONNECTIVITY ==

The internet now links an astonishing 20 percent of the world’s six billion people, and many of these people connect daily via social networking sites.  This week, we explore the phenomenon of social networking – the hottest thing to hit our screens since the dot com boom.

http://abcmail.net.au/t/115897/687092/2448/0/

BACK TO THE FUTURE ZONE

NETFLIX OFFERS CREDIT FOR COMPUTER CRASH

Netflix gave a 5 percent credit to customers who didn't receive their latest movie rentals on time after its site crashed on Monday. The Netflix site was down for much of Monday, leaving its 7.5 million customers in a...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/b/a/2008/03/26/techchron-netflix_offers.DTL

NO EXCUSES, JUST GOOD OLD FASHIONED CUSTOMER SERVICE

HOMELAND SECURITY ZONE

SENSING HOMEMADE BOMBS

Scientists at the University of California at San Diego have developed a tiny, inexpensive sensor chip able to detect trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used in the most common form of homemade explosives. The scientists believe the sensor could have widespread applications in improving industrial workers' health, by providing an inexpensive tool to monitor toxic hydrogen peroxide vapors from bleached pulp and other products to which factory workers are exposed."If this device was mass produced, it's not inconceivable that it could be made for less than a dollar."

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20080325A2

NATURAL DISASTER ZONE

FORCASTING TSUNAMI THREATS THROUGH LAYERS OF SAND & TIME

Azhii peralai: from the deep ... large waves.

This is the expression for 'tsunami' in Tamil, the oldest language in southern India. For an ancient dialect to have its own phrase for destructive waves triggered by earthquakes, the people of Tamil Nadu likely experienced tsunamis periodically through the centuries, say scientists. In other words, the catastrophic Indian Ocean event in December 2004 that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries -- including 15,000 in India -- was hardly a one freak occurrence, he says, and people could have been much better prepared for it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080318224409.htm

CYBERZONE

COMCAST TO STOP HAMPERING FILE-SHARING

The Internet service provider announced an about-face in its stance and said it will treat all types of Internet traffic equally. Comcast said it will collaborate with BitTorrent Inc., the company founded by the creator of the peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol, to come up with better ways to transport large files over the Internet instead of delaying file transfers.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Comcast-BitTorrent.html?ref=technology

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/03/27/BU3BVRIL8.DTL

AT&T & NTT COMM JOIN TRANS-PACIFIC FIBER CABLE

AT&T and NTT Communications have announced joining the Trans-Pacific Express Consortium, a group designing and constructing an 18,000-kilometer fiber-optic submarine communications cable between the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. The six original consortium members are: China Netcom, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Korea Telecom and Verizon Business. The consortium says that the TPE project is the first multi-terabit optical cable directly linking the U.S. mainland and East Asia, and that the cable has a design capacity of up to 5.12 Tbps.

http://abww-media.com/portal/wts/cgmc7zcAzaeckjid3AuqmT3BiQa

IBM PUSHES CLOUD COMPUTING

Big Blue joins with two universities on an initiative it hopes will bolster autonomic capabilities of physical and virtual servers in a broad-scale computing environment. Read on:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/26/IBM-pushes-cloud-computing-to-universities_1.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-03-26

*Related: Cloud computing begins to emerge from the haze. Read on:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/03/cloud_computing.html?source=fssr?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-03-26

OoVoo AIMS TO BRING HD VIDEOPHONE TO THE LIVING ROOM

Will the high-definition TV set be the new picturephone? Quanta Computer, a leading contract maker of laptop computers, and OoVoo, a maker of video chat software, are announcing plans Monday to take high- definition videoconferencing to the living room with a gadget that plugs into the HDTV and connects it to the Internet.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/62257.html

A NEW TOOL FROM GOOGLE ALARMS SITES

Google's new search-within-search feature has sparked fears from publishers and retailers that users will be siphoned away through ad sales to competitors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/business/media/24ecom.html?th&emc=th

LEGISLATION SEEKS TO  LIMIT WEB DATA TRACKING

A bill gathering support in the New York State Legislature would make it a crime -- punishable by a fine -- for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising.

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12000B116SYO&nl=2

SCIENCE ZONE

DELICATE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN CORAL & ALGAE THREATENED BY GLOBAL WARMING

Over two hundred million humans depend for their subsistence on the fact that coral has an addiction to "junk food" -- and orders its partners, the symbiotic algae, to make it. This curious arrangement is one of nature's most delicate and complex partnerships -- a collaboration now facing grave threats from climate change.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324091101.htm

JAPAN TEST HITS 250Mbps DOWNLINK

DoCoMo achieves 250Mbps downlink in ‘Super 3G’ field trial http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=22355&email=text

ENERGY ZONE

SOLAR POWERED LAPTOP BAG CHARGES UP ROAD WARRIORS

Voltaic Systems Inc. is getting ready to release a solar-powered laptop bag that is designed to charge the computer carried inside it.  The Generator, due to be released at the end of April, has a battery pack and a single solar panel that covers one side of the bag and produces up to 14.7 watts of power, according to Mark Watkins, another spokesman for Voltaic.

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3023408/1176609/105133/2/

ENVIRONMENT ZONE

OCEAN WARNING ON PLASTIC'S TOXIC THREAT

Plastic waste in the oceans poses a potentially devastating long-term toxic threat to the food chain, marine scientists say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7316441.stm

ASIA PACIFIC ZONE

BEIJING INVESTIGATES MOBILE SPAM ATTACK

Chinese authorities vow to fight spammers after 200 million mobile phone users received unwanted text messages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/business/7311242.stm

WIRELESS ZONE

REPLACING WIRE WITH LASER, SUN TRIES TO SPEED UP DATA

Sun Microsystems has received a $44 million contract from the Pentagon to explore the high-risk idea of replacing wires between computer chips with laser beams.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/technology/24wafer.html?th&emc=th

SEATTLE DEBATES PRIVATE BROADBAND NET

Seattle will begin formal inquires this fall into finding a company to build a fiber-to-the-home broadband network, but a City Council member this week suggested the city consider a self-management structure rather than just subsidize a privately run provider.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004293823_brier20.html

TAIWAN BLOCKS CHUNGHWA TELECOM WiMAX INVESTMENT

Taiwan has nixed Chunghwa Telecom's planned multimillion-dollar investment in Global Mobile, a regional WiMAX license holder, leaving the company to ponder its next move.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/30050.php

SITE CITES

TOO MUCH INFORMATION? STUDY SHOWS HOW IGNORANCE CAN BE INFLUENTIAL

Researchers provide a challenge to the classic economic model of information manipulation, in which knowing more than anybody else is the key to influence. Instead, economists present a situation -- commonly observed in real life -- in which all parties have access to the same information, but one party still manages to control public opinion.