The new iPod shuffle — so small that it doesn’t have room for control buttons on the case — was only released last week. But it’s stirring up controversy already. Seems that Apple is requiring all third-party accessories for the device incorporate a special ‘authentication’ chip which must be licensed from Apple, for a fee. […]

A new VoxPop (Voice of the People) survey by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA), which governs and regulates Canada’s opinion research industry, shows that Canadians who have registered their phone numbers on the national Do Not Call List (DNCL) are generally pleased with the results. Eighty per cent of those polled say they […]

California State Assemblyman Joel Anderson has introduced a bill to limit the amount of detail users can see in images provided by online mapping tools. Bill AB-225 also calls for fines of up to (US)$250,000 per day for violators. The key provisions of the bill state: An operator of a commercial Internet Web site or […]

It was 20 years ago today — March 13, 1989 — that Tim Berners-Lee published his now historic document, Information Management: A Proposal, which became the foundation of Internet technology. But it was the mid 1990s before the Internet started to catch the attention and imagination of the masses. And, in 1989, Berners-Lee was very […]

Linda Holmes took on a controversial topic, herself, in her blog at NPR.org this week. She dared to name the ten most dangerous topics you could ever, but should never, discuss on the Internet. “Tempers will flare. Nothing good will come of it,” she warns. Without further ado, here they are: Home schooling Bikes versus […]

While most sectors of the economy are tanking and the consumer electronics industry, in particular, has been hit by massive layoffs and plant closures in the face of disasterous big-ticket item sales, the game console industry has come through relatively unscathed. So, we should not be surprised to hear, in the midst of general doom […]

Industry observers, Apple fans and gadget-space bloggers can’t agree on what Apple’s next iDevice will be. But they seem to have reached a concensus that it won’t be a netbook. The MacBook Air seems to fill that bill, functionally, albeit at a price somewhat above the notional netbook cieling of (US)$400. In fact, the Air […]

The annual Internet Enemies Report by anti-censorship organization Reporters Without Borders (RWB) paints a gloomy picture of the status if Internet freedom worldwide. The 39-page Report lists 22 ‘offenders’,and singles out a dozen of them for special disdain… The 12 ‘Enemies of the Internet’ – Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, […]

Internet security giant McAfee’s March, 2009, Spam Report waxes philosophical about the nature and future of spam. In 2004, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates publicly predicted that, “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” It wasn’t. The U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 hasn’t killed the beast, either. Why haven’t we been able to conquer spam? […]

Already fed up with pre-roll ads that want you to view a full-screen movie before letting you proceed to the Web page you requested? Hate those ads that expand to cover the content you want to read when you happen to mouse over them? Wait until you see what the major Web advertisers have in […]

A fluid dynamics professor at the University of Akron, OH, says he’s come up with an innovative way to defuse the fury or hurricanes before they can make landfall, causing widespread death and destruction. Hurricane damages average over (US)$5 billion a year in the U.S. It’s simple, really… Send supersonic fighter jets into the eye […]

Earlier this week, TLP reported that Australian law enforcement agencies were being given the right to secretly hack into any Australian’s Internet-connected computer and perform ‘remote searches’ in certain criminal cases. Civil rights and free speech activists were outraged by the plan. Now, leading Internet security vendors including Symantec (‘Norton’), Sophos and Kaspersky have stated […]