Just last week, China shut down over 8,000 Internet cafes in the Shanghai area the better to keep youth from accessing "inappropriate" information and online game addiction. Beijing has clamped down on cybercafes countrywide ever since teens set a cybercafe there afire in 2002. Now you can probably look for even tighter crackdowns now that two Shanghai cybercafe employees were stabbed to death by customers who, apparently, didn't want to buy membership cards for overnight use. "Such venues," said the Associated Press, "often offer lower nighttime access rates to cater to computer game enthusiasts."...
In that part of the world where politics crawls a little more freely in cyberspace, Americans might note that they're not the only ones good at setting up Websites to beat their political opponents with sticks. Ontario conservatives hit the Net running against the Liberal government, launching an aggressive attack ad campaign for Internet circulation only. The ad cost little to produce and slaps Premier Dalton McGuinty for being poised, it is said, to raise taxes he formerly promised not to touch. "As the official opposition," said Conservative house leader John Baird, when the ad was unwrapped, "we've got to be creative, we've got to use the Internet, we've got to use e-mail to reach out in a non-traditional way.''...
Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania schools may think they have to get a little more creative in keeping their students away from the naughtier sides of the Net. That's because school filtering and security measures only go so far, and often as not obstruct the students' more academic-oriented pursuits.
On the one hand, says the Morning Call, the filters block too many news or information sites over keywords like "oral" or "teen" - even if "oral" means a Supreme Court oral argument and "teen" means a teen counseling Website - but on the other hand, there's the elementary school mother who learned the hard way her 11-year-old daughter jumped online at school and joined a chat room with the username "hotbitch." "It's just not possible," said Bethlehem School District technology director Scott Garrigan, "to guard kids against every unsavory element on the Internet,'' Garrigan said. ''New Web sites crop up every day. Children have to be held responsible. We have kids that are regularly disciplined for accessing material they have no business looking at.''...
Does Microsoft think Netscape browser users have no business complaining to the U.S. government about antitrust? Depending on whom you ask, you might think so, according to TheInquirer.net: "Readers who have attempted to complain to the official U.S. antitrust complaint Website... found themselves rejected if they were using a non Microsoft browser, in a supremely ironic twist of fortune," said the Website. "...Said one reader: 'I tried to use both Opera 7 & Netscape 7 which have Adobe Reader installed to work the Microsoft Settlement Web page with no luck. I had to switch to Internet Exploder to make it work'."...
One thing we think people have no business looking at or trucking in is child pornography. A judge whose child porn trial collapsed in April over an outdated warrant - and who was arrested Saturday night on possible drunk driving charges - may face impeachment. Irish media is reporting Justice Minister Michael McDowell says the government's stance on Judge Brian Curtin isn't changed and that Curtin's Saturday arrest has nothing to do with the impeachment prospect. Curtin faced a child porn possession charge following his May 2002 arrest. Despite the trial's collapse, the government has since tried to get Curtin to explain how his credit card was said to be used for buying child porn on the Internet, saying they want that explanation before they decide whether to go forward with impeachment proceedings against the judge....
We do, however, think competition is everybody's healthy business. Example: cable company competition meaning rival fixed-line telephone companies having to bring out much faster digital subscriber line services than exist now, or so says Nortel Network chief executive Greg Mumford. He's predicting broadband will grow much faster in the coming few years, under user pressure to bring out more innovative features. "Wire-line providers will look to protect themselves from cable companies who offer video services," Mumford said as Nortel launched a new multiservice provider router range, "which will mean DSL speeds will rise to 20 megabits per second. In the U.S., wire-line providers who don't have a video component to their network are working really hard to bring video to the table."...
Microsoft might not necessarily agree about competition being healthy business, not when IBM is all but saying they'd like to make Microsoft irrelevant. Big Blue publicly says they're doing anything but an anti-Microsoft strategy, but IBM pitching new client middleware - IBM Workplace Client Technology - upgrading client, administration, and portal software Silicon Valley Times says will allow everything from personal computers to smartphones access the same data, including Microsoft Office data, and with standards-based middleware rather than a Microsoft client - isn't exactly the same thing as playing let's-be-buddies. Especially if it makes the choice of the master operating system "largely irrelevant," SVT says...
Gasoline might ordinarily be seen as largely irrelevant to cyberspace - except that American drivers battling record highs at the gas pumps are said to be driving the information superhighway at Autobahn-like speed in search of sites helping them find the cheapest gas on the block. Sites like GasBuddy.com and Gaspricewatch.com, for example. And the sites work with volunteers scouting the streets for the lowest pump prices. "Now I know how to beat the system after observing how these gas stations operate," said GasBuddy.com spotter Mike Wolf.
