Archive for the ‘online community’ Category

So, the UK Digital Economy bill was finally passed over the Easter holidays, albeit slightly amended from the initial versions which were discussed previously. Nonetheless, the document is still fairly long – and sometimes a bit confusing – so the consequences of it for UK web users, businesses, and the government will surely not fully emerge for some time. However certain central key issues are already evident and certainly worthy of discussion – which is why we’re here…

Firstly there is the matter of if your MP bothered to turn up for the vote – which incidentally took place in a late session thus ensuring a total minimum of fuss, in which only around 20 non-Labour MPs were present (mine was not present I was…

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Whether you’re enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon right now or enduring travel chaos across Europe as a result of the naughty volcano eruption, we all know there’s always time for a little bit of internet fun (time-wasting) in the way of gossip, news, a few Youtube clips etc… So, with that in mind, here are a couple of nice links for making the next few minutes of your life a bit more interesting (or diverting your mind from airport lounge desperation if you are one of those unlucky ones).

The first item comes courtesy of Techcrunch, who have posted some screenshots of a website designed by Mark Zuckerberg (aka Facebook creator/owner of course) back in 2001. You already know before you…

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StoryVault launch is being spearheaded by what at first may seem an unusual combination of personalities – the eminent psychologist Professor Tanya Byron and comedian Al Murray. However it isn’t as odd as it might seem.

In his private life, “the Pub Landlord” Al Murray, is a graduate in Modern History. He believes that StoryVault Social Network will quickly become an invaluable and regular resource for students, families and historians. “Stories of personal experience bring history to life, and every historian loves to be able to access first-hand testimony from eye-witnesses.”

“StoryVault is not only a great way to capture important memories from the family which should be kept for future generations, it’s actually contributing to our understanding of how we came to…

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Unsurprisingly the events of last week relating to Google’s decision to perform a u-turn on its China policy are causing quite the media ripple, to put it very mildly. For those of you who have had no contact with any kind of news media this week (which is somewhat of an achievement in this day and age) the brief summary is basically that Google no longer wants to accept the degree of government interference that is a pre-requisite for doing business in China and has decided to offer only an unfiltered search service through it’s Hong Kong based service.

So, in the interests of following the extensive fallout from these developments (which extends into not just business and technology spheres but…

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Some good work over at the Guardian over the past few days with respect to trying to analyse the potential super-fast broadband installation patterns for the UK under a Conservative government. The Tory proposals, published last week indicate the degree of subsidy that would be required to connect each constituency to the super-fast service, with rural communities unsurprisingly coming last in terms of affordability, which of course begs the question of when these areas could expect to get connected, if at all?

The document itself is fairly hefty but suffice to say the lower your area is on the list, the more likely you can rely on having a super-fast connection sooner rather than later. (N.B. Super-fast equates to speeds of…

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