10 September 2002

Who Would Have Thought Browser Wars Would End This Way? WEB SIDE STORY.com -- It's not surprising that Microsoft won the browser war. But who would have thought five years ago that Microsoft would capture a 96 percent share of the market, more than it has in operating systems or desktop productivity applications? But, there is an advantage to this market domination. Things like Marc Barrat's Active Bookmarks work elegantly in Internet Explorer and the team behind that coding benefitted from the critical mass of Microsoft's browser. And there's the emergence of the Flash browser. Macromedia's Flash Player 6 is actually a browser. They call it "a next-generation rich client" that integrates media, communications and applications functionality into a runtime that can deliver desktop-like (better) experiences both within the browser and standalone on desktops and devices. I think it's better than Internet Explorer.

Server-Side Suicide HYPERORG.com -- Watch the Tsunami.Net Crush Server tick down live from the Millbank Gallery in London. When it runs out of time, it will activate the industrial crusher attached to it, bearing 150-tonnes of brute force onto itself and terminating its existence.

Altering Video Records Adam Curry -- Senator Hillary Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event.

10 Decisions That Shaped the Net Dan Gillmor -- Ten Decisions that Shaped the Net (the Right Way)

IEEE Approves First Step of Faster WiFi CNET News.com -- A wireless standard five times faster than Wi-Fi passed the first of several votes needed for approval from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. The draft of the 802.11g standard passed the first of several votes needed before it's ultimately approved. The IEEE said it intends to finalize the 802.11g standard by May 2003.

Google News news.google.com -- news.google is destined to be another category killer. The headlines appearing on the News Homepage come from a mathematical algorithm, based on how and where the stories appear elsewhere on the web. There are no human editors at Google selecting or grouping the headlines and no individual decides which stories get top placement. This occasionally results in some stories appearing to be out of context.

Thinking Out Loud About Intellisign KILKENNY, Ireland -- What if routing of rich media content, such as old classic television shows, was as simple as routing TCP/IP?

Seceding from your National Telco PBJ.cz -- A grassroots Czech movement plans to secede from the corrupt telco monopoly by putting wireless access-points on roofs across Prague. "The connection is already built, and it's real broadband, guaranteed connection, so the issue of Internet connection is solved," Janda said. TransgasNet's head of product management Radek Majer said that the company has a commercial contract with one of CZFree.net's members on the connectivity supply. The contract doesn't include the access route fee because the connection to TransgasNet's node is wireless. He said that although CZFree.net's connectivity comes from TransgasNet, the company doesn't provide the services directly to customers of CZFree.net because the network is independent from the company. However, CZFree.net can indirectly raise the number of customers who will be able to connect to TransgasNet's backbone access, Majer said. "The good side of the project is that it can connect a lot of people, and the [backbone] connectivity is relatively cheap," Janda said. The price of the connectivity is then shared between the users, with no extra fees. There are currently around 15 to 20 functioning nodes in Prague, and the actual number of users is still probably fewer than 100, although an exact count is impossible. However, the nature of the network makes it very easy to connect to (especially for users with laptops and Wi-Fi cards), and another 320 users are in line to put up their own nodes."

Let Mobiles Do Little Mobile Things Karlin Lillington -- In her technoculture blog, Karlin notes a big mistake in mobile commerce is "is expecting mobiles to be mini versions of the web. They are complementary to the web/net, enabling briefer forms of commerce such as paying a parking meter, accessing brief snippets of info, downloading a ringtone." Or controlling signs?

Was Your College Library a Social Centre? AP -- Many college and university librarians have modified long-standing policies and upgraded facilities in an attempt to lure students into libraries, away from Internet-connected dorm rooms. After years of prohibiting food and drinks, the University of North Texas library now has a Starbucks in a common area. Food and drinks are now allowed in almost all of the library. The University of Richmond added more comfortable chairs and computer workstations to its library and saw an 18 percent increase in the number of students visiting the library. Samuel Demas of Carleton College in Minnesota said his institution has implemented art exhibits and literary events to draw students into the library. He said the events recalled a time when the library was the academic and social center of the campus.

Pitching Homeland Security WASHINGTON POST.com -- If you want to attract hundreds to your online course offerings, pitch something that deals with Homeland Security. That's what the The American Public University System has done. And in the process, it landed $10m in funding from ABS Capital Partners. APUS offers online classes in military and general education to more than 5,000 current students, many of whom are military personnel and who benefit from the school's courses being available on the Internet. The venture capitalists were attracted by APUS's offerings in intelligence studies and homeland security.

Why I Lost my September 9th KILKENNY, Irleand -- Bad set of computer crashes yesterday when using WiFi and Radio upstreaming. And for the first time, my local installation of Radio wiped the its server side content clean. This happened after a bad crash while uploading to the remote server. I've some back-ups, but only for 10 per cent of my work. Actually, I have the back-up power of every source in my aggregator, so if I really want to repost the stuff, I can merely trawl the usual suspects. What I won't be able to easily recreate is a series of thoughts about the daunting task of making a submission for government funding ofr wireless technologies. Like Karlin Lillington, I am bothered by a perception that the Irish Minister of Finance believes technology was the industry of the 90s. As a result of that mistaken belief, he is slowrolling initiatives to create internationally competitive broadband networks. I work inside this industry sector and cannot stand by and permit this kind of misguided perception steer government policy. Fortunately, I have a garralous local representative who loves adding sparks to the ministerial discussions.

Four Beeb RSS Feeds Officially Sanctioned BBC.co.uk -- NewsOnline's public RSS service was only intended to include the front page, technology, UK and world. At the moment, my news aggregator cannot harvest these RSS feeds. The Beeb will remove some of the extra feeds we discovered on the Internet last week.