The First Picture Ever Posted on the Web

"Though this photo may look like a prom picture on Facebook that's been blingee'd, it's actually the very first photo that was ever uploaded to the web. The history of the picture—in all its random glory and woeful photoshopping—is amazing."

http://gizmodo.com/5924748/heres-the-first-picture-ever-posted-on-the-internet


http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/7/10/crossdressing-compression-and-a-collider-the-first-photo-on-the-web

Newsweek in 1995: Why the Internet will Fail.

"What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued."

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/02/27/newsweek-1995-buy-books-newspapers-straight-intenet-uh/

Deploying the British Granny Cloud to tutor poor Indian classrooms over Skype

"This BBC video-clip describes the latest ingenious project from Sugata Mitra, an Indian-born professor at Newcastle University. You'll most likely know Mitra from his Hole in the Wall computers set into the walls of buildings in India's poorest slums. Mitra's new project uses the "UK Granny Cloud" -- a large group of British grannies who've agreed to volunteer an hour a week to tutor Indian classrooms over Skype video conferences -- to supplement education in Indian schools where there is a shortage of teachers. "

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/20/deploying-the-britis.html

Collusion: Revealing Who is Tracking You when Browsing Online

"To appreciate the idea behind the Collusion browser add-on, you should first visit their short online demonstration [toolness.org]. The click-though interface shows how animated network graphs combined with text can tell compelling stories. Content-wise, the demonstration reveals how data collection companies manage to leave cookies in your browser configuration during standard web browsing, while it also visualizes how these seemingly separate companies are actually closely related to each other. "

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/07/collusion_visualize_who_is_tracking_you_when_browsing_online.html



http://collusion.toolness.org/

http://donttrack.us/

https://duckduckgo.com/

Unstable Orbit : Two weeks without the internet

"I had to manage without the internet for over two weeks. It is strange how quickly the internet becomes a part of our lives and the funny catch-22 situations you get into. My brother stopped just short of saying 'I'll email myself a reminder.' When he couldn't just use online banking. Of course he couldn't email either."

http://unstable-orbit.blogspot.com/2011/03/writers-blog-2011-03-13.html

Access - a new global movement for digital freedom

"Access is a non-profit organization premised on the belief that the realization of human rights and democracy in the twenty-first century is increasingly predicated on access to the internet and other forms of information communication technology."

https://www.accessnow.org/

When web users cross the Gladwell 10,000-hour standard

"Derek Powazek has a piece that tries to bring the Malcolm Gladwell Outliers thesis — that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master anything — and apply it to the explosion of content brought about by the Internet"

http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/06/when-web-users-cross-the-gladwell-10000-hour-standard

Eduroam

"eduroam (education roaming) is the secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community.

eduroam allows students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to obtain Internet connectivity across campus and when visiting other participating institutions by simply opening their laptop."


http://www.eduroam.org/

Internet Kill Switch

"Last month, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., introduced a bill that might -- we're not really sure -- give the president the authority to shut down all or portions of the Internet in the event of an emergency. It's not a new idea. Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, proposed the same thing last year, and some argue that the president can already do something like this. If this or a similar bill ever passes, the details will change considerably and repeatedly. So let's talk about the idea of an Internet kill switch in general.

It's a bad one. "

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/internet_kill_s.html

"The second flawed assumption is that we can predict the effects of such a shutdown. The Internet is the most complex machine mankind has ever built, and shutting down portions of it would have all sorts of unforeseen ancillary effects.

Would ATMs work? What about the stock exchanges? Which emergency services would fail? Would trucks and trains be able to route their cargo? Would airlines be able to route their passengers? How much of the military's logistical system would fail?"

Britain's new Internet law -- as bad as everyone's been saying, and worse. Much, much worse.

"The British government has brought down its long-awaited Digital Economy Bill, and it's perfectly useless and terrible. It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system (why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?). "

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/britains-new-interne.html

lo

"In today's excerpt - the first internet message, sent in 1969, was "lo." The meaning and efficacy of messages sent via the internet has been declining ever since:

"On October 29, 1969, the message 'lo' became the first ever to travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet.The truncated transmission traveled about 400 miles (643 kilometers) between the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Stanford Research Institute.The electronic dispatch was supposed to be the word "login," but only the first two letters were successfully sent before the system crashed. ..."

Ker Than, "The Internet Turns Forty," National
Geographic News, October 29, 2009

http://www.delanceyplace.com/

Hyperland

"In Hyperland, Douglas Adams’ ‘fantasy documentary’ from 1990, Tom Baker plays a software agent who shows Douglas the future of television: Interactive Multimedia.

Are you tired of linear, non-interactive television, Mr Adams?

Bearing in mind that although much of the ‘browsing’ mechanism feels familiar and obvious, this documentary was created in 1990. That’s two years before the first web browser. The internet was a very different place then."

http://watchification.com/2009/03/08/hyperland/

Ping Wire

"PingWire is an almost live feed of images being published to twitter using twitpic, yfrog, and twitgoo."

http://pingwire.com/

Lazyfeed

"Save any topic on lazyfeed and forget about it. Lazyfeed's live update feed will let you know when there's new content about the topic. "

http://www.lazyfeed.com/

Tweet Alarm

"Get alerted when someone tweets about your
company, your product or anything that interests you."


http://www.tweetalarm.com/

The Phone Company's Remote Printing Service

"The TPC service is a collection of FAX servers you may use to send a fax to many locations around the world. "

http://www.tpc.int/

PhotoSketch

"What if you could draw some stick figures on a screen and somehow magically create a beautiful image montage?"

http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife/?p=965


http://cg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/montage/main.htm

Snailmailr - Send a letter online

"Have you ever wanted to send a letter but then realized you didn’t have a printer or any stamps? Then you realized you'd have to walk several blocks to find a mailbox? ..."

http://snailmailr.com/Send-Letter

Wi-fi in Cardiff

View WiFi in Cardiff in a larger map

"Editable map of wifi in Cardiff and the surrounding regions. When you add places please stipulate whether the wifi is free or paid. Also, if you can add details such as size, atmosphere, prices etc it would be useful for people who don't know the area/venue."


http://www.wifi-in-cardiff.co.uk/

Workplace web bludging 'good for productivity'

"Melbourne University's Dr Brent Coker says workers who surf the internet for leisure, known as 'Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing' (WILB), are more productive than those who don't.

A study of 300 employees found 70 per cent of people who used the internet at work engaged in WILB.

"People who do surf the internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20 per cent of their total time in the office - are more productive by about nine per cent than those who don't," said Dr Coker, from the university's Department of Management and Marketing."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/workplace-web-bludging-good-for-productivity-20090402-9ktm.html