Information Policy

Digital Crossroads: Senator offline in YouTube attack

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, last week wrote a letter to Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt asking him to "remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube". Google, in a posting on its public policy blog, said it examined and removed "a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech." However, Google said some videos by alleged terrorist groups were not removed "because they do not violate our Community Guidelines."

http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_9383080?nclick_check=1

EU calls for a quarter of European Internet users to use IPv6 by 2010

The European Commission set a target Tuesday for a quarter of EU businesses, public authorities and households to use next-generation Internet addresses by 2010, saying this was essential because the current network is running out of addresses. Pushing people toward Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6, would make available ‘an almost unlimited’ number of web addresses just as lengthening telephone numbers allowed more phones to be plugged into the network in the last century. The EU's Internet commissioner said more addresses — the string of numbers that identify a web connection — were needed if Europeans were to use Internet-enabled devices such as smart tags in shops, factories and airports as well as intelligent heating and lighting systems. The Internet address system most people use now, IPv4, dates back to 1984 and provides 4.3 billion addresses. Only 700 million — or 16 percent — are still available for new connections. Japan's Nippon Telecom and Telegraph has already rolled out a public IPv6 network and China plans to put one in place shortly. But the U.S. and Europe have yet to get the ball rolling. The EU executive called on European governments to take the first move by moving their own Internet networks and Web sites to IPv6 and by following the U.S. in making IPv6 a condition for government contracts for Web site services. ‘The Commission also wants the most important web sites of Europe to take the lead and aims to receive commitments from at least 100 top European web site operators, such as broadcasters or online news services, before the end of 2008,’ it said. The EU's europa.eu web site will be IPv6-ready by 2010, it promised.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/27/business/EU-FIN-TEC-EU-Faster-Internet.php

Free Wi-Fi on Danish Trains

Danish railway operator Arriva Scandinavia has deployed Wi-Fi services on 29 commuter trains running between the Jutland cities of Aarhus, Thisted and Tonder. The hotspots will enable free Wi-Fi access for passengers, and will be paid for in part by advertising on pages that the user will automatically see when they log in. The service uses ‘Moovbox M Series’ equipment from UK vendor Moovera, which specialises in mobile Wi-Fi applications where a ‘bridge’ is required between the hotspot and a static network; in this case the hotspots are backhauled to 3’s HSPA network.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=23275&email=text

Safaricom launches 3G

Safaricom has launched Kenya’s first commercial 3G/3.5G mobile network, offering peak data transfer speeds of up to 7.2Mbps. The service is initially only available in the Nairobi area, though a nationwide expansion is taking place over the next twelve months. Kenya’s largest cellco in terms of subscribers has been testing W-CDMA technology since 2006, but did not receive a full 3G operating licence until October last year. High speed services are being targeted at business users for the time being.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=23278&email=text

Dutch library scans eight million newspapers

The Dutch Royal Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) on Monday began a three-year project to scan eight million newspaper pages into its computer system. The oldest of the historic pages dates from 1618. The library expects to process 200,000 pages a month.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/05/library_scans_eight_million_pa.php