Information Policy

UK: Broadband infrastructure and importance

by Kate McCann

Get the fibre

Councils must speak up in areas where broadband is slow or non-existent. The future-proof answer to high-speed connectivity is to get as much fibre, as far into the network as possible (even to act as backhaul for mobile services). In urban and suburban areas, the market itself will take care of it, but councils and other public sector bodies may have a key role to play in those areas where even first-generation broadband never reached. It seems unlikely though that demand will be driven by the public sector itself - the reality is that streaming of HD entertainment content and the like will far outstrip even the heaviest workloads imaginable from the sector itself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2011/apr/27/braoadband-infrastructure-and-importance

Apple 'not tracking' iPhone users

Apple has denied that its iPhones and 3G iPads have been secretly recording their owners' movements.

In a website posting, the company said it had never tracked user location and had no plans to do so in future.

Security researchers claimed to have found a hidden file on the devices containing a record of everywhere they had been.

Some users managed to extract the data and plot it on maps.

More than a week after the issue came to public attention, Apple released an online question and answer document.

It said: "The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it's maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13208867

YouTube founders acquire link-sharing network Delicious.com

The founders of YouTube have acquired Delicious.com from Yahoo! and say they intend to make it part of a new Internet company, AVOS.com. Though the sale price wasn't disclosed, Yahoo! said that buyers Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are "aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the Web."

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/27/youtube-founders-buy-delicious-from-yahoo/

Bloomberg sets guidelines for reporters and social media

Bloomberg is advising reporters on their use of social media, particularly Twitter, in an attempt to draw some rough boundaries. Among other things, reporters are urged to use tweets to engage readers and promote their work but cautioned not to reveal details about a story in progress, dish out their personal opinions or become tangled in arguments with critics

http://emediavitals.com/content/bloomberg-social-media-policy

The challenges of the new media at heart of World Press Freedom Day celebrations

“21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers” is the theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, celebrated on 3 May, with major events in Washington DC and New York (USA), alongside local and regional events all over the world. The Washington conference (1 to 3 May), co-organized by UNESCO with the U.S. State Department and over 20 civil society partners, will examine the growing role of the internet, the emergence of new media and the dramatic rise in social networking in recent years. The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, will open the conference alongside Judith McHale, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

Speakers at the conference will include bloggers and internet journalists from North Africa and the Middle East, as well as other media and freedom of expression professionals from all over the world.

On 3 May, Ms Bokova will award the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize. Imprisoned Iranian journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi is the winner of this year’s prize. The award-ceremony will take place at the National Press Club in Washington DC (3.30 to 5 p.m.).

This year’s World Press Freedom Day also marks the 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration for the promotion of free and pluralistic media. The Declaration was adopted after a conference held in Windhoek (Namibia) on the development of a free African press. It emphasized the importance of an independent press for the development and preservation of democracy and economic development. Two years later, the UN General Assembly established World Press Freedom Day.

The anniversary will be commemorated at a special event at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 4 May. On the same day in Windhoek, a regional conference will be held to review the future of the media in Africa. A publication analyzing media freedom in Africa over the past two decades will be launched on this occasion.

Also noteworthy are the celebrations of World Press Freedom Day in Tunisia and Egypt, where journalists are now able to work more freely and exercise the right to freedom of expression.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31345&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html