Information Policy

The backbone for European science gets stronger: 100Gbps internet for individual researchers

The backbone for European science gets stronger: 100Gbps internet for individual researchers

GÉANT, the superfast pan-European research network that helped discover the Higgs Boson, announced today that it could reach speeds up to 2Tbps (terabits per second) thanks to a major network upgrade. From today, capacity of up to 500Gbps is available across the core network. This means individual users across 32,000 universities, higher education institutes, research institutes, schools, libraries, museums, national archives and hospitals can transfer data at speeds of up to 100Gbps.

Surveillance and the Corrosion of Internet Freedom

When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in 2010 that the Obama administration would be a forceful advocate for Internet freedom, she declared that, "We recognize that the world's information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it." It was bold vision by a 21st century government that saw how technology could advance human rights in a wired world.

The first distance learning course on visual journalism: lessons learned

What is a distance learning course on visual journalism, and who is it for?

The course was created in cooperation with former AP interactive producer Matt Ford. It is designed for journalists and editors of online media who lack skills in visual journalism. The course is designed so that all participants are trained through the practice of creating visual content for their online media.

Point-Scoring Our Web Freedom

We are a ratings-obsessed culture. Critics award stars and points for films, books, restaurants, hotels, gadgets and a vast number of other products and services. Sometimes, a professional critic does the scoring, but increasingly, the public collectively creates averaged scores. Some ratings gathered with great detail, such as wine critics' commonly used 100pt scales. Others are as simple as Facebook's "like" button, purely a measure of marketing prowess. Some of the most useful ratings combine verifiable metrics. Consumer Reports, which has been an essential part of my reading for many years, comes up with what I consider highly trustworthy scores for automobiles and other products. A car goes through a variety of tests; the magazine then weights them according to its longstanding practices and comes up with a total score on a 100pt scale.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/27/point-scoring-web-freedom

Advancing Internet freedom doesn’t come for free

Craig A. Newman is chief executive of the Freedom2Connect Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit.

  When events unfolded in Egypt two years ago, it was a historic moment both because political change was sweeping through the Middle East and because political revolution had finally entered the digital age. Citizens, largely without weapons, harnessed the power of the Internet and mobile communications to topple an authoritarian regime.

Continue reading "Advancing Internet freedom doesn’t come for free" »