Network

Internet users are not as isolated as sociologists thought, but we've known that all along. Rather than isolating Americans, a new study finds the Internet broadens our social circle, and Facebook gets particular credit.

It's one of the basic tenets of online security: Never use the same password/username combo for every website that requires one. The logic is sound, of course. A single security breach could expose your most private information -- such as banking and credit card numbers -- to the bad guys.

Gee willikers, have you heard? They've just invented a new device that can let you use Twitter, even if you aren't at a computer! This could be the biggest thing in made-to-be-obsolete technology since the standalone Wi-Fi text messenger!

How many people really use Google Apps and how many of them are paying customers? That's a question Google has never quite answered, having touted a "20 million users" and "2 million companies" figure that is almost meaningless.

This must be a joke: A Novell corporate blog item that chastises the City of Los Angeles for recently selecting Google Apps to replace Novell's GroupWise e-mail and calendaring software.

Why do we today celebrate today--October 29--as the Internet's 40's birthday? Because on this day in 1969, what would later became known as the Internet was used for the very first time--and crashed.

With the Federal Communications Commission approving a process to formalize network neutrality rules, a period of official debate begins on how our Internet traffic is managed, as if there wasn't enough debate already. In a nutshell, the FCC wants to stop Internet service providers from slowing down or blocking particular uses, such as peer-to-peer downloading, as long as they're legal.

The search engine wars took a dramatic turn yesterday, with Google and Microsoft both announcing real-time search deals with Twitter. Additionally, Microsoft struck a deal with Facebook to index status updates on its Bing search engine, and Google introduced Social Search, which integrates your friends' social networking information directly into search results.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project claims that 19 percent, or nearly 1 in 5, Americans who use the Internet also use Twitter or some other social networking status update service to keep in touch and share information about themselves with others. The bigger news is that this figure is almost double what it was in a previous survey in December of 2008.

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new wireless networking specification which will enable devices to establish simple peer-to-peer wireless connections without the need for a wireless router or hotspot. Wi-Fi Direct has a wide array of potential uses, many of which encroach on Bluetooth territory and threaten to make the competing wireless protocol obsolete.