Web’s inventor seeks uniform standards
The World Wide Web’s inventor believes that making it more useful hinges on a familiar challenge: Getting the players behind the technology to agree on standards governing how computers communicate.
The obstacles impeding Web development are as much social as technological, and industry players must avoid the temptation to stymie key technologies by demanding royalty payments, Berners-Lee said Wednesday at a technology conference sponsored by MIT Technology Review magazine.
Berners-Lee, who now heads the standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium from an office at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology, envisions a new phase of the Web, called the Semantic Web, in which data can more readily interact without human involvement.
Rather than merely navigating to information related to their interests, Web surfers should be able to manipulate it to get more meaning, he said.
NHL season goes on, virtually
Professional hockey may be on hold, but all 1,230 regular season games will still be played.
How, you ask? In the confines of a video game, with results posted on a specialty cable television channel that’s devoted to games and high-tech gear.
Starting Wednesday with a matchup between Stanley Cup champs Tampa Bay Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers, G4techTV will broadcast highlights, scores and stats every day on the sports program “Sweat.”
Highlights will also be seen on Comcast SportsNet; Comcast owns G4techTV.
New law targets spyware
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed separate legislation designed to combat spyware and the illegal online swapping of copyright material.
One bill requires people who share movies, videos and recordings on file-sharing services to provide their e-mail or physical addresses, while the other bans unauthorized installation of spyware on individual computers.
Sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America, the file-sharing law authorizes fines up to $2,500 and a year in county jail. The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that to the extent the law does get enforced, “it becomes more dangerous.”
“Every time a 14-year-old girl trades a song file and has to include her true address, that’s a target for a stalker,” EFF policy analyst Annalee Newitz said.
The law, sponsored by a former talent agent at the William Morris Agency, Democratic Sen. Kevin Murray, limits fines for minors who don’t provide their e-mail addresses to $250, or $1,000 after three violations.