Wikipedia founder calls for social values in the network

Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, Buenos Aires highlighted the need to promote access to a "free culture" based on traditional social values such as faith and responsibility.

In a lecture entitled "Wikipedia, Wikia and the future of free culture," Wales said digital work in a community made up of many people means supporting the same values that operate in society.

"We must rely on faith and hope that everyone is responsible for their own actions," Wales said, adding that if it is wrong to members of a real or digital community "will never move forward."

Wales, who was today awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI de Argentina, said the international success of Wikipedia is based on "all people on the planet free access to knowledge and the ability to edit information.

"We are an NGO, a project with the globalized world we foster knowledge with a strong sense of responsibility", he analyzed.

Wales, who reflected on the reliability problems waking Wikipedia maintenance by their nature collective, stressed that it is important to validate the information before applying for academic purposes.

"Wikipedia has to function as a starting point when working, but then it is very important to validate the information," he said.

The encyclopedia, which currently has 800 million users worldwide, consists of more than 500,000 articles written in various languages and under the premises of "simplicity, neutrality and usefulness."

It is also an advertising-free site with the aim, according to its founder, to "maintain the purity of spirit that makes him a humanitarian mission," so that its funding comes exclusively from private donations and institutional.

Currently the most viewed topics are related to pop culture, especially in Europe and Japan, geography and gender.

Wikipedia founder calls for social values in the network



Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, Buenos Aires highlighted the need to promote access to a "free culture" based on traditional social values such as faith and responsibility.

In a lecture entitled "Wikipedia, Wikia and the future of free culture," Wales said digital work in a community made up of many people means supporting the same values that operate in society.

"We must rely on faith and hope that everyone is responsible for their own actions," Wales said, adding that if it is wrong to members of a real or digital community "will never move forward."

Wales, who was today awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI de Argentina, said the international success of Wikipedia is based on "all people on the planet free access to knowledge and the ability to edit information.

"We are an NGO, a project with the globalized world we foster knowledge with a strong sense of responsibility", he analyzed.

Wales, who reflected on the reliability problems waking Wikipedia maintenance by their nature collective, stressed that it is important to validate the information before applying for academic purposes.

"Wikipedia has to function as a starting point when working, but then it is very important to validate the information," he said.

The encyclopedia, which currently has 800 million users worldwide, consists of more than 500,000 articles written in various languages and under the premises of "simplicity, neutrality and usefulness."

It is also an advertising-free site with the aim, according to its founder, to "maintain the purity of spirit that makes him a humanitarian mission," so that its funding comes exclusively from private donations and institutional.

Currently the most viewed topics are related to pop culture, especially in Europe and Japan, geography and gender.

sSocial network veto access to sexual harassment

The U.S. Attorney in New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced that thirteen of the major social networking sites will veto the access to users with a history of sexual harassment through the e-STOP.

"It's no secret that sexual harassment and abuse of social networks to find and manipulate their victims, so these companies have taken an important step in making the Internet a safer place through the use of e-STOP," said Cuomo in a statement today.

After the popular social networks Facebook and MySpace announced last week it had eliminated 3,500 sexual predators among its users, the companies AOL, Google and Yahoo take the same measures to their websites dedicated to communication and information exchange .

AOL's social network, Bebo, that of Google, Orkut, and the multiple sites of Yahoo such as Flickr, BlackPlanet, Classmates, Flixster, Fotolog, hi5, MyLife, Stickam and tagged, form the list of portals that join the fight against sexual abuse with Multiply, and Imeem, recently acquired by MySpace.

Despite the welcome of the initiative, websites Friendster, Buzznet, hawthorn, Habbo and LiveJournal have not yet joined the e-STOP program, which offers a database of abusers.

"What some companies still refuse to use the database of e-STOP is not only inexcusable but poses a potential danger," the prosecutor said.

The e-STOP, launched by Cuomo and entered into force in 2008, became the first such law requiring sex offenders to report to the relevant record from upstate New York for their email addresses as well as other user names that are identified in the network.

Furthermore, pedophiles who are on probation and who contacted their victims via Internet, will be prohibited access to any social network, pornographic material and contact with children under eighteen.

Cuomo invited Since the December 1 seventeen social networks to use the database e-STOP to eliminate sexual harassment from their websites, twelve of these companies have welcomed the initiative and another has requested access to the system.

Also, major U.S. internet providers for the first time pledged last year to rid their servers of Web sites devoted to child pornography.

Less than 10% of Hispanic Internet users shop online

About ten percent of Internet users in Latin America using e-commerce, although it is expected that over the next five years this figure will rise to 30 percent.

This is manifested in Lima Peru's representative in the Internet portal Mercado Libre, Constanza Abdala, citing recent studies by U.S. consultancy Pyramid Research.

During the presentation of the report "Ten years of free markets in Latin America," Abdala said Internet penetration in the region, 30 percent of the population is low compared to 74 and 49 percent on record, respectively in North America and Europe.

For electronic commerce to be increased in the region need better and more broadband connections, personal computers and Internet devices, and ease of online payment and e-commerce laws, said Abdullah.

Free Market, the largest electronic market in Latin America, has 40 million users accumulated at 30 September 2009 and 6960 million in transactions since its inception in 2009, company sources said.

Although it operates in 12 countries in Latin America, its main markets are in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, according to company sources, some 40,000 people remain from the sale of their products through the electronic market.

Finns use of networked computers heat heating

On a cold, a huge cave under Orthodox Christian cathedral, an energy firm in Helsinki is developing a data center expected to become the greenest on the planet.

The excess temperature of the hundreds of computers to be located under the Uspensky Cathedral will be captured and channeled to the heating network of the city, a system of pipes heated with warm water for keeping the houses in the Finnish capital.

"It is perfectly feasible that a considerable proportion of the heating in the capital may come from the thermal energy generated by computer enclosures," said Juha Sipila, project manager of Helsingin Energia.

Finland and other northern European countries are using their networks fed water as a conduit for renewable energy sources and capture waste to heat water that is pumped through the system.

With the start of activities in January, the new data center for computer services firm Academica is a way of addressing environmental concerns about the expansion of the Internet as a central repository of data and processes of the world, known as "computer in cloud. "

Companies seeking to cut costs and long-term large-scale computing are focusing on data centers, which represent up to 30 percent of the energy costs of many corporations.

Data centers like those in Google and used about 1 percent of the world's energy, and energy demand is growing rapidly with the trend towards outsourcing of computations.

One major problem is that in a typical data center only 40 to 45 percent of the energy used for the computations is proper, the rest is mostly used in the cooling of the servers.

"It's a pressing issue for vendors of information technology, it is estimated that increased energy costs to power and cool servers is outstripping demand servers," said Steven Nathasingh, CEO of research firm växa Inc.

"But the computer companies will not solve the challenge on their own and must create new partnerships with energy management expertise and service companies and others," he said.

The carbon dioxide emissions from data centers are around one third the number reported by airlines, but are growing 10 percent annually and now approach the level of entire countries, like Argentina or Holland.

Energy saving

In addition to providing heating for households in the Finnish capital, the new fair use computer Uspenski half the energy of a typical data center, Sipila said.

Its contribution to the district heating network will be comparable to a wind turbine, or enough to heat 500 homes big domestic.

"The Green is a great selling point, but equally important is the cost savings," said Pietari päivänä, commercial director of Academica.

When the center is expanded as planned, will reduce 375,000 euros (561,000 dollars) a year of the annual energy bill of the company. Academica revenues in 2008 were 15 million.

"It's a win-win situation. We are offering the customer because we can use cheap cooling the excess heat," he said.

The location of the center in the bowels of the cathedral has an additional benefit: safety.

The firm occupies an old bomb shelters carved into the rock by the fire brigade in the Second World War as a haven for city officials of Russian air strikes.

China closes 530 file-sharing websites in BitTorrent crackdown

The Chinese authorities have closed in recent days 530 file-sharing sites using BitTorrent technology, including the popular BTChina.net, informed the official China Daily.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said that the closed pages did not have the necessary licenses to operate, leaving the door open to return to be operational if they get official permission.

Sources of that administration, responsible for censorship China, noted that the sites offered on all movies, television series and other programs, "some erotic content.

The state institution emphasized that research will continue its campaign of websites that offer audiovisual content via P2P, and stressed that the regulation of audiovisual content on the Internet is "a long-term."

The newspaper China Daily said, however, that the campaign against websites using the BitTorrent system has been a sharp increase in the sale of pirated DVDs and CDs on the street.

China is one of the countries most censorship and control exercised over the content on the Internet, but also the nation with the largest number of Internet users (300 million).

The file-sharing websites have been placed in the crosshairs of state authorities on culture in other countries, like Spain, where the preparation of a law that provides closure without requiring a court decision has caused the Spanish Internet protests.

Some of them, in a recent meeting with the Minister of Culture, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, argued that adopting such a law would get that state controls on the Internet Spanish is very similar to those of China

Apple sues Nokia and accused of copying the iPhone

Apple Incorporated Nokia Corporation sued for patent violation in a counterattack to the demand that Nokia brought against the type of technology used by the Apple iPhone.

Apple said in its complaint that Nokia is behind in the market for smart phones or "smart phones" because they chose to focus on old phones with conventional interfaces, in a time when new models were increasingly popular.

Nokia will review the allegations and respond in a timely manner, he said in a statement.

Demand for Apple argues that Nokia infringed 13 Apple patents, said that Finland-based company chose "to copy the iPhone, particularly its user interface, to offset its declining importance in the market for phones high technology.

Demand for Nokia, which was filed in October, argues that Apple, based in Cupertino, California, violated 10 of its patents related to telephone calls and access to wireless Internet connections such Wi-Fi.

The patents that Apple claims that Nokia is failing relate, inter alia, with: the phone connections to computers, teleconferencing, menus on a touch screen, energy conservation in chips and "abstraction of patterns and colors in the interface a graphical user. Apple also refuses Nokia patent infringement.

The cross demands are somewhat common in patent cases, which often end up licensing agreements for both parties. Nokia said in October that 40 manufacturers of phones, except Apple, have given licensing of the patents mentioned in their application.

Nokia shares added 35 cents, 2.8%, to $ 12.91 in afternoon trade while shares of Apple fell $ 2.14 to $ 194.29.

MySpace imeem purchase by nearly a million dollars

The online music company that is MySpace with record labels on Tuesday completed the purchase of the site provider imeem songs, taking its 16 million users and its mobile applications for less than a million dollars.

In a message on the network, the chief executive of MySpace, Owen Van Natta said the deal would allow the MySpace Music joint venture eventually incorporate tools imeem.

One of the roles of absent imeem MySpace is a cell phone application that lets you listen without downloading songs through Apple Inc. 's iPhone devices and devices with the Android operating system from Google Inc. as the new smartphone Droid .

"In the coming weeks, our people will be working to take aspects of imeem that users love and bring them to MySpace Music," he said.

The music industry is still low CD sales, while revenue in the respective digital system has not covered the difference, in part because people prefer to buy singles instead of entire albums when they decide to pay for music.

Firms like imeem and MySpace Music lets people listen to and share music online for free, while revenue generated by advertising.

Imeem The company, headquartered in the U.S. city of San Francisco, began distributing free music in 2007, but advertising revenue could not support the debt payments and royalties, which drained the company money.

The price of under a million dollars is a bargain for MySpace and a sign of continuing difficulties in the free music distribution companies.

From imeem, CEO Dalton Caldwell, the chief technology officer Brian Berg, the chief operating officer Ali Akhdar and the vice president of sales David Wade will remain as advisors during the transition. It was not immediately whether they are permanent employees.

YouTube said that advertising sales rise

The CEO of YouTube said that sales have shot up by advertising, but still failed to clarify whether the popular video site makes money.

Chad Hurley, one of the founders of YouTube, said the company had "two quarters spectacular" and that receives more than 1,000 million hits a day.

"Our costs continue to decline and our revenue growth. It's a good combination for success and will continue building on that trend," Hurley said at a ceremony to launch the personal channel on YouTube to Israeli President Shimon Peres.

"We have continued to grow in terms of traffic, we have over 1,000 million daily users and receive nearly 24 hours of video every minute," he said.

Peres said he wants to use the channel to hear ideas from people across the world and communicate with them directly.

YouTube has not been profitable since it was acquired by Google for U.S. $ 1,760 million three years ago, but Google executives have indicated that approaches its first profit.

The company does not publish its revenues, but analysts estimate that YouTube reached in 2008 about 200 million.

Despite attracting a worldwide audience, YouTube has not been a great source of revenue for Google yet.

Peres, 86 and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has a reputation for tenaciously promote coexistence and peace in the Middle East. A welcome message for Peres in the channel of YouTube asks users to help you find solutions in three areas: power the world peace, promoting religious tolerance and use new technologies to benefit humanity.

University turns iPhone into musical instruments

Welcome to an orchestra of twenty-first century. The iPhone cell being used as musical instruments in a course at an American university.

Students at the University of Michigan are learning to design, build and play instruments in their 'smartphones' Apple, and have planned a public performance on December 9.

The university said he thought the course was unique in the world. Professor Georg Essl is a musician and scientist who has worked on the development of mobile phones and musical instruments.

Essl and his colleagues began to use the microphone and wind sensor some years ago, allowing iPhone applications like the Ocarina, which basically turns the device into a wind instrument similar to an ancient flute.

"The mobile phone is a very good platform to explore new forms of musical performance," Essl said in a statement.

"We are not tied to the physics of traditional instruments. We can do interesting things, strange, unusual. This type of technology is in its infancy but is an area with attractive growth prospects and to use the iPhone for artistic expression, said.

Essl said that to make an instrument on an iPhone, the students programmed the device to play as sound information received from each of the multiple sensors.

"The touch screen, microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer can be transformed so that when passing a finger across the screen, blow into the microphone or shake the phone, for example, different sounds come out," said .

Screen of death threat to Windows 7

Computer giant Microsoft has confirmed it is investigating a problem called the "black screen of death", which is affecting their operating systems, including the brand new Windows 7.

The error occurs that all users of Windows 7 are the computer screen totally black after making the log in.

The company said it is reviewing reports suggesting that its latest security update, released on Nov. 10, is the cause of the problem.

Reports indicate that the fault also affects other Microsoft operating systems like Vista, XP, NT and Windows 2000.

"Millions affected
The software company Prevx, which created a program to solve the problem, says that "millions" of people may be harmed.

"Users have made a reload (reload) of Windows as a desperate attempt to solve the problem," he wrote in a blog on the firm's chairman, David Kennerley.

"We hope to help many of you to avoid the need for a recharge," he added.

However, Kennerley said the solution did not work in all cases, since "there can be many causes."

"But if you began to see her black screen in the two weeks following a Windows update or after installing any security program (including Prevx) to remove malware (malicious software) during this time, then this solution will have a high probability of working .

Kennerly said the firm had identified "at least 10 different situations that cause the same effects of the black screen.

"It seems that they have been around a few years ago," he said.

Unknown issue
Microsoft advises that all people who experience this problem with their computer should contact their customer service line.

A company spokesman said the reports "did not match any known problem" documented by Microsoft.

It has not yet submitted any solution for this bug, which causes the screen, taskbar, icons, and the vertical bar disappear.

This problem arises within two months the release of Windows 7, with the expectation that their success (or failure) will determine the future of the largest software company in the world, as outlined by the BBC journalist Tim Weber.

"90% of the world's computers use Windows, the company itself estimates that more than 1,000 million people use it," Weber said.

Video Games, latest target Walmart discounts

Wal-Mart lowered prices by $ 10 from popular video games and offers a $ 50 gift card for the purchase of the Nintendo Wii console in a bid to attract buyers to come to their centers of face-to-end sales year.

From now and until Christmas Eve, Walmart will sell''Rock Band: Beatles''for the Wii for $ 40 from the 50 initial and Left 4 Dead will offer''2''for Xbox 360 from Microsoft for $ 50 , a game that used to cost $ 60.

From December 5 to 12, Walmart also announced that customers who purchase a Nintendo Wii from the Japanese in their stores for $ 199 also are in for a $ 50 gift card.

Walmart is cutting prices on selected items every week until Christmas, in an attempt to do business with customers more reluctant to spend money. The discount giant has already lowered prices on items such as toys and televisions, while Walmart.com has lowered prices on books and DVDs.

But competitors like Target and Amazon.com have responded with price cuts in its articles or offers to achieve competitive prices.

The race for the holiday shopping started the weekend of Thanksgiving, but statistics showed a slight increase sales that disappointed investors, who expected a more robust early in the season.

Vendors are now trying to prevent the fall of the influx of buyers that occurs in the first weeks of December, after the drastic discounts offered the weekend of Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, the video game industry hopes that new titles, like''The Beatles: Rock Band,''boost sales during the holiday season.

The industry, which in the past it was thought that would remain relatively insulated from economic problems, has made efforts this year on sales of the once powerful musical category, blockbuster movies as well as proposing to make conscious customers spent.

Sales of video game and software items in the U.S. fell 19 percent in October, to 1,070 million dollars, according to research group NPD.

Nintendo sold 1.5 million consoles in one week

Japan's Nintendo said it sold more than 1.5 million consoles during the key week of Thanksgiving.

Nintendo estimated that over a week sold more than 550,000 Wii consoles and over a million of its Nintendo DS model and other handhelds.

The week of Thanksgiving, which kicks off the holiday shopping season in the U.S., is crucial to the annual revenues of companies.

Michael Jackson, the king of search of the year on Yahoo! Spain

The singer Michael Jackson and the intrigues surrounding her death have placed as the first name that appears in the list of 'Top Picks for 2009' on Yahoo! Spain.

For the first time, Yahoo! Spain announces the most searched terms over mobile, most notably the football results, contributions or the films.

A Like last year, gaming, mail and chat are the three words most frequently written in the form.

In terms of news, besides the death of the King of Pop'',''the disappearance of teenager Martha Castillo, abortion reform, the web of corruption "Gürtel" which affects the conservative Popular Party leaders, or the Madrid 2016 Olympic bid focused attention and searches on Yahoo! Spain.

The Spanish also have been seduced by the more frivolous side of information and among the ten most wanted items are the daughters of the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the child's balloon, the false incident that took place last October in the United States and kept in suspense to the public around the globe.

In terms of film, Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer and the release of his second installment, New Moon, being first and third place respectively.

The success of the popular vampire story has led to its protagonist, Robert Pattinson, known to be the most wanted in the men.

As referred to famous women, actress Megan Fox has led the search.

The word "crisis" has disappeared from the ten terms typed into the category of finance and has been displaced by more specific as the National Employment Institute (INEM),''job''and''employment''.

In sports, Real Madrid and Barcelona are leading the ranking and Cristiano Ronaldo, occupies a modest fifth place, overtaken by basketball (CBA) and Formula 1.

As for entertainment, three women (Shakira, Rihanna and Lady Gaga) lead the search for music.

India blocks 25 million Chinese mobile phone

India blocked for security reasons the connections of 25 million Chinese mobile phones after finding they did not have the necessary IMEI identification number for tracking calls, announced Tuesday the Indian Ministry of Telecommunications.

The inability to "crawl" the 'phones without IMEI number is a security threat, "the Ministry of Telecommunications.

These low quality phones manufactured in China do not have the 15 issues of international portable Identification (IMEI), so the connections have been cut, told AFP a ministry official.

The IMEI can identify incoming and outgoing calls from a mobile phone and provides information on the manufacturer and type of appliance.

"All mobile operators were ordered to block the services of these 25 million handsets," said the source.

The owners of these phones will get their operators the IMEI number by paying $ 4.

With 500 million subscribers, India is the second largest mobile market, behind China.

Recently, the Indian intelligence services had warned of the possibility that Chinese products may have contained equipment designed to launch a cyberattack or prevent the operation of appliances.

Google will limit free access to five stories a day

The Google search engine and by extension "Google News" to limit to five the number of stories and articles to which users can access for free, in response to complaints from newspaper editors, who have criticized the company is profited by providing access to their digital content payment.

One of the primary responsibility for Google's Josh Cohen explains in his blog that "so far, each''click''of a surfer was processed as free access.

The readers had discovered that they could access fee journalistic content simply by entering the page they were interested in the Google search engine.

According to the company, this is because of its strict policy to avoid cloaking, a phenomenon that occurs when the user searches through Google, to follow a link resulting page that opens is not expected .

Cohen points out in his blog that Google offers publishers the opportunity to benefit from the program "First Click Free" (the first click, free).

"We have updated the program so that publishers can restrict free access to their pages to a maximum of five stories a day. From this figure will need to register or subscribe," says Cohen.

The company believes that this way it protects its users against cloaking yet allows publishers to "focus on potential subscribers who regularly access to a high percentage of their digital content.

"We will continue the dialogue with publishers to refine these methods. After all, whether they are offering free content as if they charge for them, it is crucial that people can find them. And that's where Google can help," says the head of most Extended search engine.

Among the harshest critics of Google for this issue is the Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who had previously accused these companies of profiting from journalism, as it connects the Internet with the news getting them involved in high-income advertising.

eBay must pay $ 2.5 million for the illegal sale

The French courts convicted the Internet auction site eBay to pay a fine of $ 2.5 million (1.7 million) the world leader in luxury for the illegal sale of LVMH perfumes, announced the two sides.

This internet site selling was convicted in June of 2008 for "illegal practices" after the sale of perfumes Kenzo, Givenchy, Christian Dior and Guerlain, all brands of the LVMH group.

On Monday, the Paris commercial court sentenced him to two fines of 850,000 euros (1.2 million) in finding that eBay did not respect the order prohibiting him from selling those products, told AFP Pierre Gode, group manager LVMH.

"We are clearly pleased with this decision, which again supports the principle of selective distribution," he added. This principle allows manufacturers to choose their distribution network.

To comply with the injunction, eBay launched a series of significant human and technical measures for buyers and sellers can buy and sell non-genuine products, "said its general manager in France, Alex von Schirmeister.

"It is true that there are users that try to bypass the order," he added, before describing the fine "disproportionate."

In a statement further held that the decision of the court "punishes consumers by preventing them from buying or selling real products on the Internet.

The Internet auction site last September was sentenced by the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris for using without authorization the name of several brands of LVMH perfumes, a decision appealed.

Web keeps track of the last 350 years of science

Dante recounts a 1666 blood transfusion and entertaining notes on how you answered a Mozart from 8 years to the evidence of his genius were published on Monday in a story line of scientific endeavors.

The website "Trailblazing" (marking the road, with its translation in Spanish) was created by the influential Royal Society scientific academy and includes handwritten documents on some of the most important scientific discoveries of the last three and half centuries.

Studies of Benjamin Franklin on how to trace a kite in a thunderstorm, which date from 1752, was the first time someone suggested that lightning and electricity were not a supernatural force.

And the notes of Edward Stone in 1763 about the success of willow bark to treat fever discovery documents the rise of acetyl salicylic acid and aspirin production, currently one of the most used drugs worldwide.

Trailblazing creators say it is a virtual trip to the rhythm of each "through science, the Royal Society hopes to inspire people to see science as part of life and culture in everyday .

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said the documents showed "an incessant demand of scientists for centuries (...) to try and build our knowledge of mankind and the universe."

"They represent the exciting moment that science allows us to better understand and see beyond," he added.

The documents, taken from the oldest scientific journal in the English speaking world, Philosophical Transactions, also includes documents dating from 1776 on how Captain James Cook saved his sailors from scurvy with pickled cabbage, lemon and malt, well before them to develop ideas on nutrition.

They also include the first work on black holes by Stephen Hawking and the historic work of Isaac Newton in 1672 on the nature of light and color documents in 1940 about the discovery of penicillin.

Daines Barrington, a skeptical scientist who wanted to test the claim that Mozart was a genius when he visited London in 1770 at age 8, said that the boy was so wicked and distracted as any child, but showed an outstanding talent.

"As the score was placed under his desk, he began playing the symphony in a masterful way," he wrote.

And the 1755 edition has a count of the first vaccines, and Hans Sloane wrote that "takes place with a slight incision in the skin of the arm" and introduce "a small amount of matter smallpox mature and appropriate to protect against a subsequent infection.

Sloane goes on to describe how he first tried "six convicted felons" and then "half a dozen children in charitable institutions.