Digital Future is Now
New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping landlines. Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless
An innovative and easily implemented technique in which nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces could soon open doors to dramatic improvements in the data storage capacity of electronic media.... "The density achievable with the technology we've developed could potentially enable the contents of 250 DVDs to fit onto a surface the size of a quarter...."
Scientists from the Universities of York and Warwick now believe they have been able to pinpoint the necessary expertise to make this possible, in a project called 'Towards Real Virtuality'. 'Real Virtuality' is a term coined by the project team to highlight their aim of providing a 'real' experience in which all senses are stimulated in such a way that the user has a fully immersive perceptual experience, during which s/he cannot tell whether or not it is real.
A virtual reality helmet that recreates the sights, smells, sounds and even tastes of far-flung destinations has been devised by British scientists. The device will allow users a life-like experience of places such as Kenya's Masai Mara while sitting on their sofa. They can also enjoy the smell of flowers in an Alpine meadow or feel the heat of the Caribbean sun on their face. [And, uh, about what most folks look for on the web...?]
...60 percent of the world's citizens own a cell phone ... due in large part to cell phone growth in poor, developing countries. ... By the end of 2008, there were an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with roughly 1 billion in 2002, ... Approximately 23 percent of the population uses the Internet, up from 11 percent in 2002. Still, poor countries are far less likely to surf the Net....
Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, has been officially announced, and promises to change, among other things, the one problem keeping Linux from world domination: the poop-colored desktop theme.
Internet service providers have not focused much effort on rolling out Web connectivity to some of America's more rural areas. IBM and International Broadband Electric Communications plan to address that by providing service via existing power lines. The project could finally bring the Web to more remote locations, but the technology is unlikely to soon become a competitor to more traditional means of Internet service.