Internet body meets to expand list of domain names and IP addresses

ICANN, the international regulatory body for Web architecture, met here Monday to discuss expanding the list of top level domain names and a new generation of Internet protocol addresses.

"We are a thousand individuals from all over the world convening in Cartagena to adopt fundamental decisions on the biggest issues facing the Internet industry on a global scale," said ICAAN chairman Peter Thrush.

A California-based non-profit corporation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers manages the Domain Name System and Internet Protocol addresses that form the technical backbone of the Web.

Every device connecting to the Internet needs an IP address and Thrush said ICANN's board meeting was to help prepare the transition from IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) to IPv6, which already exists but is rarely used.

Less than 150 million IPv4 addresses are still available, and "will come to an end by mid-2011, which necessitates an urgent adoption of a new generation of the respective protocols," he said.

During its meeting here, ICANN is also expected to discuss expanding the list of what are known as generic top level domains such as .com, .net and .org.

Thrush said an expansion of domain names would herald "the beginning of a new era of change for completion of the map of the Internet."

Bush Proves Surprisingly Tech-Savvy in Zuckerberg Chat

"By law, I was required to archive all my papers, which happened to be more than 20,000 boxes worth, and more than 170 million emails," Bush explained. "I didn't want any of those [emails] to be mine. The problem is if you were to read any of my emails today, you could read anything into them."

It would be natural to assume that George W. Bush and Mark Zuckerberg have nothing in common.

Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, is a Baby Boomer, while Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive officer of Facebook, is a member of the millennial generation. Those facts alone, according to many contemporary sociologists, mean this pair should be participants in a culture war that's currently being waged everywhere from the workplace to the political arena.

Despite their outward differences, however, these two got along quite nicely when they sat down for a chat at Facebook headquarters on Monday afternoon.

For Bush, this was one of many stops on a cross-country tour to promote his new book, Decision Points, which gives his personal perspective on what he regards as some of the most important moments of his eight years as the country's chief executive.

Still, the hour-long conversation proved quite revealing in at least two ways: 1) It showed that the former president and the Facebook CEO -- both of whom will loom as prominent figures when the history of the early 20th Century is written -- are much more alike than outward appearances would indicate; and 2) It demonstrated the major impact that Facebook, and the underlying technology that spawned it, is having on the world at large.

Mutual Respect

First, let's examine the similarities between the two men. It's not likely that either will win any awards for public speaking in the near future. However, freed from the constraints of always having to appear presidential, Bush has developed a folksy speaking style, peppered with doses of self-deprecating humor, that enables him to connect with audiences quite well. He put that style to good use to break the conversational ice after a clearly nervous Zuckerberg ushered him on stage with a very brief introduction.

"Not exactly Jay Leno," Bush cracked, as he took his seat between Zuckerberg and Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, who then assumed the role of lead interviewer. That format allowed Zuckerberg to sit back, listen and interject questions as he saw fit, and that clearly helped turn what could have been an awkward 60 minutes into an interesting and insightful discourse.

As the hour unfolded, it became evident that Bush and Zuckerberg, even if this was the first time they met, have developed a mutual sense of respect.

The former president, always a champion of free markets, remarked how he admired Zuckerberg's accomplishments as an entrepreneur, and how he loves a country that allows such dreams to flourish. Later, Zuckerberg commented that he always admired how Bush made decisions based on strongly held beliefs and then stuck with those decisions, even when public sentiment seemed to be against him.

Understanding Technology

"We (Facebook) have gotten some criticism," Zuckerberg related. "Certainly not as much as comes with being president, but we have had some. And I've always admired how you handled those situations."

In regard to understanding technology, Zuckerberg's prowess in that area is evident in his creation of Facebook. But the former president demonstrated what many might consider a surprising level of clarity about the role technology is playing in society.

That was evident when Zuckerberg asked Bush why he had agreed to include a stop at Facebook headquarters on his book tour. "Because you have a lot of people paying attention to us, and I'm trying to sell books," the president responded.

The audience laughed at that comment, but it clearly highlighted the former president's understanding of how important social media has become to anyone trying to communicate with the masses.

Bush then pointed out that he has more than 600,000 friends on his personal Facebook page, which he uses to keep in touch with people who worked in his administration, "and folks who are interested in what [former First Lady Laura Bush] and I are doing."

Personal Technology Choices

When it comes to his personal use of technology, Bush said he frequently plugged into an iPod while riding his mountain bike when he occupied the White House. As a private citizen, however, he rides unplugged, preferring the sounds of nature to electronic stimulation.

In the early days of his post-presidential life, Bush said he became a BlackBerry person, but recently he has switched to an iPad. In a statement that revealed just how much he understands the true impact of technology, Bush said he made a conscious decision not to use email while he was president.

"My administration was the first one to really use email," he remarked, adding that requirements of the Freedom of Information Act prompted him to avoid being part of the email loop.

"By law, I was required to archive all my papers, which happened to be more than 20,000 boxes worth, and more than 170 million emails," Bush explained. "I didn't want any of those [emails] to be mine. The problem is if you were to read any of my emails today, you could read anything into them."

With that one statement, this former president, whom many people assumed would have no clue about how to use technology, showed more understanding of its impact than a large portion of the 500 million who cavalierly use Facebook every day.

'Fourth generation' Internet arrives in Hong Kong

The latest generation of wireless Internet that will allow people to watch a crystal clear movie or live sporting event on the street or atop a hill is being deployed throughout Hong Kong.

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) network will give super high speeds across the city and could mean the end of computers ever needing to be plugged into a wall for a connection to the net.

The so-called "fourth generation" system is being rolled out by Hong Kong mobile network operator CSL in partnership with telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corporation.

"The first launch of an LTE network any place in Asia is truly historic," Joseph O'Konek, CSL's chief executive, told AFP.

"For a lot of people, this will be their first experience of the Internet. They are at a huge advantage to previous Internet generations because they are leapfrogging all those fixed line technologies.

"It is truly going to unleash the power of human networks as this kind of system rolls out more and more across the world."

LTE enables faster data downloads and uploads on mobile devices compared with a third-generation network.

The system will give speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and should make the high quality viewing of full length movies or realtime live sporting events possible anywhere in the city.

LTE networks are already operating in Europe, Scandinavia and North America. Japan will have an LTE system before the end of the year and huge growth in LTE connections is expected over the next five years, especially in China.

Meanwhile CSL's owner, the Australian telecoms giant Telstra, said it is looking to make acquisitions to strengthen its position in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Organic growth is always the best growth. But you do need to acquire new technology that's going to allow you to fuel the growth in the future," David Thodey, the company's CEO, told the Wall Street Journal.

"Sometimes you expand geographically... or sometimes you want to expand your market share. We will be doing all three because it's critically important for a company to keep pushing the limits as you go forward."

Swedish court upholds Pirate Bay conviction

A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld a ruling against three men behind file sharing website Pirate Bay, raising the fine to more than $ 6 million but cutting their prison sentences to between four and 10 months.

An industry body hailed the decision and said the authorities should move to shut the site down. A Swedish political party with its roots in support for the website and anti-copyright laws said the judgment meant nothing.

The case was brought by Swedish subsidiaries of leading music and film companies, including Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI and Warner Brothers as part of the industry's fight against the sharing of film and video over the Internet.

"The appeals court, like the district court, finds that the service Pirate Bay has facilitated illegal file sharing in a way which is punishable for those who carried out the service," the court said in a statement.

A lower court had last year sentenced four men linked to what is one of the world's biggest file sharing websites to one year in jail and a fine of 32 million crowns ($ 4.57 million).

The Svea appeals court said in a statement it had reduced the prison sentences by varying amounts, but raised the fine to 46 million crowns ($ 6.57 million). The new judgment applied to three of the men, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom.

The court reduced Neij's sentence to 10 months, Sunde's to eight and Lundstrom's to four. A fourth man, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, was ill and could not take part in proceedings, it said.

Website still running

Despite the court case, the website is still functioning. On its website, Pirate Bay says that it is now run by a different organisation and is registered in the Seychelles.

A US court in October shut down another popular file sharing website, LimeWire.

The Pirate Party, a political party which grew out of a movement of people sympathetic to file sharing and which has one seat in the European Parliament, criticised the court's ruling.

"This case was politically motivated from the start and (the problem) must be solved politically," Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told reporters.

"This doesn't mean anything for The Pirate Bay and it doesn't mean anything for similar sites. File sharing is increasing every day and the only thing this means is that more and more people will try to hide what they are doing on the Internet."

Industry bodies said they were pleased with the ruling and called for action to shut down the website.

"Today's judgment confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay and the seriousness of the crimes of those involved," Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI, which represents the recorded music industry worldwide, said in a statement.

"It is now time for The Pirate Bay, whose operators have twice been convicted in court, to close. We now look to governments and ISPs (Internet service providers) to take note of this judgment, do the responsible thing and take the necessary steps to get The Pirate Bay shut down."

Urban kids unhealthy; addicted to TV, internet

November 14 is Children's Day but it is not all good news. A recent study suggests that one in every three children below 10 years of age is either underweight or overweight.

Most of the children belonging to urban areas are addicted to video games and not interested in going out to play. Young school children in mid-level to elite private schools in urban India are unfit and unhealthy like never before.

An independent survey covering over 4000 children across 15 cities says one in three students is overweight or malnourished.

"Children today don't play outside and 80 per cent of them talk about their playtime as their play station or computer time. There is no play time as in running and playing," says Deen's Academy Principal Shanthi Menon.

Children aged 5 to 10 were assessed on co-ordination, flexibility and agility. While many of them can score a perfect 90 in Maths and Science, at least one-third couldn't easily sit and stretch, swing and jump or even throw. The verdict is clear: unhealthy kids grow up to unhealthy adults.

"It's a combination of not having enough time to play and enough space to play. There is parental lack of attention, lack of willingness and lack of role-models. If I want my child to be fit, I can't be watching TV all day. I need to do something about it," says EduSports MD Saumil Majumdar.

It's an unquestioned fact that many of our children are not fit enough, what with pizza snacking and the fact that many schools don't have large playgrounds. But it is the first time that a scientific assessment has been done and perhaps it's time to think beyond exams.

Swedish hotel replaces room keys with mobile phone

Visitors to a Stockholm hotel will be able to use mobile phones instead of keys to unlock the doors to their rooms.

Assa Abloy AB, the world's largest maker of door locks, has launched a pilot in which Clarion Hotel Stockholm will lend customers mobile phones with close-range radio chips, much like devices used for contact-less payments at gas stations.

Repeat visitors during a four-month trial will be able to check in through their phones before arrival and have their phones activated as "keys." They will then be able to skip the registration desk and unlock the door by holding the phone next to it.

The short-range radio technology, known as Near Field Communication, is expected to be built into smart phones in the coming years. It is also envisioned for ticketing and card payments. Assa Abloy says it wanted to test the system before expanding it to other hotels, commercial buildings and homes.

Greger Johansson, a telecommunications analyst at research firm Redeye, said NFC is a hot technology in the mobile phone market. But he said few models have incorporated it so far and it will take "several years" before it becomes widely used.

"It's not just a matter of incorporating the technology into the phones," he said. "You need someone who can read it too. There are quite a few players involved so it will take a while until it works well."

The head of Assa Abloy's mobile keys division, Daniel Berg, acknowledged that participants in the trial may find it cumbersome to have an extra mobile phone.

But once people have the technology in their own phones, he said, it will save them time at check-in and improve security because the access credentials in a lost phone can be revoked remotely.

He said the phone technology works with existing radio-enabled locks, so hotels can continue giving key cards to visitors who don't have the new technology in their phones.

Facebook Chatwala

Smart shortcuts to improve your BlackBerry experience

One of the greatest joys of using a BlackBerry is the number of shortcuts that a power user can use to get tasks accomplished in double-quick time. Want a one-click shortcut to lock your BlackBerry or toggle between vibrate and normal profiles? Or want to go to the bottom of a long e-mail in a single click - it's all possible with your trusted BlackBerry.

Smarter BlackBerry Use Shortcuts

Quick reboot: One solution during the rare occasion when my BlackBerry starts behaving as if it's under the weather (hanging, performing slowly, low on memory, etc), is to remove the battery and SIM card, wait a few seconds and reinsert. But that's not always easy, especially in a moving vehicle or when commuting. At such times, I prefer a software reset, much like a PC reboot. All you need to do is press your BlackBerry's 'Alt', 'Right Shift' and 'Delete' keys together. Not for folks with thick fingers though; they might prefer the harder option of removing the battery. Also, though I mentioned commutes, let me indemnify myself by mentioning that rush hour Bombay local trains are exempt from any such claims.

'Help Me!' Screen: Need a dashboard on everything related to your BlackBerry, ranging from memory to radio signal strength, uptime as well as identification information such as MAC ID, IMEI, OS version and more? The 'Help Me!' screen is the answer to your prayers. Simply press your BlackBerry's 'Alt', 'Left Shift' and 'H' keys simultaneously.

One-key lock: Some newer BlackBerry smartphone have a dedicated lock key on the top, but for older devices (and even newer ones if you want to use it), the one-key option to lock your BlackBerry is to press the 'A' letter key for a couple of seconds.

One-key vibrate mode: Need to quickly move to vibrate mode in the middle of an important meeting? Simply press the 'Q' key for a few seconds when you are in any alert profile other than 'Vibrate Only.' When you need to switch back, do the same and your BlackBerry reverts to the alert profile you were using earlier.

If you find it cumbersome to type in a long name for a contact you can easily find contacts from your BlackBerry's home screen by typing in the first and last initials, with a space in between. Of course, if you have multiple contacts with the same initials you'll get a list of such contacts.

Would you like to use a special or an accented character? Perhaps to personalise your BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) profile? You can get these by holding the character key and scrolling with the trackball or trackpad.

Messaging and mailbox Shortcuts

• To compose a new message press 'C' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the top of a message press 'T' when viewing the message.
• To go to the bottom of a message press 'B' when viewing the message.
• To reply to a message press 'R' when viewing the message.
• To reply to all in a message press 'L' when viewing the message.
• To forward a message Press 'F' when viewing the message.
• To go to the next unopened item press 'U' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• Press the 'S' key to search for a sender or a word within a subject line, and any mail folder when viewing the 'Messages' screen. When you press 'S' when viewing a message, you can search within that message.
• To view your inbox press 'Alt + I' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To view your outbox press 'Alt + O' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To mark a message as opened/unopened press 'Alt + U' when a message is highlighted or when reading the message.
• To go to the top of mailbox press 'T' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the bottom of your mailbox press 'B' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the next date press 'N' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.
• To go to the previous date press 'P' when viewing the 'Messages' screen.

Dell switching off BlackBerry, onto own smartphone

Dell Inc will shift thousands of its employees off Research in Motion Ltd's BlackBerry and over to Dell's smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

The money-saving switch affects the roughly 25,000 Dell employees who carry a company-issued BlackBerry. Dell employs around 100,000 people worldwide.

Dell is also launching an effort to convince its business customers to switch to the company's smartphone.

News of the company's plans was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, and confirmed by Dell spokesman David Frink.

Frink said the switch will begin soon, but said it will take some time to complete.

RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dell's BlackBerry users will be shifted over to use the new Dell Venue Pro, which runs on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 software and operates on the network of T-Mobile USA, the US arm of Deutsche Telekom AG.

Dell's decision to move its employees off BlackBerry may come as little surprise, given its aspirations in the mobile device market. The company has frequently talked about using handheld devices as a gateway to sell and promote a broader suite of services.

Dell formally entered the smartphone market only late last year, and launched its first device in the US, the Aero, earlier this year. The Aero runs on Google's Android software, as does Dell's new 5-inch tablet, the Streak.

RIM has long been the dominant player in the corporate smartphone market, but has seen its market share erode as companies such as Apple make gains.

In the third quarter, RIM's global smartphone market share slipped more than 4 percentage points from a year-ago, according to industry tracker IDC

Google staff to get servants as perks

Servants to help in household work, including picking up dinners and cleaning up dog poop, will be given as perks to hardworking employees of Google, the Internet search engine giant has said.

The service is provided by TaskRabbit, which gives users access to an online job board where they can get "runners" to do "almost anything" at a price set by them, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"Recently we piloted a new perk in a few offices, providing access to TaskRabbit, a startup that provides runners to perform tasks for employees," Google was quoted as having said in a statement.

Google, particularly its Silicon Valley headquarters, is in a constant battle with other technology firms to attract the best and brightest engineers. Its long list of employee perks - which includes gym memberships, free meals, insurance and snack and games rooms - is designed partly for this purpose.

Some examples of chores listed on the TaskRabbit website are "assemble robot toy", "help decorate our office for a celebration" and "pick-up dinners from Dream Dinners in San Jose". "Poop patrol for small dogs" is one of the odder jobs listed on it.

Windows-powered 8.9-inch Slate tablet by HP

Hewlett-Packard Co unveiled its first product for the fast-growing tablet market, a $ 799 device running Microsoft Windows that is aimed at business customers.

HP's Slate 500 attempts to replicate the PC experience in a tablet form, providing a contrast to rivals who have brought more of a smartphone feel to their devices. The Slate runs the same version of Windows 7 used by many companies on their standard PCs.

The tablet has a bigger price tag than competing products such as Apple's iPad, which kick-started the tablet craze when it debuted earlier this year.

HP's offering has an 8.9-inch, multi-touch-enabled screen, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with 64 gigabytes (GB) of storage and a digital stylus pen. It gets five hours of battery life.

It comes equipped with Wi-Fi access but no built-in capability to connect to high-speed cellular networks, as rivals including the iPad, Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab and Dell's Streak have.

Carol Hess-Nickels, director of business notebook marketing at HP, emphasized the Slate's business utility. She expects retail, healthcare and insurance companies, among others, to build custom applications that take advantage of the device's portability.

"It's really like a full-function PC, it runs Windows, it will run your office applications, it just so happens to be in a slate form factor," Hess-Nickels said.

The HP Slate features the Intel Atom processor, which is commonly found in inexpensive netbook computers. Rival tablets run on low-power ARM-based chips found in smartphones.

The device is equipped with cameras in the front and back, enabling video conferencing, and a USB port. It comes with a case and a docking station.

HP's Slate is now available online, and the company will be selling it to businesses through its direct sales force.

It's $ 799 price tag makes it more expensive than the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad, which starts at $ 499 and runs up to $ 699 for a 64-GB model. A 3G iPad starts at $ 629.

Verizon Wireless plans to sell Samsung's 7-inch tablet for $ 600. Dell's 5-inch Streak is priced at $ 550 but can be had for $ 300 if bought with a data plan through AT&T.

webOS on the way

HP, the world's largest PC maker, plans to release a tablet next year that may look much different from the Slate.

That tablet will be based on the webOS software that HP acquired when it bought smartphone maker Palm earlier this year for $ 1.2 billion. It will likely be a more media-rich and consumer-friendly offering.

The tablet market is expected to surge next year to more than 50 million units, research group Gartner has said. The iPad is expected to continue to be the dominant product in this market.

Apple has sold more than 7 million iPads since the device launched in April.

The market is still evolving, but Apple has targeted the iPad primarily as a consumer device made for media consumption, rather than a business device.

Earlier this month, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion unveiled a 7-inch tablet aimed at business customers.

And Dell has touted the business applications for its tablet, which include healthcare. Dell expects to launch a 7-inch model by the end of the year.

This phone can only make calls,Unbelievable

If multi-function phones leave you dazed, here's the answer -- a mobile phone that just makes calls and does nothing else has been developed. No MP3, no apps and no, not even texts can be operated on it.

"John's Phone" neither checks Facebook nor follows Twitter feeds. It, however, has a battery life of three weeks and has a manual just one page long, the Sun reported.

There's more. The phone's address book is actually a pen and paper notepad that is tucked behind a flap on the back.

A little smaller than an iPhone, it is 10.5 cm long. It is called the "anti-iPhone". Dutch advertising agency John Doe that created the phone is hoping that it will be a hit with buyers who are left confused by modern technology and youngsters who are buying their first phone.

Costing from 59 pounds in white up to 67 pounds in pink or green, the sole modern feature is the ability to assign ten speed-dial numbers.

"At a time when there is an abundance of choices and oppressive channels, we wanted to develop a simple gadget," designer Diedriekje Bok was quoted as saying., this phone can only make calls

Facebook worth $ 41 billion

Just an hour before Facebook is set to announce its 'gmail killer', it now ranks as the third largest web company, with an estimated valuation of USD 41 billion which is greater than EBay.

According to Bloomberg, the social network's latest valuation, based on the selling price of shares on SecondMarket, an exchange for privately held companies, makes it the country's third-largest online business after Google

(USD 192.9 billion) and Amazon (USD74.4 billion).

Since Facebook has yet to go public, its forecasted revenue and worth in the public market is all still theoretical. Facebook, which expects sales of at least USD 1.4 billion this year, has called the figure "fundamentally speculative."

Based on recent private-market transactions, Facebook has a total estimated value of USD 41 billion, exceeding eBay's USD 39.4 billion in market capitalisation.

The only two web companies worth more than Facebook are Amazon, at USD 74.4 billion and Google, Inc., at USD 192.9 billion.

Today's value of Facebook comes from an "off-the-record" conversation that Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Brian Womack had with someone who had access to recent transaction data on SecondMarket.com.

Now if Facebook were trading on an exchange that the public could access, the size of the company's total market capitalization might increase over the course of the trading day depending on the exact details that Mark Zuckerberg announces at today's 10 am PST press conference.

Facebook's value has been growing for almost three years now, but it seems to be accelerating recently.

While there's no doubt that Facebook is one of the biggest websites and one of the biggest companies of the moment, it's hard to know if the company's estimated valuation has anything to do with its actual worth.

And there is no way of knowing that until Facebook finally files for an initial public offering.

Based on what Facebook has been saying so far, that may be at least a couple of years from now.

The reason why Facebook is not jumping ahead and filing for an IPO is that, while the company is growing fast, its revenue is still not spectacular.

Facebook could bring in close to USD 1.5 billion or as much as USD 2 billion in revenue this year, depending on who's doing the estimates.

Facebook's users have increased by more than two-thirds since September 2009, when it had 300 million members.

In March, the company surpassed Google as the most visited Web site in the US, according to research firm Hitwise.

My Top 5 SEO Tips

Below are my top 5 tips on SEO, for which I feel have helped my websites the most.

1. Content Content and more Content:

Fresh unique content is king. I built some webpages and then never updated them or changed them and focused on building links. Once I realized my site traffic was dropping off I begun to update the content once again and the site traffic returned. Linkbuilding is important, but so is fresh content, especially for a new website or in a highly competitive market.

2. Link Building

You write all you want and keep it fresh, but you need links to get traffic there. Link exchanges are the best. Its my recommendation to build a "feeder" site or two from a different IP address and exchange links from those sites. Pay special attention to building links within your industry. A link from a car dealership when you are selling SEO doesn't help as mush as a link from an SEO website.

3. Meta Tag Optimization

Make sure your Meta Tags are optimized. There are all kinds of free seo tools out there do this. In fact you can find them on the forum right here. Keep your tags short and simple and pick a few keywords to optimize. This is an easy and quick way to increase search results for your site.

4. Forum Posting

If your here your doing the right thing. Forum posting is a great way to build backlinks, and you just might learn something as well. I post at 5 or 6 different forums a few times a week. Most forums relate to my industry.

5. Blogs

Google loves Blogs. I recommend you build a blog on your website. This is an easy way to add fresh content to your website and is also a way to build good internal links. I also Blog from outside my website (you can use wordpress or blogger) which lets me gain good backlinks from my own postings.