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Wait...1, 2, 3, 4, 5? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage! Oh President Skroob at least you are not alone on this one. If you have not grabbed the Spaceballs reference here yet you may not be able to fully enjoy this story as much as others might. Read more about The combination is 1,2,3,4,5
Eric Schmidt is a superstar, on par with Rafael Nadal, Michael Jordon, George Clooney, or Stephen Hawking. However, you may have never heard of him. The billionaire former Apple board member and programmer is completing his 10-year tour of duty as CEO of Google, and has been one of the most influential forces of the internet age. Bringing that influence to bear, he has some choice words on the importance and future of one of the most important developments in human history: Collective Intelligence.
Collective Intelligence (not to be confused with the Universal Unconscious), is the inconceivably vast amount of freely shared and interconnected information and public content that is created by people on the internet every day. There are entire companies designed to simply record, analyze, and make sense of this information, and whole branches of research and development devoted to figuring out how to do it better. In fact, the FBI recently put out feelers in the IT industry to create an app that will help mine data from social networking sites for law enforcement purposes. Read more about Eric Schmidt on Net Culture and Collective Intelligence
NONE SHALL PASS the ACTA! Awwwh I knew I couldn't resist! Seen here in all his glory, epic wizard Ganldaf the gray has left middle earth to make his way to Cologne Germany to protest the proposed copyright act known as ACTA. Read more about Gandalf disapproves
Last month, The Economist put out an article called "Social Media in the 16th Century: How Luther Went Viral", describing how Luther and his followers also used archaic versions of social media to promulgate the ideas from his 95 Theses. Luther’s followers translated his Latin into German, and then converted his long-winded ideas into shorter, pamphlet-sized soundbites? Sound familiar. I think so. Read more about Social Media: Luther's 95 Theses
One of the great things about the internet is that it's largely a meritocracy. Sure, there are some unfair dealings going on here and there, but for the most part, the good stuff bubbles to the top--or at least finds its way to the people who'd like to use it the most. Net neutrality is awesome because it allows content to disperse itself in a free market fashion. And the open ethics of the internet carry over to the real world a little bit too as people communicate freely about the real quality of companies and products. No matter the strength of an ad campaign, if the internet finds what you're selling to be crap, everyone will know.
Services like Yelp and Amazon allow people to rate goods and services from an unbiased standpoint--at least in theory. I always assumed that a Yelp rating was a pretty good indicator of the general quality of a business, but it turns out there may be some corruption from within tainting the spirit of the site.
Read more about How Much Should You Trust Online Reviews?
Many gamers by now are fully aware off the break up between EA, and Valve. It was first noticed as EA began pulling most of it's games off Valve's digital platform “ steam” and began boasting that it's new “ Origin” platform would become “ the worldwide leader in digital publishing,” as stated by EA Games president Frank Gibeau. It's old news now, but seems people just can't let things go. Read more about Lets just say their break up got ugly.
The online seizure of streaming website Megaupload wasn't the result of the SOPA/PIPA legislation or its protests, but its timing certainly makes it seem as though it's a warning of sorts. The feds are already starting to take away bits of our internet whether we like it or not.
Granted, MU was a very illegal and rather shady little slice of the web. Its servers were home to streaming service MegaVideo, which allowed you to watch streaming content, like copyrighted movies and television shows, for free--but not without the cost of sketchy border ads and a stream time limit. Despite being a little rough around the edges, MegaVideo was an extraordinarily popular under-the-radar alternative to paid streaming services like Netflix or Hulu Plus. It had such a high profile that the people in charge took note and worked very hard to make sure it was wiped from the face of the net, with nothing but a 404 crater left where it once stood.
Read more about RIP Megaupload
Turntable.fm was one of those websites that I signed up for and then promptly forgot about within a week. I'm sure I have tens, maybe even hundreds of empty shells of accounts hanging around the internet at sites like these. They seem really neat for about two to four days, then you realize there isn't much to them and go off to do more important things, like play platformers on Kongregate for approximately 20 hours straight. Or, you know, go to work or sleep or what have you. 
Facebook and social-networking has been around long enough now that we all intuitively understand that anything posted, dropped, tagged, or otherwise submitted in cyber-space is essentially public domain and irretrievable from the ether. However, a new study has now put hard numbers to an issue that has been commonly understood to be true; Millenials tend to consider social-networking sites a purely social space. This gets one into a lot of trouble, which is also a finding in the recent study. Although there may come a time when the personal and professional lives of individuals can no longer be separated, that time is not now. Keep your drunk face off the internet. Read more about New Study Shows Millenial Facebookers Too Readily Posting Incriminating Info
Existential crises belong to out-of-work businessmen, recent college graduates, dying grandmothers, New York City psychiatrists, glasses-wearing Jews, but they do not usually belong to cartoon characters. When they do, the results are hysterical glimpses into our own mortality and how we all need a lasagna-eating, fat cat to save us from these realizations. The newest addition to the existential crises cartoons is 3eanuts, which removes the final panel from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts strips because, according to its creator, “with the final panel omitted, despair pervades all.” Read more about 3eanuts and Garfield Minus Garfield