This freedom has allowed Netflix to create a rich, addictive show with an A-list cast. Kevin Spacey stars as Frank Underwood, a member of the House of Representatives out for revenge after he gets passed over for secretary of state. Robin Wright is consummate politician’s wife Claire Underwood: a cold, calculating Lady Macbeth. She is the perfect complement to Frank’s cunning, chess-like strategy to get back on his lack of promotion. Kate Mara is Zoe Barnes, a typical overeager (and somewhat annoying) rookie reporter.

Critically acclaimed director David Fincher helms the first two episodes, and his stark cinematography adds quiet gravity to every shady deal and glamorous gala.

Frank’s startling asides are equally compelling. The series premiere opens with Underwood directly addressing the audience as he twists the neck of a canine hit-and-run victim. He continues to do so throughout the show, usually with an eye roll and a snide comment about the person he’s trying to schmooze. The most powerful of these moments comes when Underwood delivers a eulogy at the funeral of a teenager from his South Carolina district. He recounts the profound experience of his father’s death, turns to the camera and, in the same breath, remarks that his father did nothing but take up space.

Instances like these are the genius of “House of Cards.” Viewers become complicit in Underwood’s underhanded dealings and invested in his plans as we gain further access to his thoughts. This tactic is borrowed from the identically titled BBC miniseries that aired in the nineties, which was adapted from a novel by Michael Dobbs, who is currently an executive producer.

Writer Beau Willimon, who gained prior experience writing the political thriller The Ides of March, updates the show to reflect the current political climate. Claire Underwood runs the Clean Water Initiative, a charity that she wants to expand on an international scale. As ruthless as her husband, Claire fires half of her staff in order to hire one person with access to resources she desperately wants.

“House of Cards” certainly has credentials, but it remains to be seen whether audiences will actually buy into this new television format. Viewers may not be willing to purchase Netflix subscriptions simply for its own original series, but this show is definitely worth watching for current subscribers. Netflix caters to fans of binge watching by placing all thirteen season one episodes online at the same time. This could be the beginning of a new era of television, and “House of Cards” is an ambitious start (Hulu’s original series don’t count. Let’s be real. No one watches those.)

The issue of cybersecurity came to the forefront of national discourse last Wednesday, when The New York Times revealed that they had fallen victim to a four-month-long network security breach that was reported to have originated in China. The initial breach occurred around Oct. 25, 2012, the publication date of an article reporting on the family of the country’s prime minister. This disturbing news was followed by revelations that The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and The Washington Post experienced similar issues within their own networks.

The fact that unfriendly powers are carrying out such breaches against institutions of free speech is unsettling enough, but the threats extend beyond mere invasions of privacy. Large attacks were leveled in September against the online systems of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank, resulting in at least daylong denials of service.

Such attacks indicate that much more is at stake, with some especially problematic areas being not only economic institutions and tech firms but also power grids for nuclear power plants and water purification systems. “Nation-state attackers will target critical infrastructure networks such as power grids at an unprecedented scale in 2013  . . . These types of attacks could grow more sophisticated, and the slippery slope could lead to the loss of human life,” said Chiranjeev Bordoloi, CEO of security company Top Patch.

According to a CNN interview with James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, at least 12 of the world’s largest military powers are working to construct complicated cyberwarfare systems.

It would be no stretch to say that the United States has the most to lose at the hands of these powers if our government continues to put cybersecurity on the backburner.

Though the media’s constant bombardment of the public with images of war-ravaged Afghanistan would suggest otherwise, the events in a remote desert nation do not necessarily pose a greater threat to national security than seemingly less dangerous cyberattacks. The recent infiltrations should remind our legislators of this and prompt them to not only engage in serious discussion with other nations such as China, but also quickly pass legislation that would re-allocate substantial defense resources to building a stronger cyberdefense system.

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) spoke to the immediacy of the situation in an interview with Politico: “Foreign cyberattackers are targeting every aspect of the American economy every day and Congress needs to act with urgency to protect our national security and our economy,” he said.

With the defense budget and looming sequestration cuts up for debate, Congress needs to take advantage of an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation. Instead of continuing partisan bickering on troop withdrawals and timetables, lawmakers must work to pass serious legislation that will provide the tools necessary to combat lurking cyberthreats.

Attacks on public utilities and power plants can create not only inconvenient but dangerous situations for everyday Americans, and the crash of a bank’s computer system can wreak economic havoc. In addition, some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information could be discretely collected and used against us in unexpected attacks.

Aggression in cyberspace is unfortunately a product of our times, truly illustrating both the magic and terror that modern technology can bring. As such, our leaders must act so that we are prepared for whatever comes our way. Technological capacities will only continue to grow as time passes, and as nations unfriendly to the United States develop economically and politically, the possibility of more serious attacks will only increase. Constructing a stronger defense in U.S. cyberspace is of paramount importance, and waiting longer could only harm the nation — the time for action is now.

Well, now you can get around the awkward wondering with a new app that notifies other friends if the two of you want to “bang.”

Here is the breakdown: A person installs the “Bang With Friends” app. That person clicks any friends they might want to sleep with. The friends they might want to sleep with will only be notified of the desire should that same friend also have clicked the desire to sleep with that person.

Long and the short is, people don’t have to worry about if the other person is going to feel awkward about their advances.

Now, there are some obvious problems with the whole plan, namely the whole friends having sex thing. Sex is already an awkward situation for some folks, and then, adding that to a friendship can quickly destroy the relationship.

Those worries aside, this app appears to be a marvelous bit of technological advancement for all those out there that are not afraid of “no strings” sex and see it as healthy.

Yes, the app goes against many religious teachings and some more traditional outlooks toward relationships and fornication, but those folks that dislike it won’t know about what does or does not go on as they will never be notified due to the way the program is set up.

A big fear with the program though is when those under 18 start using it as there are always ways around any age restrictions involved in using the app. But then, problems like that already exist when using Facebook anyways, and with time, the program should have a lot of those problems covered.

As of now, the app appears to be more centered around men and their desire to get down, which makes sense given men tend to be a bit more talkative about constant sexual desire. As the app matures, maybe it will come to encompass homosexuality and alter its marketing to target more than the Y chromosome or just heterosexuals.

There is also the possibility for someone to just click all of their friends as would-be partners just to see who is going to click them for some intimate times without actually having any intention of following through with it.

That could result in some serious embarrassment for those using the app. However, why would people want to have a friend who was enough of a jerk to do something of that sort? Maybe this app will finally help people to stop accepting every random person they meet as a “friend.”

Complaints about the death of personal communication will be stirred fully by this new way to circumvent actual in-real-life getting-to-know-you conversation. Those fears will be around as long as technology and the Internet continue to offer people new means to do things. So cast them aside. It isn’t as if this is any worse than spending hours in a bar trying to get enough liquid and regular courage together to hit on, with the likely intent of sleeping with, that certain someone.

It could be said the app is hardly different from dating sites currently available, and those people would be right. Really, all the app does is cut out some of the time people might spend cruising the “one night stand” preferences but with one big difference: The app cuts out most of the creepy folks that someone looking just for a hookup is bombarded by.

Yes, this app is likely going to be a headache for some women as they discover that almost every male friend they have wants to get in their pants, but a little honesty can go a long way.

Who knows, the app could finally begin to show some men out there that women are sexual creatures the same as men when guys realize the girls they are into had to be in the same mindset for the app to function. “By your powers combined, we are sexuality!”

Use of the app doesn’t even have to be for sex; it could just be so people know the attraction is there and, therefore, get the ball rolling for a date. Or it could eliminate the wonder of if a date should end with a nice handshake or a trip to the bedroom.

Maybe, just maybe, the app will allow some friends who never would otherwise have gotten up the nerve to express their healthy sexual desires to jump into the sack. Just having that release granted from sexual activity, or merely knowing that they are desired, could be a huge moral boost to a lot of people.

Obviously, this app isn’t for everyone, but for those who enjoy sex as a fun and health activity, it is something to look into.

In the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield in his first film appearance, “Caddyshack:” “Hey everybody, we’re all gonna get laid!“

In the virtually untested waters of original online programming, the stakes were high for Netflix’s $100 million dollar gamble in the original debut. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says the decision to commit to two seasons of House of Cards did not come lightly.

“We wanted to go all-in,” Sarandos said to the Los Angeles Times. “It’s important to signal … that we’re moving into this space in a meaningful, big way. So we did it loud.”

A glance at the show’s credits, however, suggests that “loud” is an understatement. Executive producer and partial director David Fincher is the man behind such acclaimed works as Fight Club and The Social Network. Paired together with Academy Award-nominated writer Beau Willimon, House of Cards is a series that demands to be taken seriously.

The high degree of talent on the show’s lineup is something that one might expect to find on Showtime or HBO. But when Netflix — formerly strictly a media provider, never a producer of original content — outbid every network that vied to control the show, the world of TV raised its eyebrows.

But for Modi Wiczyk, co-CEO of producing studio Media Rights Capital, which created the series, Netflix offered something far more valuable than anything the other networks could: complete artistic freedom.

“[Netflix] gave us the opportunity to be the anchor, the defining show,” Wiczyk said to USA Today about Netflix’s unprecedented 26-episode commitment before filming had even begun. “It was really kind of rare air.”

With unlimited creative control, the producers of House of Cards do not have to obey network demands for script changes or production design specifications; to the filmmakers, this freedom alone could almost be worth the enormous budget to which they are also privy.

Normal network shows are subject to changes sometimes literally while an episode is being filmed — mainly because of current ratings and reviews. “We’re telling a story. We’re gonna tell it at our pace,” actor Corey Stoll told MTV. “… That’s very hard to do when you’re worried about ratings.”

Hopefully, this decision to leave the story uncensored will be of great benefit for not only new fans of House of Cards, but also for online originals in the near future.

If Netflix’s undertaking proves to be as successful as it appears it will, a full move to original online content could be underway very soon. And if online providers follow in Netflix’s footsteps to let their filmmakers have real artistic control, then a new wave of exceptional TV and cinema could be on the way.

But perhaps more valuable to the fast-paced audiences of the digital world, dons one feature that could never be matched by traditional networks: On Feb. 1, the entire first season — not just the first episode — was posted online all at once.

It’s a move that bucks the usual network strategy of “Wait a week and we’ll give you new episodes, then wait a season, we’ll give you another season,” Sarandos told the Los Angeles Times.

But this just won’t do with modern audiences. “The Internet is attuning people to get what they want when they want it,” he said.

The instant gratification that the Internet provides is nothing new, so it seems about time for more facets of pop culture to start exploiting it. Netflix and competitors Hulu and Amazon Prime have established themselves as the standard (legal) online cinema providers, but by creating an entire original series all available in one click, Netflix has significantly upped the game.

In researching how subscribers use their websites, providers like Netflix have coined a new term, “binge-viewing,” to describe the watching of several episodes of a series in one sitting. Sarandos told investors at the BOA Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference that he noticed the significance of binge-watching when 50,000 subscribers watched the entire fourth season of Breaking Bad in a 24-hour period the day it was posted on Netflix.

Though Netflix’s competitor Hulu was technically the first to air an original drama online, the lack of a substantial budget and little critical attention prevented it from gaining much attention.

With House of Cards, that certainly isn’t a problem — and it certainly doesn’t seem it will be a problem for other online shows if they follow in Cards’ footsteps.

Unlocking a smartphone frees it from the current carrier’s network, and enables it to communicate with other networks.

This law oversteps governmental boundaries and doesn’t do much else but generate fear. The maximum fine for first-time offenders is $500,000 and/or up to five years in prison. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to $1 million and/or up to 10 years in prison.

To this, we must say, “wha-huh?”

It’s important to know unlocking a smartphone and rooting one are two different things. Before you give Techy-Tom flak for rooting his phone, be advised he’s still technically not breaking the law.

Rooting — also known as jailbreaking — a phone grants the owner administrative access on a device he or she paid for. Honestly, everyone should have administrative rights over their property.

When a phone is rooted, the owner has the ability to clean out all the bloatware cellular providers load onto it, which generally increases the phone’s response time. It also allows the owner to install advertisement blocking in apps, and install other applications that may have not been previously available. There are other, more technical applications a rooted phone can do. Unless you’re familiar with what you’re doing, however, it’s probably best to steer clear of overclocking (which increases the power that runs through the CPU to speed up the device) or tethering (which basically turns your phone into a router).

Though rooting a smartphone is technical work, unlocking it is an advanced step only the most comfortable and knowledgeable should perform.

This law now locks customers in with a specific carrier. It could also hinder providers marketing specifically to those with unlocked phones looking to switch. It’s unclear how this will affect T-Mobile’s “bring in your own phone” campaign.

Other than catching and penalizing the masterminds who dissect a phone’s software in order to unlock it and release the code and instructions for the rest of us, this law probably won’t affect many average users.

Hacking and piracy has rampantly increased as our understanding of different technologies advances. It’s no wonder why the “victims” — like media, entertainment and government agencies — would make a fuss and demand government action. This law, however, doesn’t make sense.

There are places that sell unlocked phones. Paying full price, as opposed to the discount prices packaged with a contract, you can legally purchase an unlocked phone. Some carriers, like AT&T, will unlock a phone once the contract expires.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you want to legally unlock your phone you must first ask for permission from your carrier. Frankly, this is bologna. It’s like asking your mom for permission to stay up late after you’ve moved out.

Once we’ve purchased something, it is ours. Cell phones are no exception. We should have the freedom to do whatever floats our boat, because it’s our property. If we want to drop it off a building just to see how it shatters, that’s our prerogative. If we want to root or unlock our phone, that too, is our prerogative.

If you decide to root your phone, make sure you do your research. Don’t blame us if you brick it.

We don’t advise you break this law. If you do, though, we won’t be the ones to rat you out.

To put it in a more straightforward perspective: Americans consume about four times more resources than necessary, significantly limiting the resources available to those in other countries. Several developing countries do not even have access to clean drinking water, let alone many other resources which we take for granted with our lavish lifestyles.

Fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and natural gas) are currently the most commonly used sources of energy, despite the fact that they are far more harmful to the environment than several other sources. They are a nonpoint source of pollution (runoff that moves through the ground via rainfall and snowmelt which carries pollutants into various bodies of water) and a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

As hopefully all of you have noticed by now, there has been a significant spike in gas prices over this decade, and if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for every aspect of our energy use, the cost of gas will continue to climb. Eventually, the cost of retrieving fossil fuels will probably be too expensive for many of us to buy due to the rapid rate in which we’re using it; Provided we do not run out of these finite sources completely.

There have been success stories about vehicles powered by fuels such as water and electricity, but they are uncommon and have yet to be fully developed. In addition, the average American simply cannot afford to trade their current gas-guzzling cars for new energy efficient ones. For now, the limited resources necessary to power our vehicles should be used wisely and for things which do not have a decent alternative source of power available.

Luckily, over the years people have been coming up with new and exciting ways to harness renewable energy that is friendlier to humans and ecosystems alike.

One method, which has been a popular topic in the Iowa State U. news lately, is wind energy. As many of you have seen, a new, small wind turbine has been set up on the east side of campus. This project cost $250,000, but it can create enough electricity to power buildings like Catt Hall and East Hall for an entire year. In statistical terms, it can generate up to $18,000 (.12 percent) worth of Iowa State’s electrical needs annually, which is about 183,330-kilowatt hours. Iowa State also has partial ownership of a large wind turbine farm in northern Story County.

In Iowa, wind turbine farms have been increasing in popularity over the years and produce approximately twenty percent of the state’s electricity. There are nearly 3,000 utility-scale turbines in the state; enough to power over one million homes. Iowa is also rated No. 1 in wind energy related employment in the nation by offering at least 3,000 jobs, if not more.

Best of all, aside from the start up costs, wind energy is renewable and has less hazardous effects on the environment. There are several other types of similar renewable energy resources that would be better alternatives to fossil fuels, such as solar energy, hydropower and biomass energy. In addition, there are a few energy sources that have the potential to be useful but are not very cost-effective or easily acquired right now, such as geothermal energy, hydrogen and ocean energy.

Overall, it is in everyone’s best interest to be conscious of the energy they consume and where it comes from. Developing awareness of renewable energy is essential. If the human species continues on the current trajectory of heavy fossil fuel usage, the impacts it will have on our lives and the environment could be devastating in the near future.

But not only can Playbook users rate their experiences, thereby rating the individuals with whom they shared them — which, we all know, is a natural thing to do with or without an app — they can also indicate how far they went with the significant (or insignificant) other (first base, etc.), consequently allowing any friends who follow your sexual progress to judge and publicly comment on your so-called “play.” Classy.

The main thing we’re asking is, “What’s the point?” You can already text your friends, Facebook message your friends — heck, you can talk to your friends in person and avoid the potentially destructive permanence that accompanies Internet-based communication — and more likely than not, you’re going to rate what you’re telling your friends about in the process as well. Why document this more than we already do? More specifically, why give a company (that is, the group of young developers who created Playbook) access to your sex life? Whatever you say will stay somewhere in cyberspace. Someone somewhere (a future employer, maybe?) will have access to your cheap romance and raunchy pictures. Your words could easily come back to haunt you.

In most cases — though admittedly we rarely adhere to this wisdom — the dirty details of your life in the bed sheets are best not transcribed on the Internet. Remember when you thought SnapChat was safe? Remember to think twice.

So far the app caters to “bro” figures, but according to TechCrunch, Playbook’s creators are working to make the app more gender-neutral. Will the app be as appealing to females? Time will tell. And that’s not to say that all males find the app to be particularly luring. In fact, while it’s unkind to rate your piece of meat from the night before to your friends, it’s all the more worse to do so to the cyber public by downloading an app for it.

Caroline Stone compared hashtags to parentheses.

“If we’re talking about writing … I would say this is honestly like a new type of punctuation,” said the 29-year-old U. Florida doctoral student in media studies. She said when one writes and uses parentheses, it’s used as a side thought.

“The hashtag, for a lot of young people, is used that way,” Stone said.

“Hashtag” was voted as the word of the year during the American Dialect Society annual voting session earlier this month.

“From a societal and cultural standpoint, I think it’s a perfect word of the year,” said UF journalism instructor Steve Johnson. “It represents more than just a single word.”

The first high-profile hashtag appeared on Twitter in 2007, according to the Poynter Institute website, and categorizes for the dual function of filtering and searching.

Daniel Harrison, a 19-year-old UF mechanical engineering freshman, disagreed with the ranking of “hashtag” as word of the year.

“I really don’t think it’s the word of the year — maybe the word of 2010. It’s a little late to the game,” he said. “YOLO should have been the word of the year because it blew up and died down in 2012.”

The word of the year does not have to be brand-new, but it has to be newly prominent in the past year, according to the American Dialect Society’s website.

Word of the year runners-up included YOLO, fiscal cliff, Gangnam style and marriage equality.

For most people, Myspace is a distant memory of a prototypical social network that was basically a glorified blog with an obnoxious amount of customizability.

Now, years after Facebook and Twitter forced Myspace into obscurity, musician and actor Justin Timberlake has released a new version of the site. Despite the name, the site is nearly unrecognizable. Gone are the glittery backgrounds and annoying automatic profile songs. Instead, the new Myspace is going for a simplistic profile style, which asks for very little besides name, age, sex and a brief description of yourself. In fact, you can sign into the website with the click of a button using your Facebook or Twitter account, something that would seem insane to someone living through the social network wars of the early 2000s.

Myspace isn’t trying to compete with other social networks anymore. It’s trying to be “one more thing” instead of “the next thing.” As Google+ proved a few years ago, it is extremely difficult to convince people to jump ship to another system when they are so deeply invested in something else already.

The new Myspace homepage is made up of large tiles, each one representing a news story, band, movie trailer or music video. The tiles change depending on the user’s interests. The goal is to help users “discover” new things that they may like instead of simply viewing the things they already enjoy.

Timberlake has not been focusing on his music as much as he used to, but it is very clear that the new Myspace is music-oriented and hopes to compete with streaming options such as Spotify and Pandora.

The site aims to make sharing and discovering new music a social activity. Users create their own mixes and playlists that can be shared with their friends, while also being shown new artists and songs that may interest them. This is an interesting middle ground between Spotify, which primarily streams music that the users choose themselves, and Pandora, which plays music randomly based on a theme that the user chooses.

However, the big question here is whether or not people want to add another tab to their online social activity. With Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, Youtube, Pandora and more, it is likely that web users are already over-saturated with social options.

For now, it will be most useful to fans of the indie music scene, who can follow and discover lesser known bands easily and add and share new music to their “mix.” Indie bands may also have more success connecting with an audience if this format becomes a success.

We will have to wait and see if Myspace can really return from the grave as another website to check every day, or even take over for one we’ve already grown accustomed to. For now, it’s just another pretty time waster to click around while you’re supposed to be working.

Facebook has the ability to, and should make money for itself, but not at the expense of the average user.

On Dec. 20, 2012 Newsroom.fb.com was updated with a post letting users know that it is testing out yet another way to turn a profit from its product. Some users soon will have to pay a fee of $1 to message other users that aren’t on their friends list.

Facebook claims this new messaging system is to cut down on the amount of fraudulent messages, known as spam, from reaching the everyday user, but this is just another attempt in a long line of schemes to rescue its IPO, which has had a lackluster performance since it went public last May. While this update to the Facebook messaging system may curb spam, it also puts a price on open communication between average Facebook users.

In the past, Facebook has attempted to make revenue off of its users by adding paid features, such as “promote,” which allows users to pay a fee to have their post placed higher up on their friends newsfeed.

I was shocked to find out that not only has Facebook put a price on communication between users, but it’s also put a price tag on messaging Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, this is where it gets really absurd. It’ll cost you $100 to message Mr.Zuckerberg… that’s right, $100, and this doesn’t even guarantee he’ll read your message. All it will do is make sure your little message doesn’t get placed in his other(junk) folder.

So even after you foolishly throw away a hundred bucks, you still won’t get Zuckerberg to “like” you.

The proposed messaging fee affects several aspects of the site used daily and certainly will be a burden on Sooner sports fans.

If you ever check the “football tickets” section of OU’s student Facebook you may know that quite often when you want to buy a ticket to a game you may have to message the seller in order to get a price. I would hazard a guess that most people don’t in fact know the seller, so it’s entirely possible that users would have to pay a Facebook “ticket tax” in order to buy a football ticket, or stop using the OU ticket section all together.

To be fair, I think this is a pretty interesting way to combat the spam messages that wind up in my message box far too often, and according to Facebook, “Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful,” though they don’t cite where any of this information comes from in their article.

Facebook understandably has to find a way to generate money, but the last several attempts at doing so have left users feeling sore and used. Facebook should be profiting off its mobile platform and impose usage fees on large companies, but the everyday user shouldn’t fall victim to ridiculous user fees, or Facebook may find many of its users flocking back to Myspace or Friendster.

At the time of his death, he faced unnecessarily harsh felony charges entailing a possible 35-year sentence and a $1 million fine. His crime? The theft of some scholarly articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology JSTOR digital library with the intent to distribute the papers to the public. MIT announced yesterday that they were investigating its role in his death.

The issue of online piracy has incited passionate debate since the creation of the World Wide Web. Aside from the ethical issues of using another person’s property without their permission, U.S. Congressmen have recently argued that online piracy is severely detrimental to the American economy and is destructive to individual businesses.

Both of these claims are misleading.

Recent articles have indicated that online piracy has little to no effect on businesses, and that the restriction of free, public information sharing could actually work against the favor of the economy. Moreover, these restrictions stifle creativity, encourage censorship and are a disservice to the budding social entrepreneurs of the 21st century.

The emphasis of the U.S. government on prosecuting and restricting “information-sharers” such as Swartz is unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive. In the past year, Congressional bills such as the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act, known as SOPA and PIPA, have invoked uproar in the online community because of their intent to restrict and limit the flow of information flow on the Internet, essentially censoring online interactions.

Though neither bill passed, Congress continues to contend that online piracy costs the U.S. economy between $200 and $250 billion per year, resulting in a loss of around 750,000 jobs.

If those figures sound too high to be true, it’s because they are. Julian Sanchez, a research fellow from the Cato Institute, investigated those claims last year and found they “[could not] be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology,” suggesting that the U.S. government might have just made them up. In fact, Sanchez argued that it was virtually impossible to measure the effects of online piracy on the economy, because of the variable nature of its economic effects. Any attempt to do so, Sanchez argues, is misleading and most likely exaggerated.

Instead, research suggests that music and entertainment businesses, which are most likely to be affected by online piracy, have done better in recent economic crises than similar businesses in other industries.

Despite this evidence, threats of legal action against illegal downloads continue to escalate. Most common are the pre-movie advertisements that ominously send the message that piracy is a social evil. “Would you steal a purse? Would you steal a car?” the advertisements ask viewers, implying that clicking a button to download a song or a movie is the legal equivalent of petty theft. It’s, of course, not as simple as that.

Unlike the theft of a car, the illegal downloading of a song does not necessarily imply tangible loss or harm to another. Equally compelling is the increasingly obvious truth that online piracy restrictions are difficult to enforce. Illegal downloading has become a norm for the Millennial Generation. We would all be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t downloaded something off the Internet without permission.

The openness and anonymity of the Internet has afforded the Millennial Generation enormous advantages, enabling individuals access to music, entertainment, information and community where they otherwise might be deprived.

The resources of the U.S. government could perhaps be better spent by enacting policies that will actually benefit the economy and potential business leaders. Losses caused by piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of a free, unrestricted flow of information. In the case of Swartz, the real loss is the incalculable tragedy of an inspirational and influential talent gone too soon.

As Swartz said, “It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.”

Tragically, it may indeed have been greed that led the U.S. government to its decisions.

Matthias Mehl, an associate professor of psychology, published the study, “Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness?: An Online Social Networking Experiment” on Dec. 20, 2012 and examined 102 undergraduate students at UA. The experiment monitored the participants’ Facebook profiles for one week. Half of the students were asked to post more status updates than they normally would, the other half were used as a control group and were not instructed to change anything.

“We had seen that the topic of Facebook, whether it was good for you or bad for you, has been a really long debated question. But no one had ever done an experiment, a true experiment, and that’s the only way to answer the question,” Mehl said.

The experiment was carried out entirely online, where the subjects were directed to temporarily friend a “Research Profile”. This “Research Profile” allowed Mehl and his associate Fenne Deters, of the University of Berlin, to continuously monitor the participants’ Facebook profiles and confirm that they followed all instructions.

For the researchers to learn if posting status updates caused someone to become more or less lonely, they made every participant complete questionnaires including the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness scale. This scale measures subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation using a scale ranging from one to four, as stated in the study’s procedure.

The results of the study showed that the subjects instructed to post more status updates than they normally would reported a decrease in loneliness, which led to the conclusion that status updating can reduce loneliness, and that this decrease in loneliness was due to “the participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis” when updating their status, as specified in the publication.

“I thought it would be the opposite because you have, like, virtual friends instead of actual friends,” said Lisa Foessel, a pre-computer science freshman.

Surprisingly, the researchers also found that the number of responses to status updates had no effect on the subjects’ feelings of loneliness. When asked why this may be Mehl gave two hypotheses: that people “simply assumed that their status updates will be read,” or that people use status updates to ultimately connect with friends in the real world by using them to “skip the small talk at the beginning of a conversation and jump right to more substantive subjects.”

Even with this evidence of the benefits of social networking some UA students are still skeptical.

“It’s kind of weird that you think you’re more popular just by putting yourself out there on a social network,” said Casey White, an ecology and evolutionary biology freshman. “I don’t really see how that makes sense. I think it’s almost the opposite of being popular, truly.”

The scholars said that their research is just the beginning of the science behind social networking, but are confident in its results and the possibilities it has to inspire further studies.

“For me, this is first optimistic evidence that Facebook does not drive us all into loneliness, Facebook can be used in meaningful ways for creating a sense of social integration and connection,” Mehl said.

On Dec. 20, 2012, Senate quietly passed a reform bill to change the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) to let Netflix integrate with Facebook. This means Facebook users will soon have the opportunity to see exactly what their friends are watching, guilty pleasures and all.

Just as a fun fact, according to Ars Technica, the VPPA was originally created in the middle of U.S. Senate debates over whether to confirm Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. A journalist went to Bork’s local video store and later published an article featuring many of Bork’s past rentals (which included 12 Alfred Hitchcock movies, “Pretty in Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” British costume dramas like “The Private Life of Henry the Eighth,” and so on). The incident served as a sort of wake-up call for Congress, which then passed the VPPA.

The new amendment to the law allows users to give consent online for access to their video-watching history and the amendment will also allow for that consent to apply to a long period of time (up to two years).

Some don’t think it’s an inappropriate invasion of privacy, others do. Jules Polonetsky, the director and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, doesn’t think the law requires companies to be clear with their users about how and when their rental history will be shared.

“This is about the sharing of your records of video rental history, as opposed to on a clear, permission basis, enabling people to key-in sharing mode,” Polonetsky said to ReadWrite. “Sharing should be in a clear opt-in basis.”

That’s all great, but what does this mean for the everyday user? It means that, unless you opt out, Netflix and other video-rental services can have the right to share your rental history after getting your permission just once.

But it also means Netflix is going to start incorporating social features into its service and you’ll be able to use Facebook to get Netflix recommendations. And then you can watch your friend’s favorite show five times.

The update also allowed the service to share user information with Facebook and other entities, including advertisers. The changes gave users no way to opt out of the new terms, short of deleting their account.

Many users responded to the new terms by threatening to boycott, including a number of celebrities who use the service such as Kate Walsh and Audrina Patridge — both of whom tweeted about the service. The hacktivist group Anonymous also responded with a threat of boycott.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, responded to the backlash in a blog post on Tuesday, stating it is not Instagram’s intention to sell user photos, and the terms of service would be updated to be made more clear.  The blog post also mentions that the new terms of service was an effort to experiment with different advertising models. Furthermore, user photos that are set to private will remain as such and won’t be used for advertising.

The changes are set to go into effect on Jan. 16, with photos taken before that date ineligible for use in advertising.

The current governance voting system was established in 2009 to allow users to essentially have veto power over Facebook’s attempts to revise its privacy policy or terms of service, though the company designed it to be very inaccessible from the start. For a vote to even be triggered, there have to be at least 7,000 comments on the post describing the relevant changes on the Site Governance page. Even then, the 30-percent requirement — about 230 million users — needed to veto the changes is a very high number to overcome, and changes that are vetoed could probably be quietly enacted later anyway. The entire idea of the governance voting system seems like a prolonged public-relations stunt to make Facebook appear receptive to user feedback when, in reality, the company has little interest in its users other than making money off their personal information. There is a reason that Facebook is free — in fact, it really isn’t free because someone somewhere is paying for the access to your personal information so they can set up ads that specifically target you and your particular interests. The new proposed changes would allow Facebook to share your data with its “affiliates” — Instagram and Spotify are probably two of the more well-known ones. Facebook will be moving to a question-submission system, with occasional webcasts, but that seems even less accessible than the voting system — it would be like deciding an election based solely on questions asked by viewers during debates.

None of this would be important if Facebook weren’t such a widely used product, but it has become nearly obligatory to have an account these days. Here at Princeton, most of the student events that I hear about — performances, parties, study breaks — all appear as invites to Facebook events before I see a poster on a lamp post or a bulletin board, certainly before I hear about them by word of mouth. Facebook has so many users that it would be the world’s third or fourth most populous country. Yes, nobody is being forced to join Facebook, but the social pressure to join Facebook is unavoidable and overwhelming for most college students, to the point that letting other people know you don’t have a Facebook account is a faux pas of sorts. One of my friends here has never owned a cell phone, yet he has a Facebook account that he regularly uses.

Facebook is now basically a requirement to have a social life of any kind, especially in college or high school, and it has a user base in the hundreds of millions. The company can start making drastic, fundamental changes to its business model, knowing that not enough people will probably even notice, let alone be able to do something about it. A few weeks ago, that ridiculous paragraph declaring privacy rights began to appear in my Facebook news feed in many of my friends’ statuses. It worries me that people actually think this will have an effect — using Facebook is still a personal choice, and the check box next to “I agree to the terms of service” means you’ve signed away some of your rights to privacy. I am not saying Facebook is evil or that nobody should use Facebook, but I do think we need to be more informed about what goes on behind closed doors. Facebook is still a business, and it exists to sell a product. When that product is our personal information, we should be even more wary of how that business is conducted.

Before even sending out his first 140 characters, 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI had already collected more than 600,000 followers on his English Twitter handle, @Pontifex . His first tweet will be sent out simultaneously in seven additional languages from seven different Twitter handles, according to a press release issued by the Vatican .

Tom Riley, president of the Penn State Newman Catholic Student Association, said he thinks the pope’s Twitter account is a great way for the pope to reach his followers.

“It will help people to see how relevant the church’s teachings are in daily life, especially for younger people who use Twitter more,” Riley said. “The pope will basically be able to speak directly to them.”

S. Shyam Sundar , Penn State distinguished professor of film-video and media studies, said that Twitter is one of the best ways to get a point across because it allows a person to reach a massive amount of people while still being very personal. Sundar, who founded the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory, said that Twitter could be the most effective media for the pope to reach members of the church.

“The pope’s tweets could potentially have a larger impact than even his biggest televised public sermon,” Sundar said.

Not only does the pope have a global reach with his massive Twitter following, but he also has the ability to tweet whenever he wants. The pope’s frequent “social media sermons” will be effective at getting people to think spiritually on a daily basis, Sundar said.

Sundar said that people pay a lot of attention to tweets as they come in, especially when these tweets come from authority figures.

“When the pope tweets, to Catholics, it’s like the voice of God tweeting,” Sundar said. “The pope has that authority, so we feel as though we need to pay attention.”

Penn State is no stranger to the power of Twitter. As previously reported, Penn State ranked No. 1 for its use of social networking earlier this year.

Whether by following the university’s official account or one of the many infamous parody accounts, Penn State students are able to stay in the loop via Twitter.

Though Hannah Horne uses her Twitter account mainly for socializing, she said she also uses it to follow important Penn State figures and news sources.

As a follower of the official Penn State Twitter handle, among others, Horne said she thinks Twitter is a great way to stay informed about what is going on around campus.

Although she does not follow any of them personally, Horne said that parody accounts of Penn State administrators are good examples of accounts that become more popular as more students retweet them.

This bandwagon effect could be beneficial to figures like the pope, Horne said.

“If people see that more and more people are following accounts of religious or political leaders, they would be more likely to follow them, too,” she said.

The Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, is famous for its law in regarding that the marriage of same-sex couples in one state does not have to be honored in another state. Under the Defense of Marriage Act, a marriage in the state of Iowa between a same-sex couple does not mean the marriage will be honored in states that choose not to recognize same-sex marriage.

Currently, there are nine states that allow same-sex marriage in addition to the District of Columbia. Likewise, there are 31 states that have constitutional amendments in their state constitutions banning same-sex marriage.

Proposition 8 was the people of California’s attempt to overturn the California Supreme Court’s ruling on the banning of gay marriage in the state. Passed during the November 2008 elections, California passed Proposition 8 into their state constitution with a vote of 52.24 percent, a little over 7 million votes.

Both Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court for its constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court’s session is between October and June. So it is believed that the U.S. Supreme Court will make the decision by the end of the session in June after hearing oral arguments, which are predicted to begin in March.

Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science, said that if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the federal court that oversees the state of California in addition to eight other states, then same-sex marriage will be legal in all 50 states as federal law.

Each decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court is seen as constitutional law; thus, if the U.S. Supreme Court finds the ban of same-sex marriage unconstitutional, then the decision is seen as federal law.

If the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn the ban of same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, then the decision will affect all 50 states because the U.S. Constitution defines the Supreme Court’s decision as the “supreme law of the land” as stated in Section 4, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.

However, if the U.S. Supreme Court does not rule the Defense of Marriage Act or Proposition 8 as unconstitutional, then the decision of same-sex marriage will be left up to the states to decide.

Deam explained that the U.S. Supreme Court can look at the case by viewing homosexuals as a suspect class, a group of people who have been traditionally discriminated against, or by invoking the right to privacy, marriage and procreation.

If the U.S. Supreme Court treats homosexuals as a group of people who have been discriminated against by law, then the court will treat the case with special consideration. Deam stated that sexual preference has not traditionally been considered a suspect class, but some states, such as Iowa, have treated homosexuals as a suspect class. The classical example of a suspect class is race and ethnicity.

One of the most famous cases that considers privacy as a fundamental right is Roe v. Wade (1973), which ruled abortion as being the privacy issue of a woman. Extended to same-sex marriage, the argument would be that the issue of marriage is private between the parties wishing to be married.

“In many ways, I do see this compared this to the 1967 supreme court case of Loving v. Virginia in which the Supreme Court struck down laws in a number of Southern states outlawing sexual relationships between people of different races,” said Warren Blumenfeld, associate professor of the School of Education, who teaches queer studies classes at Iowa State. “It hopefully will end the debate on whether or not same-sex couples will have the same rights as different-sex couples to marry.”

Blumenfeld was grading papers for his multicultural class when he said his phone and email blew up with news of the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8. Blumenfeld said he hopes that the case will give recognition and publicity to gay rights and issues.

A common misconception about same-sex marriage is that laws regarding same-sex marriage occur because of the “right” of same-sex couples to be married. The 14th Amendment is often cited as the reason why some state constitutions overturn the ban of same-sax marriage as unconstitutional marriage.

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states that the rights of one group of people cannot be denied the same rights and privileges of another group. Thus, same-sex marriage is not legalized due to a person’s right to be married to someone of the same sex, but from it being unconstitutional to ban the marriage of same-sex couples according to some state constitutions.

Blumenfeld said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I believe even some of the more conservative justices on the Supreme Court understand and follow the Constitution,” Blumenfeld said. “Therefore, I believe they as well will vote for marriage equality.”

Family Leader, an organization with a platform opposing same-sex marriage, has been contacted for comment but could not be reached.

The group uses its collective expertise to manipulate the system in a way that, to its followers, is morally right.

Despite working for human rights, a valiant cause, the tactics of the group are ethically wrong. Yet they have created important dialogue that needs to be considered as technology improves and the borders of our society change with further globalization.

When Tunisia sparked the Arab Spring movement in 2010, demonstrations and protests ensued that threatened the tenure of long-time president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian government tried to block Internet communications in and out of the country. Disturbed, the Anonymous hactivists sprung to action by hacking the Tunisian government’s servers and showing the rebellion how to go around the government’s ploy, according to Al Jazeera.

More recently, Anonymous has hacked Israeli government websites, leaving messages saying “Stop bombing Gaza!! We Anonymous will not sit back and watch a cowardly Zionist State demolish innocent people’s lives.”

Perhaps its greatest trait, Anonymous does not have a leader. It does not have a headquarters and it seems nearly impossible to know for sure who is in the group. The only thing that connects the group of hackers is that they collect intelligence of wrongdoing and combine their forces to try and eradicate it.

Their adage, “we are anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget, expect us,” sends a clear message of their intentions towards those they deem a threat to society.

Despite its work against these enemies, its tactics are intimidating and unconventional in that the group does not wish physical harm on perpetrators of rights violations; only a revelation of a hidden truth in need of exposure.

What makes Anonymous strikingly intimidating is that it uses tactics that are ethically wrong to achieve goals that are morally right. The ethical dilemma of whether or not to condone this type of vigilantism begs to question the reasons the vigilante acts are conducted.

To just play devil’s advocate would undermine the serious consequences that borderline lawlessness can create. If the system of checks and balances that Anonymous is trying to put in place becomes too strong, it raises the concern of who would be able to stand up to the power that the group gained through working outside of the law.

There are evils in this world. For every tragedy and transgression that occurs, there is a tendency to question whether something could have been done. Anonymous has gained our attention in ousting those who they believe to be evil and it can only continue as long as their “Robin Hood” mentality does not escalate to anything more nefarious.

According to a Sept. 21 TechRadar article by Gary Marshall, the new software is “much more social than before.” Not everyone is happy with the upgrade, however, because of glitches and other issues.

iOS 6 upgrades iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch with more than 200 new features, including new versions of Maps, Camera and FaceTime, Siri, Phone and Safari applications.

Before the new update, Maps was as simple as its name. The user received directions and did their best to get to their destination. Maps is now vector based, keeps the streets and places in their real locations, zooms in and out smoothly and has voice navigation and real-time traffic updates.

These features were added, however, at the cost of longtime partner Google. Apple has used Google Maps in the past, but because of disagreements between the companies, Apple decided to create their own app. This has several loyal Apple costumers upset because the new version of Maps is less reliable and has more glitches than Google Maps ever did.

Although some costumers dislike iOS 6, others praise the new technology of the Camera and FaceTime application. iPhone cameras now have the ability to take photos in panoramic view. Also, the FaceTime application can now work over 3G provided that you have the correct hardware and calling plan. It will work with the iPhone 4S but not the iPhone 4.

The Phone system and Safari also needed a necessary update due to complications in past versions. iPhone users now have the ability to put off a phone call with just a few swift motions. The iOS 6 software allows users to instantly reply with a text message, set a callback reminder when they decline an incoming call, or put their phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode.

Safari now lets users save web pages and open up their most recent tabs even when not connected to the Internet. Users can also read while offline and then switch to another device to read the same article from the place they left off.

Apple also made improvements to Siri. Siri can now understand more languages, work in more countries, provide updates on the scores of the latest games, find the best restaurants and give the user the dates and times of nearby movie theaters.

With all the new updates, you’d think people would be excited, but this was not the case upon the software’s release. An Oct. 1 Fox News article by Jeremy A. Kaplan stated that over 183 million out of 283 million eligible users — that’s more than half — did not update to iOS 6.

By Nov. 9, Northern Voices Online reported that about one-third of iPhone customers in the U.S. and Canada had still not upgraded. Why? Some users choose not to update due to technological issues, having the wrong version of the iPhone or because they wanted to buy the iPhone 5.

Being an iPhone 4S user myself, I do not believe upgrading to the new iOS 6 system is critical. I have updated my phone, and I find that I have hardly used any of the new software updates. TechRadar said it best, stating that the new iOS 6 software is “the refinement of something that already works extremely well.”

During the cold and flu season, students are regularly told the usual precautions: Cough and sneeze into your elbow; wash your hands; and think about how dirty that door knob and other common surfaces might be. But could cellphones be a new carrier of sickness too?

“Common illnesses we can see spreading from hands, phones and common surfaces are: pinkeye, colds, influenza, … [with symptoms of] nausea, vomiting and diarrhea that commonly go around,” said Laura Knowles, supervisor for nursing and patient services at the Iowa State U. Student Health Center. ”These are the unintended consequences of new technology, so we don’t know all of the risks yet.”

Nancy Boury, ISU senior lecturer in microbiology, said microbes do not change throughout the day, but if students have a virus or bacteria someone else does not have, that is where cellphones could play a role.

“It is theoretically possible, but how often do people trade their cell hones back and forth?” Boury said. “Organisms that usually live on your skin will be roughly the same when you pick up [your] phone [for] the first time of the day as the last time you pick up your phone for the day. … If you have a cold or the flu, don’t go lending your phone out.”

If people cough or sneeze into their hands then open a door, their germs will be on the handle, waiting for another person to come along later and pick up the germs upon grabbing the door knob. Once the student touches his or her eyes, mouth or nose, those germs have the potential to make the student sick.

“Most people don’t realize it, but the average person touches their face, mouth or nose up to 20 times per day without thinking much about it,” Knowles said. “We should be sure we have washed our hands after using the rest room, before and after eating, and periodically throughout the day after touching common surfaces. [Nurses at the Student Health Center] would suggest that each student have a small bottle of hand sanitizer in their backpacks to use periodically through the day.”

Boury explained what viruses and bacteria need to live on a surface such as a cellphone.

“[The] cold virus, if it has enough mucus with it, it could survive for a while,” Boury said. “Influenza would probably be in that group, too. … It would have to have enough of a food source, and in the case of viruses, they live inside cells so you have to give them something to live in, otherwise they will not fare well.”

“Bacteria wise, strep and staph … a lot of that staph lives in your nose or around your face; so if you’re talking on the phone, staph would be a real common one you would see,” Boury said.

One difficulty with cellphones and trying to cut down on viruses and bacteria potentially growing on them, is electronic equipment is hard to clean with most of the harsh cleaners on the shelf.

“Cleaning phones and iPads and electronic equipment is tricky and problematic because a lot of manufacturers don’t tell you what coating is on the phone and what is best for cleaning it,” Knowles said. “It’s hard to tell if an alcohol wipe will strip an oil-repellant coating and/or damage the screen.”

Knowles said S.C. Johnson, the company that makes Windex, states that its glass cleaner is not recommended for electronics; however, the company does offer a line of cleaners specifically for electronic devices.

There are a few common practices that can help reduce the spread of sickness.

“Hand-washing is the No. 1 thing people can do to prevent the spread of illness,” Knowles said. “Using tissues to cough and sneeze into and throwing those in the trash, wiping down common surfaces [with proper cleaners] such as door handles, faucet handles, desk pens, keyboards, iPads, phones etc. … regularly.”

Boury also mentioned a few of the same practices.

“Don’t touch your face, and wash your hands frequently,” Boury said. That’s the micro 101 lesson for staying healthy.”

While covering one’s tracks is not the moral that should be taken away from the media frenzy that has followed the “Petrayal” incident that has likely caused much grief to multiple families, it is a side note that should be heeded.

The tip-off of the scandal has been identified as an email sent from a Tampa woman to the FBI. The depth of the scandal can be seen in the “harassing emails” that Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ alleged mistress, sent to the Tampa woman, who Broadwell supposedly suspected was growing closer to Petraeus. The details of the scandal are all found in “intimate messages” within Petraeus’ private Gmail account — even though he reportedly used a dropbox-like system that allowed Broadwell to see the emails as drafts instead of actually transmitting them, in hopes of evading the ability to retrieve them. The Washington Post reported the tactic to be similar to tricks terrorists use when communicating in fear of espionage.

But the one thing that even the director of an agency that prides itself on secrecy cannot escape is the shield of privacy that the Internet — and public records laws — whisk away from all. This brief window into his personal email account could provide valuable information into other matters of national security and even allow hackers to access more classified information — a reason he was ultimately asked to resign.

But particularly in the state of Florida, where all government employees — including university employees — are, in the interest of open government and transparency, subject to having their email searched, it is
imperative one consider the merit of what is being put in written and electronic communication.

While the convenience of such communication has replaced note-passing and workplace whispering with emails to the person sitting next to you about the awful third person at a meeting or emails about non-work-related activities, email communication doesn’t offer much protection to those who are afraid of their dirty
laundry being accessible to all.

Even after deleting one’s browsing history, if one is logged into a Google account, any search is saved in the history and could potentially be accessible to all.

While the majority of people will never be swept into a media maelstrom and could likely safely get away with workplace wantonness, the importance of watching what one allows the Internet to know should not be forgotten.

While the benefits of bringing together diverse and far-flung people of widely varying interests are obvious, there are some very real and tangible downsides to allowing users unfettered access to one another, wrapped in the warm, snug blanket of anonymity the Internet can provide.

Reddit.com is arguably a microcosm of the Internet, itself. According to the website, Reddit had more than 42 million unique visitors to its content-aggregating site in September. There is much good that comes from gathering people together in such enormous numbers — Reddit’s Secret Santa program, for instance, is the largest in the world with more than 17,000 participants — but it is inevitable and a fact of the human condition that such an enormous and anonymous conglomeration of people will magnify humanity’s worst impulses, too.

Three weeks ago, nobody on the national stage knew who Michael Brutsch was. He was a polite, nondescript application developer for First Cash Financial Services in Arlington. He went about his job quietly, and no one complained of any improprieties or misbehavior. He was just another quiet face in the crowd, doing his job, chatting idly with co-workers and going home to his family at night.

Brutsch’s Reddit alter ego, Violentacrez, was a different matter altogether. Posting anonymously, Brutsch drew the attention of Anderson Cooper, who devoted a portion of his CNN show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” to condemning one of Brutsch’s creations — a forum on Reddit, commonly referred to as a subreddit, called r/jailbait, that acted as a repository for suggestive photographs of underage girls.

As Violentacrez, Brutsch was an incredibly influential and prolific user and moderator. He was also responsible for the subreddit r/beatingwomen, which is unfortunately exactly what it sounds like. For Brutsch, it all started to unravel as the result of r/creepshots, which promoted and displayed compromising photographs of young girls taken without their knowledge or consent.

One notable contributor was a Georgia substitute teacher, who was identified and subsequently fired after students in the suggestive photos he contributed were recognized and the photos were traced back to him.

Given the amount of attention being paid nationally to the Violentacrez subreddits and their content, it was only a matter of time before Brutsch’s identity became known, though this was apparently lost on him, and he continued to act as though his anonymity was inviolable and absolute.

The bitter end came when Gawker.com writer Adrien Chen identified Brutsch in early October. Brutsch was fired from his job once his extracurricular activities became known, leaving him and his family with no health insurance. His wife is disabled and hasn’t been able to work in more than a year.

This outing sparked an enormous amount of debate and rhetoric about the right to privacy and anonymity on the Internet. While Brutsch is nominally apologetic about his online activities, he also maintains that his privacy was violated and that Chen wronged him.

Brutsch is by no means on the fringe here. There has been an overwhelming wave of free speech-themed defense of Brutsch’s anonymity, and there is no shortage of people outraged about the perceived violation of a sacred right.

But the world is flat, and that goes both ways. With the amazing and world-altering speed and effectiveness of the Internet in connecting its users, also comes the easy identification of a contributor. Chen didn’t do anything difficult, brave or laudable. He did a little research, took the story and ran with it. He’s not Woodward and Bernstein by any stretch.

Everyone comes out of this story looking worse for it. Brutsch is a sad, unsympathetic character who encouraged and promoted some of the most reprehensible content anywhere on the Internet, and Chen is a sensationalist, yellow journalist who was hardly out for the greater good so much as web hits — precisely the same motivating factor for Brutsch as Violentacrez.

There is no real catharsis. There are bad people everywhere, and they will use all the wondrous and powerful tools decent people use with all the same effectiveness and power. Outing Brutsch may have curbed his activities, but it isn’t a solution.

There really isn’t a solution. Humanity’s darker nature is not going away. The only honorable response is to monitor content they consume and tacitly support or aggressively disapprove of content that violates the rights of others, acknowledging that the good fight will never be definitively won but continuing to fight it nonetheless.

A study co-conducted by David Westerman, assistant professor of communication studies at West Virginia U., showed publicly displaying romantic relationships on Facebook is a sign of commitment.

“It’s very similar to wearing a wedding ring. You’re publicly showing people ‘look I’m connected to this other person. I’m letting everyone know,’” Westerman said. “If you show it publicly, it makes it that much more meaningful.”

Just as social media has become a way to connect with friends and family, they have also become a tool to build and maintain relationships.

“For me, it came about from seeing social networking sites as being this place where a lot of these things can play out,” Westerman said. “(How they are) providing opportunities for people who live apart but also who live relatively close to each other, to maintain relationships by communicating through these channels.”

Alongside Stephanie Tong of Wayne State U. in Detroit, Westerman investigated how the nature of romantic relationships are affected by Facebook.

Westerman put up an ad on MIX in September looking for people currently involved in a romantic relationship with someone they are friends with on Facebook.

In the study, 306 participants were asked a series of questions about how satisfied they were with their communication on Facebook and how supported they felt by their network.

“We asked them some questions about how they interact with their partner through the private parts of Facebook and through the public part,” Westerman said. “We wanted to see how they played some of these things out on Facebook.”

Westerman and Tong are still analyzing the results of the study, and no statistics have been released.

What the preliminary results of the study show is people who display their relationship more openly on Facebook tend to feel closer to one another than people who don’t.

Westerman believes the idea of being “Facebook official” may play more significant role than many think.

“If you’re doing this publicly, you’re showing that commitment,” Westerman said. “Everyone else in your network knows it, and they can call you on it if you do something stupid.”

The private interactions on Facebook, including messaging and chatting, don’t seem to play as big a role in relationships – to Westerman’s surprise.

“It might be that people don’t just do it very often,” Westerman said. “Facebook is meant to be a public channel, although it certainly has some private parts to it.”

Westerman said he is satisfied with the results of the study, as they prove much of the criticism of social networking sites is unwarranted.

“A lot of people say: ‘These kids today – they’re only interacting on Facebook, and they’re not having real relationships,’ This study shows that might not be the case,” Westerman said.

Westerman and Tong are hoping to finalize their research by early November.

Apple revealed yet another product — a product that was rumored months before being formally introduced Tuesday.

Following in the footsteps of their newest iPhone, the company has revealed what is called the “iPad mini.”

The iPad Mini is a 7.2 millimeter thick, 0.68-pound condensed version of the brand’s bestselling tablet, the iPad.

While some features of the new model are the same as its cousins, many design and functionality aspects have been altered to accommodate the 7.9-inch IPS screen and form factor of the mini.

Jony Ive, senior vice president of design for Apple, said in the iPad mini release video that there would have been inherent loss in merely reducing the current iPad in size.

“It’s a concentration, not a reduction of the original,” Ive said.

The smaller screen had the company reduce the width of the borders and, given their track record of their past products, continuing their touchscreen trend of one-hand usability.

The iPad mini houses smaller components , the company’s A5 chip (also used in the iPad 2), as well as the new standard in docking for Apple, the Lightning connector.

FaceTime HD also was talked about at the event.

Apple was pleased to announce FaceTime on the mini has been redesigned along with the camera to take HD 720p video and pictures and allow HD video chatting. The 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi connectivity seen in the iPhone 5 will also make an appearance, in addition to the standard Bluetooth capability.

The company’s lightest and thinnest battery yet will be included in the mini, giving it 10 hours of battery life, according to the video.

The iPad mini includes Siri integration as well.

Apple revealed that the screen has the same resolution as the iPad 2 (1024×768), but with a slightly higher pixels per inch at 163 compared to the iPad 2’s 132.

This is the downgrade from the iPad 3’s Retina display that was expected by media sites such as CNET, due to the smaller battery in the mini not being able to hold out for the energy required to run a Retina display.

As a comparison, the iPad 3 has a resolution of 2048×1536 and 264 pixels per inch. CNET said that the lower PPI hardly affects anything, as it fits well with the smaller display.

Cost of the mini will start at $329 for 16 GB, $429 for 32 GB and $529 for 64 GB, all being released Friday, Nov. 2.

Wi-Fi and 4G models will go on sale on Friday, Nov. 16, at $459 for 16 GB, $559 for 32 GB and $659 for 64 GB. Preorders for the device will begin Friday.

Also introduced at the event was the anticipated 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, the new Mac minis, the new iMac and the fourth generation of the original, larger iPad.

This new model comes with an A6X processor Apple claims doubles the A5X’s power found in the third generation.

The A6X will also include FaceTime HD, 10 hours of battery life and the proprietary Lightning connector. Prices are $499 for the 16 GB, with $100 added for every 16 GB of storage added. The most expensive model is reported to cost $829 for the 4G LTE version.

Preorders for the fourth generation iPad also begin Friday, with the Wi-Fi model also releasing Friday, Nov.  2 and the LTE version later that month.

All new products announced have been added to Apple’s website — perfect timing for the holidays.

The results from Kaplan Test Prep’s 2012 survey of college admission offices show a slightly increased use of Facebook and Google as a tool in application evaluations to about 26 percent and 27 percent respectively, compared to the previous year where Facebook was also used 26 percent of the time, but Google was only used 20 percent of the time.

While this statistical jump is relatively small in relation to the year prior, the number of applicants who had damaging material found on their social networking pages that negatively impacted their applications nearly tripled from 12 percent to 35 percent this year.

“The offenses we heard repeatedly [from admission officers] were underage drinking, vulgarities, essay plagiarism, academic offenses and suspect material,” Colin Gruenwald, director of SAT and ACT programs for Kaplan Test Prep, said.

Students’ social networking profiles might paint a different picture of the college hopefuls than they would like.

“The traditional application—-, the essays, the letters of recommendation, represent the polished version of an applicant, while often what’s found online is a rawer version of that applicant,” Jeff Olson, vice president of data science, said in a Kaplan press release.

His advice to students is to “think first, tweet later.”

Of the schools polled, only 15 percent of admissions offices have rules in place to guide the use of social media in an application review process, according to the release. This leaves the majority of admissions offices with the ability to search for applicants with no restrictions, besides basic privacy settings.

But that does not mean that all schools are using the Internet as an evaluation tool.

“It is not part of our evaluation process and I cannot imagine it ever will be,” David Gildea, associate director of marketing and recruitment for Penn State admissions, said.

With social media and the Internet, there is a lot of information that may be or may not be factual, Gildea said.

“It’s almost like using Wikipedia as an information tool. You cannot test its veracity,” Gildea said. “It’s a fun, anecdotal tool.”

Gildea also said that with Penn State U. application numbers, it would be nearly impossible to search every student on the Internet.

Penn State is not alone in its non-use of social media in the application process.

The survey shows that about 25 percent of admissions officers are using social networking and 75 percent reported that they are not, Gruenwald said.

“Although more than a quarter of admissions officers have said they go to Facebook or Google, its still not something they do on a regular basis. We consider this a wild card factor,” Gruenwald said.

Kaplan advised students to carefully monitor their privacy settings and to check their digital trail, Gruenwald said.

Some students do take precautions when it comes to Facebook.

PSU freshman Maria Reviello said she monitors the material that is on her Facebook wall.

“I don’t upload pictures from parties and I do not use vulgarities,” Reviello said.

Before Reviello applied to colleges, she untagged pictures that could be considered unprofessional.

But even with these precautions, Kaplan advises to not post damaging material in the first place because the Internet has a long memory, Gruenwald said.

“The last thing any student wants is to spend years building their academic credentials, only to have their application impacted negatively by an off-the-cuff comment or negative posting they never should have posted,” Gruenwald said.

Apple Maps featured directions that were largely incorrect, flattened images of famous structures such as the Eiffel Tower and bridges that went underwater, among other glaring inaccuracies. The faulty application was not only limited to iPhone 5 users, but also affected Apple products that were updated to the new operating system, iOS6.

Technology has changed our exposure to such mistakes in many ways. Information and communication are widespread, and blunders such as missing products on Amazon’s website or unexpected changes like the implementation of Facebook’s Timeline feature are more visible than ever before. This drastically changes the relationship between individuals and the masses, as online and technically-savvy businesses must be transparent in order to gain customer trust. Similarly, individuals are now able to openly express grievances with the intention and expectation that the intended audience — Apple, in this case — will know of their critiques. A company may even respond in a big way, such as Apple has, through a public letter on their homepage.

A quick search notes that many of the largest and most well-known tech-based companies are frequently apologizing for a variety of issues. In addition to those mentioned at Apple, Amazon and Facebook, the Sony Corporation, Research In Motion’s Blackberry Corporation and even Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have all at some point (for some, more than once) apologized for faulty service.

As consumers, we should be pleased that the companies producing goods in our current technologically-advanced and media-regulated age are aware of the incredible loyalty required to ensure the trust of the consumer. Companies producing our products are interested in our satisfaction because it ensures good business. Honesty has become an effective means of managing product shortcomings and is better than previous attempts to mislead an intelligent and capable public.

Not only do these “incredibly high standards” lead major corporations to produce better products and larger profits, but they also are the same driving forces that create some of the most innovative and competitive brands that exist today. When we set these standards, mistakes will happen. But we will also see the emergence of some really good ideas. Errors should no longer be seen in a negative light — they produce and enforce some of the most unique and practical ideas, expediting the creative process in most cases. In Apple’s particular scenario, the Maps debacle could perhaps lead to a partnership between companies to change the way applications function on the iPhone and set the stage for more personalized and customizable smartphones.

Apologizing for a blatant inadequacy will generate respect. In a world in which creativity is a driving force in business and innovation is a proud sponsor of some of the most important cultural developments, there are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. But in this same world where information is available with a click of a button, those mistakes or faulty claims are never hidden for long. Apple’s big-time fluke reminds us of the importance of honesty in our society and that we should demand that individuals and businesses possess integrity in everything they do.

Ten U. Florida students sat scattered on an RTS bus Tuesday. While each had his or her differences in appearance, they had one thing in common: They were looking at their smartphones.

UF criminology and law sophomore Edwin Velazquez, 19, was one of the UF students heading home from class glancing at his Sprint HTC EVO smartphone with headphones in his ears.

Velazquez is one of the about 50 percent of U.S. adults who have mobile access to the Internet through a smartphone or tablet, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism survey released Monday.

“I like listening to music when I use my phone on the bus,” he said. “And I’m definitely reading up on the election debate and the topics that will most likely be presented at the debate.”

The survey found that tablet and smartphone ownership has increased among adults. About 22 percent of U.S. adults now own a tablet, and 44 percent of U.S. adults own a smartphone.

“The simple fact that technology is booming forces most Americans to catch up with new trends,” Velazquez said.

Other students said they feel the same way.

“I always see people on their smartphones,” said Sheila Scolaro, a 20-year-old UF plant science junior. “They’re mostly on Facebook, texting or checking their emails.”

After owning an iPhone 4 for a year and an iPad for two years, Scolaro said she can’t imagine life without them.

She said she likes to check her email on her phone and to see her planner electronically. However, she prefers to look at the news on her laptop.

While the Pew survey said that almost two-thirds of the smartphone and tablet owners use their devices to read the news, it also found that 41 percent of mobile users prefer to view the news from their computers.

UF health science major Juliet Eirikis, 19, doesn’t own a smartphone or a tablet.

She said she won’t pay for the unnecessary data plans that come with smartphones.

“Last time I purchased a phone, I noticed how few choices there were for nonsmartphones,” she said. “I think that’s what the consumer wants, and that’s what the industry is pushing toward.”

The hype of Apple’s release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 software has died down since Apple users discovered technical issues with the latest version of Apple’s Maps, which replaced Google Maps in the software update.

Users found that the new Maps application is missing whole cities, duplicating locations and using incorrect landmark icons. Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized in an open letter on the company’s website, recognizing the application’s kinks.

Chris Dyal, 25-year-old U. Florida Computing Help Desk employee, said he hasn’t had any issues with Maps when looking up Gainesville on his iPhone 5. However, he said campus roads aren’t as accurate as they were with Google Maps.

“It was rolled out way too early,” Dyal said.

Despite the kinks, he said he doesn’t think the faulty Maps application will affect iPhone 5 sales.

UF freshman Lauren Killer, 18, said she updated her iPhone 4 to the iOS 6 software the week it was released.

Out of all the updates, she said she is disappointed with the new Maps. Killer said the new Maps doesn’t have outlines or labels for UF campus buildings.

She said the malfunction wouldn’t have happened under the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ watch.

“I think Steve Jobs is turning in his grave,” Killer said.

Killer said she uses the Maps application to track campus buses. She said if the software update took place earlier in the school year, she would have trouble finding her way around UF.

RTS has a partnership with TransLoc, a real-time transportation information provider, said RTS spokesman Chip Skinner.

Skinner said TransLoc is Windows-based, so RTS hasn’t had complaints about Apple Maps and its public transportation directions. TransLoc currently uses Google Maps as its navigational platform.

Killer said she hasn’t had any issues with finding RTS buses on her iPhone, but she typically uses the TransLoc app.

Killer, who plans to buy the iPhone 5 in December, said the Maps update has not led her to rethink her purchase or doubt the company. However, she told family and friends not to update their iPhones’ software.

“It’s just not OK as is,” Killer said.

The first and most obvious way the iPhone helps the economy is through its sales. Since its introduction, the different iterations of the iPhone have sold 244 million units. Those sales numbers look to continue upwards with the iPhone 5. According to JP Morgan, it is reported to increase GDP by 0.3%, which is significant considering it is a single device from one company.

However, the iPhone and a lot of other devices receive criticism for hurting the economy by manufacturing jobs overseas. It is a valid point that outsourcing hurts the American economy, but critics often overlook the other avenues in which the iPhone creates jobs. One of these avenues is the app store. Apple’s marketplace of mobile apps and games for the smartphone grew exponentially. The company already gave out $1 billion in royalties to their app developers, solely from the sales of apps. This excludes advertising or in-app purchases. Without the app store, companies like Rovio Games and success stories like Draw Something wouldn’t exist. Although not every app is a booming success, but 90% of the current 700,000 available apps are downloaded every month.

Everyone that owns an iPhone has had some interaction with the app store, but they’ve also probably had interaction with another facet of the iPhone economy, the accessories. There are a variety of iPhone accessories available. Whether it’s just a case or a speaker system, iPhone owners made the iPhone accessories market worth $2-3 billion last year. Like the app store, this allows third parties to enter into the iPhone economy and design different cases, speakers, headphones and other smart phone compatible products. And thanks to the iPhone 5, these third parties will be revitalized. Due to changes to the iPhone’s design and dock connector, consumers will need new cases and new accessories compatible with the iPhone 5 (unless they choose to purchase Apple’s adapter). This facet should continue to grow as analysts predict the iPhone accessories market will grow to about $5-6 billion in the next three years.

Even the hype of the iPhone helps the economy. It earns Apple and any other company related to the phone’s production free publicity and also the occasional boost in their stock prices. On the other side of things, the iPhone provides plenty of traffic for tech blogs across the web. That, in turn, brings in traffic revenue. From experience, one of the sites I write for covers iPhone and Android news. To give you an idea about the effect of the hype, through writing about it for a tech site, I’ve learned that iPhone articles brought in substantially more traffic, which resulted in more money in my pocket.

At the key of any economy is innovation. Companies like Square would have never been started without the iPhone. And while it isn’t the sole source of innovation, the popular crowd funding site Kickstarter wouldn’t have reached the popularity it has now. The first major successful project for Kickstarter that brought it to the mainstream was the Pebble. The project was a watch that linked to and allowed you to control your iPhone. It received over $10,000,000 in funding after originally asking for $100,000. This sparked a boom of innovative ideas on the platform ranging from new iPhone cases, camera lens adapters, foldable keyboards, and plenty of other ideas.

Only some of these ideas will go on to create businesses. The employees of these businesses, the revenue that is brought, and the innovative opportunities available all owe their existence to the iPhone. More than any modern device, the iPhone has created multiple means of adding a boost to the economy and it is a good thing that Apple decided to do “one more thing.”

Cherly Wetzstein, journalist for the Washington Times, said, “Befriending old flames can snuff a marriage, but logging off is extreme.”

Wetzstein’s article focuses on a New Jersey pastor’s comment to his congregation, urging married couples to stop using Facebook, which Reverand Cedric Miller described as “too many people’s portal to infidelity.”

Although there have been reports of ruined marriages due to social networks, it is obvious that with 66 percent of adults using social networking sites, deleting accounts may be an extreme solution. That leads to the possibility of combining Facebook accounts.

Despite any dangers that may arise from having separate Facebook accounts, Ashley and Douglas Kelly, a married couple attending BYU, do not see the need to combine their accounts.

“That  would be a reason if you don’t trust each other,” said Ashley Kelly, a BYU junior.

Her husband, Douglas Kelly, a BYU senior, also feels that combining accounts is not necessary.

“Once we started dating, Facebook disappeared,” he said.

The Kellys have separate accounts, do not share passwords and agree that they will likely never combine accounts.

Another married couple also did not combine accounts; however, they do share passwords.

“I feel like it’s almost more of a hassle to share an account,” said Annie Call, a BYU junior.

Her husband, Joseph Call, a BYU sophomore, feels the same way.

“We both know each other’s passwords although we don’t get onto each other’s [accounts],” said Joseph Call.

Annie and Joseph both agree that it would be more convenient to have separate accounts because when someone wants to talk to one of them it would be difficult to tell who is online with a shared account.

“For example, it would be hard to plan a surprise party,” said Joseph.

Facebook may not be a concern in the lives of these married couples; the question of whether or not to combine was a simple one for them. Since Facebook does not have the option to merge two accounts, it becomes more complicated for those who choose to do so. However, for them, it might be an important way of keeping their relationship close.

In addition to releasing the iOS 6 update with a revamped map and a “do not disturb” option, Apple has people clawing to get the new iPhone 5, so much so that pre-orders for the iPhone 5 sold out in less than an hour of its public unveiling.

This begs the question: Is it worth it to get an iPhone 5? For many Apple users, the answer is obvious. For others, it is natural to be a little skeptical about purchasing a new iPhone, even if it is the most updated version (for the time being, anyway).

If you currently own an iPhone 4S, it might not make a lot of sense to buy an iPhone 5, but e-commerce websites such as eBay and Amazon are offering cash and gift cards for your phones.

Still not convinced? The iPhone 5 comes with some fairly high-tech features. For one, the iPhone 5 will utilize the iCloud for wireless access from all computers and mobile devices.  A new processor, the A5, uses power more efficiently and increases the phone’s processing speed. You can also take vivid panoramic photos with the iPhone 5’s updated camera features.  And if you haven’t heard already, the iPhone 5 is a little thinner and a little wider than the iPhone 4S.

Then again, even though Apple consistently meets the standards of its clientele with its range of iPhone products and wields the most influence with its brand name, the iPhone 5 may not be the best choice in terms of smartphones.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy S III has a longer maximum battery life and a much larger screen. If you’re looking for something more affordable, the HTC One X costs half as much as an iPhone 5.

Regardless, purchasing a smartphone is a matter of personal preferences. If you keep the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” near and dear to your heart, you might as well upgrade to a sleek and new iPhone 5. But if you’re unfazed by stylish phones and current trends, then it wouldn’t hurt to look into other phones. Who knows? You may fall in love with the phone you least expected to even notice.

Depending on what news you were reading, Aug. 27 might be a strong indicator as to whom you will vote for come November. The opening day of the Republican National Convention, President Barack Obama announced he finalized his plan to raise Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency to 54.5 mpg by 2025.

In the works since 2009, by the end of 2012 automakers are to have an average fleet fuel economy of 28.7 mpg; currently, they all are exceeding that standard at 28.9 mpg. Vehicle gas emissions are estimated to drop 50 percent while reducing fuel consumption by approximately 40 percent by 2025. According to the White House, $1.7 trillion (or as Obama puts it, “that’s trillion, with a ‘t.’”) will be saved by families in gas costs alone and $8,000 through the lifetime of each vehicle. By 2016 the industry is planned to be up to an average of 35.5 mpg.

Obama, alongside all major automaker CEOs, stated in 2011: “This agreement on fuel standards represents the single-most important step we’ve ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. … The companies here today have endorsed our plan to continue increasing the mileage on their cars and trucks over the next 15 years. We’ve set an aggressive target, and the companies here are stepping up to the plate.”

Mind you, this was an agreement struck between the Obama Administration and automakers, as Obama put it: “This agreement was arrived at without legislation. You are all demonstrating what can happen when people put aside differences — these folks are competitors, you’ve got labor and business, but they decided, we’re going to work together to achieve something important and lasting for the country.”

A nonprofit organization called Ceres was teamed up with Citi Investment Research to conduct a study to assess the economic implications of such a massive plan. The first thing that was noticed was that “higher standards mean higher profits.” It also found that Obama’s plan would lead to 484,000 new jobs in 49 states.

Walter McManus, research professor at Oakland U., analyzed the data. He found that by 2020, $2.44 billion will be brought into U.S. automakers just because of the increased standards and that all automakers will see an increase of $4.76 billion. He also proclaimed all American automotive industries will then become more competitive internationally, which is important for our need to start selling more goods overseas.

Those who claim the technology is not there are simply misinformed. Mitt Romney’s campaign representative Andrea Saul said: “Gov. Romney opposes the extreme standards that President Obama has imposed, which will limit the choices available to American families. … The president tells voters that his regulations will save them thousands of dollars at the pump but always forgets to mention that the savings will be wiped out by having to pay thousands of dollars more upfront for unproven technology that they may not even want.”

Alan Baum of Baum & Associates (a business that provides research and analysis for the automotive and related industries) says: “There is a whole variety of technology to meet the standard. … And the primary method will be the internal combustion engine. The automakers understand that and they have technology to allow for that.” He stressed that the improvement will not remove any well-selling vehicles from the fleets, including high end sports cars.

Dan Meszler of Meszler engineering says that the cost of the automotive technologies would be outweighed heavily by the savings consumers make at the pump. “The break-even point is about $1.50 a gallon,” he says, according to his calculations. Which, in my opinion, we will never see again. He went on to say, “What [the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency] does is floats all boats.”

Some might argue, myself included, that a 54.5 mpg average standard is unattainable in 15 years time. But that argument is moot because any standard increase will be beneficial for this economy, all families and the environment.

Not only has Romney stated his disapproval of this plan, but he has stated he will do what he can to reverse it should he become president. The greatest thing you can do to help with this issue is either vote for a reelection of Obama or do what you can to convince Romney of the dangers of reversing the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency plan.

I am proud to be a part of a university that goes through such great practice in becoming more energy efficient. Supporting not just Obama’s plan but this trend is incredibly important — and after being informed of the facts and numbers, it becomes a no-brainer.

The iPhone 5 boasts a number of improvements from its predecessor, the iPhone 4s, and will be available on the network carriers Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint; as well as a number of smaller wireless carriers.

The phone was available for pre-order on Friday, Sept. 14, but in traditional fashion, Apple fanatics camped out to get their hands on the device first thing in the morning.

Penn State U. sophomore Brian Reil was camped out with his father in front of the AT&T retail store. Reil said this was his first experience camping out for an iPhone, but said he was eager to upgrade from his Blackberry.

The father-son tandem in line before them had a tent and utilized the power outlets outside the store. Reil was less prepared, but noted the upsides such as using the store’s Wi-Fi network and the McDonald’s right down the road.

Apple and the leading wireless carriers offer the iPhone 5 in two colors and three models. The phone can be purchased in either “Black and Slate” or “White and Silver.” The base model phone will offer 16GB memory at a starting price of $199 with a two-year contract agreement. It is also available in 32GB and 64GB memories for $299 and $399, respectively.

According to Apple’s iPhone 5 Keynote Address, the phone is 18 percent thinner than last year’s iPhone 4s, measuring 7.6 millimeters thick. It is also 20 percent lighter than its predecessor, weighing in at 112 grams.

Some additional features include a larger, four-inch screen with Apple’s “Retina Display,” delivering images in 332 pixels per inch. It also has an upgraded camera on both the front and back of the device. One of the major upgrades is that the phone is now 4G LTE compatible.

The 4G LTE network is the latest advancement in cellular network speeds. The regional public relations manager for Verizon Wireless, Laura Merritt, said the 4G LTE network is ten times faster than the previous 3G network. Merritt also confirmed that Verizon has had an established 4G LTE network in State College since June of 2011.

AT&T Spokesperson Brandy Bell-Truskey said State College is not currently within their 4G LTE coverage. However, she said that service was initiated this past week in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the company plans for “a full build out by the end of 2013.”

Sprint could not be reached for comment on the availability of 4G LTE speeds in State College as of press time Thursday.

The iPhone 5 is available today at Apple retail stores, as well as Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint retail locations while supplies last.

Several other third party stores will have the phone available for purchase today. A sales associate at Wal-Mart said they will sell the phone, but could not confirm the quantity supplied to them.

Sales associates at both Best Buy and RadioShack confirmed that they will also sell the iPhone 5 for the top three major networks, but again could not confirm the quantity supplied from Apple.

The video in question is entitled “The Innocence of Muslims,” produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Egyptian Coptic Christian living in Southern California. The film has outraged many in the Middle East for its image of the prophet Muhammad as a fraud and the Muslim people as being inherently immoral and violent. The resulting backlash in the Middle East has caused a great deal of anti-American protest that included the death of the American ambassador and three others at the U.S. embassy in Libya. As a result of the violence, Google has “temporarily restricted access” of the video in Libya and Egypt.

Because of this decision, the company has been taking criticism from people who are calling the act of restricting the video censorship brought on out of fear of violence. However, this is a bit of an extreme accusation. While it’s true that censoring a video that doesn’t violate any country’s local laws or violates YouTube’s terms of service is unprecedented, it is hard to argue with the decision to take down the video in places where it is costing innocent lives. While Google is catching heat for temporarily removing the videos in these two countries, people are overlooking the decision that they made to reject a plea from the White House to remove the video in the United States. The company said that it looked over its established guidelines and determined that, by their own rules, they are not permitted to remove the video in the U.S. because it doesn’t constitute hate speech by their definition. They would be forced to remove a video that made fun of Muslims, not one that simply makes fun of Islam.

So, while the site is under attack as being a model of censorship online, they aren’t being commended for standing up to pressure from the government and fighting for freedom of expression in America – where it is a protected constitutional right. Unfortunately, the issue isn’t so clean cut once it leaves our borders. The Internet is not dictated by any one country’s set of laws or principles. What may be the most popular video in one part of the world can be nothing short of deplorable and inappropriate in another part. That puts an online powerhouse like Google in an odd position of having to champion the ideas of freedom of speech on an international level. Obviously this wasn’t an undertaking that the company sought out when it first established itself but it is one that they’re doing their best to accomplish with as little pressure and bloodshed in other cultures as possible.

The bottom line is that Google cannot police 100 percent of its content. According to the company, they received 1,965 requests from government agencies around the world to remove 20,311 pieces of content. In some of these cases, the content was removed; in others it was not. Even an online colossus like Google cannot hope to be programmatic about the way that it deals with every possible censorship issue. With over 72 hours of content being posted to YouTube every minute, it’s unreasonable to ask the powers that be to have a unified way of dealing with all inflammatory content. It’s even more unreasonable to say that 100 percent of that content should be shoved down other cultures’ throats, no matter how many innocent lives are put in jeopardy.

Google Inc. has taken the extremely difficult task of keeping freedom of expression possible online. They have proven time and again that they believe that the Internet is meant to host a marketplace of ideas. With “The Innocence of Muslims” they were tasked with either championing this cause again, albeit under very unique circumstances, or potentially having blood on their hands. Since they are a corporation with guidelines and not a constitution, it can be said that they’ve done the best that can be expected to have done to preserve the ideas of freedom of speech on an international level while maintaining dignity to the rest of the world.

Someone I barely know contacted me the other day, and it creeped me out a little bit. I had just met her a few days earlier, and she said “Hi” to me on Facebook. Immediately I thought she was crazy.

Ironically, not two weeks before this I sent a Facebook message to someone I have only talked to a few times in person, to share something I thought she would potentially find interesting. A mutual friend of ours told me the next day that the person I had messaged thought it was weird because I did not normally talk to her.

Looking back, I find both situations hilariously unnecessary. Despite how they began, each led to me and the other person becoming better friends. If it makes getting to know someone so much more difficult, why do we get creeped out so easily?

When we are not familiar with a person, we have no idea what that person’s intentions are. So any time someone we do not know very well wants to talk to us, we are on guard. Naturally we have to protect ourselves from all the lunatics out there. But most of the time when we are weirded out by someone, we have more of a connection than we think. Being iffy about a complete stranger makes sense; we have no reason to trust their intentions. When the person is someone we know through a friend or talked to at a party, however, we could stand to be a bit more open to communication.

As it turns out, it can be counterproductive to avoid people we do not know well. For example, in the peer-reviewed journal Personal Relationships, an article fittingly titled “I do not know you and I am keeping it that way” reveals some of the effects it has on us. When people are more hesitant to interact with strangers, they are worse at being able to figure out the feelings and intentions of people they have just met. This implies people who get creeped out easily are more likely to misunderstand others they do not know well. This should seem obvious — friendly people relate to others better than reserved people.

A few days after I was messaged by that girl unexpectedly on Facebook, I decided to respond to her. After thinking about the situation, it felt stupid to think she was weird just because she said hello. But responding to her still made me feel a bit uncomfortable in a way, as if I was not supposed to let her talk to me just because she started the conversation. Of course, once we actually started talking more those feelings went away, and I miraculously discovered she was not actually creepy.

Until you are sure of someone’s intentions, they will always seem like they might be kind of creepy. The article “Trust Building Among Strangers,” published in Management Science clarifies this effect. Being open-minded enough to learn a person’s intentions was shown to be the key factor in how much people trusted others they did not know.

In the movie “21 Jump Street” from earlier this year, there is an amusing moment where this is summed up during a conversation between Eric, a high school student, and Domingo, a one-eyed member of a drug-dealing motorcycle gang. Domingo asks Eric about the companions he brought with him to the deal, and Eric attempts to vouch for them.

Domingo: I don’t like strangers.

Eric: How do you expect to make any new friends with that attitude? It’s like, everyone’s a stranger until you give them a chance, man.

Unfortunately Eric is later arrested by someone he thought was his friend, but this was his own fault, and the premise is still valid. We do not have to be friends with everyone, but we can miss out on a lot if we are too quick to judge how creepy someone actually is. Sure there are actual creeps out there, but probably a lot fewer than we let ourselves believe.

After months of speculation, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook announced the iPhone 5 release at a media event in San Francisco Wednesday afternoon.

The new iPhone has a bigger screen, a full 4-inches, making use of Apple’s patented Retina Display.  iPhone 5 is slimmer and faster than it’s predecessors. Weighing in at 112 grams, it’s 20 percent lighter than its older brother, 4S. The new A6 processor chip allows for faster web browsing, graphics and even better battery life. The latest iPhone also boasts Apple’s best wireless connectivity speeds to date, as the first iPhone to support 4G LTE technology.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 will begin September 14; the phone will be available to the public on September 21. The prices for the new iPhone 5 were released. Like the previous model, iPhone 5 comes in both black and white with three options for memory capacity. The 16GB will sell for $199, the 32GB is $299 and the 64GB is $399.

One of the biggest changes to the new iPhone is the new multipurpose connector. Since 2003, Apple has used a 30-pin connector, the opening on the bottom of the iPhone and iPod that plugs it into a power source or computer. The new connector is 80 percent smaller and has 8 pins. This new connector, called Lightning, is reversible as well as more durable. Apple will now begin to offer an adapter for the old, 30-pin connector in a new, 8-pin device.

There are also considerable updates to applications currently used on the iPhone. The Google Maps App now provides audible turn-by turn navigation, along with rea-ltime traffic updates and re-routes to help users get where they’re going faster.

Apple’s other products (iTunes, the iPod Touch and iPod Nano) are also being updated.

Daily Illini: Where did the idea for Twitter come from?

Jack Dorsey: I grew up in St. Louis; my parents loved the city. I developed this fascination with cities (and) obsession with maps, and they bought a Macintosh in 1984, when I was 8 years old … and I made it a goal to teach myself how to program so I could draw maps on the computer, and then they also had a police scanner and a CB (Citizen’s Band) radio (short-distance radio communication system), so I could listen to police cars and ambulances reporting where they were and what they were doing. I could actually see the city living and breathing. And Twitter came out of an idea of: I have all these verticals, I have cars and taxis and couriers and ambulances and police cars and fire trucks, but I’m missing one key element of the city, which were the people. So if the people could say where they are, what they’re doing, where they’re going, what would that look like? Could you actually map it? Could you see the city? I had that idea in 2001, but it just wasn’t the right time; we didn’t have the right technology. So in 2006, when SMS got really big in this country is when Twitter took off and was formed.

DI: Over the course of the existence of Twitter, what have been the key developments? What changes have been made to Twitter?

JD: The technology hasn’t shifted that much at all. We’ve been building it and making it more resilient to failure, to keep it up more. The interface has changed a little bit, but where a lot of the work is, is making it more relevant instantly so you can go to the service and you can see everything that’s happening in the world right now. So if you hear that something is unfolding in Egypt, it’s actually right there and it’s the first place that it breaks. And that’s happening more and more and more, and that’s a function of investing more in the technology, making it faster, making it more available, making it everywhere, making sure that every country, every market has an easy input to it. We have short code in Iraq so that anyone with a $5 cellphone can participate in the same conversation that you can participate in, in the United States, and 60 percent of the population in Iraq has a cellphone, so that’s been our focus.

DI: Did you expect Twitter to take off as much as it did or serve the same purpose that it does today?

JD: We knew it was a big idea. We knew that it could work in many, many different areas, but we didn’t expect the velocity. It’s just been super, super fast. We also didn’t expect how many different ways people would use it. I imagine the same will be true for Square. Twitter is almost 7 years old, and Square is 3 years old.

DI: What is Square?

JD: Square, quite simply, enables anyone to accept credit cards from their mobile phone. It’s a tiny little device that plugs into the headphone jack on your phone and enables anyone to accept credit cards, and the payments go into their bank account the next day. We’ve also built an application called Pay with Square, which allows you to actually pay with your name.

DI: How did you develop Square?

JD: We’ve been developing it for three years now. Myself and my co-founder Jim McKelvey, we’re both from St. Louis, Mo. We started working on it in early 2009 and now are 400 people in San Francisco.

DI: Are there businesses in Champaign-Urbana using Square?

JD: We have hundreds in Champaign-Urbana. These range from individuals, like people who are personal trainers or hairdressers who want to accept credit cards, golf instructors, tutors, all the way to small businesses. We have food trucks coming by tonight that are using Square, and then we have some retail locations as well.

DI: What advice do you have for students at the University?

JD: If you have a strong idea, and you have a passion for it and you want to see it exist in the world, then make sure you push really hard to do it …. It’s really just a question of what canvas do you want to plan and how quickly do you want to go. And that’s what I would encourage people to think about is …. (Students) can make a sizable impact by building really compelling tools, within a company or by starting a company, but they just have to get it out of their heads.

As if in anticipation of putting its new toy on the market, Apple successfully sued Samsung late last month for rights on intellectual property. The case ended with a verdict awarding more than $1 billion to Apple from Samsung.

While some of the patents could arguably belong to Apple, such as mechanics that operate a slide lock for the screen, Apple really just wanted a monopoly on smartphones.  By getting that monopoly, Apple took away the option of an alternate smart phone, and with it, American capitalism.

The bogus claims of “theft” included accusations that Samsung stole the basic shape of a smartphone — it seems like Apple owns the rectangle with rounded edges. While it is at it, Apple should also sue the makers of credit cards, playing cards and driver licenses.

Normally, a corporate company stealing profits via complicated legal strategy is no big deal, but now it directly affects almost every consumer in America.

In an increasingly digital age, normal cell phones no longer cut it.

For many consumers, a cell phone must be able to have email and Internet capabilities in addition to texting and calls. A smart phone must help you manage your life. With the latest verdict in technology, Apple will now manage your life with its new monopoly.

Maybe it is technologic karma biting those of us who prefer PCs to Macs, Android to Apple and generic MP3 players to iPods, but now every consumer is at risk.

With Samsung — Apple’s only real competitor in the slim market of smartphones and tablets — out of the picture, Apple could be free to do, or charge, whatever it wants for the only comparable smartphone in stores.

Capitalism has always been a champion in America, encouraging competition that can produce successful companies like Samsung and even Apple.

A key factor for capitalism to work properly, however, is for consumers to have the option of what to buy. The verdict of the courts has now taken that option away from consumers.

Perhaps Apple can claim justice in the legal system, but the implications of the ruling will deeply hurt American consumerism.

This victory for Apple will set a precedent, allowing companies to sue over any basic advances in technology just to get the upper hand in that market. Taking out its biggest — and only — competitor, Apple can charge exorbitant rates for the only smartphone now holding an iron grip on their buyers.

During the trial, Apple argued that Samsung had violated several of its patents, including those covering the iPhone’s design, rounded-square icons and “pinch to zoom” technology.

In his closing arguments, Apple attorney Harold McElhinny pointed to documents he said showed Samsung’s panic after the iPhone came out, according to The Verge. McElhinny said Samsung officials met with Google officials, who said Samsung phones were too similar in design to Apple’s, but Samsung officials did not change the design.

Lawyers for Samsung disagreed and said design for Samsung phones predated the release of the iPhone.

Samsung attorney Charles Verhoeven said: “Your (the judge’s) decision, if you go Apple’s way, could change the way competition worse in this country … Rather than competing in the marketplace, Apple is seeking a competitive edge in the courtroom,” according to CNET.

The jury agreed with Apple and said Samsung violated six patents. Samsung said it would appeal and criticized the decision, saying it would decrease competition in the market and be worse for the average consumer.

According to Businessweek, Apple on Monday listed eight Samsung smartphones it wants banned in the United States: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 AT&T, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S2 T-Mobile, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh had already banned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and said it violated a design patent.

The patents violated by Samsung, according to the jury from the case, ranged from software, to aesthetics, to outer shell design. Apple’s double-tap-to-zoom function when viewing documents worked similarly to Samsung models. Additionally, the “bounce-back” feature that happens when users scroll beyond the edge of a page was mimicked. The third feature copied from Apple by Samsung, was the ability of Apple products to read multi-finger touches; previously devices could only read single-touch commands.

The icons on several Samsung phones, most notably the phone and clock buttons, were both similar in shape and design.

Apple had patented the overall shape of earlier generations of the iPhone, most notably the rounded back of the white iPhone. Lastly, the iPhone’s black colored, rounded-edged, square design had protection under Apple’s patents.

The consequences of this landmark verdict are numerous and many future innovations in the way of smart phones, not to mention consumer choices, are sure to be affected by this decision.

Though not the explicit point, the most immediate and literal translation of the trial will mean that smart phones and tablet computers will need to start looking different to avoid backlash from Apple. But thinking honestly and practically, how many ways can a phone look?

A rectangular phone with rounded edges is ergonomic and utilitarian. It fits into hands and slips into pockets. Any other shape would be senseless and any other edge seems to be going backward. True, as simple as the design protected may be, it is the property of Apple. But because Apple was able to win out as it did, consumers will probably see less product design crossover, meaning fewer cheaper models of products.

The other five patent violations, which are slightly more understandable, still point to a regression in smartphone technology.

Although we don’t understand several of the intricacies of patent law involved in the case, we do know it’s bad news for consumers. When Apple has a legal monopoly over intrinsic aspects of smartphone design and technology, consumers lose.

Have you noticed how news outlets now include tweets as part of the news? Many newscasts now talk about celebrity Twitter accounts and any tweet that is outrageous enough to comment on. It seems as if a person can’t get through a single news report on the TV or read an article in the paper without hearing about a recent tweet from “so-and-so.”

Honestly — who cares? Or better yet — why should I care?

Twitter, like Facebook is a great communication tool if used properly.

But when mishandled, things can go terribly wrong.

Some examples of out-of-line tweets can be seen with the recent London Olympics. With more than 150 million tweets about the Olympics posted during the 16 days of the London Games, Twitter was declared the winner in what some are calling the “Social Olympics.” There were about 80,000 Olympic tweets per minute published after Usain Bolt won the gold medal in the 200-meter final, according to information given by Twitter in an article for the Australian paper The Age.

The tweets started out with Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou, who tweeted a racist comment mocking African immigrants on her personal Twitter account. Papachristou was expelled from Greece’s Olympic team for saying: “With so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitoes will be eating food from their own home.”

Swiss soccer team player Michel Morganella was the second athlete after Papachristou to be kicked out of the 2012 Olympic Games after posting a racist and threatening tweet saying South Korea’s athletes were “retards” and should “burn themselves” shortly after Switzerland’s 2-1 loss to South Korea. When the French and text-speak tweet is translated into English, Morganella tweeted something along the lines of: “I want to beat up all South Koreans. Bunch of mentally handicapped retards.”

Because of their need to blow off steam or show their racist colors to the rest of the world — it cost them big time. Plus — from now on, whenever their name is brought up they are forever tied to “that tweet”

These types of postings have been happening on Twitter for quite some time and have been making headline news along with negatively affecting those who use the social media tool in the wrong way. Back in 2010, Aussie swimmer Stephanie Rice tweeted “suck that faggots” after Australia beat South Africa at rugby. In recent times, she has been under fire for posting a “racy” picture of herself wearing a two-piece swimsuit that left little to the imagination.

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Twitter did not have as big of a role as it did in this year’s London Olympics. “There were more tweets in a single day than during the entire 2008 Beijing Games,” Twitter reps wrote in a blog post.

My favorite part about the aftermath of these rash and senseless tweets is the “I’m sorry” tweet afterward. All three athletes above tweeted their apologies, with Rice even having a tearful news conference, apologizing to the public. Well, if you weren’t careless with your actions, you wouldn’t have anything to pretend to be sorry for. They are not sorry for what they said; they are sorry they got slammed for the tweet.

As always, the few ruin it for the rest of us, giving Twitter an image which teeter-totters back and forth between good and bad.

The solution to the trouble the Olympic athletes got themselves into is to be more discrete, and it applies to the rest of us, too. Take an extra two seconds of your time to think twice about your next post. And if you decide that your mother would be disappointed in you if she saw it, give her the benefit of common sense and don’t make the post.

Maybe the solution is as simple as a short quote from the TV show “The Office”: “Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, I do not do that thing.”

3D printing operates like a 2D printer but adds another dimension out of the plane of the paper. It does so through repeated deposition of layers of a liquid plastic or melted metal ink. The technology has followed Moore’s Law, rapidly decreasing in cost.  Major companies, including General Electric, have proposed using 3D printing in manufacturing processes.  Additionally, smaller companies use 3D printing to produce niche products. Bespoke Innovations 3D prints artistic, custom prosthetics. It is even possible to print cell phone circuitry.

3D printing will link the virtual and physical world seamlessly.  Users will be able to download a Computer Animated Drawing (CAD) file and print the desired product in their home, or maybe print the product at a regional center kitted with more heavy duty printers capable of printing more complicated objects. 3D printing will also diversify suppliers, as it will require less infrastructure and investment to begin a company if product design is entirely virtual.  Therefore, it will be possible for many niche companies to compete with Amazon. Amazon is well positioned to take advantage of 3D printing, but it also stands to lose out if it does not stay ahead of the curve.

But there are several ways Bezos and his company can anticipate and lead the change in 3D printing.

The first step would probably be to buy up companies such as Shapeways which are already allowing users to upload designs and customers to then print these designs. Amazon can also create in-house 3D printing and tools on its site to embellish conventional products using its in-house 3D printing.  It is unlikely that most adults will have the necessary skills, the time, and interest to design complex products. Amazon can offer the easy alternative: offer customizable products. By acquiring companies and hiring in-house designers, Amazon can head off the inevitable diversity of suppliers and instead establish itself as a marketplace for different users to upload their designs, as Shapeways already does.

So my advice: buy stock in Amazon.  Not only did its CEO redefine the book industry; he is also heavily involved in the privatized space industry.  When it comes to 3D printing, which has been hailed the next trillion dollar industry, I would not be surprised if Bezos has already pounced.

We walked in, sat down, and ordered our drinks. Being the last to order, I looked over to my mother and sister to strike up a conversation, only to find them busily typing away at their cell phones.

This isn’t a sight that is uncommon to me. Both of those girls are technology-addicts, and I myself am guilty of the same vice.

Unfortunately, we aren’t the only American family that can’t take our eyes away from those little handheld screens. With technology so rapidly being improved and updated and revised, it has become increasingly easy to manage your entire life from the palm of your hand. That doesn’t sound so bad though, right? I mean, why would you carry around a billion planners and handheld games and a computer when you can do it all from one small cell phone, right? I agree. My smart phone has made my life extremely more manageable, but what it and it’s fellow phones are doing to the art of conversation is truly saddening.

The worst culprit? The text message.

Carl Jenquin, a blogger, writes that “Sending a text message, or texting, with your mobile phone was first completed in 1989. In 1995, only about one message was sent by customers per month. The average increased to around 35 in 2000, and has continued to increase at an alarming rate.”

As I walk down the South Oval at our fine university, it’s rare that I see someone without a cell phone. There was a point in time, before the invention of cell phones (hard to believe that time existed, I know), that people would walk along the street and have conversations with one another. There was a time when families would go out to eat and talk with each other and the people around them. There was a time when everyone would talk face-to-face.

That time is over. It’s much easier to pull out your phone and text a friend, co-worker, family member or partner than it is to go see them in person. This way of communication is in no way healthy. It has become so bad that people will even text each other from the other side of a table.

Because of this, real life conversations have become dull and uninteresting. There’s nothing to talk about with a girlfriend, boyfriend, or best friend when you have been texting them non-stop since you last saw them. This has made it impossible to make real life connections with people.

Here’s an example: I have this close friend, let’s call him Jack. Jack and I have been best friends since I moved to Bristow the summer before my seventh grade year. We would hang out everyday and have loads to talk about. Now Jack goes to a different school, and I of course go to OU. Jack and I still text and keep each other updated, so much to the point that when we see each other, barely anything is said. The friendship that “Jack” and I once shared is totally ruined because we can’t even hold a real world conversation together.

Another example is my friend Sarah. Sarah is one of the sweetest girls I know, and she is a texting fiend. She got her first cell phone when she was 12, and has texted at unbelievable speeds since then. Now, Sarah is socially awkward and doesn’t know how to talk to anyone, even managers or professors. She grew up having conversations with a small plastic slab, and now she doesn’t know how to talk to people.

Kids are getting phones at younger and younger ages and will eventually experience the same problems that Jack and Sarah have: they won’t know how to talk to people.

I’m not asking you to throw away your phone or ditch your text message plan, but what I am asking, for the good of all of us, or at least to avoid future awkward dates or interviews, is to look up from those small screens and experience the world around you. Introduce yourself to someone new. Talk to your crush instead of stalking them on Facebook or Twitter. Call your parents instead of texting them between classes. Go visit your old friends instead of casually liking their profile pictures.

There is a disease that is killing the art of conversation, and that disease is texting. The only cure is to talk to people, face-to-face.

It sounds scary and difficult, I know, but it could make all the difference.

The information was obtained from Yahoo Voices, previously Associated Content, a site used for publishing articles online. A hacker group called D33D’s Co. claimed responsibility not only for the publication of the sensitive information on Yahoo accounts but many non-Yahoo IDs, such as Gmail and Hotmail, as well.

The group retrieved file listings of user IDs that were dated before May 2010 when it was under Associated Content.

Though Yahoo said less than 5 percent of the accounts were still valid, the company’s lack of web security is drawing criticism from across the Internet. The usernames and passwords were reportedly in plain text and unencrypted, which is fairly unheard of in the cyber-security profession nowadays.

The morality of “hacktivism” — using computers to try to achieve political change — is a questionable topic in and of itself, but it’s pretty clear that D33D Co. didn’t react to an infringement on civil liberties of some sort; they exploited a latent vulnerability.

Despite Yahoo’s lamentable flaws in their web application, D33D Co. is tiptoeing the line between vigilance and misguided aggression.

When “cyber warfare” is aimed toward government agencies, at least there’s a convoluted argument that it’s ensuring transparency in institutions that serve the interest of the people. The problem is that the same argument does not apply when innocent people’s privacy is attacked at the expense of corporate protest.

The group responsible for the attack was quoted as saying “We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this sub-domain will take this as a wake-up call.’’

Though the “parties responsible for managing security” might have caught some heat for their negligence, they were not the parties that were really hurt by the “wake-up call.”

There will undoubtedly be a ripple effect resulting from the breach, and it will be extremely difficult to measure the impact.

Amidst the most recent big-name hacking scandals in the news, notably LinkedIn and Best Buy, everyday users with no socioeconomic or political affiliations are the ones ultimately bearing the brunt of these attacks.

Yahoo Voices is a community of writers that provides the very same type of information that many hackers and internet activists claim to fight for. Using presumably innocent people’s private information as a means to justify an unclear end just seems opportunistic.

Granted, Yahoo should take a lesson from this hacking, and ultimately, they can be held responsible for not ensuring more stringent safety measures. But D33D should by no means receive praise. The notion that these hackers are cowboys of the information age is growing in popularity, but in reality, this is an embellishment.

Basically, it’s making an exhibition of citizen’s lack of online security and acting as if you’re protesting corporate inefficacy.

Apple’s voice recognition program, Siri, works accurately only 68 percent of the time in quiet rooms, according to a report released by the Minneapolis-investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co.

The study gave Siri a “D” for accuracy, noting that it will improve as more features are added.

Senior Research analyst for Piper Jaffray & Co. Gene Munster said he wanted to know how Siri stacked up against a Google search. Munster and his staff asked Siri 1,600 general questions, 800 on the busy streets of Minneapolis and 800 in a quiet room.

The study found that Google understands 100 percent of questions presented and replies accurately 86 percent of the time.

Siri accurately comprehends 83 percent of questions in noisy conditions and 89 percent in a quiet room. Siri answers inquiries accurately 62 percent of the time on a quiet street and 68 percent of the time in a quiet room.

“In order to become a viable mobile search alternative, Siri must match or surpass Google’s accuracy of B+ and move from a grade D to a B or higher,” Munster said.

Senior Cal State Long Beach kinesiology major Sean O’Neill said he didn’t buy the new iPhone because of Siri.

“I hardly even use Siri,” O’Neill said. “I think the only time I’ve used it is to mess around. I’ll tell her I have a dead body, and she’ll look up places for me to bury the dead body. It’s hilarious!”

CSULB alumnus Steven Burkett said he finds Siri useful most of the time.

“She’s definitely helped me out a few times when I was at the bars on Second Street,” Burkett said. “All I would have to say is ‘Siri, I’m drunk,’ and she would help me call a taxi.”

Burkett said he feels Siri still has room for improvement, especially with her GPS. Siri only gives directions from the place the user is at, not from other locations.

Munster estimates that Siri is more than two years behind Google in its learning curve, but he expects it to improve.

“With the iOS 6 release in the fall, we expect Siri to improve meaningfully while reducing its reliance on Google from 60 percent to 48 percent,” Munster said.

Elizabeth Perez, a CSULB junior nursing major, said Siri did not live up to her expectations.

“I would rather do a Google search and get the right information than waste my time asking Siri, because every time I ask her something she never gives me the right answers,” Perez said.

According to the help support section on Apple’s website, there will most likely be an update sometime this fall to improve Siri’s inaccuracies.

The Higgs boson, which scientists theorize gives every particle mass, was observed at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.

They were able to observe the Higgs boson because within the LHC, protons travel at nearly the speed of light and smash into each other — reaching energies comparable to what scientists think occurred during the Big Bang.

These energies are measured by the LHC’s calorimeter, which U. Minnesota physics professor Roger Rusack helped design. He also led the group that operated it from 2009-10.

Since 1993, the University has been represented in the global group of nearly 4,300 people who discovered the particle, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which is located in Switzerland.

Upon returning to the University, Rusack has been teaching, assisting graduate students and doctoral candidates and managing grants for the University group. The technology CERN uses allows him to continue to participate in the effort from Minnesota. After all, CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 to help CERN scientists communicate with one another.

Higgs history

In the 1960s, scientists theorized the existence of an energy field that interacts with every particle. The more particles interact with the field, the greater mass they gain.

Peter Higgs wrote a paper proposing that the particle within this energy field could be observed because it would also interact with itself like it interacts with every other particle.

Thus, the particle became known as the Higgs boson — its surname coming from Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, who defined “bosons” as a time of particle, according to the Associated Press.

Scientists have been searching for the Higgs boson ever since. Because it decays instantaneously into other particles, the researchers at CERN were actually observing its decay products — smaller particles like electrons and quarks.

Rusack said the discovery is significant because two separate experiments observed the particle’s decay products with a “five sigma probability,” meaning a 99.99995 percent chance the results could be duplicated.

He said CERN also has safeguards to prevent data manipulation during experiments.

“In these types of things, it’s very easy to kid yourself into thinking you’ve found something,” Rusack said.

Although the discovery was a surprise to the world, doctoral candidate Kevin Klapoetke said, CERN scientists knew about it in January.

“It’s not so much of a surprise that something we began to see is finally taking shape and we can confidently say is a Higgs-like particle,” he said.

Klapoetke called it “Higgs-like” because researchers don’t yet know if the particle is exactly what scientists predicted nearly 50 years ago. Rusack said researchers will perform precision measurements on the rate of decay to see if it’s the Higgs boson as predicted or something different.

Thousands of opinions

Rusack said the thousands of people working on the CERN project get along well because they use the “universal language” of science.

“We’re all there because we’re excited about the physics,” he said. “We have a common understanding of the application of the scientific method.”

But Klapoetke said the massive partnership isn’t always easy.

“You’re working with a lot of people so you have unlimited possibilities of problems,” he said.

The contributions students like him have made to the CERN project include programming the software the machine uses to detect particles.

He said he currently has a program that works but getting it accepted into the standard process has not been easy because there is no clear, written explanation of how things should be done.

“In the end, yes, we want it to be uniform and simple so that when you go looking for it it’s not a pain in the butt,” Klapoetke said. “But to get things to that state is a huge, troublesome thing.”

When things start to work, though, he said it’s satisfying. Klapoetke said he also enjoys the recognition when something he designed makes it into a scientific publication.

With nearly 4,300 contributors, the authorship of CERN publications is extensive.

Klapoetke said in a paper like the one researchers will publish on the Higgs boson discovery, every name is included.

“You can’t ever pretend you did it yourself,” he said.

Peter Hansen, who will start graduate school at the University in the fall, started working on the CERN project in May.

Hansen said he was glad to join the group amid this discovery.

“It’s also a pretty historical event,” he said. “It’s one of those things that you know will be known for a long time.”

Although the discovery has earned international attention, CERN researchers are far from finished.

On the Monday following the Higgs boson announcement, Rusack logged in to his CERN account and pulled up a screen that showed what the LHC was doing at that moment, more than 4,400 miles away.

Then, he looked at the meetings for that day. This week, most are about the Higgs boson and the further tests CERN scientists are going to do on the particle.

Rusack found a meeting of interest and joined it via video conference. He said meetings are a big part of life with CERN no matter where he is in the world.

“When you have that many people,” he said, “you have to have that many meetings.”

Smartphones are so prevalent that providers are reportedly worried about the possibility of a spectrum crunch — (the idea that we could “run out” of airwaves)[http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/spectrum-crunch] for data signaling because of increased smartphone and Wi-Fi use. Even if that never happens, our fears of a theoretical spectrum crunch reflect how technology use is being taken to the extreme. As a result of our increased consumption of technology, social networking in particular, we have to deal with aspects of our social identities that never have existed before, and it is starting to have an unhealthy effect.

Online networks place a pressure on us to be available at all times. Of all the social networks out there, the one that seems to have nearly universal membership is Facebook. With its more than (901 million users as of March 2012)[http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22], Facebook’s massive social network is severely distorting how we perceive our relationships with others. Some openly fret about their number of “friends” on Facebook, which is often in the thousands for more prolific users.

The idea we can maintain a contact network of this size in which people are anything more than a number on a web page is completely implausible. Research has shown (the brain cannot handle more than 100 to 150 meaningful connections)[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar] with other people in one’s immediate day-to-day life. Social networking has its purpose, but it is important we keep the purpose of sites like Facebook in context and avoid using it as a replacement for meaningful social interaction. Solely communicating with someone via text can get boring, and a lot of nuanced emotions can get lost when not communicating in person. Because of this, these sites should primarily serve as a sort of Rolodex, not as a social register or replacement for direct interaction.

Another distressing side effect of our increasingly large electronic identities is once you put something online, it exists indefinitely, which could be harmful for younger generations. If every thought I had as a 14-year-old was documented on Twitter, I would be living under a rock from embarrassment.

What’s more, the legacy you leave on the Internet could outlive you, giving others the freedom to manipulate it. At the Coachella Music Festival this year, holograms of the late Tupac Shakur and Nate Dogg appeared onstage. Though this performance helped increase the sale of Tupac’s records by nearly 600 percent, some privacy advocates voiced their disapproval, and rapper Waka Flocka Flame complained record companies were (“getting paid off a dead man’s body.”)[http://www.vibe.com/article/v-exclusive-waka-flocka-tupac-hologram-i-hated-it]

Most of us aren’t particularly worried about being regenerated as a hologram postmortem, but the increasing size of the average person’s online presence is making it increasingly difficult for us to control the information we choose to share with people. As society increasingly judges people based on their online identities, this lack of control can be extremely frustrating. Because of the unhealthy effects of online social networking, I suggest we leave our laptops and make an effort to connect more with our friends face-to-face.

Apple’s early success with the iPad yet again proved that Microsoft was going to have to reassess their product line, due to the trend-setting innovative power Apple has garnered in the consumer market. The news came as a surprise to many people, thanks to Microsoft’s ambiguous announcement of a press conference concerning a “major announcement.” Microsoft has been a lumbering giant in technology for years now, as shown by its stock growth in the past five years compared to Apple. The announcement of the Surface is a painful reminder that Microsoft is moving increasingly towards a post-PC environment.

More than three-fourths of Apple’s revenue for 2011 was post-PC devices; the products have bolstered Apple’s leverage over Microsoft. The iPad has over 200,000 apps and Apple has already branded itself as the bellwether of post-PC products; this makes it even tougher for Microsoft to make the Surface a hit product, especially because it’s reported that it could run up to $1,000.

Technological specs aside, the tablets were presented as a showcase for the new Windows 8 operating system. While Windows 8 has been highly anticipated, Microsoft is sending the message that someone should buy the tablet because of this feature as opposed to the actual product itself. From a marketing standpoint, the Surface is a new Microsoft product made with a newer Microsoft operating system. From a market standpoint, the Surface was only created to catch up with Microsoft’s late shift towards the mobile trend and uses a new operating system that was only created to cover the previous OS’s mistakes. Not a good look.

The tablet is making up for the lack of capitalization on a new concept. However, while it may not be a product that will scoop up a large percentage of market shares, it will whittle at Apple’s. One major advantage that Microsoft has over Apple’s iPad is Microsoft Office, which will reel in business and scholastic users.

Microsoft has been hit-or-miss with much of their product line when trying to expand their reach into various markets. Xbox, Microsoft’s gaming console, has been an international success while the Zune was a hideous attempt at rivaling the iPod. PC sales are the only aspect in computer technology that Microsoft continues to dominate.

The Surface, entirely a Microsoft product, is a low blow to Microsoft’s vendors who have been loyal to their operating systems and products even since the explosion of Apple technology, notably HP and Dell. If the Surface is Microsoft’s plan to make a shift towards diversifying their mobile products line, they are on the verge of burning bridges in the PC world and entering a volatile market where they have no real previous success at the same time.

Kelsey Stinnett would rather give up sex for a weekend than go without her smartphone.

Stinnett, a 21-year-old U. Florida political science senior, isn’t alone. According to a study released Monday, 15 percent of iPhone users would choose a sex-free weekend over giving up their phone for the same amount of time.

Gazelle.com surveyed 1,000 iPhone users in honor of the iPhone’s fifth birthday, which is June 29.

Stinnett said one of the main reasons she’d choose a smartphone over sex is because she doesn’t feel safe without it.

She’d also be wary of giving up the phone’s convenience.

“Everything’s here — the phone calls, the texts and the Internet — all in one spot,” she said.

Sophia Acord, a professor in UF’s department of sociology, criminology and law who has conducted research at Rutgers U.’s Center for Mobile Communication Studies, said there is evidence dating back to the 1990s showing mobile devices have caused a decrease in the quality of face-to-face interaction.

She said people can feel the need to connect with others who aren’t with them, even if they’re with a group of friends.

“You buy it for one thing, and it begins to nudge its way into every aspect of your life,” she said.

Daniel Siefman, a 21-year-old UF nuclear engineering senior, was surprised by the study’s results.

Although he once walked into a pole while staring at his iPhone, he said he can go without it.

“For some people it’s like their life anchor,” he said. “It keeps them connected to the world, and they can’t live without it.”

At Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 11, the next version of the iPhone’s operating system was announced — iOS 6.

There are more than 200 new features, but here are five of the best:

1. Maps
Say goodbye to Google Maps, iPhone users. Apple is ditching it for a self-developed Maps application that brings turn-by-turn directions to i-Devices, a feature Android users have had for a while.

In addition, Maps offers a “flyover” feature that shows detailed 3-D renderings of major cities and landmarks.

The app also has traffic information and searchable points-of-interest, much like Google Maps.

2. Facebook integration
Instead of opening the Facebook app to post a picture or status, that function is built into iOS. Take a picture, hit the “share” button at the bottom of the screen, and a Facebook icon pops up that can upload it straight to the News Feed.

It’s exactly like current Twitter integration, so third-party applications can also take advantage of this feature.

3. Siri gets updated
Nearly a year after its introduction, snarky voice assistant Siri will get a slew of new features in iOS 6.

She’ll be able to make restaurant reservations, buy movie tickets, pull up sports scores and update Twitter or Facebook.

Siri can also launch directly into any app if asked.

Sean Hill, chemistry juniorat LSU, said the Siri upgrade is one of his most anticipated features.

“I’ll definitely use Siri more,” he said. “I’ll use it for the movies [a lot.]”

4. Passbook
Passbook is Apple’s all-in-one movie, plane, train and game ticket holding application. The app also holds rewards cards from major retailers and other organizations.

While great for major metropolitan areas, its usefulness may be limited in more rural areas.

Hill mentioned he’s worried about its usefulness in Baton Rouge.

“I don’t know if our theaters will take the [virtual] movie tickets,” he said.

5. Do Not Disturb, Callback Reminders
Tired of waking up to a bright phone screen at 3 a.m.? A new feature called Do Not Disturb fixes that problem.

Once turned on, all notifications from all applications are silenced — no buzzes or beeps. It’s possible to make exceptions for certain individuals, but the iPhone is otherwise cut off from the outside world.

The texts, calls, emails and updates will still be sent to the phone, but it won’t make a sound.

Users will also get several options after rejecting a phone call. iOS 6 makes it possible to make a reminder to call someone back in an hour, or whenever you reach a certain location. Or you can send a text message letting the person know why their call was rejected.

While all these features are great, not every iPhone owner will be able to enjoy all of them. Siri and Maps — arguably two of the biggest updates — won’t be coming to the iPhone 3GS, 4 or iPad 2.

Only the iPhone 4S and new iPad will receive all the features of iOS 6.

Some big-named college newspapers and even some professional newspapers have begun to shift their focus from print to more of an online presence. The 175-year-old New Orleans Times-Picayune will now print three days a week, and the 92-year-old U. Oregon student newspaper, The Emerald, will only produce two print editions per week, with editions coming out Mondays and Thursdays.

Ryan Frank, publisher for The Emerald, said when it came to the idea of switching from The Emerald paper to the more digital-oriented Emerald Media Group, the deciding factor was the
University’s mission statement.

“I think the way we looked at it was, ‘How do we meet our mission?’” Frank said. “How do we train our students for the jobs that exist or will exist, and how do we serve the University of Oregon community? And how do we do those things that will be financially sustainable in the short and long run?”

Frank said even though The Emerald had financial trouble in the 2000s, last year was actually one of their most successful. In fact, it was the most the paper had made in over a decade.

That was also the trend with The Red and Black, the student-run newspaper for U. Georgia. In 2011, the Red and Black was one of the first major university papers to switch their focus to online. Julia Carpenter, editor-in-chief for The Red and Black, said before the switch that the paper was “financially reliable.”

A key to the process for these papers’ online success has been the advertisers staying on board.

“I met with a number of clients when we were in the planning stages, and their sort of gut and initial reaction was, ‘If you build something that is more relevant to students and improves my marketing reach on campus, my company spending with you is likely to be the same and may grow over time,’” Frank said. “So what they want is audience, they want eyeballs, they want results. They don’t care if we print on tree bark, they want someone to see their message, absorb their message and take action, and if we’re doing stuff that does that in a positive way, they are going to support that.”

The Red and Black also saw success in the transition of advertisers, Carpenter said. They offer not only more room in a larger 28- to 32-page weekly print edition, but also an online presence.

Carpenter said that the biggest hurdle was for the staff to get used to the increase of online material.

“My staff, when I was a news editor, was very wary of the transition,” Carpenter said. “They had this ingrained prejudice against online stories. You want your stories to be in the paper, you want it to be center beat, you want it to be in actual, physical print, and that was something I struggled with, I think, for the first time as I was news editor more than anything, even as readers were responding.”

It’s not just journalism students who think cutting down print is wrong. Jean McDonald, former sports editor for The News-Gazette in Champaign and journalism professor at U. Illinois, said though college papers have had success, the idea hasn’t hit the professional stage yet because of the uncertainty of the idea.

“Newspapers, especially in the real professional world, are businesses, and they have to make money,” McDonald said. “I would want to know how those papers were being funded before. Were they independent entities that couldn’t make it, or were they funded partiall by the university who said, ‘Hey, let’s try this other format.’?”

Some papers, like The Michigan Daily at U. Michigan in Ann Arbor, remain loyally print-oriented. Joseph Lichterman, editor-in-chief of The Michigan Daily, has had the benefit of financial stability. He also said he doesn’t envision going to an online format because of how students access the newspaper.

“The way people pick us up, we’re still in all the buildings on campus, and people still want to pick up the paper on the way to class,” Lichterman said. “I can’t see us doing what they did in Oregon or anything like that going digital-only anytime soon.”

Like The Daily Illini, The Michigan Daily and The Red and Black are both student-run and do not receive any money from their universities. Along with The Michigan Daily, The Daily Illini will continue to print five days a week come the fall semester.

After a full year under the online idea, The Red and Black has seen major success.

“It was getting my staff to understand that the story online gets more views,” Carpenter said. “More people read it than in an actual paper. Our print paper has a circulation of thousands. Our online has the circulation of millions. Millions of people can read your one story. That is more valuable.”

At the conclusion of WWDC, Apple announced the release of MacBook Pro with retina display.

Apple fans are giddy with excitement with a new MacBook Pro with retina display, the same high pixel density screen found in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. This announcement is quite honesty lackluster.

The new MacBook Pro packs an Ivy Bridge Core i7 processor — good for Apple for finally catching up with everyone else. An Nvidia GeForce 650M — wow, a mid-range graphics card. 16GB of RAM — that’s not special at all. A 2K resolution monitor (2880 by 1800) — overkill and useless on a 15-inch screen. This top of the line fully maxed out MacBook Pro will cost you … drum roll, please … $3,499, without tax of course.

So let’s say you pick up this brand new MacBook Pro fully loaded and shell out nearly four grand. What are you planning to do with it? Edit video? Edit photos? Play games? Is the “Pro” in the title aimed at professionals who work with videos and photos?

The short answer is no to all of the above. Editing video and photos on a 15-inch screen is a hassle — go get a nice dedicated monitor. Trying to take advantage of the 2K monitor by editing 2K video? Big mistake. The new MacBook Pro is not nearly beefy enough to edit computing-intense 2K video.

With the same amount of money spent on a new MacBook Pro, one can get a Mac Pro, a desktop tower aimed at professionals doing video and photo work. Speaking of the Mac Pro, Apple fell short when it came to updating its line of desktops. The Mac Pro was quietly updated on its website instead at WWDC with no fanfare at all. The update is just a minor processor spec bump, not much else. Apple just neglected a huge crowd of loyal professionals who have been eager waiting since 2010 for an update similar to the new MacBook Pro.

Furthermore, no new iMacs were announced at WWDC or any indications of new iMacs in the upcoming future. iMacs, all-in-one desktop computers, had been the bread and butter of Apple during the early 2000s. Nevertheless, they are still popular and relevant in today’s age of portable computing. For an example, The Battalion office exclusively uses iMacs to produce the paper you are reading.

It seems Apple only tailors to portable computing right now. If this is the current course Apple takes, it will neglect huge markets of desktop, professional and enterprise users.

Unless you are a run-and-gun photojournalist/videographer covering the upcoming Olympics with an unrealistic deadline, then maybe the new MacBook Pro is the right laptop for you. Otherwise, a four grand laptop to write your essay the day before it’s due or watching cat videos on YouTube is an utter waste of money.

It’s hard to recognize a perspective that isn’t yours. Yet, Wikileaks has shown us exactly what our perspective has thrust upon the world. America has done a lot on the world stage, some of it good and some of it bad, but we always believed our government to be working in our best interests. Perhaps through naivety, I, like many other Americans, expected our government to ethically conduct itself on the world stage. But, I now realize that isn’t always true, and Wikileaks provided me with that reminder: America can be and has been unethical in many endeavors.

By its very nature, America runs off competition and greed. It’s a capitalist country, and greed is the driving force behind capitalism. But greed also leads people to do things they wouldn’t normally do; namely, unethical transgressions. When Bradley Manning leaked classified U.S. materials to Wikileaks, I doubt he knew what effect it would have on not just the U.S. but also the world. Indeed, my first impulse as an American is to accuse Manning of treason. However, after some thought, I don’t think his crime, if one could call it that, warrants such accusation. Manning provided information for which many have called to be released.

Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, have a credibility problem. That is, what right or under what authority does Assange have to take classified U.S. materials and release them to the world? How can we trust Wikileaks? These are the questions driving critics of Wikileaks. Their opinion rests in the affirmation that Assange doesn’t have the right to do so, and his organization, only made famous through Manning’s leaks, doesn’t have a right to give access to classified materials and is far from credible.

Assange’s seemingly less-than reputable character has tarnished the image of Wikileaks. Now, instead of an organization making information, classified or not, available to the masses, Wikileaks has become the battered warhorse Assange trots out in his defense.

America is an imperialist nation, and perhaps what bothers many is that Wikileaks reminded us of that. Few countries have armed military bases all over the world. Our bases are everywhere, and our troops are everywhere. We are, in a sense, occupying other countries around the world under the guise of friendship.

Wikileaks reminded us of our imperialism, and its potential to lead our ethics astray. Wikileaks pounced on our desire for information and rewarded us with it, and we once again discovered America is far from an ethical nation and more imperialistic than we want to believe. It hurts to know the country you love betrayed the principles that earned your love.

Aristotle once wrote, “For though we love the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.” We now know some truths that we didn’t know before Wikileaks, and we must honor those truths because they matter. Wikileaks’ future is uncertain. Assange’s future is uncertain. But, what isn’t uncertain is that the access to the truth in the 21st century will never be the same.

A file containing the stolen LinkedIn passwords was posted in a Russian hacker forum earlier this week. The passwords were protected by a security tactic known as hashing, but many passwords were easy to decode, according to CNET.com.

Steve Cassady owns a consulting firm and advises clients on financial and operational strategy. As a frequent LinkedIn user, Cassady said he doesn’t trust the network any less after the attack. However, the news isn’t helping the social platform, which currently searching for the source of the attack.

“As a trusted business network, it needs to step up its game given the commercial implication of any security breach and use stronger cryptography,” Cassady said. “LinkedIn needs to learn from this experience to protect its users and its image.”

LastPass.com created a site for users to check if their passwords were compromised, but LinkedIn advised everyone with an account to change their password as a safety precaution. LinkedIn, e-Harmony and Last.fm shut down accounts that were affected and sent emails to the owners notifying them of the security breach.

Cassady said that the incident highlights the importance of creating and using strong passwords. He said many of the compromised passwords were easy to guess, such as “Linkedin,” “Recruiter,” and “123456.”

“It shows a lack of sophistication by the user community in setting up their passwords on Linkedin and likely on other sites,” Cassady said. “Users need to take precautions in creating strong passwords to protect themselves.”

Mashable created a tutorial to help individuals create strong passwords for LinkedIn and other social media sites. Users can change their LinkedIn passwords by signing in and changing their settings, located in the top right corner of the homepage.

According to Mashable, the security breach came after reports that LinkedIn’s iOS app may violate privacy rights by sending a user’s detailed calendar information to its servers. Many users posted comments on Facebook and Twitter expressing their frustrations. Adrian Chen, staff writer for Gawker.com, posted a comment on Twitter that was retweeted by more than 1700 followers:

“Warning: LinkedIn was hacked. Be on the lookout for spam emails that are slightly different from the emails LinkedIn usually sends.”

My new pair of headphones will never do that.

That is because Tenqa REMXD headphones are wireless Bluetooth headphones. The $40 pair of headphones automatically connect to the computers that I have linked them to using the wireless technology and broadcast my music more than 30 feet if there aren’t thick walls in the way.

I think the REMXD headphones are terrific. They can link to iPhones, computers, iPads or whatever Bluetooth device you have. All I have to do is walk into my apartment and the headphones automatically connect to my home computer. I walk into work and they automatically connect to my work computer, no buttons pressed. The convenience of wireless audio is definitely worth the money.

The headphones are not aimed at audiophiles, though. They are definitely aimed at the casual music listener. While clearly a class or two above the standard iPod headphones, the bass on the headphones is nowhere near Beats by Dre, and the midtones and noise canceling are definitely below where Bose headphones are at, but so is the price. Some of the cheapest over-ear Beats will run you a cool $199.99 at Best Buy, and Bose will cost about $299.99 at the same store.

Neither of those headphones are even wireless. The far cheaper Tenqa REMXD headphones have a wireless play/pause button and volume control, as well as a 3.5-millimeter audio jack for when listening to a device that doesn’t have Bluetooth.

The headphones are also capable of phone calls. So if you are rocking out while wirelessly connected to your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, like Android phones or iPhones, and you get a phone call, you can just hit the play button to answer and the hang up button to end the call.

The obvious limitation here is that the microphone for the phone call is built in to the headphone, so audio quality isn’t supreme. When I made a phone call using them, the person on the other line could hear everything around me, from cars driving by to people talking near me. That said, the person on the other line could still hear everything I was saying and the conversation was not strained by the audio.

For all of the features of the REMXD and their very low price, I am enamored with these headphones. I don’t need the crazy bass or super noise-canceling. I just need a quality pair of headphones. I can wander around my house without losing audio and will never break these from tugging on the cord because there is no cord to be tugged. The Tenqa REMXD are a solid pair of headphones with an unbeatable price and feature list.

Facebook stock went public recently, and it has been dropping since. In the weeks building up to the release, the value was being pushed and prodded and paraded around by those in the know to attempt to achieve top dollar as trading hit.

Those efforts pushed the stock into an inflated value. Whereas folks who sold early made some funds, those still holding stock watches as it continues to drop each day; its high point in the last week was $45 while the current low is $32, with some predicting it going as low as $25 in the near future.

Stocks jumping and dropping is nothing new to the market, but Facebook is an interesting bit to evaluate.

Facebook was initially designed to play up to people’s desires to be included in an exclusive group. Being part of something that others desire to be a part of is that basic sense of accomplishment almost every person seeks throughout their life.

As all early Facebook users know — by “early” I mean when you still had to receive an invite from an email tag of merit — being a part of Facebook was cool, and an interesting way to let people into your party habits or other random bits of social life. Now everyone has access to Facebook, and the topics are anywhere from awesome to awful.

With the inclusion of folks outside the upper food chain of cool, Facebook has become a landscape of updates about pregnancies, inane parental comments, job openings and obnoxious bickering about topics no one cares about. Thankfully you can block all of those people from appearing in your feed so as to avoid the annoying questions of “Why did you de-friend me?” that might come with deletion.

The opening of Facebook stock to essentially any and all has made Facebook even less cool. Whether this has anything to do with the current drop in stock value, which is unlikely, it might in the future.

Facebook is simply a social media site now. There is nothing exclusive left to it. Being available to everyone is nice and all, but cool is a fickle factor. The neatest thing — note “neat” not “cool” — now available from Facebook is the novelty idea of buying Facebook shares to give away as X-mas presents.

The future of Facebook as a popular website is not one that is likely to come to a crashing halt, but it is going to continue to become less and less cool; downgrading to other random words that have variable meanings based on trends in pop culture.

Facebook is already showing advertisements for products that most of the folks who see them don’t care about or cannot afford, but that is advertising almost anywhere.

Alongside the sponsored advertisements on the side of your page, you get the business ads in your feed disguised as status updates by friends.

The annoying invitations to play useless yet time-consuming games; the music service letting you know your friends are listening to music you will either ridicule or compliment them for; the links to photos that ask you to sign up for apps and other such junk you don’t really want; all of those factors, and more, add up to the lack of cool that Facebook was originally meant to be.

But then again, big ol’ bags of moolah can turn anything cool marketable and then into a pile of steaming crap left over to be kicked about by the masses. Luckily, something else cool always comes along to start the cycle all over again.

In the end, Facebook will most likely be around for the next long while — long being a relative term due to the nature of popular things and new technology.

But Facebook becoming something that anyone can own a piece of was the last straw that broke another cool thing’s back and left it lying, slowly dying, for the masses to make into a mockery of its once aristocratic majesty.

“I can’t believe the system would uphold a six-figure damages amount for downloading 30 songs on a file-sharing system that everybody used,” Tenenbaum told the Associated Press. “I can’t believe the court would uphold something that ludicrous.”

In 2009, Tenenbaum was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, and was ordered by a jury to pay $22,500 per song that he shared through peer-to-peer networks.

Although a federal judge initially reduced the fine against Tenenbaum to $67,500 in 2009, the original sum was later reinstated by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

”We’re pleased with this decision,” said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth after the Supreme Court passed on the case Monday.

Tenenbaum’s lawyers reportedly argued that federal copyright laws were not originally intended to punish consumers, while lawyers for the RIAA countered, arguing that economic impact of file sharing is greater than the cost of a single song.

Tenenbaum’s defense team was lead by Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, who took on the case pro bono in 2008.

“The basic thing is that Joel is being held responsible for what the whole internet did,” said Nesson. “It’s like the death penalty for parking tickets.”

Tenenbaum’s situation is rare since few other file-sharing suits have been as drawn out as Tenebaum’s. According to his website, joelfightsback.com, “more than 30,000 people have settled their cases for between $3,000 – $12,000.”

Yet Tenenbaum has been fighting the RIAA and four record labels, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Brothers Records Inc., for years, declining multiple settlements along the way in an attempt to clear his name.

“It costs so much to defend,” said Nesson. “[A prolonged lawsuit] doesn’t happen very often.”

Like many other institutions, Harvard U. has an official copyright policy that states that “All Harvard users must respect the copyrights in works that are accessible through computers connected to the Harvard network.”

The policy warns students that “Harvard will terminate the network access of users who are found to have repeatedly infringed the copyrights of others, and may also take disciplinary action.”

Nesson did not think that the Supreme Court’s decision would influence University policies regarding file sharing or compel them to make any changes.

“This didn’t do anything…the Supreme Court just refused to review it,” said Nesson, who emphasized the refusal to hear a case is different than a definitive verdict. “It’s almost like it’s no news.”

In the 2009 case, a jury decided the magnitude of the damage award against Tenenbaum.

“From a law point of view the thing that makes so little sense is the distortion of the American jury,” said Nesson. He noted that the jury arbitrarily set a “number within a range” rather than using facts to determine the true amount of damages.

However, Nesson was not discouraged by the Supreme Court’s refusal, and affirmed that there was much work to be done.

We will “proceed in the district court and try to get a rational decision there,” said Nesson.

Tenenbaum could not be reached for comment.

Facebook users have always enjoyed a nearly ad-free homepage, with just a few easy-to-ignore ads popping up. However, with Facebook trying to figure out the value of each user, investors and advertisers are going to be trying out some new tools in order to figure out how many quarters they can squeeze out of users’ pockets.

Making Facebook a public entity could be seen as giving the users control, but how many average Facebook users are going to shell out about $40 for a single share of the stock? And once these users have a financial obligation to the company, what are they willing to do to raise the pricetag on their stock?

Rumored changes to the website include paying for “priority” status updates so more people will see them. While this might be good for businesses trying to use Facebook to reach more customers, it could clog up news feeds with posts reminiscent of spam.

I think people who didn’t expect Facebook to try to nickel and dime its consumers were unaware of the actual status of Facebook — a company.

While Facebook’s humble beginnings and explosion of popularity were impressive, and its motives appeared altruistic, it is a company after all, not a nonprofit. Companies are in business to make money — and Mark Zuckerberg has more than he knows what to do with — not to simply give away their products because they feel like being nice.

It all comes down to the money. How can Facebook make money on the users? By giving them the option to spend more to have a better-looking profile than other people. Maybe by giving them the option to pay for a “priority” status update that everyone and their mother will see (and whose mother isn’t on Facebook these days?). There is a possibility that the future of Facebook might include paying for features we take for granted.

How much would you pay to “like” your friend’s photo of her adorable new puppy? I’m willing to bet a priority status update that Facebook will test the limits of its users’ wallets on each feature. Facebook is going to change drastically and quickly with more money surrounding its existence. But this might not be for the better. According to Facebook’s data, the website has more than 900 million active users as of this month. I’ll be interested to see how that number fluctuates when the company starts asking for chump change to access previously free features.

All of this makes the recent announcement that an asteroid mining venture, Planetary Resources, not only plans to be operational within half a decade, but also has sufficient funding to do so, something of a shock. The concept is straight out of mid-20th-century science fiction – the huge, mineral-laden rocks that clutter up space broken open and the valuable elements within put to use – and the plausibility comes from about the same place; that is to say, purely theoretical and not a little bit unrealistic. Or so I would have said before a cadre of the ultra-wealthy, including Google executive Lawrence Page and filmmaker James F. Cameron, put their collective economic weight behind the project, turning it from an impossibility to a mere risk.

Yet as much as the project, its aspirations, and even the ideology behind it (a sort of unbridled techno-optimism, and the idea that the human species not merely can but should leave the gravity well of Earth for the final frontier) appeal, it has aspects that are less than ideal. The idea that the ‘one percent’ are going to be the driving force behind the fringe of technology and science is problematic, for numerous reasons. Planetary Resources is maybe the most benign example one could name: who would be against the exploration and exploitation of space, on principle? But the venture is never going to be anything but private; the technologies developed, developed as the ideals of a small clutch of people and in the name of private enterprise. This is not to say it won’t do tremendous good, or even that those people aren’t a good fit for the job, but it is worth considering what this means for science and technology.

Consider, for example, the case of Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. He has been involved in funding multiple initiatives aimed at promoting his vision of the future; one such project received over a million dollars to fund seasteadings, offshore artificial islands maintaining political independence from the mainland. Seasteading is an unabashedly libertarian exercise in political experimentation that has been failing to successfully set sail for decades now; it is an area of questionable technological priorities that exists only for political reasons.

But even if seasteading were successful, the technologies developed would go purely towards forwarding the aims of the small community on those artificial islands. In a certain light, asteroid mining looks uncomfortably similar, a venture funded not because of public need but because some handful of highly influential and almost obscenely wealthy investors jumped for it. And this kind of millionaire-backed science project seems to be getting more prominent, as various governmental agencies find their budgets reduced, or focus on more prosaic, more immediately practical research.

One of the strong arguments in favor of this new model is that investors can fund less immediately practical, more long-term technological ventures that a government simply cannot at the moment. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military thinktank responsible for a considerable number of outrageous, boundary-pushing projects, is just that: a military thinktank, with military priorities. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration simply could not justify the expense of this sort of thing; the awful burden of public accountability shuts down the more outlandish possibilities.One of the strong arguments against relying on these privately funded initiatives is their easy avoidance of that burden of accountability. If this becomes the accepted method of funding the more fringe projects, then the interesting edges of science will be a plutocracy, directed towards projects more in line with these individuals’ considerations than the public good. It’s an uncomfortable image, the few and the rich getting into orbit while the rest of the planet can only watch; one small step for investors, one giant leap for investor-kind.

However, despite these misgivings, the deranged millionaire funding scheme has an unbeatable advantage: it’s the only game in town. It may not have a positive effect on the infrastructure of science and technology, but at the moment, there’s no way to fund these initiatives without recourse to the ranks of the forward-thinking one-percenters. All we mere mortals can do is sit back and hope they make good decisions, and try to support them when they do. Asteroids won’t mine themselves, and for now, we’ll be looking to those with a few million to spare to get the job done; we should keep aware of the trend, but for now it looks like trickle-down technology is the only way to go.

The website, which has accrued more than 900 million users since its launch from a Harvard dorm room in 2004, plans to go public on Friday. Two days ahead of the slated initial public offering, the company announced that it would expand the number of shares it will offer by 25 percent, bringing the total traded shares to 421 million.

The IPO will be one of the largest in financial history, and Facebook stands to raise more than $18 billion as investors buy the company’s shares on the traded markets.

Brokerage companies, which handle stock trades for investors, have been overrun by high demand for Facebook shares. In fact, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, and other brokerage companies stopped accepting orders on Thursday.

Seeing the high investor demand for Facebook shares, the company raised the price of its stocks from $34 to $38 on Thursday morning. At the new price, the company could be valued as high as $104 billion.

There has been a war going on regarding downloading material from the Internet. Who is to blame for what alleged crimes regarding copyrighted material, user privacy and other matters stemming from the sharing of information in the Internet is a conflict not likely soon to be resolved.

The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America have been up in arms for years trying to make certain those seemingly innocuous downloads your average Joe might grab are stopped before revenue is compromised for the entertainment biz.

Whether you believe the RIAA and MPAA are being greedy or not, court proceedings have been occurring and folks have been nailed for sharing information across the net. Not all of those slapped with lawsuits were necessarily given the proper due process of law.

A bombshell of a case has dropped in the battle for how to identify someone partaking of illegal information sharing.

Gary Brown, magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York, ruled in a lawsuit concerning BitTorrent that an IP address is not sufficient evidence to identify a person.

“An IP address provides only the location at which one of any number of computer devices may be deployed, much like a telephone number can be used for any number of telephones,” according to the court ruling.

“Thus, it is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function — here the purported illegal downloading of a single pornographic film — than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific telephone call.”

Many households do not have secured wireless network connection, so anyone within range can piggyback on and partake of questionable activities involving information sharing.

Yes, it is a little silly not to password protect your connection in this day and age, but that isn’t a requirement. Attempting to pin an alleged crime on someone because they might not understand very well how networking works or might just be kind enough to actually want to allow other folks access to the Internet is not a crime.

As such, handing out a subpoena to Internet providers for information concerning an IP address holder is, as Brown said, a “waste of judicial resources.”

For all of you out there cheering and hopping back onto your favorite torrent search engine, remember that this ruling does not make downloading shared information legal.

This case sets a bar for future events across the country to play to when it comes to potential personal information subpoenas regarding a particular IP address. It is entirely possible when this issue, or a similar one, hits the U.S.  Supreme Court level — hopefully this whole problem will be resolved in the next few years, though unlikely — that it could be quashed.

If you support information sharing and like to show your support through participation, just remember that as of now you can still be hit with lawsuits for sharing certain material. A small battle was won, but the war wages on.

If you want some unsolicited advice, check out the Pirate Party for a group fighting for reform of intellectual property and privacy laws. Through political action, making your voice heard, this whole shared information debacle might just be able to have an ending that allows all people to be safe and happy when it comes to Internet use.

OK, some greedy corporations won’t be happy, but screw them; corporations shouldn’t be regarded as people anyway.

But besides all the empowerment rhetoric, listing Pirate Party as your political affiliation is friggin’ cool.

Bizarre? Yes.

Disturbing? Absolutely.

Surprising? No, not really.

Let me explain.

Charles Waugh, a 31-year-old registered sex offender in Kentucky was seen posing for a picture with a trio of OSU football recruits. OSU became aware of the situation and sent an email out to every student-athlete on campus basically warning them to stay away from Waugh.

When The Lantern got ahold of the email, the story exploded, linebacker recruit Alex Anzalone who is seen in the now-infamous picture, decommitted from OSU, and his father thought out loud (to a reporter), questioning the way OSU handles recruits while on visits. Monday, Waugh was arrested for a parole violation and spent the night in Boyd County Detention Center in Kentucky.

Sex offenders and football (especially college football) should never mix.

But this is 2012, and in today’s world, sports are about much more than what happens between the lines.

The Waugh debacle isn’t in the same stratosphere of the horrors allegedly committed by Jerry Sandusky at Penn State or the Bernie Fine situation at Syracuse.

But nonetheless, this is the third time in less than a year that alleged sex offenders and sports have collided.

Welcome to 2012.

Besides the picture, Waugh obsessively tweeted at many current, former and prospective OSU athletes. After the story broke, many current and former OSU athletes came forward saying how Waugh tried to make contact with them time and time again via social media websites. It was the use of social media and email accounts that the Kentucky State Police took issue with. Apparently as a sex offender, you have to make your identity clear when using social media and email. Waugh didn’t.

Having never met him, I think it’s fair to say that what Waugh was doing went beyond normal and even went beyond the typical overzealous fan.

Waugh isn’t a new breed, though. Fans who like their teams a little too much have been around ever since sports entered the mainstream part of culture.

As part of the mainstream, athletes are and have been celebrities. For whatever reason, people want to be close to the athletes they pay money to watch. Some fans want to be closer than others, and that desire isn’t quelled after the final buzzer sounds.

All of this existed in 1980, but was much less likely to happen. The reason the Waugh situation isn’t surprising in today’s world is because access to athletes is at an all-time high.

Suddenly, some 17-year-olds aren’t just grassroots athletes, they’re grassroots celebrities.

They garner thousands of Twitter followers who are legitimately interested in their favorite food or whether they liked the new blockbuster movie.

And unfortunately, they might garner one or two followers who are a little bit too interested in not just the movie, but where and when they saw it.

So when the one or two fans who care too much about these athletes somehow get word that a recruit is going to be at a particular bar at a particular time, you better believe they’re going to show up.

It’s not completely clear whether Waugh gained access to the athletes from using social media, but it doesn’t take someone from the Mensa Club to make the leap.

The simple solution is for athletes to stay off social media. The realistic one isn’t much more complicated.

It’s been said time and time again that what you put on the Internet is public for everyone. That includes sex offenders. To completely avoid situations like the one with Waugh, athletes need to know people like him are out there and absolutely can read what they say online.

Solution: Don’t be stupid about what you put on the Internet and stick to movie preferences.

When Anzalone’s dad found out about the situation, he was understandably upset. He entrusted his son to OSU and Anzalone was exposed to a sex offender. I wouldn’t be happy if I were the father either.

But people like Waugh are everywhere, not just at OSU.

To blame OSU for the situation is to blame the institution for identifying and addressing the problem.

Choosing another school might mean Anzalone can leave Waugh in the dust, but it won’t eliminate other suspicious characters from potentially having access to him.

In the world of 2012, it’s inevitable.

The latest chapter in the saga of media democratization is Twitter’s rise as one of the world’s most prolific source of ostensibly “published” content. Twitter is unique in that it “publishes” even those individuals who had no particular intention, desire or reason to have their writing viewed by anybody but their friends. Yet new internet news sites like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post—which scour Twitter for the latest eye-popping trends—have elevated the tweets of no-name wackos to the status of news. The result of this new genre of Twitter-based reporting is that every few weeks we are inundated with stories about the depravity of society, as exposed by a few dozen reprehensible tweets.

Recently, two Twitter incidents have made headlines. First, a dozen or so disgustingly racist tweets about “The Hunger Games” caught the attention of Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and even The Week. Then, just a few weeks later, several dozen repulsive, hateful, and equally racist tweets about a Boston Bruins hockey game were reported on by the Huffington Post, Sports Illustrated, and even the Washington Post. This has had the simultaneous effect of, on the one hand, sensibly reminding us of what lingering racism still lurks on the fringes of society, and, on the other, making those fringes appear much larger than they really are.

When people see such tweets reposted on news sites, they are, appropriately, shocked and appalled at the unbridled racism that still exists in our society. It is absolutely true that we too frequently forget about the hateful element that lives among us. And while the internet has long been home to such vitriol, it is usually delivered under the cloak of anonymity. There is, no doubt, something particularly shocking about reading a racist tweet posted under someone’s real name on Twitter. However, when Buzzfeed publishes a story about “10 Incredibly Racist Hunger Games Fans,” it gives readers an outsize picture of the amount of racist garbage on the internet. Surely, each of those tweets is repugnant, and we should be constantly working to eliminate such sentiments from our community—but 10 people does not a degenerate society make. The heavy reporting of such tweets gives people the false perception that racism in America is actually getting worse, when in actuality it is just being uncloaked.

The other recent incident in which two dozen Boston sports fans unleashed a barrage of racist tweets directed at the Washington Capitols’ Joel L. Ward following his winning goal against the Boston Bruins is a bit more concerning. The website Blacksportsonline.com found 18 repulsive tweets containing the n-word. The number of Boston sports fans, while big, is considerably smaller than the pool of people who saw the Hunger Games, which suggests that this incident calls to light a deeper phenomenon. Indeed, this should be taken as a serious reminder that Boston and Boston sports culture have a dangerous history of racism which occasionally still rears its head. That said, as someone who’s spent his whole life in and around Boston, I didn’t need the Washington Post to remind me that there are at least a few dozen racists who still watch the B’s.

There are certainly some upsides to this over-reporting of tweets. For one, it forced the Bruins to issue a statement condemning racism among their fans—a step which was long overdue. Second, it is valuable to be ever-vigilant against the racist and hateful streak in our society, no matter small it may be. However, we must be careful not to interpret this new insight into the musings of racists as a sign that racism is increasing in America, or that the progress of the last fifty years has been for naught.  Our society is not, nor should it ever be, defined by a few dozen tweets.

Until about two weeks ago, Moore ran what could reasonably stake a claim as the vilest place on the Web, a pornography site called IsAnyoneUp.com Alas, this wasn’t just any old porn site — it was a tool for spiteful exes to inflict emotional violence on their former partners, by sending nude images of their ex-girlfriends and -boyfriends (but usually girlfriends) to Moore, who would then post the photos on IsAnyoneUp.com along with screenshots of the victim’s Facebook profiles. The site’s slogan was “Pure Evil” for a reason.

Then, on April 19, the website was shuttered. Now, the IsAnyoneUp.com URL redirects one to a site called BullyVille, which offers anti-bullying advice and consolation in a hip and edgy manner. Most of the space on the front page is taken up by two open letters: one from the founder of BullyVille, James McGibney, who says that IsAnyoneUp? was taken offline because it “served no public good” (a standard that would probably wipe most sites off the Internet), and another from Moore himself, who sort of apologizes for what he started — he mostly just says he got “burned out” by all the lawsuits — and announces his next venture, which involves “party(ing) for a cause.”

So the planet and all nude self-portraitists living on it are safe from IsAnyoneUp.com, for now at least. That’s a peril of the Internet — there was one Hunter Moore, and there will be more. More enterprising sleazeballs willing to push the envelope as far as possible. Alas, after the envelope is given a hearty push, it doesn’t return to its earlier form, it becomes molded after the new paradigm, whatever that may be. Hunter Moore and IsAnyoneUp.com were worse than what came before, and whoever succeeds Moore as the most hated person on the Internet will be even more perfect in his or her immorality.

With apologies to Kanye West, Moore just might be the voice of this generation, which has been told (numerously and by writers of other, older generations) that it’s one defined by post-privacy. We share everything. Nothing is hidden. We all, it seems, live in glass houses that are constantly being assaulted by rocks. A degree of exposure, if not outright exhibitionism, is something expected, even tolerated.

On Anderson Cooper’s over-sunlit daytime talk show during the height of IsAnyoneUp.com’s notoriety, there was a contretemps between Moore and a woman whose naked photos appeared on the site. She argued, begged actually, for some respect for privacy. Moore shrugged and countered with (I’m paraphrasing here), “If you didn’t want your pictures on my site, you shouldn’t have taken them.”

Of course, taking nude photos of yourself and sending them to someone isn’t the most prudent thing one could do, especially in this modern world of ours and all. But still, there’s an element of blaming the victim in Moore’s (and others’) rationalizing of the humiliation of another human being. In this way, arguments that we’re shifting into a post-privacy society devolve into arguments for anti-privacy.

Just because the risk of exposure has increased due to the Internet and social-networking tools, doesn’t mean we ought to let those who facilitate and profit off such exposure get away with it. Hunter Moore and his little shop of horrors was a warning of what’s to come.

Pinterest, a social networking site that allows users to “pin” pictures to a themed bulletin board, has expanded in popularity since its debut in 2010. Some colleges now use social networking sites to raise student awareness.

Students are too busy in today’s world to stop to look at announcement boards around campus or read newsletters they find in their mailboxes. The majority of this generation gathers information from online newspapers, tweets or Facebook statuses.

In one minute, there are 1,090 Pinterest visitors, 7,630 stumbles on StumbleUpon, 175,000 tweets, 700,000 Facebook messages sent, and 2 million YouTube video views, according to Social Jumpstart, a social media resource for small businesses.

Students turn to the Internet for almost everything. It started with Myspace and now there is Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, StumbleUpon and so many others. Pinterest is not only rising in the list of popular social networking sites for students, it’s also catching the eye of colleges.

Colleges turning to the one thing that today’s students are consumed by is an interesting and effective way of conveying information.

People may use Pinterest to plan a wedding, decorate their home, explore interests or hobbies or share recipes. However, the Chronicle of Higher Education found that university libraries are getting even more creative with Pinterest.

Saint Mary’s College of California is using Pinterest to market De La Salle Week, a celebration of the life of St. John Baptist de La Salle and the college’s Lasallian heritage. School officials are using the social networking site to feature photos of and information about the saint on their board, making the information more interesting than plain text or a flyer on a bulletin board.

Virginia Tech is planning a renovation of the school’s library, and through Pinterest, school officials are able to express ideas about paint colors and different kinds of workspaces. This online gallery is completely different from physical boards for book art, historical library photos and tips for surviving the end of the semester, because the information on them is available anytime and anywhere.

Lastly, at U. Nevada at Reno, a reference and instruction librarian uses Pinterest to post images of things that may be missing from the library. Finally schools are understanding that the more information is available online, the more likely that students will see and respond to it.

Colleges using social networking sites, especially Pinterest, to reach out to a broader student population is a brilliant way to communicate with today’s students. It’s much more efficient for students to just log into Pinterest than for administrators to expect a newsletter or announcement to reach everyone.

It’s time for colleges to update the way they release information to accommodate the way people choose to receive their news.

There’s no reason to get rid of tangible reminders, but expanding to include new social media is a smart move that schools like the UA should make.

Facebook is quite satisfied with the current arrangement. Because today we are living in a modern age in which information has become one of the most valuable commodities of all, enabling companies like Facebook, which deal in the trafficking and archiving of this information, to become incomprehensibly successful.

In fact, Facebook was able to generate $3.2 billion in revenue in 2011 by selling this data, which many people consider to contain somewhat personal information, wholesale to other companies and advertisers. This way, the countless corporations can more easily tap into their targeted consumer (you) and your marketable interests.

It seems somewhat harmless, initially.

But every day, millions of Facebook and other social media users share personal, sometimes intimate information with friends or family that could eventually come back to haunt them.

Lori Andrews from the New York Times even reported some people have had to defend themselves against data mined online in both criminal and child custody cases, and this information is often lumped into unfounded groups that can be established with only the slightest correlation.

For instance, searching Facebook groups for a controversial topic for research or other practical purposes could result in government agents taking notice of the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Many will merely claim if you want to maintain your privacy, don’t ever post any of your personal information online – admittedly pretty simple and effective advice. But does that mean a guarantee of privacy online is simply a myth? That, in order to be safe, we’ll have to absolutely abstain from digital communications? That’s a notion our society simply shouldn’t be willing to accept.

It’s also somewhat ironic that while a majority of our society’s population is in an uproar over the government’s attempts to impede upon our collective online privacy, Facebook has been selling our private information to the highest bidder for years without too many people considering the repercussions.

Most of these same people have never even been aware Facebook has never necessarily been a safe haven for their personal information, but it’s also become apparent Facebook’s information sharing has become much more widespread and complicated than a majority of its everyday users could have ever imagined.

For example, most users have been aware for some time that potential employers constantly scan social networks for information about prospective hires – but it’s also reported that the Internal Revenue Service, United States immigration and others are constantly scanning Facebook’s enormous data archives to track down its eluders.

It’s certainly not a bad thing that criminals are being brought to justice through these means, but it’s also somewhat unnerving to realize how it seems we’re constantly moving ever closer to the infamous “Big Brother” society.

Because although Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg claims he created the revolutionary social media giant in order to “accomplish a social mission” in his ultimate quest to “make the world a more open place,” that could all change in less than a month.

That’s not to say Zuckerberg will no longer try to accomplish the macro-connectivity philosophy that’s made the Harvard prodigy one of the youngest billionaires in history.

But once Facebook officially becomes a publicly traded company on the stock market, Zuckerberg’s No. 1 priority will unarguably be pumping up his share prices for his investors.

The most logical way for Zuckerberg to do that is to generate even more revenue through shipping out unfathomable amounts of this invaluable data in a process coined “data aggregation.” With the literal nonexistence of legislation pertaining to data mining regulation, loose correlations being made within the data collection along with the vast, seemingly unending potential of the information market presents some possible problems.

It’s not a series of problems that’s completely unique to Facebook, either, as fellow columnist Casey Hoffman pointed out in her Feb. 28 piece. Google is currently the largest trafficker and archivist of information, bringing in an estimated $36.5 billion – more than 11 times what Facebook pulled in the same year.

But as I mentioned, Facebook is about to cross the threshold into the territory of a publicly traded company.

This means not only will they see even more wild potential for growth, but ultimately, the almighty dollar, rather than common sense, will control the direction of Facebook and its ever-increasing data mining and trafficking.

The Atlantic’s article brings forth the debate whether Facebook is relied on to create, strengthen and maintain friendships and relationships or whether it sabotages them. According to the article, Facebook has made people more densely connected than ever. This runs the risk of isolation because a self-preserved and self-created society online only scratches the surface of the human condition.

This reliance on a virtual society and less of a society where people interact in person, and interact online instead, creates a gap in people’s interactions. What is lost are the essential human interactions that happen face-to-face which creates and ascertains these friendships. If Facebook became a relied-upon platform, instead of going to the movies together, there becomes a lack of experiences that would evade feelings of isolation. Sometimes writing a quick one-liner on a friend’s Facebook wall is more convenient, but relying on Facebook to be the root of the friendship encourages laziness in social interaction.

Another theory that Facebook causes isolation is rooted in the ideas of passive consumption of friends activities and the robotic broadcasting of one’s own activities in return. Basically this means creating pseudo-identities by monitoring achievements and then routinely sharing your own online. This meek interaction with others is what leads to loneliness because there is a lack of true human substance.

It is hard to not let Facebook be a crutch for friendships and relationships these days though. A lot of times I find myself so busy that it is simply easier to write on a friend’s Facebook wall. But these are superficial actions that merely prevent meaningful relationships.

That is why I do my best to be with my friends as often as possible despite our unruly schedules. But what if I relied only on Facebook to maintain these friendships? I would find myself with half-hearted relationships and a plethora of friends that I may have only met a few times. That is just it though, Facebook is not to blame for our feelings of isolation and loneliness — we are. Now, it can be nice to reconnect with distant friends from the past and to have a glimpse into what their new life is like. But the constant reliance on Facebook as a way to sustain friendships is what leads people toward feeling alienated. It depends upon the way it is used.

I think that Facebook is extremely helpful for people with long-distance friendships to stay in contact, especially if these friends are in different time zones. But in order to truly know what is going on in a friend’s life across the world, certain details must be shared, and having inclusive details of friends personal lives online for the rest of the world to see reduces privacy and also clears away the intimacy of the friendship because then everybody else can see it too.

Facebook has the potential to become a crutch for friendships. If used as a replacement for real, sustained communication, it can result in loneliness and seclusion. But if used as a tool for sharing real experiences with each other, companionship can be sustained.

Based on a recent survey, it seems that the pace will only grow faster as we enter the near future.

Two out of three experts surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project think that by 2020 most Americans will have completely replaced cash and credit cards with their mobile phones — as if the illusion of a monetary system could get any more imaginary. Even Visa knows the trend is growing. The emerging markets section of Visa’s mobile page highlights the dominance of mobile payments in the third world:

“Nowhere is the power of mobile payments more apparent than in developing economies where mobile penetration outpaces bank card availability. Using existing mobile devices to access and transfer funds, to make payments, to pay bills or to top-up wireless air time, mobile financial services represent a ‘leapfrog’ technology in these under served regions.”

While the convenience of having all your money on one mobile machine is attractive, avoiding the demanding effort of searching through a wallet, the dependency we have on phones now is a problem. We overestimate the stability of technology, especially technology that we don’t understand enough to which we can be so loyal. This is not to mention glitches like the recent Gmail crash that can cause more serious issues than missing an email once we begin relying on Google to make purchases.

Apps like Google Wallet have already made the buy-through-phone option possible for users, held back only by the lack of vendors supported. Needless to say, the name combination — Google and wallet — invokes a sense of paranoia to such a degree that chills can be seen rolling down any privacy-conscious user’s spine,

A normal wallet doesn’t have the drawbacks that Google does — neither does cash. Cash doesn’t need a battery, cash doesn’t glitch and cash doesn’t break just in time for the next upgrade.

Is using our phone to make purchases really that much easier? Technology’s purpose is to improve the quality of life, but advances like these are needless and just add more problems. As the saying goes, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” That being said, maybe these experts are wrong, and it is likely they are. Cash is still king — for now, that is — and phones, which cost money and require data plans, will have a hard time knocking the king off the throne.

The concept of paying for something to pay for something just doesn’t seem logical. Credit cards were once said to replace cash, and so far, have not done so, but have contributed a fair share of trouble themselves.

Still, it’s getting harder and harder to go without some sort of plastic card for transactions over the phone or online. What separates cash from plastic and smartphone apps is what keeps cash on it’s high place — security.

The high cost of smartphones mixed with the public’s security concerns will undoubtedly limit the popularity of phone transactions. The year 2020 seems too near for such a bold prediction. However, that’s not to say that sometime soon the experts will be right.

Maybe some day, smartphone transactions will be more reliable and safer than cash or debit cards, but as of now, I don’t think it is. Advancing with the times is important. I’m not saying technology hasn’t been an extremely helpful and crucial part of our society because it has, but we seem to be in a technological transition era that may have a disastrous outcome if we aren’t careful.

Recently it seems like we’ve been working towards a future shadowed by laziness and a reliability on flawed computers. As we continue being fed new and powerful technology, we should be cautious with every bite.

Sigmund is currently the number-one paid Lifestyle App in the United States and has a four-plus rating, according to iTunes.

Daniel Nadler, the Canadian native and Harvard U. graduate who developed the new app, said Harvard students who did not get much sleep inspired him.

“I would wake up to go running at six in the morning and many of them would be walking around the hallways, seemingly in a half-daze, still trying to finish papers,” Nadler said in an email interview.

From there he began do some research about sleep deprivation, where he learned from a NASA study that even a half-hour long nap can increase alertness and concentration by more than a third, while brief naps can improve concentration on memory for longer periods, he said.

From that information, Nadler said he wanted to assimilate all of these studies and put them in one place, so he applied to the Harvard’s Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative for funding to create a research-directed reading group.

As he was conducting research, Nadler noticed there was significant evidence of information processing in the sleeping brain, which includes assimilation of external sensory information such as scents and hearing during sleep.

“We all know this anecdotally – hearing a nearby conversation while we are dozing off, for example on a train, and having some of the subjects in the conversation enter our dreams,” Nadler said.

Nadler said he also came across a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry, in which researchers played recorded, spoken personal names to the sleeping subject during the rapid eye movement stage of their sleep cycle.

The study suggested the spoken names presented during REM sleep entered the dream sequences because subjects correctly matched names with the correct dreams upon awakening.

Nadler said he noticed the study was hard to recreate outside of a lab because people generally did not have the time to record all the words they wanted to hear, space them apart correctly and start the recording while the person was asleep.

That is how he came up with the idea for the iPhone app, he said.

Nadler said he was introduced to Doug Feigelson, a computer science and engineering major from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who recently won Facebook’s Brown-Harvard-MIT intercollegiate hackathon, to help him create the app.

“I asked all my friends in computer science about doing this on a smartphone and they said it was extremely technically difficult,” Nadler said. “They said that to reproduce these kinds of sleep and dream studies on a smartphone, you would have to work with a library of thousands of distinct recorded words and allow users to select from very precise combinations of words.“

Nadler said Feigelson spent more than one year building the app, which allows users to choose from more than a thousand prerecorded words, such as “beach,” “tropical” and “tiger,” which the app softly plays during REM sleep.

“You can imagine the technical sophistication that goes into this – it was not like loading a few abstract ocean or bird sounds onto an iPhone,” Nadler said.

Despite Sigmund’s high ratings on iTunes, Boston U. students said the idea of having an app program dreams is odd.

“[The app] really freaks me out,” said BU sophomore Christina Gratton. “I don’t like that idea because I think that dreams are uncontrollable.”

BU junior Jayme Mask said she would not use it even if she did have an iPhone.

“The coolest thing about dreams is that you wake up and think ‘is that real?’” Mask said. “I want them to be a part of my imagination – not a part of my real life.”

Instead, the study shows it has more to do with the fact that Twitter users have limited attention to devote to a massive amount of information transmitted daily on the Twitter network.

The 2012 study behind the information, “Competition Among Memes in a World with Limited Attention,” was conducted by third-year doctoral student Lilian Weng, along with informatics professors Alessandro Flammini, Alessandro Vespignani and Filippo Menczer.

The study, Weng said, is the first to scientifically show how social network users’ attention spans affect popularity of posts.

Weng said a tweet’s survival can be measured in the number of times the post is re-tweeted and does not necessarily depend on the post’s message.

She said two hashtags grouping tweets about singer Justin Bieber illustrate her point.

“#BieberFact and #Bieberthing — they both exist and are about the same object,” she said. “They try to represent the same thing, but one of them is extremely popular, and the other was re-tweeted less than 15 times.”

In fact, #BieberFact was re-tweeted 139,760 times during the course of the study, while #Bieberthing was re-tweeted only three times.

According to the report, factors like the tweet’s exposure to media and its relation to world events can affect the popularity and longevity of posts.

The reason for the discrepancy, Weng said, was because of the large number of tweets on Twitter competing for users’ attention.

Competition in the Twitter world works in a similar way to competition in nature, she said, where memes are like species fighting for limited space in users’
memories.

“Imagine in an ecosystem, you have various species, and they’re fighting with each other to get limited resources,” she said.

“In order to get resources to survive and reproduce, they have to compete with each other. You can think of attention as a limited resource in the system.”

In the grand scheme of things, Weng said, most tweets don’t go viral.

Instead, most stop circulating soon after they are posted.

Weng said the structure of the microblogging network, complete with hashtags and the ability to re-tweet, contributes to the distribution of tweet popularity.

Twitter users looking to craft a viral tweet might not find the secret in the new study, however.

Weng said the research looked at aggregate values and the larger context of tweet popularity as opposed to individual cases.

“In our paper, we studied the heterogeneity of meme popularity at a very aggregated, average level,” she said.

“But if you look at individual cases, it’s very hard to predict whether it will be successful. Sometimes it’s just luck.”

Tesco Homeplus, an online shopping site, launched a campaign in South Korea promoting smartphone users to do their grocery shopping in a subway station. This type of virtual shopping, if continued throughout other countries, would eliminate human interaction as well as personal choice in food selection.

Installed in a South Korean subway station is a wall-length billboard that includes pictures of different grocery store items on shelves. The “shoppers” would be able to take a picture of the item they wanted on their smart phone and a code located below the item would be scanned to their virtual shopping cart. Once done with their shopping, customers click the check-out button, the amount is charged to their credit card and the groceries are delivered within the day to their home, according to designboom.com.

While this may seem helpful to those who live in highly populated cities and have limited time to make it the grocery store, it’s actually just another superfluous app on the smartphone. Going to the grocery store allows you to pick out exactly what you want. You can make sure that your eggs aren’t cracked or that your fruit and vegetables don’t have bruises.

“It’s like online dating, you don’t know what you are going get until it arrives at your door,” said Andrew Nelson, a U. Arizona business sophomore.

Unless these groceries are guaranteed to be fresh, how do you know for sure that you won’t end up with a rotten box of grapefruits?

During the “dot-com” boom in the 1990s, online grocery shopping and grocery delivery was thought to be the next big thing, but it’s certainly not something everyone is doing nowadays, is it? Although the Internet has become a daily and even hourly part of peoples’ lives, this app is just the second round of a failed idea.

There are 10 reasons why online grocery shopping is failing, according to investopedia.com — some of which include the act of choosing fresh produce and meats, but also the advantage to shoppers who can easily buy their groceries last minute in person, which is the main reason why stores are open on major holidays like Thanksgiving. This would not be possible on an online shopping center because timely delivery requires advance notice.

If online grocery shopping is to be successful there are a few things that need to be tweaked to appeal to a broader audience. Guaranteed freshness, non-food items and instant delivery are necessary.

But history shows that this idea is a bad one, and there’s no need for history to repeat itself in America, so let’s hope these shops stay up north.

OK, so maybe Facebook’s $1-billion purchase of the photo sharing application Instagram isn’t quite intriguing enough to inspire “The Social Network 2,” and maybe the acquisition doesn’t indicate Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s transformation into a sepia-filtering hipster. Instead, it seems that the truth behind the massive purchase is much more pragmatic and worrisome.

The staggering figure Facebook paid for Instagram, a startup with no revenue to speak of and a total of 13 employees, may indicate an impending tech bubble burst. When a commodity’s popularity — its “cool factor,” if you will — causes consumers to drive its price drastically above any realistic valuation, a crash is inevitable.

Facebook itself provides additional reason for concern over a bubble burst. As the company prepares to go public, The New York Times reports that it will be valued around $100 billion, a number most analysts find exorbitant. Few would argue against the brilliance of Facebook’s concept and business plan, but the highest estimates of its 2011 revenue hover around $4 billion, according to Bloomberg. This level of overvaluation is clearly unsustainable and, once the company’s finances go public, threatens to scare away investors.

The billion-dollar Instagram purchase also points to a monopolistic mindset possibly taking hold at Facebook, whereby the company aims to buy up all potential competitors before they can do any lasting damage. Of course, Facebook has the innovators and resources to produce an application similar to Instagram, but there is little reason to innovate when you can simply purchase.

Of course, the market bubble in which social networking sites and applications are currently encapsulated enables this form of financial bullying. Facebook users should not be surprised to see new options for photo filters such as the ultra-saturated “Lomo-fi” or nostalgic “1977,” but once Instagram’s “cool” wears off, Facebook will be forced to acquire the next networking fad or lose some of its own popularity.

Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of Facebook’s financial domination is its discouragement of competition. Photo startups such as Instagram can hope to be purchased by Facebook because they offer a valuable addition to its services, but alternative social networking sites such as Google+ or Wavii seem unable to step outside its looming shadow. Whether they are impeded by a lack of funds or a lack of name recognition, competitors stand little chance against Facebook, at least until this latest tech bubble bursts. It is difficult to estimate Facebook’s staying power — it has certainly defied the bleak examples set by its forebears Friendster and Myspace — but a dramatic drop in investor confidence could set the stage for competitors to challenge the networking behemoth.

Until Facebook goes public and makes it plans regarding Instagram explicit, observers can do little but speculate. While this particular purchase may not motivate a film sequel, the fall of Facebook, whether dramatic or gradual, is sure to captivate and inspire generations of tech innovators to come.

The Internet allows users to connect across continents, network with old friends and access information in seconds. It also anonymously keeps tabs on the world’s Internet use.

More than half of the Internet’s top sites use “Flash cookies” to track site visits and record every article read, advertisement viewed and shopping cart created, according to a study by the University of California, Berkeley.

Flash cookies must be manually deleted through an online settings manager tool on Adobe’s website. Internet users might not realize that their personal information is constantly collected and stored.

Google is being fined for impeding a U.S. Federal Communications Committee investigation of the Street View project, which collected street images and map coordinates from around the world using Google Street View cars.

Google collected more than just street images and location information. It also collected what is commonly called payload data, which is a person’s Internet usage history, from unsecured wireless networks.

According to the FCC report, Google collected personal emails detailing married people attempting to cheat on their spouses, email addresses, passwords, chat conversations and 360-degree images that peered into restaurants and homes.

Google took two years to respond to a complaint filed by the FCC. The company’s response was simply, “It was a mistake.” Google faces a $25,000 fine — an insignificant sum compared to the $2.89 billion the company netted in the first quarter of 2012, according to Google’s financial summary.

The laws on Internet privacy are few and far between. Generally, Internet giants can use data in the United States for business purposes without consumer consent or knowledge. It is not unlawful to intercept unencrypted communication under the Wiretap Act, which broadly regulates the collection of data from wire and electronic sources and prevents third parties from installing electronic “sniffers” that read Internet traffic.

The Communications Act of 1934, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, put the FCC in charge of regulating broadcast and telephone communications. In 1996, it was amended by the Telecommunications Act, adding the Internet to the list. This act favors de-regulation of the Internet.

Google repeatedly and willfully failed to comply with the FCC and did not provide a clear answer as to how they mistakenly collected payload data. The company is now liable to the federal government for forfeiture penalty, but not for all the personal information it collected, according to the FCC report.

Law and technology experts at U. California, Berkeley and U. Pennsylvania surveyed Americans on their privacy views and found that 86 percent of young adults don’t want tailored online advertising if it is a result of being anonymously followed on websites. Americans mistakenly believe there are government laws prohibiting the sale of data on them, according to the study.

Furthermore, when they realized no concrete laws exist to protect their Internet privacy, 92 percent of Americans surveyed said they feel there should be a law requiring website and advertising companies to delete all stored information about them upon request.

The Internet will continue to be a catch-22 until more privacy laws are passed, or individual privacy becomes completely irrelevant to society.

The image, which resembles an elephant’s head, was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and has appeared on news sites like Discovery News, MSN.com, and Yahoo! News. The “elephant’s head” is actually the edge of a vast lava flow in Elysium Planitia, a plain on the surface of Mars. In addition to shaping the elephant’s trunk and eye, it also shows what could be the animal’s forehead and ear.

The lava flow happened over years or decades, relatively quickly in geological time. The image is also upside down relative to most earthly mapping conventions, as the image is “north side down.” It shows an area about 5 kilometers across and 300 kilometers above the surface.

The natural formation is an example of “pareiodlia,” a situation where the human mind interprets patterns in such a way that it pulls out the image of something familiar, according to Alfred McEwen, a planetary sciences professor and the principal investigator for HiRISE. The same psychological mechanism was responsible for several popular images on Mars, including the famous “Face on Mars” that was photographed by Viking 1 in the Cydonia region of Mars and the “happy-faced” Galle Crater in Argyre Planitia.

In addition to showcasing the camera’s technical abilities, the image also helps give back to the public and spotlights scientific discoveries at the UA, said Ari Espinoza, outreach coordinator for HiRISE.

“The elephant picture is something almost everyone can relate to — it captures people’s imaginations,” Espinoza said. “And although we don’t get increased funding because of it, the public outreach component of what we do continues to be an important part of the mission.”

The HiRISE camera was built at the UA and is installed on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Of the publishers sued, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have agreed to a settlement that required them to end e-book contracts with Apple and any other retailer with a “most favored nation” clause, which states that no other retailer can sell e-books for lower prices. The other two publishers sued were Macmillan and Penguin Group USA.

Erin Crum, vice president of corporate communications for HarperCollins, released a statement saying the company did not violate any antitrust laws and plans to comply with its obligations under the agreement.

Amazon, one of Apple’s rivals in some markets, has long held control over the e-book market. With the introduction of the iPad, former Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs hoped to shift control in Apple’s favor.

Since 2010, Amazon’s hold on the e-book market has decreased to 60 percent, 30 percent less than previous years.

Amazon, which sells e-books for $9.99, used its low prices to attract readers to its own e-reading device franchise, the Kindle.

“I chose the Kindle Fire because I was able to use books I had to trade in for the e-reader,” said Jody Erickson, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “For about $199, I am able to do all of things that I want to do for a fraction of the cost of an iPad.”

“I have been able to buy many new releases for under $10 and books for my boys to read for as little as 99 cents,” Erickson added.

This lawsuit could result in lower e-book prices for consumers and less competition between e-book retailers.

The Department of Justice’s lawsuit also brings great news for Amazon, which plans to continue lowering e-book prices. But Erickson said the investigation and lawsuit might not bring all good change.

“Authors should be compensated for their work, so I’m hoping this doesn’t bottom out prices, for their sake,” Erickson said.

In an open letter, Scott Turow, president of the Authors Guild, said the Department of Justice was “on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.”

Apple and the publishers are also dealing with a similar lawsuit with the European Commission.

A study conducted by Dr. Christopher Carpenter, assistant professor of communication at Western Illinois U., tested 294 participants whose ages ranged between 18 and 65. The volunteers participated in an online survey that asked them questions about Facebook use, according to the study.

The study was conducted to see if anti-social Facebook use could be attributed to narcissism. Anti-social Facebook use can range from a user retaliating against a negative comment to becoming angry if someone doesn’t comment on the user’s status.

But, Carpenter said Facebook does not cause users to become narcissists.

Narcissism is a trait people genetically inherit, and Facebook gives those who share this trait a platform to interact, he said.

According to the study, traits of narcissism include a sense of self-importance or uniqueness, an inability to tolerate criticism, an expectation of special favors without reciprocation and greater leadership ability.

But Carpenter said the narcissistic tendency of leadership could be positive.

Facebook users who have the narcissistic trait of “grand exhibitionism” are predicted to have a high friend count. They want the ability to gain attention from a large audience, according to the study.

According to the study, these people are also more likely to accept friend requests from strangers.

Narcissists on Facebook may leave negative comments that can harm interpersonal relationships, according to the study. Carpenter said narcissists who participate in this behavior often do not know the implications of their actions.

“The purpose of the study was not to find the overall amount of narcissists; it was to find the correlation and the patterns of narcissism on Facebook,” S. Shyam Sundar said.

Sundar is the founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory. His research investigates the psychological effects unique to web-based mass communication, he said.

Facebook and Twitter allow users to be the masters of their own domain, Sundar said. If they feel like the “rock star” of their personal page, it can give them a sense of self-importance, he said.

But he said this feeling of importance does not constitute narcissism in everyone. Facebook may give someone who is an introvert the ability to express himself or herself online, he said.

Vanessa Foster said people who constantly change their profile picture may be trying to draw attention to themselves. They may be trying to draw positive comments to boost self-confidence, she said.

Foster said a psychologist might be able to use Facebook to diagnose traits of narcissism, but it is only one way to help with the diagnosis.

“You would have to learn about the person, their behavior, and the environment they interact in,” Foster said.

After a brief introduction by Brandon Marianacci, UGBC director of University speakers, Ohanian began his presentation, titled “Don’t Get SOPA’d.”

Ohanian, 28, founded the popular Internet website Reddit with his friend Steve Huffman in 2005 upon graduation from the University of Virginia. Since then, he has focused on developing other Internet startups, like Breadpig and Hipmunk. He began his presentation with encouraging words about the tech sector, despite high unemployment nationwide.

“Startups are all that I know,” Ohanian said. “And even with the economy in a bad state, the tech sector can’t hire enough tech people.”

Specifically focusing on the demand for programmers, Ohanian emphasized the importance for young entrepreneurs to develop marketable, useful skills. Referencing widely popular startups like Facebook and more current developments like Instagram, Ohanian pointed out that many extremely successful entrepreneurs did not have a large amount of technical training.

“There’s a long list of people who have created really valuable things without a background in programming, without spending 15 or 20 years in it, and they’re largely self-taught,” Ohanian said.

Moving from his introduction about the tech sector and the power of small startups, Ohanian began speaking about his love for the Internet.

“The Internet is the most efficient market of supply and demand the world has ever seen,” Ohanian said. “On the Internet, all links are created equal. Everyone has an equal chance. Online, I can truly believe in the American dream.”

His love for the Internet was summarized in the story of Mr. Splashy Pants, a whale named by dedicated Redditors after Greenpeace allowed the name to be selected by an online poll. Ohanian pointed out that although Greenpeace initially resisted the name, they decided “to stop taking themselves so seriously” and realize “the true power of the Internet.”

Ohanian spoke about the founding of Reddit, and its development into a massively popular website with over 2.5 billion page views and 35 million unique visitors per month, despite a $500 advertising budget over 6 years. He then jokingly apologized to the many Redditors present for the distracting nature of his creation. “You must all have terrible GPAs,” Ohanian said. “I’m sorry for all the wasted tuition money, Mom and Dad.”

Yet, the bulk of Ohanian’s presentation concerned the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its close counterpart, PIPA. Though Ohanian called the goal of the legislation (to stop online piracy) “well intended,” he described the language used as “clumsy” and pointed out the extreme danger both bills posed to Internet startups like his own websites.

“Legislation like this threatens every social media site that has made the last seven years possible,” Ohanian said. “If this existed, we never would have been able to create Reddit, and we decided that we had to do something to stop it.”

Ohanian said the bill was the result of massive lobbying by the entertainment industry, hoping to protect their copyright interests on films, music, and books, among other forms of media. Compared to the lobbying budgets of the technology sector, the entertainment spending looks even more vast. The more popular Internet media becomes, the more entertainment companies lose profits. Ohanian gave the example of Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari, two comedians who released specials on the Internet for $5 with the full knowledge that their product could be easily pirated. “[The artists] now have an opportunity to circumvent massive entertainment companies and connect directly with the people who actually love their creative work—the fans,” Ohanian said.

Ohanian said the introduction of SOPA wasn’t all bad, however, “This legislation brought us to a very important and I think watershed moment in the short history of the world wide web,” Ohanian said. “All of the sudden, a bunch of geeks built websites to fight this thing together.”

In response, Reddit blacked out its pages on Jan. 18 in protest of the legislation, and Wikipedia did the same a few weeks later. “When Wikipedia went down, everyone said ‘Holy sh—,’ something’s going on here,” Ohanian said.

Reflecting again on the power of the Internet, Ohanian found comfort in the fact that a group of people so diverse and so far apart could at the same time be so connected in a cause.

The presentation came full circle as Ohanian returned again to the power of Internet startups. Giving advice for the young entrepreneurs in attendance, Ohanian stressed one concept: giving a damn. “Everything comes down to giving a damn,” he said. “You can really build something that people love. This new economy that’s being created is one that is awe-inspiring. Do it all like you give a damn.”

There’s the obvious sleep talking, sleepwalking, mumbling, and snoring. However, one thing that doctors report as being on the rise is the phenomenon of sleep texting.

Sleep texting is exactly what it sounds like, and those who do it do not remember doing so until they see sent messages in their outboxes the next morning. Doctors report that the action is most likely caused by the fact that teenagers and college students are always interacting with technology.

This interaction with technology is making it increasingly difficult for the human body to distinguish between waking and sleeping times, and according to The Melbourne Sleep Disorder Centre in Australia, sleep texting has been identified as a real medical occurrence.

Indeed, Americans are so “plugged in” that occurrences of sending emails or pictures while asleep have also been reported.

U. New Hampshire students are no exception to this current trend, though many people do not know that sleep texting is as widespread as it is.

“I had a friend who did it. But I didn’t think it was an actual thing. I still don’t see how it could be; I just saw it as a lame excuse for not remembering conversations,” sophomore Max Auger said.

“I do it all of the time. I’ve gone on Facebook and stuff, too, since I have an iPhone. It’s weird because you don’t remember any of it,” student Kassandra Sampson said.

Kathleen Grace-Bishop, UNH Health Services director of education and promotion, said that, although the specific problem of sleep texting has not yet been reported to Health Services, many other sleep issues have, and they continue to be reported.

“Students have been seeking assistance for sleep-related issues for many years. This seems to mirror what has been happening in the United States, where sleep is becoming more of a concern as research continues to indicate that we are sleep-deprived as a nation,” Grace-Bishop said.

According to Grace-Bishop, 20.6 percent of UNH students surveyed by the American College Health Association noted sleep difficulties as impacting their academic performance in the last 12 months. Having sleep issues is the number two reported problem, following stress at 27.8 percent.

Health Services professionals, along with doctors across the nation, agree that mixing technology and sleep is a dangerous idea. They advise patients to turn electronics off at least one hour before bed, and to plug the devices in elsewhere in the room, not right next to the pillow.

UNH student Jade Chandronnait learned this the hard way.

“It’s kind of embarrassing, but I do it [sleep text] a lot. I can’t sleep with my phone near my bed, or I wake up with an outbox full of things that don’t make sense and quite a few confused friends,” Chandronnait said.

Let me share my overwhelming enthusiasm.

Cough.

I have long denounced Instagram as a platform for iPhone (and now Android) owners to take a vapid photo of a cloud or a tree and throw some kind of sepia-toned filter or a crappy blur tool over it in an attempt to make it look a lot cooler than it actually does. While that’s not what everyone does, that’s what a lot of people do, and it’s infuriating.

Blowing that up and allowing Facebook’s more than 845 million users the chance to do that is a scary thought. I’m already planning my strategy on whose updates to hide on my timeline.

Instagram is an app some describe as being for hipsters, even if the vast majority of the photos I see from my Instagram friends are of themselves at a bar with friends. There’s really no point in applying a filter that makes it look like the photo was taken on an old Polaroid camera when it’s just a photo of you so drunk that your brain is struggling to keep your left eyelid open.

With Facebook dropping more money on this deal than the gross domestic products of some small countries, I can’t help but think that money would be better spent somewhere else. There are millions of starving people around the world who have no concept of the X-Pro II filter. They just want some soup.

At any given time during the day, my Facebook timeline is flooded with photos of corny quotes about love, something making fun of (politician who represents the party I don’t support’s name here), and “jokes” that appeal to the lowest common denominator, such as something witty like, “I just don’t like you because you’re stupid.”

It’s not exactly clear what, if anything, will change about Instagram with its new partnership, but if it means seeing photos of quotes saying “I’m with stupid” in sepia tone, count me out.

Instagram does have its benefits. It was a perfectly apt platform to share photos with your friends without the extraneous frills of Facebook. In that sense, I liked it. I just can’t really tolerate the lackluster “photographers” who get a little too carried away with the filters.

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious curmudgeon, but I’m afraid of what a potential Facebook partnership could mean to Instagram. Instagram has its benefits, if you forget about all the faux-photographers who use it. It’s simple and easy, but if Facebook is going to throw your Spotify updates and what article you just read from the Washington Post on there, you can count me out.

“I have a lot of three hour classes,” she said.  “If I focus for the first two hours, I feel like it’s okay to send a text.  It’s a reward system for paying attention and staying on task.”

A recent study, which will appear in the July 2012 issue of the National Communication Association’s journal “Communication Education” found students who text more in class were less attentive and demonstrated lower grades.

Boston U. psychology Professor David Somers said the results of the study were not surprising.

“It seems pretty obvious to me that students who are distracted in class, by texting or anything else, will get less out of lectures,” Somers said in an email interview. “Multitasking typically leads to impairment of performance of both tasks, unless one of the tasks is very automated.”

Students who text in class often perceived themselves as having learned less, according to the study, which surveyed 190 U. Pittsburgh-Bradford students.

Those who reported higher levels of self-regulation graded themselves better and reported learning more.

Somers said he is more interested in why students cannot restrain themselves from texting.

“I believe that texting, for many people, is something of an addiction,” he said. “Each text message that you receive is a reward. To get that reward you need to send a text message.”

Somers said those who text frequently have an expectation of regular “rewards,” and they will unconsciously initiate text conversations to get that reward, which disrupts their focus.

College of Arts and Sciences junior Denise Wong said she rarely texts in class and is not very attached to her phone.

However, Wong said she notices a correlation between the characteristics of a class and how frequently people text in it.

“A lot of times, in my classes which are more interesting, I see less people texting than in others,” Wong said. “It’s also harder if you’re in a smaller class or in harder classes.”

Mounica Donepudi, a BU junior, said she does not usually text during class.

“I don’t get service in a lot of my classrooms,” she said. “Even if I did, I still probably wouldn’t text during class.”

However, Donepudi said professors do not often feel the need to force their students to pay attention.

“In college, you’re expected to do what’s necessary to learn,” she said. “Professors don’t monitor you like they did in high school.”

BU freshman Wesley Kang said he texts during class despite knowing he should not.

“I think it’s not okay to text in class, but I do it anyways,” he said.  “It’s rude. “

Kang said he often texts more in large classes that he finds boring.

“I get bored, and if you’re in a large lecture hall, it’s impossible for the teacher to know,” he said.  “But if you’re in a discussion where everyone is expected to participate, it’s rude to text.”

For some job applicants, this has become reality.

A recent report by The Associated Press on employers who demand access to job applicants’ social networking sites during the application process has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

In the last several months, it has become apparent that an increasing number of companies are demanding applicants’ usernames and passwords to run background checks, according to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who asked for the investigation along with Senator Charles Schumer, D-New York.

“An investigation by the Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will help remedy ongoing intrusions and coercive practices, while (lawmakers) draft new statutory protections to clarify and strengthen the law,” Blumenthal said in a statement released last week.

Facebook has also come out against employers that engage in this form of background checks, citing that the practice is in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service.

The company is working seriously to protect the privacy of its users and has urged users to not release login information to third parties, Facebook’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan said in a statement released about two weeks ago.

“If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends,” Egan said in the statement.

While several companies have engaged in the controversial hiring practice, UCLA spokesman Steve Ritea said the university does not rely on social network background checks during the hiring process.

“Since the hiring process is decentralized, I cannot say authoritatively that no university department uses Facebook as a screening tool, but the main human resources office is not aware of any department that engages in the practice,” Ritea said.

If any department were to seek the human resources office advice on the hire practice, the human resources office would strongly discourage using Facebook as a screening tool, he added.

The alleged practice has renewed the debate about whether employers should view applicants’ Facebook profiles as a screening tool.

As the demand for login information has become more prevalent, questions are being raised about the legality of the hiring practice.

The issue is more about equal-opportunity employment and less about privacy, said Eric Bollens, a software architect at the UCLA Office of Information Technology and a fifth-year computer science student.

“Once an employer uses Facebook to screen applicants, they are (exposed)to information that would bias their view of a job candidate and would put them in violation of Equal Opportunity laws,” Bollens said.

If applicants’ prospective employment is contingent on handing over their username and password, then the employer is using undue coercion, he added.

Bridget Conlin, a first-year pre-communication studies student, said the practice could actually work against employers.

“I think it’s common for people to manipulate their profile to carefully craft a public image that is contrary to their true self,” Conlin said.

First-year biogengineering student Julia Thulin received an extensive background check with the Federal Drug Administration and the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital review board before earning an internship with the hospital in November. But a Facebook login was never a part of that, she said.

Thulin said that companies that demand login information of job applicants could be overstepping privacy boundaries.

“I understand why employers would want access to a Facebook profile to learn more about an applicant, but I don’t believe companies should have access to a trove of private information,” Thulin said.

Google Ideas Director Jared Cohen discussed the way that changing technology has affected how governments handle social issues at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday.

“In the last ten years we have seen an explosion of technological access,” Cohen said. “This means that tech will be part of every problem in the future.”

Cohen “has a massive vision for change,” said Kate Krontiris, a graduate student at the Kennedy School who has worked with Cohen at Google Ideas, a technology-oriented think tank.

The first part of the event, which was moderated by Kennedy School adjunct lecturer Nicco Mele, focused on Cohen’s career and work for Google.

Cohen has worked as an advisor to both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, helping to draft the State Department’s 21st Century Statecraft policy. After leaving the State Department in 2010, Cohen joined Google Ideas as its new director.

For Cohen, the transition from the public to private sector was natural. “I have been working on the same issue since 2004,” he said, referring to his commitment to encourage governments and other institutions to employ new technologies in their work.

When asked how he would describe Google Ideas, Cohen said “I don’t know exactly what you would call Google Ideas, but I like to think of it as a think/do tank.” The team at Google Ideas is a small team that works in a “democratic fashion” to try to solve issues facing the world, Cohen said.

Google Ideas is a small offshoot of Google that seeks to aid fragile states and counter violent extremism and illicit trafficking networks.

Cohen said that “working at Google Ideas is like working at a startup without having to work in a garage or take out the trash.”

Cohen specifically addressed the undergraduates present, saying that he is “envious of people in school right now, as they have an innate technological expertise.”

If students do not take advantage of this skill, Cohen added, “they’d be shooting themselves in the foot.”

Cohen said that he feels confident in our future because technology will continue to evolve and grow to meet society’s demands.

“There is no greater driver of innovation than necessity,” Cohen said.

As the discussion concluded, Cohen stressed the importance of using advanced technologies to tackle the major issues facing the world.

“The intersection of technology and geo-politics will have a profound impact on today’s world,” he said.

According to the Pennsylvania law firm Edgar Snyder and Associates, around 37 percent of people have sent or read a text while driving. There were over 5,474 deaths attributed to distracted driving in 2009, and young drivers are the most likely to be texting behind the wheel.
On March 8, a Pennsylvania law went into effect that prohibits texting of any sort while driving.

Before the law was even passed, however, researchers at Carnegie Mellon had probed the effects distracted driving has on the brain.

Marcel Just, a senior researcher and professor with the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon, looked at people’s brain activities while talking and driving. Just, along with colleagues Timothy Keller and Jacquelyn Cynkar, published their research in the report “A decrease in brain activation associated with driving when listening to someone speak” in the journal Brain Research in 2008.

The brain has many different parts that work simultaneously. “When you’re listening to me talk, for instance,” Just said, “there are 15 to 20 areas of your brain being lit up that are activated. It’s not one place. People say they ‘use frontal lobe’ for this. That’s really a distortion. There is no task that is done by only one part, ever.”

While these processing regions may seem like the most important parts of the brain, they only make up a relatively small part. According to Just, most of our brain is “white matter,” in which a fatty material covers a series of connectors that act as communication wires among the separate regions.

With a viewing screen directly above their eyes, the subjects in Just’s study went through a simulation in which they “drove” a vehicle by moving a hand-held mouse that was situated at their side. While participants were going through their driving course, the researchers occasionally asked them true or false questions, which the subjects would answer by pressing a button in their other hand. A brain scan determined their brain activity by measuring the amount of blood flow to certain regions in the brain.

The results pointed to a clear debilitation of driving while listening; the brain functions that controlled driving decreased by 37 percent. The studies showed that while people were driving, four main regions of the brain were active, primarily those for vision and spatial relationships.
When the drivers had to respond to questions, however, new areas of the brain associated with language processing became active at the same time.
Despite the fact that the regions are largely separate, answering the questions impaired the ability to drive, and Just thinks it is because the white matter — the tissue that connects brain areas — was heavily taxed.

“I think it’s like plugging in an iron and a hairdryer at the same time, causing brownout,” he said. “There are only certain amounts of resources to go around, and if you’re trying to draw on too much, each demand gets a budget cut. In the case of driving, that’s not a good thing to be happening in some situations.”

To combat distracted driving, Just and others believe that policies regulating cell phone use behind the wheel are important. The researcher himself has created a list of ideas, ranging from legislative mandates to applications that shut off one’s phone once it reaches a certain velocity. But he mainly stresses education.

“Nobody really wants to get into an accident and nobody wants to kill an innocent pedestrian,” Just said. “I think we horribly overestimate our cognitive abilities with respect to attention.”

“I think it’s bad,” Just continued. “I don’t think society realizes that it’s bad. It’s not muggers doing this; it’s just people like you and me and our relatives and friends that are talking on the cell phone.”

Some Carnegie Mellon students, like sophomore art major Marie Barcic, agree with the new cell phone law. “You can’t really afford to be distracted while driving,” she said. “You can just pull over if you need to talk to someone.”

Others, like sophomore chemistry major Abigail Burton, think more needs to be done. “I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I think there is a long way to go to make our roads safe from distracted driving,” she said.

Education, Just says, will make the difference. “If people were more aware of how detrimental to their driving performance cell phone usage is, I think many people, just out of a sense of responsibility, would just stop,” he said.

The service offers music, movies, books and games in one online marketplace. While obviously somewhat aping iTunes, Google Play differs in one major way from Apple’s mega-lucrative media service: Google Play stores all your media in the cloud, i.e., on the internet, so you never have to download that song or game or book or whatever you want to have. You can simply stream your whatever of choice from the web, without ever properly downloading it to your computer.

Google Play is not the first cloud-based entertainment service. Netflix and Hulu have transformed the entertainment industry with their online subscription-based video-streaming services. With iTunes Cloud, Apple let users sync media across all their newfangled gizmos. Netflix and Hulu, however, have limited themselves to movies and TV shows, and iTunes Cloud does not actually store media in the cloud. Google Play marks the first major attempt at omni-entertainment streamed strictly from the cloud.

iTunes will not be quivering in its boots quite yet. While Google Play talks big (offering “millions of songs and books” and “thousands of movies”), its selection compared to Apple’s is pretty weak, and users who want e-books or movies will more likely turn to a service built specifically for that medium. And competitors can take comfort too in the fact that Google’s ambitious side projects often fizzle. (Who remembers Google Wave?)

But then Google has never been a company one sneezes at. If Google Play gets some traction now, it could become a formative milestone in modern entertainment, the final step away from physically having one’s music toward having a license to hear it.

Last week, Facebook released a statement on their site regarding the recent trend, acknowledged by U.S. senators, of employers asking for applicants’ Facebook passwords.

“This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends,” Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan said in the statement. “It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”

Egan said employers asking for employees’ passwords is not the right thing to do and may cause potential discrimination claims against the employers themselves.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, is working on legislation that would make this practice illegal.

The issue, however, may not be widespread in Boston, as some Boston employers said they do not ask for employees’ Facebook passwords.

Lu Ann Reeb, founder and president of Boston Media Group, said social media has become the first stop after reading a resume.

“It’s public information, that’s the bottom line,” Reeb said. “Asking for a password? That’s where I say no.”

Reeb compared it to asking someone for his or her age and said that asking for a password is completely inappropriate.

“From a recruiting standpoint, employers who ask for access to private profiles are likely to deter a lot of qualified candidates from wanting to work at that organization,” said Ryan Hunt, a career adviser from CareerBuilder, “so it’s still best to learn about each candidate from interviews, resumes and references.”

But Hunt said people can learn a lot about another person through social media, which is why employers are browsing prospective employees’ profiles before or after their interview.

Hunt referenced a CareerBuilder survey that showed 45 percent of employers used social networking sites to research potential employees and another 11 percent are planning to do so.

Information technology and professional and business services were the top industries most likely to screen potential applicants through social networking sites or search engines, according to the survey.

Of those who studied potential employees online, 29 percent used Facebook, 26 percent used LinkedIn, 21 percent used MySpace, 11 percent searched blogs and 7 percent followed them on Twitter, according to the survey.

The survey showed applicants were not selected for the job due to reasons such as provocative or inappropriate content, alcohol or drug use, posting bad comments about a previous employer and lying about their qualifications.

It reported some of what employers found was actually beneficial for the applicant. Social networking revealed the candidate’s personality to the employers, displaying if they were creative or well rounded.

Michael Durand, a spokesman for NStar, a gas and electric utility company, said NStar does not use social media networks to assess potential applicants or monitor existing employees.

“Our use of social media is limited to posting information about company or industry-related topics and job openings,” Durand said.

Christina Luconi, chief people officer for Rapid7, a company that specializes in security for companies’ websites and networks, said asking for someone’s social media password is completely illegal and something Rapid7 never does.

“Everyone’s life is out there now,” Luconi said. “If there’s something fundamentally stupid out there, take it down.”

The only type of social media regulation Rapid7 enforces is publicly tweeting under the Rapid7 name and posts the company makes on its own Facebook page, Luconi said.

“Anything on behalf of the company is controlled,” Luconi said. “We expect that people will act like professionals otherwise.”

Rapid7 also often uses LinkedIn to find new people, Luconi said.

“Social media is probably 75 to 80 percent of our method to find candidates,” Luconi said.

Boston U. freshman Valerie Shahal  said she would not give employers her Facebook password and would only show them her profile.

“In a way, it makes sense because they want to see,” Shahal said. “But on the other hand we shouldn’t have other people viewing our things. I think it’s invading our privacy because we could be very good at our job and we can do stuff outside.”

Shahal said something immoral, such as drug use, should influence whether or not the applicant gets the job because it could influence his or her performance.

Yet, maybe there exists the assertion that these threats are merely political figures flexing their military muscles.

Under such politicking, one must ask, do these political figures truly reperesent their citizens’ intentions?

To place the domestic environment in perspective, U.S., Israeli and Iranian citizens almost never talk to each other. The only contact that really occurs is among our elected officials and ambassadors.

There are some Israeli citizens who disagree with their elected officials and their statements, instead seeking out the Iranian citizens directly, conveying passive messages of peace and love.

Writers, teachers and graphic designers Ronny Edri and Michal Tamir are leading a campaign on “IsraelLovesIran.com,” encouraging fellow Israelis to join in on the positive conversation surrounding the similarities between the people of Jewish and Islamic states.

The website makes a strong effort to address all “fathers, mothers, children, brothers and sisters” of Iran. The campaign’s leader, Edri, wants them to know that “war is not on his radar.” His artistic creations, containing images of Israeli citizens advocating for cooperation, certainly reiterate constructivist art, aiming to effect social change.

The campaign has received support from thousands of citizens, a majority coming from Israel.

This demonstrates another effective use of social networking to create change that could very well radiate to a global stage. Through social networking, the citizens are talking among themselves, circumventing their elected officials and delving straight into the domestic heart of each other. This certainly shows the world there is a shining niche of people who believe in peace and cooperation in stark contrast to their warmongering administrations.

As students and social network users, we too have the opportunity to effect real change in our political and domestic environment. This represents a changing world, where we can exercise our citizenship electronically from our bedroom, where we can reach out to thousands of people.

We should commend Edri for his efforts and mirror his constructivism into our own lives. We each have a unique way in which we can participate in such overarching matters. Whether you are a writer, musician, painter or whatever, change can still come from your creative mind. The Israeli citizens are certainly beginning to realize this, and are reintegrating constructivist art to convey their message.

Who knows, given the political instability in Iran, maybe this movement will prevent war with them.

By the second day of being uploaded to YouTube, Invisible Children’s 30-minute Kony 2012 video increased views by the millions and has totaled to more than 84 million as of Wednesday.

The video, released to raise awareness about child soldiers, was most watched by people under age 30 who heard about the video on the Internet, according to a Pew Research Center study.

Of the 58 percent of Millenials — those under the age of 30 — who said they heard about the video, 36 percent learned about the video through the Internet. In comparison, of the 50 percent of adults polled between the ages of 30 and 49 who said they heard about the video, 22 percent said they first learned about the video from Internet sources. Of those between 50 and 64, 12 percent first heard about the video through the Internet and of those 65 and older, only five percent first heard about the video through the Internet.

“Kony 2012 is a great case study of generational differences,” said Morley Winograd, a senior fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at U. Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. “The Millennial generation is a group-oriented generation. They share things widely and enjoy doing so.”

The speed and low cost for consumers makes online media popular among Millenials, Winograd said.

Andrea Edoria, a USC sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism, said she uses the Internet every day as her primary news source.

“I don’t have a TV so I go on the Internet to get my news,” Edoria said. “Mostly, I’ll look at news networks like CNN, but also Twitter and Facebook.”

Stacy Huang, a USC sophomore majoring in psychology, said she also gets the majority of her news online.

“It’s easier to access than a newspaper,” Huang said. “Rather than wait for news, it comes right to me.”

Winograd said those who were born in the 50s, 60s and 70s have different values than millenials.

“Generation X and the baby boomer generation were raised very different,” Winograd said. “Generation X was raised with a loose style of parenting, and thus developed a ‘fend for themselves’ mentality, while boomers focused on personal values as they were maturing.”

This means those who were skeptical of the video at first were older. Baby boomers prefer to trust established sources and Generation X does not trust the group movements.

“You have Boomers saying, ‘No, no leave this to the experts already at work,’” Winograd said. “Then you have Generation X at the forefront of the pushback [against Kony 2012] skeptical of group activities and saying, ‘Where is my money going?’”

The Pew poll supports this, as it found two-thirds of the initial Twitter conversation supported the video against Kony. Winograd said the data shows how the Millennial generation, most active on Twitter, was quick to embrace the movement and offered the least skepticism toward it.

Faith Jessie, a USC sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism, chose to share the Kony 2012 link after watching the video and conducting her own research.

“I found out, like anyone else, on Facebook,” Jessie said. “The majority, though, shared the Kony 2012 video and went about their day,” Jessie said.

The skepticism of older generations is merited, Winograd said, because social media sacrifices fact-checking and editing in exchange for speech and instant access.

“There is a great danger that people will believe something is true because everyone else is sharing it,” Winograd said. “It creates an environment where conformity is cultivated as opposed to skepticism.”

Though the factuality of some information portrayed in Kony 2012 is hard to discern, the video raises awareness, Jessie said.

“Although [Kony 2012] isn’t 100 percent black and white, it still gave millions of people awareness on an issue they hadn’t heard about,” Jessie said.

So what’s all the hype? The main appeal is the price: the Model A Raspberry Pi is only $25 and the Model B is $35.

The Model A Raspberry Pi packs a 700 megahertz processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, a USB port, an SD card reader and an HDMI port. The $35 Model B also comes equipped with an Ethernet port for a wired Internet connection and an additional USB port. All this is amazingly crammed into a credit card sized computer, which consumers then connect to a separately-purchased monitor.

Although it certainly has mass appeal, the computer wasn’t designed for the general public. Instead, co-founder Robert Mullins told CNN “the primary goal was to build a low cost computer that every child could own, and one where programming was the natural thing to do with it.”

The Raspberry Pi Foundation, the non-profit charity which created the Raspberry Pi computer, aims to help children who are unable to afford regularly priced computers to obtain one. The founders hope increased access to technology will help improve young children’s education, specifically in the fields of computer science and programming.

Eben Upton, a former computer science prof. at St. John’s College of Cambridge University, started the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2006. Upton was disappointed at the declining number of computer science applicants for his department. He said young adults know how to use computers, but often do not know how they work.

According to the foundation’s website, the founders also said they noticed the same problem.

“… [C]omputers had become so expensive and arcane that programming experimentation on them had to be forbidden by parents,” they said.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s founders said they hope the inexpensive nature of the computer will allow children the freedom to experiment with the technology.

To have the price so low, the designers had to make a few compromises. There is no data storage included, for example. The operating system has to be saved on an SD card, or on an external USB hard drive. Also, the operating system is a free version of Linux, not the more popular Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X.

These compromises, however, have not prevented consumers from recognizing the Raspberry Pi as an incredible device. The inclusion of an HDMI port, an RCA video port and an audio jack means buyers can hook it up to a monitor or TV and stream HD video and music.

The Linux operating system also supports many of the same functions which Windows or Mac OS X provide. Users can run word processing applications, surf the Internet or play 3D games.

Many of the current buyers are technology enthusiasts, but the foundation hopes the computer will soon reach children, improving their intellectual engagement with this cutting-edge technology.

I used to spend hours pecking furiously at the keyboard, chimes ringing back and forth as hours raced by while I communicated with my friends in an amazing new way — over the Internet.

AOL Instant Messenger became a gateway for a new enterprise of communication.

It was texting before texting. It was social networking before social networking. It was revolutionary for its time.

Last week, The New York Times reported AOL would be closing the doors to its West Coast offices, notifying roughly 40 employees they would be out of a job by the end of the month.

These 40 employees worked on our beloved AIM.
More employees will be cut over the coming weeks, unnamed executives told The New York Times.

While this news isn’t exactly surprising, it still hurts to know something I used so often as a wee lad will cease to exist in the upcoming months.

Although the firing of these employees won’t end AIM immediately, it does usher the end of updates and patches, which will eventually lead to the demise of the messaging application.

While some may scoff at my dismay for the termination of the once-great instant messenger, if you think about it, AIM influenced much of the way we use the Internet today.

Back before texting and smartphones ruled the world, online instant messengers were the only way to quickly communicate with another person beside picking up the phone.

AIM users could also customize their font size, color and background, giving them the first opportunity to have their own online persona. People were finally able to freely express who they were on the Internet.

AIM also led to sites like My Buddy Profile, where users were able to customize a profile with activities, likes/dislikes, quotes and anything else they wanted people to check out.
Sound familiar?

I’m not saying Mark Zuckerberg got the idea to create Facebook directly from AOL, but shortly after My Buddy Profile arose, Friendster became big. After Friendster there was MySpace.

And we all know that after MySpace died, Facebook took over our lives.

Unfortunately for AOL, AIM wasn’t able to evolve with the times and quickly became irrelevant. AIM has become nothing but a memory to former users.

Texting was the leading cause of the downfall. Why sit on a computer all day waiting for someone to sign on when a quick text could do the same thing?

Also, other services such as Facebook chat and Gchat over Google’s Gmail provided the same type of service to a much broader band of users.

Before it goes away forever, I encourage everyone to sign into your AIM profile one last time. See if you can remember who all those crazy screennames belonged to and all the fun times you had chatting with them in 24-point Comic Sans font.

Hell, if someone is actually online, send them an IM and see what happens.

While certainly outdated in this day and age, it’s sad to see something once so popular and widely used become discarded as nothing but a piece of technological history.

As you sign onto Facebook or send someone a text message, remember that none of this would be possible without the existence of AOL Instant Messenger.
Rest in Peace, AIM.

The goal of Innovega is to find a way to project complex displays, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, to someone’s eyes without the need to wear bulky headgear such as helmets. This would provide greater convenience and functionality for consumers of many different products, such as cell phones and games. Researchers claim that the displays projected on the lenses have a screen size equal to that of a 240-inch television when viewed from 10 feet away. Also, the contact lenses project a slightly different picture to each eye, which creates the illusion of 3D.

These displays would have a variety of different purposes. Mainly, they could be used in conjunction with mobile devices to give users a better look at the screen. Other applications include watching videos, playing games and creating augmented reality displays, which allow users to view computer-generated images overlaid over the real world.

Innovega researchers also hope that their device will be able to be used by the military. A few specific uses for the contact lenses in a military environment are to assist soldiers who pilot the drones looking for bombs, to help medics who need to get information about injured soldiers quickly and to aid soldiers on the ground that need unobstructed vision but also data and maps of the area.

Medically, these contact lenses could assist people with vision problems such as macular degeneration, which is a disease that compromises the retina’s ability to pick up on details. This disease affects about 10 million people in the United States.

Other researchers have also looked into contact lenses with displays. Scientists at U. Washington conducted research about putting virtual displays into contact lenses back in 2008, but could only manage to project one or two pixels and only for a short amount of time. However, they took a different approach, encapsulating LEDs inside the lens.

Innovega’s main target audience is the 100 million people who already wear contact lenses, particularly those between the ages of 18 and 34. Eventually, the designers hope that users can simply change prescriptions to Innovega’s contact lenses.

However, for those who don’t want to worry about inserting and removing contact lenses every day, researchers also plan to develop lenses that could be directly implanted into customers’ eyes. This would be performed similarly to a cataract operation, where part of the patient’s own lens is replaced with the contact lens. In addition to providing customers with all the displays that would be available on the contact lens, it would also improve the patient’s vision. This process would be useful for the vision-impaired and also for soldiers, who don’t want to have to worry about contact lenses.

The company exhibited the lenses in January at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Los Vegas. Innovega plans to put out the first prototypes of their devices throughout 2012 and 2013. This year, they are also planning to get FDA approval to manufacture the lenses commercially. The first release of the lenses will most likely be in 2014 to the defense community and those with vision problems. Eventually, in 2014 and 2015 Innovega wants to release the lenses to the general public, hopefully after reaching deals with other companies, such as gaming companies.

It’s odd you’d have heard them at all, for each of these terms originated in print and for print’s sake.

In fact, it makes almost no logical sense that we should actually pronounce any of these terms aloud, for each of them was invented to save energy for our fingers rather than our tongues.

But, as the overwhelming majority of English communication takes place in type, the language’s evolution is occurring at increasingly rapid rates. And it didn’t start with the computer or the cell phone.

Languages are like species: They adapt to their environments, consume one another and, in time, evolve.

So we must consider the environment in which the language resides: texts, tweets, websites, etc. In the case of progressing technology, it’s a matter of form meeting function.

As new technology arises, we need words to describe the previously unthinkable or unknown. An interesting application of this would be the origin of the word “cliché.”

A French term, the word originated with the use of the printing press. Typically, words existed on printing stamps and would be arranged to print the text of a page.

However, certain phrases would be so common that one could simply make a plate with the series of words rather than rearranging the words repeatedly.

These common terms came to be known as “clichés,” named after the sound of the press as it stamped the phrase.

In the case of texting, we notice the same progressions taking place today more rapidly than ever before.

Consider the jump from texting on a phone with number pads rather than a QWERTY keyboard on a touchscreen.

Texts were quick, shorthand messages rampant with abbreviations due to the inefficiency of typing on keypads. This difficulty gave rise to most of the cell-phone slang that exists today, like the “lol’s” and “jk’s.”

With touchscreens and QWERTY keyboards, most of these are no longer necessary, and so the evolution of language continues.

What bothers me are the complaints regarding this progression.

I still recall high school English teachers lamenting the use of “impact” or “gift” as verbs. “Text” has met the same end.

But complaining about the rapid change of language is akin to every generation of adults complaining about the youth these days. When they complain about the unruliness and lack of manners, what they’re really noting is their disconnect from a changing culture.

I find the evolution beautiful. It’s a sign of our progress as a species and world culture.

Just like biological evolution, we can count on the most efficient words and phrases to win out.

For instance, we use German words like “dopplegänger” and “poltergeist” because English lacked terms to describe these concepts.

Fortunately for us, English dominates the electronic sphere. While we may complain about the use of terms like “noob” or “pwn,” non-English speakers have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of all Internet content is in English.

So, as technology advances, odds are all of the new language required to describe it will be in English, and even more interestingly, we can use technology as a barometer for how the evolution will take place.

Generally speaking, Moore’s Law predicts technology will double in efficiency every two years, marking an exponential increase.

Today’s generation of texters, posters and tweeters is only the beginning.

Globalization, as has been said time and again, is inevitable, and undoubtedly a world language is on the way. What we may not have considered is the fact that this world language will be codified on the Internet.

So next time someone criticizes Internet lingo as detrimental to the English language, know that linguistic evolution is inevitable.

We should embrace it as such.

Fortunately, I don’t fit into any of the categories of aforementioned people, but I do follow my fair share of Nevada athletes, just to get their thoughts on random topics and maybe see some craziness — and Saturday, I finally saw a glimpse of it.

After the Wolf Pack men’s basketball team lost in Friday’s second round of the Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament, Nevada hoopers tweeted messages saying they were disappointed, but still proud of their season. Senior forward Olek Czyz tweeted, “There is nothing worse than feeling that you (came) up short of your ultimate goal…,” which about summed up the Wolf Pack’s feelings.

But junior guard Malik Story had a different gripe. He tweeted, “The threats I got on my Twitter needs to stop for real I don’t play that.” Junior guard Keith Fuetsch tweeted, “La tech played out of their mind give them credit. But beyond ball, people who threaten players over a game need to get a life.”

Agreed.

I couldn’t believe people were tweeting players, telling them that they lost a bet because of Nevada’s loss. I’m unsure of what other messages Nevada’s ballers got, but even the aforementioned message was way over the line.

To be honest, It took a lot for me not to reply to the perpetrator in question and tell him to go jump on something sharp.

Critiquing athletes over poor choices on the court/field is one thing, but threatening them is utterly despicable.

Simply because athletes are placed in the public spotlight does not open them up to endure unjustified criticisms. It’s a barrier that’s crossed many times in sports and it’s one I hate the most.

The next time someone wants to throw personal attacks and threats at a public figure, do us a favor and don’t.

In the words of Facebook, “Your timeline is your collection of the photos, stories and experiences that tell your story” and “when you upgrade your profile to timeline, you’ll find all of the information from your old profile along your timeline.”

That’s right, that means your status update in 2008 about the massive diarrhea that you hoped everyone had forgotten about by now, can be revisited by anyone who is curious enough to go digging through an archive of old posts on your Facebook page.

To describe it to anyone who doesn’t understand what a Facebook timeline is, there’s literally a line that runs down your page with clickable and scrollable links to days, months, years, which will take you to all the information that person posted on that day, month or year.

Before you stop reading this article to log onto Facebook and attempt to delete those age-old photos of you in a thong at 13, you should know that Facebook has given people some time to transition.

“Once you get timeline, you have seven days to preview what’s there before anyone else sees it. You can hide any story from your timeline, star the stories you want to highlight and even add life events to earlier dates along your timeline.”

Cal State Long Beach students have mixed feelings about the big change on Facebook.

Senior communication major Nicole Richardson said she prefers the old format.

“I think it gives people a chance to stalk [others] because you can go back to see what people have posted,” said Richardson. “I don’t want people to go back and look at my stuff, not that I have anything on there.”

Richardson’s concern for privacy constantly came up in CSULB student’s reactions to the Facebook change, but some students said they just don’t care either way.

Junior film major Amberlyn Storey said she feels indifferent about the change. On the other hand, she said that it makes Facebook more confusing for others.

“I think for an older person, it’s complicated. It already was complicated, now it’s really complicated,” Storey said.

She said older students like herself who aren’t as tech savvy, might find it a little more difficult to adjust to the new settings.

Storey is correct. It surely is an adjustment for anyone. It personally took me a week to adjust to all its functions.

It pretty much does everything your old Facebook does. However, it just makes it easier for friends and stalkers to access older posted information of yours. In other words, it’s fun, fun, fun!

What do you think about the new feature? Are you concerned about your privacy? Have you stalked anyone lately?

Anything that happened then has simply been that way forever. Clint Eastwood became a surly old man in “Unforgiven,” Banksy became the lovable rascal of the art world and — in possibly the most important development in college students’ consciousness — the first text message-capable cell phone was released.

The Nokia 1011 was a blocky model almost eight inches tall, weighing more than a pound and capable of holding up to 99 phone book entries. Mobile phone technology has come a long way since then, and as it has evolved, so has the generation that grew up with it.

Chair of the Louisiana State U. Department of Sociology Wesley Shrum said the generation that grew up with text messaging has been integral in making it relevant.

“Text messaging can only be important as it becomes a possibility for almost all students,” he said.

In 2011, 72 percent of cell-phone users in the United States paid for text packages, amounting to 203 million people, according to a Neustar survey. These people sent an average of 2.5 billion messages every day, according to the same survey.

Shrum said people have accepted texting as part of their social lives and organically created new social rules related to it, which explains why texting in public or in company has become a norm rather than a taboo.

“People are approaching a common understanding of what is rude,” he said.

According to Shrum, text messaging has not fundamentally changed the way people form relationships, but instead provided different methods for people to do so.

“It doesn’t improve relationships or make them worse. It provides new opportunities for relationships,” he said.

But not everyone agrees that text messaging is so benign. Lance Porter, the head of LSU’s Digital Media Initiative and a professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication, said text messaging and online communications have been detrimental to the modern generation’s face-to-face social skills.

“You can’t get full meaning or context from a text message,” Porter said. “People are more comfortable with them because they take less time and less attention than a conversation.”

Porter said this reluctance to speak in person is stunting the personal growth of the Millennials, the generation born from the mid-1980s up to 2000.

“Millennials don’t like face-to-face conflict. You probably have friends that have broken up through a text message,” he said.

Most students agree that this is the largest problem with texting, and they say moderation is the best policy.

“I don’t really like texting now,” said Nicki Klimacek, a communication disorders sophomore at LSU. “It makes personal relationships harder to maintain, and being older, relationships are more important. It’s kind of a high school thing.”

But while they agree texting can cause problems, it can be hard for students to ignore the text message’s convenience.

“I used to always talk on the phone. I would call my mom on the phone, but now I text her. It’s 50-50; it has its advantages and disadvantages,” said Bruce Jackson, an LSU marketing freshman.

Porter also said text messaging and social media have made it more difficult for young people to focus on single tasks.

“We’re a society of multi-tasking,” Porter said. “The problem is, our brains can’t multi-task.”

Porter said he has seen this effect on students firsthand as a professor, and it has affected their performance in academics.

Shrum said students will decide if they should be productive in class regardless of their ability to text.

“I can sit in a lecture and not pay attention just as well with or without a mobile phone,” he said.

Hopefully you already expect your prospective employers, relationship partners and random stalkers to be looking you up on Facebook. It is 2012 after all.

What may surprise you is that some bright minds at Northern Illinois U. can tell how good a worker you are after five minutes of staring at your timeline. The study found that people’s Facebook profiles do seem to reflect their true personality — whether they like it or not. As such, researchers were able to accurately predict the worker’s scores on the “Big Five” personality traits.

For those of you outside the social sciences, the “Big Five” are five personality traits that vary along a continuum. These traits are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

When I first read this study, my research methods class started coming back to me. I wanted to find all the things wrong with the study so I could simply dismiss it. While I did find a few methodological missteps, I decided to try it out for myself.

The study implies that anyone could grade a Facebook profile given the proper criteria. So I went ahead and gave my own Facebook profile a grade in each of the “Big Five” traits. I then checked those scores against a previous “Big Five” inventory I happened to have taken (I am a psychology major after all). The results were rather surprising. While my test was amateur at best, it showed that it is possible to obtain an accurate reading from a Facebook profile, which begs the question — should employers be doing the exact same thing?

My first reaction is “why not?” If you publish things on the Internet, you should resign yourself to the fact that none of it is private and there is nothing you can do about it. Besides, it is not really necessary to post your most recent drinking binge for everyone and their mothers to see — literally.

But this study does not simply deal with embarrassing posts, it also uses your common every day postings. This is where things get murky and, in my opinion, a bit far-fetched. Sure, the person posting sappy and depressing statuses every hour on the hour may actually be a manic-depressive — or they could have just watched the latest episode of “The Walking Dead.”

The issue here is whether or not you believe that employers and the like should have the right to view your “emotional property.” These days it seems like everything is becoming protected under some act or another (see: your genetic information). If this practice starts growing, chances are you may be lobbying for the de facto privacy of your timeline.

In the meantime, consider your Facebook to be just another form of your resume. Employers will look at it and they can tell if you lied. And no, they will not be impressed that you shared a “KONY 2012” video.

I didn’t think too much of it at first; I kind of just assumed it was the latest trend in Facebook styling (similar to Picnik albums and cover photos). I realized soon enough that the two-part names were to protect people’s pages from future employers.

Facebook has really evolved to be, in many cases, a resume for our personal life (What are your interests? Favorite movies? Are you in a relationship? Are you gay?), and companies have started taking advantage of that by digging around for all of the above. (Well maybe they don’t care about your favorite movies.) Any social networking site seems to be fair game when employers are looking for dirt. That includes Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, MySpace, LiveJournal — the list could go on.

We’ve long understood that we should keep our social networking profiles under wraps or risk some uncomfortable conversations during interviews (What is Unofficial? And why do you look like that?).

You would think it would be enough keeping a limited or private profile.

But guess what? Employers may just ask you to log in to your Facebook during your interview.

What then? You thought you were being clever by being unsearchable or hiding all your photos, but you can’t hide from your own home page.

Just over a year ago, people applying to jobs at the Maryland Department of Corrections were asked for their log in information prior to the interview. After the American Civil Liberties Union got involved, that was quickly stopped.

Still, employers may not require you to log in, but they can ask you if you would do it voluntarily. Choosing not to might reflect poorly on you. Melissa Coretz Goemann of the ACLU says that virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview.

The fact they can coerce you into showing your profile is a direct invasion of privacy.

Goemann said browsing someone’s Facebook could be comparable to reading their diary. It’s sort of like rummaging through their personal belongings. Washington, D.C., lawyer Bradley Shear, who practices in social media law, likens it to spying on people.

People are smart enough to keep their Facebook profiles private especially prior to job interviews. Is ambushing interviewees by asking them to show their news feed and recently tagged photos really a good way to get at their character?

Moreover, do we really want to be working for companies that are that concerned with our private lives? If they are willing to scrutinize your Facebook profile, what kind of privacy policy might they have if you get the job?

Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are all mediums of social networking, and they’re largely used in our own personal context and are not meant to be shared with our employers.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the information we share through these sites makes us unfit for the job.

Also, our Facebook isn’t always an accurate reflection of who we are or what we like.

For some people, a lot of the information on their Facebook is dated. For example, you might still be in groups like “Pokemon, gotta catch ‘em all!” Not saying you shouldn’t be proud of a Pokemon interest even in college, but it might not be a group you want to be associated with anymore..

There are also pages on Facebook someone might “like” on a conditional basis, maybe to enter into a free sweepstakes or in support of a friend. That might not mean they actually like those things, but employers might think they do.

Employers want to make sure that someone is the right candidate in most situations, but there’s a fine line between assessing someone’s credentials and clicking through their mobile uploads album while they’re sitting right next to you.

Students, like most young adults, are obsessed with their computers. In a HISP 500: ‘Advanced Spanish I’ class discussion, the professor asked what one item besides people or pets the class would rescue in a fire. The class unanimously agreed on the computer. Computers capsulate physical aspects of life into an abstract database: practical documents, sentimental pictures and convenient music. They transform physical items into an omnipresent cloud of information easily accessible on a single screen. The myriad real objects that depict what is most important to us has been replaced by a single unit. By saving their computers from the fire, students are salvaging not only a single piece of technology, but also all the practicalities and emotions that are conceptually stored inside.

Having lost my computer to the fire of hard-drive failure, I understand the dominant power computers have on our lives. Students ought to depend less on their computers to break from an imaginary cloud and return to what’s most important: personal interaction. Computers have become so multi-dimensional that they are overbearing. Not only are they physically everywhere, but they are also viewed as essential for communication, music, pictures and schoolwork. Computers simply do too much. It’s too much of a good thing, a sort of addiction that begins to disrupt the values that are integral to a society, such as physical relationships and diversification. While computers are very practical, losing one makes one less inclined to rely on them. Losing a single item should not be so costly. Instead, there should be many objects and ideas that represent a person’s identity and what they deem important.

Furthermore, we utilize our computers for hours each day. Clearly, this takes a toll on social interactions. We don’t have conversations with our roommates or friends anymore without someone browsing the computer ­— or phone, for that matter — whether it be skimming Facebook or watching videos on YouTube. Distractions abound in class as soon as we open Internet browsers or start to chat with other friends who are online. We check our emails and Facebooks ungodly amounts every day, feeling the urge for updates on all events that are posted via the computer.

The most popular hard drive back-up program, Time Machine, is able to replicate exact data — even the desktop background — onto a new computer screen. In one sense, it is extraordinarily useful to regain everything from a computer that has experienced hard drive failure. The pain of randomly losing work is something we can only learn from experience. But this experience also enables us to go through a different sort of time machine, one that delves much further into the past. During this time machine-like movement, we can realize the totality of our overuse of computers today. There are indeed many practical uses for the computer, and it is a modern necessity at Brown. While it’s important to back up information regularly, it is likewise significant to evaluate why broken computers are such a detrimental loss in the first place. Computers should be used in moderation. They should not be a central component of the Brown experience and should never interrupt a daily routine. They ought to be utilized for work and communication but not distract from genuine productivity and interaction. Whether it’s bringing a notebook to class, maybe even writing a paper by hand or even just avoiding using Facebook for a day, being mindful of computer usage enables Brown students to enjoy the college experience as it should be, without the interruption of technology.

The “Connecting Generations” study, which surveyed participants ranging in age from 13 to 75, found 83 percent of all participants consider going online to be a “helpful form of communication among family members.”

In addition, the majority of respondents think computers increase good communication with family members living far away, as 70 percent of teens and 63 percent of adults 39 and older believe it improves the quantity of communication. Sixty-seven percent of teens and 57 percent of adults 39 and older believe it improves the quality of that communication.

That generation gap isn’t just for parents and children. Thirty percent of grandparents found connecting online has helped them better understand their grandchildren, while 29 percent of the grandkids said the same about their relatives.

Students traveling from different cities or states to come to Marquette U. often use social media websites and online communication to connect with friends and family back home.

Jeffrey Djoum, a Marquette sophomore, uses Skype, email and Facebook to connect with friends and family in Chicago.

“I chat with friends on Facebook often and keep everyone informed on my latest antics through Twitter,” Djoum said. “I still have my mom restricted on Facebook, but it’s nice to see her keeping up with the young people.”

Social media has become increasingly popular at Marquette, whose students use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and most recently Pinterest to connect with students and other Marquette community members. Tim Cigelske, senior communication specialist in the Office of Marketing and Communication and one of the key people behind the university’s social media presence, said the campus has Facebook groups for incoming freshmen, alumni and parents.

“Social media allows us to reach out to the community wherever they are, so they can get the support they need,” Cigelske said.

Scott D’Urso, an associate professor in the MU College of Communication, thinks this newest study is testament to the power of social media and online communication.

“Looking at the past 20 years of computing, you’re seeing a larger number of older adults buying computers to connect with their children and grandchildren,” D’Urso said.

He specifically cited the development of video communication in keeping in touch with family.

“Video conferencing tools are helping online communication become more real and rich,” D’Urso said. “When you’re using video chat, it’s nice to be able to see the nonverbal cues and facial expressions of family and friends you don’t see as frequently.”

While Cigelske did not find the research findings surprising, he thinks other social media users will.

“I think a lot of Twitter users won’t believe it,” he said. “The median age of Twitter users is 35 years old, so the assumption is a lot of teens and young adults use the site, but in reality, the ages of Twitter users vary a lot.”

The university’s Twitter account, which boasts more than 14,000 followers, is followed by current students, alumni, faculty and parents.

“We see a broad range of followers of all different ages,” Cigelske said. “I have a lot of alums tell me they love following the university’s Twitter because it keeps them involved in what is going around of campus without having to wait around for the newsletter.”

I once was told you could block certain tweeters from your feed by using the app Echofon. This could be useful if you felt obliged to follow certain people like your mom, I thought. But this is where Twitter begins to blur the line that separates itself from Facebook.

Example: it would be rude to de-friend your long-lost best friend from elementary school on Facebook, but do you really want to see her edited photos from Picnik and Bruno Mars status updates? No, so you choose to “hide” her. Would you do the same with Twitter? I hope you wouldn’t come close to clicking the follow button because Twitter is everything Facebook is not.

Twitter is fast, entertaining and relevant when used properly. Almost everyone has a Twitter account, but not everyone knows how to use it. I’m looking at you, girl who tweets pictures of every bouquet of flowers she ever receives. So here are some scenarios of big ole don’ts of Twitter.

1. You’re out at the bars with 12 of your closest girlfriends, and one of them says some super funny inside joke, so you decide to tweet it and tag all the girls in it too! No one cares. Tweet things that might bring a little smile or laugh along to those who follow you instead. Twitter is a great reminder of how funny you can be about one-tenth of the time.

2. You’re at the park with your boy, and you really want to describe how perfect you feel right now. You might want to hash tag almost every emotion you’re feeling, like #wearecute, #heissosweet, #prettysunnyday and #iactuallydontreallylikebeingoutside. I warn you though, don’t do this. Unnecessary hashtags become annoying and could cost you a scroll-over.

3. You’re at a trendy coffee shop and your barista crafts you a tiny heart out of whipped cream atop your mocha. You then take a picture, Instagram it, post it to Twitter, Facebook and your blog. You might think about doing this several times a day, you over-tweeter. I don’t think I have to explain why this might be annoying.

All joking aside, just create your own personal Twitter brand and go with it. I tend to use no capital letters, improper grammar and maybe a little profanity here and there, but so what?

Just please don’t be like my sister and un-follow me; I need this.

The next time you’re slinging angry birds across the glass expanse of your iPhone screen, think about the dead laborers caught in the fray during manufacturing. Apple knows their products are made on the backs of underpaid, sometimes underage laborers working in unsafe conditions; their attempts at fixing these crimes against humanity are weak. Until they do more than sending report-writing auditors overseas, we have to stop buying Apple products.

The first world seems to be divided into two parts: the Apple users, and everybody else.

Even those who swear by Android might have an errant iPad lying around. Hell, I have an old iPod nano rotting in a drawer somewhere. Apple products have gained cultural importance in our modern web-crazed society, but the production of such convenient gadgets comes at a grave human price.

Recent events have unearthed unethical labor practices and safety hazards in Apple’s Chinese factories that have resulted in injury and death, and we’ve all got blood on our hands. No matter how nifty it’d be to have Apple’s latest and greatest gadget at the tips of your oh-so-tech-savvy fingers, its novelty pales in comparison to the anguish of underpaid, unprotected and, at times, underage laborers.

The Apple supplier code of conduct states their aim to be “to provide safe and healthy working conditions, to use fair hiring practices.” Yet according to The New York Times, Apple has reported that more than half of their suppliers have violated at least one aspect of the code of conduct every year since 2007. This included unpaid overtime, use of underage and even involuntary laborers, and facilities missing safety equipment.

The controversy peaked when two facilities experienced fatal explosions that killed four and injured 77.  Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that makes Apple products, has been responsible for making workers clean iPads with the paralyzing and nerve-damaging chemical n-hexane injuring 137 in 2010. So while you whittle your thumbs on the iPhone’s touch-response surfaces, the fingers of the people who wipe that screen clean could be rendered forever immobile for the sake of your fleeting entertainment.

In response to various criticisms, Apple has simultaneously joined and hired the Fair Labor Association to independently audit Apple facilities. But the move is all for show. Since Apple now writes the FLA paychecks, its ability to fairly evaluate its new benefactor is questionable at best. Sure enough, the FLA president recently assured Apple’s facilities in China were “first-class” and “above average of the norm” during their most recent inspection beginning Feb. 13.

So much for independence.

Despite the news, Apple has remained a monstrously successful company. Apple products are still wildly popular, while Chinese workers toil for unfair wages and in hazardous environments. And while San Francisco is famous for its liberal views, the popularity of the products counteracts its ethically-conscious stance.

It’s like listing yourself as a Christian on your Facebook profile, while burning bibles and eating babies in the backyard. The San Francisco Bay Area alone houses 10 of the chain stores. If we city dwellers want to be consistent in our views, we should refrain from buying more Apple products until its labor practices are fairly evaluated by truly independent auditors, and refined.

Apple can afford to spend the big bucks to ensure fair labor. In its last 14-week quarter, the company pocketed $13.06 billion in net profits. An entity whose signature products have undergone more than 100 percent unit growth can stand to spend a little more to pay additional workers to regularly check its Chinese facilities have proper safety equipment, and to hire administrators to monitor the fair payment of workers.

Apple is not the only tech giant using unethical practices. Even in separate industries like the food industry or the textile industry, the human injustices are insurmountable. Even other tech companies like Dell and HP are Foxconn clients.

So while buying other brand name products might not be as effective as steering clear of the technology sector altogether, doing so might send a message to the iPhone giant that their leadership can change the world. As the leader of the tech world and one of the most successful tech ventures in the world today, Apple has the financial advantage and cultural clout to become an effective global leader in ethical manufacturing.

So when Apple launches their new mystery product Wednesday, do not be one of those soulless drones drooling in front of your web browsers, oogling the next little widget they’ve cooked up. Remember your brethren overseas, breathing poisonous fumes, fearing disaster and risking their well-being and their lives for your knick knack. Send Apple a message by not taking a bite.

The arrests were made possible by the work of one of Anonymous’ most prominent figures, Hector Xavier Monsegur, who was known under the alias “Sabu” and was the leader of LulzSec. Monsegur had been working as an informant for the FBI since last August, when he pleaded guilty to 12 hacking-related charges. While cooperating with the FBI, Monsegur continued to pretend to act as a cooperative member of Anonymous, tweeting on Monday, “The federal government is run by a bunch of f—ing cowards. Don’t give in to these people. Fight back. Stay strong.”

While the arrest of LulzSec members does not mean the end of Anonymous, which is a decentralized collective with hundreds possibly thousands of members, it does sow seeds of distrust in the movement.

Some see this as a bad thing, glorifying hacktivists like members of Anonymous and LulzSec as freedom fighters, noble vigilantes or modern-day Robin Hoods. The truth, though, is that these groups are little more than hotbeds of cyber terrorism and need to be targeted as such.

It is true that, as vigilantes, some members of Anonymous do mean well. Late last year, members targeted child pornography websites and visitors. Anonymous also undertook an unsuccessful scheme to publish the names of members of a violent Mexican drug cartel. However, any vigilante justice the group executes is completely overshadowed by its delusional self-righteousness.

The website of Anonymous Analytics, an Anonymous offshoot claiming to be devoted to exposing corrupt companies, notes that Anonymous as a whole is “focused on promoting access to information, free speech, and transparency.” But the collective’s actions speak louder than words.

Anonymous believes not only that its views are correct, but also that all other views should not have a voice at all. What other reason could there be for justifying the complete takedown of the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America?

The behavior of LulzSec was similarly malicious. Members previously targeted and took down the website of PBS. PBS’s crime? Unfavorable coverage of Anonymous ally WikiLeaks. If hacktivist groups actually cared about free speech, they wouldn’t try to promote themselves by silencing their opposition.

Not only do companies and agencies become the targets of Anonymous, but anyone using their services becomes a target as well. Anonymous recently released hundreds of thousands of email addresses and thousands of credit card numbers from customers of private intelligence firm Stratfor. Users of something as mundane as the website of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system found their personal information published online last year thanks to Anonymous. The BART had decided to temporarily shut down cell phone service in its facilities to prevent a protest, an action worthy of activism in itself. But Anonymous’ behavior is not activism: It’s misguided and harmful extremism.

Apple is countering by releasing OS X Mountain Lion later this year, around the same time Windows 8 will be officially released. Since Apple is releasing this operating system about a year after its previous Lion OS, departing from its typical biannual release schedule, Microsoft’s chief rival is headed into the fight for operating system supremacy in 2012. Who will win?

I downloaded and tried Windows 8 briefly. The Start menu is significantly different from its predecessors, which is immediately apparent once the operating system is booted.

After login, instead of the typical desktop, you’ll see a menu with buttons for Internet Explorer, mail, weather, video, calendar, music, programs and others, in addition to cutting straight to the desktop if desired. If you have more buttons than can fit on one screen, which is likely once you start to install programs on Windows 8, you’ll need to scroll horizontally to see the rest of them.

For a desktop with a track wheel mouse, you won’t be able to use the wheel to scroll. Instead, the easiest way is to use the arrow keys or cursor.

Once to the desktop, it resembles Windows 7 in everything except for the Start menu, which has been removed. Microsoft attributes this to reduced usage of the menu in recent years, and wants to update what’s been around since Windows 95 for the mobile-focused world of the 21st century.

Still, it’ll take a bit of getting used to for anyone who has been using Windows within the past 20 years.

The new Start menu also brings its troubles. Microsoft is introducing “hot corners” for desktop users, providing a button to get back to the main Metro interface by hovering the mouse over the bottom-left corner of the screen where the Start button traditionally is and access the search and settings areas by hovering over the right-hand side of the screen. This is not apparent at first glance like a start button is, and will likely frustrate new Windows 8 users initially.

Plus, the main Start menu is obviously designed for mobile phones and tablets, and not typical PCs. Microsoft departed from Apple on this point, asserting that the same operating system can be used for both mobile and desktop applications. Apple has its OS X for the desktop (MacBook, iMac, Mac Pro, Mac mini) and iOS for mobile (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch).

Apple is keeping the two separate, which I believe will help them in continuing to take market share from Windows.

Apple is wise to release Mountain Lion early, since it will allow Apple to counter Windows 8 with additional mobile-inspired features from its iOS without overwhelming desktop users with an unexpected interface.

While Mountain Lion is still in developer beta, meaning it costs $99 for software developers to buy it and make their software work on it before it’s released to the public, I tried one of the new pieces of software that will be rolled out with it: Messages.

Messages is a program that allows one to send iMessages, texts between Apple devices, from a Mac. This will make frequent texting easier, since one will be able to use a standard keyboard while texting.

I believe Apple will be able to successfully integrate their mobile innovations from iOS into the Mac while Microsoft will not be able to do the same with Windows 8.

If I’m correct, the MacBook that has become ubiquitous at the university will have the same thing happen to it throughout the computing world.

Since Tumblr’s launch five years ago, it has encouraged users from all walks of life to share their stories. This freedom, however, has allowed several blogs to emphasize negative material that can be detrimental to readers’ perceptions and self-esteem. The trending topic of “thinspiration” has grown increasingly popular on Tumblr.

On thinspiration blogs, users glorify dangerously thin girls, share their experiences with eating disorders and confess their harmful habits.

The proposed plan of action is to monitor tags and prohibit posts that encourage self-mutilation, anorexia, bulimia and suicidal thoughts and to provide bloggers with links to hotlines or treatment websites.

By putting forth this policy, Tumblr has made a bold and necessary move.

Any frequent user of Tumblr has encountered thinspiration posts in some form or another. As a Tumblr user, I at times feel barraged with images of “ideal” women.

These types of blogs dominate fashion, photography and beauty threads; often, Tumblr seems like a community centered on pictures of pretty people that reinforce damaging notions of perfectionism.

Such an overbearing presence of thinspiration blogs exposes impressionable teens to a deluge of content that provokes low self-esteem and could lead to unhealthy behaviors or eating disorders.

Our society is already full of images of so-called perfect women and men; Tumblr is making a significant effort to make sure these messages don’t seep into its blogosphere.

Content that promotes eating disorders to such an extent can trigger relapses. Aimee Liu, a staff writer at Ms. Magazine who struggled with an eating disorder for years, said that “perfectionism is common in people with all eating disorders. These traits precede the disorder, and they do not go away when you recover.”

A large constituency of Tumblr bloggers argue that the new policy sweeps self-harm issues under the rug and prevents users from expressing themselves. Tumblr recognizes that simply eliminating these posts is counterproductive.

Instead, by acknowledging self-harm posts and providing users with resources to seek help, Tumblr is encouraging awareness. This awareness will motivate users in need of treatment to seek help, or at least discover sites that offer valuable information about dealing with eating disorders.

Critics of the new policy also argue that blogs promoting self-harm provide a support system to users who are otherwise completely isolated by their disease. Without them, freedom of expression becomes limited and inter-group discussion ceases.

But the new policy seeks to limit this discussion as a means of discouraging glorifying discourse about serious mental diseases. Inhibiting the onslaught of triggering content can make a difference in the lives of many.

The censorship of thinspiration blogs aims to limit posts with implications of self-harm as opposed to the general expressions of niche communities.

The website ultimately has the right to protect the well-being of its users. And it has made a significant stride in creating a positive environment. This policy is only going to increase the standard of content on Tumblr.

It is a daring move, but someone needed to do it.

After studying an experiment in which a chip was implanted into a woman significantly increased her sex drive, Oxford U. Senior Fellow Morten Kringelbach started researching the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain behind the eyes that derives pleasure from activities such as eating and sex. He eventually found that the orbitofrontal cortex could be a “new stimulation target” for those who suffer from anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from events that would normally induce it. A small, surgically implanted chip could help those suffering from the condition, and Tipu Aziz, Kringelbach’s colleague and a professor of neurosurgery at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, has stated that he has high hopes for the technological development becoming an accessible reality during the next decade.

Implanting such a sex chip requires connecting a wire from a heart pacemaker to the brain. Although Aziz said the procedure is “intrusive and crude,” future scientists may have the ability to create a chip that would be controlled by a handheld device. It could have great implications for therapy, helping those who normally cannot experience pleasure without this form of outside stimulation, he said in The Sunday Times, a British newspaper.

Belinda Overstreet, counseling and psychological services psychologist at U. Virginia’s Student Health Center, also said she believes such a device could be effective in terms of therapy. “If [the device] is used for someone who is having sexual problems because of illness or injury, I think it could be helpful as long as it is something people in a relationship are talking about, is included in discussions of what is problematic in the relationship and how this would be an improvement,” she said, noting that the possibility for chip implant abuse exists.

The chip also has made its way to the United States, albeit by accident. In North Carolina, Dr. Stuart Meloy recently has been developing a chip he trademarked the “Orgasmatron,” mimicking the fictional machine in Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy “Sleeper.” According to the Los Angeles Times, Meloy made his discovery when he inadvertently implanted electrodes into the incorrect position on a patient’s spine for a pain in her leg — and she suddenly had an orgasm.

Meloy’s study, published in the Journal of the Neuromodulation Society, followed the implantation of a chip approved for bladder control in 11 different women, some of whom have never had an orgasm.

In this study, two electrodes were placed between the women’s spines and the vertebrae. With handheld remotes, the women controlled varying degrees of electronic pulsing that stimulated a variety of nerve networks, particularly nerves near the pelvis that enter the spinal cord via the tailbone.

The device was able to sexually stimulate 10 of the 11 women. Four out of five women who had never had an orgasm received some pleasurable stimulus from the chip but were still unable to oragasm. The fifth woman did not use the device because of work-related stress, she said. Meloy speculated that perhaps the women could not orgasm because the foundations required for having an orgasm were not there in the first place. Similarly, those who had regained their ability to orgasm lost it again without the chip, he told the Los Angeles Times.

Men, who had experienced erectile dysfunction in the past, also participated in the study. They not only had the ability to maintain an erection, but also experienced a powerful ejaculation, according to Meloy’s report. Meloy said these results, paired with the results from the women who were having trouble achieving an orgasm, suggest that these types of implanted devices have the potential to rehabilitate those who physically cannot experience pleasure, supporting Aziz’s claim about such a device’s potential for therapy.

Meloy’s procedure, which he said he believes could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration in two or three years, would cost about $12,000 for those who would want such a device for nonmedicinal purposes.

Overstreet said she is not too worried about the chip detracting from the emotional aspect of relationships, especially if used as directed.

“If it’s hedonistic and not with the desire to do something helpful for the relationship then I don’t think it’s any different than casual sex,” Overstreet said. “There isn’t a desire to build a relationship from that.”

It comes as no surprise that the introduction of the philosophical concept of predetermination into the physical realm — in the sense of being able to generate orgasms almost at will — could create controversy. While some may encourage this type of sexual research for positive rehabilitation, correction or therapy, others may be wary of the potential for abuse, both physically and emotionally.

“If you look at online safety or privacy stuff, I think schools have already started to respond to that quite a bit,” said Urs Gasser, executive director of The Berkman Center and principal researcher for its Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality study. “But here, where arguably it’s as critical a skill to find stuff online and have to sort through it and make judgments about the quality, that’s still not even on the radar. That’s the finding that bothers me the most.”

Gasser said that an important first step is for educators, administrators, students, and parents to start a conversation about information quality and Internet use both in and out of school.

“The system has to work with students about how they use and interact with information…as opposed to being led to junk and just saying, ‘You’re on your own to figure out what’s good and what’s bad,’” said June A. Casey, a Harvard Law School Research Librarian who collaborated on the study.

Casey suggested that education about classifying high quality information should be seamlessly integrated into curricula and that after spending 10 to 15 minutes searching for information, students should ask a research librarian for help.

However, some schools are limiting access to potentially useful information, making rules or using URL blacklists to restrict student access to certain websites at school. According to Gasser, students use many of those sites to find information. Even teachers have pushed back against such rules. In August, the Missouri State Teacher’s Association sued the state for trying to ban social networking between teachers and students.

“You basically cut off this very important activity and reinforce the delegation to the personal and social space outside of school instead of trying to incorporate it and have conversation around it,” Gasser said.

Just this month, several website publishers that direct resources to lesbian, bi-sexual, gay, and transgender youth sued a school district for filtering its content as inappropriate for “sexuality” while allowing access to anti-LGBT materials labeled under “religion.”

Instead of creating laws or rules that mandate Internet usage, Gasser recommended that policy-makers help schools develop innovative approaches and curricula to incorporate digital technology and ensure that they have the requisite resources.

The Berkman Center’s Youth and Media lab has already built and tested five curriculum modules focused on information quality and hopes to continue it’s research.

“This is a starting point, this report, and I hope it stimulates a discussion within the research community,” said Gasser. “This is an important as well as interesting topic.”

Since the 1992 Supreme Court case Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, the rule has been that a company needs a “physical presence” in a state if it is to be required to collect and remit that state’s taxes. The notion of a sales tax being extracted from Amazon provides an overpass from this physical presence controversy because Amazon planned to construct two distribution centers in Virginia this winter, to help out the elves, presumably.

A 95-2 vote looks too good to be true; even Amazon was all in favor and no one seemed to oppose. Everyone, in fact, looks to profit; with the sales tax from holiday shopping, especially, the state gets revenue, Santa gets cookies and Amazon makes dough.

Starting this February, Amazon rolled out a handling fee as an option to third-party sellers who work through its site. For outside sellers in certain states — this fee takes 2.9 percent off the top for Amazon to process state taxes. This fee could discourage third-parties from continuing to distribute on Amazon, parties which had previously had the convenience of selling their wares online without considering taxes.

Not only in Virginia, but across state legislatures, Amazon has worked with policymakers to coordinate taxes. Amazon spokespeople have given vocal support and testified before U.S. Congress about the advantages of having an Internet sales tax. A cynic might say Amazon is taking steps toward legal legitimacy to make first impressions in congresses where it may return to lobby later. But Amazon wants such laws to be enacted not only for itself but for all companies online. This is not Amazon’s scheme to crowd out competition by having the same rules apply, but knowing, rather, like any frontier the Internet needs laws and it’s best to take part in shaping them.

In addition, students who will now pay taxes on textbooks may wonder why Amazon gave up a legal fight which was still undecided. Especially since Amazon has made what looks to some like the masochistic move of asking the government to tax them. But taxes, in their full-blown banality, are the engine driving our education and our protests. The take-home order from the Amazon case is not that taxes should be changed one way or the other, but simply that the ones in place ought to be applied equally; though Amazon had lobbied for years against closing tax loopholes, we as University students should learn from its conscientious retraction.

Facebook is currently testing its own validation software with the hopes to verify celebrities on their site with the use of a government ID submission, according to AFP. With this updated version to the website’s “subscribe” feature, Facebook seems to be focusing on stealing away Twitter followers.

But what Facebook doesn’t realize is that Twitter really cannot be replicated. Back in November, Dave Smith of the International Business Times commented that while “Facebook is driven by real people, Twitter is driven by celebrities and brands.” Though I understand why Facebook would want to tap into this market that Twitter has so effectively implemented, the barriers instituted for both celebrities and their subscribers through Facebook are just too high.

Within this update, Facebook requires celebrities to register under their own names, so fans of Lady Gaga will instead have to search for her real name, Stefani Germanotta, according to the Daily Mail. Fans will subsequently have to subscribe to her page first before they are allowed access to any of her updates or information, and subscription usually just means more spam. Twitter, on the other hand, advertises an easy way to keep up with your favorite celebrities without hassle, without spam and with easy access, and it is this feature that will mark Facebook’s venture as one eventually doomed.

The process Facebook will undergo in order to verify and authenticate celebrities, by forcing them to sign up with a government-issued form of identification, will probably be more effective than Twitter’s secretive verification process. Usually, it may take a few tries to weed through the similar Twitter account names before you can find that “real” celebrity. With its 175 million users, it must be harder for Twitter to effectively verify the identity of every Twitter account, and when asked last March about its process, Twitter simply commented that “we continue to very selectively verify accounts most at risk for impersonation on a one-off and highly irregular basis,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

It comes down to the simple fact that we as a society steep ourselves in routine. If I want to find out more about a celebrity’s personal life, I’m not going to log on to my Facebook account and subscribe to their page. I’m going to follow them on Twitter, where they can give me a updates each day on the most recent information in their lives. While Facebook will spam me with messages on latest updates, I can choose on Twitter whether or not I want to look at certain tweets, and it is this sense of control that gives Twitter its edge.

It’s a matter of society sticking to its trends. Facebook was originally set up for social networking through friends, family and old acquaintances. Twitter’s purpose was broader, allowing users to connect with their idols, role models and people who they can meet only in their dreams.

Facebook seems to be behind the curve in terms of breaking into this “celebrity market.” Google Plus was already verifying celebrity users’ accounts back in August, but there hasn’t been any major change or switch to start using Google Plus more to follow celebrities.

Facebook should stick to what it originally started for – reconnecting with you with those you know personally. Facebook should be trying to build onto this reputation through features like its Timeline application instead of trying to simply siphon off a few Twitter users.

The reason given was the lack of face to face contact between the two people communicating, contributing to the fact that people can plan text messages rather than concocting a cover story on the spot.

The results of the study were taken from a mock stock sale where the sellers were to intentionally lie to the buyers, according to the USA Today article. The sellers had insider information and their job was to dupe the buyer into buying bad stock over three different forms of telecommunication and an in-person meeting. Almost all buyers, 95 percent, reported lies from the text message category; the reports of sellers lying declined when it came to phone calls, video chat and in-person sales.

“Because of this anonymity there are little to no concerns with making a good appearance to the other party — which is the buyer in this setting — so they are more likely to violate the personal standpoint of honesty,” Xu said in the USA Today article.

Thomas Gould, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Kansas State U., said that the degree of anonymity offered by texting was a key factor in why people would try to get away with lying.

“Once, in the New Yorker, there was a great visual example of this,” Gould said. “It showed a dog sitting at a computer and the caption read, ‘On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.’ That degree of being faceless appeals to people running off and doing silly things.”

Richard Harris, KSU professor of psychology, said that separation plays a key role in situations where outright lying occurs.

“Not being face to face, people would have fewer inhibitions about trying to get away with something,” Harris said. “If you don’t have to face them, it is less judgment over your nerve. You wouldn’t see their reactions and you become less accountable to the other person.”

This principle of removal from a situation seems to apply for people in situations akin to chat rooms, blogs and other forums. How does this same principle work between friends who communicate on the fly via text or social networks?

In the article about the study, Xu mentioned that participants were more upset over being lied to by text than from face to face interaction. Would it not make more sense for people to be angrier from being lied to in person?

Wei-Chun Chu, research associate in psychics, said that, to him, the results of this study make sense.

“I would be angrier if it was a lie told over a text message than something said to me in person. I usually treat something written down as being serious,” said Chu. “In text message, we are trying to communicate by saying everything in the most concise way possible, and to do that we have concise terms for saying things. That is unlike the situation when we are verbally communicating with others. Speaking face to face, people use terms much more softly.”

With this difference in how we communicate, we would also consider how we gauge people differently face to face. Chu said that when you are told a story, your reaction in each situation is noticeably different.

“If a friend told you something that sounded untrue or incorrect, your reaction would be disbelief and you would say that they must be joking to say something like that. You would give them the benefit of the doubt if they were wrong,” said Chu. “In a text message, you factor in that they took the time to contact you when you are not there with the likelihood of how much you think they are just wrong about what they said.”

More on the results of the study will be available when it is published in the March edition of the “Journal of Business Essays.”

The idea sprang up in response to the hundreds of intelligence personnel working daily to examine Facebook and Twitter posts in an effort to track foreign occurrences. The apparent intent of this new technology, as outlined in a formal request for information by the FBI, is to mechanize this process.

This would include analyzing every existing form of social media, but its idea goes deeper than simply studying posts by web users. The proposed app would also be able to track web searches, Wikipedia edits and traffic cameras, but would also focus on monitoring information on social media sites that would potentially affect military soldiers.

“Social media has emerged to be the first instance of communication about a crisis, trumping traditional first responders that included police, firefighters, [emergency medical technicians] and journalists,” the FBI wrote in its request. “Social media is rivaling 911 services in crisis response and reporting.”

Some, like Ginger McCall, director of the open government project at the Washington, D.C. based Electronic Privacy Information Center, are troubled by the thought of being so closely observed under the government’s watchful eye. McCall is concerned also with the effect that this may have on users of social network sites.

“Any time that you have to worry about the federal government following you around peering over your shoulder listening to what you’re saying, it’s going to affect the way you speak and the way that you act,’’ McCall said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Emily Ritter, assistant professor in the U. Alabama Department of Political Science, has a different perspective on the issue.

“Much of what people post on social media or networking sites is publicly available for people to see,” Ritter said. “For the government to monitor those interactions and look for information in them is perfectly legal and [is] not an invasion of privacy. It’s like writing on a billboard and saying people shouldn’t look at it and draw conclusions from it.

“Anyone could use Twitter to gather the kind of information for which the government seems to be looking. The trouble arises if the development of technology that makes it easier to monitor information on public sites also makes it easier to do things that are invasions of rights or privacy.”

Alan Alexander, an Alabama sophomore studying journalism and political science, questions how effective the app would be in identifying terrorist threats.

“I feel that, if a terrorist were planning something, they wouldn’t use [social media],” Alexander said. “I would definitely be more careful with how I used [social media] if they made the app.”

Despite controversies about privacy issues, many government workers, like Ross Stapleton-Gray, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst turned technology consultant, remain positive about the possibilities of such an app.

“It really ought to be the golden age of intelligence collection in that you’ve got people falling all over themselves trying to express who they are,” Stapleton-Gray told the Associated Press.

There are a few technological barriers, however, inhibiting the FBI’s app idea from becoming a reality. The most difficult challenge at the moment is figuring out a way to teach computers to decipher between essential and useless information.

William McCants, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses and former State Department official who now monitors al-Qaeda propaganda online, believes that the FBI and other agencies may become too dependent on technology. He fears that automated analysts won’t be able to sort through important information with the same accuracy of a real person.

“The more data you use and the more complicated the software, the more likely it is you will confirm a well-known banality,” McCants told the Associated Press. “You didn’t need to be on Twitter to know that a revolution was happening in Egypt.”

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a microchip that could eventually take the place of required daily medical injections for people with chronic diseases.

The chip has 20 tiny reservoirs that hold a prescribed drug and is programmed to release a dose into the body whenever the patient needs it up to once daily for 20 days.

Doctors can reprogram the chip with a remote from outside the body in case the dosage needs to be changed.

The first successful test of this chip in a human was announced last Thursday. The MIT researchers tested the chip on a group of eight women, ages 65 to 70, and found there were no foreseeable side effects. The subjects did not have discomfort and the doses were accurate.

The chip is less than 2 inches long and is implanted under the skin in a regular doctor’s office using a local anesthetic.

It is not the first invention of its kind, but it is supposedly more reliable than previous under-skin pumps since it proved equally as effective as daily injections, Michael Cima, professor of engineering at MIT, said.

Diabetics, the most obvious candidates for this treatment, could not use the device to replace insulin injections, because insulin molecules are not small enough to fit into the chip. However, they could potentially keep a medicine in the chip for emergencies, if they install a sensor to detect low blood sugar, Cima said.

Implanted treatments sometimes give people the illusion that their problems are solved, Dr. Lauren Barron, lecturer in medical humanities at Baylor U., said.

“But that’s not the case,” she said. “In some cases, you need more vigilance to make sure it’s working properly.”

Barron also said the needles people usually use for the daily injections they give themselves are so small that the shots are not nearly as onerous as they used to be.

Dr. Sharon Stern, medical director at Baylor’s health clinic, believes there could be a problem with the medicines being stored in a chip inside the body because “most medicines are kept at a considerably lower temperature to increase shelf life.”

Stern also said it will take years of testing for scientists to determine whether there are negative side effects or major risks.

“Biomedical engineering is fascinating and may reveal the future of medicine,” she said. “However, scientists are cautious and repeat studies many times in order to make sure that all devices are safe and effective.”

There could be other complications, like the inability for patients to have an MRI because of the metal in their body, Barron said.

Also, infections or allergic reactions could be an issue.

“If you have a bad reaction to a pill, we can just discontinue it,” she said. “If it’s implanted in your skin, it’s harder.”

Barron also said absorption of drugs can vary based on a person’s body composition, and that physical things like “bumping around on a tractor in a field” could affect how well the chip works.

“It’s a brilliant idea, and we’ve had success with implanted things like pacemakers and insulin pumps, but it wouldn’t erase the person’s need to be aware and take care of themselves in other ways,” Barron said. “Lifestyle changes can be powerful for treating many medical problems.”

The social networking website, designed for college students, recently came to U. Florida and five other universities. It was founded a year ago by two Florida Atlantic U. students.

On the site, students can share photos, create events and join discussions about their universities.

Daniel Levin, director of campus management for College Twist at UF, said he thinks students can benefit from the site because it could help students become more active by being better informed.

College Twist co-founder Brandon Forschino, 21, said he and Patrick Daleen, 20, chose to bring the site to UF because of its school spirit and large student body.

It is different from other social networking sites, like Facebook, because the site isn’t about the individual user.

“We like to tell people we’re not a social network,” Forschino said. “It’s not about sharing your life with the rest of the world. It’s all about having a source to connect with other users at your school and other schools.”

The increase in user-generated web content has refined the exchange of information. But as a result, the information people share on the web is becoming more critical to their real-life definitions. The smallest details of a person’s life are being shared online for the sake of convenience; yet, many don’t know just how much personal information is on the Internet and how that information is
being used.

In the digital age, it is trivial to collect and save data. For example, when a user deletes a post or photo on Facebook, that piece of information does not go into the virtual abyss. Rather, it is kept by Facebook. Likewise, Gmail retains a user’s deleted emails for 60 days. This creates a dangerous situation in which Google and Facebook are free to do what they want with user data that are voluntarily given to them.

Most college students looking for jobs have heard of some amazing applicant being rejected because of a late night party photo. However, this is the least of a social networker’s worries. Lori Andrews, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College, explained the ramifications of online data collection in an essay for The New York Times: “Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages.”

One way that data is mined is through cookies. These cookies exchange information between a user’s computer and websites to store information about browsing history. More than half of the web’s most popular sites use cookies, and 18.5 percent of all websites use persistent cookies, which can be stored for years. Another type of cookie, known as third-party cookies, is placed by advertisers and marketers to track browsing information through other websites.

Records show that one in every 10 people in the United States have had their identity stolen. More than 35 million data records were compromised in corporate and government data breaches in 2008. Five million people’s social security numbers can be accurately predicted using online data. Phishing has cost U.S. consumers $1.2 billion. These numbers are certainly alarming as they paint a bleak picture of the current state of personal data security.

Facebook and Google are businesses. They have no real incentive to protect users’ privacy, and they make money by selling user data to advertising companies.

Granted, neither Facebook nor Google want their users’ data to be stolen. Their products have greatly changed the Internet by providing a list of services that people want to use, and they mine user data to improve those services. Yet the constant cycle of privacy violations followed by insincere apologies show that privacy is not a top priority. How comfortable are you knowing that all your personal data are being hoarded by various companies?

Federal lawsuits against social networking companies have shown that Internet privacy matters to users. Companies, however, do not provide a clear picture of how they are using data, and they need to be more transparent. In addition, users must be more aware of the policies of the websites they use.

The new OS, named “Mountain Lion,” comes hot on the heels of last summer’s “Lion” update. It is certainly an evolutionary upgrade, rather than a revolutionary one. Its notable features include a new messaging app, a systems-wide notification center and simpler sharing options.

Apple has always taken pride in making machines people want to use. Right now, that means making them simpler for users. Apple has gotten a lot of flak lately from critics because of this strategy. Some are commending Apple for making the computing experience more user-friendly, but I’m not one of them.

Let me begin by saying I am an Apple fan to my very core. Some of my earliest technology-related memories involve me playing “Mac Bugs” on my dad’s Macintosh SE. I own a MacBook Pro, iPod Touch, iPad and plan on purchasing an iPhone in the next couple of months.

That said, I do not like the direction the company is going in.

Apple is having extraordinary success with the iPad right now. They literally made an entirely new product category, a category no one knew they needed, and have pioneered a new era of computing. But because of that, they have no precedents to follow.

Many believe tablets are the future of computing, and, for the everyday user, that might be true. For power-users, businesses and even students, it is not the case. I have attempted to work solely with my iPad, and it is a clunky experience. Some keyboard ninjas are able to type at a decent pace using software keyboards, but any accomplished typist will always be faster with physical keys. The introduction of iCloud helps remedy the nonexistent file-system of iOS devices, but without automatic Mac support, it is crippled.

Tablets are simply at a point of consumption rather than production. They are meant to view content, not create it. Imagine my surprise, then, when directed to Apple’s “Mountain Lion” homepage, there was a banner reading, “Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac.” Mac computing is very different from iPad computing, and the latter should not be emulated.

Sure, these updates seem great right now. Who doesn’t like more sharing options, a unified notification center and game center support? Everyone does, and if they say otherwise, they are just being a critic for the sake of being one. This influence represents a shift toward a unified OS, something I am not excited about.

Apple has a good thing going right now. But instead of attempting to design a unified OS, Apple should look at the Mac and iOS as very different products. Macs should always represent productivity, while the iPad should represent entertainment. Advertising the iPad’s influence on the Mac is not a good business strategy.

Technology is known for having extremely short life cycles. Usually, though, it is the hardware that falls victim. New advances in technology allow companies to pump out a new model every year; it is a business, after all. Paid software updates tend to be more rare.

Apple seems to be shifting to a new model. They are offering the bare minimum of features per update with a smaller price per update.

This has worked for iOS, so I understand why Apple wants to do it with the Mac. By offering a few must-have features per update, Apple hooks the customer. Instead of paying for one big software update, it’s more of a pay-as-you-go plan.

It is underhanded because they are not looking out for their users: They simply want more money.

Macs and iPads are very different machines for very different tasks. Instead of trying to unify the software, they should be working on ways to keep them separate. Keep the Mac in the home office and the iPad on the couch.

The video rental chain has been closing its doors store by store over the past few years. Its demise shows how the world is transitioning in terms of media consumption.

Before, it was all about the physical copy. But today, people embrace digital downloads.

Streaming through numerous services to different devices, consumers can instantly enjoy their favorite shows and movies without having to leave their homes.

The main factor in Blockbuster’s downfall is services like Netflix. The DVD-by-mail service dominated the marketplace and only got stronger as it expanded its streaming library.

Brick-and-mortar stores have failed to keep up.

Unfortunately, Netflix has pulled more than one boneheaded move over the past year, enraging a majority of its customers. Between its price increases and its attempt to split its business into a service called Qwikster — which it quickly reneged on — I promised at the end of a previous column to alert my readers if a better service came along.

It seems that day is almost here.

Last week, Verizon announced it would team up with Coinstar (the people who bring you Redbox) to directly compete with Netflix with what is said to be “the best of both worlds.”

Cue Hannah Montana.

Details are slim because of “competitive reasons,” but the service will reportedly become available during the second half of this year, according to Verizon’s news release.

What’s interesting is that the joint venture, currently under the name “Project Zoetrope,” will not include any DVDs through the mail. Then again, with a Redbox kiosk in nearly 30,000 locations around the country, there are plenty of locations to pick up your DVDs with ease.

This could give Zoetrope a huge competitive advantage, considering Redbox gets newly released DVDs the day they come out, as opposed to Netflix’s 28-day waiting period.

Some Redbox kiosks also carry video games, a medium Netflix disregards entirely.

It will also be interesting to see how Verizon handles the streaming side. One would assume it will include non-Verizon devices, but would that mean customers to Big Red would get a discount? Or possibly free service?

As a current Verizon customer, that would make me drop Netflix in a heartbeat.

The big advantage Netflix has besides brand recognition — which, believe it or not, is increasing rapidly since the Qwikster incident of last year — is the sheer girth of its library.

Sure, there may be almost 30,000 Redboxes around the country, but those kiosks can only hold a certain amount of discs. Netflix’s DVD library is home to millions of different movies both old and new.

Obviously, more information on Project Zoetrope will be necessary to declare it the Netflix-killer.

Amazon is currently expanding its free streaming service, which is free for all Amazon Prime members, but it will never take down Netflix because it lacks DVDs.

Verizon and Coinstar have a fighting chance thanks to their recognizable names, but taking down Netflix will be like trying to destroy the iPhone.

While Android offers more features, more handset selections and is a superior platform for some, Apple has the marketing and name recognition to keep its product in the lead. Android is a close second, but I don’t see it affecting iPhone sales any time soon.

The same applies to Netflix.

The company has been around for 15 years. It’s had its bad moments, but it’s going to take something great to fully take its place.

Verizon and Coinstar have a lot of work ahead of them in the future. Let’s see if they handle this venture correctly and win over the hearts that Netflix scorned.

Identity theft can lead to having all of your bank accounts emptied, having credit cards or utilities opened in your name, or someone posing as you and committing crimes. Many people have no idea how to protect themselves from these attacks and essentially give their information away. The tools used for these attacks are well known and widely used. When you sit down at a book store or coffee shop, you may very well be a victim and never know it.

One of the best ways to protect yourself from attacks is through safe internet browsing practices. People connect their computer to millions of other computers every day. Wouldn’t it be great if there was the equivalent of an internet condom to protect you from viruses, worms, trojans (malicious software posing as something benign), and identity theft?

Some of the best internet practices are to use HTTPS and network firewalls. When you buy something from an online store, you usually see HTTPS in the address bar followed by a lock icon. The HTTPS protocol encrypts all of the data you send. Firewalls help keep you safe by not giving an outside computer access to your system unless you let it. Firewalls also can allow you to lock down your own computer from sending information out when you don’t want it to. You’d be amazed at how many legitimate programs on your computer try to call home and send personal information about you to another computer without your knowledge.

More advanced users may use software such as anonymizers, secure tunneling proxies, virtual private networks, or TOR – The Onion Router. In all likelihood, many readers have never heard of any of these tools. You should. They have been vital to the Arab Spring revolutions and free speech around the world.

These tools are not just used to hide your identity from prying eyes, they are widely used by corporations to protect secret information and have important uses that people should know about. Not only can they help prevent would be attackers from accessing your sensitive information, you may one day need them to coordinate activist or revolutionary operations if the government or corporations shut down access to websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Change.org, and independent media organizations such as Wikileaks.

Everyone should know to check for the HTTPS in the address bar before entering any important. Google now allows searching with HTTPS to prevent your search questions from being intercepted by your internet service provider or man-in-the-middle attacks. Anonymizers, proxies, SSH tunnels and ad blocking software such as AdBlock Plus for Firefox and Chrome help you navigate the internet without having your activities tracked by advertisement companies.

Why would you need something like this? You’ve got nothing to hide, right? Wrong. When was the last time you logged into Facebook at a coffee shop? Did you know that for years Facebook didn’t offer HTTPS support? This means at any one of those times your username and password could have been stolen out of the air and you would have never known.

Many people use the same password for multiple accounts. An attacker who now has your Facebook password also has your email address stored in Facebook, which means you may have just given them your email account password.

If you have receipts, bills, or other passwords in your email, you may have just given them access to your bank account, bills, and address. You essentially have handed them your entire identity to wreck, all because you wanted to post a quick status update. This is a very real danger, and can happen if you don’t practice safe internet browsing.

Hopefully I’ve awakened some people to a digital world that goes on behind their back. It might be a wise choice to buy an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major a drink or lunch in exchange for them teaching you how to protect yourself, your identity, and your computer.

That’s exactly what the Minnesota Supreme Court has to decide.

According to the Minnesota Daily, Amanda Tatro posted she wanted to “stab a certain someone in the throat with a trocar” and that she updated her “Death List #5,” while also posting a video of a cadaver she was working on in the mortuary science lab which she nicknamed “Bernie,” after the popular 80s movie “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

A fellow mortuary sciences student reported her to their professor, the university police and their program director. The university police found that no crime was committed, but according to the Minnesota Daily, a student conduct committee “ruled the posts were threatening and disrespectful — a violation of conduct codes and of rules for the Anatomy Bequest Program, which provides bodies for mortuary science students to learn embalming.”

Tatro has since appealed the decision and it has made it all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Lower appellate courts have thus far ruled in favor of the university.

We here at the Tribune think that despite the odd nature of the case, it is going to have a huge impact on the future of universities’ control over social media.

Regardless of whether Minnesota is willing to admit it, Tatro’s case — which has potential to go beyond the state supreme court — could set a dangerous precedent for future cases involving free speech, social networking sites and universities.

Ruling in favor of Tatro could prevent universities from enforcing their honor codes with actions like mandating ethics classes, dropping grades or requiring students to write papers and apology letters, to name a few. People would not be responsible for breaking codes if they could argue it fell under free speech, like Tatro is trying to do.

On the other hand, if Tatro’s appeal loses and U. Minnesota wins, there would be important implications for universities everywhere, including Marquette. Administrations could then regulate anything we post on Facebook if they could argue it is threatening or violating some sort of contract, such as the one mortuary science students sign at Minnesota when dealing with cadavers.

Essentially, coming down on the side of the university will allow schools to infringe on any form of Internet speech, so long as they can make a case that it might “disrupt” the university’s mission or be deemed “threatening.”

For Marquette, this would include any protest or student demonstration that is organized through Facebook, status updates about homework, teachers, other students, athletics … the list could go on and on. There would be no limit to the amount of content the administration would be allowed to review, even if — like in Tatro’s case — the comments were made online.

We aren’t saying that threatening comments should be tolerated, but it seems Tatro’s were not threatening to the university or her mortuary sciences program. However, ruling in favor the university would lead to many more problems than solutions on social media issues. Ruling in favor of U. Minnesota, in this case, is clearly the worse precedent to set.

The court’s ruling will definitely apply to the state of Minnesota, but if the university wins, there are possible ramifications for the entire country, including Wisconsin.

Tatro’s circumstances may have been unusual, but that doesn’t deny her right to free speech on Facebook, especially when off-campus. Yes, school codes — especially those in the premedical professions — should be adhered to because of patient confidentiality and other factors. However, this incident had nothing to do with the school itself; it just happened to relate to the mortuary sciences curriculum and lesson that day.

We can’t punish every angsty 20-something because they had a bad day and decided to let the whole world know on Facebook. As long as a person’s speech isn’t genuinely threatening to the institution, it should be upheld by the First Amendment, plain and simple.

Taking away students’ rights to free speech on Facebook is a dangerous precedent to set — a precedent we do not want to see happen.

Over the last decade, Apple and its tech sector competitors have taken advantage of scale economies and production fragmentation to achieve an astonishing pace of innovation — products like the iPad began rolling off of production lines almost as soon as Apple’s brain trust had put the finishing touches on its design. This rapid advance in Apple’s capacity to turn its big ideas into goods and profits can largely be attributed to the inception of enormous manufacturing plants in China that have been described as the pinnacle of efficiency.

Indeed, the now infamous “Foxconn City” operation in China, where the iPhone is assembled, has both been lauded for the speed and flexibility with which it operates and lambasted for the conditions under which its 230,000 workers toil. The factory’s ability to meet Apple’s nearly insatiable demand comes at the expense of Foxconn’s Chinese employees, nearly a quarter of whom live in on-site dormitories and many of whom work 12-hour shifts while making less than $17 daily. The suspicious gap between the Foxconn company line and employee testimony on working conditions is one of many reasons that public backlash against Apple has reached a fever pitch.

Critics of free trade cite this phenomenon as proof that third world growth is hurting first world prosperity by redistributing jobs that would be solidly middle class in the United States to individuals in China who are underpaid and overworked. However, larger structural forces, indirectly related to trade, are the root cause of the rise of industrial complexes like Foxconn City.

First, the existence and security of Asian supply chains would not be possible without American naval strength in the Pacific region. Our military power in the region has only increased since the end of World War II, and we are now seeing the current version of the American obsession with tapping the resources of Asian markets. As Clyde Prestowitz noted in The New York Times a few weeks ago, it is fair to question whether executives at Apple and its peers would be as comfortable investing huge sums of money in Asian supply chains if the United States were unable to provide the requisite regional stability.

Next, China and the United States have followed divergent paths to reach the current situation. While the United States was busy fighting communism and leading the world economic order in the postwar era, the Chinese economy was growing and opening up. In the last few years, it has accelerated its sprint toward greater economic openness with the help of subsidies and other interventionist policies that have promoted foreign direct investment. To some extent, the sort of breathtaking adaptability that we’ve seen in places like Foxconn City is only possible in a command economy where the government is actively backing both industry and the training of workers with the right mix of abilities, such as mid-level engineering skills.

With no comparable effort having been made in the United States, it is regrettable but not altogether surprising that Apple and other companies have shifted production overseas. In an increasingly capitalist world, Apple is behaving like any rational firm by seeking to maximize profits. But off-shoring is a two-way street — Apple is correct in saying that there aren’t enough mid-level engineers in the United States to meet its demand, but Americans have little incentive to develop such skills if those jobs don’t exist here in the first place. The burden, then, really falls on the U.S. government to intervene, not by telling Apple where to produce, but rather by leveraging American productivity and providing firms with incentives to invest in America, namely through a more educated workforce.

If President Obama’s Blueprint for Reform is any indication, the government finally seems to have woken up. Chinese working conditions aside, we shouldn’t be blaming companies like Apple for reaping the benefits of capitalism but rather providing them with every reason to invest in the future of the United States.

Aston said the police use social media frequently, mostly to find people in burglary and theft cases.

“Our law enforcement officers have to keep up with what the public is doing,” she said. “As they change, we have to change with them. As technology advances we have to advance.”

But she said the police have also recently used social media to make arrests in connection with the Nov. 9 riot downtown following the Board of Trustees’ decision to remove former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier. In that case, Aston said police used pictures and videos of the riots to charge people.

Aston said police are now trained in social media because of how frequently it is used. She said sometimes police officers have to go a step beyond just finding posts; they must then ask the social media sites to preserve the data.

PSU Police Chief Tyrone Parham said a group that was created for people who rushed the field after a football game against Ohio State was one example of how Facebook posts led to arrests.

Police used this group to find names of people who entered the field, which led them too make arrests, Parham said.

He also said University Police typically use Facebook sites to match a name to a picture.

Police also use social media to catch people who are involved in drug-related crimes, Aston said.

She said it is not uncommon for people to post about their drug use or sales.

“Surprisingly, they put some really obvious statements on their social media sites about criminal activity,” Aston said.

But social media can also get people into other kinds of trouble — as experts are warning people to think twice before tweeting or posting on Facebook about their vacations, if they want to return to find all of their belongings where they left them.

At Penn State, Parham said this has not been a huge problem on campus.

Penn State Professor S. Shyam Sundar, who is listed as an expert in social media and its effects, said that there are ways to connect a person’s information online.

For example, Sundar said there are websites that can connect someone’s tweets, Facebook posts and Foursquare check-ins to figure out someone’s exact location and to learn when someone’s residence is unoccupied. Still, Sundar said these risks haven’t prevented many from posting location information online.

Anonymous originated in 2003 in forums such as 4chan and Internet Relay Chat rooms, according to a Sept. 16 NPR article. In 2008, Anonymous launched its first major attack against the Church of Scientology.

Most recently, Anonymous launched “Operation Payback” in response to U.S. Justice Department’s recent takedown of Megaupload, a popular file-sharing website that contained pirated material, according to a Jan. 19 Huffington Post article. Anonymous took down both the Justice Department’s website and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s website.

Anonymous’ attacks came in the form of distributed denial of service attacks, referred to as “DDoS attacks,” in which a website is flooded with so many requests that it cannot load, a Jan. 20 CNN article states.

THE ART OF ANONYMOUS 

Azer Bestavros, a professor in Boston U.’s Computer Science Department and the founding director of BU Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering, said the distributed denial of service attacks can be compared to 1,000 people waiting in one line. Because a server can’t handle so many requests, no one can get through.

“When an attack is not ‘distributed’ there’s the same request from one super computer, so the server recognizes it as an adversary and blacklists it,” Bestavros said. “When an attack is distributed, requests are coming from 1,000 different places. That’s where Anonymous comes in. Each person is one soldier in an army, allowing the group to use his or her resources.”

Bestavros said that Anonymous is using the Internet, and specifically DDoS attacks, as a battlefield to advance their varied agendas. In the case of SOPA, it was the “phenomenon of asymmetry” that Anonymous responded to.

“These are people who think the Internet is worth fighting for, like a war,” he said. “Anonymous targets any example of asymmetry, like in Egypt, where the power of the establishment trumps the WikiLeaks of the World.”

Personally, Bestavros said he is not a fan of government piracy acts.

“Coming from a background in computer networking, I’m against SOPA and PIPA,” he said.

“By trying to make the Internet better, we make it worse,” he said. “We did not change the technology of cars simply because people sped up, or drove under the influence. Technology can easily become too cumbersome.”

While Bestavros said he does not support Anonymous, he said that the need for anonymity is crucial.

“In the digital world, without anonymity how can you express strong opinions, be one of thousands, and really affect the government without being at risk of identification?” he said.

FIGHTING PIRACY

On the other hand, online anonymity has been a contributing factor in Internet piracy, said Frederick Huntsberry, Chief Operating Officer of Paramount Pictures, in a presentation about protecting intellectual property.

“The anonymity of the Internet creates a double standard,” Huntsberry said. “Most people wouldn’t walk into a store and steal something, but if it’s on the Internet, they think it’s free. When we’re on the Internet, we become anonymous and can say whatever we want.”

Despite the current laws in place, accessing stolen content continues to be very easy for Internet users, Huntsberry said.

However, Paramount is not interested in targeting the individuals who are downloading films, but rather the foreign companies making a huge profit from selling stolen content..

“What’s most concerning to me is the loss of cultural heritage,” he said. “Major studio releases have dropped 8% annually since 2006, when piracy really took off. The protection of American intellectual property is crucial to the nation’s future.”

Huntsberry said that protection of individual rights stems from the Copyright Clause of our constitution and should be followed.

“We need to bring people together, and agree that we want to stimulate American intellectual property,” he said. “SOPA aimed for a ‘safe, ubiquitous, lawful Internet.’

“The silver lining of SOPA is that raised awareness of the issue. People are starting to talk about SOPA.”

Although many people are talking about SOPA, the dialogue remains unclear at times.

CRITIQUING SOPA

“I remember when everyone was freaking out about SOPA, but I feel like 70 percent of those people had no idea what it was about,” said BU freshman Emily Cyr.

Despite this, anti-censorship protests are alive on campus. BU freshman Rea Sowan even distributed anti-censorship flyers on Commonwealth Avenue.

“Giving private corporations the power to censor the Internet is a concept that f–king scares me and should also scare the f–k out of any sensible being,” Sowan said. “Increased censorship in this form will affect innocent Internet users, whilst the people they really want to stop will only find more invasive methods of getting what they want.”

BU senior Tom Yoon said that the ambiguity of the bill’s language remains one of its most significant criticisms.

“I think SOPA is too vague, and can easily be used to censor the Internet,” he said.

Thomas Fiedler, the Dean of Boston U.’s College of Communications, said SOPA is an example of “inartful wording of the law.”

However, while the concerns regarding the extension of SOPA are reasonable, the bill was not intended to discourage free speech, Fiedler said.

“Many COM graduates were coming to me with their concerns about piracy, and their concerns were legitimate,” Fiedler said. “What Anonymous is doing is illegal, unethical, and disturbing. As a journalist, I’m offended by their cloak of anonymity.”

Fiedler even went further, saying that Anonymous has crime-like tendencies.

“It’s vandalism of a kind, and reminds me of Mafia fear tactics,” he said. “Intimidation is a crime. Anyone even in favor of an amended SOPA was at risk from Anonymous.”

Christopher Lewert, a Content Protection Research Analyst at Paramount Pictures, said that although Anonymous is not going to prevent people from supporting SOPA, they do influence a person’s thought process.

“People run the risk of being targeted by Anonymous, so businesses can be hindered. It’s not about Jay-Z and Tom Cruise making millions, piracy affects the people at the bottom, more than the people at the top,” he said. “This needs to be a discussion, not a situation where it’s ‘If I disagree, I’m going to hit you.’ And that’s what Anonymous is doing.”

Fred Bayles, Associate Professor of Journalism in the College of Communications and Director of Boston U.’s State House Program, said the Anonymous movement is “born out of individual frustration.”

“Anonymous brings up the issue of free speech, but free speech for who?” Bayles said. “Their actions are contradictory. They’re fighting for free speech, while denying other people free speech. The genius of Anonymous is also its burden.”

Though it is rarely spoken about, the porn industry is often at the forefront of technological advances and business innovation. Porn was the first product to make money on the Internet and, despite the emerging problems posed by pirated content and file sharing, still earns upwards of $1 billion each year online.

Technology that all Internet users employ on a daily basis has roots in the adult industry — streaming video, Flash, website memberships and credit card verification.

Annaliese Nielsen founded GodsGirls.com, an alternative porn site, which offers both pornographic photography and video. GodsGirls features a highly interactive element that allows customers to have a greater experience with the content, she said.

“I think the adult industry at large is beginning to realize the importance of creating social experiences on the Internet,” Nielsen said. “You’re going to see more and more adult sites that work on a GodsGirls model of attempting to create a space on the web that combines content and community.”

GodsGirls allows its models to produce their own content and sell it on their profiles. Because of this, the website is able to incorporate many different kinds of new technology.

“Of course, not only is it a lot of hard work for us to aspire to stay up-to-date on the latest technology in terms of our site and features but we also have to compete with an onslaught of powerful social networks that didn’t exist when we launched this project,” Nielsen said.

Many porn sites have harnessed increasingly popular social networking websites in order to further their products.

“The girls are increasingly easy to find and communicate with (outside of) GodsGirls — everyone has a Twitter and a Tumblr where their friends and fans can follow what is happening in their lives,” Nielsen said. “There is a struggle to stay relevant as the web becomes increasingly social. We are working on new features and innovations right now that we are very excited about.”

As always, pornography is still changing and innovating today.

When the iPad was introduced, porn companies had created ways to stream videos on the device, skipping Apple’s restrictions on such adult content, in a matter of days. While 3-D technology is still in its infancy in mainstream media, the porn industry is working to advance this technology for at-home usage. Porn has even delved into the realm of video games.

Dajana Dimovska is one video game creator behind the Dark Room Sex Game, a video game that uses the Wiimote to create an “erotic rhythm.” The objective of the game is to give one or multiple partners an orgasm.

“The video game industry has a harsh policy on sexual content and therefore I think that a game like Dark Room Sex Game today would fit best in the porn industry,” Dimovska said. “We have received email requests from people that are interested to buy games like (the Dark Room Sex Game) and play it at home with their partner. We have even thought about creating a similar online dating game, where partners can have virtual sex online.”

Dimovska expects more sexualized video games to arise as the industry evolves.

“I definitely see a big market potential for multiplayer sex games in the style of (the Dark Room Sex Game),” Dimovska said. “I think it is likely game developers will start developing sex games like this and storm the porn industry with a new sex games genre.”

From live-chatting systems to broadband and from 4G mobile services to fast streaming speeds, the porn industry has completely revolutionized the Internet and how people interact with technology. The adult industry continues to remain on the cutting edge of innovation and will likely continue to create advances that change the way the world works withan increased focus on 3-D, interactive and mobile technology.

According to Twitter’s website, more than 200 million tweets are sent each day. However, most users get little feedback about the messages they send, except when their tweets are retweeted by their followers or when people opt to stop following them.

“If we understood what is worth reading and why,” said Paul André, a postdoctoral fellow in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and lead author of the study, in a university press release, “we might design better tools for presenting and filtering content, as well as help people understand the expectations of other users.”

André worked with his colleagues — Michael Bernstein and Kurt Luther, doctoral students at MIT and Georgia Tech, respectively — to create “Who Gives a Tweet?”: a website that collects readers’ evaluations of tweets.

Those who have visited André and his team’s website were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets by the users they were already following. Over a period of 19 days in late 2010 and early 2011, 1,443 visitors to the site rated 43,738 tweets from the accounts of 21,014 Twitter users they followed.

Overall, the readers liked just 36 percent of the tweets and disliked 25 percent, while another 39 percent elicited no strong opinion.
The researchers will present their work next Monday at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Seattle.

Since Twitter’s creation in 2006, the website has been a hub of unrestricted news. Now, six years later, Twitter has announced a new censorship policy that could once again change freedom of expression on the web.

Simply put, Twitter’s new censorship policy will allow the removal of tweets on a country-by-country basis.

When a government orders that a post be taken down, the post will be replaced by a statement saying, “This tweet from @username has been withheld in: Country.” However, the post will remain visible to users in all other countries where no such order was issued.

Twitter is also partnering with the website chillingeffects.org to announce when a post has been censored. The openness regarding censored material is crucial to positively shaping censorship on the internet.

With the introduction of the new policy, Twitter has indirectly urged other websites to follow suit with transparent censorship policies. Transparent censorship, in terms of Twitter’s policy, means the company in question promises to be honest about removing posts while ensuring minimal censorship. Secretive censorship will occur rarely, if at all, on Twitter due to the openness of censored posts. Additionally, the fact that posts will not be taken down universally will allow a maximal number of users to see a post. Hopefully other web services like Twitter will alter their censorship policies to create an environment of free speech.

Many critics claim this new policy will entail heavy monitoring of tweets; however, the company will only review content if there are requests to take it down.

The lack of monitoring, in addition to censorship notifications, will increase information availability on the web.

Twitter will adjust its censorship policy to accommodate strict laws and, in doing so, revolutionize censorship.

Both users and governments are accommodated in regards to the removal of posts through this transparent policy.
Twitter is once again pioneering a new trend of unrestricted free speech across the globe with the introduction of its transparent censorship policy.

In reality, this was the first time Emily and I had met, though we’d connected months before as part of an online blogging venture. Our friendship was built on a Wi-Fi connection.

This is the new social order, and although we’d like to think that nothing genuine can come from curating a bevy of social media platforms, there is already proof to the contrary.

Which is why I’ve been provoked by Bowdoin’s “Mass Deactivation” campaign to defend a social media network near and dear to my cold, digital heart, against an experiment which—though a fantastic testament to the capacities of the blogosphere to facilitate mobilization—is ultimately misguided.

The organizers of the campaign profess that their “only agenda is to find out how Facebook is affecting our lives,” yet they have chosen to observe these effects by distancing themselves from the site, rather than documenting habitual use of the very active world of Facebook.

Additionally, both the editors of the Orient and the architects of the experiment allude to Facebook’s business practices—hinting at an underlying skepticism of corporate Facebook, which is a part of the timeliness of the experiment.

Deactivating Facebook, though a nice dose of self-knowledge for some, is not nearly as productive as a month-long exploration of the utility of Facebook and its numerous functions (of which many users, including myself, have barely scratched the surface).

To borrow from Spoon, capitalism with no fear of the underdog will not survive.

Similarly, a society that lauds the startup and wags a finger at the corporation misses an essential fact of life. Namely, that a corporation of individuals is merely the multiplication of the same potential for human error, greed and dishonesty that exists in the heart of a single entrepreneur sitting in his desk chair.

Furthermore, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Facebook was started by a college student (more or less) just like us.

Some of the same people who cheered Zuckerburg on as he went nose to chest with the Order of the Winklevii now do themselves a great disservice by balking at the rise of his dorm room demon—which will be, as all things, capped at a certain point.

Whether Facebook is approaching plateau should not be our concern. Given how entrenched this social network is in our society, why not take the next month to assess our Facebook habits, instead of deactivating all-together?

Ask yourself how Facebook can be harnessed to perpetuate those same values that you are worried it will unseat—the keys to the world’s library, generous enthusiasms, etc.

Inevitably, some who participate in the experiment will realize that they don’t need Facebook and skip elatedly into the arms of Pinterest, never to look back.

The rest will realize that they don’t need Facebook, but justifiably want it and will log back in to watch the latest “moment of zen.”

“Like” it or not, Facebook isn’t going anywhere, and life without Facebook isn’t coming back (gasp). It’s gone the way of “life without traffic lights” and “life without the Gutenberg press.”

Think about it.

The packaging of something intangible—essentially cyber real estate—and the monetization of the clicks and minds of its pedestrians…it’s a daunting, though not damning, reality of the world in which we live.

Life without Facebook was great, but so is life with Facebook—so acknowledge the dependent variable in the previous statement and for Zuck’s sake get on with it.

Although it is not clear where Facebook will be traded, the company plans to use the symbol “FB” and has filed for an IPO of $85 to 100 billion, hinting at the extraordinary size of the formerly secretive company, according to Forbes.

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook’s popularity has grown exponentially, with users currently numbering around 850 million. The company receives most of its revenue — about 85 percent in 2011 — from advertising, according to Bloomberg.

Despite the hype surrounding Facebook’s IPO, Tuck professors said they do not project the company to be a smart investment for everyday investors. Most of Facebook is owned by its founders and venture capitalists who invested in the company in its early days, Tuck finance professor Anant Sundaram said.

“Users of Facebook are likely to form an extremely small portion of the company at very high prices,” Sundaram said.

Facebook’s transition to a public company is not projected to change the way everyday users interact with the social media website, according to Sundaram.

Dartmouth students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they generally believe Facebook’s status as a private or public company will not affect how they use the website.

“I’m not really worried about it,” Shoshana Silverstein said. “For the moment, I don’t see it having much of an effect on me.”

Although Facebook users are not directly impacted by Facebook’s decision to go public, it has potential implications for Facebook as a company. Eric Johnson, a Tuck professor and the director of the Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies, said he expects Facebook’s transition to a public company to put more pressure on Facebook’s business model.

“If you look at what they’re being valued at now, they’re going to have to own a huge chunk of world advertising within a short period of time to make that really work,” Johnson said.

Facebook is firmly entrenched in the everyday lives of millions of Americans, but there is speculation that Facebook is on the decline, Johnson said. He said Facebook is no longer as popular as it once was, wi†h younger technology start-ups, such as Tumblr, attracting a large portion of the younger generation.

“In some ways, Facebook is already less cool than five years ago, so for all the people bailing out on Facebook for Tumblr, I think it will push more people in that direction,” he said.

However, Paul Argenti, Dartmouth corporate communication professor, disagreed that Facebook is declining in popularity. He noted that Facebook has a “pretty big head start” over other popular social media sites.

“It’d be hard to do — they have a pretty large customer base,” Argenti said. “They’ve already grown like crazy, so the growth curve is certainly not finished.” He added that there is still a large opportunity for growth outside of the U.S.

While Facebook is certainly dominant, it does not have a monopoly on social networking, he said, citing Twitter as a compelling competitor.

Currently, Facebook remains highly visible and widely-used, making it the most popular social network in the nation. Dartmouth students said they generally use it to keep in touch with friends at home and at the College.

Aaron Cappelli noted that he uses Facebook for “procrastination” and checking on the status of his friends.

Facebook is also considered a useful networking tool by Dartmouth students.

“I’m trying to shift from using Facebook socially to using it professionally, so that means cleaning up my profile so I can network,” Dave Seliger ’12 said.

Most students plan to continue using Facebook in the future and do not see any real competitors for Facebook’s niche. Marty Gatens ’15 said that he plans to continue to use Facebook “until I don’t have friends anymore.”

Despite Facebook’s popularity on campus, some members of the community reject using it.

“I know next to nothing about Facebook,” Hugh Danilack said. “I don’t have it; I don’t use it; I never got into it; I don’t like it.”

He added that people waste time on Facebook and that it “consumes their lives.”

ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, could be viewed as an international version of SOPA. Since its initial creation, the agreement has undergone many provisions as to not infringe on any current U.S. laws.

Critics of ACTA claim the Internet Protocol provisions are as restrictive as anything contained in SOPA. The international statute originated during the Bush administration, far before SOPA and PIPA gained exposure. Additionally, the agreement has been negotiated with little information provided to the public during the proceedings and this may explain why not many are familiar with the act, despite it being signed back in October.

According to a March 12, 2010 publication by the Congressional Research Service, the United States and Japan devised the new agreement in 2006 with the primary goal of stopping global piracy and counterfeiting.

Piracy is the reproduction of another’s work without permission and usually infringes on a patent or copyright. K-State’s Information Technology Services website defines copyright infringement as “the act of utilizing, without permission or legal authority, the rights exclusively permitted to the copyright owner under section 106 of the Copyright Act.”

Copyrights protect artists’ work from illegal distribution and give the original owner exclusive rights to their property. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain rights to their intangible assets such as music, literary and other artistic work.

By June 2008, the number of countries discussing ACTA expanded to nearly 40 developed countries, including all 27 member states of the European Union, with hopes to conclude the talks by 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service document. Nearly two years after this initial goal, some countries are coming to an agreement and starting to give their consent to pass the treaty.

Like SOPA, the agreement has drawn criticism from citizens and a petition has been established on whitehouse.gov to end the treaty. More than 40,000 people have signed the petition since Jan. 21, almost doubling the goal of 25,000 signatures needed by Feb. 20. However, the retaliation against the agreement might have come too late.

ACTA is an executive agreement, meaning it is not subjected to Congress’ approval unless it requires statutory changes in U.S. laws, and has already been signed by President Barack Obama, according to a Jan. 25 article by Mike Masnick on techdirt.com.

Much like the U.S., there has been protest to ACTA in Europe, particularly in Poland. On Jan. 26, to express disapproval of Poland’s agreement to sign the treaty, Polish politicians symbolically held up Guy Fawkes masks during the proceedings, according to a Jan. 26 techdirt.com article also by Mike Masnick. The masks were ironically ‘counterfeit’ because Time Warner owns all intellectual property rights to the image and typically expects royalties for the iconic countenance from the movie, “V for Vendetta.”

“It seems like a good idea,” said Haleigh McElliott, Kansas State U. junior in wildlife and conservation biology. “But I’m not sure if this will stop people from doing it. We’ll see how effective it is in stopping piracy.”

According to a Feb. 11, 2009 CBS article by Bootie Cosgrove-Mather, “Americans between the ages 18 and 29 are three times as likely than those 30 and over to say file sharing is always okay,” despite the legal consequences.

Students at K-State often fall into this category as well. Charles Atwell, KSU freshman in open option, uses music downloading software to get his music.

“I use FrostWire,” Atwell said. “I really don’t care that people do it [illegally download music].”

According to a Sept. 19, 2011 article on foxnews.com, Joel Tenenbaum, a 28-year-old student attending Boston U., was fined $675,000 for illegal downloads. That’s $22,500 for each of the 30 songs he was found liable of pirating, according to a July 31, 2009 techdirt.com article by Mike Masnick.

“It’s stupid they’re charging people that much money for illegally downloading a few songs,” Atwell said. “They should go after the sites that upload the information not the individuals who download it.”

And they did. Kim Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, founded the website ‘Megaupload’ and was arrested in New Zealand on Jan. 20, according to a Jan. 29 USA Today article by William M. Welch, Thomas Frank and Kathy Chu. He was accused of multiple copyright infringement charges by U.S. officials because his site allowed users to upload and download digital archives with no legal authority to do so. He was found guilty of money laundering, copyright infringement and racketeering and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The bill goes beyond protecting intellectual property rights. It is cracking down on generic drugs and making food patents more stringent by enforcing a global standard on seed patents that threaten local farmers and independent producers across the developed and undeveloped world. According to the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure website, China, India and Brazil are very critical of the bill, claiming it would cause a great deal of damage to their emerging economies.

Whether it’s SOPA or ACTA, governments all over the world are trying to protect intellectual property rights. Since these proposed bills have yet to pass, it remains uncertain how they will affect future counterfeit and copyright cases.

The study, conducted at Utah Valley U. and published in January in the journal, “Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking,” is based on previous research that people use computer-mediated communication like Facebook to optimize their self-presentation, or present themselves in a positive way they want others to see.

“We usually see the bright side of others, especially from the positive images and comments posted on Facebook,” said Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, sociologist and main researcher of the study. “If we only see the sunny sides of others, it is easier for people to feel that others have a better life, or life is unfair, especially when they themselves are having some difficult times in life.”

Chou and research partner, Nicholas Edge, surveyed 425 undergraduate students from UVU, asking them to gauge their agreement with statements like, “Many of my friends are happier than me,” and “Life is fair,” while comparing factors such as how long they had a Facebook, how often they used it and how many of their Facebook friends are essentially strangers.

The study found that people who have had Facebook longer and had more Facebook friends they didn’t actually know perceived others to be happier than they were and thought life was less fair.

Polly Isurin, a fourth-year Ohio State U. student who has never had a Facebook account, said she’s never felt the need for it and doesn’t plan on getting one. She said she feels that on top of having more time than those with a Facebook, she’s better off without it.

“I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily happier,” Isurin said. “Just probably less self-conscious because I don’t compare myself because I have nothing to compare it to.”

Chou said there are also positive sociological effects of Facebook, like connecting with friends and a sense of belonging, but it shouldn’t replace face-to-face interaction.

Shelby Spressart, a third-year OSU student, said she tries to be careful about the time she spends on Facebook.

“In general I like it because it’s mostly how I find things to do with my friends and see what’s going on and pictures,” Spressart said. “I get on it, then I see what’s going on, then I get off. I can’t stay on too long because then I just get frustrated with other people.”

Hollie Kinney, a fourth-year OSU student, said she enjoys Facebook because of the sometimes negative light in which people present themselves.

“I spend a lot of time on Facebook out of boredom.” Kinney said. “I think it’s fun, it gives people something to do and you can see which of your friends are idiots and drama wh-res. That’s kind of an elitist thing to say, but whatever.”

Facebook has filed registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public, and has set a preliminary goal of $5 billion for its initial public offering.

Spressart said she’s thought about quitting Facebook so she wouldn’t have to hear about peoples’ lives all the time, but could never bring herself to do it.

Isurin said the people she knows who don’t have a Facebook had it at one point, then got rid of it most likely due to the way people present themselves.

“I don’t think Facebook is bad,” Isurin said. “But I think it has gotten out of hand.”

In 2008, President Hu Jintao proposed a new policy in which he asked the state media to take an active role in shaping public opinion. Signaling a government commitment to harnessing the power of the internet, Hu made a point to “exercise supremacy over internet public opinion, master the technique of online ‘guidance’, and use new technology to amplify the effectiveness of ‘positive’ propaganda.”

Although this cyber police method began as an experiment in 2005, the censorship force behind it now employs thousands of Chinese mercenary commentators. Some sources even estimate that there are as many as 280,000 to 300,000 commentators. The Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China even conducts training sessions in which participants are required to pass an exam before they receive job certification to become an official commentator.

Amateur censors come to this cyber police force from all walks of Chinese life. Some provinces have advertised the Fifty Cent Party with propaganda and catchy phrases such as “everyone can make fifty cents.” In a country with enormous income disparity, many citizens would take this opportunity to make quick money. However, other online commentators volunteer their time to the Chinese effort of censoring the web. Hu Yingying, a sophomore at Shanghai Normal University, volunteers several hours a week by assuming a false online identity and introducing politically correct discussions on her university’s online bulletins. She is proud and happy to be a contributor towards creating a “harmonious society.”

These opinion shapers are even speculated to work on foreign language websites. In attempts to sway discourse on foreign websites, commentators criticize Western notions of what is wrong with China and suggest considering the Chinese party line. The effects of the Fifty Cent Party have even reached popular U.S. websites – in 2010, an American blogger at the Huffington Post ascribed comments on her blog posts to members of the party. Not only have pro-state Chinese commentators made their presence felt far and wide, but they’ve also cultivated an extremely short pattern of response. After the riots in Guizhou province in June 2008, the Chinese Internet was inundated with posts that criticized party officials. However, the Fifty Cent Party quickly intervened, deleting posts within fifteen seconds of their publication.

Despite the Big Brother-like control that the Communist Party wields, the effectiveness of China’s policies is questionable. Many comments left by these hired cyber police are often blatantly propagandist messages that are dismissed by increasing cynical Chinese netizens. The infiltration of official views very often disgusts ordinary Chinese citizens, who are reported to mock the Fifty Cent Party. Even Han Han, a famous Chinese celebrity, has posted a satirical training manual for Fifty Cent Party members – which has circulated widely alongside trenchant, critical cartoons. Furthermore, an increasing number of Internet-savvy citizens are able to sneak past censorship mechanisms users by bypassing firewalls and refraining from the use of ‘trigger’ keywords known to set off mercenary cyber police.

Regardless of the long-term impact of the Fifty Cent Party, the entire strategy of mass censorship strives to deceive the Chinese citizens, instead of creating a much-needed open relationship. Given that the Chinese government already controls most media outlets and almost all news providers, the enlistment of anonymous commentators clearly displays the government’s fear of facing the truth. Although legions of amateur censors make it more difficult for Chinese citizens to express their opinions, this is a minor obstacle that Chinese citizens – internet-savvy, cynical, and determined – will waste no time in bypassing.

Twitter announced new guidelines last month that allow the social network to withhold people’s tweets based on freedom of expression policies in specific countries. In a blog post titled “Tweets still must flow,” Twitter officials said this policy will be reactive in nature and the company will only withhold tweets when required to do so by a valid and applicable legal request. While Twitter has not enforced these new guidelines as of now, officials said they will notify users if their tweets have been withheld.

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” officials said in the Jan. 26 statement. “Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there.”

Such countries include France and Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content. Other countries may have similar freedom of expression policies as those in the U.S. but for historical or cultural reasons restrict certain types of content, according to the statement.

The U. Texas Austin Twitter page currently has more than 21,000 followers and has published more than 1,400 tweets. University spokesman Gary Susswein said the new policies will not affect how and what the University tweets.

“We always exercise caution in the topics, tone and language we are tweeting,” Susswein said.

Michael Morton, journalism senior and Senate of College Councils communications director, manages the UT Senate Twitter account and said he was not worried about Senate’s tweets being censored because the tweets are about new legislation and editorials written by the Senate leadership team.

“We don’t have such a boisterous opinion on things that could get us censored,” Morton said. “It’s a difference between censoring about something that’s illegal versus censoring based on difference of opinion.”

With this new policy, Twitter will now join the ranks of companies like Google who remove select content because of requests from government agencies and courts around the world.

In 2011, Google reported receiving three requests from China to remove 121 items from their servers that violated local advertising guidelines and complied. The same year Google also received various requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos displaying police brutality and did not respond to the requests, according to its website.

UT law professor David Anderson said he doubts the effects of Twitter’s new policy will affect people in the U.S. Anderson said policies such as Twitter’s have contributed to the rise in debate over Internet censorship in the past few years. He said the policy will delight countries which have strict censorship, such as China, and restrict the freedom of speech of political dissidents who may use Twitter as a form of communication.

“At one point, people had the naïve belief that things like social networking sites were going to be forms of free speech and be free of commercialization,” Anderson said. “That was never likely true because businesses were going to do what’s right for business — that’s what Twitter is doing.”

Critics of the change on both sides of the Atlantic have been quick to raise alarm about the change, including a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators and representatives who sent an open letter to Google last week to clarify the exact workings of the policy. Google was also persuaded to delay the implementation of the new rules until March 1 after European Union data protection authorities asked the company to wait while they evaluated whether the new policy infringes on the rights of EU member states.

“Internet privacy advocates are concerned about how much information one company is going to know about you,” said David Jacobs, consumer protection fellow for the Washington D.C. based Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Once you start combining a lot of non-sensitive information about users in random searches, you start to develop a really accurate picture of a user, making that user a very tempting target for advertisers who are able to access that information.”

Jacobs said the major problem with the current policy is that the few ways users could opt out of data collection and solutions, like using the services without an account, are insubstantial when products like Gmail require the user to log in.

No transaction on the Internet can be completely private and privacy advocates must acknowledge that the Internet involves a two-way exchange, said U. Texas advertising professor Neal Burns.

“The privacy issue becomes distressing to those who think their information should not be traded,” Burns said. “If you’re willing to pay for it, you‘re able to maintain a certain amount of privacy on the Internet. But by using a search engine like Google, we acknowledge that we are selling our privacy in exchange for free services.”

The exchange is also altering the relationship between advertiser and consumer, Burns said, which cuts out the middleman in newspapers and television advertising.

Services like Google will be largely the sole collectors of vast amounts information and even certain advertisers are wary of the company’s power, said Tess Levitan, president of the Texas Advertising Group.

“The combined information has certainly increased offerings to advertisers, but there’s also a concern that no one else can compete on that same level,” Levitan said. “Eventually advertisers will have to pay more to work within Google.”

Levitan said Google’s influence is easily seen in advertising classrooms at UT, where online mediums are becoming increasingly important and professors rely on predominately Google-created products for instruction.

Colin Gilligin, account planning director for Austin marketing firm Tocquigny, said the policy change is only a ‘coming out’ for Google. He said these policies have already been in place and the media has overexaggerated the policy shift.

“This is the poster child that gets a lot of darts thrown at it for privacy infringement, and concerns over censorship and privacy have been fresh since SOPA and PIPA came up,” Gilligin said. “Because Internet users are now more informed, users feel powerful enough to demand how their information is shared, and this could lead to competition with Google sometime in the future when a competitor offers more controlled service. It’s not likely any time soon, but now that this sort of discussion is happening it could shift the field quite a bit.”

History professor Niall C. D. Ferguson moderated the discussion, which focused on the relationship between technology and economic growth in the U.S.

Thiel addressed the uncertain future of technological development, an issue that he explored in a 2011 article entitled “The End of the Future,” published in the National Review Online.

Thiel argued that innovation in fields such as agriculture and transportation has become dangerously slow, leading to economic stagnation around the world.

“I think that we’ve seen progress in the virtual world, but not in the world of stuff,” Thiel said. “The U.S. has produced a ton of innovation in computers and finance over the past 30 years, but we have to ask if that implicitly twisted innovation in other areas.”

Thiel attributed this lack of innovation to structural defects in politics and education today.

When the conversation shifted to the 2012 election, Thiel had harsh words for politicians on both sides of the aisle.

“I think we are headed towards a period of chaotic austerity, because people in our political system are not able to discuss our true problems openly,” Thiel said.

He added, “Our government is not organized to find democratic solutions to problems, because our politicians are more focused on procedural issues than substantive ones.”

Thiel said that he believes the greatest hope for future technological and economic growth lies in free enterprise, and in particular, the innovation of young people.

Thiel said that he believes that young people need new creative avenues, citing his Thiel Fellowship, also known as the “20 Under 20,” which gives $100,000 to students 19 or younger to drop out of college and pursue creative expeditions in science, investment, and entrepreneurship.

Two Harvard students have received Thiel Fellowships, Ben Yu and Sujay Tyle.

Thiel—who is a self-identified libertarian—said he is skeptical of welfare programs, which he believes may hinder innovation and healthy economic growth.

“A lot of the New Deal economic theories were not quite correct. But in the 30s—a world of incredible economic advancement—there was a powerful tailwind of support,” Thiel said, later adding that “welfare states lead to horizontal movement.”

Thiel was unable to discuss Facebook’s recent initial public offering because of his involvement in the company.

“He has some controversial ideas, but I think they can be very helpful,” said Ha H. Le, who attended the event. “You don’t see a lot of people offering grants for students to drop out.”

On Jan. 30, President Barack Obama participated in a Google Plus “Hangout.” In the live video chat, Obama answered questions submitted through YouTube videos and interacted with five other people, Politico reported. The event came as a follow-up to his State of the Union address.

Obama is no stranger to social media. In 2011, he used sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to communicate with people and answer questions.

The president’s use of social media reflects a growing trend among politicians — as it becomes more prevalent and mainstream in U.S. culture, politicians are hoping to take advantage.

From the mayors of both Minneapolis and St. Paul to the 60-plus state legislators on Twitter, Minnesota politicians have found a new way to connect with constituents.

“[Politicians] are using social media for fundraising and organization tools for events, in addition to pushing out campaign messages,” said Heather LaMarre, an assistant professor in the U. Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication who specializes in social media and politics.

Many people are excited about the potential social media has in connecting voters and students to their representatives. However, LaMarre said that in local politics, social media can be “counterintuitive.”

“You think social media levels the playing field and gives an advantage to the underdog who has less resources,” she said, but a campaign needs “human capital” to keep the profiles up to date.

“The advantage goes to the candidate again who, unfortunately, is well-funded,” she said.

LaMarre said she believes social media can serve as a gateway to political involvement for some college students, but at the end of the day, they still need some political interest in order to follow political news.

“For those who have a minimum level of interest or who start paying attention to it, I think it definitely has the power to energize young people,” she said. “But it doesn’t necessarily bring new people in, because why would you fan a political page instead of a sports page or entertainment page?”

Despite its limitations, LaMarre does believe that interactive media in the digital age will be a “game-changer.”

“It’s not just social media. It’s sort of the fusion of all of the kinds of interactive media,” she said.

“Voters are changing the game because they are getting actively involved,” she said. “The power is shifting from elite to the public again.”

Apple’s reimbursement is a result of the settlement reached with plaintiffs after the alleged faulty manufacturing of the MagSafe power adapters, according to a third-party website created under the terms of the settlement. The final hearing of the settlement will take place Feb. 27. The 2009 class-action lawsuit filed against Apple Inc. applies to MacBook and MacBook Pro laptop power adapters sold between 2006 and 2009.

These defects allegedly caused the adapters to strain, fray, spark, overheat, melt or otherwise prematurely fail, according to a press release by the law firm representing the plaintiffs. Currently Apple Inc. is only replacing adapters showing signs of “strain relief damage,” and they have since discontinued the defective model. Users who have replaced their defective power adapter will be reimbursed for the cost of the new unit.

Muhammad Imran, owner of Sam Computers on Guadalupe and 25th streets, said he has had experience with the faulty cords at his shop.

“[The plugs] always go bad and they just buy a new adapter from us. I see different students come in for new adapters a few times a week, and this isn’t the first Apple defect that I’ve observed,” Imran said. “Apple is huge though, and this isn’t going to stop the Mac craze.”

Christy Krames, UT alumna and Mac owner, said she is surprised that Apple did not correct this issue until it was brought to them in court.

“It seems like a company like Apple would automatically make it right, but it is a major corporation,” Krames said. “I’m not surprised they would go for their bottom line. That’s where their loyalty is.”

The nationwide group of plaintiffs include Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro users who own the 60 watt or 85 watt MagSafe MPM-1 (“T”) model power adapter. Plaintiffs have until March 21, 2012 to file with the class-action lawsuit to be reimbursed for the replacement units.

Craig Briskin and other attorneys at Briskin, Mehir & Skalet who are working for the plaintiffs, said the result is in the best interest of the consumer.

“The cords are still out there and in use,” Briskin said. “So we think it’s a very good result for a class-action settlement, and I am especially pleased that we were able to accomplish this in such a relatively short amount of time.”

Representatives at Apple, Inc. did not return requests for comment.

Briskin said Apple’s evasive response to the lawsuit was only to delay reparations for a problem they already knew existed.

“Their position was that this happened in only a small number of cases,” Briskin said. “However, they did have on their web page that this was an issue. So far, more than 20,000 of the cords have been returned in the U.S. alone.”

The policy strives for simplicity in both length and language, and it unifies nearly all of Google’s services, products and websites. The notable changes in the policy focus on the merges and the ways this will affect advertising and the overall privacy of Google’s users.

While Google reasons that having one privacy policy mutually benefits both users and advertisers, there are privacy advocates who are alarmed by the changes. Jeffery Chester, executive director at The Center for Digital Democracy, told NPR that “online advertisers want to be assured that they can access users online, knowing everything possible about them,” which Google’s privacy changes would provide.

Despite these baseless concerns, Google’s vice president, Alan Eustace, told NPR that collecting data from multiple Google services will give users innovative experiences. For example, by combining information gathered from the calendar feature and data from map and traffic applications, Google can determine what time a user can leave their house so they can arrive at a scheduled meeting in San Francisco without worrying about road congestion.

The changes made to Google’s privacy policy would likely not affect the lives of everyday citizens and the

new policy pledges to request consent for further changes. If users are still not convinced that the changes are harmless, there are options.

One option is to disable cookies on your Internet browser, because cookies play a significant role in how Google is able to track you across its services. In addition, one can choose not to use Google. Because of the innovative and competitive Internet environment, there are other search engines, email accounts, social networking sites and services options besides Google, from Hotmail to Bing.

At the very least, Google is giving users enough time to adjust should they decide to close Gmail or YouTube accounts. Ultimately, privacy groups can reprimand these policy changes, but few people seem to care about how their data is used, as shown by the popularity of Facebook.

There is no doubt that Google is prevalent and this privacy policy change reflects a changing Internet culture. The Internet and all the technological devices that access it can be easily valued as a human right. In fact, last June the United Nations published a report declaring Internet access a fundamental human right.

Viewing the Internet in this sense allows us to easily forget that there are real companies seeking revenue that can justify giving advertisers user data because this business model has gone relatively unchallenged.

Pinterest stands out among its social media competitors as simplistic and user-friendly with an image-heavy grid design. With the click of a button an image can be pinned and saved onto a board that denotes a category, such as “DIY & Crafts” or “Hair & Beauty.” Each image becomes a “pin” and you can add a caption to label it.

Lots of Pinterest users create a board to remember things they think will come in handy, like 10 ways to use a mason jar and how to sew your own reusable grocery bags.

Pinterest is as much a resource as the people using it make of it. Users, or “pinners,” not only save pins that they want to remember but also discover new things that other pinners have to share. By following your friends on Pinterest — a system similar to Facebook — you can see what your friends are pinning, and when your profile is public, others can see your pins.

Launched in March 2010 by a company called Cold Brew Labs, Pinterest is most popular with women under the age of 35 according to web information company alexa.com, which also reports that Pinterest’s traffic ranks 24th in the United States. Despite still being an invite-only platform, Pinterest drew in over 7 million unique visitors this past December.

Data from Google Ad Planner suggests that about 80 percent of Pinterest users are female. With virtual pins of craft ideas for old palette boards and homemade beauty recipes, women aren’t just using Pinterest, they’re claiming to be “obsessed” and “addicted.”

U. Texas senior journalism lecturer Robert Quigley, who teaches multimedia and social media, finds it interesting that Pinterest is the first major social network that appears to cater to a specific gender.

“Recently, I asked my multimedia journalism students to raise their hands if they were active on Google+, which boasts more than 90 million registered users. No one raised a hand,” Quigley said. “When I asked how many were active on Pinterest, about two-thirds of the students said they were.”

Fashion and beauty bloggers appear to be a driving force behind Pinterest. If they aren’t citing pins as inspiration for blog posts, it’s their content that’s going viral as it’s “repinned” by other users.

Austin style blogger Lauren Holdsworth of cactuscollective.wordpress.com sees Pinterest as a communal, creative space that is an excellent source of inspiration for her blog posts on fashion and home decor. She also uses the site to promote her blog’s content. When she pins an image, readers of her blog who follow her on Pinterest might get a hint of what’ll be on one of her future blog posts.

“Pinning gift guides, outfits or various other collages I’ve created on Pinterest gets my content out in a different way [than] the blog does,” Holdsworth said.

Living in an age of rampant Internet sharing means that often, the source listed on a pin on Pinterest isn’t the true original source. Pins from Pinterest, like photos from other websites, can be saved to a computer and be uploaded on other platforms, while the original source gets lost along the way.

In the Pinterest terms of use, the company states that they are not responsible for any infringement its users engage in. Oren Bracha, intellectual property law professor at UT, said that as long as Pinterest falls in line with the many conditions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, it is immune from consequences of copyright infringement.

“There are many things involved in this act, but simply put, to comply with this act, Pinterest needs to remain a passive host who doesn’t filter, edit, upload or control the user content,” Bracha said. “And if they should become aware of very specific infringement issues, then they are obligated under the act to act expeditiously.”

Bloggers who feel that their copyrighted works have been infringed upon are urged to report any specific potential violations to an email address listed on Pinterest’s site.

Craft blogger Amy Anderson of crafterminds.com acknowledges that Pinterest can be frustrating for bloggers who aim to control their original content, but sees it as a generally good resource.

“I think it’s naïve to think that everyone on the Internet is going to care about sourcing as much as bloggers do. The whole premise of Pinterest is that it’s a quick way to bookmark something visually,” Anderson said. “Most pinners aren’t bloggers, nor do they own a website so they aren’t doing it out of maliciousness.”

Anderson feels that with Pinterest, she takes the good with the bad. “Pinterest uses images to represent bookmarks, which makes the visual organization of ideas so easy and so quick. I think people are using it for the means that it was intended, which is to remember cool stuff they saw,” Anderson said.

Quigley said now is a good time to be a content creator with Pinterest. “They get more use out of sharing than they see negative consequences,” Quigley, who currently has two pins to his name, said of Pinterest users.

“If bloggers, or anyone else, fear social media for that reason, they’ll miss out on all the potential benefits of building an online community around you and your content.”

A couple weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI shut down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload, claiming the website violated copyright laws. A judge in New Zealand denied bail to Kim Dotcom, the website’s founder, about a week ago. And recently it was announced that as early as a couple weeks from now, 50 million users could have their uploaded content permanently deleted.

Shutting down Megaupload happened to take place the day after websites such as Google and Wikipedia blacked out in protest of SOPA and PIPA.

So naturally, Anonymous “hacktivists” and large parts of the Internet community went nuts over it.

Calm down. The cops most likely won’t burst into your house tomorrow, see the music you downloaded illegally and throw you in jail without due process.

First, taking down Megaupload wasn’t the government’s reaction to the blackout protests, as it could not have been a single-day operation. The U.S. Justice Department reported (without extensive media coverage) that the indictment was filed on January 5, weeks before the anti-SOPA blackouts.

Second, Megaupload had it coming.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects file-sharing sites as long as they remove copyrighted material once someone flags it. YouTube, for example, has programs and staff  in place that almost immediately take down material flagged as copyrighted. (I’m not saying you should try this, but if you upload a video with “Toxic” by Britney Spears playing in the background, in a short while you’ll get an email from YouTube telling you they’ve removed your content.)

According to Reuters, prosecutors said Megaupload did not always remove flagged copyrighted material.

University associate professor Reza Rejaie helped publish a study that looks closely at who uploads content onto file-sharing websites. He does not think these sites had low regulations by accident.

“The person who established the website, on the one hand, is not to blame. But think about it, how do they make money? What is interesting content? Copyrighted content,” Rejaie said. “I think they have an incentive not to remove that material.”

Government officials said Megaupload cost owners of copyrighted material over $500 million while making themselves over $175 million. This money came partly from advertising but mostly from subscription fees.

These accusations don’t include the claim that Megaupload executives were also involved in money laundering. Several Megaupload officials have been personally charged with racketeering.

So if Megaupload was involved in all this, why did the Internet community react so strongly against the government taking it down? Because the website wasn’t all bad.

You may have seen the (poorly edited and super awkward) video featuring various celebrities outwardly supporting Megaupload. These celebrities (Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Lil Jon and others) possibly spoke in favor of Megaupload partly because they were paid to. Let’s be real, Dotcom probably has so much money he’d be able to pay off my student loans with one check. But also, artists get a pretty bad cut from record companies. If they are able to switch over to a file-sharing site, they can cut out many of the middle men and profit more per song. And honestly, which great band ever wrote a song about how much they loved the music industry?

Additionally, much of the material hosted on the site was legitimate.

Michael Beardsworth, a computer and information science major at the University, believes the government is fighting a losing battle against these file-sharing sites.

“Information wants to be free, and censorship to protect copyright is ultimately a failing strategy,” he said.

Similarly, University student Oliver Bochsler has confidence that although the U.S. Justice Department shut down one large file-sharing site, it can’t prevent sites like it from hosting illegal material.

“It’s good that they took the site down, but it’s a lot of effort to shut down something that’s going to have a similar replica back up and running soon,” Bochsler said.

For those in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, maybe this shutdown was a good thing. The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI have now shown to Congress they don’t need to pass a poorly worded bill into law to take down websites that host copyrighted material.

As we wait for the Megaupload game to play out, pay attention to the protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that are happening all over Europe. The agreement was passed into the United States in October of 2011 — without Senate approval — and is awfully similar to the SOPA and PIPA bills the community fought so hard to push out of Congress a couple weeks ago.

But today, the tables may start to turn. Facebook is set to file for an I.P.O. (Initial Public Offering), allowing any of its faithful uses to buy stock in the company and eventually, that’s right, own Facebook.

It’s estimated that Facebook’s value will amount somewhere between $75 to $100 billion. Hot. Damn. And while many will be tempted to invest significant assets into the Internet behemoth, we can’t help but wonder: Will Facebook continue to be a sustainable company? Or is it on its way to sliding into Myspace-esque irrelevance?

While it’s clear Facebook’s impact on the world of social networking is incomparable, we are starting to think it just may have reached its peak already. And with its probable impending financial partnership with Morgan Stanley, we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s going to change significantly –– a change that may finally makes its million of users walk away.

With its foray into the public world of IPOs, many critics are worried Facebook will begin to cater to advertisers, if it’s possible, even more than it does now.

And with the increased pressure from advertisers, we’re sure there will be even more ambiguous privacy-dealings; because really, why are the only ads on the side of our Facebook page for Alcoholics Anonymous and The Cupcakery? How do they KNOW?

The truth is, Facebook has a hold on our generation, and they know it.

MegaUpload was raided and shut down earlier this month — and its principals charged — with numerous counts of copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering.

Founder Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand in possession of forged travel documents and illegal weapons. He has since been classified as a significant flight risk and denied bail. The indictment alleges that MegaUpload made approximately $175 million last year providing access to copyrighted materials, and was visited by up to 50 million users each day.

MegaUpload did not provide copyrighted materials directly, but rather provided server space for users to upload files and then share a link with others, which would allow them to download the file.

The files were not hosted by users like torrents, which merely facilitate ports for getting in and out of the river of traffic. The site generated profit primarily from advertising and monthly fees for “premium” access, which allowed users space to store their files for sharing with others, as well as priority for downloading others’ files. Free users were given incentives to purchase a premium membership through various annoyances that accompanied every individual download.

MegaUpload executives claim that they did their absolute best to regulate user uploads in conjunction with the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but many of the site’s features revolved around user incentives that were clearly designed to encourage distribution of copyrighted content. A good example of this would be their uploader reward program, which encourages users to distribute links to copyrighted material to as many people as possible in exchange for account credits, which can eventually be redeemed for cash or other rewards.

It’s difficult to believe that Dotcom was unaware what the site was being used for and that its operations were likely illegal. He is no stranger to legal trouble. He has been arrested previously in the ‘90s for stealing calling card numbers and in 2002 for insider trading and embezzlement. Dotcom is a notoriously flamboyant character in the Internet security industry. He owns the most expensive home in New Zealand, as well more than 20 vehicles — including a Rolls Royce Phantom with the vanity plate reading “God.”

He has also occasionally participated in Europe’s Gumball 3000 rally. Dotcom knew exactly what the site was being used for, and he maintained the site because it was quite profitable. The music and film industries want US authorities to make an example out of Kim Dotcom.

A high profile arrest could “change the calculus,” according to MPAA production executive Kevin Suh. But the film and music industries are trying to change the wrong variable. Rather than cracking down on pirating, they should make mainstream purchase less objectionable — iTunes music service has been profitable and popular offering downloads for lower price than the physical disc, as has Amazon’s service.

Providing a cheap, legal alternative to piracy won’t eliminate it entirely, but it will bring over the consumers on the margin. Eventually the loss of those consumers will cause fewer entrepreneurs like Kim Dotcom to enter the market.

A positive incentive, like fixing the problems that led to the growth of piracy will be far more effective than cracking down on file-sharers.

They’re boring, seemingly over-emphasized and certainly over-publicized in the media during any normal year. It’s even worse as we creep closer to the 2012 presidential election; even those that manage to consistently abstain from the collective political commentary find themselves being coerced into the conversation.

For these reasons and many more, college-age students often disconnect themselves with the national political issues at hand.

Who can blame them, right?

Despite the obvious need to prioritize academics, college has also always been a time for social expansion among other aspects of maturity. In other words, the latest legislation passed down from our nation’s policymakers is usually not the most prominent conflict in our lives.

But what we sometimes fail to realize is that our generation is standing on the precipice of an imminent and monumental political shift in our country. And by taking the initiative to remain proactively politically informed, our generation – along with our modern beliefs and ideals – will soon supplant those of our parents and other generations before us.

It’s a critical responsibility, despite the fact that so many young people take it so lightly.

The battle against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) have brought to light some of our generation’s capabilities to stand up against potential political injustices – especially through the means of the Internet – but have also highlighted some of our shortcomings.

For instance, the PIPA bill was introduced to the U.S. Senate last May, but it took nearly a year for public awareness about such a threatening piece of legislation to reach the point where policymakers finally had no choice but to pull the bill while they come up with a less-controversial way of targeting copyright infringement.

It was promising that such attention could be brought to a specific piece of legislation so quickly, where in less-democratic countries it would have almost certainly passed without even the possibility of debate, but regrettable in the sense that it took such a wide-scale campaign to raise awareness about a piece of legislation embedded with countless sacrifices of our basic civil rights entitled by the Constitution.

Despite the fact many are now “basking in the glory of victory” over SOPA and PIPA, the truth is the battle for enforcing copyright infringement is far from over. The only way to ensure we can continue to effectively drive back similarly restrictive legislation is to remain proactively informed and at least somewhat politically involved.

This responsibility applies to older generations as well – before the widespread Jan. 18 blackouts by a multitude of websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) caught the attention of the national news, hardly anyone I had talked to over the age of 40 was familiar with either SOPA or PIPA, or how it in anyway affected them.

Too often, our society depends on these major media outlets to keep us up-to-date and informed on critical, developing national news. This is simply a misappropriation of responsibility.

Each voting individual in our society is responsible for gathering their own information about our nation’s policies to make informed, independent decisions.

That doesn’t mean I’m prescribing you to engage in thorough political discussion on a daily basis or to go scouring through heaps of political legislation looking for that one minor civil injustice someone else might have missed.

It just means that part of our collective responsibility as American citizens is being educated enough on the political process and new laws that are being introduced in order to continue to improve collective social conditions and keep lawmakers in check.

Admittedly, it’s easier said than done.

But a concerted effort by a majority of our generation to become more politically aware could literally turn the tide in American politics, beginning to shift policies and bring about a more agreeable status quo for the future.

In its 2011 second-quarter earnings results, Time Warner announced it had lost 130,000 customers, or 1 percent of total subscribers.

Users may have turned to streaming boxes like the Apple TV or Roku 2 XS. For $99, users can get a wealth of content streamed directly to their TV.

The only question is: Which is better, Apple TV or Roku 2 XS?

Size

Measuring 3.3-by-3.3-by-0.9 inches to the Apple TV’s 3.9-by-3.9-by-0.91 inches, the Roku 2 is technically the smaller box.

But when both can fit in the palm of your hand, tenths of an inch don’t make much of a difference.

Result: Tie.

Usability

The Apple TV’s operating system is based on a version of iOS, the software on iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices.

But the similarities end there.

The Apple TV menu runs horizontally across the screen and has selections for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, photos, Internet (services like Netflix) and settings. It’s not exactly iOS-like. But the menu is easy to understand and animations are smooth and crisp. No complaints there.

The Roku 2′s menu is similar to the Apple TV’s in that it runs horizontally, but instead of menu options, there are “channels” to watch. Many channels.

The Roku 2′s menu operations run smoothly, but there is occasional lag.

Result: Apple TV’s interface wins this one.

Output/Input

Both the Apple TV and Roku 2 have Wi-Fi capabilities and Ethernet ports to stream movies and music.

For video output, they both use HDMI ports (720p max for Apple TV, 1080p max for Roku), but the Roku has an analog option for standard definition video.

Audio-wise, most will just use the HDMI cable, but there is an option for optical audio out on the Roku 2 if surround sound setup is desired.

For some reason, there’s a tiny microSD card slot on the back of the Roku 2 and a USB port on the back of the Apple TV — odd additions for streaming-centric devices.

Result: Roku 2. Full 1080p HD video is a must-have these days.

CONTENT

Apple TV has access to the iTunes store, Flickr, Netflix, YouTube, NHL GameCenter, MLB.TV, NBA.com and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, it can use Apple’s AirPlay feature to stream movies or music straight from an iOS device to the Apple TV.

AirPlay Mirroring also allows the screen of an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to be displayed on an Apple TV.

Some features of iCloud also made it to the streaming device. Photo Stream loads all the pictures you take to the cloud and streams them down to the Apple TV.

Overall, it’s got a pretty solid feature set, and AirPlay somewhat makes up for the lack of channels.

But the Roku 2 XS destroys the Apple TV when it comes to content.

With more than 300 channels, including Pandora and Hulu Plus, the Roku 2′s library of free and subscription content is jaw-dropping.

Plus, the XS version of Roku 2 has an included game remote like the Nintendo Wii. Only Angry Birds and a few other games are available as of now, but this is a big feature that the Roku 2 has and Apple TV does not.

Result: Roku 2, without a doubt. Though it doesn’t have access to iTunes, the addition of Pandora support and multitude of content makes this an easy victory for the Roku.

Overall Value

The Apple TV and Roku 2 XS are both $99 — well worth the price of admission, as both boxes offer access to streaming content both free and priced.

However, the Roku 2′s massive amount of channels and games overshadow the Apple TV’s wimpy eight.

In a battle between Internet streaming boxes, the winner is the device with the biggest variety of, well, things to stream. Whether it’s listening to Pandora radio stations or playing Angry Birds, the Roku 2 XS does what the Apple TV can’t.

Could this change? Of course. A simple firmware upgrade to the Apple TV could give it the same amount of content as the Roku 2. But as of now, the winner has to be the Roku 2 XS.

It took a major, culminating event for the information on the labor law violations to garner enough media attention. But the sluggish media response harkens back to the ignored cries for help that shaped the American worker’s revolution after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It is unlikely that Apple sales will take a hit now that the information has surfaced. But the frightening historical parallels serve as a reminder that the ethical operations of the largest and most trusted American corporations still need to be kept under surveillance, particularly in their international outposts. According to the New York Times report, employees had been working excessive hours with sub-par, dangerous living and working conditions. Yet international law and the Alien Tort Statute still do not hold corporations liable for international crimes. Even if the media is comfortable pointing the finger at corporations, the concrete ramifications of situations like Apple’s are still limited.

Constant access to the Internet and to others has our society continuously connected. Today, we have to worry about checking Facebook, Twitter, email, Tumblr and text messages. People are hooked to the web, which allows easy access to other people but at the same time creates stress and anxiety — our attention is constantly strained.

Students commonly multitask while studying. If the homework requires a laptop, the access to everyone else through social networking is too tempting to resist. With Facebook, YouTube, cell phones and TVs distracting students, it creates an extremely difficult atmosphere to concentrate in.

People want information fast and to the point. We want our news quickly. This has changed our calm, focused minds. Nicholas Carr notes in his book “The Shallows” that it’s difficult for people to sit down and read a large chunk of a book for class now because of technology. Even Carr himself said he isn’t able to concentrate on reading books anymore, and it’s because of the fast-paced Internet world.

We now think differently and have different habits because of technological advancements, and we should be wary of its consequences. It’s important to live in the real world and experience life outside of the laptop. It’s important to have real interactions with other people, without computer mediation.

This week is National Green Week — the perfect chance to take a day to unplug from your technology.

Balding’s study suggests that because smartphone’s allow for easy access to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the pressure to keep up with one’s social life becomes a large contributor to stress.

“The presence of information a smartphone can provide may indeed work to overwhelm people within their already busy and demanding environment,” St. Thomas U. psychology professor Paul Beckmann said. “It’s like having a fire hose of information.”

Many students said that they agree with the study, and St. Thomas sophomore Mauricio Carranza said that smartphones keep people “wondering what everyone is doing at every minute of every hour of every day.”

“Then you are wondering what other people think of what you are doing,” Carranza said.

St. Thomas freshman Samantha Bogdanovich said that she agrees that smartphones not only add stress, but they also interrupt everyday activities.

“If you are talking to someone on Facebook or texting and then there is something going on that is stressful, it interrupts what you are doing,” Bogdanovich said.

Beckmann said that smartphones are an issue because people “don’t have the mental horsepower to deal with everything in the environment.”

“There may be other things going on in an environment, but we are selecting those things out,” Bechmann said.

Bogdanovich said that she does not believe turning the device off will necessarily solve the problem.

“I feel like maybe if you just didn’t have it with you because you can always just turn it back on, I think that would help,” Bogdanovich

The study also found that smartphone use for work purposes did not increase stress levels.

“I prefer to read my emails on my phone,” St. Thomas sophomore Max Bischmann said. “If I am out on the go, I want to know what is going on.”

Carranza said that he is sometimes relieved when his phone is not able to distract him.

“I am actually sometimes happy when it (phone) is not charged or the battery goes out sometimes. You’re like, ‘OK, I don’t have to worry about that anymore,’” Carranza said.

The research suggests that those people who are most stressed out, experience phantom vibrations. A phantom vibration is when a person thinks their phone has vibrated when it really has not.

“You can develop heightened sensitivity under conditions of stress…if they have a high level of stress they may have a muscle tremor,” Beckmann said. “That muscle tremor may be a real movement of their skin against their cellphone rather than their cellphone against their skin.”

The study was conducted by a questionnaire that was administered to over 100 participants, including university students and employees from a range of occupations.

These devices have become invaluable to us and hold a nearly constant place in our society — but at what price?

Public Radio International’s “This American Life” aired a special about the nitty-gritty of Apple’s manufacturing, reported by Mike Daisey, an amateur journalist and Apple connoisseur who took to Shenzhen, China, looking to answer questions he had about his faith. It would be an understatement to say what he found was unsettling.

During the first hours of his visit to Foxconn’s company in Shenzhen, where Apple manufactures its products, Daisey met at least three workers under the age of 16 — and he estimated at least 5 percent of workers were underage. These children work under “standard” shifts of 12 hours, which often extend to 14 or 16 without being paid overtime. And depending on the type of work being done, employees could be subject to harmful conditions, such as hexane, a neurotoxin used for cleaning screens. As an extra note: Foxconn is the manufacturing company that received mass suicide threats from its employees earlier this month if it didn’t change its business practices.

Daisey’s monologue goes into excruciating detail, but here’s the thing: We all know unethical labor practices are not exclusive to Apple. Outsourcing has become a business-savvy method of accruing a profit and minimizing cost, largely because of lowered labor costs, and any business that doesn’t have a hand in it is out for a struggle in this financial climate.

But a teeming business like Apple, whose quarterly net profits hit a record high just last month, has no reason to participate in these immoral practices. The business that made just over $13 billion in the 2011 holiday quarter can afford to coerce its manufacturing partners to raise employee’s working conditions — and not employ underage children — without risking its competitiveness nor the low costs of its product to its consumers.

Since the uproar about Foxconn company’s working conditions, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a memo to his employees, detailing the provisions they’d be taking to make amends and ways to remain transparent about the manufacturing process. These are the first steps. Such ghastly conditions can only be stopped with Apple’s whole-hearted intent to put an end to child labor and inhumane working conditions.

My opening question was to raise the point that just because you have great leadership doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily create great products, not to mention sell them. As far as tech companies go, we’ve had Bill Gates with Microsoft, which made popular the Windows operating system; Steve Jobs,  with not only making Apple computers successful but doing so twice; Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook; Sergey Brin along with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt with launching Google; Jeff Bezos with his Amazon empire; and, in case you didn’t know, Reed Hastings, the man behind Netflix.

All of these CEOs were successful and are known around the world for their various management tactics and leadership. But if it wasn’t for the successful products and how their companies sold them, they’d have gone on unnoticed by the public eye.

And I think that’s the problem for RIM. BlackBerrys used to be one of the best smartphones you could buy before the “Jesus Phone,” aka the iPhone, came to be. RIM has ended up in the same boat as Microsoft with Windows Mobile, losing marketshare as well as brand recognition to the consumer masses, who are purchasing smartphones at an incredible rate. The difference being Microsoft has stepped up their game as they not only revamped the once-dull-looking Windows Mobile, but they’ve made several partnerships with various phone manufacturers, most notable being HTC and Nokia, which have cranked out some amazing phones.

RIM, however, has been slow to the punch with upgrading not only their phone hardware but their operating system too. Last April, RIM launched the BlackBerry PlayBook, a tablet set to compete with the iPad, and although it wasn’t terrible, it was missing basic features users had become acustomed to. It had to be synced to a BlackBerry phone to get to certain apps, which was not only kind of limiting if you didn’t already have a BlackBerry, but extremely short sighted of the RIM development team as they launched a product that was essentially missing apps that were crucial to the device’s success.

RIM has been criticized for its slow response to external market forces as that’s becoming a more crucial characteristic of all technology companies. With it’s upcoming release of BlackBerry OS 10, perhaps some of these shortcomings can be cleared up. The issue with RIM is that they’re stuck in the past.

Yes, people love their BlackBerry phones, and I know I still have a little spot in my heart reserved for the BlackBerry Tour I used to have, but with less developers making apps for the BlackBerry App World, you have to ask, “What gives?”

Drastic changes must be made if RIM wants to remain relevant in the smartphone market. This could be done in several ways, the first being to pull a Microsoft and to focus exclusively on enterprise customers. RIM offers a great lineup of features and services to their enterprise customers and could focus exclusively in that realm as a successful enterprise services firm. Even better would be to team up with Microsoft, and put Windows Mobile on BlackBerry phones, furthering their enterprise-only venture.

The other option would be to abandon the BlackBerry OS and put Android on their phones. It’s a valid option and has apparently been on the minds of RIM developers as BlackBerry PlayBook owners can run a virtual Android OS on their tablet already. Either way, they’re going to do something fas. Maybe their new CEO be able to make the drastic changes to get back into the game.

According to a study published in this month’s issue of General Hospital Psychiatry, excessive use of the Internet can cause Internet Addiction Disorder, or IAD, which can lead to anxiety and depression.

“Something becomes an addiction when it becomes problematic, when you choose to continue to do something in spite of consistently negative consequences,” said Bill Arck, director of Kansas State U.’s Alcohol and Other Drug Education Service.

The concept of IAD was introduced in 1995 by researcher Ivan Goldberg, according to the study. Since then, there have been a variety of definitions of excessive Internet usage, including compulsive computer use, pathological Internet use or Internet addiction.

The study, authored by Frederico Tonioni, et al, and entitled “Internet addiction: hours spent online, behaviors and psychological symptoms,” defines the important criteria to diagnose IAD as “a misuse of Internet, characterized by many hours spent online avoiding interpersonal relationships with real and known people.”

In the study, 86 participants were given various tests, surveys and interviews about their Internet usage. Only time spent on non-studying and non-working purposes was counted in the research. All participants exhibiting current drug or alcohol addiction, psychotic disorders or other deficits were eliminated from the participant pool.

There are key questions that can help determine if an addiction is occurring, Arck said.

“I ask questions such as ‘Is it affecting your interpersonal relationships?,’ ‘Do you ever feel guilty about the time you spend on the computer?’ or ‘Have you even been annoyed by other’s criticism about time you spend on the Internet?’” Arck said, adding that he asks very similar questions when asking about substance abuse problems.

The survey consisted of a total of 20 similar questions gauging participants’ Internet usage. At the end of the study, 21 participants were found to exhibit symptoms of IAD. Of those participants, non-working and non-studying Internet use ranged from 20.3 to 75.3 hours per week.

The remaining 65 participants were used as the control group.

Participants who were labeled as exhibiting IAD scored higher on each question except “How often do you check your email before something else you need to do?” Their response suggests that people with IAD are not interested in communicating with people in the real world.

According to the study, levels of depression and anxiety were positively correlated with the number of hours per week spent online.

Arck agreed that a correlation often exists between addiction, depression and anxiety.

“A fairly high percentage of students that I see have co-occurring mild to moderate depression and a lot of social anxiety disorder. There is a connection there,” Arck said. “There tends to be a connection because the addiction is a way of muting those feelings. If people are addicted to the Internet, they are going to turn to it because they get enjoyment out of it.”

Other symptoms of Internet addiction include difficulty cutting down on online time, lack of sleep, fatigue, declining grades or poor job performance, apathy and racing thoughts, decreased investment in social relationships and activities, and irritability.

While K-State doesn’t offer a specific program to assist those suffering from IAD, there are resources available on campus, said Dorinda Lambert, director at K-State’s Counseling Services.

“We would certainly meet with them, and find out what was happening and what can be done to help,” Lambert said. “We don’t have a specific program (for IAD), but we would be a good resource to start with. We can look at what’s fueling the feeling of needing to connect with people online instead of connecting with other people, making them too connected to the Internet.”

According to a study conducted by Arck on K-State students’ Internet usage in 2010, K-State students are using the Internet for recreation, but a majority of students limit their recreational Internet use to a few hours a day.

“The question was ‘Approximately how many hours per day do you typically spend recreationally on your computer/Internet?’ This included being on Facebook, Myspace, playing games and other recreational activities,” Arck said.

The survey polled 950 students. A majority of students, 56 percent, reported spending an average of two hours per day on the Internet for recreational purposes. On the highest end of the spectrum, 7 percent of students responded that they spend five or more hours per day on the Internet for recreation.

“Out of those surveyed, we’re looking at 7 percent that say they spend five plus hours per day on the Internet. That’s 35 hours per week,” Arck said. “That’s incredible, especially when they also reported they spend about 10 hours per week studying.”

Marylynn Griebel, freshman in industrial engineering, spends approximately 60 to 90 minutes a day using her computer for recreational activities.

“I use it mostly for watching TV shows on Hulu and getting on Facebook,” Griebel said.

While Griebel said she has never made the conscious decision to spend time on her computer instead of spending time with people, she does have the ability to take the Internet with her at all times on her cellphone.

“I’m on Facebook all the time on my phone when I’m bored,” Griebel said. “I check it quite a bit. I probably spend about 15 minutes a day, just hopping on and checking it periodically.”

While each person handles Internet usage differently, if it begins to decrease life quality, it is not something to take lightly, Arck said.

“This is not an addiction to ignore,” Arck said. “No matter if it’s an alcoholic, drug, sexual, Internet or some other type of addiction, addiction is addiction. It’s usually an indicator of something much greater that’s wrong.”

Students may feel a lighter load, however, with the recent addition of digital textbooks to iPads, laptops and cellphones.

Technology companies have discussed digitalizing books for years, but the conversation has picked up rapidly in the past few months after Apple and other companies announced that they are ready to try it out, said Christine Borgman, a professor of information studies at UCLA.

This week, the California textbook company Chegg announced it would begin offering textbooks that can be rented or bought to be viewed online. A day after Chegg’s announcement, Apple announced it too would be offering virtual textbooks through a downloadable application.

The most attractive part of digital books is the potential to cut the high prices that students have had to pay, Borgman said.

“The prices of textbooks has gotten extreme,” she said. “How many students can afford to pay $200 for books per course, per quarter?”

One result of the high prices is that students may just not purchase books, and their grades can suffer because of it, Borgman said.

Textbooks that students can access online or on their mobile devices eliminate the cost of printing or distributing – some of the largest costs for publishers, she said.

Chegg has converted more than 40,000 textbooks to online content, which includes the ability to take notes, online chat and highlight passages, said Brent Tworetzky, product leader of Chegg. Chegg, which previously specialized in renting physical books to students, is one of the first companies to explore the use of existing technology for textbooks.

The two primary reasons companies such as Chegg think the future of textbooks is in digital form is price and convenience, Tworetzky said.

Traditional textbooks have not yet lost appeal for some students. Robert Cacdac, a third-year political science student, said he prefers real books.

“I don’t like staring at a screen all day,” he said. “A book separates you from Facebook and email and other distractions.”

Cacdac said all the online options he has seen for his courses have been more expensive than renting books at the UCLA Textbook Store.

“It’s nice to be able to look at your bookshelf and see what you’ve read,” he said. “It’s like your own library.”

But the pain of carrying around books is why Jeni Hernandez, a fourth-year math student, said she has bought books online previously.

“I’m just carrying around my iPad instead of a bunch of heavy math books,” she said. “Plus, you don’t have to worry about what to throw into your bag in the morning.”

Tworetzky said the new technology reduces the chance of accidentally leaving homework at home.

“Traditional textbooks are heavy, they’re a pain to lug around, and it’s easy to forget them at home,” he said.

“How often have you left your cellphone or laptop at home? With this kind of technology, you’re never far from your books.”

In their current forms, neither bill is an acceptable piece of legislation, but the popular demand that they be scrapped altogether is equally unacceptable. While the failings of both bills will claim victims if the legislation is passed, online piracy will continue to claim equally real victims if no effort is made to mitigate the illegal practice. A much more forward-thinking reaction to SOPA arrived in the week leading up to the blackout, when President Barack Obama decided not to support the bill, delaying the bill’s consideration until at least February. In an official White House blog post, Obama’s staff officially stated its opposition to SOPA, but nonetheless committed to dramatically reducing online piracy in 2012 through some revised legislation. The truth is that online piracy is a very real issue today, and that a well-designed bill could greatly curb piracy while minimizing the negative consequences that have landed SOPA and Protect IP on trial.

To begin, online piracy is a real crime, and today’s victims of piracy deserve some legal recourse to protect their intellectual property. Movie studios, music producers, independent artists and most other content producers suffer from “rogue sites”: websites that are located in other countries and distribute copyrighted material for free, such as the notorious Pirate Bay based in Sweden. As a result, many ventures in the entertainment industry are becoming unprofitable.

Advocates for an open Internet argue that innovation, not legal protection, will keep content providers profitable. In some respects this is absolutely true; Netflix and Hulu are offering solid returns to TV networks, and 3D movies are drawing big crowds overseas and in America. Still, relying solely on innovation to protect content providers ignores the importance of rule of law in America, and also adversely affects content producers and consumers alike. For example, if movies weren’t so easy to pirate, studios would produce more interesting, risky films.

Assuming now that online piracy is worth fighting, how specifically does SOPA fail to accomplish its goal properly? In terms of technology, SOPA does actually offer strong solutions capable of significantly reducing online piracy without assigning any unnecessary economic burden to Internet service providers (ISPs). The bill would require ISPs to block data from IP addresses known to distribute pirated content using the best technology within the ISP’s means. This way, large ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T can use techniques such as deep packet inspection, in which an ISP reads data requested by users before delivering it to them, to outright block all requests to IP addresses from rogue sites. Simultaneously, smaller ISPs can employ less expensive techniques such as DNS blocking to deter some but not all traffic to rogue sites. Although the use of deep packet inspection has given rise to privacy concerns in the past, very light regulation of the process, if written into SOPA, would adequately resolve this.

While SOPA is technologically strong enough to combat online piracy, it is otherwise a misguided piece of legislation. SOPA makes search engines and sites with user-generated content responsible for any copyrighted materials that appear; this means that YouTube could be prosecuted and potentially shut down if it failed to remove content as harmless as a fan remix of a music video, and other such sites would be liable for similar offenses. Even Google, a largely unbiased search engine and an incredible conduit of open information, would be required to filter its results for links to copyrighted content. By forcing web companies to act as policemen, SOPA is not only a drain of economic resources, but a threat to free speech. In this, SOPA goes beyond the mission of curbing rogue sites, choosing to also target American companies that, under current law, are already required to remove content upon request from copyright holders anyway.

Both SOPA and Protect IP would dramatically change the Internet, and both would reduce piracy, but neither bill is without misguided ambitions or unnecessary consequences. The recent White House blog post, however, strongly suggests that Obama is pursuing a very sound solution to the problem of online privacy. With any hope, in the year 2012 we will see a revised bill that calls for the blocking of rogue sites using technologies within the financial means of companies both big and small, preserves user privacy through very light regulation of ISPs, and doesn’t disturb American companies or free speech by mandating unnecessary and unsolicited policing of content.

There has been growing conversation about sleep-texting, which includes responding or sending a text message from a cellular device in the middle of one’s sleep.

“[Sleep texting] would be some variation of sleep walking, where people engage in behaviors while asleep,” U. Alabama psychology professor Kenneth Lichstein said.

While texting in the middle of your sleep may not be an ideal situation, Lichstein said there is probably no harm psychologically to the individual. While the theory may not be known in every household, it is clear it does occur – especially among teenagers and college students.

“Sleep texting definitely can occur especially during the first two stages of sleep because you’re actually very alert, and you don’t actually fall into a deep sleep until right before you’re about to wake,” said FabryeAnne Robinson, a UA senior majoring in psychology.

Some students who are aware of the sleep texting phenomenon agree on its harmful side effects, such as disturbing both a good night’s sleep and social relationships.

“Even though you’re sleep texting and don’t know you’re doing it, your body is still moving and still doing something, so you’re not completely at rest,” said D’Amber Chambers, a UA senior majoring in general health studies. “It might feel like a wear on your body. You might wake up tired and try to figure out why you’re still so tired, and it’s because while you’re asleep you’re still texting and moving around.”

“It does have some type of effect on who you’re actually texting,” Robinson said. “Sometimes you could be dreaming, and it could actually be happening, so it can have an effect on your relationships.”

Many believe we are in an age where everyone, especially young adults, is too attached to their cell phones. So, why can’t students let go of their cell phones for the sake of getting a good night’s sleep?

“It goes to show how much we rely on technology and texting now,” Chambers said. “It shows that we [text] too much to the point where we do it in our sleep.”

A study completed in November found a connection between stress and sleep texting. Dr. David Cunnington of Melbourne Sleep Disorder Centre in Australia concluded sleep texting is a result of people having too many responsibilities in their everyday lives, according to the British newspaper The Daily Mail.

Cunnington advised those struggling with the task to remove their cell phones from their bedrooms when hitting the hay. Texting less during the day can also help to prevent unwanted messaging.

There is an art to breaking up and there are many different ways to go about it. Some try to say the right words in hope of remaining friends. Others want to make sure the person will never talk to them again. Some try hard to not hurt feelings. Others go out of their way to hurt someone. Some use the approach of blaming it all on themselves saying, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Others make sure their soon-to-be-ex feels as if it were their fault.

No matter what approach you take, do not—and I repeat—DO NOT break up with someone via a text message or social media. This is a slap in the face and a good way to make a bad name for yourself.

According to Psychology Today, a recent survey shows that 24 percent of respondents ages 13 to 17 said it was OK to break up with someone through text, and 26 percent of them admitted to doing so.

Becca Johnson, sophomore psychology major at Boise State U., thinks ending things through a text is the worst way possible.

“I’ve had a lot of friends break up with people that way and I’m just like, ‘what are you thinking?’ ” Johnson said. “Can you really not pull yourself together enough to at least make a phone call? I liked a guy and found out he had broken up with his ex through text and it ruined him for me. Grow up people!”

People often use texting as a way of doing things they are too chicken to do in person. It’s fine when you are telling your roommate you drank all their milk, but it’s not OK to use it for something as serious and emotional as a break-up.

In addition to ending a relationship through text, Facebook break-ups are becoming increasingly popular. A survey conducted by dating app “Are you interested,” discovered almost 25 percent of respondents found out their own relationship was over by seeing it on Facebook first and around 21 percent of respondents said they would carry out a break-up by changing their status to single.

This is worse than breaking up through a text. At least text messages are generally private.

When people break up on Facebook, everyone and their dog can see it and, even worse, there is a chance the friends of the people involved are going to see it before the person it was intended for gets online.

BSU freshman art major Alison Greenage admitted her boyfriend broke up with her through a Facebook status.

“It was awful. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die,”  Greenage said.

“My parents saw it, my friends, and even my manager. We almost dated a year and I thought we were past the Facebook break-up stage, but I guess not. It’s the most immature thing you could do to someone.”

Social networking sites should be reserved for keeping in touch with friends, stalking ex-boyfriends and posting pictures of yourself so people will write nice comments and boost your self-esteem.

It definitely shouldn’t be a way to end a relationship.

Break-ups need to be in a private place involving just the two people in the relationship; they absolutely should not be done through any technological resources. Save technology for happy conversations.

The art of breaking up is a unique one and it’s shameful to use Facebook and text messages to do this.

It’s understandable to be scared, but get some courage and do it face-to-face. You’ll be more respected and have  less of a chance of getting your car keyed or your bedroom window smashed out with a brick.

It is unbelievable, really. Since it’s inception in 2006, Twitter has grown into an online sensation and has simultaneously revolutionized and destroyed journalism.

The good — For the responsible journalist Twitter is a dream come true; it is a platform on which you can break news to a mass of people without writing a 600-word story or a news brief.

As a sports fan, joining Twitter a little more than a year and a half ago has revolutionized the way I enjoy sporting events.

If I am at an event in person I’m draining my phone battery refreshing my Twitter app, getting the latest injury news and gauging fan interest.

If I am watching from home on my TV or computer I have Twitter open, waiting for instant reactions from fans that I respect, beat reporter’s injury news and stats, other players insights and jokes from fellow fans.

For myself, it has provided a way for me to spread my love of an underappreciated game, college baseball. Live-tweeting games from the press box helps fans become part of the game and follow the team’s success.

The bad — For the irresponsible, Twitter is a means to spread rumors and create buzz simply to draw clicks from trusting followers.

On Saturday, the official CBS Sports Twitter account reported that former Penn State Head Football Coach and industry legend, Joe Paterno had passed away, clearly without checking to make sure their sources were correct.

In fact, Paterno had not passed away and was in critical condition. Paterno passed away on Sunday.

CBS Sports released an apology to the public and to the Paterno family, but at that point all of the damage had been done, there is no reversing a report like that.

As the public is not nearly as connected as media experts, such as those at CBS Sports, the public relies on these professionals to report accurate information. When reporters fail to hold themselves to this standard, it is dangerous for journalism.

As college sports fans, Twitter has connected us with collegiate recruiting in a way that was not previously possible. In the past, we could follow recruit’s interest levels in certain schools and track their planned visits, but in this new media age we can actually talk to them.

But sometimes the power given to recruiting “insiders” is abused, reporting verbal commitments before they happen, sometimes even causing players to change their minds.

The bottom line is Twitter is a revolutionary tool that can be great for fans and reporters alike, but only if used properly.

For fans — Be a smart consumer of news and be able to distinguish between real reporters and “insiders.” Do not retweet “breaking news” unless the source you are retweeting provided legitimate sources.

For professionals — Be responsible for the sake of your readers. It really is that simple. Do not tweet rumors and limit your “breaking news” to actual confirmed news.

Let us all live in “Twi-harmony”.

Durbin joined forces with U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to introduce the Marketplace Fairness Act, which requires online retailers to collect state sales taxes even if they have no physical presence in the particular state.

Durbin spokesman John Normoyle said the senator heard from businesses across Illinois that “simply want an opportunity to compete fairly” with online retailers like Amazon.com.

“This bipartisan bill provides that level playing field,” Normoyle said in an email to The Daily. “Senator Durbin has also heard concerns from some online retailers and has worked with his colleagues to include a provision in the legislation to make sure that small businesses aren’t unfairly burdened.”

Major online retailer Amazon.com issued a statement Nov. 9 supporting the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Amazon.com spokesman Scott Stanzel told The Daily on Wednesday the online marketplace has supported a federal approach to the issue of online sales tax collection for more than a decade.

“We are actually working closely with Senator Durbin and other sponsors of that Senate legislation,” Stanzel said. “Senator Durbin indicated that he was optimistic they would get the 60 votes to bring up the legislation in spring, and that is something that we’re working hard to support.”

However, not all online retailers are pleased with the bill in its current form. After the Marketplace Fairness Act was introduced in November, eBay immediately released a statement denouncing its potential effectiveness.

“This is another Internet sales tax bill that fails to protect small business retailers using the Internet and will unbalance the playing field between giant retailers and small business competitors,” according to eBay’s press release. “It does not make sense to expand Internet sales tax burdens on small businesses at a time when we want entrepreneurs to create jobs and economic activity.”

EBay is part of NetChoice, a coalition of online stores that lobbies in favor of e-commerce business and consumers rights. Steve DelBianco, NetChoice’s executive director, argued the problem is not related to the online tax.

“It has to do with whether out-of-state retailers would have to collect Illinois sales tax from Illinois residents,” DelBianco said.

He said the problem is Illinois’ passivity toward collecting taxes from online consumers.

“The only question is: who can be forced to collect it?” DelBianco said. “Collecting a sales tax is a great burden on retailers because they have to keep track of over 9,000 tax jurisdictions around the country.”

DelBianco said he is concerned the new bill will actually harm small businesses.

“Congress needs to first make sure that the burden of that collection (does not) unreasonably get in the way of interstate commerce or that they don’t penalize small businesses for whom those burdens are disproportionally expended,” he said.

Small business is not the only group that will be affected, though. Consumers residing in states with no sales tax might feel the brunt of the proposed bill’s effects if it ever becomes law.

Northwestern U. freshman Jon Rockower is from New Jersey, which does not charge sales tax for clothing, medicine or unprepared food. He said institutionalizing the tax would definitely turn people off to online retailing.

“Personally, I don’t think that would affect me as much because I usually buy in-store anyway,” Rockower said. “I think it’ll kill a lot of online retailers as well because they wouldn’t have that extra incentive which is why someone would shop online. So I’m not sure how much I agree with that bill.”

Rockower added he is unsure if the bill will be beneficial anyway.

“I’m not sure how successful it can be because there are certain times when the government needs to raise money somehow and it’s a good way to even things out,” Rockower said. “But I think there are other ways to raise money instead of raising the taxes on everybody.”

The iBooks 2 app, the second generation app to Apple’s iBook, which allows users to download electronic books to their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, educates students through interactive textbooks on the iPad. Students will be able to read textbooks, make notes and turn them into flashcards, zoom in on detailed pictures or define unknown words immediately.

Apple also announced iBooks Author, which allows users to create their own iBook and iTunes U, an app that allows those with iOS-capable devices to take high school and college-level courses for free.

“Without question, this is the direction (textbooks are) moving.” said Ken Petri, Ohio State U.’s director of web access.

Onlineeducation.net, a database for students to explore educational opportunities, reported in its latest blog post that on average, electronic textbooks are 53 percent cheaper than the hard copy.

As of Thursday, students can download the app and buy textbooks through iTunes at $14.99 or lower.

“Digital textbooks will dominate following a lifelong-learning subscription model; in essence an updatable ‘editionless’ textbook,” Steve Acker, OSU research director on Ohio Digital Bookshelf, said in a press release. “The ‘net cost of use’ of digital should be 15 to 20 percent below costs available to students who purchase books.”

Some OSU students said they would use the new app if it becomes accessible to college students.

Edin Hadzic, a fifth-year in political science, said he would use the new app.

“I think going toward more computer-based stuff, ebooks, stuff like (that) will be beneficial because more and more students are using it, especially if it is cheaper and more accessible,” Hadzic said. “Hopefully (textbook companies) will consider dropping their prices a little bit because textbooks are expensive, as everybody knows.”

Yet it might be a while before OSU will be able to adapt to this form of ebook.

Apple is targeting high school students and has partnered with high school textbook publishers McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Some Ohio high schools have been using tablets for education. Columbus School for Girls, a K-12 private school, have used tablet PCs in the classroom for high school students since 2006, said Ben Liu, the IT Director at CSG.

Liu said students use a stylus, which is an electronic pen, on the tablet’s screen for PC involvement during class.

“(About) 70 to 80 percent of students utilize the stylus for notes and projects,” Liu said.

However, Liu had no statistics stating the success rate of students using the tablet PC versus students who do not use tablets.

Petri said the new app can be adapted to college-level education.

“McGraw-Hill and Pearson have tons of books in college editions,” Petri said. “If you look on the store now, there is an algebra book, there is a biology textbook, there’s a chemistry book, and there is no reason at all that these can’t be more advanced textbooks available at a college level.”

Larry Rogers, a fifth-year in computer science and engineering, said this is another step toward the end of traditional publications.

“Everything is so digitized now-a-days anyway,” Rogers said. “I feel like there isn’t going to be any more type of publishing in the next five to 10 years. No newspapers, no textbooks, nothing. I feel like everything is going to be digital.”

Maggie Otto, a third-year psychology and international studies, said she would not use a digital textbook.

“Personally, I like books so I don’t want to get a Kindle because I like holding books in my hand. I think I focus better,” Otto said. “I just like having the textbooks and it makes me feel better to carry around and have to do this.”

The iBook 2 app can be downloaded from iBookstore, which can be found in the iTunes store.

I remember driving an hour out of my way just to see a now-ex-then-boyfriend for 10 minutes. I also remember cooking breakfast for a significant other a couple of times, despite my lack of kitchen skills. I’ve snuck out of my house, been to some interesting places, stayed up late at ridiculous hours — all for the sake of being in a relationship.

However, at some point, I, like many of you I imagine, have to draw the line somewhere. And though we’re all different, I propose that we not share online passwords with the person we happen to be involved with at the time.

In The New York Time’s article, “Young, in Love and Sharing Everything, Including a Password,” young couples show each other love by giving out their Facebook passwords, and sometimes even have similar passwords. They know it’s risky, but it’s OK, because it “makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.”

Gross.

Now, let me just preface this by saying that I am in no way against love. I am not a bitter old single lady who spits at couples at the bus stops and sobs violently when Feb. 14 rolls around. I love that my friends are in good relationships. I’m a closet rom-com watcher, and I’m a sucker for a cute story.

However, I do think that the concept of sharing passwords is very risky. There’s the obvious question of the post-breakup era: Can both parties trust each other not to hack the other’s accounts with awful statuses and vindictive changes? Have we mastered the technology for allowing pigs to stay up in the sky in an aerodynamic motion? (Answer for both: no.)

But there’s also the problem with a slow move toward a lack of identity. Sure, I understand the best part of a relationship is sharing: You get so many cool hoodies, hats, family recipes and surfboards from it. But we have to keep some things to ourselves. Instead of being one half of a couple, we need to be one whole person that happens to be in a relationship.

Now, if you’re thinking that this is so “totally a high-school thing,” you’re right. This odd-love phenomenon is seen mostly in 30 percent of teenagers from the ages of 12 to 17. As most of us are 18 or older, we’re technically in the clear.

Yet, we’re still not totally exempt from this trend. We’re the generation that tends to share everything: from Facebook statuses to ATM numbers. I’m especially technologically guilty — everyone and their mothers know the password to my phone and computer, and I’m pretty sure my best friend has my routing number.

I believe that it is good to be open with people. Anyone who’s ever watched any drama TV show knows that keeping secrets tends to blow up in our faces. We tend to overshare on social media sites, but at least we’re honest. And when we appropriately open up to loved ones, we do become closer with them.

But we’ve got to get used to keeping a little part of ourselves only for … well, ourselves. We need to, again, draw that line, and figure out what we want to give to other people, and what would be best to never share with anyone.

Besides, it’s hard enough to keep your password straight without adding your relationship to the mix.

Sometimes the members play for money, but more often they just play for fun.

What they cannot do, however, is play poker for money on the Internet.

Online gambling is a contentious topic that raises questions about online regulations, gambling addictions and taxable revenue for the state.

Poker, blackjack and sports betting, with the exception of horse racing, were previously illegal in the U.S. over the Internet. Last year, the FBI shut down several large online poker sites, locking users out of their accounts and money.

In December, however, the U.S. Department of Justice released an official change to the 1961 Federal Wire Act, allowing everything but online sports betting. The measure was originally passed to limit mob activity in sports betting, said Robert Jacobson, the executive director of the California Council on Problem Gambling.

Laws about gambling online were formed based on these rules concerning phone gambling. Since the Department of Justice has lifted the ban on Internet gambling, states will be able to decide if they can legally sell state lottery tickets online.

About 3.7 percent of Californians are currently addicted to gambling, according to Jacobson. Concerns about legalizing online gambling in California are based on fears of increasing the number of addicts, Jacobson said.

Most students, however, are tired of having to go to a casino to play poker for money and would welcome a chance to gamble online, said Aman Rangan, the president of the Poker Club at UCLA and a third-year biochemistry student.

But online gambling’s convenience is one reason it is more dangerous than traditional casinos, said Dr. Timothy Fong, codirector of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program.

“Online is one of the most potent ways you can gamble,” he said. “You can play multiple hands at once, you don’t have to leave your home, and you can play 24 hours a day.”

In a study conducted in 2007, Fong and his colleagues discovered that about 20 percent of UCLA students play online poker just for fun. They also discovered 4-5 percent of UCLA students play for money.

The arrival of new technology can drastically increase the number of people playing online, Fong said.

“Times have changed,” he said. “When we first did the study, students weren’t carrying iPods or iPads, which make it much easier for students to play poker, for fun or for money.”

Rangan pointed to the potential profits for California if it allows online gambling.

“If it were legal, it could be taxed,” he said. “People are going to gamble online regardless if it’s legal or not, so the government might as well make some money.”

In the past, the government has lost out on revenue because online poker companies have been based overseas and the portion of each person’s winnings that they take does not go to the U.S., Fong said.

“You have to look at where the money is coming from and where it’s going,” he said. “We’ve lost millions or billions of dollars overseas to these companies, and it will never be seen again.”

But there are still a lot of unknowns concerning legalization.

Allowing people to buy lottery tickets online opens the door for other online gambling, but there are also potential benefits, Fong said.

“We’ve had online gambling for years, and it’s not hard to play poker or place a bet online,” he said. “At least people will now be able to do it legally, and we might as well deal with this issue.”

Fong said he remains wary about opening up unrestricted gambling online because it could lead to greater levels of addiction. But that is difficult to determine, he said.

“The question is whether we want to open the door at all,” he added.

Last fall, Congress introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, to serve as the new sheriff in town, aimed at bringing some order to these here parts. SOPA’s trusty deputy, the PROTECT IP Act (short for the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) also gained traction in the Senate, including co-sponsorships from both Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken.

Aside from forcing late nights at the Capitol Hill Acronym Creation Office (CHACO), SOPA and PIPA — the short form of an already-shortened mouthful — has stirred up controversy. The biggest concern is the potential of a less free and open Internet, as websites suspected of copyright infringement and piracy could face steep consequences, including blocked access from service providers and search engines. This indirect form of “censorship” threatens the Internet as we’ve known it.

As an act of protest against SOPA, Wikipedia blacked out its website yesterday, which you may have noticed when you tried to look up Rachel McAdams’ age or the overall population of the Greater Stockholm metropolitan area. Reddit, among other sites, joined in on the blackout too. Google, eBay, Twitter and Facebook also voiced opposition to the bills. These aren’t random niche websites contesting the legislation; if there were a Mount Rushmore for the Internet, those four faces would be on it.

The objection to the bills rests in that we’ve grown accustomed to the services that the Internet provides, even if there are some breaches of infringement. It’s similar to being in a third world country and seeing a bootlegged T-shirt with Bart Simpson or Tweety on it. Vendors probably didn’t check with Matt Groening or either Warner brother to legally display these cartoons wearing the country’s colors while playing soccer, but, “who cares — let it slide,” tends to be the response. The practice is seemingly harmless and doesn’t merit strict enforcement, even if use of the image is technically prohibited.

Weighing the societal benefit versus the specific ownership rights for intellectual property can be tricky. A Trekkie doesn’t upload episodes of his favorite show to hurt the franchise; his goal is to further the show’s success, not lessen it. Yet, the process does affect profits and production, because even if consumers aren’t paying a price to download a movie or song, someone paid a price to provide it. It’s easy to point to rich executives, actors and musicians, but technicians and stagehands support SOPA too, since their income is affected by a film’s revenue.

As mentioned earlier, though, the reality of the Internet is that we’ve progressed by using it without the looming regulations. Were we spoiled on too much of a good thing? Probably, but it wasn’t monitored closely enough early on so we dove in. Is it now worth limiting access to information and material that’s been both useful and enjoyable? Probably not, so companies should look to modify their business models to correspond with the reality of our Internet habits. The recreational and productive value of the Internet in its current form is evident; encouraging the free flow of information is always worth the benefit of the doubt.

A tweet opposing SOPA said the act is “trying to put out a match with a fire extinguisher.” There’s no denying that piracy and infringement are problems, but the solution should be adjusting to demand, not overreacting to the problem.

We hope you found this to be more than a 24-hour inconvenience. We hope this proved just how much these bills could affect your daily life.

This blackout shows what the Internet could look like if these bills pass. Sites would be partially or completely blocked if one of their millions of users posts or links to infringing content.

Sites likes Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook would find it nearly impossible to police every post. Under either of these bills, that inability would open them up to a host of lawsuits. Worse, offending pages — even whole sites — would be blocked from all American Internet users by their service providers.

We hope today’s protest has opened students’ eyes to the danger these bills represent. This fight isn’t over — the bills are still set to be discussed within the coming weeks — and it does affect you.

There is still a real possibility that these bills will find legislative support and eventually become law, unless each of you joins the fight and combines your voice with thousands of others demanding that their congressmen ignore Hollywood lobbyists and defend the Internet from censorship.

If you’re already involved in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, then keep up the good work. The protest can’t lose momentum, even as the bills lose support. If you’re just hearing about them, then it’s time to get involved. Educate yourself. Tell your friends. Then do what you can to help fight these dangerous bills.

A veto pledge from President Barack Obama would be a death knell for these bills. So far, Obama has expressed concern but not pledged a veto.

Demand that the president stand against censorship by signing the DemandProgress.org petition. You can find a link to the petition: here.

And don’t forget to take the fight to those directly involved. If you didn’t call or write to your congressmen Wednesday, do so today.

Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online workforce that provides human intelligence, people rated the “happiness” of the 10,000 most popular words on a scale from one to nine: one being sad, five being neutral and nine being happy.

Words such as “laughter” rated an 8.5 and “food” rated a 7.44, while “funeral” rated a 2.1 and “terrorist” rated 1.3.

These results indicate that happiness is on the decline in the world of Twitter, according to a study published on PLoS ONE, a website dedicated to peer-reviewed science publications.

“Words are the atoms of our language, the building blocks of our sentences,” Dodds said. “We kind of forget about language, since we use it so much. Now we have social networks that provide a wealth of knowledge that we can look at and collect data [from].”

The study revealed a response between bad news and unhappiness in tweets.

Events such as the bailout of the U.S. financial system, the swine flu pandemic, natural disasters in Chile and Japan all produced relatively low happiness. The largest single-day drop occurred with the death of Michael Jackson.

Cultural and sporting events such as the season finale of “Lost” and the results of the 2010 World Cup when Germany defeated England also demonstrated recognizable drops in happiness.

Dodds said that because Twitter contains such an enormous amount of data, it pushes the limits on what scientists can do.

“Twitter is a great tool to see the reflection of movements,” he said.  “We can see how movies, books and even diseases take off and slowly build over time by word of mouth.”

The research team is not the only group interested in studying social mood patterns on Twitter.

“The CIA has been following Twitter for signs of social discontent,” Dodds said. “There is a worry that big governments are following people, but as democratic nations-we can only hope it is for good of the people.”

Chris Danforth, an assistant professor in the department of mathematics and statistics, said that social media has introduced a whole new method of research for scientists.

“Before, researchers could only collect data from a few hundred people. But now, we can do it on a global scale, since Twitter is nearly universal,” he said.

The research group said they benefited greatly from the Vermont Advance Computing Core.

“We were receiving roughly 30 million messages a day, taking up 50 gigabytes of memory,” Danforth said. “Messages that come from Twitter were pulled out [by the ‘Super-Computer'] with their relevant information such as location and time. We wouldn’t be able to parse that data without it.”

The team of researchers is currently working on a website where users would be able to play around with the information gathered from Twitter.

“For example, people could search tweets about ‘pancakes’ and find out how happy those tweets are or the demographics of the tweets,” Danforth said.

But not all news is negative.

The study also showed that people were happier during the weekends and holidays, with Christmas Day reported as the highest level of happiness, followed by Christmas Eve.

Yet Dodds also said that too much happiness may not be the best goal for society.

“We wouldn’t want to live in a place like Brave New World—where everyone is high on soma, wandering around because everything is beautiful,” he said.

Facebook never forgets. When I switched from my old Facebook profile to the timeline layout about a month ago, I regretted ever getting a Facebook at all.

Everything I had ever done on Facebook was there. Every party I had RSVPed to, whether I actually attended or not, was recorded as a “life event.” Every comment I left on someone else’s photo, status or wall was also there alongside of photo albums I had untagged myself from years ago.

As I attempted to do digital damage control on what Facebook told me my “life” was, I learned an excruciatingly painful lesson: There’s no going back on something that I wrote or posted about years ago.

According to Facebook, “Timeline is the new Facebook profile. Tell your life story through photos, friendships and personal milestones like graduating or traveling to new places.”

For many early Facebook users, like college students, instead of telling an accurate life story, it instead tells an intoxicated tale through drunken pictures and status updates.

I first started using Facebook in 2007. Like all the other users at that time, I had to sign up with a university email address.

For my first Facebook year, all my “friends” were all
classmates from either high school or college. I used Facebook the way it was originally intended to be used: to communicate with other students.

It was back in the day when it was socially acceptable to update your Facebook status multiple times a day, and when it was still funny to post unflattering pictures of your friends.

As Facebook’s audience changed and expanded, so did the way I used it to communicate. As more and more non-college students joined Facebook’s social network, I became much more conscious of the people who had access to my page. I used privacy settings, and naively believed that they would stop people from accessing my page.

When I began to get Facebook friend requests from my grandmother and other family members who I didn’t talk to on a regular basis, I began
deleting photos and I was more
careful about what I posted about.

Facebook Timeline is a constant reminder of the way I behaved in my late teens, and it is a lot behavior I am not proud of. At that age, it would have never occurred to me that every interaction I did on Facebook would be remembered forever on their servers or that I would later regret my behavior.

Now all the stupid things I did back in 2007 then bragged about to my college friends on Facebook are available for all 500 of my friends to read. While it’s fascinating and slightly disturbing to read what kind of person I was when I was 17 years old, I don’t necessarily want other people to have access to it.

The Internet never forgets. Everything we write leaves a digital tattoo somewhere and learning that was excruciatingly painful as I scrolled through thousands of status updates and tried to delete the ones full of teenage angst.

After spending hours trying to clean up my Facebook and only getting through 2007 and 2008, regret was the only thing I felt. Deleting friends and old statuses is time consuming and irritating, but in the end, the only person I can blame is myself.

Psychology professor Samuel Gosling and partner Sam Gaddis were both involved in a collaborative study between the UT Department of Psychology and the Department of Psychology at Washington U. in St. Louis. The study found that users who are more heavily involved in their social circles offline are more likely to have an active virtual social life.

The study, published in September 2011, has reappeared in online discussion this month. In “Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks: Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information,” researchers recorded data submitted by the subjects themselves. The data shows how often users post content to social media websites as well as information they keep publicly available on their profiles. This information was referenced with individual scores based on the five-factor model of personality which measures the traits of openness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness.

“People are increasingly doing studies on these forms of social media,” Gosling said. “Some people have speculated that these portals serve as compensation for people’s personalities and are not how they express themselves in real life. It’s hard to know, about half the people think you don’t get a good impression and about half think you do. I wouldn’t say I was surprised, necessarily, given the results of other studies I’ve done.”

The five traits measured in each subject proved to indicate specific types of behavior on Facebook, according to the study. Study participants who placed higher in extraversion were more likely to constantly update content and comment on their friends’ posts. Although this was the strongest pattern exhibited in the study, social work junior Alexander McArthur said he feels he is an exception to the rule.

“I’m kind of an opposite, because I’m more introverted in real life than I am online,” McArthur said. “It’s hard to start a conversation with someone face-to-face, but when you’re online it’s much easier.”

While the neuroticism trait did not have a significant effect on online behavior, characteristics such as agreeableness and openness indicated higher levels of friends and information available on profiles, while low agreeableness levels demonstrated less page views and information available.

“I keep my education and workplace listed and all that,” McArthur said. “I usually fill out everything except the phone number, and I have an infinite number of ‘likes.’”

Patterns of Facebook usage and activity also gave researchers insight to real life habits that students often face, according to the study. Participants expressing low levels of conscientiousness were likely to spend more time viewing pages on Facebook, a practice researchers said was consistent with those who have a tendency to procrastinate.

“I usually have Facebook open while I’m doing other things like homework,” said biology freshman Taylor Bruner. “I check Facebook probably every hour.”

Users’ observations of their peers’ pages was equally as informative of online personality accuracy, according to the study.

“I definitely think people post stuff that goes with their real personality,” Bruner said. “I’ll post something about Broadway which fits me perfectly, while my friends who are sports fans are always posting about the game.”

Wikipedia, Reddit and the Cheezburger Network of social media websites began a 24-hour blackout today at midnight to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Both acts would crack down on the sale of illegally downloaded material by forcing Internet service providers to block access to sites that violate U.S. copyright laws.

Members of the Wikipedia community and other sites believe these acts would “seriously damage the free and open Internet” by opening the way to further censorship, according to a statement published on the English Wikipedia’s homepage. While SOPA is currently suspended from receiving a house vote, PIPA is still slated to go before the House of Representative for vote Tuesday, Jan. 24.

White House representatives came out against SOPA and PIPA in a written statement Saturday because the acts threatened a “dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

U. Texas Democrats communications director André Treiber said the acts risk inhibiting creativity and the freedom of speech, agreeing with the White House’s position.

“[SOPA] is stifling, too broad and has a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach, as far as due process is concerned,” Treiber said. “As a whole, it is overreaching and is the equivalent of using dynamite when a scalpel is more appropriate.”

Members of the political activist group, Fight for the Future, are standing with Wikipedia and other websites against the bills. Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future, said if the bill was allowed to pass the United States could eventually become more like China.

“This strike is about a struggle between a people with a means to communicate freely and the government’s ability to threaten it,” said Cheng. “It’s a fundamental fight for free speech.”

Something, however, must be done to protect the industries that are hurt by illegal activity on the web, said radio-television-film junior Eric Antonowicz.

“Both sides of the issue have salient points,” Antonowicz said. “You can’t just keep breaking copyright law but at the same time I don’t think that censorship is right in any way. I’m glad that they are taking a stand against it but I also think that something has to be done. Copyright gets broken way too much and the industry loses a lot of money.”

This type of Internet protest is historically significant given the size, credibility and usage of Wikipedia and Google, said government lecturer James Henson.

“SOPA is activating a libertarian streak in Internet users that was the stance 10 to 15 years ago that fell on the wayside as the Internet had become a corporate enterprise,” Henson said. “I don’t think that the world is going to stop turning because you can’t use Wikipedia, but I do think it’s going to raise visibility. It’s still to be seen whether or not this is going to catch on.”

Facebook officially released the Timeline feature, its attempt at churning forward while sideswiping competitors such as Path and Evernote, on user profiles today.

And, as a creature of habit, the company did little to prepare users for the shift, aside from a brief video that’s been on the site’s homepage for about a month now.

So here are some tips to familiarize you with the new features so you can continue lurking randoms in the back of your core humanities class:

Before we begin, it’s worth noting why Facebook upended its entire user experience in the first place. In short, the Timeline shifts the focus from mere interaction with friends to sharing relevant, engaging information that will leave an indelible mark on someone’s profile page. It sounds overanalyzed now, but you won’t think of your friends’ profiles the same once your content is streamlined under the “2011” tab on the Timeline.

There are three key changes to the Facebook profile: cover, stories and apps. Lazy bodies, rejoice; only one of these changes — cover — requires you to do anything.

The cover feature allows someone to post a massive landscape-oriented backdrop at the top of his or her profile. It can either be a fond memory, large-scale portrait or scenic identity claim.

After combing through hundreds of profiles, the best use of the cover feature seems to be a picture that accents the page. Your profile picture shows your face, so a portrait superimposed on a portrait is overbearing.

You also run the risk of hurting yourself with group photos on your page. For example, my friend is posing with a considerably more attractive roommate in their cover. Now I’m lurking his or her page to find that person’s profile. Give yourself a fighting chance; stick to landscapes.

Besides, scenic backdrops make you appear outgoing, lively and well-traveled. Another option would be a banner or pattern that livens the otherwise bland blue color scale of the profile page.

The next feature, stories, provides friends with a tour d’horizon of a particular time period during your life. It helps you remember the highlights of 2011 so you don’t have to read the countless lists from news organizations doing it for you. There’s nothing really to suggest for this section other than making updates more meaningful. “Stories” nudges you toward using the location services and other features you otherwise wouldn’t in order to catalog memories.

Finally, the apps feature gives friends an extensive look at your consumption habits. While it’s obviously a goldmine for advertisers, it has its humanistic advantages as well. For example, friends who link their Spotify, Netflix and other accounts to their page let you see what they’re watching and/or listening to. Gone are the days of switching in and out of several sites to associate with friends.

If you don’t want people to see your recent Justin Bieber binge or guilty listen to “Party Rock Anthem,” switching off the apps is as easy as selecting the pencil to the right and selecting “Remove Spotify.” If you don’t want to rid of the app entirely, just click “Hide all Recent Music Activity from Timeline.”

According to Maqbool Hussain, a graduate student working on the new solar technology, there are many ideal renewable energy sources, but solar energy is the best and most viable renewable energy source.

“Only one percent of the light that shines on Earth is enough to power most civilized countries,” Hussain said.

The breakthrough is called a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). The researchers have developed this dye that bonds to Titanium Dioxide, a semiconductor, according to Ahmed El-Shafei, the professor leading the research. This dye absorbs photons from sunlight, which excite the dye’s electrons, according to El-Shafei. These electrons then transfer to the Titanium Dioxide semiconductor and go through a circuit, which generates a current, Hussain said.

There are a few aspects of the DSSC that make them a viable option for everyone, but one of the most important aspects is the price difference compared to regular solar panels.

“Other solar panels use costly inorganic materials and need very special preparation methods,” Hammad Cheema, another graduate student working on the project, said. “Our Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells are much simpler and cheaper.”

According to El-Shafei, DSSC’s are around 60 to 70 percent cheaper than other solar panels.

Aside from the attractive price difference, another aspect of a DSSC is its ability to absorb photons from ambient light as well as direct sunlight. According to El-Shafei, this means the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell is able to use the sun’s energy while not being in direct contact with the sun’s rays. This also means the DSSC can harvest energy from the sun on a cloudy or rainy day. According to El-Shafei, regular solar panels collect different amounts of energy throughout the day, peaking at noon, whereas the DSSC collects the maximum amount of energy throughout the day, due to its ability to capture ambient light.

The final aspect of the Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell that allows it to trump regular solar panels is the fact that a dilute solution of the dye can be used in the cell, allowing the cell to be transparent, according to Cheema. This means that windows, building facades and touch screens on cell phones have the capacity to harvest solar energy with the DSSC technology, according to El-Shafei.

The research team has already produced a dye that is 14 percent more efficient than the current state of the art dye, but their goal is to increase this to 30 percent by the end of the year. According to El-Shafei, this would be a game changer in the solar energy industry. Companies are already interested in their current DSSC and are working to make a deal, which would bring money to N.C. State.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is an Internet censorship bill that would prohibit websites from displaying copyrighted intellectual properties, or IPs. In theory this sounds like a good idea, but in action it is more detrimental to our country’s freedom of speech than piracy is to the music and film industry.

SOPA states that any website that might “engage in, enable, or facilitate” copyright infringement is subject to penalty under this law. What exactly does “engage in, enable, or facilitate” mean? Simply stated, this means that an IP holder can seek a court order against a website and shut it down due to copyright infringement. This can be anything from a YouTube tribute video, to movie and music download links. What this means for the Internet is that anything the RIAA and the MPAA sees as unfit can be subjected to having their URL blacklisted and made inaccessible to the public.

This doesn’t stop piracy though; the same websites can still be visited and used if a person has the IP address. What this does is create a censored Internet based on what an organization thinks is acceptable. This is way too much power for these organizations, with known agendas, to have.

SOPA feels so much more restrictive and fascist than a country based on free speech and basic human rights should even consider. If we pass this law, our media is no better than the censorship in China. In 1996, China started to ban websites and censor the Internet in fear that information could be subversive to the government. In fact, China employs Internet Police strikingly similar to Big Brother’s Thought Police.

In fact, this not only violates free speech, it also has a negative impact on the economy. Websites that have user submitted content such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr could all be affected by this act, not to mention all the future websites that could be affected, or even cease to exist. There’s a good chance that every site you frequent could be affected by this act.

What SOPA is, and what it says it is, are two completely different things. We must act on the rights we have before they are taken away. This is going down a one-way road we won’t be able to return. It’s our duty as US citizens to act against an atrocity that could damage our freedom that we pride ourselves on so much.

There are various foundations that are raising awareness to this bill, the foremost being the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The site www.EFF.org was founded to inform the public about threats to Internet neutrality, which in our technological day and age, is one of our most important assets.

The threat of a censored life has finally come upon us. This doesn’t just affect IP owners, the economy, or some political agenda. This act will directly affect you and your daily life. If you don’t want the possibility of seeing only what a bent organization wants you to see, it’s time for action.

Eric Schmidt said it clearly enough: Google+ was never really about social networking; it’s a data-mining project. The goal was to break the back of Facebook’s monopoly on our personal information — to coax us into telling Google whom we’re friends with, what we like, how we spend our free time — so that Google could do what it always does: improve its search product and improve its ads product, the company’s core businesses. From a business perspective, search and ads are almost all that matter, and Google believes (rightly, probably) that adding social data will improve them both.

One reasonable question in response to this might be: Is creating a trojan horse Facebook clone like Google+, in order to harvest our personal data, so that Google can improve its search product by displaying photos of our friends’ dogs, a desperately simple-minded, if not actually creepy plan that’s bound to fail? Well, probably yes.

But there’s another question roiling around the internet: Is it “anti-competitive”? M.G. Siegler writes:

This is the type of case that Senators die for. Google wrapped it in a bow and placed it in one of their laps.

Most of the broader antitrust concerns against Google are bullshit in my opinion. You can argue that they have a monopoly on search, but it’s a natural one. They’ve earned it. They’re simply better at search than their competitors. This has always been true. It remains true.

But when they use that natural monopoly to start pushing into other verticals, things get gray. Travel, restaurant reviews, etc, etc. We see more of it each year.

But this, at first glance, seems decidedly worse. Google is using Search to propel their social network. They might say it’s “not a social network, it’s a part of Google”, but no one is going to buy that. They were late to the game in social and this is the best catchup strategy ever.

In the words of HBS Professor Ben Edelman, Google is engaging in “classic ‘tying’ behavior.” They’re using their natural monopoly on search to give unearned attention to their social networking site. This isn’t the first time Google’s done this either, according to Edelman.

By all indications, free traffic from Google Search has played a valuable role in launching many Google businesses. For example, Google Maps usage remained sluggish until Google started to present inline Google Maps directly within Search Results, a practice that began in earnest in 2007. As Consumer Watchdog’s 2010 “Traffic Report” shows, this change precipitated a sharp increase in Google Maps’ market share: Traffic to Google Maps tripled while traffic to competing map sites fell by half.

I can’t know what’s in Google’s heart of hearts, of course. But this actually seems like the reverse of what Google’s doing. They are almost certainly not using search in order to pimp their maps product — which would imply that Google’s handing out a subsidy and actually hurting search in the process. They are, to the contrary, almost certainly using their maps product to help their search product. Indeed, you could retell the story of Google’s entire product line around the goal of helping Google Search. Its books indexing efforts, its blogs search, its local reviews site Places, its news aggregator and now, its social data: who cares if these sundry properties succeed? The goal is to make the real kahuna, Search, more robust, more competitive.

And if you do believe that search would be better with maps, with books, and with social data, then building their own solution for acquiring this data is basic strategic thinking for Google. If they didn’t, they’d be dependent on the whims of the market to get them maps and books and social information and then on the whims of business negotiations to get licenses for it. In the case of social data, it was the latter step that caused the problem. Twitter simply chose to prevent Google from displaying their data on search. So Google, as a hedge against precisely this outcome, built an alternative. They called it Google+.

What’s wrong with that?*

I happen to full-heartedly agree with Matt Yglesias’s claim that progressives should relocate their economic critique from an agenda of “taxing the winners of our economy in order to transfer their money to the losers,” to an agenda of making markets more fair, and empowering all citizens to create for and compete in them. The goal of the left is to enable ordinary people to live free and creative lives. Tax and transfer is — and historically, always has been — a poor substitute and disappointing compromise for this larger left aim. And so, if we believe that making markets fairer and more open aligns strongly with our aims, then we ought to be sympathetic to a program of using state authority to disentrench abusive market power. Which is to stay, we should advocate for trust busting.

But the silly arguments that Google’s fledgling attempts to integrate social data into its search results represents an offense punishable under anti-trust law is a good rebuke to the TR-style progressive: in short, sometimes you just don’t know what you’re talking about.

-

*If anything, as Dave Winer argues, Google’s failure to implement its social data alternative correctly is breaking their monopoly power, rather than entrenching it.

The poll covered young adults ages 18-29, also known as Millennials, who said reminders from Facebook and text messages are the most effective communication tools in reminding them to vote.

Paul T. Conway, president of Generation Opportunity said young adults use social media in a time of unemployment and economic uncertainty.

“Young adults use these technologies daily to discuss how the economy has delayed their futures and how to manage their lives in the midst of very little economic opportunity,” Conway said.

Scott Wall, a Brigham Young U. junior from Park City, majoring in entrepreneurship, said political commentary on Facebook would not be a deciding factor in his voting.

“I feel that people who are smart enough to do anything about the current political problems are too busy to be discussing it over Facebook,” Wall said. “Who cares what they know if they don’t actually do anything with their new-found knowledge?”

Generation Opportunity, the organization that conducted the poll, aims to organize and get young adults to act through social media.

When asked which communication tool would be most effective in getting them to vote, 66 percent of Millennials voted for Facebook reminder messages, 58 percent voting for text messaging and 38 percent for email reminders. Public service announcements and phone reminders were last, with 28 percent and 13 percent of the votes respectively.

While Michael Garner, a political consultant in Falls Church, Va., agreed  social media is giving young adults a platform to voice their opinions, he disagreed with the notion that reminders via social media would actually get Millennials to vote.

“Facebook, Twitter and the Blogosphere inform young voters and allow them to discuss issues in a way never before imagined,” Garner said. “Social media acts more as a catharsis than anything else. It allows young people to vent and feel better about themselves without effecting real change.”

Clark Callahan,  BYU assistant professor of communication studies, emphasized that awareness did not equate to behavioral change.

“You have to be careful about assuming social media’s influence on actually changing behaviors,” Callahan said. “There is no doubt it increases awareness, but there is some doubt as to whether it actually affects behavior over …  family or friends.”

According to the Pew Research Center, about 73 percent of online teens and 72 percent of young adults use social networking websites.

The New York Times reported that Facebook has experienced a drop in growth from 56 percent to 10 percent in the past year.

Roger Soenksen, a James Madison U. professor, offered some explanation for why Facebook’s growth is declining.

“One thing that has happened is that Facebook has changed its look so many times,” Soenksen said.

He added that the large number of individuals who use Facebook sporadically might log in and find that they no longer know how to operate or navigate the site and ultimately decide it’s not worth using.

Inane statuses and comments may also be slowing down Facebook’s growth.

“I don’t care if somebody takes a picture of their supper, or something, and posts it online,” Soenksen said. “When you have a limited amount of time in your day, you have to be selective on how to use it,”  Soenksen said.

Although Facebook’s growth is declining, Twitter is growing exponentially with 572,000 new accounts created all on March 12, 2011 alone according to an article in The Huffington Post about the recent growth of Tumblr and other social media. The same article states that the average number of tweets per day has almost tripled from 50 million to 140 million.

Taylor Busching, a JMU freshman health science major, thinks Facebook should be used to stay in touch with friends and family, but people are stepping away from that and using it for the wrong reasons.

Her brother replaced Facebook with Twitter because he was receiving inappropriate comments about his girlfriend through the site.

“People use it to create drama and to bully people,” Busching said. “I feel that they use Facebook to hide behind a screen and not get in trouble.”

Missy Fleming, a JMU freshman studio art major, favors Facebook over Twitter.

“I’ve seen a lot of statuses lately that say, ‘Facebook is boring, going back to Twitter,’ but I think I get more bored with my Twitter account than with Facebook,” Fleming said.

Tim Moore, a JMU freshman, sees Facebook as a tool to communicate with his friends.

Users may release information whenever they want on both social networks, but Moore believes constant updates are unnecessary.

“It’s kind of like Twitter,” Moore said. “Like, I don’t need to know what you’re doing every five minutes.”

Although Moore prefers Twitter, he can see the appeal in it for a person who likes the real-time aspect of the site.

“I think Twitter is more entertaining for some people because you get a message like every second,” he said. “Facebook has a little bit of a delay on what you find out about people.”

Moore thinks people are leaving Facebook because Twitter is “in the moment” and gives its users quick and easy updates.

Kara Sheehan, a JMU freshman, uses social networking for around four hours a day and says she would never delete her Facebook account.

“If I have nothing to do, I’ll go onto Facebook,” Sheehan said. “I can’t do homework until I check Facebook, just in case I have an important notification or something.”

Soenksen said that young people don’t know how to self-regulate usage, so addiction and dependency is common.

“Young individuals are very much into technology, and as such, I think parents have nurtured that by giving them the most recent technology,” Soenksen said. “They lose the ability to develop interpersonal relationships and face-to-face interactions.”

Facebook is a great networking tool, he added, but it can easily be misused.

“I think the individual user has to decide for themselves how to approach technology,” Soenksen said.

Despite Sheehan’s “addiction,” Facebook gives her a good opportunity to maintain relationships with her friends.

“I can communicate with my friends from other colleges,” Sheehan said, “and I like it much more now because when I first got it, I thought it was this horrible, conformist thing.”

David Sbarra, a UA psychology professor, said the psychological effects on some Facebook users who are unfriended are especially common in those with a history of social rejection.

Neuroscience research demonstrates that even rejection from something as simple as a game of catch can cause activation in regions of the brain that are associated with physical pain, Sbarra said.

“We are a social species, we get along best by connecting with other people,” he said. “Being unfriended is a signal that something isn’t going right in the social environment and we are programmed to detect threats in the social environment.”

Sbarra explained that some people are hyper-focused on relationships and their status within those relationships. These people tend to have a more anxious attachment to others and are more likely to get upset when unfriended.

“I think it would bother people who aren’t social and don’t have a lot of friends, or people with a low self-esteem,” said Erica Goudy, a psychology sophomore who has more than 100 Facebook friends.

Others with a friend count as high as 700 sometimes don’t even notice when someone deletes them, or if they do, they are unfazed by the action.

“It bothers people that are addicted to Facebook and care too much,” said Tim Brousse, a UA freshman studying pre-business who has more than 700 friends. “It doesn’t bug me at all.”

Sometimes the act of unfriending is as simple as people going through their Facebook friend list and deleting anyone they do not socialize with, Sbarra said. Other times, being unfriended can reflect a rift in a friendship.

“I don’t really care,” said Beatriz Verdugo, a UA pre-business sophomore. “You don’t really need a friend if they’re deleting you. You can tell what kind of person they are if they do.”

With the United States Postal Service (USPS) on the verge of eliminating 35,000 jobs to avoid bankruptcy, government officials are desperately seeking solutions to avert the crisis. MIT might have one. In the coming months, MIT Professor and the holder of the first copyright to “EMAIL,” Shiva Ayyadurai will be working on a proposal that will investigate how the USPS could save thousands of jobs by entering the email management industry .

Although I am sure the last thing you want to read about on a cold winter day is the impending end of fun as we know it, bear with me today as I play the role of Debbie Downer.

Some of you have already heard about the proposed bill attacking Internet rights in the United States — hopefully those of you who are already aware have signed the many circulating petitions and acted out against it.

Say the student filmed the show with a video camera while watching it, which is illegal.

If a proposed law is passed in its current state, that decision could be considered a felony and shut down all of YouTube.

Grooveshark and other Internet companies are uniting to make sure the proposed law, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is changed or halted.

The act, better known as SOPA, is a national bill that could change the regulations for piracy on the Web. The bill is being reviewed in the House of Representatives.

Grooveshark, a Gainesville, Fla.-based music streaming website, has been protesting SOPA alongside Internet companies like Google, Wikipedia and Facebook, according to a list on TechCrunch.com.

Grooveshark has a “small presence” in Washington, D.C., said Paul Geller, Senior Vice President of External Affairs. This allows staff to stay informed of legislation like SOPA and the U.S. Senate’s version, the Protect IP Act, better known as PIPA.

He said SOPA is being pushed “at a pace that is just unjustifiable” and could have detrimental effects on Internet users.

Geller said the bill infringes on freedom of speech.

Because of that, the bill could be blocked by Internet companies citing the First Amendment and other laws, said Gerald Haskins, UF senior lecturer and Internet law expert.

“This is a really poorly written bill, and it could be used to prosecute uploaders, downloaders, and anyone like that,” he said.

Geller and Haskins each pointed out that the bill also carries potential security issues. Computer users who don’t want to be limited by SOPA could change their Domain Name Server settings to be outside of American jurisdiction. This means their computers could be susceptible to scam websites that are blocked by the U.S. server.

“It could bring the Internet to a halt,” Haskins said.

Geller said Grooveshark is supporting Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden’s alternative bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act. The bill is available at keepthewebopen.com, and visitors can suggest changes or alternatives.

In a statement to The Independent Florida Alligator, local Rep. Cliff Stearns said he will not take a position on SOPA until he sees the final proposal from the House Judiciary Committee.

In the meantime, Geller said the company is trying to educate lawmakers on the bill.

Keivan Zolfaghari, 20-year-old psychology and food resource economics junior at U. Florida, said he learned about SOPA from Tumblr and is planning to write to his congressman about the legislation.

“I think it hurts where we are today,” he said.

Just recently, Facebook unveiled yet another change for my profile allowing me to go back to the very beginning. Or at least, my beginning with Facebook.

The Timeline Facebook profile is exactly what it sounds like: a timeline. Users can now access every post, picture, video and comment since first joining Facebook, a daunting concept to say the least. Furthermore, this new feature gives you seven days to go through old posts and update the look of your profile before it is officially published on the site, giving you time to get rid of those comments you probably don’t want your boss to see.

Though the general layout is sleek and innovative, definitely giving Facebook a new and improved look, this change brings forth another round of privacy debates. These now accessible old posts, created far before the continually changing privacy settings, can be seen by everyone you originally shared the post with and can only be managed individually. Though it will be a hassle to go through six years of content and manage each post individually, it’s easily achievable, as I can set aside a few days, or even take the whole week allotted if I have to, in order to ensure I have the profile I want.

I’m excited to get the chance to go back and see how I’ve grown over time. Timeline is a virtual scrapbook, and even sometimes a diary, as it lets me go back and place myself in those moments in a way I couldn’t have otherwise. I also have the chance to relive events or random moments in my life that I may have forgotten, and through this, reconnect with an old friend, or laugh about a random comment I had made two years prior.

Timeline also hosts a new set of features that enhances this “scrapbook” feel. I can now add photos or jobs that occurred previously to my joining Facebook, and I have full control over how my profile looks to other people—maximizing certain stories I feel are more important with the “star” feature, while hiding the updates I feel can be left out. In doing so, Facebook has paved the way for a groundbreaking sense of individuality toward each person’s respective page, where the older profile, in retrospect, looks staccato and conformed. Facebook has also integrated the Timeline toolbar to the side and top of a user’s page, making older posts more easily accessible than before by simply clicking on the year and month desired.

I’ve been critical of Facebook’s many changes, of which I feel most were unneeded and frustrating, but Timeline proves the first instance where I enthusiastically applaud the changes to my profile. This new feature will certainly make history as the new year approaches. Your perceptions of Facebook are about to change.

As I surfed the web exploring the Internet’s role in the Arab Spring for a cyber politics class, I stumbled upon the website http://www.movements.org/. The site’s homepage immediately grabbed my attention with a large advertisement for a “How to Bypass Internet Censorship” guide. Not typical of the average political blog, I decided to investigate further. I was amazed to find Google-owned YouTube, CBS News, Pepsi, MTV, Facebook, MSNBC, and National Geographic listed as sponsors of the site. Moreover, the co-founder of Movements.org is Jared Cohen, the current Director of Google Ideas.

It may be in the kitchen or buried in the closet, but chances are that you probably have one, too. Yesterday’s junk drawer filled with potato chip clips and dead batteries has been replaced by high-tech gadgets and outdated toys that constitute our connected lives.

But as annual technology releases like Apple’s iPhone create tremendous hype, they also create an incredible amount of electronic waste –– something Brennan Zelener saw as an opportunity to truly make a difference in sustainable technology.

“I want to change the world,” said Zelener, a Colorado State U. junior. “In developing countries, these phones are incredible. In a year or two, it’s going to be kind of obsolete by American standards, but in Africa, this is an incredible piece of technology.”

Just last year, Zelener launched his own business venture, Green iPhone, while managing a full course load at CSU. He ultimately fulfills the front-end duties of phone recycling by personally communicating with and paying people to hand over their old iPhones –– in any condition. Then, he goes into the phone to unlock and wipe it, essentially giving the phone new life with no remaining personal information.

“The privacy and security of the people who sell me phones is a top priority for everything,” he said, adding that many businesses pay to have their phones destroyed. “If we could even just provide our erasing service for free, that’s gonna be huge for them.”

After working for several months reselling the wiped phones on websites, such as eBay and Craigslist, Zelener has partnered with a larger phone buyer and refurbishing company that purchases used phones in bulk as businesses upgrade their employees to the latest model.

Ultimately, his service allows for people to get rid of their old iPhones, which often still have years of life remaining, in an easy way. He said average buy-back rates are “around $100,” but are changing weekly based on demand.

“It’s just an easier process,” he said, while explaining the other options people often use, including individual sale online. Green iPhone allows people to easily get their phones somewhere that can use them.

To help the business take off in a market where so many others fail, Zelener has worked closely with the Rocky Mountain Innosphere, a local nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs further specify their goals while critiquing the viability of the new idea.

“It’s exciting, but you never know whether you’re making the right decisions or not when you’re starting,” Zelener said.

To help navigate the business world, the 20-year-old entrepreneur has taken it upon himself to make as many connections in the community as possible, including those in the business world and in the realm of academia.

Yolanda Sarason, associate professor of business management and strategic marketing, first met Zelener in her class during the spring semester, and immediately saw something unique in him.

“It was really obvious from the get-go that he just stood out,” she said. “He’s a natural entrepreneur, and that’s very unusual for our undergraduates.”

Since that time, the two have worked closely and are currently preparing for a pitch on Wednesday to the Social Advisory Group for Entrepreneurs –– a group of business leaders who critique new entrepreneurial pitches to assist in fine-tuning each resource, including funding, while building connections.

“He’s a natural networker,” Sarason said. “He already knows the entrepreneurial community pretty well. If I were betting, I would definitely bet on Brennan.”

Zelener, like many college students, has faced tough times early on in his college career. Initially, he questioned moving away from his home state of Alaska, but after realizing that a lot of what he wanted to do was business-related, he changed his major from engineering.

“It’s really important to get out of your comfort zone,” he said. “I think when you’re passionate enough about something, you end up learning it.”

That passion of his is nothing new.

Andy Holleman is a long-time family friend who has known Zelener since he was born. Holleman has worked as the technology coordinator for Zelener’s high school in Alaska for several years and served as a mentor to him.

He said that, when he wasn’t skiing off of his roof or jumping off other high places, Zelener often created small business ideas that would typically see little success before failing. What made him different was that, when one idea fell through, he always had another plan, Hollman said.

“I would put a lot of it on his own initiative,” he added. “At some point while in high school, he grasped the idea that he really could shape the way things could be.”

As a mentor during high school and through their occasional conversations since, Holleman said one thing that has always stuck out is the drive to never work for anyone else –– to always be steering his own business.

“There’s a switch somewhere that gets flipped, and that life just ceases to be an option,” Holleman said.

Zelener, like everyone else, is looking forward to winter break and a chance to catch up on things that have long been forgotten during the time-crunch of school and his business work. And though he doubts he will be able to hit the ski slopes or bike as much as he wishes, he said that he will be busy preparing for the next step for his business, which he hopes takes off even further next semester.

He added that his favorite part of the business world he has seen so far is the potential to actually make a difference –– something he hopes to do in the form of revolutionizing the way in which the recycling process operates.

“It’s like realizing that the world is a place that you can change,” he said. “It’s not that far out, and it’s not that far fetched. As long as we can teach passion and motivation, those two factors persist through all things.”

According to The News Leader, a Virginia newspaper, Thursday’s first warning went out in six minutes, and five alerts and updates were posted in less than two hours.

“The school used technology to the fullest and kept a widespread campus community connected, informed and safe. Text messages, electronic message boards, emails and the school’s website all quickly warned of shots being fired and announced a lockdown shortly,” according to The News Leader.

VT’s student paper, the Collegiate Times, noted that social media played an important role in spreading the alerts when some students had trouble with cell phones.

Sadly, as Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld noted in the Washington Post, tragedies like this remind us that “there will always be pure evil in our midst.” Even though the latest shooting was not as extraordinary as the shooting spree in 2007, it was a test to VT’s courage and security in times like this. Schools nationwide should learn from VT’s steps taken toward improving emergency preparedness.

As it turns out, media outlets rushed to vilify Carrier IQ. Self-appointed “web police” slammed the company for violating federal laws. Even senators such as Al Franken jumped into the fray in requesting an explanation. While benign in nature, these allegations are misdirected and people must wait for more information before coming to a conclusion.

The most serious accusation that Carrier IQ faces is that its software records what people type without their knowledge. This claim, however, is unfounded as there is no evidence that Carrier IQ is capturing, recording or transmitting any sensitive user data. Dan Rosenberg, a world renowned security consultant, dug into the code and found no evidence in suggesting that.

The Carrier IQ software is intended to be used as a diagnostics and data-collection tool. The company itself makes no decisions on what data is collected. It only sells this software to cell phone carriers and allows them to decide which options to enable. Rather than vilifying Carrier IQ, customers must look to carriers for an explanation.

AT&T, Sprint and other major players must disclose to their customers what data is being collected and how that data is being used. Ultimately, carriers should make available an easy opt-out mechanism for people who do not want their data to be logged.

The issue of collecting data without customers’ knowledge lends itself to the bigger issue of privacy in an interconnected world. The proliferation of social media platforms alongside mobile technologies has blurred the line between what is public and what is private. If a user on Facebook neglects to change his or her privacy settings and posts sensitive information, then does it mean that this information is now in the public domain for anyone to use?

In most cases, companies provide their customers with a lengthy privacy agreement. However, most users simply press the “agree” button and skip over the details. This creates an environment in which companies are free to collect data as they see fit, and they are able to justify this with one or two lines in their hundred-page agreements.

Companies must exhibit more transparency to protect consumer interests. In no circumstances should companies collect sensitive personal data without user permission. Companies must also provide a detailed list of data that they collect from their customers and how they are being used.

In a constantly evolving technological world, data is the currency. The collection of this data, however, comes at a price, as private information might be made public.

Technology companies must work together with the public to come to a consensus on
redefining privacy.

During the intensive studying and last minute cram sessions of finals week, students often blame Facebook for interfering in their study efforts and fueling procrastination.

While Facebook might not be helpful when it comes to studying, it doesn’t mean students’ grades have to suffer. According to a recent study, some types of Facebook use actually correlate with higher grade point averages.

Published in Computers in Human Behavior, the study analyzed 1,839 college students’ grades and Facebook usage.

These students reported spending an average of 106 minutes each day on Facebook. How those 106 minutes of time on Facebook were spent determines the kind of impact Facebook has on the student, according to the study.

Engaging in activities that involve collecting and sharing information, such as sharing informative links, proved to have a positive impact on students’ GPAs. Posting frequent status updates and using Facebook chat, however, were determined to negatively affect GPA.

This distinction is one that can also be seen offline and around campus.

“Those students who spend more time socializing to the exclusion of engaging in academic work have poor academic outcomes,” the study said.

At the same time, those who post links and use Facebook to communicate useful information are more likely to be engaged with the outside environment and in the classroom, the study said.

Penn State Learning Community Associate, Leagh Anderson said that the impact on GPA could also depend on when the students are accessing Facebook. Those who are frequently updating their statuses are often those who are on Facebook intermittently throughout the day.

This intermittent and frequent checking of Facebook can interfere with the time needed to digest and absorb course material, Anderson said.

Students Greg Brulo and Amy Niedbala both reported spending up to two hours each day on Facebook. Niedbala said that it sometimes interferes with her studying, but they both agreed that it does not have any sort of negative impact on their grades.

“I use Facebook to take a break so I don’t get mentally drained while studying,” Brulo said. “My time management has a stronger correlation to my grades than Facebook.

Hochberg, a professor of engineering and co-director of the BrainGate2 research effort, first heard the scratching sounds, which represent neural impulses, in 2005. Almost seven years later, researchers at Brown are forging ahead and collaborating with new partners. Early last month, Stanford came on board, and researchers at the university are actively enrolling participants for clinical trials of a system that would allow paralyzed people to manipulate machinery with their minds.

Turning thought into action

Most people take for granted the complicated series of biological signals that translate a thought into action. The process that allows us to think about grabbing a glass of water in front of us and almost instantly move our hand can be harnessed to allow quadriplegic people to control external devices.

The clinical trials test three main aspects of the BrainGate2 neural interface, said John Donoghue,  professor of neuroscience, director of the Brown Institute of Brain Science and Hochberg’s co-leader on BrainGate2, a continuation of the original BrainGate project.

The first step in translating neural signals into the manipulation of a device is a sensor, a small square the size of a baby aspirin with 100 thin, millimeter-long spikes. The sensor picks up and records the firing patterns of anywhere from a few to 150 of the brain’s 86 billion neurons. The device is implanted into the area of the motor cortex that controls arm and hand movement, Donoghue said, because the paralyzed trial participants control objects like cursors that are generally operated with those body parts.

Training computers to work with brains

Michael Black, professor of computer science and a BrainGate2 researcher, said his work focuses on decoding neural signals into patterns that can be understood by machines.

“The work that my group has been doing involves mathematically modeling how the activity of a population of neurons in the brain is related to movement or imagined movement,” he said.

Computers need to be trained to recognize neural patterns and respond to them, Black said. During each trial, the parameters of the computer models that decode neural signals need to be adjusted because the firing rates of neurons vary depending on a variety of factors like the noise level in a room or the subject’s energy level, Black said. The goal is to compile large amounts of “training data” to help the computer eventually adjust the models on its own.

“The whole reason we care about that is to make these things more robust,” Black said. “We want to take this whole research from a very simple level in a controlled environment and make it more practical for people.”

Decoding the neural impulses is necessary so users can activate and operate different devices. The first device that was operated in a clinical trial was a simple mechanical hand that opened and closed. Donoghue said other devices tested have included a cursor, a small robot that grabbed a piece of candy and a primitive wheelchair.

Researchers in Hochberg’s lab are working on new communication devices. Undergraduate researcher Kathryn Tringale has been designing more intuitive keyboards that would be easier for participants to control with their minds than standard QWERTY keyboards. The standard keyboard, designed to prevent typewriter jams, is organized so letters that frequently appear next to each other in writing are not near each other on the keyboard, an impractical design when the cursor is controlled mentally.

Tringale said she has been studying mathematical models of the brain to better understand what a practical communication device would look like and to create a model of a neuron-controlled cursor that she uses to compare the different keyboards she has designed.

Currently, many people with locked-in syndrome, a condition that prevents almost all movement, communicate with letter boards. Participants must go through each letter until they get to the one they want and indicate it through eye movement, painstakingly spelling out words and sentences. Tringale said observing this time-consuming process has motivated her research. “Actually having that interaction and experiencing it in real time really inspires you,” she said.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve are also investigating devices that could greatly impact those living with paralysis. Hochberg said Case Western’s Functional Electrical Stimulation Center is researching technology to restore simple movements in paralyzed people by stimulating the nerves in the arms and legs with implanted electrodes that can be controlled through simple switches. Hochberg said he hopes this technology could one day be combined with BrainGate2 so people’s thoughts could again control their own limbs, rather than an external device.

‘Remarkable participants’

BrainGate2 has enrolled seven participants to date, two of whom are currently enrolled. Hochberg said Brown and Stanford researchers have permission to enroll up to 15 participants.

“Largely, the participants or their families find us,” Hochberg said. Once participants make an initial contact and if they seem to meet the inclusion criteria, Hochberg visits them at their homes to describe the study and answer their questions.

Participating in the trial requires a significant commitment — in addition to attending half-day research sessions twice a week for at least 13 months, participants also must undergo surgery to implant the neural sensor in their brains.

Both Hochberg and Donoghue said interacting with participants is the most important and the most rewarding part of their work.

“We could not develop this technology without the feedback of remarkable participants,” Hochberg said.

Donoghue said the project still has a long way to go.

One of the many challenges now is the development of a wireless implant system. Right now, battery technology is insufficient and neural implants must be plugged into a power source. The challenge is creating a battery whose lifespan is long enough to merit implantation with the knowledge that a participant will be forced to undergo neurosurgery each time the battery runs out. Donoghue said he thinks the team will soon be able to create a battery with a 10-year lifespan.

The process of decoding neural signals is also very complex, and the team is still striving to create the tools that will allow people to control devices with as much ease and fluidity as able-bodied people control their own bodies.

“Working on BrainGate has taught me that we can do basic science and have a profound impact on people’s lives at the same time. … I want everything I do to have an impact like that,” Black said. “It’s changed me profoundly.”

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill with a purpose exactly what it sounds: like, to help government authorities monitor, pursue, and apprehend Internet “pirates” and put an end to intellectual theft.

At least that’s what the bill’s supporters would have you believe.

Stopping copyright infringers has proved to be a difficult task since the initial development of the Internet. At the same time, faster Internet speeds and rapid advancements in technology have only made offenders more elusive and effective.

Recently, the issue has become increasingly political as those being exploited by piracy have begun to channel substantial funding into lobbying efforts.

Eighteen legislators in the House of Representatives have received more than $5 million from media lobbying in their careers to date, but that won’t have any influence on their legislative priorities, right?

It must also be a coincidence that Lamar Smith, Republican from Texas and SOPA’s sponsor in the House has received nearly half a million dollars through lobbying from these media corporations.

It’s really become sickening to watch these “representatives” continually be influenced through financial persuasion, but that’s another conversation altogether.

Intellectual theft is a real problem, whether some will admit it or not.

Unlimited amounts of music, movies and software are available at the click of a button to anyone in America with a broadband Internet connection – for no cost at all. Obviously, the corporations can’t afford for this to happen as they stand to lose billions of dollars per year, according to the bills’ supporters.

It’s hard to blame them for being upset, because they are truly being exploited on a grand scale.

But, their desperation to see something done about it has significantly contributed to the depraved circumstances an ordinary citizen may face for what would be considered petty theft in any other situation.

If SOPA and its partner bill in the Senate, the Protect IP Act are signed into law, those engaging in file-sharing or “streaming” would be subject to a five-year prison term – even as a first offender.

Let that sink in a little bit. You could drive your car through the front door of Best Buy and clean out the music and movies section and feasibly get less jail time than that.

Piracy needs to have consequences; it’s grown rampant in this country – in part because many of its facilitators are overseas based websites, and our government has no jurisdiction in shutting them down.

But, the anti-piracy bills will allow the government to bypass First Amendment rights and began restricting access nationally to any website they see as a potential threat.

Sites like YouTube, which have become not just useful for entertainment purposes, but integral for teachers’ curriculum across the country, would likely cease to exist.

Social media, search engines and advertisers are all also at risk, as any connection or correlation to streaming would be grounds for heavy reparations from the government.

Techdirt blogger Mike Masnick summed it up well.

“And the definitions are ridiculously broad. Under SOPA, you can be found ‘dedicated to the theft of U.S. property’ if the core functionality of your site ‘enables or facilitates’ infringement. The core functionality of nearly every Internet website that involves user generated content enables and facilitates infringement. The entire Internet itself enables or facilitates infringement. Email enables or facilitates infringement. They have significant non-infringing uses as well, but the definition leaves that out entirely,” Masnick said.

The scariest part about this bill is that, more than likely, you’ve never even heard of it. Despite its toxic implications and controversial consequences, the national media has barely even touched it.

Why would they? The convergence of media in the United States has made it so the same companies that produce the majority of music and movies are in some way tied to the corporations that are responsible for disseminating relevant national information – the same corporations that have been pouring millions of dollars into the campaigns of Congress members, both Democrat and Republican, for years.

This is only the beginning of what will become a very complicated and likely long, drawn-out debate.

I urge you to do your own independent research in order to learn as much as you can about the issue, so you can communicate with your state’s representatives accordingly as these bills continue their journey through Congress.

Brian Pekron, a U. Illinois junior in Engineering, had his iPod stolen a couple years ago. He was quite distraught about it until he purchased an iPhone.

“My iPhone’s pretty sweet,” said Pekron, while sitting on a bus and scrolling through his ear-bud connected iPhone. “I would never buy an iPod now because my iPhone’s a phone and music player.”

Pekron isn’t alone in his preference for the all-in-one device. Just days before Jobs took his final breath, Apple’s fourth quarter earnings for its fiscal year showed a 27 percent decline in iPod sales from the year before. Sales from the iPhone, on the other hand, jumped 21 percent over the same period.

“I don’t think Apple’s really hurting for iPod sales,” said Steve Lumetta, Illinois associate professor in Engineering. “They seem to know what they’re doing in terms of business.”

Lumetta, who teaches courses in electrical and computer engineering, is convinced Apple had the technology to construct a smartphone/music player combo before the iPhone was released. But because Apple didn’t have partnerships with phone companies during the heyday of the iPod, they strategically sat on it.

“Apple probably said: ‘We could work with the phone companies early on, but why don’t we instead make a ton of money off iPods and then threaten to buy the phone companies before we release the iPhone?’” Lumetta said. “It was definitely the right decision.”

The other thing Apple waited for before releasing the iPhone, according to Lumetta, was to make it really user-friendly and cool — a trademark of the company.

Lisa Bievenue, project coordinator for the Illinois Informatics Institute on campus, says the coolness and functionality factors for the iPod have passed.

“I wouldn’t buy an iPod right now because I have a smartphone,” said Bievenue, pointing to the Sony Ericsson sitting on her desk on which she listens to music and audio books. “Why would you want to carry two things with you that you could lose or break?”

Bievenue states the only logical iPod purchase would be a compact Nano or Shuffle, with which she’s seen people jogging. During a workout might be the only time people don’t want to get a call.

There is another thing that could save the iPod from its seemingly certain demise. The cost of data packages.

Jizhe Yang, Illinois junior in FAA, owns a BlackBerry (because she prefers physical keyboards) and doesn’t find it easy to scrape together the money to pay the bill each month.

“The smartphone plans are so expensive,” she said, “and they’re compulsory.”

Indeed, Verizon Wireless’ required data packages for smartphone plans start at $20 per month and AT&T’s start at $15. These amounts are on top of the basic phone plans. Employees at both stores said these prices are only recommended for very light users and not the average app-hungry college student.

In an attempt to reel in students without wads of cash to spend on an iPhone or data package, Apple just launched a new ad campaign for its cheaper iPod Touch (the gadget commonly referred to as “iTouch” because it barely resembles an iPod). Hipster youths are shown gleefully texting, Skyping and listening to their favorite tunes. The idea? Who needs a telephone when you have Wi-Fi everywhere?

“My son went to Italy recently and was Skyping us all the time from the device,” said Lumetta, describing how he bought his high-schooler an iPod Touch earlier this year. “Internet content means everything to young people.”

Sleep texting is occurring more frequently among students, said Dr. Markus Schmidt, a sleep expert at the Ohio Sleep Medicine Institute.

“We see more and more patients that are doing that at a particularly young age,” Schmidt said.

Sleep texting is as simple as it sounds: a person will respond or send out a text message in the middle of their sleep. Most people who do this usually do not remember doing it and it usually doesn’t make much sense, Schmidt said.

Hope O’Brien, a second-year in social work, said she has sleep texted ever since she began attending OSU.

“If someone texts me (when I’m asleep,) I will respond but I wont remember,” O’Brien said.

Schmidt said many people sleep with their phones either near their beds or on their beds. He said the proximity of the phone is what could cause a major disturbance while sleeping.

“Somewhere around 20 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds say they receive a phone call or an email that almost wakes or wakes them up every night,” Schmidt said.

This disturbance through a text message is what O’Brien said causes her to text while sleeping. However, she said she is not exactly sure why she does it.

Schmidt said sleep texting is something that can be classified as a repetitive behavior since people do it so often. While in a certain sleep stage, people can do habitual or repetitive actions that they may do in the daytime.

“A recent poll says these kids spend an hour-and-a-half texting each day,” Schmidt said. “It’s nothing unusual for them, in fact, it’s very habitual to text in the middle of the night.”

Mallory Ray, a third-year in interior design, said she has also sleep texted before.

“It’s usually while I am falling asleep, and I just end up texting and sleeping but I won’t remember what I said the next day,” Ray said.

The fact that some people do not remember the next day is what Schmidt said can be a problem with sleep texting.

Ray admitted that she has sent embarrassing texts while asleep, but did not say what she sent.

“I just told that person that I was really tired and I didn’t remember sending the text,” Ray said.

Schmidt said another issue with sleep texting is that it can interrupt sleep.

“When you start including text messages coming in the middle of the night, your quality of sleep is being adversely affected,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said one way to avoid sleep texting is by keeping the phone away from you as you sleep.

About 150 members of U. Minnesota’s tech community filled the Cowles Auditorium at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs Wednesday to see Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google.

U. Minnesota was one of the first institutions to start using Google Apps in everyday instruction. The University’s 90,000 user base is second only to Arizona State University, said Robert Jones, senior vice president for system academic administration at the University.

Schmidt was the CEO of Google for over 10 years, until April 2011 when co-founder Larry Page took over the position. Schmidt is valued at more than $6.2 billion, making him the 136th richest man in the world, according to Forbes’ list of billionaires for 2011.

Wednesday morning, Schmidt spoke and answered questions about the future of Google and technology at large.

Steve Kelly, Director of Science, Technology, and Public Policy at U. Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs: Google’s been reliant on ad revenues from [it’s] search page. In this day and age, [it’s] probably safe to say you can’t always count on that. What is Google thinking about as a revenue model?

“We would argue that advertising, when it’s targeted, is a value to the user. The long term goal would be to show you exactly one ad, which is exactly the right one that you would always click on, and you would always buy the product. But the targeting is done based on what you’re looking at.”

Kelly: Do you see potential for revenue from extension or figuring out ways for non-search to generate revenue?

“We’re very interested in the general, sort of cloud computing area, and it’s particular impact on businesses … When you use Google Docs … it’s stored in our data centers, it’s backed up heavily, it’s safer with us –– if I can be blunt –– than it is with you, given your propensity to back up your hard drive … It seems obvious what cloud computing is, but it’s really something different. It’s really about collaboration in general, and out of that, there could be some very considerable revenue opportunities. ”

Kelly: Dr. Jones mentioned Google as an innovation organization. What are the internal and external challenges that you see Google facing to maintain a pace of innovation and a spirit of innovation in the company?

“It’s a standard problem in a larger organization. This University maintains innovation — frankly it’s because of the students and grad students. Young people go through the various programs within the University, and then the openness of the University brings ideas in like that. We’ve tried our variant of that, called 20 percent time, and the idea is that employees can spend 20 percent of their time on something that they’re interested in. It serves as a check and balance on the power trips that managers get in corporations. The employee can sit there and say, ‘Great. I’m going to work really hard on your problem 80 percent of my time.’”

Kelly: Given this pace of innovation and new products being generated, are there occasions when you don’t release because you see ethical or other social issues related to the product?

“All the time. I’ll give you an example. So, I’m sitting in a room where all decisions are made, and this 23-, 24-year-old walks in to demonstrate his new product. And he’s built a product that will run on your mobile phone that will track where your friends are, and will predict when you’re going to meet them and where you’re going to meet them using live, real-time tracking. If you think about it, it could be subpoenaed, it would break a bunch of privacy laws … We have a whole team that goes through these products and sees if we’re ready. Another example is that we did a very, very high-quality face-recognition system.

It worked like this –– you took a picture of the room, and it told you, who’s everybody in the room. Well, it turns out that if we get a straight-on shot of your face, we have a 50 percent shot of identifying you accurately within the first page of a set of results if you have roughly 13 pictures on the internet … We decided not to release that product, we decided to wait.”

Kelly: As the government moves more and more to web-based systems to make things more convenient, in the United States and in some other countries, it’s very hard for low-income people and people of color to get access to those forms.

“If you look at the math of mobile phone adoption, we have about 4 billion mobile phones in the world, there’s roughly 7 billion people in the world, and we’ll probably get to 6 billion mobile phones … I’m very, very proud of this. I mean, these are voices who we’ve not heard, in languages very few people understand, we don’t really know what they care about. Do they fundamentally care about Lady Gaga as much as we do? You know, we don’t know. Maybe they do, by the way. My point is — the arrival of another couple billion people into the human conversation is really something.”

In the settlement, Facebook is required to undergo privacy audits by an independent third-party every two years for the next two decades.

Most of the FTC’s complaint related to Facebook changing its website privacy models without informing users. Information that was once private was made public without notification. Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook must now get permission from users before they alter the visibility of a user’s personal information.

We are students applying for scholarships, internships, professional jobs, graduate school, or other professional positions in this age of the internet. We must be mindful of how we present ourselves on social networking sites and the information contained therein.

Keeping your information protected on the internet goes beyond making sure nothing embarrassing pops up when you’re trying to make a good impression. Information posted on social sites like Facebook can also be used to steal your identity or plan a robbery when you leave for vacation.

The current Facebook privacy settings can be set to “public,” “friends” or a customized option for status updates and photos. Further privacy settings can alter things such as who can look up your information, who can write on your wall, or who sees which apps you use.

Most people don’t give much consideration to the privacy settings that Facebook automatically assigns their profile. The default for many settings is public — everyone can see your information. Unless you specifically go into the privacy controls and change this, your personal information is visible to the world.

While Facebook will continue to address user concerns about privacy issues as they arise with new changes to the website in the future, it is the responsibility of each person to make sure that their own information is secure and they are satisfied with their visibility on the site.

No one will baby-sit your private information on the internet, and even if you restrict access to only those that you have friended. Continue to be cautious about identifying information. Often we add acquaintances to our circle of friends without knowing much about them, entrusting little more than strangers with our profiles.

Facebook will be doing their part by participating in privacy audits, but users must take responsibility for securing their own information as well. Like many things, it simply comes down to being smart about what you reveal. Next time you log in, take a minute to check your privacy settings and information before posting that next status.

Penn State now owns a handful of .xxx domain names — but not for adult entertainment purposes.

With .xxx domains about to go on the market to the public, the university has been purchasing sites to prevent unaffiliated porn sites from making use of the school’s name.

Earlier this year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers voted to create the .xxx domain in an effort to better flag sites with adult content, but with this decision came concern from universities and many other trademark owners.

“These domains are obviously going to be used with adult entertainment. Schools as well as other trademark owners have done so much to protect and promote their brand,” Michael Drucker, vice president and associate counsel for The Collegiate Licensing Company, said. “They don’t want that brand to be associated with the adult entertainment business.”

ICANN took this concern into consideration, and before making the domain names available to the public, the company offered trademark owners the opportunity to purchase sites containing their trademarked names.

“They provided a period of time, the Sunshine B period, which allowed owners of registered trademarks that chance to purchase domain names that included their trademarks before opening the .xxx sale to the public,” Jeffrey Hermann, director of university relations and member of the University Licensing Committee, said.

This sunshine period opened in September, at which time Penn State purchased four .xxx domains: Penn State, PSU, Nittany Lions and The Pennsylvania State University.

“These are the most popular of our federally registered trademarks. The committee [the University Licensing Committee] felt this was a good opportunity to protect the Penn State brand from possible negative associations,” Hermann said.

Each domain name cost the university $200, but Hermann said the price tag also to prevents associations that reflect poorly on the university. That purchase will also prevent anyone from buying a domain that includes the trademarked term with other words, such as nittanyliongirls.xxx.

“We also still have the standard dispute resolution process we can follow to remove any domain name which violates these or any of our other trademarks,” Hermann said.

The sunshine period only applied to trademarks that were already federally registered, in other words, not just any name could be purchased, Drucker said.

“Penn State has an excellent federal registration portfolio, so they are able to protect themselves,” Drucker said.

The .xxx domain names will become available to the public starting Dec. 6.

The Federal Trade Commission slapped Facebook with a sentence of 20-years of privacy audits requiring the social networking site to get user approval before sharing their information. This news came after two years of investigation by the FTC for Facebook’s “unfair and deceptive business practices.”

It’s not a new phenomenon that Facebook seems to change itself on a weekly basis. The social networking site is simply trying to squash the competition.

However, through the years Facebook has made many mistakes in the privacy department, doing a very poor job in respecting its users’ privacy. Now, the company is finally paying for their wrongdoings.

I remember many times being frustrated with the way Facebook has told us one thing, but had done another.

Back in December 2009, Facebook didn’t warn us that information we had designated as private — like our Friends List — would be made public.

Facebook also said that after users deleted their accounts, all their photos and information would be taken down. However, this information could still be found.

Lastly, Facebook said that it wouldn’t share our personal information with advertisers, but it did. Facebook taunted us with this last lie; posting advertisements for different things that related to the information we shared.

There are still a handful more of privacy issues than the ones I listed above and the FTC wants Facebook to address all of them or face paying a $16,000 fine for each violation. However, these fines Facebook is facing will only be a slap on the wrist to the multi-billion dollar company.

Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, did show some remorse for the way he and his company had handled privacy on their website in the past. Zuckerberg said in a blog post, “Overall, I think we have a good history of providing transparency and control over who can see your information. That said, I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes.”

I’m glad that Facebook is finally owning up to their mistakes, but an apology and watching them pay some fines is not going to be enough to sway the public trust in the company. Facebook will win over its users trust once the privacy issues start being cleared up, something that may take a few days or weeks depending on how serious Facebook takes this sentencing.

It will be interesting to see how Facebook fixes all its mistakes and sees the public’s reactions to these changes. I’m predicting at first we will all be upset — as we our with every Facebook update — but as we soon realize this is a move that Facebook made to boost our privacy, I’m sure we will all be satisfied.

E-shoppers set records for consumer spending on Cyber Monday this year.

The first Monday after Thanksgiving saw online spending increase by 33 percent compared to the same time last year, as retailers offered deep discounts online.

The average consumer also spent more: $198.26, compared to $193.24 in 2010, according to a report by web-analytics firm IBM Benchmark.

Deals on Monday included a $200 discount on a Samsung television on Target’s website, a $199 Kindle Fire on Amazon and a $45 FujiFilm digital camera from Walmart.

Modern methods of making purchases online increased as well. The use of mobile devices like smart phones for shopping increased from 3.9 percent last year to 10.8 percent this year.

Online shopping wasn’t popular with all U. Minnesota students, however. Freshmen Delaney Reger and Katie McCann said they prefer shopping for holiday deals in person. Both visited stores on Black Friday and thought the crowds were manageable.

A survey from the National Retail Federation estimated more than 226 million shoppers took advantage of after-thanksgiving deals either in-person or online.

The increase in spending is deceptive, however, said George John, a marketing professor in the Carlson School of Management. He said the increases from last year’s after-Thanksgiving weekend were compared to 2010, a very weak economic year.

“It’s not the case that we’re back to normal and spending happily,” John said. He said many people expect the spending bump to last through the holiday season, but he doesn’t predict that.

Shaky economic markets like housing still keep consumers from busting out their wallets, John said. Still, he thinks the increase in mall traffic came from retailers aggressively trying to entice customers, like the controversial midnight openings at Walmart, Best Buy and Target.

University junior Lia Assimacopoulos, didn’t go shopping this weekend — either in-person or online. She said that while the advertising from retailers may get people to brave the crowds, it was a little annoying for those wishing to avoid the craze.

McCann said commercials from major retailers put her in the mood for shopping, however.

“Target’s commercials were absolutely hilarious,” she said.

Black Friday sales rose 6.6 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak, a company that tracks mall traffic. The increase placed the total spending in the U.S. over the Thanksgiving weekend at $52 billion, according to the National Retail Federation report.

The increase in online shopping Monday may have set a record, but Cyber Monday shopping will never replace the Black Friday shopping event, John said. Typically, shoppers use the Internet to research prices for products, but still prefer traditional, in-person shopping.

Assimacopoulos tried shopping on Black Friday once but doubts she’ll every try again.

“It was insane,” she said. “I’d rather pay more money to have a better shopping experience.”

A 93-page complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan said Grooveshark.com, a music-streaming website headquartered in Gainesville and started by U. Florida alumni, used songs owned by Universal Music Group without its permission. The music in question includes songs by Elton John, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z.

The complaint also said that Escape Media Group executives and employees illegally downloaded about 100,000 songs to add to the company’s library. The complaint stated Universal Music Group is asking $150,000 for each infringed piece of work.

Grooveshark responded to the allegations in an official statement.

“Universal’s claims rest almost entirely on an anonymous, blatantly false Internet blog comment and Universal’s gross mischaracterization of information that Grooveshark itself provided to Universal,” the statement read.

The complaint, which is the first step in a lawsuit, includes emails from Sina Simantob, who is identified in them as the Escape Media Group executive chairman.

Universal Music Group stated the emails prove Grooveshark knew it was taking songs without permission.

The anonymous comment was posted to a blog, Digital Music News, and comes from a self-identified Grooveshark employee.

“We are assigned a predetermined ammount (sic) of weekly uploads to the system and get a small extra bonus if we manage to go above that,” stated the comment from “Visitor.”

The person refused to give his or her identity when pushed by other people who commented on the blog post.

According to Grooveshark’s statement, the company feels it will prevail in the suit.

Grooveshark continues to run its website. Grooveshark.com boasts 30 million monthly active users.

Among the spam were pornographic images that included PhotoShopped images of celebrities and photos depicting graphic and gory violence, causing millions of Facebook users to ask how the virus infiltrated the social networking site so quickly.

According to CNN, the spam was a result of a “hack that exploited security flaws in some Web browsers.”

The most common way that the viruses are spreading come in the form of links that make some sort of promise to the user – redirection to a new video or song, answers to a quiz or free plane tickets, for example.

According to USA Today, social networking sites are easy targets for spammers because “people are more likely to trust and share content that comes from people they know. This makes spam, scams and viruses easy to spread.”

Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesperson, said that the spam perpetrators have been caught and the company is currently “working with our legal team to ensure appropriate consequences follow.”

What is odd is that the spam “doesn’t seem to be generating any sort of benefit for the scammers other than generating outrage from Facebook users.”

However, the vivid pornographic and violent images have offended some users, even causing some to close their accounts.

Jenna Shaffer, a freshman at U. Southern Mississippi, shared her disgust about the recent wave of spam.

“I’m friends on Facebook with my little brother and my grandmother, and my account got hacked,” Shaffer said. “I didn’t realize, but I had been sharing those images with them. I am embarrassed beyond words and horrified that I was responsible for my little brother being exposed to such graphic content.”

Ian Goodnow, a USM sophomore, had a lighter take on the recent spam wave.

“It doesn’t really bother me,” Goodnow said. “I just laugh it off. It’s not something I would delete my account over.”

According to Facebook and security firm Symantec, less than 4% of the site’s content is spam. Compare that to email, where a whopping 89% of content is spam.

In a press release statement, Facebook described “educational checkpoints” they are going to set up around the site. These checkpoints will teach users how to identify spam.

In order to stay safe and virus free, Facebook users should abide by the following tips:

•Don’t click on links that look suspicious, especially if you are being asked to copy and paste a code into your browser.

•Don’t click on links sent in messages, even if they are from a friend. Double check with that friend to make sure they sent it before you open.

•Consider turning https browsing on in your Facebook settings.

• Change your password every so often.

Facebook isn’t the only social networking site to be hit with spam outbreaks; Google+ and Twitter have encountered the viruses as well.

Facebook has now gotten rid of the majority of the offensive images.

“Our team responded quickly and we have eliminated most of the spam caused by this attack,” Facebook said in its statement. “We are now working to improve our systems to better defend against similar attacks in the future.”

As we matured and went on to middle school and high school, social networking evolved with us. The handheld, mirror shot was born and the world of Myspace was the only place to be seen. If you didn’t have the right pictures, the best quotes, the coolest celebrity’s photo under the “role models” section, you were a loser.

Myspace was a gateway drug into the world of social media. Toward the end of high school, when we became wiser and “too mature” for Myspace, the Facebook era began. It is not news that Facebook has taken over the world. With over 800 million users today, Facebook has become a tool for both social and professional networking. Despite that, Facebook is past its prime.

Twitter, although it has been around since 2006, will soon be the tool to use. The CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, reported in September that more than 100 million users are now active on Twitter. Still 75 percent less than Facebook, Twitter will soon become the new Facebook and Facebook will become the new Myspace. According to Mashable Social Media, there are 230 million tweets a day, 8,900 per second.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter gives people direct access to celebrities. While not everyone is obsessed with following a certain famous person’s every move, millions of people are. The top five followed people (Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, and Barack Obama) tweet daily on their whereabouts and appearances. This gives more than 11 million fans desperately desired communication in 140 characters or less.

If you own the iPhone, a Twitter account is coming your way shortly. The 200 million plus people who own iPhones, according to CNN, will be forced to share via Twitter if they have a habit of commonly posting photos, videos, and links. The iOS 5 software, released early October, includes Twitter integration. After taking a picture, listening to a song, or using any of the iPhone features, a Twitter button is ready to be tapped for instant upload. Facebook, available for download on any iPhone, will not be able to survive the fierce competition Twitter is bringing. With Apple endorsing it, there is no doubt that Twitter’s popularity will dramatically increase.

We have been through a lot with Facebook, but sadly its time has ended. Soon liking comments and stalking profiles will be a thing of the past. Becoming obsessed with Twitter will not be as dangerous as Facebook. Although there are still ways to waste hours, scrolling through the site. Twitter is a more condensed, savvy way to social network.

If you aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to Facebook, treat it like a Band-Aid. Deactivate it quickly then post your first tweet.

The world’s largest technology security company, McAfee Inc., reported a significant increase in iPhone and Android hacking in 2011. Additionally, 42 percent of cellphone users said their data use has increased within the last year, while only 32 percent of those users feel their information is secure, according to an Oracle Communications survey. Students should be concerned about their smartphones’ security because once an application or password-free Internet hotspot is used, information on their smartphones could easily become available to hackers, according to Kelley Bogart, a senior information security analyst at the U. Arizona Information Security Office.

Bogart said often times, students don’t want to pay for certain applications on their phones, so they circumvent the legitimate application downloading source and find a fake source for that same application. The hackers that created the fake application, she said, can collect information users type into their phones and can sell that data, such as personal banking accounts, on the black market or use it for themselves.

“It’s a risk balance and a trade off,” she said. “If you’re going to download an app without researching the source, you need to think about that.”

It’s also important to read the application agreement before downloading, Bogart said, because the fine print often times says what the application owners will have access to. For example, the Flashlight application for the iPhone and Android acts as a flashlight on a user’s phone, yet the agreement says that it grants access to a user’s contacts and video camera.

“Why on earth would a flashlight need to have your contacts and enable your video camera? It’s kind of scary,” Bogart said.

Caleb Tellez, a UA journalism senior, said his second-generation iPhone is “jailbreaked” in order to find apps like Nintendo games, which he said he couldn’t find through his iPhone’s app store. Jailbreaking, or modifying a smartphone’s firmware to access the internals of its operating system to install third-party applications, often occurs when smartphone users want to find particular apps, wallpapers or programs for free. Tellez said it was easy to find out how to jailbreak his iPhone — he simply Googled it.

The problem with jailbreaking, he said, is that once an iPhone is jailbroken, Apple no longer covers that iPhone’s warranty. Tellez said he isn’t concerned about his smartphone getting hacked, because it has yet to happen.

“I’m not worried about it, I’ve never really thought about it,” he said.

But Bogart said a lack of foresight is a problem among students who use smartphone — because students grew up using technology, they are almost too comfortable with it, she said.

“Students need to step back and think, ‘How might a hacker use this? Why might they want this information? People trust too easily,’” Bogart said.

Nick DePratti, an architecture freshman at UA, said that although personal information has never been stolen from his iPhone in the two years has had it, he will not consider buying protection software for it until he is a victim of hacking.

“I hope it (hacking) will never happen,” he said. “If a stranger gets a hold of my information, who knows what that person might do. Everything from private text messages to bank information is held on my smartphone.”

Smartphone users can take protection measures to keep information from being hacked, Bogart said. Users should research applications prior to downloading, update their smartphones to the most up-to-date software, install anti-virus and anti-spyware software, read application license agreements thoroughly and use password-protected Internet hotspots instead of free Wi-Fi.

“We’ve got to break down that trust barrier,” Bogart said. “It’s the Internet — you don’t know who’s on the other line.”

Five years after Twitter entered the social media scene, major news outlets have yet to adopt the site as a reporting or interactive tool, a study published this week found.

The George Washington U. School of Media and Public Affairs and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reported in a Nov. 14 study that mainstream news organizations primarily use Twitter as a platform to promote already-published content.

“It is not necessarily being used to gather new information or engage in a social relationship with readers,” Jesse Holcomb, co-author of the study and researcher for the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said. “Some of the more social aspects of the tool are not being utilized.”

The team of researchers analyzed 3,600 tweets from 13 print, broadcast and online news sources over a one-week period in February 2011. Their sample included tweets from reporters and the news organizations’ official and beat accounts. Media and Public Affairs professors Kimberly Gross and Robert Entman worked with several dozen undergraduates to conduct the research, coding each tweet based on date, source, number of re-tweets and the story’s topic.

“Mainstream news organizations primarily use Twitter to move information and push content to readers,” the report said.

The study also found news organizations rarely use Twitter’s hashtag component, which allows users to mark keywords or topics searchable to other users.

Holcomb compared this minimal use of Twitter to “the early days of the web when there was an unwillingness of organizations to pass along information from other sources.”

On average, only 2 percent of tweets from the news outlets sought feedback from followers.

Gross, co-author of the study, said that, to use Twitter as a social news forum, journalists must fundamentally change how they view their jobs.

“I think reporters are the place where we’re going to see the most innovation with Twitter,” Gross said.

Rachel Weisel, a GW graduate student and research assistant, said this study marks the first empirical analysis of how Twitter is used by journalists.

“The results showed that there was the same news in Twitter and mainstream media. Even though some people think of Twitter as a medium for mundane events, journalists use it to reflect what is going on and it does mirror what is going on in their news organizations,” Weisel said.

On Oct. 23, 2001, the late Steve Jobs declared, “With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go. With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.” As was often the case, Jobs was more correct than anybody could have imagined.

The iPod was the first of numerous ‘iDevices’ Apple has launched during the past few years. Every gadget Apple has made which has been influenced by the iPod has received rave reviews and critical acclaim. The influence of the device can easily be seen in the design of the iPhone, iPad and the multiple types of iPods currently on the market.

The massive success of the iPod changed the fate of Apple. Before its introduction, Apple was known for the Mac line of computers. Now, it’s questionable whether the Mac or the iPod has better brand recognition. The Macintosh operating system has been growing in popularity in recent years, and it’s probable that the increasing market shares are thanks to the immense success of the iPod. As Macworld.com puts it, the iPod has a “halo effect” on the Macintosh operating system and other Apple products, wherein people purchase other Apple products because they have had such a positive experience with the iPod.

One of the iPod’s greatest effects was that it forced people to become comfortable with digital music. In the early 2000s, before iPods and other electronic music devices became widespread, most people purchased whole albums on CDs at local electronics stores. iTunes, which was the first online music store to break into the mainstream, owes its early success to its close integration with the iPod. To this day, the only supported way to sync music, photos, videos, apps, podcasts and other content to an iDevice is by using iTunes. The application also changed the dynamics of how music is bought and sold by allowing consumers to purchase just the songs they want instead of entire albums.

The iPod has also created entirely new industries. The mobile app was born from the introduction of the iPhone and iPod touch. The thousands of individuals and companies who now make a living from developing and selling apps in the Apple App Store owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Jobs and the iPod team.

Whether the stand-alone iPod has a future now that media-playing functionality is being built into other Apple gadgets like the iPhone and iPad is debatable. Even if Apple no longer sells it after another decade, the effects of the device on the music and consumer electronic industries will always be remembered.

Thirty-six percent of students who had ‘sexted’ reported depressive symptoms in the past year, according to the study conducted by The Educational Development Center, while only 17 percent of students who have not ‘sexted’ reported symptoms of depression.

The study, which was based on a 2010 survey that included more than 23,000 high school students, also revealed that 13 percent of high school students who have ‘sexted’ reported a suicide attempt in the past year, while only 3 percent of students who had not ‘sexted’ reported suicide attempts.

The survey did not reveal if ‘sexting’ causes depressive symptoms, or if depressive symptoms cause people to ‘sext.’

The survey is part of a greater research project, the MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey, which informs local officials involved with health education, prevention and policy-making programs.

It defines ‘sexting’ as sending, forwarding or posting nude, sexually suggestive or explicit photos or videos.

Preliminary results concluded that 10 percent of students who took the survey had sent a ‘sext’ in the past year, and 5 percent had an explicit photo or video of themselves sent by another person.

Students who had sexual intercourse at some point were five times more likely to ‘sext’ than those who had not, according to the survey.

Students who did not identify themselves as heterosexual were also more likely to send explicit messages or have pictures of themselves sent by others, according to the study.

Lead project researcher Shari Kessel Schneider said that while specific research in gender difference is forthcoming, there was a difference between men and women in result statistics.

“We found that 10 percent of males and 11 percent of females have sent a ‘sext’ of someone they know in the past 12 months,” Schneider said in an email, “and 6 percent of males and 4 percent of females have had a ‘sext’ sent of them in the past 12 months.”

Although Schneider said that the EDC has yet to research specific correlations between females affected by ‘sexting’ and depressive symptoms, slightly more females than males reported that they were involved in ‘sexting’ in the survey.

The prevalence of sexting among females, can be attributed to the kinds of relationships they choose, said Boston U. psychology Professor Deborah Belle.

Belle said that girls tend to enjoy the sense of vulnerability and intimacy that dyadic relationships – relationships exclusively between two individuals – have.

“I think that girls often orient themselves to dyadic relationships,” she said. “Girls tend to seek out and be comfortable with one other person at a time. Girls more than boys, research suggests, are involved in dyadic relationships.”

But sexting can be harmful to both partners in a relationship, no matter what their gender is, Belle said. She said there is also a possibility of betrayal in these relationships, especially when one person makes his or herself vulnerable to the other by sending an explicit message.

“The other person fails to honor that self-disclosure and makes it public,” Belle said.

Some BU students said they agreed that the decision to ‘sext’ can be risky.

Paul Robinson, a BU sophomore, said that ‘sexting’ explicit images is often a result of peer pressure, and in some cases, constitutes child pornography.

“It takes the romance away from sex itself,” Robinson added.

BU sophomore Troy Wilson said that ‘sexting’ can get out of hand and that it is more risky if a couple that has ‘sexted’ in the past breaks up.

“Especially if they turn against you or something,” he said. “Of course, the obvious situation is if you accidently send it to your mom.”

In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Knotts that “A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.” The Court decided that police could track an individual by using a “beeper” hidden inside a portable container.

During oral arguments before the Court last week in the case of U.S. v. Jones, Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben reminded the Court of the Knotts precedent. He argued that the 1983 case made the police conduct at issue in Jones legal.

Police, suspecting Antoine Jones of selling cocaine, attached a GPS tracking device to his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a warrant. They monitored his travels for a month, and used the evidence to convict him. But the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Jones’s conviction, ruling that the amount of information collected violated the Fourth Amendment.

According to news coverage, most Supreme Court Justices seemed not to be convinced by Dreeben’s application of the Knotts precedent. They raised fundamental questions about the use of standards of “public thoroughfare” and “reasonable expectation of privacy.” The latter test was established by the seminal 1967 case Katz v. U.S., in which the Court held that warrantless electronic eavesdropping of telephone calls made from a public booth violated the Constitution. The “reasonable expectation of privacy” formula has since become the generally applicable standard for determining whether the Constitution affords protection against police searches.

Chief Justice John Roberts spoke up often. “That was 30 years ago,” he said of the Knotts case. “The technology is very different and you get a lot more information from the GPS surveillance than you do from following the beeper.”

Roberts strained to apply earlier precedents to the new technology. “I give you that, that it’s in public. Does the reasonable expectation of privacy trump that fact?…Is it simply the reasonable expectation of privacy regardless of the fact that it takes place in public?” he said, then added later that the police “just sit back in the station and they push a button whenever they want to find out where the car is. They look at data from a month and find out everywhere it’s been in the past month. That seems to me dramatically different.”

The Justices explored examples that suggested they are alarmed by the implications of GPS tracking. Justice Anthony Kennedy wondered whether the FBI could simply put a GPS device on an individual’s overcoat. Roberts asked whether the government could install tracking devices on the cars of the Justices themselves.

Justice Stephen Breyer summed up the defense’s case in an exchange with Dreeben. “If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movements of every citizen of the United States,” he said. “What happened in the past [with traditional surveillance] is memories are fallible, computers aren’t….So, if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984?”

If the Justices indeed want to find a way to require a warrant for some kinds of GPS tracking, we should cheer them on. The circular “reasonable expectation of privacy” standard provides little protection in an age of constant technological progress. A test based on the amount and kinds of information acquired by police, like the “mosaic theory” applied by the appeals court, would likely stand up better. That court argued that the large amounts of data provided by technologies like GPS trackers reveal unprecedented amounts of information about suspects, creating a “mosaic” out of individual tiles. When it decides Jones next year, the Supreme Court may only make a narrow judgment. But we should hope that in this and future rulings, the Court articulates a sturdier foundation for privacy.

She also wipes her laptop’s keyboard every two weeks with baby wipes.

“I’m actually, like, a clean freak,” she said.

Keeping It Kleen, a public awareness campaign that educates the public on food safety and hygiene, posted an online infographic Wednesday stating that 16 percent of all cellphones contain feces, which harbors the E.coli bacteria.

“That is disgusting,” said McNeill, 20.

The information was based on a study conducted by researchers in England that focused on 390 samples of volunteers’ cellphones, according to an Oct. 14 USA Today article.

Jorge A. Girón, associate professor in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology at UF, said it’s not surprising to find out that E. coli exists on cellphones. Girón said the bacteria can be found on door knobs, handrails and even elevator buttons.

“Everything we touch has feces,” he said.

Girón blames this on the lack of good hygiene practices among the general public.

“It tells us that people aren’t washing their hands,” he said.

Despite these statistics, Girón said the strands of E. coli that exist on phones and other surfaces are harmless. Other strands of E. coli, on the other hand, can mutate and cause disease when ingested with tainted food.

According to the Keeping It Kleen website, people can clean their phones by using Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol with soft tissue and using household sanitizing wipes.

Girón said the most basic solution is for people to practice good hygiene by washing their hands after going to the bathroom.

UF sophomore Theos Rizos, 19, said he is aware of the bacteria around him but admitted he wouldn’t change his daily routine.

“I’m not too concerned,” he said. “I have a pretty good immune system.”

Referring to her BlackBerry, McNeill said she doesn’t plan on changing how much she uses it.

“I would probably sanitize it more,” she said.

With new technological advances, it’s beyond easy to download an entire album or that movie that has yet to come out on DVD from the comfort of your own dorm room. And many of us do so without thinking of the possible repercussions; it has been so ingrained in our lives that buying music or movies has become a foreign concept for us. The use of file-sharing, however, is nothing new to UCLA administration, with 531 citations handed out last year. I am not innocent in this practice, which leads me to ponder why we feel justified in partaking in illegal downloads.

The most convenient answer is the economic excuse. We are so conditioned to complain about the outrageous prices of CDs and DVDs and the $1-or-more songs found on iTunes, that we never think past that argument. We view the artists as the enemies, furious that they charge ludicrous prices for us to enjoy their work. But the truth is we, the general public, are the enemy, and those artists are the victims of glorified robbery.

Viewing the issue through an economic lens may satisfy our conscience for the moment, but am I to believe illegal file-sharing strikes no moral chord? Those who illegally share files are quick to forget that musicians and actors create music and movies because it is not just their hobby but more so their job; and when we illegally download, they are not compensated for the amount of work they have done.

Those who continue to illegally share files feel justified; however, the issue is no different than going to a restaurant and walking out without paying. The restaurant employees devote their hard work and effort but will get nothing in return, just as the artist will not. As it is, a majority of the artists do not see the millions of dollars the general public believes they do; the record company takes the bulk of the share, and those artists are left with whatever remains. When the amount isn’t so large to start off with, an artist is left doing his job for a nominal fee.

It’s astounding that people would vehemently oppose stealing from a store yet they turn a blind eye to illegal sharing.

People feel at ease with stealing music and movies because they are not able to witness the dedication that is put forth. We can see waiters laboring at a restaurant and employees performing their due diligence at a department store, but we rarely see a musician at work. And without the threat of imminent consequences, it is this inability to recognize the effort that goes into the creation of music and movies that allows the public to continue to guiltlessly pirate.

More than just robbery, piracy is a threat to intellectual property. These tracks and movies are the brainchildren of musicians, actors and directors. Through illegal downloads, we steal their works without ever acknowledging their creative genius. We would never consider stealing Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” yet we continue to steal work from modern-day artists.

But I am well aware that morality will not stop the majority from downloading. Illegal downloading and file-sharing will continue, so it is up to the record companies to implement a viable option that will accommodate both artists and the public.

In late 2008 the Recording Industry Association of America stated it would stop filing lawsuits against those it found in violation of copyright infringement but would rely on the assistance of Internet providers to prevent these intellectual thefts. Major Internet service providers would send emails threatening to cut off Internet access to those who continued to take part in illegal uploading.

Stopping the means of accessing illegal files is essential and is even more imperative now that the death of the CD is slowly approaching; the 2009 CD figure showed $6.3 billion in revenue, starkly contrasted to the $14.6 billion of revenue in 1999. Along with partnering with Internet providers, record companies should use incentives and user-friendly applications to regain this lost revenue; licensing music videos on YouTube and radio stations such as Pandora, which are visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors a day, is a brilliant business move.

The morals of the issue should be enough to convince us to abandon our need to download free material, but alas, that will not serve as the solution. Record companies must find unique ways to profit, and artists need to be compensated for their work. We all, myself included, should take a deep look into the depths of our soul, and maybe then we can fully comprehend that our intellectual theft only destroys the creative ingenuity society produces.

Actor Ashton Kutcher released Wednesday that he would take a leave of absence from Twitter due to a tweet he sent about Penn State firing head football coach Joe Paterno.

Kutcher tweeted, “[sic] How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”

He was immediately bombarded with tweets from Twitter users who were upset over his supposed support for the coach.

Kutcher later recanted, claiming he had no idea about the events surrounding Paterno and his firing.

“As of immediately, I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won’t happen again,” Kutcher tweeted.

He later linked a blog post to his tweet that explained he would turn the management of his Twitter to his team at Katalyst Media as an added precaution so that the situation will not happen again.

Students were aware of Kutcher’s comment and were disappointed in him for commenting without knowing the proper information.

“It was a very premature tweet, and then he retracted it and then switched his opinion, saying he didn’t have the facts. I think he still doesn’t have the facts,” Laurel Paul (junior-biochemistry) said. “Most people across the country don’t have all the facts because they’re relying on social media for information.”

Jennifer Zering didn’t see the tweet but expressed a similar sentiment.

“It’s frustrating. I wish people would educate themselves before making comments,” Zering (senior-psychology) said. “It is making our institution have a bad reputation, talking before having the facts.”

Kutcher has more than eight million followers, many of whom know he is an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, which added to the confusion about his tweet.

He later clarified his stance on the matter at hand by tweeting and restating in his blog, “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.”

But Kutcher isn’t the only celebrity using Twitter to express views and opinions on the situations occurring.

New England Patriots wide receiver Chad Ochocinco stayed clear from negative attention when asked about JoePa by tweeting he felt the same way his followers felt about the situation.

Ochocinco also tweeted a response to Kutcher and said, “Good luck fending off all the people you’ve upset with YOUR opinion boss.”

Penn State student Anna Barclay said people tweeting have the ability to reach a large audience, and they need to be sure they know what they’re talking about.

“I think it’s ridiculous and irresponsible to use social media as a way to give their opinions,” Barclay (senior-accounting and finance) said. “The truth gets misconstrued.”

Some students are frustrated with the way the media is focusing on certain aspects of the case, especially on social media sites like Twitter where at one point, four of the worldwide trending topics dealt with Penn State.

“If we can get media attention away from Paterno and back to Sandusky, then that’s good,” Jonny D’Amico (sophomore-communications) said. “I think they can find a way to talk about it somewhere other than Twitter where you only have 140 characters to explain something.”

The current FCC rules, which are set to go into effect on Nov. 20, ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) do not discriminate based on content. If the FCC rules are allowed to be enacted, an ISP will not be permitted to block any legal content from its subscribers, meaning it must deliver all types of content without any discrimination. Comcast, for example, will not be allowed to block websites that compete with its On Demand video service, such as Netflix. Likewise, if an ISP is partnered with Yahoo, it will not be allowed to slow down the delivery of search results from Yahoo’s competitors.

The Republican-backed Resolution of Disapproval is being matched by Democrats in Congress. Sen. John Kerry emerged last week as a leading defender of net neutrality when he wrote in an open letter that “if the effort is successful, it will stifle innovation and discourage investment in the next potential Google or Amazon.” Additionally, Obama made the importance of net neutrality a campaign issue, which will further hinder Republican efforts to quash the FCC rules. He has already vowed to veto a house measure to nullify the FCC rules.

The Republican’s justify their opposition under the pretense that the FCC is exceeding its authority by attempting to control the way ISPs deliver content to their subscribers. Republicans are also concerned about the potential economic consequences of such regulations, as well as any foreseeable hindrances to investment or innovation in internet technologies that may result.

Outside the realm of legislature, the FCC is also facing serious legal pressure. Verizon has recently opened a lawsuit against the FCC, claiming that the FCC lacks the authority to regulate its operations as an ISP.

Regardless of political partisanship over the issue, net neutrality regulations would have notable technological implications. There are times when ISPs need to discriminate based on content. For example, in times of internet congestion ISPs reserve the right to slow down high-bandwidth data such as peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and video streams from applications such as BitTorrent and Skype. When ISPs slow down data that is expensive and likely not essential, internet users can benefit from faster access to high priority data when internet traffic is high.

Wireless providers are especially vulnerable to technological limitations which could be imposed by net neutrality legislation. Because wireless internet is much less powerful than broadband, wireless providers must be even more judicious with bandwidth limitations. Because wireless internet services are an emerging market, the current FCC rules do not restrict them very aggressively, but a lawsuit from the D.C.-based Free Press is attempting to change this. The Free Press is suing the FCC in an attempt to increase the regulation of wireless providers to match their wired counterparts.

Google currently advocates against complete net neutrality, promoting a system in which ISPs reserve the technological freedom to discriminate between data types, but not between content providers. Using video data as an example, Google believes that if internet traffic is high, ISPs should be able to uniformly slow down video data, but not slow down video from one site more than from any other. Perhaps Congress could use this as a framework for reforming the FCC rules, rather than attempting to fully preserve them or rescind them altogether. One possible implementation of partial net neutrality would be to place a heavy burden on prosecutors to prove anti-competitive discrimination, while reforming the FCC rules to allow ISPs the freedom to discriminate for technical reasons.

Moreover, a survey of the internet today would perhaps reveal that now is not the time to enforce net neutrality by strictly regulating ISPs. Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a leading sponsor of the Resolution of Disapproval against the FCC rules, said that “the Internet is not broken and does not need fixing.” The internet today is still a hotbed of innovation, a robust economic engine, and a stronghold of free speech; few documented cases of legal content being restricted by ISPs actually exist. So when America has so many national challenges to be tackled, why try to fix the one thing we have that isn’t broken?

In the last decade, no one has shaped our culture’s understanding of privacy more than Mark Zuckerberg. He has created a phenomenally successful online service that makes it normal for us to post every detail of our personal information for our friends, families, and the world to see.

Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, is speaking at a recruiting event at Carnegie Mellon U. on Tuesday. He will speak to a capacity crowd in Wiegand Gym, and his talk will be simulcast in McConomy Auditorium. Pre-registered students, faculty, and staff will be attending.

If Facebook has its way, though, you won’t be seeing photos of Zuckerberg’s Carnegie Mellon visit on your friends’ walls. Both photographic and audio recording devices are strictly prohibited at Tuesday’s event, and media outlets’ attempts to cover the event have been rebuffed.

This ban is not only misguided, it is also futile. Nearly every person in the audience will be carrying at least one — if not several — devices equipped with multi-megapixel cameras, digital recording, video capabilities, and constant access to social networks.

But even if the ban is impossible, it is decidedly misaligned with Facebook’s goals. Facebook’s stated mission is to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

Zuckerberg’s talk is closed, and Carnegie Mellon and the media are being denied the power to share it. Coming from a CEO and company whose guiding principle is openness, this denial can only be seen as highly hypocritical.

Sure, Facebook might promote openness because its leaders actually want information to flow freely across the internet. On the other hand, they might just be looking to bring in more advertising dollars through the page views that they know sharing on their network brings in.

If Zuckerberg and his company wanted to show their dedication to the ideals of universal sharing and a more open and connected world, and prove their goal is not just increased advertising dollars. Tuesday’s event should be an opportunity, not a media challenge. This week’s recruiting trip will be limited to three universities (Harvard, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon); no doubt students around the world would be interested in hearing what Zuckerberg has to say.

Allowing Carnegie Mellon to stream Zuckerberg’s talk would support the open and connected world that Facebook claims to support. The news media was sharing information long before Zuckerberg came up with the idea for thefacebook.com, and denying it access denies people the access to information that Facebook claims to support.

While this may be Zuckerberg’s first campus tour, other members of Facebook’s leadership team have conducted similar closed meetings with other universities. Such precedents should be discouraged because they allow Facebook executives the ability to say whatever they please, without being held accountable to the media or other independent sources.

If Facebook and Zuckerberg are serious about their mission, they should apply its principles to everything they do. They should prove they aren’t just an advertising company in disguise.

Facebook events should be held in the spirit of Facebook the network. The restrictions placed on Tuesday’s event are against the spirit of openness that Zuckerberg and Facebook claim to prize.

Apple, in particular, has become notorious for its zero-tolerance policy on negative employee remarks. An Apple employee in the U.K. was fired for “gross misconduct” after talking bad about Apple on his private Facebook page.

Such actions, however extreme, are understandable on the part of companies who want to present the right public image. However, businesses go too far when they penalize employees for stating opinions wholly unrelated to their jobs.

Adrian Smith, a property manager in England, was demoted and received a 40 percent pay cut after posting about gay marriage on his personal Facebook page, which only his friends could read.

Commenting on a BBC News Online story about plans to allow gay marriage ceremonies in British churches, Smith wrote, “If the state wants to offer civil marriages to the same sex, then that is up to the state, but the state shouldn’t impose its rules on places of faith and conscience,” according to BBC News.

He also wrote, “The Bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women.”

Smith’s comments can hardly be classified as hate speech. He was simply stating his personal view on an issue that has little to do with Trafford Housing Trust (THT), the company he works for. A THT spokeswoman said to BBC News, “Mr. Smith was disciplined for his breach of company policy. The trust made no comment about any personal beliefs that he holds.”

However, the demotion seems entirely motivated by a difference in personal beliefs. It is unreasonable for employers to expect all employees to hold the same, non-work-related opinions, and employees should not be penalized for voicing their opinions, even if they’re not the most popular ones.

Here in America, where freedom of speech and belief should be more clearly established, a New Jersey school teacher grabbed national headlines for calling homosexuality a “sin” that “breeds like cancer” on her Facebook page last month, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

While the teacher, Viki Knox, was writing about a school display in honor of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender History Month, her comments were not direct criticism of the school and represent her personal religious beliefs.

The controversy begs the question of whether freedom of belief or political correctness is more important. Some have labeled Knox’s comments as hate speech and called for her termination. However, her personal beliefs should have nothing to do with her ability to teach.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey issued a statement in Knox’s defense, pointing out her free speech rights.

While employees should always watch what they say online, they should be allowed to express personal opinions without fear of repercussions.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg swung by MIT yesterday to talk about Facebook’s corporate culture, what it’s like working in Silicon Valley, and — not surprisingly — why MIT students would make good Facebook engineers.

Zuckerberg emerged from the Loeb House, where he was meeting with University President Drew G. Faust, at 4:30 p.m., and answered three questions from the press before going directly to an exclusive discussion at Farkas Hall (formerly New College Theatre) with 200 students.

Clad in jeans and a navy hoodie, Zuckerberg bumped fists with an excited student to cheers and the constant click of cameras before making his way to microphones set up outside Lamont. Surrounded by the press on one side and a crowd of students armed with cameras and iPhones on the other, Zuckerberg kept a smile on his face throughout the press conference.

“Oh, we’re just getting started,” Zuckerberg said enthusiastically when asked what Facebook still had to accomplish.

“The original goals for the company are to make it so that the whole world can be more open and connected. And you know the last five years have really just been about helping people get signed up and stay connected with their friends,” he added. “But I think the next five or ten years are going to be about all of these different products and industries that can be rethought.”

Citing recent developments in social games, music, and television on Facebook, Zuckerberg explained that Facebook would provide a platform through which “different industries can be rethought in different ways so that your friends are there with you.”

In response to a question about why Facebook had not followed in the footsteps of Microsoft and Google and started a Boston branch, Zuckerberg struck a hopeful tone but confirmed that there are no immediate plans to do so.

Facebook has opened one development office in Seattle, Wash., according to Zuckerberg, in large part because it is in the same time zone as the company’s Palo Alto, Calif. office.

“We want to really get the culture there right before we start opening up other offices, but at some point hopefully down the line we will do that,” he said.

Students submitted resumés in advance to the Office of Career Services to take part in a discussion on Facebook moderated by Computer Science Senior Lecturer David J. Malan ’99 after the press conference, and about 200 students were accepted on a first-come-first served basis.

Applications closed as soon as the theater reached capacity, but students who did not receive tickets were placed on a short waiting list. All students from the standby list who showed up prior to the event were accommodated, according to Kevin Galvin, Director of News and Media Relations at the University.

Zuckerberg’s visit to Harvard is part of a three-university recruiting trip along the East Coast that includes MIT and Carnegie Mellon University.

“There’s a lot of really smart people here,” Zuckerberg answered when asked why he chose to recruit at Harvard and MIT. “And a lot of them are making decisions about where they’re going to work when they graduate in the next couple of weeks.”

On the rare event that a star gets too close to a black hole, gravity will pull the star unevenly on one of its sides. The stretching will continue until the star tears apart and shatters, said Dennis Zaritsky, a UA professor of astronomy in the Steward Observatory who co-authored the study. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

After analyzing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project that took images of the sky, a handful of objects were found that resembled stars being partially swallowed by a black hole. The process of a star being shredded and falling into a black hole is called a tidal disruption event, Zaritsky said.

Most of a star’s matter spirals into the black hole where nothing, not even light, can escape. The remaining material was examined by a team of researchers.

Black holes are located near the center of the galaxy, which is where the star remains were found. Their location is strong evidence that these were indeed tidal disruption events, and not one of the many possibilities that resemble them, Zaritsky said.

After more analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s data of a few million galaxies, they settled on two tidal disruption events.

“Could there be some other kind of exploding star that we’ve never seen? Perhaps, but it would have to always happen at the center of galaxies,” Zaritsky said. “Then again, the universe is usually weirder than you think.”

People have been looking for tidal disruption events for at least the last decade, Zaritsky said.

“It’s hard to say this is the first time they’ve been discovered, because other people have put out claims of finding them,” he said. “But this is the first large optical survey where you look for variability and find them that way.”

What if a human fell into a black hole?

“That’s a standard problem we give in class to figure out how stretched you get,” he said. “If you didn’t rip apart initially, you’d get stretched hundreds of feet until you did.”

Under Arizona Stadium, a telescope’s mirror is being finished that will revolutionize the way this type of research is done, Zaritsky said.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope’s 8-meter mirror will take images of the entire sky every few nights. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey used a 2-meter mirror telescope.

Zaritsky said the LSST might be ready by 2020.

“We’ll see a lot more tidal disruption events,” Zaritsky said. “We’ll find all sorts of weird things, I guarantee it.”

The people making the estimates are part of Amazon Mechanical Turk—a crowdsourcing community—and are referred to as Turkers. They are online workers who are paid a few cents for each short task they complete. In this case, Turkers examine PlateMate photographs and provide calorie estimates.

When testing PlateMate, Noronha and Hysen found that the results “overestimated calories by about 7 percent, compared to 5 percent to 9 percent for the best experts.”

According to Noronha, when PlateMate was used by students at Harvard U., “a majority preferred our system and found it more accurate and easier to use than doing their own estimates.” The PlateMate results were also much more accurate than those of the students’ personal food diaries.

Noronha said there are two reasons why the system is appealing.

“First, it’s way easier because all you have to do is take a picture, without painstakingly recording or memorizing what you ate and looking up nutrition facts” he said. “Second, it’s less biased. Prior studies show that people seriously underestimate their own eating, remembering their portions as smaller and healthier than they really were. Having a third party do the estimate removes that bias.”

According to Noronha, if the questions are structured properly, results can be received within minutes.

Hysen and Noronha noted that the development process has been difficult. Early on in the testing, the pair had trouble convincing Turkers to complete PlateMate tasks truthfully. At first, they asked Turkers to both identify the types of food in the photographs and then determine the nutritional value of the meal by searching a database.

“We found that the results from that were very bad because we asked workers to do two things at once,” Hysen said. “We replaced the single task by a two-step process where one set of workers identifies what’s in the box, and another set matches those items to the food database, and got much better results.”

PlateMate arose as a final project for a Harvard computer science course last fall, according to Hysen. Currently neither Hysen nor Noronha are working on the project, but Hysen said they “hope [their] research inspires someone to turn this into a publicly-available product. Making a smartphone app would be one of the first steps if that happens.”

Surprisingly, this marks Google’s second attempt at making Google TV a success. In May of 2010, Google announced the release of its first version of Google TV. This initial version was considered largely unsuccessful and failed to reach any noteworthy level of prominence. After launching at a price of $299, Google TV quickly fell in value and the price was cut to $99. Because of this lack of success, many people are unaware of what Google TV offers as a product. Let me explain.

In essence, Google TV brings the limitless world of the Internet and online video to your living room television. Companies like HBO, YouTube, and Netflix allow you to stream content through Google TV. Not only can users stream content from these select companies, but they also have access to the full Android app market. The powerful Google Chrome web browser allows users to surf the web at their leisure. Google TV is available on all Sony Internet TV models and also on an external device called the Logitech Revue that is compatible with most other television sets. The new software upgrade now allows you to use your iPhone or Droid as a remote control, which could be a nice perk. However, the issue with Google TV lies with what you cannot do. NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC do not allow Google TV to stream their content, which eliminates a large part of the television market. Even aggregate content sites like Hulu and Fancast do not have streaming content on Google TV. The new version of this Google TV still does not include content from these major networks, but if it is any consolation, Google TV has improved the video quality of its existing content.

How will Google’s attempt to expand into the living room fare this time around? To me, these changes are nice on the outside, but they do not seem to be enough just quite yet. There is no doubt, though, that Google is on to something. For only $99, Google TV is probably worth a shot. Expanding the World Wide Web onto the living room television is just a matter of time and I applaud Google for trying to be the pioneer.

Google TV seems to just be a mishmash of good ideas that do not fit together in quite the right way. I think the missing piece is the valuable content from major network companies. A partnership with them would allow users to watch any show that they missed on regular TV. Instead of paying a fee to access them online or searching for hours for a pixilated version of an episode, users could simply watch it in HD on the big screen.

I think that is where Google TV has the best chance of success. Viewing online content in high definition on a big screen television is something that appeals to everyone. Getting the Internet off of the tiny computer screen and onto the HDTV is inevitable. Like I said before, Google is on to something. Google may not have had the most success its first time around with Google TV, but I think eventually this idea will succeed. Unfortunately for Google though, their friends at Apple have developed “Apple TV” as well. Yet again, this competition between Google and Apple is bound to produce another great piece of technology. Will Google finally beat Apple to the punch and be the first to perfect Internet television? Only time will tell.

Sticking to pill regimens can be tough for anybody, but for HIV patients it’s especially important to adhere to the treatment schedule recommended by their doctors.

Keith Horvath, a U. Minnesota researcher in the School of Public Health, is looking at how social media can help patients maintain the rigorous regimen — following the efforts of drug companies and medical providers.

Pill reminders sent to a patient’s mobile device or inbox are already a common strategy to encourage medication adherence, but psycho-social factors like depression or drug use can put a damper on patients’ taking their medication, Horvath said.

Last spring, Horvath launched a pilot study to find how online support networks might motivate HIV patients to follow their medication regimens. He built a “Facebook-like” website, which allowed participants to network with other HIV-infected individuals.

The user feedback has been positive enough that Horvath is preparing to submit a grant proposal next semester to the National Institutes of Health for a larger study.

Medication adherence is critical for HIV patients because missing a dose can provide an opportunity for the virus to replicate. If this happens while low levels of an HIV drug are in the blood, the virus can mutate to become drug-resistant.

Ten years ago, a typical medication load included about 30 to 40 pills daily. That’s down to about three now, said Terri Foley, director of communications for the Minnesota AIDS Project.

The more than 6,000 HIV-positive Minnesotans have an array of services available to help them stay true to their medication schedule.

But Tim Marburger, director of fundraising and special events at The Aliveness Project — a community center in south Minneapolis that provides services to people with HIV —said that about 70 percent of the 1,600 people that the center serves are below the federal poverty line of $10,830 annual individual income.

Many of them use pay-as-you-go cellphones — not smartphones that can send alerts — and many don’t have regular Internet access.

Alternatively, one free, high-tech option for HIV-patients sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Human Services is a pill box with a built-in alarm.

Another DHS support program for HIV patients struggling to stay in control, Medication Therapy Management Services, sets up counseling at the pharmacy.

Darin Rowles, director of case management at the Minnesota AIDS Project, said all of its programs use email to communicate with clients plus a fraction that use text messaging. But the best way to help patients is to meet in person.

Online interaction, even over chat, slows down the conversation, he said.

“I don’t see social networking as being realistic for [the clients] because of the boundary concerns,” Rowles said. “It’s much more about relationship building — face to face interaction.”

Positive Link, a program within the Minnesota AIDS Project for HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, has a “secret” Facebook page that roughly 50 of its 600 participants feel comfortable using, said Nick Schrott, a health educator with the program who is also HIV-positive.

At least half of the 600 have Facebook but don’t use the Positive Link page, he said.

Their main concern is privacy — making sure HIV-related alerts that pop up on their wall won’t be viewed by the wrong eyes, Schrott said. Even though the page is unsearchable and its announcements can’t be viewed by non-members, people don’t feel comfortable taking the risk.

A site like Horvath’s that isn’t as big and as public but has the same options as Facebook might work better, Schrott said.

Horvath said he realized the population with access to social media technology is a subset of those infected. The web site he created, which allows private posting and networking, appeals to a more educated, higher income group.

It’s only one part of the solution for medication adherence, and people with privacy concerns might choose not to use it, he said.

“That’s fair and that’s their choice,” he said.

The Harvard dropout and mastermind behind Facebook returns to his for his first official visit to the school since 2004, when he left to start the social networking site.

Zuckerberg will be accompanied by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook vice president of engineering.

The corporate heads will speak with students in Farkas Hall immediately after a press conference in Harvard Yard in the afternoon. He is also scheduled to meet with University President Drew G. Faust.

Zuckerberg will also visit MIT and Carnegie Mellon U. on his East Coast recruiting trip.

“He is eager to connect with computer science and engineering students from some of the best schools in the world, and may well be tomorrow’s Facebook innovators,” wrote Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s manager for public policy communications, in an email.

According to its website, Facebook has three internships available in engineering and security, along with 12 open positions for recent graduates from bachelor, master, and doctorate programs.

To apply to attend an exclusive discussion with the executives at 5 p.m., students must upload a resumé to the Crimson Careers portal on the Office of Career Services website by Friday.

The website received eight responses within three seconds of opening the application, said Robin Mount, director of the Office of Career, Research, and International Opportunities.

Preference will be given to students with applied math, computer science, or engineering backgrounds.

“The plan is for it to be personal and technical alike,” said Computer Science Senior Lecturer David J. Malan, who will moderate the discussion. “In particular, it is meant to appeal to future potential staff.”

Mount said that having students interact with Facebook executives in person replicates the work atmosphere students would enter if hired.

“Facebook is very relaxed and informal,” she said. “They want people who can be in an environment where [Zuckerberg] can see students’ faces and let students ask questions.”

Julia C. Winn, a computer science concentrator who is applying to a few technology companies this fall, said Zuckerberg’s visit significantly increases the appeal of Facebook recruiting.

“He’s a celebrity now,” she said. “That [event is] going to be maxed out—everybody’s going to be there.”

Winn said that her peers who are applying to the technology sector usually target Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. She would like to ask Zuckerberg why these companies are so popular—and why they in turn recruit so heavily at Harvard.

“Rumor on the street is that if you’re a software person you do have more flexibility … designing your own edge on something,” she said of Facebook.

Students are not the only ones eagerly anticipating Zuckerberg’s visit. His former professors are also excited for the return of a star pupil.

“I think students will become energized and inspired by the fact that computer science is really a skill—a field of study—that enables people to do amazing things,” said computer science senior lecturer Henry H. Leitner.

“A guy like Bill Gates, or a guy like Mark Zuckerberg, were a bit of anomaly,” Leitner said. Today, Leitner says, in the shadow of Gates and Zuckerberg, creating a startup is a more viable option for undergraduates.

Facebook has been recruiting at Harvard since 2008, according to Mount.

The United States government is attempting to evolve its control over internet communications with a new bill: The Stop Online Piracy Act (aka E-Parasites Act). Sites accused of infringing copyright will be blocked by internet service providers in the U.S.

A site can be blocked without prior notice and without a trial if deemed “infringing” by the government or an internet service provider. That’s right: Comcast or Quest could be banning you from website access in the future. An accusation could be enough to ban an entire website from United States access.

“It is quite a scary scenario,” said Kyu Ho Youm, U. Oregon Law School professor and Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair. “Instead of trying to strike the right balance, they just try to restrict too much. It is rather un-American.”

Critics argue that the use of copyrighted material is often not illegal under fair use laws and that E-Parasites is too overarching. Websites could be blocked without warning and without known cause.

“How do you know what is illegal versus what is not illegal?” Youm said. “Just because you are using someone’s copyrighted material doesn’t mean you are violating the law until it is found to be violating the law by — not the government, not the copyright holder — the mutual, impartial independent securities.”

Indeed, the lack of due process is reason enough for concern. In addition, this bill would severely undermine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, a bill that fights copyright infringement online while still protecting host sites like Youtube and Twitter from their users’ illegal activities. E-Parasites would make these sites responsible for the content of their users, promoting self-restriction and further censorship on some of the United States’ most popular websites.

Youm attributes some of the enthusiasm behind this new bill to the success of the U.S.’s restrictions on Wikileaks.

When companies like Paypal and Visa disallowed their users to donate to Wikileaks, many accused the companies of violating free speech laws. These accusations changed little, however, and Wikileaks is now announcing its impending bankruptcy.

“It’s an indirect way to regulate foreign companies,” Youm said. E-Parasites is mostly aimed at foreign sites outside of U.S. law, such as the file-sharing hub ThePirateBay based in Sweden. Lawsuits by major media companies in the U.S. against these foreign entities are often useless, and E-Parasites is a means of putting up a firewall on those companies before they appear in the U.S. through a citizen’s monitor.

“It is definitely affecting the access to information and the right to use some otherwise publicly available material,” Youm said. “It’s more first amendment-restrictive than necessary. It is an overblown approach. The ramifications are quite difficult to predict.”

The fact is this bill is not about the moral ramifications of stealing digital products. It is about money and hidden regulations restricting American rights in the name of business and foreign competition. It is urging censorship in roundabout ways while claiming to be better protecting copyrighted material and media-industry jobs.

But no amount of censorship is acceptable, and the supposed goals of this bill do not justify such a blatant disregard of the first amendment. The United States should not be associated with web pages reading, “We’re sorry; the content on this website is not available in your country.” It is a huge and unnecessary step toward a negative outcome, one of information filtering and government- and corporate-regulated knowledge.

“The United States should be a lot more careful with doing too much,” Youm said. “Sometimes, little by little is the better way, especially when we’re talking about a fast-changing technological involvement in the global century. The technological framework is still evolving. This kind of thing is difficult to predict.”

Evolving technologies and the U.S. Constitution are both reasons to take the fight against copyright infringement slowly and one step at a time. Sites that provide popular services, like Youtube and Facebook, should not be punished for user-generated data, and internet providers should never have the power to regulate what sites a user can visit.

The PROTECT–IP Act and SOPA both aim at disabling the effectiveness of sites “Dedicated to Theft of U.S. Property,” as the SOPA puts it in Section 103. If people were unlawfully obtaining copyrighted material through such “dedicated theft sites,” the problem of piracy could have been easily solved long ago using the same techniques of payment deprivation currently being applied with success to Wikileaks. This is the process both the PROTECT-IP Act and SOPA attempt to enshrine in law for greater ease with future cases of copyright infringement. Though the intention to shut down sites through which infringement occurs is laudable, the unilateral approach both bills take does not acknowledge the complexity of how online infringement most commonly takes place.

It is unproductive for legislators to ask which websites are “dedicated to theft of U.S. property,” as the question will not yield clear answers. Neither the PROTECT-IP Act nor SOPA would be able to take down the most popular sites through which the vast majority of non-P2P piracy of movies and music takes place. Such websites are online storage websites termed “cyber lockers;” Examples include the well-known Rapidshare and Megaupload sites, operated from Switzerland and Hong Kong, respectively. Besides being based outside the United States, these sites can be used by anyone to upload anything to be downloaded by anyone and therefore cannot be accused of being “dedicated to theft.” As with regular theft, Congress must realize that outlawing a method of transporting or storing stolen materials cannot solve online piracy.

Rather than taking the misguided approach that the PROTECT – IP Act and SOPA both take, Congress must recognize that they can only successfully target copyright infringers. Only three options exist for Congress to do so: The government must require copyright holders to enforce the law, the government itself must enforce the law, or the “cyber lockers” must be required to enforce the law. Currently, copyright holders are primarily required to enforce the law. If informed by a copyright holder of a case of infringement, “cyber lockers” are required to take down any infringing files.

Obviously, few copyright holders can afford to take the trouble to scour the Internet for such files. The government does not possess the resources to combat piracy on such a large scale either. The only logical solution is to entrust the responsibility of copyright enforcement to the “cyber lockers” and to coordinate diplomatically such an approach with the authorities of the locales in which “cyber lockers” are located.

Pirates who download a music album from a website like Megaupload are exactly like thieves who steal CDs from stores—except that there are no security cameras to catch them in the act. The government must require “cyber lockers” to undertake the dirty work of policing piracy on an individual level. Internet Service Providers in the United States should be required by law to block access to any “cyber lockers” which refuse to undertake such copyright surveillance on their sites. The government should approach this problem similarly to its aggressive stance toward the use of Swiss banks as offshore tax havens. This means that, while passing domestic law that requires such behavior, the government should also place diplomatic pressure on Switzerland, Hong Kong,and any other “piracy havens” to enforce the same protocol.

The methods of law enforcement advocated by the PROTECT-IP Act and SOPA are inefficient and ineffective. In order to stop piracy, law must require the “cyber lockers” that have facilitated piracy until now to take upon themselves the responsibility to target content uploaders who infringe on copyright. Since the Internet is a global arena, only global approaches to law enforcement will work in combating piracy. This necessitates a mix of well-thought out domestic policy and carefully placed diplomatic pressure in order to eliminate the use of “cyber lockers” for piracy. Only when the problem of non-P2P piracy has been acknowledged in its full complexity and on a global scale will it finally be stopped.

Nathan U. Blecharczyk, co-founder and CTO of the $1.3 billion internet startup Airbnb, responded this week to public criticisms from his freshman roommate aimed at himself and Silicon Valley.

Blecharczyk wrote to The Crimson about a blog post in which web entrepreneur Aaron J. Greenspan criticized what Greenspan described as unethical practices in Silicon Valley that he said were perpetuated by Harvard U. graduates.

Greenspan also criticized his former Harvard roommate for being involved in email spamming in college. At one point, Blecharczyk was listed as one of the world’s most active email spammers according to an online tracker.

Blecharczyk co-founded Airbnb in 2008, and it has rapidly grown since its inception. The internet startup allows people to rent a bedroom, apartment, or other short-term accommodation from a private party rather than from a commercial hotel.

As Greenspan noted in the post, Blecharczyk’s company has stirred controversy recently for sending spam emails to people advertising vacation rentals on Craigslist.

Company representatives said the emails were sent by an outside company contracted by Airbnb.

Blecharczyk said Silicon Valley companies can run into difficulties in the development phase, but that individual incidents should not characterize the company as a whole.

“Building a business has some similarities to developing a relationship. With both, it is normal to have some bumps, even with the best of individuals,” he said.

“It would be wrong to make these bumps representative of the whole or to say that they happen due to malicious intent versus being a normal part of the development process,” said Blecharczyk.

Blecharczyk also defended Silicon Valley against Greenspan’s criticisms, “vehemently” disagreeing that the technology hub is, as Greenspan described, fraudulent.

“There is nowhere else on this planet with such a high density of individuals who are trying to change the world for the better,” he said.

Blecharczyk also said he thought it was inappropriate for Greenspan to reference Blecharczyk’s past when discussing his current business.

“I don’t think commenting on something that happened over a decade ago is either productive or helpful in this situation,” he said.

But he said he was not put off by his former roommate’s criticism.

“When doing something novel and disruptive, you’ve got to take criticism in stride,” he said.

“It would be a shame if his personal perspective were to cloud others’ perception of Silicon Valley or Harvard,” he said.

In a statement to The Crimson, Greenspan explained his reasons for speaking about Blecharczyk now, ten years after they lived together.

“The point wasn’t just to prove that Nathan did something wrong ten years ago. The point was that … if no one ever talks about the fraud that everyone in Silicon Valley is constantly knee-deep in (and often has connections to Harvard), nothing will ever change.”

But Blecharczyk also rejected Greenspan’s criticism of Harvard, praising the entrepreneurial spirit on campus.

“I will say that I am impressed with the number of Harvard alums who have started tech companies over the past several years,” he said.

Leonard Kleinrock, a distinguished UCLA computer science professor, stood at the door of the room and shook people’s hands as they took photographs with him next to the IMP. Kleinrock’s research in packet switching, a method of data transmission, made the creation of the Internet possible. The IMP was the machine he used in 1969 to send the first Internet message all the way from UCLA to Stanford.

Forty-two years after sending the message from that room, Kleinrock stood there again for the grand opening of the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site and Archive on Saturday afternoon.

In this room, Boelter Hall 3420, the IMP and other equipment were used to send the first Internet message. It’s been painted to look just as it had that day in 1969, hence the lime green walls.

“(The IMP) should stay here, where it served its life,” Kleinrock said. “Now it’s come to be recognized.”

The archive was created to inform the public about the Internet’s first message, said Brad Fidler, director of the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site and Archive. Besides professors, many people had forgotten the first Internet message was sent from UCLA, Fidler said.

Kleinrock donated the IMP to the archive after years of keeping it stored in various places in Boelter Hall when it was no longer used.

“It required some diligence or it would have disappeared,” Kleinrock said. Denoting its special significance, Kleinrock continued, “I made sure it was put aside.”

He also donated many of his research papers to this cause, which related to the sending of the first Internet message.

Because of his pioneering work on the Internet and his donation of research papers, Fidler named the archive after Kleinrock.

While the archive’s hours have not been set yet, they will be made available soon, Fidler said. The archive will be open based on the demand of the public, he added.

UCLA students, Los Angeles locals and other early pioneers in the Internet field attended the event. Amber Nicholson, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, said she came to see a part of Internet history.

“We got to shake (Kleinrock’s) hand,” Nicholson said. “To be able to walk into the room and hear about the first message is definitely a story I’ll tell my grandkids.”

One visitor, Victoria Bernal, heard about the event through Twitter.

The Echo Park resident said she wanted to learn about the Internet and its relationship to the history of Los Angeles, as well as to UCLA.

“I like hearing about the human side,” Bernal said.

During the event, Kleinrock told visitors the story of how he and then-UCLA graduate student Charley Kline sent the message to Stanford on Oct. 29, 1969.

In the middle of the message, the Stanford computer crashed, leaving the message incomplete at “lo,” instead of the intended “login.”

“The message was short, biblical and accidental,” Kleinrock said. “Lo and behold. Nothing like what God hath wrought.”

The only recording of the message was left on a log book, detailing merely that the IMP spoke to the processor in Stanford.

At the time, Kleinrock only expected the Internet to become a form of utility or infrastructure, he said.

“Now I realize that it’s about communities of people,” Kleinrock said. “I never thought it would reach out to the common man, (or even) my 99-year-old mother or my 8-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter.”

The study, released Oct. 24, surveyed undergraduate, business school and law school admissions officers from 359 different schools by phone during the summer.

Twenty percent of undergraduate admissions officers and 27 percent of business school admissions officers who responded said they have previously utilized social networking sites, such as Facebook, to learn more about an applicant.

The number was much higher — 37 percent — for law school officers.

“The data makes sense when you think about what law admissions officers do,” said Jeff Thomas, director of Pre-Law Programs for Kaplan. “And that is to determine who would be best fit to eventually become attorneys.”

One possible explanation for why law school officers are more likely to look at an applicant’s social media page is because of the nature of the profession, Thomas said.

People studying to become attorneys must pass tests to measure their character and compatibility with the field prior to becoming certified as a lawyer. Even after certification, attorneys practice law under the threat of disbarment due to unethical behavior.

Thomas said strict codes of conduct for lawyers may be why law schools are inclined to carefully determine which applicants would be able to conform to such expectations.

“The legal profession is self-regulating and holds attorneys to higher ethical standards than most other professions,” Thomas said. “Students can’t earn admission to the bar by simply going to law school.”

Of the law admissions officers who said they have used Facebook or other social websites to screen applicants, 32 percent said they have found something online that harmed an applicant’s chances of admission. Only 12 percent of undergraduate admissions officers and 14 percent of business school officers responded the same way.

In a separate poll released earlier this month, Kaplan reported 77 percent of students who took the October LSAT said they objected to admissions officers using their virtual life as part of the admissions process.

Martin Asmuss, a third-year law student at UCLA, said he is not worried about admissions officers finding anything negative on his Facebook page, and would do the same if he were in their position.

The poll also reported 15 percent of students who took the October LSAT said there was something online that could hurt their chances of being admitted into law school.

Robert Schwartz, dean of admissions at the UCLA School of Law, said that checking applicants’ social networking pages is not part of their standard admissions process. Due to the large number of students applying, the task would be impractical, Thomas said.

He said he is surprised by the differences in data between law schools and other schools.

“One’s character is extremely important in the legal profession, (but) it does surprise me that the numbers for law schools are higher,” Schwartz said. “I would think business schools would be just as concerned with ethical standards.”

He said the best way for students to protect themselves to make sure anything they post online doesn’t harm them professionally or academically is to use good judgment.

“(The results are) sort of surprising, but not terribly surprising,” said Dominic Rossetti, a UCLA third-year law student. “A lot of potential employers look at Facebook.”