The Looming Bandwidth Crunch—Legitimate Crisis, or Cyberspace Chicken Little?

Global Internet usage has fueled much of the technological innovation seen during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a commensurate increase in consumption of bandwidth, the measure of how much information the Internet can transmit. However, bandwidth is not an inexhaustible resource. Wired communications require physical infrastructure, requiring considerable investment and construction to expand, and wireless communications require sections of electromagnetic spectrum, which has grown much more crowded. This article examines the current bandwidth situation in light of networking trends and events as of 2010. Findings indicate that, although there is no immediate bandwidth crisis, one may eventually come, especially in the wireless spectrum, and, although technological innovation may provide a considerable hedge against the crippling impli-cations of such a shortage, care must be taken to manage growth in bandwidth usage to maintain it at acceptable levels while accounting for the needs of all concerned parties

La conception de l’actualité par Google

Après les attentats de New York, Google a créé un moteur de recherche spécialisé dans le traitement de l’actualité, cela car son moteur généraliste ne répondait pas correctement aux requêtes liées à des événements trop récents ou en cours. En revenant sur la genèse de Google Actualités, ainsi que sur deux autres dispositifs mis en place pour traiter spécifiquement l’information d’actualité, nous interrogeons dans cet article la façon dont Google « conçoit » l’actualité: comment il la pense et ce qu’il en fait

La conception de l’actualité par Google

Après les attentats de New York, Google a créé un moteur de recherche spécialisé dans le traitement de l’actualité, cela car son moteur généraliste ne répondait pas correctement aux requêtes liées à des événements trop récents ou en cours. En revenant sur la genèse de Google Actualités, ainsi que sur deux autres dispositifs mis en place pour traiter spécifiquement l’information d’actualité, nous interrogeons dans cet article la façon dont Google « conçoit » l’actualité: comment il la pense et ce qu’il en fait

An Immature Medium. Strengths and Weaknesses of Online Newspapers on September 11

The events which occurred on 11 September 2001 were unprecedented in many ways. This article discusses how online newspapers reported on these events. Applying a descriptive methodology to a sample of 18 online newspapers from nine countries, this article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of online newspapers that could be seen that day. It shows the consolidation of the internet as an important global medium, as well as the impetus for multiple media synergies and for new multimedia formats that emerged from these events. But it also points to the lack of technological readiness of the medium, its editorial immaturity, and its reluctant use of its interactive capabilities. In conclusion, this article uses an important test case for the reporting of breaking news, to present an overview of the editorial strengths and weaknesses of online newspapers at the beginning of the 21st century

Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe

Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe is a seminal guide to mapping social and political issues with digital methods. The issue at stake concerns the imminent crisis of an ageing Europe and its impact on the contemporary welfare state. The book brings together three leading approaches to issue mapping: Bruno Latour's social cartography, Ulrich Beck's risk cartography and Jeremy Crampton's critical neo-cartography. These modes of inquiry are put into practice with digital methods for mapping the ageing agenda, including debates surrounding so-called 'old age', cultural philosophies of ageing, itinerant care workers, not to mention European anti-ageing cuisine. Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe addresses an urgent social issue with new media research tools

Scalable spatially aware media sharing display system

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2004.Page 129 blank.Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-94).The scalable spatially aware media sharing display system provides an efficient and convenient means of harnessing media messaging in global communications. A three- tiered system of input, control, and output creates a medium for communication and data sharing via varied media types for relevant and enhanced contextual experiences. It is built as a platform independent infrastructure for sharing and/or displaying various media types onto a grid of, or singularly placed, target display nodes while accommodating dynamic growth in its support of on-the-fly display node assimilation. The system promotes interfacing flexibility thus allowing multiple devices, extant or yet to be, to connect and fully exploit its capabilities. In addition, the system supports an architecture that can accommodate loosely coupled parallel tasks thus exhibiting the qualities of a dynamic parallel cluster.by Patrick Menard.M.Eng