On The Net - Computing News

with Chris Goh

Hot News

The US county of Maine has tried a creative approach to reduce school truancy schools and afternoon detentions. The Governor of Maine, in the face of strong protests, spent millions buying laptops for all seventh and eighth graders. Now, even the hardest cynics have praised his forward thinking and the benefits the program had brought. All schools report an increase in school participation by students and a decline in the number of students visiting the principal because of misbehaviour. They’re probably too busy playing network games during lunch...

This year’s Archibald Prize features the first combination of digital and conventional art. Artist Wayne Tindell’s portrait of former ATSIC chairman Gatjil Djerrkura has a Pentium IV, delivering interactive multimedia through a large plasma screen directly behind the portrait.

In the face of growing international pressure, Telstra has removed users who have breached their spamming guidelines. They were finally forced into action because a number of mailing lists and newsgroups were banning Bigpond users from posting to the lists due to the spam they were receiving from certain Bigpond users.

A new record has been set on digital transfer, following the sustained transfer of 923 Megabits per second between Holland and the US. That’s equivalent to two full DVD Movies transferred each second. Internet 2 has made realtime interactive multimedia a real possibility, and is faster than the access and transfer speeds of today’s hard drives and CDROMS.

Afghanistan has taken over governance of the .af domain, which was previously held by a citizen Abdul Razeeq. Not surprisingly, one day Abdul just disappeared. On the other hand, the hourly charge for access in Kabul is more than the average Afghani earns in a month.

Hot Sites

www.ibdb.com

The Internet Broadway Database is one for musical fans, listing past, present and pending musicals, along with information on the cast and performance dates. It’s very comprehensive, and well done.

www.memri.org

The Middle East has been under intense world focus for the last year. But in this rhetorical climate of villains heroes, it’s very hard to find a place offering an objective opinion. The Middle East Media Research Institute is worth visiting before you form your opinion.

It offers well-structured literature on Middle East issues, although it’s primarily focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

www.megalithic.co.uk

I haven’t done a Weird Site of the Week for some time, but I think the Megalithic portal more than makes up for it.

It’s dedicated to ancient large stone structures that dot the world (primarily in the UK), and includes their locations and information on famous structures like Stonehenge.