Happy 40th, Internet (Maybe)

Protesting websites' message clicked with users

(NEWSER) - Yesterday, we witnessed the power of the Internet to influence policy, as countless websites went dark to protest SOPA and PIPA. It did the job: Congress faced an onslaught of complaints about the controversial online piracy measures—which were born of traditional lobbying and heavy corporate spending, writes James Temple in the San Francisco Chronicle . When even some of the bill's GOP backers backed away in the online maelstrom, we saw "a fundamental shift in the legislative landscape, a flexing of a newfound and untraditional source of political power in the Internet sector." More»

Old news clip goes viral

(NEWSER) - To be fair, it could've just as easily been Better Than Ezra that would go on to change the world. A clip of MTV News from 1995 in which Kurt Loder investigates the influence of the fledgling internet went viral this week, notes the Huffington Post . In the piece, Dave Matthews tells Loder the new technology was "a little weird," and David Bowie said that he "got so tired of the rubbish" on the world wide web that he stopped using it. It brings to mind the Katie Couric-Bryant Gumbel video that recently surfaced. More»

They get 10K emails, plans bigger attack on June 12

(NEWSER) - Iran is trying to ban open Internet , and a group of particularly adept hackers probably has Tehran hoping it can speed things along. The notorious Anonymous group infiltrated government servers and got its hands on more than 10,000 email messages from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Next Web reports. It's not exactly bombshell stuff, more along the lines of approvals and rejections for visas and passports. But the intent was more to harass and embarrass, one member tells MSNBC . More»

Tim Berners-Lee blasts those chipping away at its 'egalitarian principles'

(NEWSER) - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British engineer credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has a message for us: Social networking sites, app developers, and other entities, if left unchecked, will ruin his creation—which now belongs to all of us. "The web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles," he writes in Scientific American , but "some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles." His complaints:

• Social networking sites: They are "walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web," making each site "a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it."
• Smartphone apps: "It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers," rather than a "closed" smartphone app, he writes, adding that he is especially wary of the iTunes store, which is not an "open marketplace."

Cloud Connect lets you work in Word, save online

(NEWSER) - Google has found a way for users to edit documents online without having to navigate a new application—bringing us a step closer to a cloud computing revolution. The search giant has built a plug-in for Microsoft Office that syncs it with Google Docs, TechCrunch reports. With the Cloud Connect plug-in, you can edit your document in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, and save the changes on your computer and online. More»