More than 60 percent of Americans who use the Internet at home now do so with a high-speed connection, a new study finds.
That’s a jump from 51 percent a year ago. Nielsen/NetRatings says 86 million Internet users surfed the Web on home broadband connections in August.
Broadband use has grown steadily in the United States as prices fall and more video and other bandwidth-intensive materials are available online.
“This continuing increase in broadband use is an essential step in a maturing Internet industry,” said Charles Buchwalter, the research firm’s vice president of client analytics. Broadband users tend to spend more time and money online, he said.
BlackBerry service expands to non-BlackBerry devices: The BlackBerry service for checking e-mail on the go will be available on a non-BlackBerry device for the first time in the United States with the November launch of a Nokia Corp. smart phone by Cingular Wireless.
The BlackBerry Connect service, introduced earlier this year in Europe and Asia, is the latest entry in a newly crowded market of real-time e-mail platforms for mobile devices.
Just two weeks ago, Nokia unveiled a rival technology under its own brand.
Cingular is charging $350 for the Nokia 9300 device – $50 less for customers who commit for two years – and then $45 per month for unlimited e-mail usage. That’s the same rate Cingular charges for BlackBerry service on a BlackBerry device.
The Nokia 9300 runs on the Symbian operating system, a best-selling platform in Europe and other overseas markets.
Research In Motion Ltd. had long sold its dominant BlackBerry service exclusively on its own handhelds.
But the Canadian company decided to license its software to third parties in a bid to fend off a growing array of competitors who are not married to any particular brand of device or operating system.
Internet access summit will stay in Web-limited Tunisia: Facing heated protest, the United Nations is defending Tunisia’s hosting of a U.N. summit on Internet access in the developing world, even though the north African nation stands accused of such rights abuses as blocking Web sites it dislikes.
Earlier this week, a coalition of human rights groups known as the Tunisia Monitoring Group issued a report that declared Tunisia unfit to hold the World Summit on the Information Society. It cited reports that the government has stepped up attacks on the press and civil society.
The group said the government has blocked access to Web sites belonging to Reporters Without Borders, other human rights watchdogs and the independent press, and that police monitor e-mails and Internet cafes.
“It does question to some extent the U.N.’s credibility that a world summit on the information society is taking place in a society where access to some Web sites is restricted,” said Alexis Krikorian, of the International Publishers’ Association.
Member states of the U.N. International Telecommunications Union opted to hold the summit in two parts – in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2003, and then in Tunis this November. The 191-nation U.N. General Assembly endorsed the decision in 2002, and no nation has ever formally objected.
Canadian court strikes down defamation claim: The Washington Post isn’t liable in Canada for news articles that may have contributed to a U.N. official’s ouster from a Kenyan post, a Canadian court has ruled in a case that could limit the reach of libel laws across national boundaries.
The ruling from the Court of Appeal for Ontario appears to counter a 2002 decision by Australia’s High Court that found a defamation case against Dow Jones &Co. could be heard in Australia because people there could have read the article online.
Cheickh Bangoura worked for the U.N. Drug Control Program in Kenya when the Post published articles in 1997 referring to complaints colleagues had made against him during a previous tenure in the Ivory Coast.
The Ontario court, which did not actually address whether libel had been committed, noted that the Post had only seven subscribers in Ontario at the time and that Bangoura did not move to Ontario for another three years.
It also noted that Bangoura’s lawyers had accessed the articles through the Post’s paid archives online.
By contrast, the court ruled, Joe Gutnick in the Dow Jones case was already a well-known businessman in the country, where its Barron’s magazine had 1,700 Internet subscribers. Gutnick and Dow Jones ultimately settled the case.
The Ontario court warned that if cases like Bangoura’s could proceed, “a defendant could be sued almost anywhere in the world based upon where a plaintiff may decide to establish his or her residence long after the publication of the defamation.”
Pentagon funds artificial blood vessel development: The military is funding development of artificial blood vessels that could allow doctors to reattach the severed limbs of wounded soldiers.
Doctors would use technology from Tissue Genesis Inc. to build new blood vessels by coating Teflon with a patient’s own cells.
They could then use the specially built vascular tissue to reattach severed limbs. The patient’s blood would flow through areas covered with his or her own cells, decreasing the chances of rejection.
Tissue Genesis expects to test the technology, called “TGI graft,” in clinical trials next year. It would have immediate applications in places like Iraq where frequent bombings have maimed thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqis.
The Defense Department awarded the company a $4 million contract.
The technology ultimately could help heart bypass surgery patients, who need new blood vessels to bypass arteries narrowed by the buildup of fatty substances and cholesterol.
BitTorrent gets venture capital financing: The creator of the popular online file-swapping software BitTorrent has lined up $8.75 million in financing from a venture capital firm in a bid to build his software into a commercial distribution tool for media companies.
Bram Cohen created BitTorrent in 2001 as a hobby after the dot-com crash left him unemployed. Since then, it has become a favorite tool for computer users to swap large files – particularly movies and other video – because it grabs bits from various computer users simultaneously as they send and receive a file. That speeds up transfers.
Cohen said the financing from Menlo Park, Calif.-based Doll Capital Management demonstrates the capital firm’s belief that “BitTorrent will become the ideal platform for both independent publishers and the world’s leading media companies alike.”
More than 45 million people use the BitTorrent software, according to Cohen.
From Herald news services
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