Articles Posted in Information Technology

Recently a number of articles devoted to the history of technology and the internet have been published. Given the significant developments in these areas over the past 20+ years and the societal demands which continue to drive further research and development it is certainly appropriate to take some time to reflect on both the history and possible future directions of information technology–including the internet.

The following is a question, answer interview with Robert Kahn one of the pioneers in the creation and development of the internet and who continues to actively work on techniques related to information technology. The interview was published in the October 7, 2007 issue of The Star Ledger and is being reproduced here for the benefit of our readers:

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Does access to social networking, video sharing, and other new media online capabilities mean wasted time, lost productivity, and possibly security concerns or are there legitimate business reasons to include them on organization web sites? Many of us are encountering these and related issues in our own organizations. Stacey Peterson, the editor of Information Week Daily Newsletter, raises these questions in the following excerpt to the October 15, 2007 issue. Also included is a link to a related but more extensive article by Aditya Kishre;

———————————

“The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this year banned access to YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, StupidVideos, MTV, and a bunch of other Web sites by soldiers stationed abroad. It makes sense. We’re at war, and soldiers shouldn’t be playing around on the Internet, sucking up bandwidth, and opening up the military network to security compromises.”

Source: Washkuch, Frank Jr., “Researchers: Hackers Could Affect Presidential Election”, SC Magazine Newswire. October 9, 2007.

BY Frank Washkuch Jr.

Hackers could affect next year’s presidential election by using keyloggers, phishing messages or hacking, researchers said this week.

EMC Corporation has sponsored a very ambitious, groundbreaking study that attempts for the first time to measure and forecast the amounts and types of digital information created and copied throughout the world, and whether it is generated by indivuals or buisnesses. The findings of this study could have significant implications for individuals, businesses, information professionals and society as a whole and thereby provide useful insights to librarians and other information professionals.

The basic findings of this Study have been summarized as follows:

The 2006 digital universe was 161 billion gigabytes (161 exabytes) in size.

Contact Information