World Wide Atlus: A roadmap of the past, the present, and the future of the internet (Final Project)

Everyday millions and millions of Americans connect to the World Wide Web. Be it from a home computer, an office PC, or a top-of-the-line mobile phone, people are connecting to the internet each day to satisfy even the most rudimentary of their needs. Even at this moment, everyone from ten year-olds to senior citizens are checking their email, their stock quotes, movie showtimes, and world news through a few simple button presses.

Such an incredible number of people rely on the internet for so much these days. For many children of the late 80s and early 90s, it would be near impossible to imagine going through a day without checking their MySpace page or doing research for projects via the web. Yet to children born in the last few years, today’s internet will appear archaic compared to the inevitable changes coming in the next decade alone.

With the advent of blogs, the gradual movement of journalism to a more online format, and the emergence of popular user-fueled sites such as YouTube, the web is already going through several changes which could eventually lead the web to be near-unrecognizable to future users. The easiest way to understand these changes is to begin by looking at the past.

The Past

Above: J.C.R. Licklider, founder of the project that eventually became the World Wide Web

The origins of the internet can be found in the earlier years of the 60s. In 1960, J.C.R. Licklider published a paper titled “Man Computer Symbiosis.” The paper dealt with the concept that computers should be developed so as to increase communication options between people and computers across the country. After publishing his work, Licklider was contacted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to work with a group of scientists on creating a network based on the paper.

In 1969, the project came to its first major breakthrough with the creation of a network of communicating computers called ARPANET. ARPANET, or the Advanced Projects Research Agency Network was the seed that eventually grew into what is now the internet. At the time, however, APRANET was strictly limited to use by the Department of Defense and as such the public had no access to it until the 90s.

Above: Creator of Hypertext, Tim Berners-lee

That all changed in 1991 when M.I.T. graduate Tim Berners-lee created the hypertext code which we use today. Hypertext allowed browser users to see documents and images on web pages without having to first download the assets to their computers. As a result, the internet was sped up immensely and, through the steady progression of new and better browsers, more and more non-computer savvy users could navigate the web with ease.

Since the mid 90s, the number of people using the web has grown exponentially. As of 1996, 45 million people were using the internet. Today that number has grown to well-over 800 million persons across the globe.

The Present

Within two decades of the internet’s emergence into the public eye, the world has evolved to embrace and incorporate it. Advertisers have slowly been decreasing the amount of ads they put on television and used that marketing money to move into the online arena. The daily lives of many people now include using the web before leaving the house alongside of basic functions such as getting dressed and eating breakfast.

While the convenience of the internet is certainly apparent to everyone who has ever had to sent an email or retrieved files from a home computer in a pinch, what the future holds is still unknown. However, there are many opinions as to what awaits web-users in the upcoming decade.

The Future

A serious matter regarding the future of the World Wide Web is that of net neutrality. To those who are not familiar with net neutrality, it is the idea that those who use the internet are guaranteed the same freedoms and services to navigate the web as everyone else. However, as of recently there have been serious concerns regarding the safety of this ideal.

Above: A brief video explaining net neutrality

Websites such as Save the Internet have made it their goal to raise awareness of net neutrality and prevent major corporations from limiting access to the web. The public outcry for the safety of net neutrality has been high all over the web. A search for “net neutrality” on YouTube yields several hundred results while searches in Google provide pages and pages of papers arguing for further government regulation of the internet safety program.

Yet while many are concerned currently over web censorship, there are those who wish to look at the future of the World Wide Web not with paranoia, but rather eager optimism.


Numerous people in the press have speculated that the printed word will gradually transition into being all focused on the web. According to these people, by 2020 the greater bulk of newspapers will have consolidated all their resources into catering to the online community. While it is uncertain whether this is a feasible fate for printed publications, there are certainly major publications such as the BBC which place high emphasis on their online site. The website for the BBC News allows users to read articles in over 33 languages ranging from English to Arabic.

At the same time, there are journalists who claim that the future of their enterprise lies not with anchormen and local editors, but rather within the blogosphere itself. Sites such as the Huffington Post, which takes a more subjective approach towards the news, employs professional bloggers and well-known celebrities as its staff. In South Korea, the popular website OhMyNews hosts news blogs and articles submitted by readers.

The most promising aspect of the news blog community lies not with mere content, but actually the readers themselves. When a popular and interesting news story is posted, the story may have significant draw due to its content. However, without a readership willing to spread news of the article, it may simply fade into obscurity. This is where popular sites such as Digg.com come into play.

Through sites such as Digg.com, users are able to submit popular news stories which they find interesting. Soon more users read the same story and submit a "dig," which leads to the story gaining more prominence on the Digg.com official website. This cycle of viewing and recommending keeps news that users find interesting at the forefront of discussion for possibly weeks beyond its original post. In this way articles often lost in other formats such as printed word have lasting appeal to the masses.

However, there are some issues with Digg.com. Since the users decide what stories belong on the main page for visitors to read, all too often the main page can be dominated by stories which are goofy and irrelevant to real world topics. For example, last year one of the most recommended stories on the website involved not politics, but crustaceans. Or rather, the exercise methods they practice:



The video "Shrimp on a Treadmill," seen above, remained the top recommended story on Digg.com for several weeks. While stories regarding the Bush administration and foreign policy dotted the page on a daily basis, the video reigned as champion for almost a month.

For now irreverent joke stories and amusing photoshops may be found on the most visited pages online, this does not mean that true journalistic content is not popular. On top blog sites, articles from major publications such as the Washington Post and the New York Times are often ample and replied with comments from devoted readers. Regulars of Digg.com often recommend interesting articles from sites like CNN.com and BBC News. Through this, stories often regulated to one page suddenly show up referenced and linked-to on dozens upon dozens of personal and public blog sites all over the web.

While it is still far too early to know what the future really holds for the internet, it is easy to see the path it is on now and make an educated guess. With a significantly increased emphasis on user-controlled content sites and interaction with the digital media in the last few years alone, the web will continue to draw in more people. Everyday polls are hosted on important news sites and the media welcomes their comments on major news articles. And because of the mass appeal and influence of the World Wide Web, their opinions will be heard louder than ever.

Chernobyl receives another burial.

Above: A ferris wheel on the outskirts of Chernobyl remains untouched
for over twenty years.

While we are all certainly thankful for the technology in our lives, we often forget the dangers posed by the world around us. Some of the readers of this blog may be too young to remember the terror inspired by the events at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the late 80s, while to many others the name "Chernobyl" conjures up nightmares of nuclear disaster.

For those unfamiliar with the horrific events of 1986, the events that unraveled at Chernobyl have forever changed the area of its impact into a barren wasteland. The failure of a nuclear reactor in late April of that year led to scores of people dying and to the radiation poisoning of several hundred thousand Ukrainians. To this day, much of the countryside remains deserted and infant mortality rates due to radiation are still high. More can be read here.

Above: An image from the abandoned neighboring city of Pripyat

An article posted Sunday on Yahoo! news chronicles the start of new construction Chernobyl. According to the article, titled "Doomed Chernobyl reactor to be buried in new coffin," states that a $505 million project maned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has gone underway. The project aims to build a new shelter over the preexisting one encasing the reactor. The current shelter has been leaking radiation out for several years now and it is hoped that this new shelter will stop the issue of leakage once and for all.

It's important that people know about the horrors of Chernobyl. There are several websites which chronicle the event, but there is also a Discovery Channel documentary on the 1986 disaster. Hosted on YouTube.com, the documentary can be seen here.

A tiny slice of my childhood for you.

When I was a child, I was a real nerd - not that this should come as a surprise, mind you. I played chess, was likely the worst soccer goalie in the history of the sport, and read science fiction novels by the box-load. However, amongst the many tomes of fantasy and sci-fi novels I read was a series by Douglas Adams titled The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


Some of you are no doubt familiar with the title. Maybe some of you actually read the tongue-in-cheek comedy series when you were growing up. Perhaps a few of you saw the movie adaptation that came out about three years ago (which is not bad, honestly). Regardless of whether or not the novels are familiar to you, they have always had a real cult following through the years. Truth be told, there was even a video game adaptation created in 1988.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Video Game came around in the era of text-based adventures. Far before the Nintendo hit American shores and every five-year old was playing Mario/Duckhunt, fans of Douglas Adam's hit novels were playing an interactive version of the first book in the series. In the game, the player plays through the game by giving instructions to it. For example, in the first scene the player is in pitch black room. By typing in "turn on light," the player continues forward.

So why am I mentioning all this to you? Well, BBC Radio 4 has created a new version of the classic game in honor of the 20th anniversary of the first book. It's web based, so there's no downloading necessary. This version of the game even gives the player a visual representation of where they are in the game. I really recommend that you give it a try. Who knows, you might even have a chuckle or two.

Are you wasting money too?

With the US economy slipping into a recession (or to the claim of many, already in one), a lot of people are doing the wise thing and saving up their money for tougher times. However according to an article from BBC News, some of us are still buying more than a few frivolous things.

In an article titled "Video games immune to US slowdown," it is reported that while our economy's currently is in a bad place, video game sales are way up. According to the article, $1.7 billion was spent on video game consoles, games, and accessories this month alone. At the top of those sales was the Nintendo Wii which sold 720,000 units.

At least it's nice to know I'm not the only person wasting valuable money on these time-wasters. The above article can be read here.

Leave the laptop behind.

Have you ever felt like going on a vacation, leaving all of your excessive electronic gadgets behind, and just enjoying wilderness? An article over at Forbes.com has given some great vacation ideas of where to go and what to do. Seeing that summer vacation is almost here for Rowan students, now would not be a bad time to start looking at some good hot spots.

The article, titled "World's Ultimate Unplugged Vacations," can be read here.

Military theft on the web; Hackers become more organized

I have come across two articles of note that deal with a common concern for web-users these days: online fraud and theft. Both articles were found on TopTechNews.com and while they are very short reads, I recommend taking a look at them.

The first article, titled "Stolen Military Equipment Found on Ebay," deals with investigators coming across items of military origin posted on both Craigslist and Ebay. The items themselves are on a U.S. Munitions list. While they are not exactly rifles or harmful weapons, they do range from hazmat suits to parts from F-14 fighter jets. The article in its entirety can be read here.

The second article is just as worrying. Titled "Online Crooks Face Tough Competition," the article claims that identity theft criminals are in such strong competition that they are going as far as actually organizing into more formal business operations. It's gotten to a point where they actually sell credit card information in bulk for low prices and are competing with one another for customers. The article can be read here.

Profile: Gregory Olsen

Photo courtesy of MSNBC

Everyone has had a childhood dream of becoming something amazing. Some children want to become veterinarians, while others play with fire trucks and daydream about putting out flames and saving lives. Yet for many growing boys, the greatest dream of all has been the desire to go into space. While only a few chosen elite can claim such a boisterous accomplishment, one jersey native achieved such an amazing goal only a few years ago.

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Gregory Olsen was born in 1945. Shortly after being born, Olsen’s family made the trip from New York and decided to settle down in New Jersey. He attended Ridgefield Park High School where he soon became known as a troubled student. He received low grades in high school and was even convicted as a juvenile delinquent after being caught stealing hubcaps. Soon after this he turned his life around, dramatically increased his grade point average, and even went off to college. After graduating from Fairleigh Dickinson University, he went off to the University of Virginia where he received a PhD in Materials Science.

After college, Olsen went through a wide variety of career ventures. From 1972 to 1983, he worked as a research scientist at RCA Labs and developed new crystal growth methods for optoelectronic devices. In 1984, he founded a fiber-optic detector manufacturer titled EPITAXX and later also founded an infrared camera manufacturer. The two companies were bought and sold multiple times, raising hundreds of millions of dollars each time.

The successful entrepreneur didn’t fully achieve his dreams, however, until but a few years ago. After over five months and 900 hours of training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Moscow, Olsen was prepared to take off for the International Space Station. On October 1, 2005, Gregory Olsen left the Earth on a Russian rocket and became the third private citizen to orbit the Earth.

For ten days he was a guest at the International Space Station where he orbited the Earth over 150 times. Although some branded him as a “space tourist,” Olsen deplored the term. Prior to taking off from the launch pad, he was quoted as saying:

”The term ‘tourist’ doesn’t do justice to all the work I’ve put in, or the work that the people at the Gagarin centre put in preparing us.”

Featured above: Greg Olsen has a drink of water on the ISS

When he returned to Earth on October 11, Olsen returned to his job as founder and manager of GHO Ventures. At GHO Ventures, Olsen runs a series of programs and initiatives called Angel Investments. These programs range from an education program called Achieve 3000 to a company called Princeton Power Systems which produces electrical power conditioners.

Since that time, he has gone from school to school, discussing the details of his space trip as well as the space race and the possibilities for the future of space travel. He recently gave an in-depth interview with Kim Nagy of the Wild River Review where he talked about the particulars of his experiences in space. On March 27, Olsen visited Rowan University where he gave a lecture on these topics to students in the Rowan Hall auditorium.

In his Rowan Hall lecture, Olsen spoke to teachers and aspiring students alike about not only the intense training he underwent in order to go into space, but also the need to be determined.

"The lesson I learned when I was 60 was the same I learned when I was 16: don't give up," said Olsen. "Don't give up; that's really the secret to life. There's a lot of reasons why you can't do something and only one reason why you can and that is not giving up."

Featured above: Jim Clash (of Forbes) interviews Greg Olsen (2005)

And on the lighter side of technology...

It feels to me that so many people take the internet for granted these days. Seeing how this is crunch time for around six final projects that I am working on, I am spending pretty much every waking hour trying to contact different people and compiling my research. If I had to do this twenty years ago, I'd be spending every moment pouring over dust-covered tomes in some dank part of a library trying to get the information I need. Be it catching moronic car thieves or finding the phone number of a college professor within mere seconds, you can't help but be grateful for the web.

Once in a while you run across an article that just makes your day. Obviously technology news can be very dry, but I read a short story over on the NYTimes' website which I couldn't help but love. The story, titled "It Takes a Cyber Village to Catch an Auto Thief," chronicles how the owner of an auto dealership had a car stolen from him only to have the thieves caught via an internet forum. You can read the whole story here.

Meanwhile, on the sad side of technology...

According to an article from CNN.com's TECH section, the Navajo Nation in New Mexico is going to lose their Internet Service Provider today. Essentially there was a mess-up with the payment - the Navajo actually double-paid their bills, and for reasons further described in the article, their ISP OnSat is going to drop the entire 27,000 mile reservation.

Due to the environment the Navajo Nation live in, it is near impossible to get proper wired internet into the area. As a result, they are forced to rely upon satellite service in order to use the web. Obviously the loss of their ISP is going to come as a huge blow to the reservation.

The article, called "Navajo Nation likely to lose Internet service," can be read here.

Gearhead Dean Kamen answers a few quick questions.

PopularMechanics.com has published a little article in which they conduct a short Q&A session with Dean Kamen. In the article, titled "6 Questions for Maverick Inventor Dean Kamen," they address the future of geek culture in America as well as how the public opinion of technology can be skewed towards avoidance.

For those who aren't familiar with Mr. Kamen, he is the inventor of the Segway and founder of FIRST Robotics, a company that hosts robot-building contests for teenagers. Here is a short video clip explaining one of the events to be held in the 2008 FIRST Robotics competition:

So, are you paranoid yet?

Hopefully many of the people who read this blog are wise enough to run anti-virus software on their computers at least once a week. Particularly active net-users tend to pick up a trojan virus or two when they go web surfing, while others may make the mistake of downloading an unknown attachment in a seemingly innocuous email. However smart PC/Mac users should always know to scan new files for viruses, especially if the source of the files is not well-known.

According to an article over at TopTechNews.com, you may want to run your anti-virus software after installing a name-brand product. The article, called "Some Viruses Come Pre-Installed," talks in length about how big-name products such as iPods or GPS devices can occasionally come prepackaged with viruses. It's real scary stuff, but a great read.

Computer chips and you.

Most people are not familiar with the process by which computer chips are made. I found this video on YouTube that explains the manufacturing process. Here, take a look:

Feature: A Look at Piracy in 2007

In an October 2007 report by the Institute for Policy Innovation called “The True Cost of Copyright Industry Piracy to the U.S. Economy,” it was reported that every year the United States losses over $58 billion due to the piracy of movies, games, and music. It also claims that the amount of money lost has grown dramatically every year and shows little sign of slowing down.

This alarming piracy rate doesn’t stem just from professional bootleggers, but also from college students. In an article from Ars Technica, twenty-five schools from across the nation are scored according to piracy rates among students. While Rowan University doesn’t make this not-so-prestigious list, Columbia University does top the charts with a whopping 1,198 students recorded downloading illegally last year.

However one could easily argue that the current piracy rate does not hold that much of an impact. According to an article by Yahoo! News, the Motion Picture Association of America has reported that U.S. box office receipts have raised 5.4% from 2006 to 2007, marking an all-time record high box office gross of $9.63 billion.

While an article at Torrentfreak.com claims there have been over half a million downloads of the popular blockbuster film “Transformers” in 2007, this seems like a very minor loss seeing how much money the movie made. In theaters alone, “Transformers” grossed over $320 million in the U.S; on DVD it has made over $315 million. To many bootleggers, the movie’s massive success carries with it a defense. Excuses such as “it already made so much money” or “I could rent it anyway and lose five bucks” let pirates carry on with their activities with nary a hint of guilt. However, when the pirated property isn’t an international smash hit, then the damage is far more noticeable.

In November of 2007, the highly-hyped computer game Crysis was released in the US amid high scores from critics. The visually intense action game was projected to sell millions and garner tons of fans. Corporate executives at the game’s publisher, Electronic Arts, were both surprised and horrified when in the first few months of its release, Crysis only sold around 80,000 units internationally. Some speculated that the low sales figures were a result of high system requirements by the game, but the real reason turned out to be piracy.

At the time of the game’s release, it was recorded that on one torrent site alone, over 5,000 copies of Crysis were downloaded every day. Considering that the product retails for $50, that’s over $250,000 lost on a daily basis.

The damage that piracy does to the entertainment business every year is increasing and while for the most part the damage isn’t significant, the fact is that piracy is growing at an incredible rate. While blockbuster titles such as the upcoming “Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who” will no doubt make big money at the box office, small indie films and local bands stand to loss the most in the face of this ever-growing illegal pastime.

Yet I doubt it'll stop Vista from crashing.

I don't think there's been a single day in the last two years that I haven't used a computer either at home or at school that did not freeze or crash at some point. For many people, having a computer crash on them is a frequent and exasperating annoyance. Now it would appear that there is a program in the works that hopes to help rectify these crashes.

According to an article in the Tech section of the New York Time's online site, two software engineers are working on a program called "ReplayDirector." The program works off the same premise held by DVRs and TiVo: your computer is recorded while you are using it and up to when the crash occurs. After the crash, the user can then rewind the "ReplayDirector" device and watch what led up to the system freeze.

According to the article, Steven Giles, director of Electronic Art's online operations, has been testing the device and swears that it is incredibly useful in spotting random and inconsistent bugs which can lead to crashes.

An FAQ about ReplayDirector can be found here. The product itself is meant primarily for major corporations. The current selling price is $50,000 with discounts for multiple machines.

And so the pirating begins.

It would appear that the enterprising piracy advocates over at SlySoft Products have come up with a new piece of software which can allegedly break the copyrights on Blu-ray discs. An article on Top Tech News reports that SlySoft has come up with a new program which supposedly allows would-be bootleggers to make copies of high definition movies such as I Am Legend and 300.

Seeing that Blu-ray has only recently beaten out HD-DVD in the format war, this could be the start of rocky sales charts for Sony's high-definition format. It was only in January of last year that HD-DVD began to be thoroughly pirated and distributed all over the web (an article of the event can be read here) and many critics felt that the piracy rate of the format led to its death. It's still too early to start crying that it's the end of the world for Blu-ray, but it certainly doesn't bode well for it.

On a personal note I cannot stand piracy. While the price of Blu-ray is rather high (the average blockbuster flick goes for $30), bootlegging only serves to further damage the film industry.

Everybody loves the Hubble!

There's been a surprisingly large amount of recent articles surrounding the Hubble telescope recently.

An entry over at the Homeboy's Astronomy Blog holds a top-10 list for the writer's favorite images captured by the telescope.


The official website for the Hubble space satellite, Hubblesite.org, has announced a new art exhibit consisting of images captured by the telescope. The exhibit, which is being held at the Walter Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, contains over twenty images collected from the satellite. The article can be read here.

Finally, an article from the John Hopkins News-letter reports that on May 6 the Hubble telescope caught images of what scientists claim to be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever recorded. The galaxy, given the very catchy name of "A1689-zD1," will be further observed by the new James Webb Space Satellite which launches in 2013. The article can be read here.

New friend request from your aunt Benice.

The Washington Post has published a really interesting article in their Sunday paper titled "When Mom or Dad Asks to Be a Facebook Friend." The article basically addresses the way the generation gap between parents and children can be seen on Facebook.com.

While some teenagers and college students have no problem in adding their parents to their 'friend's list,' there is actually a large number of young adults who have formed clubs protesting the presence of their parents in the community.

In other news, BusinessWeek reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the launch of a French version of Facebook. According to BusinessWeek, Zuckerberg and columnist Sarah Lacy claim that the community could foster a home for members who wish to organize protests and other political activities. The entirety of the article can be read here.

Ebooks provide interesting alternative to printed word. (a feature)

In this increasingly technology-centric world of ours, you may have noticed an interesting thing. Friends, family, and relatives are spending more time on computers these days than ever before. Within the last couple of years, the amount of time spent vegging out in front of the television set has transferred over to surfing the web, logging onto Facebook.com, and playing games in your web browser.

However, how often have you seen your mom pour a cup of tea, sit down, and read the latest Oprah Book Club selection on her laptop?

For those not in the know, e-books are translations of best-selling novels meant to read on tablet PCs or laptops. Slightly less expensive than their paperback counterparts, e-books run the gamut from popular thriller novels such as Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code to new age theory books such as The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. Although the books themselves are meant for us with actual readers made by major manufacturers such as Sony, e-books come in a variety of formats than can be read on any computer.

Why, you ask, would you someone want to purchase digital translations of their favorite books? Well, for one thing it is far easier to carry around a library’s worth of literature on a small laptop or e-Reader than it is to haul them around. Also, e-books allow the reader to change the size of the text in case they have difficulty seeing small font. The nature of reading on a monitor also means never having to hold open a paperback, so it is more convenient.

However, there are still a great deal of limitations facing e-books. Many people would no doubt prefer having a physical copy of the book they just purchase as opposed to a file on their e-reader. Also, laptops and e-readers both obviously need power, which can be a big deal when one is on the go.

Then of course, there is the matter of price. If you already own a laptop, buying an e-book is certainly a viable option. The e-readers themselves, however, tend to be incredibly pricey.

Take for example the E-reader 6IN Portable Silver E-book Approx 170 Pix/inch, by Sony (seen above). It’s a really nice e-reader, which has a good battery life and can be held like a book. It goes for $299.99.

If you pick it up on Amazon.com, you can get a whopping savings of 99 cents!

Due to the high sales of laptops these days, e-books are beginning to gain momentum. In the past five years, the market for eBooks have grown considerably. In 2007 alone, e-book sales totaled over $31 million. When compared to 2006’s sale records, e-book sales have risen over 24% in the course of the year. While the remarkable growth of the industry doesn’t threaten the longevity of the printed word, it does reflect upon how invested into our laptops we have become.

If you would like to learn more about e-books, or would like to check out the wide selection available, check out E-books.com.

Japanese PSPs gets Skype; what is Skype?

An article today in the technology section of CNN.com has mentioned the release of the Skype software on the Playstation Portable system in Japan later this month (nearly two months after its release in the US and Europe).

Most people are not familiar with Skype, so I suppose I should explain it. Skype is essentially a telephone system that goes between computers or, for a small fee, between computers and cellphones or landline phones. Skype has been around since 2003 and has grown exponentially since then. An article posted in February on about.Skype.com states that the software has tracked over 100 billion hours worth of phone calls since its creation nearly five years ago.

Sony has begun putting Skype's software in its PSP firmware updates in the hope that the system's new phone capabilities may draw in potential customers for the system. Calls between PSPs or between PSPs and PCs are entirely free, although the same credit card fees still apply to calls made between the PSP and phones. Sony's official press release for Skype can be read here.

Who needs privacy anyway?

I came across an interesting little news piece over at CNN.com's TECH section today. BrickHouse Security, a company that creates spy gadgets for home security and other safety purposes, has created a device called "the Ultimate SIM Card Management Solution." This innocuously titled device has been built with the ability to read stored and deleted text messages from another person's cellphone.

Of course, getting the device to read a cellphone isn't as simple as having the number ready. In order to actually active the "Cellphone Spy" (a name given by BrickHouse Security in a PR release for the device) you must obtain the other phone's SIM card in order to link up the device with your own cellphone. By placing the SIM card into a USB device and then into your laptop, all text messages and information can be read on your computer. The optimal purpose of the gadget is to monitor the messages of a possibly unfaithful spouse or to keep tabs on the texts your children are sending and receiving.

The "Cellphone Spy" is a pricey little toy ($149.99), but I suppose if you're the paranoid type you wouldn't mind spending the cash to ensure total safety for your loved ones. Of course, your loved ones may not feel the same when you're scrolling through two years worth of their own personal messages. So results may vary.

If you want to see the original news piece, you can check it out here at CNN.com/tech. The Cellphone Spy Data Extractor can be found here at BrickHouse Security's website.

I personally welcome our new robot masters.

I stumbled across a rather quirky story over at Breitbart.com. The article, titled "Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert," chronicles the use of automated weapons in places such as Iraq as well as the dangers that come along with them. These range from the (slightly) more plausible scenarios, such as terrorist cells capturing the robots and reverse-engineering them, to technological limitations of current artificial intelligence, to the more Isaac Asimov-stylized idea of robo-rebellion.

The "expert" that Breitbart.com consulted was a professor at University of Sheffield in England. He is quoted as saying that "[robots] pose a threat to humanity" at his keynotes. It's somewhat difficult to sound sane when you say that sort of thing in public.

For you robot-lovers (or those wishing to know of the iron-fisted rule of our future cybernetic leaders), the whole article can be read here.

[The above photo is by Dan Coulter of Flickr.com. It is a picture of a band called "Robot Attack!"]

Philadelphia business plans on putting computers in waiting rooms

I was just reading up on the technology beat over at the Philadelphia Inquirer's website and came across this rather interesting story. It would seem that a company called InfoSlates is looking to put tablet PCs into the waiting rooms of hospitals and doctor offices as a high-tech alternative to wrinkled old copies of National Geographic. According to the article, InfoSlate finds that their PCs can be used both as a source of entertainment for those stuck in waiting rooms and also a healthy investment for advertisers. The whole article can be read here.

While the prospect of messing around with a tablet PC while waiting for the doctor to call you in sounds interesting, in a way it feels to me like an invasion. The principle behind InfoSlates' tablets is that they will allow the user to cruise the web and check email, but at the same time the real revenue to InfoSlate will come from the advertisers that invest into the tablets. While cruising the web, InfoSlate could do something as subtle as make the homepage for the tablets an advertiser's site, or they could be more obvious and have small pop-up ads appear. So essentially one of the few places in our modern society where you are not getting bombarded with ads, the waiting room, is now open for solicitation.

Satellite down

Just a quick update for you guys. Late last night the Navy took a shot at the failing satellite and they believe they have taken it out. An explosion was seen after the missile was believed to have made contact with the satellite, so the Navy is very confident that they managed to nail the fuel tank.

You can read the full story at CNN here.

U.S. Navy takes aim at malfunctioning satellite.

It would appear that the U.S. Navy has finally sat down and decided to begin its attempts at destroying the malfunctioning spy satellite before it can fall back into Earth.

The window of opportunity to take out the satellite is incredibly slim - roughly ten seconds every seven to ten days hold the only chance for a missile to hit it. Today was supposed to be the first attempt, but unfortunately bad weather forced the firing to be canceled.

The danger from the falling satellite comes from the fuel tank. Since the satellite was only launched late last year (December too be exact), it still has a tank full of hydrazine propellant. The chemical reacts much like ammonia when inhaled, so it's vital that the satellite not fall back to the ground or else it could create an international stir.

The Navy has a few more attempts at taking down the satellite before its projected fall around March 6. Hopefully next week's attempt will prove successful. The full article at CNN.com can be read here.

On the more lighthearted side of the news, the new Wii Fit game for the Nintendo Wii console has been given an American release date of mid-May. The purpose of Wii Fit is to transform the video game console into a light cardio and yoga workout program, suitable for any room in any home. The game, which comes with a balance board that doubles as a scale, gives advice on proper workout form as well as keeping track of one's statistics and weight loss. The official website for the product can be found here, as well as a video demonstrating how the device works.

Wii Fit has already sold 1.5 million units since its release in Japan on December 1. Nintendo hopes that the game's success will be just as hefty when it arrives here in the States.

Welcome to the post.

Welcome to Digital Lost & Found, my 2008 spring semester blog for Online Journalism. In this blog, I aim to provide a twice-a-week update on the latest technology news. My focus will be on developments in the computer industry, business practices between the major digital moguls as well as large-scale video game companies, as well as any truly groundbreaking innovations that should occur.

Sometimes I will collect the more interesting pieces of information regarding the biggest news in today's technology, while other times I will give my own commentary on the current state of the computer industry.

As for myself, I am a senior majoring at Rowan University. I am a commuter who spends a good deal of time on campus. My hobbies include watching independent and foreign films, discovering new (and local) bands, and personal fitness.

Please check back in the following days to read new and interesting pieces of information about our world's ever-developing technology.