Who Owns The Internet?

The question of who owns the internet is more fascinating and nuanced than you ever expexted.



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(thanks Cora)

10 Origins Of Famous Internet Memes

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A meme is the spread of ideas and all sorts of cultural phenomena, like melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and even the technology of building arches. An Internet meme can stay the same or evolve over time, and can take on many forms, like an image, a video, a website, a word or phrase, a combination of these, or even a random behavior.

Take a look at 10 of the best memes out there, and see how they got to where they are in the public consciousness.

What Is DNS And Why Does It Make The Internet Break?

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This week, half of America's internet shut down when hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host.

It's horrific to know that major websites like Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, Etsy, Wired, and PayPal can all be taken offline in an instant. The exact process hackers used is so far unknown but it's important for every internet user to understand because it has to do with how exactly the internet works.

North Korea Accidently Leaks How Tiny Its Internet Is

A GitHub file dump revealed all the registered domains listed to the '.kp' country code top-level domain for North Korea. Essentially, it revealed that the hermit kingdom only has 28 websites.

Although many of the websites are inaccessible, they give a rare insight through the keyhole of North Korea's all-encompassing leadership and its very, very dull Internet.

Wikiverse

In Wikiverse, Wikipedia articles are stars in a galaxy. You can search on any topic.

From Warhol's Grave To Elvis' Front Door, 10 Museum Webcams To Watch

Some of the greatest wonders of our museums are available 24/7 through online webcams. Webcams can make you a witness as a statue of Lenin comes down in Ukraine, or offer the vantage point of 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham's skeleton as he watches over University College London.

Here are 10 museum webcams that you can tune in to anytime, anywhere, and watch over like a benevolent Big Brother.

30 Essential Google Search Tips

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Google's search engine is an always-expanding, extremely useful tool that's packed with tons of different tools. Some that are easy to forget, like the mortgage calculator, instant customer service phone numbers and time zone conversions.

Here's an infographic with over 30 Essential Google search tips.

Internet Of Things

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That brand new car loaded with apps? Internet of Things. The smart home devices that let you control the thermostat and lights with one voice command? Internet of Things.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you've likely heard the term Internet of Things, or IoT, at some point. But what does it mean?

Kids Explain The Internet... And It's Adorable

Growing up never experiencing life without the Internet. A group of Canadian kids explain the Internet from their perspective. How does the Internet really work? What is WiFi? What is the future of the Internet?



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(thanks Ryan)

Internet Firsts

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When was the first email was sent, when was the first domain name registered, when was the first image uploaded, when was the first blog launched and more internet firsts.

How To Find Out Everything Google Knows About You

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When you use Google, you're making a deal. You get to use services like Gmail, Drive, search, YouTube, and Google Maps for free. In exchange, you agree to share information about yourself that Google can share with advertisers so their ads are more effective.

How To Find Out Everything Google Knows About You.

Italian Village With No Access To The Web Recreates The Internet

Villagers in the remote Italian community of Civitacampomarano cut off from the internet have shown that life goes on - even when there is no internet. With only 400 mostly elderly people, Civitacampomarano is so remote that few are able to get online and mobile phones suffer from poor reception.

But an arts project has shown how digital innovations like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and eBay have actually existed for generations in the real world rather than online.

(thanks Cora)

CaptionBot

CaptionBot was created to showcase some of the new capabilities of Microsoft Cognitive Services. These new capabilities are the result of years of research advancements. CaptionBot uses Computer Vision and Natural Language to describe contents of images.

CaptionBot can understand the content of any image and the program tries to describe it as well as any human. The idea is that you upload a photo to CaptionBot, and it tries to automatically generate a caption that describes what the algorithm sees.

Scientists Figure Out How to Stream Netflix Through Pork Loin

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Next time you get in an argument with your service provider over slow internet speeds, let them know that you could literally get faster wireless service through a pork tenderloin.

Researchers at the University of Illinois demonstrated that they could transmit a wireless signal through two types of meat, pork tenderloin and beef liver. However, the project isn't intended to bring actual TV shows to your TV dinners. Instead, the scientists are looking for a better way to communicate with medical devices implanted in the human body.

(via Nag on the Lake)

23 Things You Had No Idea You Could Do In Snapchat

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Snapchat isn't just for sending disappearing photos. You can make video calls, pay back your friends or read the news. It's texting, FaceTiming, and a phone all tied up in one. But most of those options take a mastery of Snapchat beyond just taking photos.

Here are 20 things that you had no idea you could do in Snapchat to up your game.

19 Of The First Things To Ever Happen On The Internet

When was the first time anyone sent a tweet? What was the first video to be uploaded to YouTube? What was the first webpage on the internet? What was the first ad banner to spam a webpage? What was the first internet search engine?

19 Of The First Things To Ever Happen On The Internet.

Names That Break Computer Systems

When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket online, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left the surname field blank and ask her to try again. A few people have names that can utterly confuse the websites they visit, and it makes their life online quite the headache. Why does that happen?

This Map Of Domain Names Flips The World On Its Head

On a map of the world scaled to the most popular top-level domains, the Pacific island of Tokelau reigns supreme. With more than 31 million .tk websites, the tiny New Zealand territory has more domain registrations than any other nation or territory in the world.

On the strange-looking world map, produced by UK domain registry Nominet, (www.nominet.uk/) China is second on the list with 16.8 million registered domains on .cn. Germany (16 million on .de), the United Kingdom (10.6 million for .uk and .co.uk) and the Netherlands (5.6 million for .nl) complete the top five.

Kiddle: A Kid Safe Visual Search Engine

Kiddle is a kid safe visual search engine. Kiddle only shows sites and pages written specifically for kids. Kiddle also shows trusted sites that are not written specifically for kids, but have content written in a simple way, easy for kids to understand.

Since Kiddle results are either handpicked and checked by Kiddle's editors or filtered by Google safe search, you know you get kid-oriented results without any explicit content. In case some bad words are present in a search query, a guard robot will block the search.

Ray Tomlinson, The Creator Of Email, Has Died

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Ray Tomlinson, credited as the creator of email, has died. He was 74. Ray Tomlinson was an American computer programmer who implemented the first email system on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971.

Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since.