Google has unveiled its new logo, adopting a sans-serif typeface and retaining the same colours as before. But is it better or more practical than the logo it replaces?
Does this represent the degeneration of language? Not quite.
from www.shutterstock.com
Don’t listen to the naysayers. New ways of communicating have created a wealth of new opportunities to harness – and study – language.
Security experts discovered that the iVote practice server was vulnerable to tampering; after checking that the same weakness affected the real voting server, they alerted the authorities.
Vanessa Teague and Alex Halderman
UPDATED 3PM: The NSW Electoral Commission has now publicly commented on the security flaw we uncovered. But we’re concerned that it does not seem to understand the serious implications of this attack.
The good, the bad and the ugly on the web.
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Health is one of the biggest topics searched for on the web, yet despite its importance a large portion of this information is inaccurate, anecdotal or biased. According to Pew Research, 72% of internet…
It could happen to anyone – there’s no stereotype in the victims of online romance scams.
Suus Wansink/Flickr
Online dating and romance scams continue to lure in Australians with figures this week showing people have lost more than A$23 million this year alone, with average individual losses at A$21,000 – three…
Cyber bullying is on the rise and can strike anytime.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
The reaction to the federal government’s plans to clamp down on cyberbullying has ranged from hostility from some libertarians to scepticism about yet another government attempt to make the internet safer…
Some websites can drive you crazy.
Flickr/Jonathan Brodsky
How many times have you been looking for information online, only to find yourself going round and round in circles? Or you’ve spent too long poking around a website trying to find what you need, only…
Internet users are increasingly rejecting the advertisements used by social networks, even as those ads get ever more sophisticated.
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My last article looked at how social media stocks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are overpriced unless these companies manage to boost their revenues several times over. Given their business model…
Kjellberg argues his low-budget method is a ‘winning concept’.
YouTube.com
Does the name Felix Kjellberg sound familiar? How about PewDiePie? … Still nothing? Clearly you’re not one of the 31 million subscribers to YouTube’s most successful channel, PewDiePie, starring 24-year-old…
Your computer has a special fingerprint that can give away details of your online browsing.
Flickr/Sandra Nahdi
Just how much information we give away about ourselves as we browse the web has been raised again by a tracking device used in thousands of websites. Researchers at Belgium’s University of Leuven have…
What does your profile picture say about you?
Academic image from www.shutterstock.com
Just to the left and above this sentence is a picture of me. Like most places on the web where discussion takes place, The Conversation places a profile picture of each author next to their writing. Indeed…
The Khan academy is trying to bring education to the world, but how?
Online learning image from www.shutterstock.com
From preschool to PhD, education is afflicted by a malaise. Many students, teachers, parents and politicians, feel that with all the effort and money spent, we should be doing better. Salman Khan, founder…
Online education may mean more stress and workload for academics, not less.
Stressed academic image from www.shutterstock.com
FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, ANU’s Rod Lamberts and…
Academics freedom and university reputations are being tested online.
Academic image from www.shutterstock.com
Trying to control your reputation online is a bit like trying to clean up wee in a toddler pool. You are much more likely to get your hands dirty than achieve any kind of meaningful damage control. Many…
If Twitter allows us to follow (and share) our interests, then can it make a reliable measure of influence for media groups?
AAP/Tracey Nearmy/Twitter
News of significant job losses and organisational restructuring at Fairfax has thrown new spotlight onto the continuing transformation of the Australian media landscape. It’s clear that newspapers in their…
Much like the development of the railway in the 19th century, the National Broadband Network (NBN) will transform our society.
Wikimedia Commons
When I grew up in Canada there was a famous painting on the wall of nearly every primary school classroom. It was called “[The Last Spike](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Spike_(Canadian_Pacific_Railway…
The ANU music school cannot replace live one-on-one teaching with online lessons.
Flickr/Orangedrummerboy
The Australian National University (ANU) has recently announced serious changes to the School of Music in Canberra. Students will receive fewer hours of one-on-one performance lessons, and the current…
Regulation of our intimate lives has always been a thorny issue. The anti-sodomy laws of the past and the same-sex marriage issue today illustrate times when policymakers can get it very, very wrong. Legislation…