Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category


Online Centres Foundation Annual Review

October 8th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

Since the beginning of the year, I have been an non-executive director of the Online Centres Foundation and Chair of the Board’s Remuneration Committee. The OCF is a co-operative that does great work getting people online for the first time. The terrific staff work with some 3,800 local centres helping those who have no or […]

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Word of the day: skeuomorphism

October 7th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

This is the use of a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original. I know, you’re no wiser. An example is when note-taking features on computers or apps use decorative elements that remind us of paper-based applications. You’ll find a fuller discussion of the use of […]

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Web site visits back to 8,000 a day

September 25th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

Visits to my web site always fall in the summer months and this was especially so this year with most of my visitors being located in Britain and the country hosting the Olympic Games. But this week visits returned to over 8,000 a day. Almost half of those are to this blog which is overwhelmingly […]

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64 insights into the Internet and related phenomenon

September 23rd, 2012 by Roger Darlington

I’ve just finished reading a book with the catchy title “64 Things You Need To Know Now For Then” which is mainly about developments in the online world. You can read my review here.

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Should there be ‘a right to be forgotten’?

August 3rd, 2012 by Roger Darlington

At the beginning of the year, European Commissioner Viviane Reding proposed that, as part of the review of European Union privacy laws, there should be a new right to be forgotten [more information here]. The notion has proved controversial with the Harvard Law Review calling it “the biggest threat to free speech on the Internet […]

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Whatever happened to the cashless society?

June 19th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

“When I first became involved in the communications industry in the late 1970s, I was convinced that the then new microelectronics revolution would soon eliminate a lot of the need for cash. At that time, it looked as if some kind of electronic card would be the approach. In the 1980s, there was a trial […]

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How open is your Internet?

April 16th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

All this week, the “Guardian” newspaper is running a special feature on Internet freedom. As part of the project, the paper has produced an interactive world map with an assessment of how free the Net is in different countries. Check out your situation here.

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A review of “Consent Of The Networked”

April 9th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

American writer Rachel MacKinnon has produced an excellent book on “the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom” entitled “Consent Of The Networked” You can read my review here.

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I hear ‘the Father of the Internet’

March 24th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

For those of us steeped in Internet matters, the wonderfully named Vint Cerf is a mystical figure. He is universally known as “the Father of the Internet” because – together with Bob Kahn – he published “A Protocol For Packet Network Internetworking” in 1974 which was the technical basis then and now for the Internet. […]

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My second visit to the Online Centres Foundation

March 16th, 2012 by Roger Darlington

Earlier this week, I made a second visit to the Online Centres Foundation in Sheffield, the organisation of which I have just become a non-executive Board member. I went there in my capacity as the Chair of the Board’s Remuneration Committee to attend a staff meeting where we discussed the future remuneration package for the […]

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