Testing Google Chrome: translate toolbar

Since my Mozzila Firefox browser became quite slow when opening it up (this is probably a result of using and installing several Firefox, Google and even some academic gadgets like Zotero) I have therefore wanted to try some other free browser and chose Google Crome in the end. After really easy downloading and installing it took me not more than 2 minutes to try it out. I was amazed by the simplicity of Google Crome and several new gadgets that Crome includes. The one I found most interesting is translate toolbar that always appears when opening new tab. And how does it work? When the language of the webpage you're viewing is different from your preferred language setting, Chrome will display a prompt asking if you'd like the page to be translated for you using Google Translate tool in just a few seconds. Here is also a video of such service provided: These kinds of services are revolution in www, while one can now view and surf through completely foreign web pages originally posted in languages you would never dare to access because of the language barrier. One can now easily surf Chinese, Korean, Arabic or Russian web sites if he wants so. Sharing ideas, views and opinions is therefore widening which contributes to increased cooperation and understanding of other nations, languages and even cultures.Google Crome and its gadgets are therefore a living proof of new technologies tearing walls and barriers that seemed unbreakable even few years ago.

Importance of www research

In the last two years at the global level we witness intensive political developments in decision-making regarding the funding of research in the interdisciplinary field, which could be called "the future of the Internet".

The Internet has become an indispensable part of modern economics and no political elite wants to leave or miss its impact regarding its development and management. It is too important for all elements of society and life.

Internet technologies are an integral part of critical infrastructure - transport, energy and information. Energy and transport management and control of Internet technology and processing industries are dependent on locus of control. Also marketing, social networking, banking, stock exchanges and all other financial institutions can not function without the Internet technologies nowadays.

But I want to emphasize that this type of technology derives from the seventies and was not planned for such growth and such user applications, as we know them today. Therefore, despite the many new innovations Internet network is faced with increasing problems related to quality of service, security, privacy, data protection and mobility.

Problems relating to the limited radio spectrum and the monitoring of developments in the network, with its neutrality, policy management, internationalization, and many others, are crucial to the continued evolution of the Internet. Last but not least all of internets namespace is controlled by only 13 root name servers, which are vital for its operation. Without them, the Internet as we know it would stop. And this simply must not happen, of which, global superpowers are well aware off.

Problems that global powers see are deriving from the growth of devices connected to the Internet and constantly growing numbers of consumers who are slowly approaching two billion. Only Russian part of the Internet, which operates in most of Asia and in a large part of Europe in one year registered over 2.5 million new addresses of users who communicate with each other in Cyrillic Russian. Similar processes are happening in China and the Arabian Gulf. The number of new Internet users has increased by almost 900 percent. Can governments control such numbers?

Growth of the internet causes great concerns to technicians, researchers and political elites. Those processes should be therefore widely researched and discussed. Most developed countries already invest great funds into such research.
And what is happening in this field in Slovenia? Groups involved in Internet technologies research are marginalized and poorly financed. Therefore, regardless of the needs of the economy, they can not achieve a critical mass of research. In Slovenia technician and engineer, despite the excellent employability and researches in the labour market, are not respected profession; even more as compared with doctors and lawyers they are poorly paid. Also entry of students to the Slovenian technical faculties is hardly satisfactory.
In this point I would like to point out that the use of ICTs is essential to achieve efficiency, productivity, business optimization and production, reducing costs in order of faster entry into the market and better integration between providers and users for countries economy to be successful and competitive in wider region. So not only investing into research of the www, but also into www professions seems to be crucial and therefore implemented into our future policy

Books vs. digital(ization)

With digitalisation of books will books as we know them still exist? In 15 years time, will there still be any bookstores? How is it with “old school” books in 21st century? It may seem that nowadays people want to have access to almost every sort of information through world wide web and other new medias, but is it really so?

In this post I will try to focus on relationship between new Medias that could be identified as a supplement to books and discuss some relevant dilemmas regarding above emphasized issues.

I found most interesting statistics on-line saying that, more than three billion books are sold annually in America alone. In comparison, the sales numbers of e-readers and tablet computers are puny. Amazon, the world's biggest online retailer, will only sell an estimated three million of its Kindle this year (which is a sort of Wireless reading device). The iPad, Apple's touch-screen tablet, which doubles as an e-reader and will go on sale on April 3rd, will most likely do better. But the device's sales will still be dwarfed by those of global bestsellers, such as the Harry Potter tales, of which more than 400m copies have been bought globally.

We can therefore say that bookstores and publishers may be hurting, but this does not mean that the book itself is in trouble, at least not immediately. For one, its physical incarnation will not disappear any time soon. People have grown up reading paper books and will not abandon their habits easily. And e-readers and similar devices are still no match for the technology known as the book. By using these new reading devices and technologies one is limited with the capacity of the battery for example. We can even say that digital technology is strengthening, not weakening the book. Historically speaking, new ways to distribute books have often led to innovations. As books began to be bought mainly in retail rather than borrowed from libraries in the 19th century, for instance, this caused the switch from multiple-volume to single-folio novels. Similarly, e-readers are likely to trigger a wave of innovation in books such as works that mix text and audiovisual content and short-form e-books. Books will also be more easily available-and not just in digital form. Thanks to new printing technology, books can now be cheaply produced on demand. In 2008, the latest year for which statistical data (that I mentioned) are available, about 285,000 titles were printed on demand or in short runs-for the first time more than by conventional printing. So regarding just discussed – can we really say that “old school” books are disappearing? I wouldn’t dare to claim so.

In these days Google announced that it had stopped censoring search results on its China portal, Google.cn, and was automatically redirecting its users to Google.com.hk, an uncensored portal in Hong Kong. This means that Google won’t cooperate in China’s policy of censoring World Wide Web. Responses to described above around the globe were different but mostly critics have applied to political connotation of the issue. But there is another thing worth considering when re-thinking described problematic. I thing that China, is evidently blocking most popular western sites in order to cement domestic businesses in the market. China has the ability and has used it in the past to block specific sites based on content, and it has blocked specific YouTube and Facebook sites since they went online. Yet only recently have they blocked such sites wholesale. The reason for that is gaining market share against local competitors like Youku. There are now domestic Chinese equivalents of all these “western” sites—Baidu for Google, Taobao for eBay, Renren for Facebook, QQ for instant messaging, games and social networking—and they are doing well (see chart attached).

In Chinese case we can see that all major www companies have their equivalents and are therefore replaceable. This case is also a good proof that global enterprises such as Google in the issues of defining reality as well as in the power of censorship aren’t above national states (at least not in Chinese case). Google’s decision to remove their portal from China to Hong Kong can also be a result of poor management and expected outcome. In China Google pledged to get 24 billion of revenue but so far they succeeded to create only 250 to 600 $ million outcome. Another aspect of transferring their portal to location outside of China is for sure political. Political results of this action are yet to be seen and very interesting to follow and analyze.

New Media and Society

Do new web and mobile technologies influence political agendas and policies?

In a way, we can claim that web and mobile technologies provide people a chance to publish and distribute content, self organize into communities based on common interests or ideas and participate in collective action. New technologies even enable individuals to be a part of deliberative processes which is one step further from rigid representative democracy in which we live in. New web based Medias are opening spheres where people can create new types of media outlets, build new types of civil society organisations, monitor or protest against political institutions. But in reality, is it really so?
Yes we can claim that new types of uncontrolled or less controlled, Medias are fundamentally changing political power structures, but still, there is a certain doubt about still existing censorship, surveillance and on-going propaganda from political elites. Good examples are countries like China where www is monitored and censored. Of course in western countries, development and uprise of new societies occurring and functioning on-line can not be doubted, but do they really posses political power needed for changing and re-shaping policies?

According to dystopian theory, which I find as the one to be considered, new www and mobile Medias are actually enabling traditional institutions to further consolidate their powers. So even though there are several new communities and even institutions emerging on-line, who are opposing or at least monitoring, traditional political institutions, we have to keep in mind that these institutions and people in charge of them have ability to easily excess into new communities, see and analyse their ideas and therefore effectively protect old institutions. So, can new www based communities exceed that and seriously threaten old institutions?