The ONS has released findings for the 2004 ICT and e-commerce activity of UK businesses
Key findings for the period 2003-4 include:
* The value of Internet sales was £71bn, up 81%
* 35% of businesses were purchasing online
* 34% of businesses had a Web site, up 10%
* 21% of businesses used the Internet to interact with public authorities
I’m still staggered by the number of businesses without a website yet.
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Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit) has had its credibility challenged, and then bolstered in the last couple of weeks. Both these go the heart of what is so great and so risky about the experiment.
The damage was done by someone who thought the site was a hoax and posted misleading information about a former US Editor who of course made the error very public. Characteristically, the culprit is now a listing himself in the Wiki! His biography needs a few more details though can he now be trusted to update these himself?
It then got a boost from the highly reputable Nature publishing group who said that it was “not markedly less accurate” than Britannica for science information, with (just) 4 serious errors in each over 42 entries. It also encouraged scientists to contribute.
Wikipedia is not going to take the place of peer-reviewed journals – academics depend on them too much to filter their information, to build their careers and to verify Wikipedia articles – but for most people, in most situations, it is good enough to satisfice.
The Guardian technology blog has a nice summary.
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What a beautiful photo of the planet as night falls over Europe.
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In an effort to make data on world development understandable, enjoyable and free, Gapminder has developed some interactive software that does make world development data a lot more understandable. They also encourage you to download and distribute it.
The presentation is fantastic and something that all of us dealing with data could learn from but the story isn’t enjoyable. It contains the shocking statistic that 20% of the world’s population have only 2% of the world’s income, living on less than $1 a day (that’s well over a billion people), and that we are set to miss the UN’s Millenium Development Goals for 2015.
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I’m always cautious about new technology in development that hasn’t made it to market but given the prescience of Star Trek’s mobile phones and self-opening doors, here may be another of their technologies coming to fruition: the replicator.
There are already 3-D printers that can produce wax or plastic replicas but printers that can also produce things with moving parts is around the corner.
Sounds great but will it come with a recycle-ator – that takes the stuff you don’t need and turns it into something useful.
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Boinc (Berkely Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) is a technology that has been developed to take advantage of all the computers that are networked together on the web, but could be working harder.
Essentially, you download a software programme onto your computer designed to exploit unused processing power, for example when the screensaver is running, and get it crunching data. When thousands of computers are all running the software, there is the potential to analyse huge datasets.
The best-known Boinc, and the project for which it was originally created, is SETI@home that analyzes space radio transmissions in order to detect extra-terrestial life. However now there are a number of reputable projects to study climate change models, search for gravitational waves, and address questions about protein-related diseases. You can even subscribe to a number of them and decide how much of your processing to dedicate to each one.
There is always a risk with downloading software to your computer (as many who have downloaded recent versions of Norton’s security software will know) but it is minimal and you’ll be part of a global community harnessing under-utilised resources for a global good. These projects have the backing of leading academic and technology organisations such as University of California, IBM and CERN, as well as 100s of 1,000s of users around the world.
On a broader point, Boinc is an example of ‘grid computing‘ which is already being employed as a commercial solution in IT and highlights how our use of computers is, and will be, so much more of a networked activity.
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Contributing to the discussion about whether the internet is moving into a new phase of Web 2.0 is this pragmatic article from consultants Adaptive Path.
It tries to identify the key players who offer Web 2.0 services, like del.icio.us and flickr and the key attributes of their more network-centric, collaborative offer.
The references are excellent.
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More news about Online blogged by the Information Today team: here. I’m amazed to see that some of the delegates didn’t know what a ‘blogger’ was, and even pronounced it to rhyme with ‘Roger’.
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