News Track
CHINA’S NETIZENS ON RISE
The Chinese government has announced its Internet
population soared to 210 million people, putting it
on track to surpass the U.S. online community this
year as the world’s largest. According to government
officials, China is only five million behind the U.S.
online, a figure consistent with some U.S. estimates.
But China still lags the U.S. in several respects. China’s online penetration rate is placed at 16%, the
point Americans hit in the mid-1990s. About 75% of
U.S. adults are now online; penetration is higher
when teens are included. Internet penetration in
China holds a different meaning, however, where
cyber cafes serve as the main entry to the Web for
many people. Still, say officials from both sides, China’s online growth is significant.
TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCERS
Intel recently organized a panel of experts, including
academics, journalists, and independent third parties, to vote for the 45 most influential figures in
technology over the last 150 years. The top 10 vote
grabbers are:
1. Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide
Web founder)
2. Sergey Brin (Google co-founder)
3. Larry Page (Google co-founder)
4. Guglielmo Marconi (Inventor
of the radiotelegraph system)
5. Jack Kilby (Inventor of the
integrated circuit and calculator)
6. Gordon Moore (Intel co-founder)
7. Alan Turing (Pioneer in deciphering German
code in WWII)
8. Robert Noyce (Intel co-founder)
9. William Shockley (Co-inventor of the transistor)
10. Don Estridge (Led development of the IBM
computer)
T. BERNERS-LEE
For the full list of technology influencers, which
includes Bill Gates (#31), Steve Jobs (#14), and Vint
Cerf (#13), see http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/tech-
nology/technotes/jan08/ mostinfluentialtechies.htm.
12 April 2008/Vol. 51, No. 4 COMMUNICA TIONS OF THE ACM
BETWEEN ADS AND FRIENDS
The MySpace generation wants less space devoted to
online advertising. In fact, the ads on social networks like MySpace and FaceBook have become so
widespread—and annoying—that users are beginning to opt out. BusinessWeek reports the average
amount of time users spend on social networking
sites fell 14% in four months, with MySpace slip-ping from a peak of 72 million users last October to
68. 9 million last December. Besides slowing user
growth and declining time spent on these sites, users
appear to be less responsive to ads. If advertisers can’t
figure out how to reverse these trends, social networking could end up as a niche market in the cyber
ad world, slashing valuations across Silicon Valley.
SMART BADGES
In other news (and forms) of social networking technology, smart conference badges might be able to
help people venture out, form new connections, and
gain insight into how they
interact with others at such
events. Technology Review
reports MIT researchers
tracked the social interactions of a select group of
attendees at a conference
using a smart badge incorporating an infrared sensor,
wireless radio, accelerometer, and microphone to log
the bearer’s behavior. The data from the sensors was
wirelessly transmitted to a computer that produced
a real-time visualization of the event’s social graph.
The project illustrates the increasing popularity of
sociometrics, a discipline in which sensors collect
fine-grain data during social interactions and software makes sense of it. Similar tags from Intel are
being used to help monitor the health and behavior
of the elderly. Rick Borovoy, co-founder and CTO
of MIT’s spin-off company nTag, contends this
form of “reality mining” creates a sense of community and identity. “It’s a way to subtly intervene and
disrupt conventional networking patterns.” c
DOI: 10.1145/1330311.1330314
