internet

Internet

Internet suspended, section 144 imposed in four Rajasthan districts after violent protests

a group of people sitting and standing in front of a building: In the last three days, six trucks, five buses, four police vehicles, nine cars, nine tempos and one motorcycle have been torched. (HT Photo)

© Provided by Hindustan Times
In the last three days, six trucks, five buses, four police vehicles, nine cars, nine tempos and one motorcycle have been torched. (HT Photo)

Internet was suspended in four tribal districts of southern Rajasthan on Saturday and section 144 was imposed, prohibiting assembly of more than five people, following violent protests in Dungarpur district by tribal youth over teacher recruitment examination.

On Thursday, hundreds of tribal youths blocked national highway No. 8 in Dungarpur before setting vehicles on fire and injuring several policemen. The protesters demanded filling of 1,167 unreserved posts of government teachers with ST candidates.

In the last three days, six trucks, five buses, four police vehicles, nine cars, nine tempos and one motorcycle have been torched. More than 1,000 rubber bullets were fired to bring the situation under control.

As tension continued in Dungarpur, three neighbouring districts, Udaipur, Banswara and Pratapgarh, suspended

Internet

Justice Dept moves to make it easier to sue internet companies

By Gertha Selvidge 2 weeks ago

The Trump Administration is proposing to dramatically roll back some legal protections for internet companies including Facebook and Twitter.

a man wearing a suit and tie smiling at the camera: William Barr

© Bill Pugliano / Getty Images
William Barr

The Department of Justice has proposed that Congress amend part of a 1996 law that gives internet platforms broad immunity from civil lawsuits. Known as Section 230, the law exempts internet companies that host content created by others from claims of liability, even if they exercise some control over what users can post.

Section 230 is broadly responsible for the shape of the internet as it exists today, say tech experts, because it allowed companies to set rules for what users could and couldn’t post without being liable for all of the content. It paved the way for the growth of sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

Under Attorney General Bill Barr’s proposal, platforms would lose their legal immunity if they knowingly

Internet

EDITORIAL: Bill would help close state’s internet divide

By Gertha Selvidge 2 weeks ago

Categories: Editorial, Opinion

The coronavirus crisis exposed a lot of unexpected holes in our preparedness for various problems —everything from not having enough intensive-care hospital beds to running short of toilet paper.

With regard to educating our youth and accessing health care, we realized we don’t have enough broadband access to serve everyone. Worse, we don’t even know exactly where the gaps are in coverage or how bad the problem is.

Inadequate or nonexistent high-speed affordable internet access is particularly a problem for many students and their teachers at home trying to fulfill their educational goals.

It’s particularly a problem for New Yorkers needing to communicate with medical professionals through tele-health.

It’s particularly a problem when it comes to helping our ravaged economy recover from the crisis because the new at-home worker doesn’t have adequate internet service and businesses can’t meet the needs of their growing base of internet customers.

Internet

The bipartisan effort to change laws about speech on the internet

By Gertha Selvidge 2 weeks ago

Internet companies, websites and web applications have a kind of legal immunity that they say makes the internet as we know it possible. First, they’re generally immune from legal liability if a Facebook or Twitter user posts something illegal. They’re also immune from liability if they take down a post they find objectionable. Users generally can’t legally challenge that.

There’s a concerted campaign underway in Congress to roll back some of that immunity. “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour spoke about that effort with Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: Just how big is this effort to weaken these types of legal immunity the internet companies enjoy?

Daphne Keller: It is very big. It has support on both sides of the aisle, although you find that often what

Internet

DepEd pushes for internet allowance for teachers for blended learning

By Gertha Selvidge 3 weeks ago

Saul Loeb/AFP

The Department of Education (DepEd) is preparing for the possible provision of internet allowance for teachers and other personnel for blended learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a budget hearing on Tuesday, DepEd Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla requested lawmakers from the House of Representatives to make the provision of the internet allowance legal.

She explained that providing the allowance first needs to undergo the process of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) as well as the Commission on Audit (COA).

“We are just complying with whatever would be authorized as an allowance kasi meron din batas dito kagaya ng Salary Standardization Law na in-enumerate kung ano lang ang valid allowances,” she said.

“Automatic po ‘yan, magkakaroon po tayo ng COA finding kapag nagbigay tayo ng allowance na hindi naman po nakalagay sa General Appropriations Act at Salary Standardization Law,” she added.

Marikina City Representative Stella Quimbo vowed support

Internet

Eugene’s urban reserve options, high-speed Internet in Springfield

By Gertha Selvidge 3 weeks ago

Eugene City Council & Lane County Board of Commissioners

The multistory corridor between the Lane County Courthouse and the Lane County Public Service Building. [Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard] - registerguard.com

The multistory corridor between the Lane County Courthouse and the Lane County Public Service Building. [Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard] – registerguard.com

Details: 5:30 p.m., Monday, joint Eugene City Council and Lane County Board of Commissioners work session, (Attend online: https://bit.ly/32HiVXR; https://bit.ly/2DTOhkz)

What: The joint work session Monday will provide the Eugene City Council and the Lane County Board of Commissioners with an update on planning work for urban reserves, which involves identifying land for potential future expansion of urban growth boundaries. The joint meeting sets up October meetings for the governing bodies in which staff will be given direction on preferred urban reserve options to bring into the formal adoption process. The two bodies have joint project decision-making authority.

The Eugene Planning Commission made its recommendation on Aug. 17, choosing an option that reserves enough land to meet the projected needs

Internet

Sarasota County libraries look to the Internet to boost digital literacy

By Gertha Selvidge 4 weeks ago

Emily Wunderlich

| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

As a digital services librarian for Sarasota County, Heather Gorman was used to seeing 30 people at a time who wanted to learn about using their iPhone, iPad or other Apple devices.

Public libraries, she said, have always been an “institutional mainstay” where people could go for answers – whether for research, entertainment or simply learning a new skill.

But all of that changed in March, when libraries closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The closures challenged the county library system to rethink the way it continued to offer public services.

“Since the closure, we’ve really had to pivot the way we’re reaching our patrons through programming,” she said. “We aren’t able to physically meet them at the library due to social distancing, but we wanted to meet them online.”

Most of the county’s branch libraries reopened with modified hours on June 15. Patrons are

Internet

Lack of internet access continues to impact students’ online learning experiences – The Cavalier Daily

By Gertha Selvidge 4 weeks ago

Varied accessibility to broadband internet has compromised the quality of education for University students, as most classes are online and rely on high speed internet for synchronous remote learning — just 27 percent of classes have an in-person component.

Broadband refers to a high-speed internet that is always on. According to a report from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, approximately 10 percent of college students in Virginia do not have access to broadband. For Virginia students overall, those in rural areas tend to have less access than those in urban areas. The University, the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are all classified as rural according to the report.

Fourth-year College student Avery Gagne stayed home in Mechanicsville, Va. when students were sent back last spring and for the first two weeks of this semester. He has only one internet service provider available at his address. As

Internet

Smart Home Market Worth $144 Billion by 2025| Growing Significance of Internet of Things (IoT) to Promote the market

By Gertha Selvidge 4 weeks ago

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Sep 16, 2020 (Heraldkeepers) —
Smart home is a suitable home system where appliances and devices can be controlled remotely from any internet-connected place in the world using a smartphone or any other networked devices. The smart home system requires an interface application or web portal to interact with the automated system. The growth of the smart homes market is primarily driven by factors, such as perpetually growing internet users, increased adoption of smart devices, awareness of fit and healthy lifestyles, and rising sense of home safety and security.

Rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) has certainly encouraged the concept of using smart devices across different end-use sectors including residential, industrial, and commercial sectors from past few years. However, the concept of smart home is not just a technological wave topass without making much impact on

Internet

Colorado spending $2M to provide internet access to students | Govt-and-politics

By Gertha Selvidge 1 month ago

DENVER (AP) — Colorado will spend $2 million in federal pandemic relief funding to provide internet access to students who lack service as part of an overall effort to close the digital divide in both rural and urban parts of the state as the pandemic has forced many to rely on online learning.

State education commissioner Kathy Anthes announced the plan on Wednesday, joined by Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser. School districts will be able to apply for grants to pay for hotspots to provide internet access to households as well as things like mobile hotspot trucks that may work better in rural areas, she said.

“Broadband access is now an essential school supply. It’s a non negotiable,” she said at the Fort Logan Northgate School in the Sheridan School District 2 in Denver.

Weiser also announced that T-Mobile would provide up to 34,000 low-income student households