A growing number of Chinese are afflicted with Internet addiction. China, which is home to the world’s largest online population clocking in at 253 million people and growing, is reporting that about 10 percent of China’s Web users under the age of 18, or four million people, are addicted to the Internet, mainly to “unhealthy” online games. Recent research by Internet media company InterActiveCorp showed that 42 percent of Chinese youngsters polled felt “addicted” to the Web, compared to 18 percent in the United States. China is defining this addiction as users More»

Labels: internet, web

Adobe today announced its Creative Suite (CS) 4 software package. CS 4 includes Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design editions, Creative Suite 4 Web editions, Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Creative Suite 4 Master Collection, as well as 13 point products, 14 integrated technologies and seven services. CS4 is supposed to provide the design and development tools for cross-media technologies.
“Designers and developers are shaping the way that people consume information, share ideas, sell products, tell stories and create memorable experiences — in print, online and via mobile handsets” according to Shantanu Narayen, President More»

Labels: Adobe, flash, RIA, web, web 2.0

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Founder of the Web, today announced the formation of the new World Wide Web Foundation which seeks to:
1. to advance One Web that is free and open
2. to expand the Web’s capability and robustness
3. to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet
The Web Foundation will reach its objectives by funding projects around the world through the following strategically integrated programs: Web Science and Research, Web Technology and Practice, and Web for Society.
In an interview with the BBC, Berners-Lee said:
Alongside this role it will More»

Labels: tim berners-lee, web

Inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee,  says that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is falling behind other browsers - such as Firefox,  Safari, and others - in the support of scalable vector graphics (SVG). “If you look around at browsers, you’ll find that most of them support scalable vector graphics. I’ll let you figure out which one has been slow in supporting SVG.” said Berners-Lee.
SVG image files scale without degrading in image quality and resolution. Maps are popularly created as SVG file formats. Currently, the IE browser, including More»

Labels: firefox, internet explorer, Microsoft, tim berners-lee, web, web browser

As part of an estimated $6M settlement of a lawsuit against Target by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), Amazon will be required to make the Web more accessible. According to the Financial Times, Amazon Enterprise Solutions which provides Web technology to the sites of Target, Marks & Spencer, Mothercare, Lacoste, and Timex, will be required “to ensure ‘full and equal’ access for blind people both to its own site, and to those of the merchants it supports”.
The Target suit claims that alternate text and accessible image maps are missing More»

Labels: design, usability 2.0, user experience, web

Microsoft today released IE8 Beta 2 for public download. The newest iteration of the browser was created around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services).
The new browser promises an improved tab and navigation experience. When navigating to a web site in IE8, the smart address bar searches across Favorites, History, and RSS feeds More»

Labels: browsers, internet explorer, Microsoft, msft, Privacy, usability, user experience, web, web browsers

Craig Newmark, Founder, of Craigslist and Keynote at our Web 2.0 Conference & Expo in January, has provided an interesting commentary on CNN.com on how the Internet can strengthen democracy. He writes:
“…people are using the Internet as the platform for tools for elections and governance. Speaking as a nerd, I love the technology, but what really matters is the means by which we all can use the Net to strengthen democracy in the USA.”
He goes on to say:
After the participatory campaign, how do we build what some call “participatory democracy” or “networked More»

Labels: internet, web, web 2.0

The American zest for mobile Web usage is increasing and outpacing Europe quickly. According to data released today by Bango, a mobile analytics and mobile Internet access provider, the U.S. is expected to top mobile Web usage by the end of the month. Bango’s July data shows that UK was at the top of the list at 19.35%, the US at 18.88%, India at 10.82%, South Africa at 8.82% and Indonesia at 4.08%. The company expects the August numbers to show the U.S. has surpassed the U.K. in usage with approximately More»

Labels: Mobile, web

The next version of the Microsoft Internet Explorer  browser will include four new features to protect your privacy. The company has confirmed the following privacy enhancements:

InPrivate™ Browsing lets you control whether or not IE saves your browsing history, cookies, and other data
Delete Browsing History helps you control your browsing history after you’ve visited websites.
InPrivate™ Blocking informs you about content that is in a position to observe your browsing history, and allows you to block it
InPrivate Subscriptions allow you to augment the capability of InPrivate Blocking by subscribing to lists of websites to block or allow.

To browse in private, More»

Labels: browsers, internet explorer, Microsoft, msft, web, web browsers

Could your site map be a design cop-out for poor information architecture? In a recent piece titled, The Site Map: An Information Architecture Cop-Out, usability guru, Jared Spool, contends that users don’t want site maps and if they are asking for it or a large number of them are going to it, that could be indicative of a scent problem.
By itself, “site map” doesn’t give off scent — the clues that tell the user if the link will lead them to their desired content. It’s only in the absence of anything else that gives off scent that users start More»

Labels: internet, usability, usability 2.0, user experience, web