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The Alliance For Affordable Internet
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is an initiative to make the Internet more affordable to people around the world. The World Wide Web Foundation serves as the Secretariat, and major members of coalition include Google, the Omidyar Network, the Department for International Development, USAID, Facebook, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, UN Women and many others from the public, private and civil society sectors. History Purpose A4AI was created with the goal of obtaining global broadband internet access priced at less than 5% of average per capita income globally; the target of the UN Broadband Commission. It cites the lack of investment in infrastructure, competition in the market, and inefficient taxation, amongst other policy and regulatory obstacles, as being major constraints to reducing prices. It claims the internet as being an essential source of information and services for all and advocates an open, competitive broadband and telecommunications market, regulated by an i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Wide Web Foundation
The World Wide Web Foundation, also known as the Web Foundation, is a US-based international nonprofit organization advocating for a free and open web for everyone. It was cofounded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Rosemary Leith. Announced in September 2008 in Washington, D.C., the Web Foundation launched operations in November 2009 at the Internet Governance Forum. The Web Foundation is focused on increasing global access to the World Wide Web while ensuring the web is a safe and empowering tool that people can use freely and fully to improve their lives. One of its former board members was Gordon Brown, former prime minister of the United Kingdom. Mission The Web Foundation's mission is to advance the open web as a public good and a basic right. It seeks to achieve digital equality; a world where everyone has the same rights and opportunities online. In an open letter published in March 2018, Web Foundation founder Berners-Lee called for actio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news featuring columnists. It was created to provide a progressive alternative to the conservative news websites such as the Drudge Report. The site offers content posted directly on the site as well as user-generated content via video blogging, audio, and photo. In 2012, the website became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize. Founded by Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, the site was launched on May 9, 2005 as a counterpart to the Drudge Report. In March 2011, it was acquired by AOL for US ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
O3b Networks
O3b Networks Ltd. was a network communications service provider building and operating a medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation primarily intended to provide voice and data communications to mobile operators and Internet service providers. O3b Networks became a wholly owned subsidiary of SES S.A. in 2016 and the operator name was subsequently dropped in favour of SES Networks, a division of SES. The satellites themselves, now part of the SES fleet, continue to use the O3b name. Overview The network combines the relatively large reach of satellite with high speed and medium latency to deliver satellite Internet services and mobile backhaul services to emerging markets. The name "O3b" stands for "Other 3 billion", referring to the population of the world where broadband Internet is not currently available. Orbiting at an altitude of , less than one quarter of the altitude of geostationary satellites, the O3b satellite constellation of 20 Ka-band based satell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Loon
Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of to to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbit/s speeds. A reference to the balloons used, Project Loon began as a research and development project by X (formerly Google X) in 2011, but later spun out into a separate company in July 2018. In January 2021, it was announced that the company would be shut down due to lack of profitability. The balloons were maneuvered by adjusting their altitude in the stratosphere to float to a wind layer after identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction using wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Users of the service connected to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal travelled through the balloon network from balloon to balloon, then to a ground ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA), two of five international organizations owned by the World Bank Group. It was established along with the International Monetary Fund at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference. After a slow start, its first loan was to France in 1947. In the 1970s, it focused on loans to developing world countries, shifting away from that mission in the 1980s. For the last 30 years, it has included NGOs and environmental groups in its loan portfolio. Its loan strategy is influenced by the Sustainable Development Goals as well as environmental and social safeguards. , the World Bank is run by a president and 25 executive directors, as well as 29 various vic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Service Fund
The Universal Service Fund (USF) is a system of telecommunications subsidies and fees managed by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intended to promote universal access to telecommunications services in the United States. The FCC established the fund in 1997 in compliance with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The FCC is a government agency that implements and enforces telecommunications regulations across the U.S. and its territories. The Universal Service Fund's budget ranges from $5–8 billion per year depending on the needs of the telecommunications providers. These needs include the cost to maintain the hardware needed for their services and the services themselves. The total 2019 proposed budget for the USF was $8.4 billion. The budget is revised quarterly allowing the service providers to accurately estimate their costs. As of 2019, roughly 60% of the USF budget was put towards “high-cost” areas, 19% went to libraries and schools, 13% was for low ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-liberalism
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent factor in the rise of conservative and libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them, it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. The defining features of neoliberalism in both thought and practice have been the subject of substantial scholarly debate. As an economic philosophy, neoliberalism emerged among European liberal scholars in the 1930s as they attempted to revive and renew central ideas from classical liberalism as they saw these ideas diminish in po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Less Developed Countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreement on which countries fit this category. The term low and middle-income country (LMIC) is often used interchangeably but refers only to the economy of the countries. The World Bank classifies the world's economies into four groups, based on gross national income per capita: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low income countries. Least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states are all sub-groupings of developing countries. Countries on the other end of the spectrum are usually referred to as high-income countries or developed countries. There are controversies over this term's use, which some feel it perpetuates an outdated concept of "us" and "them". In 2015, the World Bank declared that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Gurstein
Michael Gurstein (October 2, 1944 – October 8, 2017) was a Canadian best known for his work in the development and definition of community informatics as the area of research and practice concerned with enabling and empowering communities through the use of information and communications technology. He was a native of Edmonton, Alberta, but grew up in Melfort, Saskatchewan and did his first degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Philosophy and Politics. Gurstein held a PhD in Social Science from Cambridge University. Early working life Gurstein worked as a senior civil servant for the Province of British Columbia in 1972–1974 and for the Province of Saskatchewan (Department of Northern Saskatchewan) in 1974–1975. He then established and ran a management consulting firm, Socioscope, undertaking research linking organizations to information technology. While working as a management adviser at the United Nations in New York (1992–1995), he was offered a post as Associ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technology Review
''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey. In September 2005, it was changed, under its then editor-in-chief and publisher, Jason Pontin, to a form resembling the historical magazine. Before the 1998 re-launch, the editor stated that "nothing will be left of the old magazine except the name." It was therefore necessary to distinguish between the modern and the historical ''Technology Review''. The historical magazine had been published by the MIT Alumni Association, was more closely aligned with the interests of MIT alumni, and had a more intellectual tone and much smaller public circulation. The magazine, billed from 1998 to 2005 as "MIT's Magazine of Innovation," and from 2005 onwards as simply "published by MIT ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Talbot
David Talbot (born September 22, 1951) is an American journalist, author, activist and independent historian. Talbot is known for his books about the "hidden history" of U.S. power and the liberal movements to change America, as well as his public advocacy. He was also the founder and former editor-in-chief of the pioneering web magazine, ''Salon''. Talbot founded ''Salon'' in 1995. The magazine gained a large following and broke several major national stories. Since leaving ''Salon'', Talbot has researched and written on the Kennedy assassination and other areas of what he calls "hidden history." Talbot has worked as a senior editor for ''Mother Jones'' magazine and a features editor for ''The San Francisco Examiner'', and has written for ''Time'' magazine, ''The New Yorker'', ''Rolling Stone'', and other publications. In addition to his work as an independent historian, Talbot has been deeply engaged in political activism, especially in his hometown, San Francisco, where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and Web application, applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), email, electronic mail, internet telephony, telephony, and file sharing. The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
