Happy birthday to the web! Trust me, your thirties aren’t so bad. A petition signed by 250 scientists raises concerns about electromagnetic fields from wireless devices. And if you’re still using Windows 7, here’s why you might want to upgrade sooner than later.
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I’m taking a 30-hour journey with @webfoundation to celebrate the web’s 30th birthday.
First stop @CERN — where it all began.
We’ll be visiting London, UK today and finishing in Lagos, Nigeria tomorrow.
Follow the celebrations at #Web30 #ForTheWeb. pic.twitter.com/utQlJC8bNj
— Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) March 12, 2019
Trending on Twitter, yesterday was the world wide web’s 30th birthday! To celebrate the occasion, web inventor Tim Berners-Lee visited CERN, the lab where he wrote the code for what he thought would be an information management system. Today, half of the world is online. There’s no doubt the web is an amazing invention and has done wonders for sharing information around the world. But Berners-Lee also reflects on three sources of dysfunction on the web:
- There is deliberate malicious intent from hackers and state-sponsored sources.
- There’s a system design that creates “perverse incentives.” Think of ad-based revenue models leading to fake news and click farms.
- Unintended negative consequences of good intent, such as the divisive tone of debate that you see on many social networks.
Berners-Lee says there’s no easy fix. We need to work towards a Contract for the Web that’s respected by government, corporations, and users.
Trending on Google, a group of scientists are concerned about the electromagnetic radiation created by popular wireless devices. Whether it’s Bluetooth headphones or cell phones, the wireless devices we carry around with us every day do give off some electro-magnetic field. But government safety regulations around the world all agree those levels are far below what poses a serious risk to human health. Still, in this petition to the United Nations and the World Health Organization, 250 scientists say they want more protective guidelines. There are other scientists that say the research conducted so far shows no credible reason to consider wireless devices a risk.
Trending on Youtube, Linus Tech Tips looks at what happens when Windows 7 dies. Yes Windows 10 has been out for almost four years now. But some people still choose to use Windows 7, either for preference or just out of sheer laziness. Well Linus has a message for you:
There are options to buy service support packs if you absolutely must stick with Windows 7. But that gets costly.
