social networking

Four out of five adults view Internet access as their fundamental right. So says a new BBC World Service global poll of 27,000 adults across 26 countries.

Conducted by GlobeScan, the poll reveals that 87 percent of survey participants who use the Internet feel web access should be the "fundamental right of all people." Seventy-one percent of non-Internet users agreed with that statement. South Korea, Mexico and China saw the highest percentage of users who feel Net access is a fundamental right.

Jason Epste

Google might figuratively be doing a backflip Thursday with news that AT&T will, for the first time, offer a mobile device based on the software and search giant's open-source Android mobile operating system. Appropriately, the device is Motorola's Backflip smartphone.

A student who set up a Facebook page to complain about her teacher -- and was later suspended -- had every right to do so under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate has ruled.

The ruling not only allows Katherine "Katie" Evans' suit against the principal to move forward, it could set a precedent in cases involving speech and social networking on the Internet, experts say.

The courts are in the early stages of exploring the limits of free speech within social networking, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the Florida ACLU, which filed the suit on Evans' behalf.

HTC unveiled an advanced handset Wednesday that is powered by Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) platform -- which provides developers with the technology for porting their applications between all Qualcomm devices. The move marks a major departure for the Taiwan-based company, which has heavily invested in the development of handsets based on Google's Android platform and Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS.

At the Mobile World Congress 2010 on Monday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered a sneak peak of the Windows Phone 7 Series. The new platform signals the software giant's intent to compete head-on with Apple and Google for mobile market share.

Microsoft is pushing an integrated-experiences message with its latest mobile platform. Phones featuring the new operating system will be in stories in time for the 2010 holiday shopping season.

Users of AOL's main instant-messaging service can now chat directly with friends on Facebook.

AOL Inc. said Wednesday that a new version of the AIM software connects with the chat function on Facebook's Web site, letting AIM users communicate with friends who are logged on to the social network.

The AIM user still needs a Facebook account, however, and it's the Facebook persona rather than AIM's that appears to the friend on Facebook.

If you have an image of young people continuously blogging and tweeting, it's time to recalibrate. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, Millennials are doing less blogging but more social networking.

The study, entitled Social Media and Young Adults and released Wednesday, says blogging has declined among users age 30 and under, but increased somewhat among those over 30. Teens in general are not doing a lot of tweeting on Twitter, except for high-school girls.

Micro-Blogging for Macro-Blogging?

The cloud-computing market may get hotter this year as Salesforce.com appears to be paving the acquisitions road. The enterprise cloud-computing company last week moved to raise $500 million, adding to its billion-dollar cash reserves.

Since then, speculation has been fierce about what the company plans to do with the money. Some are betting Salesforce will scoop up e-mail marketing-software company Constant Contact. Others are predicting the firm will acquire the likes of a SuccessFactors or Taleo. Still others expect Salesforce to purchase RightNow.

This week, the crew aboard the International Space Station got a treat from NASA. The three-person crew received software enabling them to use the Internet, and it didn't take long for the Expedition 22 flight crew to send the first live tweet from space. Engineer T.J. Creamer, who uses @Astro_TJ, sent the first tweet Friday at 3:58 a.m. Eastern time directly from the space station.

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s," wrote Creamer.