PCIN.net Update

From CNet News:

China is winning the war on Internet pornography but it will be hard to eradicate entirely as many Web sites are based outside of the country, a senior police official said Thursday.

China routinely blocks access to Internet sites on sensitive subjects such as self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as its own, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations, which were crushed by the military with heavy loss of life.

Regulations also target sites that publish fabricated information and content deemed to harm national security.

“The spread of Web sites that involve pornography has been bought under effective control,” Zhao Shiqiang, vice head of the Ministry of Public Security’s Internet security and supervision bureau, told a news conference.

From the New York Times:

Intel, the world’s biggest chip maker, is breaking away from its longstanding love affair with pure computing power to remake itself as a consumer-friendly brand that will seek to dominate the digital home.

Intel’s strategy, based on a new generation of multimedia platforms and chips, will be unveiled next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For consumers, the technology shift will mean laptop computers with longer battery life and computers that will become digital entertainment hubs in the living room.

When Paul S. Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, takes the stage at the show Thursday, he is expected to present a new Intel focused on selling a digital lifestyle rather than hardware.

From MediaPost:

These days, women and men go online in almost equal proportions, but what they do on the Web is another matter entirely. Men are more likely than women to check weather and news, download music, and get financial information; women are more likely to look for health and medical information, use e-mail, and–clichéd though it may be–seek out maps and directions online than are men. Those are some of the findings of a new study that examines gender and Internet use, by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The report, “How Women and Men Use the Internet,” found that 68 percent of men were Internet users as of September, compared with 66 percent of women. Those figures represent gains for women from March of 2000, when a previous Pew study found that 49 percent of men and 44 percent of women used the Web. For the report, Pew looked at several separate telephone surveys it conducted between March 2000 and September 2005; the total number of respondents in 2005 alone was 6,403.

From the New York Times:

On New Year’s Eve, don’t be surprised to witness more heartfelt celebrating than usual; 2005 was not a year noted for its tidings of good cheer, and plenty of people will be happy to see it go.

Still, there were inspiring and gratifying success stories if you knew where to look - and the high-tech industry was one of them. Google Earth redefined how we think of our planet, the Razr phone proved that people do care about beauty, and the iPod - well, you know all about the iPod.

But some of the year’s greatest joys weren’t new products, but aspects of new products. Here and there, you could find tiny touches of brilliance: clever steps forward and new spins on old features that somehow made it through committee, past the bean counters and under the radar of marketing departments.

Here they are, the 10 best gadget ideas of 2005:

From CNN:

A 69-year-old grandmother has become the heroine of young video-game fans and the star of a Web log created by her grandson.

Barbara St. Hilaire plays video games 10 hours a day and spends a good part of her Social Security check on games.

St. Hilaire thinks the blog and media attention she’s gotten is funny but doesn’t quite understand it. However, she appreciates the free games showered on her by video game makers who want to share in the reflected glare of publicity.