Internet

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a Plymouth Superior Court...

The organization overseeing a major expansion of Internet addresses has reopened its system for letting companies and organizations submit proposals. The Web-based system had been shut down since April 12 because of a software glitch that exposed some private data. At the time, the system was supposed to reopen within four business days. But it took longer to fix the problem and to notify affected applicants. Up to 1,000 domain name suffixes — the ".com" part of an Internet address — could be added each year in the most sweeping change to the domain name system since its creation...

Even the hottest initial public stock offerings can lose steam after their first day of trading. Sure, company insiders will make money selling at the opening price. And investors who used connections or big bucks to score shares at the IPO price will profit if they sell after a first-day "pop. " For everyone else, the wildly mixed record of other ballyhooed IPOs beyond their first trading session offers a lesson. It's one that should remind us that buying Facebook stock Friday provides a chance to lose money.

It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island. More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere.

Facebook was supposed to soar. Instead, it plunged. After the social network's stock fizzled on Friday in its long-awaited debut, its stock fell 11 percent on Monday, even as the rest of the stock market rallied. The downward spiral has left some people sitting on big losses, and others scratching their heads. After all, nothing fundamental has changed at Facebook in the days since the much-hyped company came to the stock market — Facebook still has more than 900 million users, its 28-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg controls the company, and it is still one of the few...

Ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe that the Internet threatens their way of life have rented the New York Mets' stadium for an unprecedented gathering on how to use modern technology in a religiously appropriate way. More than 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men plan to pack Citi Field for Sunday's gathering on the dangers of the Internet, and organizers have also rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd. "It's going to be inspiration and education about using technology responsibly in accordance with Jewish...

It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island. More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere.

Poland's prime minister says his country will not ratify an international copyright agreement that has infuriated Internet users and acknowledged he was wrong to have ever supported it. The move marks a victory for grass-roots activists who have been waging protests for weeks against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, a treaty aimed at fighting international property theft. The critics say it would violate freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday that although Poland signed the treaty last month it...

NEW YORK -- Joining the trend of TV shows migrating to the Internet, a pair of episodes from the CBS comedies "Two and a Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother" are being offered for free video streaming this week from the Yahoo website. Available through next Monday, the half-hour shows will be available without commercials, CBS and Yahoo said. It is the first time that Yahoo is streaming episodes of a CBS television series in their entirety. With the recent introduction of Apple's video iPod, ABC began making available reruns of series including "Desperate Housewives" for download to...

WASHINGTON -- A multibillion-dollar program that links schools and libraries to the Internet has weak federal oversight, congressional auditors have found. The $2.25 billion-a-year "E-rate" program provides discounted Internet access and equipment to help expand Internet availability, particularly for people in poor and remote areas. Yet repeated cases of fraud and abuse, both by schools and libraries that get the money and by companies that provide the services, have drawn the ire of Congress.

Subscriber figures and other data from selected Internet service providers: April 19: Verizon Communications Inc. added 193,000 FiOS Internet customers in the first three months of the year to end the quarter with 5 million. The company says it will stop selling DSL Internet service in areas where FiOS is available. DSL is slightly cheaper than FiOS Internet service, but much slower. April 24: AT&T Inc. says it added 718,000 subscribers to its U-verse high-speed Internet service in the first quarter to reach 5.9 million.

Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attended a rally Sunday at the New York Mets' stadium on the dangers of the Internet and how to use modern technology in a religiously responsible way. Women were not permitted to attend the meeting at Citi Field in Queens. However, it was broadcast live to audiences of women in schools and event halls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The event garnered so much interest that organizers rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd.

Facebook Inc. and its shareholders raised $16 billion in an initial public offering of stock. It is the largest IPO by far for an Internet company. The amount raised comes from how many shares were sold by the company and its early investors — 421.2 million — at the IPO price of $38. Shares sold in an IPO are typically just a fraction of the total shares a company has issued. That's why, at an IPO price of $38 per share, all of Facebook's share give the company an initial market value of $104 billion.

The U.S. Congress is too badly divided to act on Internet gambling, so individual states will start approving it on their own within the next two years, panelists at a major casino conference predicted Thursday. Speaking at the East Coast Gaming Congress, casino and political leaders predicted online gambling will become a reality on a state-by-state basis. New Jersey hopes to become the "Silicon Valley of Internet gambling," and its legislature is working on a bill to legalize it. "Those who think the U.S. government will pass a law, a federal Internet...

Puerto Rico plans to open dozens of new Internet centers and offer more free Wi-Fi connections in public plazas this year. The Board of Telecommunications of the U.S. territory said Friday that it will open 41 centers with free Web access by the beginning of 2013. It also plans to install Wi-Fi in 36 plazas. Eight computer centers and 34 plazas already offer such services. The push comes as the Caribbean island seeks to connect more people to the Internet. About a fourth of the Puerto Rico's 3.9 million inhabitants are connected to the Web now. ...

Dog breeders who skirt animal welfare laws by selling puppies over the Internet would face tighter scrutiny under a rule change proposed Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The change would subject dog owners who breed more than four females and sell the puppies electronically, by mail or over the phone to the same oversight faced by wholesale dealers as part of the Animal Welfare Act. That law, written in 1966, set standards of care for animals bred for commercial sale and research.

The idea behind ROFLCon is an ambitious one: to bring a swath of the Internet's pop culture players and viral celebrities together under one roof. Every other year since 2008, the Rolling on the Floor Laughing Convention has done just that, and the third installment of the culture conference — to be held this Friday and Saturday at MIT — promises more. Think of it as an academic gathering where the subject matter includes Internet memes and all things viral. "It's for people who study memes and online community — and for people who were momentarily famous on the Internet,"...

Turkey’s government has defended a new regulation that will filter the Internet and restrict access to websites that show pornography, bomb-making and violent content. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Tuesday that among websites the government wants restricted are also those “explaining how to kill your wife.’’ Critics say the new regulation, set to come into effect in August, amounts to more censorship in an already heavy-handed effort to control information.