Videos
Podcasts
Blogs
Quizzes
GamesPosts Tagged: ‘Internet Explorer’
Does your Web browser say something about your intelligence?
by Jonathan Strickland | August 3, 2011
A couple of days ago, a story made the rounds that a company called AptiQuant had conducted a study that found a correlation between intelligence of Web surfers and their browser of choice. Respectable news sources like The Telegraph reported on the findings. According to the report, people who rely on Internet Explorer possess below-average intelligence. Those who use Chrome and Firefox are slightly more intelligent than average. The real eggheads use Camino, Opera or Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame. Numerous jokes, insults and flame wars soon followed the report. But there’s just one problem — the whole thing might be a sham.
Are you looking at stuff on the web that you don’t want other people to know about? Modern browsers give you a way to protect yourself from embarrassment or discovery. For example, Google’s Chrome browser offers “incognito mode” as described here…
I thought I felt a disturbance in the Force this morning. The source: Google. The search giant dropped an enormous bomb on me today: Sidewiki.
Sidewiki is a browser tool — it plugs in to Firefox or Internet Explorer (no Google Chrome support for a Google tool? How odd!). It allows you to write and read annotations to any Web site. Let me say that again: you can add content (or read content added by other people) to any site on the Web using this tool.
The additional information appears in a sidebar to the left of the body of the Web site (the tool shifts the rest of the site over to the right in a squished view). The data can include thoughts, comments and even active links to other Web sites. More on that later.
The only way you can read added material is to download the tool and activate it yourself while viewing a Web page. User-generated content won’t just pop up on the site on its own. But this tool could conceivably make a huge impact on the Web.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether the boards of directors at Google and Apple are violating antitrust laws. As it stands, the two companies share two directors. One of them is Arthur Levinson, the former CEO of biotech firm Genentech. The other is Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s CEO. According to an article by Miguel Helft and Brad Stone in The New York Times this morning, Google and Apple may be violating section 8 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. The law prohibits boards from sharing directors if it interferes with the companies competing with one another.
But how do they compete? With the iPhone and smart phones powered by Google’s Android operating system, there’s an increasing amount of competition between the two. And then there’s the Web browser market, in which Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome are nibbling at the heels of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Microsoft and the European Union are engaged in an important antitrust court case. It must be Wednesday.
The Microsoft corporation is no stranger to antitrust lawsuits. Way back in 1989, the United States Federal Trade Commission began an investigation. The FTC was concerned that IBM and Microsoft had formed an alliance that effectively ensured all PCs would ship with the Microsoft version of the DOS operating system. Whether you agree with it or not, the company has a reputation for leveraging its influence to dominate the market.
Skipping ahead to today, Microsoft faces another antitrust case. This time the investigative body is the European Commission (EC), a legislative body of the European Union (EU). The EC has leveled antitrust charges on Microsoft before. This time the focus is on Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer.
The EC has a problem with the way Microsoft bundles Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Sailing, Takes Me Away…To The Seychelles
- Cute Animal Tuesday: Black Vulture
- Traveling on the Orient Express
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- The Seven Deadlies: Pride Cometh Before the Brain
- Warhammer 40K: 25 Years of Orks in Space
- A Visit to the Tellus Science Museum
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
How-to Stuff
- How to Make the Most of a Gallery Crawl (When You’re on a Shoestring Budget)
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 43: Drag Queens: You Better Work!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 42: Road Trip!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 41: Celebrity Couples
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
