Ads, it’s a four letter word to some. You’d think that ads carry some form of plague as much as people try to avoid them. DVR, ad blockers, all serve to quench our thirst for a non-ad world. Hold on a second, what if the ads that were shown to you related to things you enjoy in life. For instance, if you enjoy fighting games what’s wrong with an ad popping up showing off the new Tekken game releasing.

Well, according to this study you don’t even want targeted ads. The study involved two universities who surveyed asked a variety of people if they want targeted online ads. Sixty six percent of the people surveyed they don’t want ads that are targeted to their lives. They were then asked if ad vendors ought to display targeted ads based on tracking customer’s behavior…86% said no.

This survey debunks the constant assurance that marketers are giving people what they want with behavioral targeting. Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the FCC has said the survey could potentially lead to new privacy laws. Below are some fun facts from the survey which hopefully enlighten the right people to show what people really think of behavioral advertising.

- 35% of the respondents company execs should face jail time if they use people’s information illegally

- 18% believe the practice should put companies out of business.

Everyone grab your noise makers, Wikipedia has hit another milestone on it’s way to cataloging all knowledge. It has been eight years since Wikipedia made it’s mark on the world, and here we now sit at 3 million articles. If you don’t like doing math, Wikipedia averaged 1,027 entries a day going into it’s eight year anniversary.

So, what topic was the 3 millionth? It concerns a Norwegian actress by the name of Beate Eriksen. She has appeared in a few soap opera roles, and curiously enough she married one of the actors on the show. It’s quite an interesting story actually…but I better get back on topic.

Over 10 million registered users have taken party in the project thus far, and more than 17 million pages have been created as a result.

Without further adieu, Happy Anniversary Wikipedia!!

While Heath Ledger’s last performance will mostly be known for The Dark Knight, the now dead actor/director had a few smaller projects which have yet been released. First, is a fantasy movie in which Ledger died halfway through production and is called ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’. His second project was his directorial debut and was for a music video for the band, Modest Mouse.

The song is called King Rat, and concerns the the modern whaling practices in Australia. Like his movie, Ledger died while in the middle of his directorial duties for the video. The production company stepped in and finished the video, with a new director.

MySpace is the first to release the music video, and in a good move hasn’t used Ledger’s name as a way to increase traffic. In fact if you don’t know going into watching the video, you’ll more than likely never know that Ledger was the director for the music video. As word catches on there’s no doubt that the page views for the video will continue to rise. And there’s no doubt that this is significant for MySpace, as they’re the sole distributors of the video at this point.

[via: TechCrunch]

Microsoft Silverlight has had an interesting and fluctuating history. Starting out, not very many people paid attention to Silverlight. There were many who believed it was going to be Microsoft’s feeble attempt to compete with Flash. A couple of years later, with Silverlight going into 3.0 things couldn’t be going better. They could, but still Silverlight’s performance is to be commended.

Partnering with different venues, and bringing events like the Olympics, NCAA March Madness online solidified Silverlight’s status as a true player. The question now is, with 3.0 can Microsoft continue the trend?

Microsoft Silverlight 3.0 has some improvements that you should be keeping an eye on. First, is that 3-D support can now be offloaded to a GPU and help provide smoother execution. Also, with Silverlight 3.0 apps can be used outside of a browser. This is probably its greatest addition as the possibilities of Silverlight can only grow with more options provided to developers.

Microsoft has also implemented a new technology called ‘Smooth Streaming’. Coupled with Silverlight, Smooth Streaming is an automated compression system that will play video streams as the maximum allowance by the device and bandwidth.

It’s safe to say that Silverlight is definitely moving in the right direction. It’s not quite up to Flash numbers yet in terms of penetration, but it’s getting there.

Boxee, the cross-platform media center, is now available to Windows users. Just this week, the Internet-media software platform announced the long-awaited rollout of the program for PCs, which was before restricted to Mac, Linux, and Ubuntu. Before Tuesday’s change, Windows devotees had to jump through some serious programming hoops, or just hope that some lesser media player could keep them entertained. Now the worry is over, and Boxee is available to nearly every user, regardless of which platform they are running.

The Windows alpha version of Boxee is compatible with most newer versions of Windows, including XP, Vista, and 7. Windows Media Center will also jibe with Boxee, good news for those who prefer their viewing on HDTV.

Windows compatibility isn’t the only update Boxee revealed. MLB lovers, rejoice. Now, in live on-demand color, Boxee supports the popular Major League Baseball site, which will undoubtedly boost Boxee’s popularity during this year’s baseball season, even though MLB is a paid subscription service.

As if CBS, ABC, CNet, CNN, CBS, Hulu, MTV, MySpaceTV, Netflix, Revision 3, and Comedy Central weren’t enough (to name a few), Boxee has added a new cadre of media options to its roster. New to the Boxee scene is Digg, a popular content-sharing site, where users “digg” up information, articles, songs, or videos, and share them with their network. With the Digg addition comes the ability to view popular Digg videos, and short clips. Full Digg access is still pending.

Tumblr is also available through Boxee, the ability to stream music and slideshows, at least. More Tumblr features may be available in the near future.

In order to improve its look, and feel, Boxee changed a few features on their navigation interface. “Applications” features a menu with the ever-growing list of content that Boxee can display. If it’s on-board media users want to play, they can access that by using the “Local Media” menu. The general look remains the same, but the updates should help new users navigate the overwhelming amount of available options.

Boxee is the clear leader in social networking media, and their popularity is sure to rise as they aggregate nearly every social network on the Web. Since platforms are irrelevant and Boxee users can access nearly everything their Hulu-loving friends can (plus dozens more) Boxee may soon crowd to the top of the pile.

As great as the internet is (porn and Youtube), it isn’t without its problems. As the world becomes more connected, security continues to hassle the wonderfully open nature of the world wide web. Experts are always working hard to beef up security of the internet, but it always seems the criminals are a step ahead.

So, if we’re always behind on security, what could be a potential solution to the problem? According to Stanford researchers, an ‘internet reboot’ could be the answer. In fact they are working on what is called, The Stanford Clean Slate project.

Nick McKeown, a Stanford engineer talks about the initiative behind the project, “Unless we’re willing to rethink today’s Internet… we’re just waiting for a series of public catastrophes”

According to the researchers, the idea of internet security continues to worsen instead of getting better. More types of malware are thrown onto the internet everyday. And it’s a struggle just to keep head above water.

With a complete restart, the internet could be made safe again. Of course, it’s easier said than done, and many questions have to be answered when going forward with such a project.

First, with a new internet, how could security be more improved than what it is now? Would anonymity take a back seat to safety? How would content adapt to new coding, or could sites just instantly show up on the new internet?

Stanford hopes to answer these questions and more as they continue their well funded project. By the end of the summer, the new system will be available across eight campuses worldwide. Here’s hoping it turns out well, and hopefully ‘Internet 2.0′ will be our savior.

[via: NYTimes]