Edupage, November 27, 2000

The Web is a vital source of medical information for American Internet users, although many users harbor privacy concerns over the storage of medical records on the Internet, according to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The report surveyed more than 12,000 people, determining that 52 million Americans have gone online to become more informed about medical problems. Roughly 55 percent of all Web users have gone online to seek out health-related information, making the activity more popular than online shopping or searching for sports scores and stock quotes, according to the report. Some 41 percent of those polled said data found on the Internet helped inform their medical decisions, such as whether to see a doctor. Internet users are wary of placing their medical records online due to privacy concerns, with 63 percent of those surveyed saying they oppose the storage of medical records on the Web, even if the information is guarded by passwords.(Wall Street Journal, 27 November 2000)

Edupage, November 20, 2000

A group of libraries from around the world began testing the Comprehensive Digital Reference Service, a free service that will help users find information on the Internet by directing inquiries to the appropriate library. The Internet often provides too many search results or questionable information, and the libraries hope to bring a higher quality of information online by providing access to their wealth of research collections and specialized catalogs. A network will route questions to the library best suited to provide an answer, based on the libraries' expertise, hours of operation, and other considerations. Although the group will initially focus on answering questions in English, the service should eventually accommodate up to 20 languages. The group, which expects to launch its Web site officially by June, has about 60 members, including Yale, Harvard, the National Gallery of Art, the National Library of Australia, and the Duke University Divinity School. (Baltimore Sun, 20 November 2000)

Edupage, November 17, 2000

ICANN initiated the largest structural change the Internet has seen since the late 1980s as it approved seven new top-level domain names: .info and .biz as general TLDs, .pro for professionals, .name for personal sites, .museums for museums, .aero for airlines, and .coop for business cooperatives. ICANN's staff will negotiate with the chosen organizations to help balance the business and technical portions of the new TLDs. Because the general public is already comfortable with .com, it will likely take a great deal of marketing to get people used to the newly available TLDs, says Register.com's Sloan D. Gaon. The new domains will not be used until spring of 2001 at the earliest. Afilias, a consortium of 19 domain name registrars, including VeriSign and Register.com, will handle the .info TLD; JVTeam will handle the .biz TLD; the Global Name Registry will handle .name; the National Cooperative Business Association, which will handle .coop, is unique because it does not currently have a large Web presence. (New York Times, 17 November 2000)

"Google has quietly rolled out a new feature that allows searchers to find information contained in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files, effectively revealing a significant portion of what's known as the Invisible Web."  Did you know that most search engines don't search PDF files? That there is an entire "invisible web" out there? This article discusses how Google is now adding PDF files to its database of searchable pages. Check this link for more details.