Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Internet (OK, not really, but HTML is pretty important!), has declared that he believes everybody should be given free Internet. He’s not talking about broadband, however, but a free ‘low-bandwidth’ connection to the web.

It is a completely relevant point in today’s world, where more and more services, critical and not so critical, are getting a presence on the web. This kind of thinking is showing up more and more, lately, as the Internet becomes integral with society. Whether or not the Internet should be considered a basic need, like water or electricity, is a question that needs answering, but I worry that governments will try and answer it too soon.

Right now, we don’t need the Internet. We can [barely] get everything we need to do without the net. But soon, the Internet will be so integral to day-to-day activities, that it will need to be thought of as a necessity, rather than a luxury. At the very least, it should be considered as important as a telephone line, and as the most sensible way forward would be for the telephone and television programming to move over to the web (in the form of VOIP and IPTV), that will make the Internet even more critical.

Linked, rather tenuously, to that story, is the story that the new Internet connected set-top box, backed by a host of UK broadcast companies, will be out early next year, and it will be called YouView. The YouView box will offer all the services you would expect from a Freeview box, with added bonus that it is connected to the web, and can receive IPTV. Some other features include the ability to see programs that have been on, not just what is to come, and an ‘Apple-esque app store.’

I consider this a good thing because it shows old school broadcast companies getting behind an [partially] IPTV device, and survival of those companies depends on their ability to move to away from the old business models, or at least modify them to suit the Internet.

Rather than the music and movie industry’s approach, of modifying the Internet, the law and consumer behaviour to suit their business model.

Scientist at Imperial College, London have come up with a new type of portable clothing. It’s so portable because it comes in an aerosol can, and you spray it on your body. There is a link in the links section below to a video of this stuff in action… I did. It uses a mix of plastic, solvent, and cotton fibres which are then sprayed on the wearers skin. The solvent then dissolves, leaving a ready made garment.

It doesn’t stick to the wearers skin, it can be re-used, and even washed. But the bit that really makes me think this is cool, is the fact that the top can be dissolved, and the material re-sprayed to make new clothes. The material looks a little thin, though I assume you could just spray more to thicken it up, and it won’t win any fashion competitions but it shows great potential for things like bandages.

Actually, considering some of the things I’ve seen on the news walking down catwalks a fashion shows, a spray on out could win an award.

Some other stuff

ColourLovers has posted an interesting infographic showing 100 brands and the colours they use in their logo. It’s not really a news story, but it is an interesting graphic. I find it interesting that most of the brands seem to have opted for various shades of blue, with red taking up a lot of this image as well. Also, not many brands have a multi-coloured logo, ala Google.

A bug in Firefox, which caused the browser to crash on launch, has been fixed in the latest versions; 3.6.10 and 3.5.15. The bug was fixed very quickly, which was a smart move by Mozilla because, as I mentioned, the it caused the browser to crash at launch, meaning that users could not use the browser. I know Firefox isn’t exclusively used by tech savvy clever people, but it is probably safe to assume that anyone knowledgeable enough to be using Firefox, uses the Internet regularly, and while they can’t open Firefox, they will be opening something else.

Personally, I switched to Chrome shortly after its launch, and never went back.

CNET have a few screenshots up of some Windows Phone 7 apps. There’s nothing particularly ground-breaking, and there wasn’t expected to be, but the screenshots give a nice idea of how things will look under the new Windows mobile platform. The verdict? Looks pretty nice. Possible as a backlash to Apple’s rounded corners, Microsoft have fully embraced the points of a true square in the design of the UI, and it looks good. The tester, however, will be how smooth it runs.

Your last story for the day, and the week, is courtesy of Halo: Reach, again. Microsoft have announced that Halo: Reach took in $200 million on its first day. While this doesn’t top Modern Warfare 2, the current record holder with $401.6 million, or the record holder before that; Grand Theft Auto 4 with $310 million, it did beat the first day sales of its true predecessor, Halo 3 with $170 million, which broke this record on its first day. Got that? Good.

That was my Thoughts on [the tech and gaming] News for the day, and the week. I apologise for the lateness, and the shortness of yesterdays ToN; it was a hectic day. Check back here (or in your RSS reader of choice).

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