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Reviews from Epinions. Universe Sandbox | about. The end of the net as we know it | Broadband | Features. Posted on 21 Jan 2011 at 13:34 ISPs are threatening to cripple websites that don't pay them first. Barry Collins fears a disastrous end to net neutrality You flip open your laptop, click on the BBC iPlayer bookmark and press Play on the latest episode of QI.

But instead of that tedious, plinky-plonky theme tune droning out of your laptop’s speakers, you’re left staring at the whirring, circular icon as the video buffers and buffers and buffers... That’s odd. Not only have you got a new 40Mbits/sec fibre broadband connection, but you were watching a Full HD video on Sky Player just moments ago. There’s nothing wrong with your connection; it must be iPlayer. Net neutrality? The free, unrestricted internet as we know it is under threat. No such thing as net neutrality It’s worth pointing out that the concept of net neutrality – ISPs treating different types of internet traffic or content equally – is already a busted flush. The Measurement of Science. Albert Einstein’s greatest scientific “blunder” (his word) came as a sequel to his greatest scientific achievement. That achievement was his theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity, which he introduced in 1915.

Two years later, in 1917, Einstein ran into a problem while trying to apply general relativity to the Universe as a whole. At the time, Einstein believed that on large scales the Universe is static and unchanging. But he realized that general relativity predicts that such a Universe can’t exist: it would spontaneously collapse in on itself. To solve this problem, Einstein modified the equations of general relativity, adding an extra term involving what is called the “cosmological constant” , which, roughly speaking, is a type of pressure which keeps a static Universe from collapsing.

Twelve years later, in 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe isn’t static and unchanging, but is actually expanding. The story doesn’t end there. One metric to rule them all. DeepPeep: discover the hidden web. Now trending: the internet could usher in an Independent revolution that topples the two-party establishment | CAIVN. As the country remains highly polarized and chronically dissatisfied with the performance of the two major parties, the internet, and advent of social media in particular, could catalyze the historic campaign of an Independent presidential candidate as early as 2012.

Joe Trippi, the internet guru behind Howard Dean’s remarkable 2004 presidential campaign and the mind behind Jerry Brown’s 800 number fundraising effort during his 1992 presidential run, echoed this sentiment at the South by Southwest Interactive festival’s recent gathering. Author of the book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything, Trippi discusses how he leveraged the internet’s enabling ability of allowing a two-way interaction between candidate and voter to spur a people-driven movement for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential run. Aided by the fluid medium of the internet, the impending doom of the two-party system might just arrive sooner rather than later. Wired News. Big Internet Guide.

The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel -Your Daily Dose of Awe: Science, Space, Tech. How Secure Is My Password? 40 technologies to watch in 2011. If the popular misreading of Mayan mythology is correct, we have fewer than two more years left on this Earth. That leaves precious little time for the tech industry to develop and perfect of all the cool technologies that sci-fi authors have dreamed up over the years. Still, while a December 2012 apocalypse may spell doom for the commercial viability of hovercars, it doesn't mean that the next couple of years in tech will be dull — quite the contrary. 2011 is already shaping up to be a banner year for tech and web innovation. Below is a list of over 40 websites, apps, companies, gadgets and technologies that the editors of Mashable think that you should keep an eye on over the coming year.

None of them let you zoom through the air over traffic, but they're definitely all worth a look. Be sure to click through to each article to see our full write ups on individual entries, and let us know in the comments what you're looking out for in 2011. 10 Websites to Watch 10 Apps to Watch.