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Portal:Internet

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The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, and file sharing.

The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life. (Full article...)

Selected article

The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.

Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon, with copycat websites emerging in response. The Alexa ranking of web traffic peaked at around 127; As of 9 May 2009, it was 40,044. On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of $38,100 that brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Wi-Fi sign in Seattle, Washington
Wi-Fi sign in Seattle, Washington
Credit: Joe Mabel

Wi-Fi (/ˈwf/ wye-fye) is a wireless technology brand owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance intended to improve the interoperability of wireless local area network products based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Common applications for Wi-Fi include Internet and VoIP phone access, gaming, and network connectivity for consumer electronics such as televisions, DVD players, and digital cameras.

The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. It portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.

Production began when Sorkin signed to write it. Principal photography began that same year in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lasted until November. Additional scenes were shot in California, in the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails composed the film's award-winning score, which was released on September 28, 2010.

The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 24, 2010, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 1, by Sony Pictures Releasing. A major critical and commercial success, the film grossed $224 million on a $40 million budget and was widely acclaimed by critics. It was named one of the best films of the year by 78 critics, and named the best by 22 critics, the most of any film that year. It was also chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2010. At the 83rd Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Eisenberg, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. It also received awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards.

The Social Network has maintained a strong reputation since its initial release, and is commonly ranked by critics as one of the best films of the 2010s and 21st century. The Writers Guild of America ranked Sorkin's screenplay the third greatest of the 21st century. The factual accuracy is however largely contested. In 2024, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". While no official sequel has been announced, Sorkin has publicly expressed interest and willingness to write a screenplay for one should Fincher return to direct. (Full article...)

WikiProjects

WikiProjects

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

  • ... that Mirna El Helbawi discovered a way to reconnect people in Gaza to the internet through donated eSIMs, and her organisation Connecting Humanity has connected more than 200,000 people so far?
  • ... that Ecco2K created a fashion brand when he was 16 years old by talking online to Chinese factory managers who did not know his age?
  • ... that ComicBook.com originally began as a website with sales links and press releases before becoming an entertainment news site?
  • ... that Michael Sugrue became an "internet phenomenon" during the COVID-19 pandemic for his lectures on YouTube, recorded in 1992, that covered "the last 3,000 years of Western intellectual history"?
  • ... that YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim has updated the description of his video "Me at the zoo" on multiple occasions to criticize the website's business decisions?
  • ... that Aucklanders have a reputation for making false earthquake reports on New Zealand's earthquake monitoring website GeoNet?

Selected biography

Al Gore, Official portrait, 1994
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore previously served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and the U. S. Senate (1985–93), representing Tennessee. He was the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 2000 election, and shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for his work as an environmental activist. Gore has been involved with the development of the Internet since the 1970s, first as a Congressman and later as Senator and Vice-President. His High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (often referred to as the Gore Bill) was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway." Leonard Kleinrock, a key player in the development of the ARPANET, considers the act to be a critical moment in Internet history. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn stated in the 2000 article "Al Gore and the Internet", that Gore was "the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development."

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various internet-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected quote

Rupert Murdoch
All forms of government ultimately are not going to succeed in trying to control or censor the Internet.
Rupert Murdoch, 2006

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