Internet Computer Network

A $7.2-billion provision in the economic stimulus bill to extend high-speed Internet service to the rural U.S. and other underserved areas has been hailed in Congress as the 21st century equivalent of government programs that brought electricity and modern highways to every corner of the country. Others think the benefits may be overstated -- especially the notion that every dollar invested will produce a $10 boost to the economy.

What do you want to know about the Web? Are you concerned about online privacy? Do you get what Twitter is, or what the big deal is about social networking? Are you wondering when they're going to invent a more eye-friendly way to read online? Or how the economy is affecting the Internet? Just ask. One reason rabid new media zealots scoff at newspapers is because they're no good at being interactive. The connection between readers and writers is one way: We write. You read. They have a point.

As recently as two months ago, David R. Hernandez said, he didn't even know what Facebook was. Today, he uses the popular Internet social-networking site to help spread the word about his steeply uphill campaign for Los Angeles mayor in Tuesday's municipal primary.

Community college student Colby Seymore has gone online 26 times in the last three weeks, begging other students to rate his chances of transfer to UCLA or UC Berkeley. With admission decisions from top institutions due in coming weeks, Seymore's chat room postings have become increasingly panicked: "I am antsy and have to know!! HELP?" and "I have the right grades . . . right?"

It won't have professors, not in a traditional sense. And no tuition either. Still, the University of the People, a Pasadena-based venture envisioned as the first global, online, peer-to-peer university, will be a real institution of higher education, its founder says. Shai Reshef, the Israeli entrepreneur behind the idea, said the response has been overwhelming since news of his in-the-works university started spreading earlier this year.

Visitors to Austin's South by Southwest conference arrived Friday to a sky like a wet blanket. A cold, wet blanket. We traipsed our way from panel to panel, grumbling from beneath convenience-store umbrellas, wondering about the possibilities for eating barbecue in a rainstorm. In the same kind of way, discussion at the new media portion of this year's conference was shot through with a chilly strain of winter.

In an effort to help struggling newspapers stay in business, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is asking the Justice Department to broaden its view of media competition when reviewing merger proposals. Pelosi sent a letter to the Justice Department on Monday saying any antitrust concerns that arise from proposed mergers between newspapers should take into account online news sources and nearby daily and weekly papers "so that the conclusions reached reflect current market realities." The Hearst Corp.

It started with the YouTube presidential debates, Saturday-morning Internet addresses to the nation, and the Barack Obama Facebook page and Twitter feed. On Thursday, the president took another step in embracing the power of technology -- hosting a virtual town hall that elicited more than 104,000 questions and drew 3.6 million votes to determine which the president would answer. In the end, given that the questions were vetted by the White House, it felt about as spontaneous as an infomercial.

The cable TV industry, confronted with the rapidly rising popularity of watching TV shows online, is grappling with how to prevent the Internet from undermining its business. Hot Internet sites Hulu, YouTube and CBS-owned TV.com have become favorite ways for viewers to watch episodes of television shows.

Time Warner Cable Inc. customers beware: If you're what the company considers a heavy Internet user, you could soon be charged as much as $150 a month for online access. The sky-high charge is part of a new "consumption-based billing" system that Time Warner will test this summer to address what it says is the possibility of "brownouts" on the Net within three years because of soaring usage.