The French government announced plans for a gradual departure from the practice of personal passwords to web sites. They plan to replace more secure, believed in the government system of digital certificates on hardware tokens. It can be USB-media, SIM-card, smart card. The user need not enter any of the information: it is recorded on a digital hardware key.

Under this system, now employs about 20% of all French sites: to access them, you must log in and receive a certificate. Among these sites such landmark sites as the site of the French Banking Federation, the Federation of French insurers and the postal service "La Post.

Via TechRadar

Site WMPoweruser reported that the share of Windows Mobile in the total number of Internet users continues to grow for the second month. On average last year, owners of smartphones running Windows Mobile accounted for 0.04% of the total Internet audience (among all platforms, including desktops), but in December this figure had risen to 0.06% in January – up to 0,07 %.

By the number of Internet users WM is second only to the iPhone and Symbian. Fourth place settled Android (0,06%), BlackBerry (0,03%) and Palm (0,01%). By the way, Android last month, also improved its position at 0,01%.

This statistic suggests that Windows Mobile is not only not dead, but feels quite good, so that developers would be worth to give it more attention.

Via WMPoweruser

Operator Verizon held between Paris and Frankfurt superfast fiber-optic channel length of 900 km. Bandwidth of 100 gigabits per second, which is an absolute world record. The fastest networks now operate at speeds of 10 Gb / s, which is enough to send DVD-movie in 4 seconds.

Works were carried out by the Canadian company Nortel. To achieve this speed, the engineers had to solve several technological problems such as phase modulation of the light wave, the separation of the signal, etc. Verizon believes that the capabilities of the new route to European consumers for long enough.

900 kilometers for high-speed optical fiber is considered to be sufficiently large distance. Most similar to American channels, no longer than 1500 km. The longest fiber optic network in the world operates in Australia, its length is 2000 km.

In the near future 100-gigabit network may appear in other regions. Last year, the New York Stock Exchange had bought equipment for the deployment of 100-gigabit network in New York and London. Thus the market wants to gain a competitive advantage over other exchanges through a more rapid exchange of information.

Via New Scientist

Senior Manager of Marketing Technology company Nokia, James Harper (James Harper) stated that Nokia is going to become a leader in the production of smartphones with support for networks of 4G, operating under the standard Long Term Evolution (LTE).

As assured Harper, already in 2010 with a Nokia phone that supports fourth-generation network.

Also, according to Harper, Nokia does not expect a serious interest in the 4G as a minium to 2013; true 4G become popular only in 2020 or even later.

Meanwhile, the U.S. mobile operator Verizon commercial launch LTE networks are already scheduled for 2010. In the same year, their networks are going to run the Canadian company Bell and Telus. As for AT & T, it is expected that the operator will provide its subscribers with access to the 4G in 2011.

For reference: according to the results of tests at this time the maximum speed of 4G is 60 Mbit / sec.

The terrible thing is happening on the other side of the ocean. Economic crisis brings people to the fact that they are just beginning to save everyone, until access to the internet.

After the collapse of the stock market in the United States significantly increased sales of dial-up Internet access – dial-up'a. At the same time decreasing the number of broadband connections. However, the general director of service provider NetZero Golstoun Mark (Mark Goldstone) hastened to note that the «migration» of users is still not avalanche character. The average cost of dial-up access in the network is 7.95 dollars a month, while broadband – $ 34.5. Thus, the annual savings of 319 dollars. Maybe there are other things of which was abandoned in the first place? For example, the fee MMORPG.