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You may not have heard of ‘net neutrality’ before but it is something which may well shape the future of the internet, in particular the means by which it is supported and managed.

For a few years now, there has been a big debate rumbling about who should be footing the bill for the ever-increasing levels of content users have access to on a daily basis. With the advent of streaming TV and movies, along with downloadable games, the amount of data being transferred over the internet infrastructure has increased exponentially over the last few years. ISPs want to be able to charge the sources of this ‘fatter’ content (such as TV and movie companies) for the additional costs involved in providing it to end-users, with a charge being passed on to the users themselves if the content provider doesn’t wish to foot the bill.

This would essentially dictate that the internet becomes a multi-tiered system – those who pay get better service, whilst those who don’t will experience slower speeds and decreased availability. The ISPs don’t particularly care who pays or who gets this degraded experience, as long as they get the money at the end of the day to support their networks. For instance, a TV studio could be asked to pay the ISP in order to allow a full-speed experience when watching their streamed TV shows, and if the TV studio and ISP failed to reach a deal, this price hike would be passed on to the consumer. If they didn’t pay, well, they would have to make do with vastly reduced availability, if any at all.

However, all of this has come up against fierce opposition from those who wish to see the internet carry on as it has done up until now – that is, equal to all. Big tech companies are facing off against the big telecommunications companies, with the likes of Google and eBay fighting for net neutrality.

But now it seems that the new chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has backed the big tech companies, saying that the net should be a neutral venue for all who wish to use it, and that the very idea of having differing levels of service for different prices is not what the internet should be. He has gone as far as to formulate additional rules which would expressly forbid this kind of behind-the-scenes manipulation.

This is the first stance the FCC has taken on this issue after the new chief came in, appointed by US President Barack Obama – who has backed net neutrality himself.

The news coming out of Silicon Valley right now is positive it would seem, as a new crop of start-ups appear while the bigger players return to their big-money aquisitions.

With the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, claiming that the recession in the USA is more or less over and that the country is heading for recovery, the news that this is being reflected in one of its major money-making centres is buoying hopes that this is, in fact, true.

Adobe recently splashed out $1.8 billion on a web analytics firm, Skype was recently sold for $2 billion to a private investment company and the number of small-fry web start-ups has risen greatly, with more and more getting the funding they need to progress from ideas to fully-fledged businesses.

Indeed, the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco seems to be alive with optimism this year as all the big players (Google and Microsoft in particular) have new products and services they intend to roll out in the near future, with dozens of smaller ventures showing off their visions for the ever more interconnected world we live in.

In particular, one of the biggest areas seeing growth right now is the social media arena. Now no longer limited to organising activities and communication with friends (i.e. Facebook), more and more truly society-driven schemes are coming to the fore, intending to reshape the way we do business and live our lives. The sturdy sales of devices like Apple’s iPhone and Google Android-powered smartphones to general consumers are certainly helping this area of the marketplace.

However, unemployment is still higher than a few years ago and certain companies are still hesitant to go back to their old ways of doing things. Much of the extravagance of previous conferences, company launches and product launches has been set aside, probably for the better. Whether this recovery in the tech capital of the world continues at a decent rate is anyone’s guess, but as a crucial cornerstone of the world-wide economy, the signs are good.

A man who killed his partner of 13 years over an update of her relationship status on social website Facebook has been sentenced to a minimum of 14 years of a life term in prison.

Brian Lewis repeatedly stabbed and then strangled Hayley Jones after a row, in which he said he didn’t intend to kill his girlfriend. He left her for dead in the family home, and her body was found by their children.

According to the court, Lewis was angered when Jones changed her marital status on Facebook from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’ after they had gone through some troubles. Lewis apparently told his friends that following this he wanted to ‘kill her before anyone else could have her’. He later rang the police to admit he had committed the crime.

Their relationship had been strained, and with Jones being more and more secretive over her time on Facebook, Lewis seems to have snapped and committed the horrible crime.

We’ve all been really annoyed when a web page is loading at a snail’s pace, or you try to watch a video and all you get is the ‘Buffering…’ animation every few frames. Maybe you’ve even said “this would be faster by carrier pigeon” (ok, probably not, but I know I have). Well, now someone in South Africa has actually tried out this theory, and guess what. The pigeon WAS faster.

The experiment came about because of staff at an IT company complaining that the ADSL connection they had through Telkom was too slow. So, they put a 4GB data file on a USB memory stick, attached it to a carrier pigeon (as you do) and sent it on it’s way to fly the 60 miles between their two offices in Howick and Durban. It did the journey in just over an hour, and the data upload took another hour (must have been on USB1.0 or something, because that is just painful!).

At the same time, they attempted to upload the file over their internet connection to the same destination. By the time the pigeon’s payload had been successfully uploaded, the internet file transfer had only reached 4% complete, a truly almighty level.

So, there you go. Winston the pigeon has shown that in certain circumstances, you really would be better off sending that file by carrier pigeon. Just might cost a bit more… Pigeons have expensive tastes, you know!

The Onion, the reputably disreputable news source who can turn anything into satire, have been taken seriously. The horror!

Adding to a growing list of failures by mainstream (and non-comedic) news reporting establishments, a Bangladeshi paper reported that Neil Armstrong had finally admitted to the moon landings being faked. Except they didn’t quite get round to checking their sources, as they found out to everyone else’s derisive laughter.

The best bit is that a second paper then reported on the same story. They didn’t get the layers of satire either, even when the original Onion article said Armstrong’s beliefs had been “forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos and reading several blog posts” by a conspiracy theorist. I mean… come on!

It amazes me that a (sort of) respected journalistic endeavour will not actually bother to check out the source they are reporting as gospel truth, or even check out the other stories on the site in question. I mean please, the usual Onion front page looks about as serious as kitten playing with a ball of wool.