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Folks, it's been quite the ride. A final thought before everyone hands tonight's top award to "Argo" -- the Academy gave "Life of Pi" 11 nominations without any for acting. That's some broad support. Not that I had the guts to turn away from the "Argo" freight train in my...

My recap of tonight's Oscar results, which can be found here, includes some good trivia ... ... With Chris Terrio's award for adapted screenplay and William Goldenberg's for editing, "Argo" ended up with three Oscars, the fewest for a best-picture champ since 2005's "Crash." (The last grand-prize winner to win...

The Oscars are done with, and much has been written about the ceremony broadcast already, so forgive me my three cents. But since I spent enough time expressing my fears about Sunday in the days and weeks leading up to the show, I figured I might as well complete the...

Now that "Argo" has won best picture, we know who's No. 1 this awards season. But what about the rest? With the confetti having fallen Sunday on this year's Oscars, here’s a final 2012-13 awards-season film top 40. To be clear, this isn’t an artistic ranking of the films, but...

Kaley Cuoco, star of "The Big Bang Theory," is developing a pretty lucrative side biz hosting awards shows. She's hosted the past two People's Choice Awards, a Teen Choice Awards, and it has just been announced that she will host the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame...

For three consecutive years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has tried to reinvent the wheel with the Oscars and ended up on artistic blocks. So how will they fare next year? The February 2011 show was the Academy's biggest attempt to go young and hip, with James...

By now, hopefully, you've heard about all the exciting changes at Variety, not the least of which is our revamped website, which has begun operation and officially launches Friday. Under the new format, content that used to appear on the Variety blogs is all landing in one central location on...

On October 20th, ICANN and Verisign renewed the agreement under which Verisign will continue to act as Root Zone Maintainer for the Domain Name System (DNS) for another 8-year term. The Root Zone sits atop the hierarchical architecture of the DNS and is essential to virtually all internet navigation, acting as the dynamic, cryptographically secure, global directory of all top-level domains that exist in the DNS.

As the United Nations' Global Digital Compact (GDC) approaches its expected adoption, a growing chorus of critics warns that it threatens the very foundations of multistakeholderism in Internet governance. While the GDC aims to foster global cooperation and advance shared objectives for digital transformation, it not only centralizes power within the UN but also sidelines the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) - a platform that has, for years, been instrumental in amplifying diverse voices, especially from marginalized communities and the private sector.

The European Union (EU) has set a high bar by tackling domain name system (DNS) abuse head on via government regulation and seems to have successfully resisted attempts to water down DNS stewardship obligations. Recent guidance from a key European Commission cooperation group (the NIS Cooperation Group) handling sections of the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) intends for a robust implementation of Article 28, which will go a long way toward helping to mitigate some of the longstanding problems that persist in the DNS.

As the world races towards digital transformation, the technologies we choose will have a lasting impact on our planet. Blockchain, NFTs, and other crypto assets have garnered much attention for their ability to securely and immutably store records. However, the environmental cost of maintaining these technologies is often overlooked. The energy consumption required to sustain blockchains, particularly those using Proof of Work (PoW), is enormous...

As with any high-stakes event, elections have become a prime target for cybercriminals seeking to exploit public trust through impersonation, misinformation, and scams. CSC's comprehensive research about the 2024 U.S. Election reveals the alarming role of dormant domains, which have the potential to be exploited for launching cyber attacks against political campaigns, organizations, and constituents.

Abusive behavior that leverages the domain name system (DNS) continues to be a problem, with a reach that has been widely and credibly documented. There is little doubt that bad actors continue to use the DNS for nefarious and costly purposes. While the amendments made in 2024 to ICANN's Registry Agreement (RA) and Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) were a step in the right direction, more advanced tools are needed to bring abuse rates down.

Do you (or someone you know) believe that people everywhere should have access to affordable, reliable, and resilient Internet connectivity? Are you passionate about ensuring that people everywhere have an Internet experience that is safe, secure, and protects them online? Do you have leadership experience in business, government, philanthropy, and/or the nonprofit sector?

Thanks to wide adoption of the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach, programmatic provisioning of cloud resources is slowly transforming almost every aspect of computing, with administration of web apps having emerged as a key use case. With IaC, it's possible to streamline resource management tasks, shorten time-to-market, control costs, and scale at will. The adoption of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CICD) pipelines is already making a huge difference in web app deployment and cloud resource management.

The reports of multistakeholder Internet governance's demise are greatly exaggerated. This article explores the dual nature of multistakeholderism: its evolving, sometimes contentious practice as the "First Body," and its enduring principle of actor plurality as the "Second Body." Despite criticism and challenges, multistakeholderism remains crucial for a resilient, non-state-led Internet, underscoring the need to adapt and uphold its foundational pluralism.

The U.S. Office of Public Affairs issued a statement on 4 September 2024 regarding the seizure of 32 websites that are believed to be part of the so-called "Doppelganger" campaign.

As the saying goes, elections have consequences. The consequences are underscored in the recent U.S. Presidential election and the potential impact on the Internet, infrastructure and cybersecurity. In the context of the CircleID global community, it seems worth asking where things are headed? It does beg for an analysis of what is actually proposed in Presidential Transition Project 2025 related to things internet and cybersecurity.

The Brand Registry Group (BRG) is the global association of companies and organizations working together to champion the use of .brand top-level domains and includes some of the world's most recognized consumer and B2B brands. In advance of the ICANN81 meeting in Istanbul Türkiye next week, the BRG is providing an update on ICANN's new gTLD program in several sessions that may be of interest to prospective .brand applicants.

In CSC's recent insight paper, we address the trend that many business leaders today don't realize the extent to which their modern enterprise -- and its millions of digital assets -- rely on. It's a vast domain ecosystem that needs to be protected from online threats. Often, to better understand this need for domain security, we need to understand how critical and interconnected domains are within a business.

Phishing has been around for years, yet it still proves to be a major online threat. To continue profiting, cybercriminals must continuously adapt their techniques.

In our physical world, census information is used to inform the planning processes behind the provision of infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, housing, and similar. It can be used to assess the impact of natural disasters or to understand a society's needs in terms of food and energy security. Demographic data is also used to inform investment and business decisions. You'd think that the Internet itself would be awash with similar information.

DOTZON presents the seventh edition of the Digital Company Brands study. After having introduced the study in 2018, DOTZON continued to expand and enhance the underlying data to display how companies successfully use their Digital Company Brands. The Digital Company Brand is the digital dimension of a company brand and mirrors the "digitalness " of a company. For "Digital Company Brands 2024", all companies worldwide that have their own internet extension were once again analysed.

A CircleID post by Alexander Klimburg takes aim at my article, "The Power to Govern Ourselves," delivered at the Gig-Arts conference in June. That speech, available here on the blog, argued that: "Multistakeholder does not describe a governance model. It never has. It was always a compromised Public Relations concept," one that muddied the distinction between governance by state actors and non-state actors. What really made the Internet institutions unique was their break with sovereignty.

In the wake of the election, sweeping policy shifts in the information economy are set to accelerate. Expect fast-tracked FCC reforms, Starlink subsidies, and AI-driven oversight to redefine media, tech, and regulatory landscapes. From relaxed antitrust to intensified media control, these eleven reversals signal a move toward deregulation and Chicago School libertarianism, with lasting impacts on U.S. markets and governance.

The United Kingdom's recent decision to relinquish control over the Chagos Islands as part of a treaty with Mauritius has raised significant questions about the future of the popular .io domain.

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man in Khmelnytskyi for running an illicit virtual private network (VPN) service that enabled access to the Russian segment of the internet, known as Runet.

A recent study conducted by Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) researchers has raised significant concerns about the reliability of large language models (LLMs) in mathematical reasoning tasks. Despite the impressive advancements made by models like OpenAI's GPT and Meta's LLaMA, the study reveals fundamental flaws in their ability to handle even basic arithmetic when faced with slight variations in the wording of questions.

Two Sudanese nationals have been indicted for allegedly leading Anonymous Sudan, a cybercriminal group responsible for over 35,000 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting critical infrastructure worldwide.

After facing several regulatory obstacles, Elon Musk's Starlink is on the brink of entering the Indian market, a move that could reshape the country's digital landscape.

The shift from IPv4 to IPv6 has been a protracted and complex process, raising questions about why this transition has been so sluggish despite the depletion of IPv4 addresses more than a decade ago.

The United States Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, Mark Warner, has called on several domain name registrars, including Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare, to address the misuse of their services by Russian actors attempting to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

A recent study critically examines the security of popular end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) cloud storage providers, uncovering significant vulnerabilities in platforms widely marketed for their user-controlled privacy features.

In a joint statement to the European Commission's new tech appointee, Henna Virkkunen, a coalition of internet advocacy groups has firmly opposed recent proposals aimed at imposing network fees on content providers.

For five years, Canadian government networks have been vulnerable to Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage, according to a recent report by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE).

OpenAI has acquired Chat.com, a domain name previously purchased for $15.5 million by HubSpot's co-founder Dharmesh Shah. Initially registered in 1996, the domain saw significant investment due to its prime fit with the rapidly growing AI chatbot sector, especially as tools like ChatGPT gain mainstream attention.

T-Mobile has claimed a new world record in 5G upload speeds, achieving an impressive 2.2 Gbps in tests conducted at California's SoFi Stadium. Partnering with Ericsson and Qualcomm, the telecommunications firm leveraged an emerging technology, 5G Dual Connectivity (5G DC), which combines mid-band and millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum bands.

The Internet Society has announced the 2024 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award recipients, honoring Steve Crocker and Xing Li for their pioneering work in advancing the global Internet infrastructure.

Public Interest Registry (PIR), the nonprofit managing the .ORG domain, recently announced it now oversees 11 million registrations. Jon Nevett, PIR's CEO, attributes this growth to what he describes as a "responsible" expansion, emphasizing a focus on security and community support.

The Biden administration is poised to support a contentious United Nations cybercrime treaty, a move likely to spark debate over potential abuses, according to top officials.

Is sugar really addictive? It's better to have a low-sugar diet instead of a full sugar detox for both your mind and body health.

Herbal brain boosters are on the rise, but does science back them up? Here's some truth behind nootropics and their alleged benefits.

Magnesium-rich foods may help lower dementia risk and boost brain health, but experts agree a well rounded diet is your best bet.

Keep the volume of your personal listening device at or below 60%

You might have heard of sun poisoning, but you may not know what it exactly entails. Find out more about this condition and how to avoid it.

Researchers found that topical treatment products containing benzoyl peroxide can degrade into the carcinogen benzene if improperly transported or stored.

Palo santo, a fragrant "holy wood," is treasured for its spiritual and medicinal properties. Learn all about its origins and uses and get tips for safe, sustainable use.

As the demand for weight loss injectables soars, so too does the market for off-brand alternatives, some of which may not be safe or effective.