The Pew report on the future internet surveyed 742 experts in the fields of computing, politics and business.

More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net's future but 46% had serious reservations.

Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence.

The Pew Internet and American Life report canvassed opinions from the experts on seven broad scenarios about the future internet, based on developments in the technology in recent years.

By 2020 an increasing number of people will be living and working within "virtual worlds" being more productive online than offline, the majority of the respondents said.

Ben Detenber, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University, responded: "Virtual reality (VR) will only increase productivity for some people. For most, it will make no difference in productivity (i.e., how much output); VR will only change what type of work people do and how it is done."

Three AOL members have sued AOL LLC, the Internet division of Time Warner Inc., saying the company violated their privacy by posting their search queries online, Berman DeValerio Pease Tabacco Burt & Pucillo announced today.

The lawsuit is the first class action filed in federal court as a result of AOL's July 31 public release of queries made by hundreds of thousands of AOL members without their permission.

Berman DeValerio (www.bermanesq.com) filed the class action last Friday, September 22, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit, filed as C-06-5866, seeks damages on behalf of all AOL members in the United States whose Internet search query data was disclosed without consent from January 1, 2004 until the present.

The Remember Ring has a special nagging feature, using its "Hot Spot" technology that warms up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 seconds, every hour, on the hour, beginning 24 hours before that "special day," apparently honoring the anniversary of your voluntary servitude. That's supposed to be warm enough to be uncomfortable but not hot enough to burn you. The Remember Ring converts the heat from your hand into electricity using a micro-thermo pile, keeping that battery charged and its heat-bomb clock ticking away, ready to burn you again next year.

Jobs described the forthcoming $299 set-top box as "completing the package" of Apple's multimedia offerings. Users can download music, TV programs, and now movies from the iTunes Store. They can watch those multimedia files on both their Macs and iPods. However, there's no easy way of watching such programming on their television sets-Jobs sees iTV as the key piece of that puzzle.

Resembling a squat Mac Mini, the iTV will use wireless networking to stream movies and TV shows from iTunes to a television. The power supply is built right in to the unit; it also features USB 2.0, Ethernet, High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) plug, component video, analog audio and optical audio interfaces.

In demonstrating iTV to the press at a Tuesday event in San Francisco, Jobs scrolled through menus for movies, TV shows, photos, and podcasts using an Apple remote. Floating artwork—movie posters for the Movie menu or album art for Music, for example—appears on the left-hand side of the screen while a list of titles appears on the right.

Because iTV connects wireless to the Internet, it can also show movie trailers from Apple's Web site.

Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner's chief operating officer, told investors at a Goldman Sachs media conference that its strategy had attracted new users beyond those who were once paying customers of the online service.

Some 40 percent of new users were not former subscribers, Bewkes said. "That means there is demand for AOL beyond the existing base," he said.

In addition, subscribers who formerly paid for AOL services were moving to its free services at a quicker rate than originally predicted by AOL management, Bewkes said.

Bewkes said advertising sales at AOL were "very robust," without elaborating.

Advertising growth would be unlikely to offset a drop in subscription revenue for another year or two but is a more profitable source of revenue, he said.

"The trend towards larger screen notebooks is emerging because more and more customers are looking to portable devices for gaming and for higher-end entertainment functions," Samir Bhavnani, director of research for Current Analysis told LAPTOP. The trend certainly makes sense-as more people look to their notebooks as potential entertainment centers, the demand for more powerful systems with larger screens grows, and so do the notebooks themselves. Thus 18-pound systems are born. At what point is the line between desktops and notebooks rendered pointless? It seems that we're getting pretty close.

Since we happened to have a Dell XPS M2010 lying around the office, we figured it an opportune time to take the 20.1-inch system for a spin in the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan. Despite its prominent handle, the 18.3-pound system isn't designed for carrying around crowded city streets. It's also not designed for tiny coffee shop tables, nor the human lap-even as a 5'11" male, I had a fair bit of trouble keeping the thing steady on mine, a situation not improved by the fact that the keyboard detaches automatically. Here's a recap of my big-screen-machine adventure.

However, because age is self-reported, as it is at similar sites, adults could simply sign up as minors.

There are tools to verify age, but they work best for porn, wine-sales and other sites meant for adults only.

A credit card, for instance, could demonstrate that a user is of age, notwithstanding a teen's ability to "borrow" a card from Dad's wallet.

More robust techniques like those from IDology and Sentinel Tech Holding's Sentry check addresses, birth dates and other information users provide against public databases, such as voting and property records.

But many social-networking sites cater to both adults and teens -- and teens can be difficult to verify.

MySpace, instead, has been trying to catch minors after the fact.

It has technology to scan for inconsistencies and teams of employees to investigate further. For example, a user who claims to be 18 might mention a sixth-grade class elsewhere in the profile, or feature a photo of a birthday cake with only 13 candles.

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Ideal for use on your lap or desk, the PocketTop features a built-in cooling pad to keep the heat from penetrating through the bottom surface. With semi-rigid material, the PocketTop provides superior protection for your laptop, while leaving you with unrestricted access to your side ports. It is available in three stylish colors: silver, orange and green.

When it opened its doors this month, ArtdeSoul became the company in the U.S. to use a new Cruse scanning technology to offer artists, illustrators, photographers, museum curators, architects, and archivists a way to flawlessly scan their original works for preservation, reproduction, distribution, promotion, and sale.

The company owns the only Cruse Scanner with this kind of specialized technology in the country, in this size. ArtdeSoul's is an even newer, more advanced model than the Cruse Scanners used at the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, Germany, the Getty Museum and the Vatican Secret Archives.

The Cruse Scanner is unbeatable in image capturing. According to Mike Lind, Cruse technical representative, "The Cruse Scanner excels in five areas: focus, lighting, lens resolution, alignment of the camera to the subject, and alignment of the digital back.

"It's the difference between painting with a roller versus a paint brush," explained Lind. And because the Cruse Scanner features a scanning table, the lighting is fixed while the original art rides past it on rails. The resulting scan perfectly reflects the colors, textures, and characteristics of the art piece.

The Cruse Scanner represents a major advance over previous methods. It is much more accurate than reprographic scanners -- designed for engineering and architectural drawings -- and can handle thick or mounted originals up to four inches in depth. And it achieves perfect focus and even lighting by eliminating human error and using a patented lighting system, while digital cameras are prone to problems in these areas and must be retouched.