Palestine--Palestine was recently assigned .PS for it's own top-level domain designation through a special resolution recently adopted by the United Nations. The number of households with a personal computer estimated to be 33,867 or 6.9% of all households. The greatest concentration of homes with PCs is in the West Bank region. Dial up access costs US$15 to US$25 per month, which could be considered a luxury given the average monthly wage is US$300.

France--Internet usage by women and senior citizens has increased significantly this year. Women now make up 42 percent of those using the web in France. Total usage is estimated at 6.2 million or 12.9 percent of the population. Internet users report that they are spending less time watching television, reading newspapers and are not using Minitel as much as they use to.

Russia--A recent survey of 26,000 Russian Internet users found that 81 percent were males and three-fourths of them log on at least once every day. The typical user is well educated and between the ages of 20 and 35. Most Russians access the Internet from work. It is estimated that 1 million Internet users in Russia.

Germany--The German government has announced plans to have 40 percent of its 32 million residents online by the year 2005. Currently, 9 percent of its population is on online an increase of 25% in the last six months. The country's National Technology Plan has goals to provide the country's schools with Internet technology by 2001, increase the number of women working in information technology to 40 percent and to create an electronic tax filing system.

China--A recent Gallup/Fortune poll found that only 14 percent of the people in China know what the Internet is and 9 out of 10 people have never used a computer. Awareness of the Internet is most common among the youth living in the largest cities. In Beijing, one third of adults ages 18 to 29 have used the Internet. It is estimated that 4 million Chinese were online in June of this year. (Sources: Nua Internet Surveys, 9/20/1999, 9/27/1999, 10/11/1999,10/18/1999 and 10/26/1999.

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH
Dr. Mardy Grothe's Chiasmus http://www.chiasmus is for "lovers of words, language and quotations." Chiasmus is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms as "a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. This may involve a repetition of the same words ("Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure" --Byron) or just a reversed parallel between two corresponding pairs of ideas. The figure is especially common in 18th century English poetry, but is also found in prose of all periods. It is named after the Greek letter chi (x), indicating a "criss-cross" arrangement of terms." (Source: Netogether.com, 10/2/1999).
_______________________________________________________________
Technology Tidbits is published monthly by Jerry Price, Eau Claire, Wisconsin © 1999 Jerry W. Price

Return to Top.