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The Obama administration announced last Friday that it would relinquish its control over the internet. However, it insisted that this task should be run by different nations along with the private sector and other relevant parties.

The US Commerce Department oversees the master database for top-level domain names like .net, .com and .org, as well as their assigned numeric addresses. However, this task was contracted to ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

According to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling, the US government has instructed ICANN to start a formal transition to globalise the Web. However, the new managing body should “maintain the openness of the Internet” as well as “support and enhance the multi-stakeholder model.”

This process is expected to be completed before September 2015, added ICANN boss Fadi Chehadé.

This move follows the European Union’s proposal that the US cede its technical control over the internet. It also aims to counter China and Russia’s proposal that the Web’s infrastructure should be managed by the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is only made up of governments.

In December 2012, the US and its allies foiled China and Russia’s plan to give ITU a clearer role in overseeing the internet’s architecture, especially in allocating addresses. Furthermore, the latest announcement assures that ICANN will have a future role in managing the internet.

While many nations support the multi-stakeholder model, which includes the private sector and other relevant parties, many are wary of ICANN. One key concern is that the private, non-profit firm is largely influenced by companies that sell domain names.

Initially, Lieutenant Chris Bolton, Chief of Staff for Oakland’s Chief of Police, could not see the benefits of using social media and even associated it with more risks than benefits.

However, his mindset took a 360-degree turn when One Goh, 43, entered Korean Christian school Oikos University carrying a .45-caliber handgun and murdered seven people before surrendering to police.

At that time, the Oakland Police Department only had one public information officer, in addition to Bolton. Using Twitter and Nixle, which is a public notification tool, the two officers spent the day giving out updates, sending emergency alerts and dispelling rumours.

The experience opened Bolton’s mind to the power of social media.

“That one crisis really changed my mind on how social media can be used as part of a public information strategy,” he said.

Now, the Oakland Police Department uses Nextdoor and Facebook in addition to Twitter and Nixle. They are not alone; social media has been embraced by various police departments across the country as a valuable tool to gather details from citizens, solve crimes and disperse emergency information.

In 2013, a social media survey from the International Association of Chiefs of Police showed that 96 per cent of police departments utilise social media in some capacity, while over 80 per cent indicated that it helped them solve crimes.

“It’s very energizing, I think, to be on social media from a police perspective,” said Lynn Hightower, Boise Police Department’s communications director.

“People can communicate with the police department; it’s no longer that 800-pound gorilla that no one knows how to communicate with.”

The Boise Police Department has been on social media since 2009.

As the World Wide Web celebrated its 25th birthday on Wednesday, the Pew Research Center released a report that offers a glimpse of what is in store for the internet over the next ten years.

Pew gave an open-ended query about the web’s role in our lives by 2025 and its effect on society, politics and economics. Respondents included experts from various fields such as writers, advocates, developers, researchers, entrepreneurs and others.

The question posed was this: Good, bad or in between, what will be the internet’s most significant impact on humanity from the present to 2025? Here are the most notable answers.

Software Developer Aron Roberts at University of California, Berkeley, highlighted the potential of wearable devices such the Google Glass.

“We may well see wearable devices and/or home and workplace sensors that can help us make ongoing lifestyle changes and provide early detection for disease risks,” he said.

In addition, we may be able to adjust our lifestyle and medication intake on a daily or even hourly basis in order to magnify the effectiveness of an undermanned health sector.

Meanwhile, MIT Senior Research Scientist David Clark envisions a world where machines make decisions on behalf of humanity.

“Devices will more and more have their own patterns of communication, their own ‘social networks,’ which they use to share and aggregate information, and undertake automatic control and activation. More and more, humans will be in a world in which decisions are being made by an active set of cooperating devices,” he said.

Google has been sued collectively by upset mothers over free apps that enabled their children to spend hundreds of dollars without their consent.

“Google has unfairly profited by marketing free or low-cost games to children and by permitting them to easily rack up charges for worthless in-game currency by failing to incorporate reasonable controls such has requiring the entry of a password,” read a statement from Berger & Montague, the representing law firm.

The case was filed by a New York mother on behalf of herself and other parents after her son downloaded the game Marvel Run Jump Smash and made unauthorised purchases from the Google Play Store using her Samsung Galaxy tablet.

“These games are highly addictive, designed deliberately so, and tend to compel children playing them to purchase large quantities of Game Currency, amounting to as much as $100 per purchase or more,” stated the class action lawsuit.

The case lists Ilana Imber-Gluck as plaintiff, along with any other parent in similar situation.

It should be noted that users have to input a password in order to buy from the Google Play store. They can then make subsequent purchases as the password kicks in for 30 minutes, which is sufficient time for children to chalk up exorbitant fees on games.

Last year, a woman filed a similar case against Apple after her daughter spent $2,600 on an app, reported the BBC News.

In January, the Cupertino company agreed to refund customers the amount of $32.5 million after it received tens of thousands of similar complaints.

Apple then revised its purchasing policy and required consent prior to charging app purchases.

Twitter and other real-time social media outlets can be utilised to detect HIV outbreaks as well as drug behaviour, according to a group of researchers from UCLA.

The study, which was published in the Preventive Medicine journal, was conducted via UCLA’s Center for Digital Behavior. It showed that there is a relation between the geographical outbreaks in the US and tweets containing phrases indicative of risky sexually practices and drug-related behaviour.

The group gathered more than 550 million tweets from 26 May to 9 December 2012. They then developed an algorithm that could locate phrases including words such as “get high” and “sex”.

They plotted the tweets on a map and ran statistical models to verify if the locations matched areas with reported HIV cases.

However, the researchers revealed that they used 2009 public data. Public health experts need frequently updated data in order to predict future outbreaks.

Meanwhile, other tools and studies have already proven the power of new media in tracking numerous health outbreaks, such as Google Flu Trends.

However, this is the first study “to suggest that Twitter can be used to predict people’s health-related behaviours and as a method for monitoring HIV risk behaviours and drug use,” said Sean Young, Center for Digital Behavior’s co-director.

The study listed Texas, New York, California and Florida as the states with the largest proportion of HIV-related tweets, while Delaware, Washington, D.C., South Carolina and Louisiana posted the highest per capita rate of HIV risk-related tweets.

The Internet of Things (IoT) could leave your home more vulnerable to hackers than ever before, according to Cisco’s renowned computer engineer Eric Vyncke. For example, it was discovered that a smart refrigerator was sending malicious emails in February.

IoT is a general term that describes the phenomenon wherein things that we use in our everyday lives become connected to the internet, such as cars, glasses, watches, smoke detectors, thermostats and other appliances. Through this link, they significantly improve our standard of living and have better functionality. For example, they can be remotely controlled and adapted to the needs of their users.

However, they also have a dark side. Devices that were previously immune to cyber attacks are now at risk. For example, criminals can now determine if nobody is at home by detecting a sudden drop in electricity usage relayed by a smart metering utility system, said Vyncke.

Furthermore, hacker tools that were previously limited to mobile devices and personal computers, such as worms and trojans, can now infect a home security system or smart TV.

Even items without an IP address such as Nike’s FuelBand fitness device may pose some risk as the data they collect is synchronised on the internet, where it can be stolen.

In addition, IoT may allow malware developers and professional hackers to steal intellectual property or disrupt important infrastructure systems like power plants, power grids, oil pipelines and railway systems.