By Robert Lockard

Talk about a captive audience. The government of Finland says it’s a human right to have access to the Internet, so companies must provide Internet with a speed of at least 1 megabit per second. Doesn’t that seem a little strange? You can read about this in the CNN article, “Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland.”

Apparently, it’s not an unalienable right to own a car or a house, but somehow it is an incredibly important right for every person to be connected to the Internet. To me, that just seems like faulty logic. In reality, we can all work hard to gain access to new tools, like cars, cell phones or the Internet, to make our lives easier, but there is no guarantee we’ll get those things without effort.

Ninety-five percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens are already connected to the Internet. This law makes little difference to the vast majority of the population. However, officials say they are trying to not only bring Internet access to rural areas, but also increase the speed for everyone to at least 100 megabits per second by 2015.

I’m all for creative solutions to problems, but this seems like overkill. Websites are certainly getting more complex and social-media sites like YouTube and Twitter require fast connections to constantly download new information in real time. But the invisible hand of competition can certainly balance supply and demand and lead to better services than a government mandate can.

What if it’s unprofitable for Internet providers to build connections to the 5 percent of Finland not currently covered? Maybe the government would have to subsidize those companies if they were in trouble of going bankrupt. That can create a vicious cycle of companies depending on government funds to stay afloat.

If you ask me, this whole thing is silly. I don’t have the right to a fast Internet connection. I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence. I also have many other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. But luxuries or necessities like the Internet or food, respectively, are not among them.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Is Internet access a human right?” The photo of the dangling cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Al Abut.

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

None of the Bing Visual Search galleries look like they would help me find Newton’s cradle because they mostly include people, entertainment and electronics. But it’s new, so I’m willing to cut Microsoft some slack. I’m sure they will get better as they get a feel for what people are (literally) looking for.

Microsoft is still trying hard to break Google’s domination of the search-engine market. The CNN article cited a comScore study showing that, in June, about 65 percent of online searches were done through Google, while just 8.4 percent were done through Bing.

I’ve talked about the race between Microsoft and Google to develop a stronghold over a variety of online and software industries before. You can read about it in my blog entry, “Google-Microsoft face-off good for ecommerce.” Their rivalry is bringing great innovations like these visual search engines. I’ll hopefully talk more about Google’s Fast Flip in a forthcoming blog entry. For now, I’ll say adieu.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat.” The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.