The neurological turn in recent Web criticism is summed up in the "Google makes us stupid" argument. Yet shouldn't we be discussing the politics of network architecture instead? Geert Lovink examines the colonization of real-time; comment culture and the rise of extreme opinions; and the emergence of "national webs".

The Network will not be Revolutionized.

Web companies that rely on advertising are enjoying some of their most vibrant growth in developing countries. But those are also the same places where it can be the most expensive to operate, since Web companies often need more servers to make content available to parts of the world with limited bandwidth.

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.