“Promoting Internet cafe chains allows the government to have more control,” said Yu Yi, an analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. “The Internet cafe chains all adhere to the same standards on service and security.”

Around a third of China’s Internet population surfs the Web from Internet cafes. The Ministry of Culture said the number of Internet cafe users in China reached 163 million in 2010. The country’s total Internet population stands at 457 million users.

There are currently 144,000 Internet cafes in China, according to the ministry, and close to 30 percent of them are operated by chain businesses.

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Despite efforts aimed at closing down Internet cafes, the number of people using Internet cafes to access the Web increased by 28 million people in 2010, according to the ministry. The rising total appears to be at odds with the closures, but over the past six years more legal Internet cafes have entered the market, Yu said. The ministry’s report also does not say if some of the illegal cafes that were closed later reopened.

About half of the people who use Internet cafes in China are 18 to 25 years old, according to Analysys International. Nine percent of the users are under the age of 18. At the same time, 60 percent of the users have monthly incomes at 3000 yuan (US$456) and under.

China has the world’s largest Internet cafe market, said Yu. “The leadership has been trying to regulate it for some time now,” he said. China is actively closing down Internet cafes that don’t meet regulations in an effort to standardize the way they operate, he added.

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a study published today by Internet security firm AVG found that 5% of babies under 2 have social media profiles, while 7% have an email address.

The main reason for doing this, it seems, is to share baby scans and and information about the pregnancy with family and friends. Meanwhile, many more babies are “online” in some form or other. 23% of fetuses had images of their antenatal scans uploaded before birth.

The idea of babies having an online presence before birth and in early life shouldn’t be surprising, giving the growth of social media in recent years. A positive side effect of the phenomenon, although the study didn’t go into it, is that parents are ‘reserving a patch of the Internet’ for their kids.

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iPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April release and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.

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In 1490, the von Thurn und Taxis clan organized a postal line between European cities. Albert’s father claimed the family had the resources and manpower to start the organization after a stint as brigands in the Alps.

The Thurn und Taxis family eventually won the lucrative position of postmasters-general for the Holy Roman Empire. Their riches piled up. They moved into their 500-room castle in Regensburg in 1812. Albert still lives there with his mother and older sisters.

In our 2008 list of the planet’s richest, published in March, we found 1,125 billionaires worldwide. Of that group, 370 inherited their money. Many have had plenty of wealth in their families for multiple generations.

The U.K.’s richest citizen Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor traces his $14 billion fortune back centuries. In the 1600s, his family bought a cabbage farm. Cabbages may not make billionaires, but great real estate does. Those hundreds of acres are now hugely valuable because of their central London location. Like Albert, Grosvenor also has a title to go along with his fortune. He’s the sixth Duke of Westminster.

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Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.

Let me repeat that: we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.

“The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.

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Nearly 85 percent of the iPhone owners used the phone as their watch, and 89 percent used it as their alarm clock. In fact, 75 percent admitted to falling asleep with the iPhone in bed with them, and 69 percent said they were more likely to forget their wallet than their iPhone when leaving in the morning.

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he said the 12-29-year-old demographic is in focus for him and his colleagues. Those Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are “much more traditional,” Toffler explained. For example, many of them watch “Jersey Shore” with their parents, he said.

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The researchers, who built their work on previous studies of information consumption, found that Americans take in data through various channels, including the television, radio, the Web, text messages and video games. Most of this time is spent in front of screens watching TV-related content, averaging nearly five hours of daily consumption.

Second is radio, which the average American listens to for about 2.2 hours a day. The computer comes in third, at just under two hours a day. Video games take up about an hour, and reading takes up 36 minutes.

Most of these experiences happen simultaneously, like talking on the phone while checking e-mail, or instant messaging while watching TV.

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Today there are 793 people on our list of the World’s Billionaires, a 30% decline from a year ago.

Of the 1,125 billionaires who made last year’s ranking, 373 fell off the list–355 from declining fortunes and 18 who died. There are 38 newcomers, plus three moguls who returned to the list after regaining their 10-figure fortunes. It is the first time since 2003 that the world has had a net loss in the number of billionaires.

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