Gadgetsteria » Internet

SOPA Infographic: How The Entertainment Industry Always Resists New Technology

Mike Norris — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:15:54 +0000

After yesterday’s widely publicized (and we’d say rather successful) “blackout”, the world is far wiser knowing the dangers that SOPA/PIPA present to not only the U.S. internet, but the global internet as a whole.

If you really cut through all the crap (government, lobbyists, etc.), you’ll see that it is once again the entertainment industry trying to cripple/reject evolving technologies and services so that they can keep sucking in record revenue year after year. Of course, making money isn’t bad. But how they do it, all why crying out that their industry is dying, is repulsive to say the least.

At every step along the way in the last ~100 years, the entertainment industry has fought tooth and nail to keep technology at bay. And time and time again, they’ve lost. Perfectly illustrating their repeated failures at stalling innovation is a handy infographic from AddictingInfo. Check it out after the break…

Source AddictingInfo

Infographic: The Worst Web Outages Of 2011

Mike Norris — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:44:13 +0000

A lot of exciting announcements were made in 2011 for the tech world. With them, however, came many examples of tech failures, namely network/service outages. There were quite a few. Everything from Foursquare to Twitter to AT&T, and more suffered their own fair share of hiccups — Perfect subject for an infographic. Smart Bear software sat down and did just that, making an infographic showcasing 2011′s worst internet/network/service outages and organizing it into a more palatable format.

It’s big, graphic, and full of interesting stuff. Hop past for the read…

Source Killer Infographics

Via BitRebels

Irony: Most Pirated Games Of 2011 Are Still At The Top Of The Sales Charts

Jordan Carpenter — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:22:42 +0000

This isn’t a post promoting piracy or anything, just an informative post about the level of downloaded games on these here interwebs. And with how that level of thefts of a game, it can still top the charts and set records for sales. TorrentFreak has posted it’s annual list of top 10 most pirated games on the internet and some expected results made the list.

Crysis 2 topped the PC download list with almost 4 millions downloads. Gears of War 3 took the 360 list, which beat out Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. With MW3 hitting $1 billion in sales in just 16 days, it’s surprising that it was still downloaded over 800k times. Super Mario Galaxy 2 topped the Wii charts for the second year in a row. Do these results surprise any of you out there?

I know people pirate games because they probably can’t afford to buy them. That is why my cabinet isn’t as stocked as I’d like it, because of the price. So these people do like that game they downloaded, just couldn’t afford it. But then that game they just downloaded hits $1 billion in a hair over 2 weeks, and the developers sit and cry that they are losing money about the piracy.

It’s a double edged sword. I agree that these hard working developers need compensation for their work. I appreciate every minute they put into giving me hours and hours of entertainment. But the level of talk about loss in sales when they are sitting in a ivory tower is a laughing matter. I don’t support piracy, that isn’t what this is about. But I know how hard it is to buy things that you really want, and I can see the levels of these numbers as high as they are.

Jump past the break to see the rest of results…

PC Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
as of December 30, 2011

1 Crysis 2 (3,920,000) (Mar. 2011)
2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000) (Nov. 2011)
3 Battlefield 3 (3,510,000) (Oct. 2011)
4 FIFA 12 (3,390,000) (Sept. 2011)
5 Portal 2 (3,240,000) (Apr. 2011)

Wii Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
as of December 30, 2011

1 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000) (May. 2010)
2 Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000) (Feb. 2011)
3 Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000) (Aug. 2011 EU)
4 Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000) (May. 2011)
5 FIFA 12 (860,000) (Sept. 2011)

Xbox 360 Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
as of December 30, 2011

1 Gears of War 3 (890,000) (Sep. 2011)
2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000) (Nov. 2011)
3 Battlefield 3 (760,000) (Oct. 2011)
4 Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000) (Oct. 2011)
5 Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000) (Oct. 2011)

Source TorrentFreak

GoDaddy Drops SOPA Support After Tidal Wave Of Protests.

Mike Norris — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:50:07 +0000

Score another one for the internet. After a massive outpouring of public discontent over GoDaddy’s continued support of SOPA, the company has (finally) announced they are officially dropping support for the extremely harmful anti-piracy bill, SOPA.

If you were thinking it’s time to bury the hatchet, we’ll invite you to merely put it in the closet for now as the company’s tone in their official statement makes it sound like they’re only dropping SOPA to appease naysayers, and that ultimately some SOPA-like bill will be passed. With that said, GoDaddy says that if/when consumers support SOPA (or a similar bill), they too will get back on board.

As for those with plans to transfer domains away from GoDaddy, will you continue? We took Gadgetsteria.com and ran. While GoDaddy caved this time, their track record isn’t exactly a beacon of truth and honesty.

Source GoDaddy

[Update] GoDaddy Seems To Think It’s Ok To Support Censorship, Laugh Off Critics.

Mike Norris — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:20:26 +0000

If you haven’t followed the whole SOPA/ProtectIP drama over the last few weeks in particular, just know that the 1-2 combo of terribly written bills could, if passed, turn the U.S. into a 2nd China in regards to censorship. While we won’t get deep into why either bill is bad (there’s already plenty of that online), we will highlight a humorous/intriguing boycott that is gaining momentum — a “Leave GoDaddy Day” on December 29th — that all started from a single Reddit post.

Disclaimer: We began the transfer process to move Gadgetsteria.com away from GoDaddy yesterday.

GoDaddy’s public image to the internet loving people is, understandably, tanking. The statement they gave to Ars Technica in response to questions regarding the December 29th boycott and their SOPA/ProtectIP support in which they blatantly brush off criticism doesn’t help either. In short: GoDaddy is saying they don’t give a fuck about you, the internet, or the idea of a free and open web. On top of it all, they’re laughing at everyone. Though, we’re pretty sure GoDaddy won’t be laughing if more people follow “I can has cheeseburger” (Fail Blog, etc.) CEO Ben Huh — Huh is moving over 1,000 domains off of GoDaddy if they don’t drop support for SOPA (via: Twitter).

If the boycott actually has as impact, big or small, it will be our turn to laugh back.

See ya, GoDaddy.

GoDaddyBoycott.org

Update

Score one for the internet — GoDaddy has officially dropped support for SOPA.

Google’s Latest Trick: “Let It Snow”

Mike Norris — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:20:02 +0000

One of the coolest things about Google is the ever changing search logo. Whether it be a serious, important highlight of world history or something as simple as a nerdy little inside joke, Google is always keeps it fresh.

Even cooler than a simple logo change, however, are the “search tricks” (no, not those tricks) whereby typing a simple phrase into the search bar causes the browser to do something. The last time we encountered such a trick it was the nifty “do a barrel roll” phrase that caused the window to spin, but this latest trick is a bit more festive.

Typing “let it snow” in the Google search bar will reward you with slowly falling snow flakes across your browser window. It’s nothing big or meaningful, sure. But it’s still awesome that Google, despite their sheer size and endless supply for full plates still finds the time to add in nifty little browser tricks such as this.

Protip: Disable the instant search feature so you stay on the simpler search page, and in turn, see the effect a bit better.

Via Geekologie

Microsoft Goes On The Offensive With Internet Explorer.

Mike Norris — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:25 +0000

Microsoft is taking matters into their own hands regarding the — Won’t it ever DIE!! — Internet Explorer 6. Now more than a decade old, IE 6 is a perfect example of what happens when complacency and laziness take hold, if not a bit of obliviousness. Whatever the reason may be for a particular person or company to continue using IE 6, very soon you’ll have to work even harder to keep the old internet relic chugging along on your computer thanks to new auto and transparent updating of IE.

Essentially, Microsoft is making IE update much like Chrome and Firefox already do — in the background silently. IE updates won’t even show up in Windows Updates anymore either. For most consumers, this is great as they don’t have to think about browser maintenance and in turn get stuck in the version number battle. For companies with ancient software that requires and equally ancient browser, the news isn’t entirely exciting. But there’s a perk: the process will be opt-in meaning companies (and consumers should they choose) can keep going the manual route.

The new auto-update functionality is scheduled to begin rolling out this coming January in Australia and Brazil, “scaling up” over the year to other countries.

Source Ars Technica

Twitter Rolls Out Embeddable Tweets. Bloggers Rejoice!

Mike Norris — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:16:46 +0000

Find yourself writing about Twitter-based material a lot? Along with new UI/functionality for the Android and iOS apps as well as a revamped Twitter.com web portal, Twitter also unleashed another new gem: Embeddable tweets.

This is an embedded tweet

— Mike Norris (@the_gadgeteur) December8, 2011

Users of WordPress and Posterous blogs can simply copy the tweet URL or shortcode into a post and the respective services will automagically display the embedded tweet (as seen immediately above). For everyone else, simply clicking “embed this tweet” right next to the time stamp information on the bottom of a tweet nets the image up top, giving you options for how to embed any given tweet. Also included: The ability to 1-click follow any twitter user from the embedded tweet — nice.

Pretty cool, eh?

Here’s What Spotify Announced Today…

Mike Norris — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:52:42 +0000

Spotify’s special event just wrapped up, and with it come details on the company’s future amongst a heap of recent Spotify articles good and bad. The once little known service inside the U.S. has quickly become a music juggernaut. During today’s event, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stated that Spotify has secured licensing deals with all the major labels and adds over 20,000 tracks to Spotify’s library each and every day. According to Ek, the full library would take over 100 years to listen to from start to finish, and all this reaches 10 million listeners. But enough fluff. Here’s what Spotify announced today…

Apps

Spotify has created a platform to allow developers to build HTML5 and javascript apps on top of Spotify. Love it or hate it, Spotify will use an app approval process. To us, this is a great choice as it will keep garbage apps from clogging up this new path Spotify’s on, and keep the experience optimal for end users.

3rd parties won’t be the only ones enjoying Spotify’s new frameworks for creating apps. Spotify will put the new tools to use in rolling out their own improvements over time as well, with the most striking addition being a Facebook-like news ticker about what friends are doing/listening to.

As for app partners, there are literally a ton of companies already on board including Last.fm, FUSE, RollingStone, PitchFork and more. On stage, Last.fm and TuneWiki were some of the bigger, more exciting apps shown off. TuneWiki in particular was handy in that as you skip forward/backward the lyrics jump back and forth instantly as well. SoundKick’s Spotify app brings the local music scene into your Spotify ecosystem. The coolest feature of their app is that bands can allow Spotify users to see the upcoming playlists for local concerts — just one of the cool tricks. And yes, concert tickets are here too.

Right now the list of apps isn’t too terribly big. But what happens in 1-2 years time when the catalog has had time to mature? Located right within the Spotify app is a small “App Finder” search bar — pretty self explanatory.

Unfortunately for now, all of the newfound 3rd party support will be restricted to the Spotify app itself — no streaming of Spotify content directly from 3rd party sites.

The presentation was pretty quick paced all things considered, but what’s easy to see is that Spotify is going to become (or at least as the potential to become) a massive service/ecosystem, certainly much bigger than a simple streaming app.

One question brought up after the Q&A session revolves around free vs. paid apps. According to Ek, all of Spotify’s new apps will be free — no mention of of paid apps in the near-term.

Ready to explore Spotify apps? The first group of apps will officially be available (in beta) starting today on Spotify’s site.

Free Vs. Premium Users

Not to worry, whether you are a free or premium Spotify member, all of the new features and apps announced (and coming in the future) will be available. There won’t be any price-limited tiers in regards to apps.

Gallery

Video: “The Evolution Of Search” [Google]

Mike Norris — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:55:58 +0000

In one light, 1996 seems like just yesterday. And then it hits you — that was sixteen years ago. Such a span of time is an eternity in the tech world. It goes without saying Google has undergone a ton of changes since its inception back in 1996. Hop past the break for a great little 6-minute video covering the evolution of Google, starting from its early days to the here and now as well as where Google is aiming to go in the future…

Video

Source: Google (YouTube) | Via: GoogleAtAGlance (Twitter)

The Internet Contains 600 Exabytes Of Data And Weighs As Much As A Strawberry.

Mike Norris — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:31:42 +0000

Ever sat back and thought about how insanely simple/complex/awesome the internet is? The overall concept is easy to grasp — connecting people and ideas all over the world — yet the actual task of doing that is immense. Getting past the logistical issues of what makes the internet tick, have you ever tried to formulate a rough size for all the data stored online? What about how much it weighs? Can the internet have a weight? All good questions answered by one intriguing video created by @tweetsauce.

Catch the video with the only two answers you’ll ever need right after the brief HTML intermission…

Video

Source: Presurfer | Via: BitRebels

Microsoft To Follow In Adobe’s Footsteps, Abandon Silverlight After Version 5?

Mike Norris — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:50:34 +0000

Apparently Adobe isn’t the only one that realizes browser based plugins for rich media (read: the impending death of Flash on mobile) are dead. According to the Verge whom cites Mary Jo Foley whom herself cites multiple sources, Microsoft will officially abandon their Flash competitor, Silverlight, after the next Silverlight 5 release rumored to drop around late November.

Given the wide ranging support for HTML5 as well as previous comments by Microsoft that Silverlight’s days were numbered, the announcement wouldn’t exactly be surprising. Nonetheless, hearing of Flash (mobile Flash mind you) and Silverlight in the same day makes for a rather interesting week, no?

Outside of web video, Flash is less relevant while Silverlight still is a key piece of Windows Phone. Give this week’s events it appears the track towards a web technologies based future has been accelerated.

Source: Zdnet | Via: TheVerge

FCC And Broadband Providers Coming Together To Offer $9.99/Month Broadband Plan For Low Income Households.

Mike Norris — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:27:35 +0000

At some point on Wednesday the FCC will reveal details concerning the rollout of the national broadband initiative in cooperation with various broadband providers and many other companies across various industries. The goal: bribing affordable broadband service to low income households.

The move is being made in an attempt to sign up as many of the nation’s 100+ million unconnected citizens as possible with plans as low as $9.99/month. For the record, Comcast began offering a $9.99/month broadband plan earlier in 2011 as part of an agreement when acquiring NBC.

In order to qualify, households can’t have recently had or currently have internet access, must have a child on the national school lunch program, and accept being limited to two years at the “promotional” $9.99/month rate. After two years cable providers in particular are hoping that customers will find the benefits of broadband too good to once again go without, and in turn pay for more expensive service.

The official (read: not Comcast’s) $9.99/month broadband service will begin rolling out in the spring of 2012 with national coverage coming sometime in September the same year.

It’s about time, we say. It’s one of the few times so many companies from different walks of life are coming together for a common goal and the greater good. See what happens when we all get along…?

Via: NY Times

Netflix Throws In The Towel, Cancels Plans To Roll Out DVD-Only “Qwikster”.

Mike Norris — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:40:45 +0000

Qwikster is dead. Netflix’s DVD-only, revamped mail-in option for movie rentals didn’t even get a proper launch and the company is already throwing in the towel.

The botched Qwikster launch is more bad news piled on top an already negative image originally brought on by Netflix raising prices for DVD and streaming options many weeks back.

With that said, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings reiterated that while the company saw the spit of streaming and DVD-only as better for the brand in the long-term, they also listen to their customers, customers who were almost unanimously against the proposed spin-off.

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

On that same note, Hastings promises me Qwikster related news in the near future.

Great start to a Monday, eh?

Source: Qwikster is dead. Netflix’s DVD-only, revamped mail-in option for movie rentals didn’t even get a proper launch and the company is already throwing in the towel.

The botched Qwikster launch is more bad news piled on top an already negative image originally brought on by Netflix raising prices for DVD and streaming options many weeks back. Combine the perfect storm of PR disasters and the end result is a stock price that’s plummeted from the one-time high of ~$300/share to now just $117/share.

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

On that same note, Hastings promises more Qwikster related news in the near future.

Great start to a Monday, eh?

Via: Netflix | Via: AllThingsD

Saurik Sheds Some Light On Future Of Jailbreakme.com.

Jordan Carpenter — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:39:06 +0000

After our post earlier warning everyone, via MuscleNerd, to steer clear of jailbreakme.com because of the new owner, we were all left wondering the future of the extremely popular domain. Of course, the tool can be ported, but jailbreakme.com has been around for a long time now, and it will go down as the site that was first able to jailbreak the iPad 2. We might not have to worry about directing our iDevices to any other domain, as Saurik has given us the latest info regarding the domain and it’s new ownder.

Back in July, around the time that Comex decided it was time to hang up his jailbreak jersey and join the likes of Apple, the jailbreakme.com domain was handed over. Once we learned this yesterday, MuscleNerd was on it telling us that the new owner was unknown and that the site could spread malicious malware to our devices. Saurik was able to get to know the new owner and apparently he isn’t a bad guy. After their discussion, the domain – jailbreakme.com – was handed over to Saurik so moving forward there is no reason to worry about what is being sent to your iDevice.

Source: Saurik