Archive for: Internet
Did you know that in 2011 the people of the world will have created/replicated over 1.8 Zetabytes of data (1,800,000,000,000 Gigabytes) and that by 2015 that number is set to rise beyond 7.9 Zetabytes? According to the inforgraph put together by EMC claims each single gigabyte we store can create up to a Petabyte (1,000,000 Gigabytes) of transient data — wireless signals, landline signals such as cable, etc. All in all, the digital world is exploding. Literally.
Check out the full infograph in all it’s 539 x 9973 glory after the break…
If you had any hopes that Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao was one the consumers’ side when it game to a hands-off approach in which the government stays out of the one great thing on this planet — the internet — you were sorely mistaken. In a self addressed letter to the Financial Times, Colao says that despite claims by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, the internet is not self regulating efficiently enough or quickly enough to keep up with the dangers of piracy, IP theft, and consumer privacy.
Ironically, Colao believes that a government body — any government body mind you — can efficiently regulate something as global and fast paced as the internet. It goes without saying Calao is either incredibly naive and doesn’t understand the very basics of the internet or is completely incompetent…
Ever heard the claim that the internet is nothing but a series of tubes (How ya doin’ Mr. Ted Stevens)? According to Peer1′s diagram, it is! If you click through the link in the previous sentence you’ll be taken to the full resolution picture which is, huge. But from there you can zoom in/out as you wish. You know, geek out.
Microsoft just released IE 9 a couple of weeks ago and already it’s old news. Today at the MIX developer conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft’s Dean Hachamovitch previewed the latest IE 10 preview build which add such features as CSS Gradients and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout. It appears that Microsoft is going to finally break from the old 1-2 year update cycles between major browser revisions and take a more Mozilla/Google approach to things.
Also worth noting — at the same conference, the hardware that was demoing IE 10 preview just so happened to be a netbook powered by an ARM processor. For those not up to par with their processor/OS pairings, such a duo is a very new, exciting thing in the mobile world.
+1 Microsoft.
Congratulations Kansas City, Kansas. You are the first group of citizens to take part in Google’s 1Gbps internet project. Residents of “Google, Kansas” (previously known as Topeka) can’t be all to happy considering (1) they weren’t chosen and (2) the winner is from the same state. Nevertheless, hope has been restored. Google says Kansas City is but the first city of many to receive their uber fast gigabit network. Looks like we can all re-cross our fingers…
In stark contrast to AT&T’s new bandwidth caps scheduled to hit homes this coming May, BT has informed UK Infinity subscribers that they are doing just the opposite — they are removing any and all bandwidth caps. Specifically, BT Total Broadband and Infinity fiber services (tier 2) will soon be able to download any and all of the world should they so choose. With that truly “unlimited” decree, users will have up to 40Mbps (actual speeds ~33Mbps) download and ~2Mbps upload speeds to play with.
As for the still capped packages, BT’s Option 1 and 2 tiers will feature a 10GB and 40GB cap respectively while Infinity Option 1 will also share a 40GB cap. Overages for these plans are priced at £5 per 5GB.
Finally, users of the unlimited plans will still be subject to bandwidth throttling at peak hours (5pm-midnight) “when the network is busy”.
Bad news for “unlimited” data users, AT&T is killing off “unlimited”…again. This time, it’s hitting your household instead of your cellphone. According to reports from DSLReports and confirmation with AT&T PR guy, Seth Bloom, “unlimited” is a thing of the past. Starting May 2nd, your typical non-U-Verse package will have a 150GB data cap. U-Verse customers will have a bit loftier ceiling at 250GB. Overages will set you back $10 per extra 50GB of data. In a small act of good will, AT&T will email customers when they’ve hit 65%, 90%, and 100% of their allotted bandwidth.
AT&T maintains that a paltry 2% of customers (whom consume 20% of the company’s bandwidth) will be affected. That leaves 98% of us to go on with business as usual. However, we can’t but help but feel screwed by AT&T yet again. Comcast has a similar cap set around 250GB for all users regardless of package they subscribe to. With all media providers, ISPs, and every company in between talking up social networking, photo sharing, video uploads, and online gaming, 150GB is going to become less and less generous with each passing year. (Read: today’s heavy user is tomorrow’s standard user.) The most popular online service that could easily bump up against that cap that we can think of off hand — Netflix. AT&T should have led in this regard instead of merely following — half-assed we might add. But that’s business (and AT&T) for you.
We’d like to reach out to AT&T to provide us with some actual data proving to us that the killing of unlimited data is actually justified and that rising bandwidth usage is indeed a problem. It’s only fair, right? AT&T, we’re waiting…
Web fiends and internet junkies might want to mark down March 14th (specifically 9pm PST) on their calendars — this is the day in which Microsoft will officially launch their most current Internet Explorer 9 after months of public beta testing. Should you the consumer really leave Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Opera 11, and/or Safari 5 browsers for IE9? After many weeks of IE9 testing in the GS labs, we’d say no. IE9 is great and all, but the latest versions of Firefox 4 and Chrome 10 are better.
Anyone looking forward to IE9?
In news that should make every music label and movie publishing company ecstatic, BitTorrent announced today via an official press release that they have now climbed above 100 million active monthly users spanning across 220 countries. If we drill down to the daily level, it works out to roughly 20 million users swapping some 400,000+ files — impressive numbers indeed. Everything from desktops to rooted Android phones are sucking down torrents at increasing rates.
Jokes aside, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for BitTorrent believe or not. The biggest one that comes to mind offhand — Linux distros. Of course, if you’re not the Linux hobbyist, feel free to toss in your personal favorite. Press release after the break.
