How much good will Twitter and Facebook do your revolution once the government completely shuts down Internet access? “Not much good” is the correct answer. (Can something similar happen here in the U.S.?) That’s why it’s high time we pay homage to some of the old technology that’s really making this Egyptian situation tick: ham radio, fax machines, and good ol’ fashioned dial-up modems. Remember those? → Read More
It’s hardly a secret that many of us here are big fans of Steam, Valve’s digital download service that makes buying PC games pretty painless. Who among us hasn’t spent more than a few dollars during one of those big Steam sales?
The only problem with Steam sales is that, having purchased a game, you have to sit there for at least several (long!) hours, waiting for it to fully download. Meaning, if that you were waiting all year to buy, say, BioShock 2, then when you finally buy it when it’s on sale for 75 percent off, you’ll probably have to leave the download running overnight, the servers being swamped with other, like-minded folks. That’s not fun at all. → Read More
This should be an interesting year when it comes to keeping your data safe. Odds are you (and even your parents!) either have or will have a smartphone of some sort this year, and odds are evildoers will be trying their hardest to ruin your life: steal your credit card info, hack your Twitter account, order 10 pizzas and send them your house without you knowing, etc. Traitorware! We’re living on the edge of a lightning bolt here. With that in mind, McAfee has compiled a quick list of things that should help your make 2011 as safe a year as possible. Conversely, you could permanently disconnect from the Internet. Your call. → Read More
UK Internet Service Providers have hit out at a proposal to make online pornography an opt-in “feature” of sorts. They’ve done so not because they love spending all day browsing whatever, but because, well, it shouldn’t be their job to censor the Internet before it enters your home. If you want to lock down your computer so your children don’t access such material, fine. Good on you for taking an interesting in your children’s lives, but that’s where it should stop. → Read More
Reading Drudge and the Wall Street Journal this morning had me concerned that Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, was going to smash my modem into tiny pieces with a +2 mace in the name of flexing regulatory muscle. Hardly. It’s true that the FCC will vote tomorrow whether or not to implement some sort of Net Neutrality regime, but considering that it’s already stated what it means to accomplish with the vote, I don’t understand why folks are so upset. But, I’m willing to listen. → Read More
Editor’s note: Guest author John Borthwick is the CEO and founder of betaworks and in a previous life was a senior strategist for Time Warner and a witness in the Microsoft antitrust case.
Access to fast, affordable and open broadband, for users and developers alike is, I believe, the single most important driver of innovation in our business. The FCC will likely vote next week on a framework for net neutrality—we got aspects of this wrong ten years ago, we can’t afford to be wrong again. For the reasons I outline below, we are at an important juncture in the evolution of how we connect to the Internet and how services are delivered on top of the platform. The lack of basic “rules of the road” for what network providers and others can and can’t do is starting to hamper innovation and growth. The proposals aren’t perfect but now is the time for the FCC to act.
Brad Burnham stopped by our office earlier this week to talk about his proposal for the future of net neutrality. The FCC has circulated a draft of a set of rules about neutrality that the Commission will likely vote on this week. Though the rules are not public, Chairman Genachowski outlined their substance last week. Through a combination of the Chairman’s talk, the Waxman Proposal, and the Google/Verizon proposal, one can derive the substance of the issue and understand its opportunities and risks. I strongly support much of what the Chairman has proposed and I support the clarifications that Burnham outlines. But before further discussing this point, I have to ask, why does this matter now? Over the past few years there has been a lot of discussion, a lot of promises, and some proposals with regard to net neutrality. Here are three reasons why this matters now: → Read More
On the first full day of Julian Assange’s release from imprisonment, we now learn that some members of the United Nations want to introduce some sort of worldwide Internet regulation. That’s nice. But don’t worry: this isn’t a “takeover,” or anything scary like that. It’s simply to ensure that we never see something like Wikileaks ever again. A bit late for that, no? → Read More
The average time spent on the Internet by adults in the U.S. grew an estimated 6 percent in 2010 to 155 minutes a day, or about two and a half hours, according to new estimates from eMarketer. Compared to watching TV, which the average American adult does for 264 minutes a day (or four and a half hours), it still has a way to go in terms of becoming the media we spend our most time on. However, TV time declined about 1 percent.
More startling is that time spent on mobile devices is now the same as time spent reading print newspapers and magazines combined. The average American spends an estimated 50 minutes a day staring at his cell phone, versus 30 minutes reading a print newspaper and 20 minutes reading a magazine. Of course, much of that time staring at mobile screens is reading news online so maybe when all is said and done people are actually reading more. Although what they are reading—Tweets, email, and text messages, along with articles— is not always the same as in the offline world. → Read More
And there it is: Americans now spend as much time on the Internet as they do watching TV. So says a new study released by Forrester Research, which says that people now spend 121 percent more time online than they did only five years ago. What’s probably most significant is that these stats now include people in the 30+ age group; it’s not just college student insomniacs who spend their time online these days. → Read More
It’s no secret that people can be jerks on the Internet. Lord knows that I’ve seen my fair share of flame wars all over the place in my travels. Penny-Arcade noted as much six years ago with the famous equation: normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad. And check your work… yup, fuckwad. Even given this bulletproof equation, the question becomes why. → Read More
It’s the Internet contest that anyone can play! Yes, Ron and Fez‘s Search Search Hurry Up And Search returns, now with plenty of prizes just in time for your holiday shopping. Why leave the house? Why spend all day browsing Web sites looking for deals when you can Search Search Hurry Up And Search your way to success? → Read More
There’s good news and bad news about broadband coming out of newly released Census data, courtesy of the Commerce Department. The good news is that more people than ever before now have broadband, with 63.5 percent of all households now subscribing to a broadband service. That’s up from 9.2 percent from way back in 2001. Read that carefully: that’s up from 9.2 percent, not merely up 9.2 percent. The bad news? → Read More
Google will now pay you to find and report vulnerabilities in its various Web properties. The company made the announcement yesterday, and it applies to sites like google.com, youtube.com, and orkut.com. Should you report a qualifying bug, you can expect to walk away with at least $500. → Read More
The move to all-digital distribution is already well under way, and it poses a problem for businesses that have based themselves around the sale of shiny plastic discs. That, combined with the rampant piracy of these discs when they’re released has particularly hurt independent pro-wrestling organizations (to pick something out of thin air). Gabe Sapolsky, vice-president of Dragon Gate USA, owner of Evolve, and former head booker of Ring of Honor, was recently interviewed on Figure Four Daily, a podcast dedicated to pro-wrestling and MMA news, and said that the only way these companies will survive is if a new technology, Internet Pay-Per-View, becomes viable. → Read More
Years ago, the nations of the world signed a space treaty. No, this isn’t a recap of the latest Mass Effect 2 DLC. It basically said, “OK, space exploration will be for the benefit of all mankind. All areas of space belong equally to all nations.” Ludicrous, by the way, the thought that we should have any sort of sway over the stars. The point is: we came together, at least on the surface, for the benefit of every person on the planet. With that in mind: how would you react to a similar Internet treaty? Something the nations of the world can get behind in order to save the Internet? → Read More
Students! As anyone on a Windows machine who has visited good ol’ CrunchGear in the past few weeks knows: the Internet can be a dangerous place. There’s malware everywhere, dumb, time-wasting YouTube videos are embedded all over the place, and Flash advertisements constantly contrive to steal away your processor cycles. Really, if at all possible, you should just avoid the Internet entirely: it’s rarely worth the effort. But, I know this isn’t an option for many of you. That’s where this post comes into play. Hopefully by the time you’re done reading it, you’ll be a little bit safer as you troll the Internet late at night instead of doing your work. → Read More
This rather, shall we say, conspicuous-looking device is the miniCaster. What it does is take any video source—camcorder, phone, you named it—and creates a live Internet video stream. It’s aimed at video journalists and the like, and not necessarily the average person. It transmits the video over a LAN (a Wi-Fi version is in the works) after encoding it into H.264. Despite the provided picture—good luck aiming such a peculiar-looking device over the skyline of Manhattan without attracting police attention—the miniCaster comes to us from a German company, TV1 GmbH. It starts at around $1,300. God, is Halo Reach out yet? I need something fun to look forward to! → Read More
Can you guess what is the “perhaps the most overhyped and overanticipated phenomenon in tech history”? If you guessed “replacing cable TV with Internet services like Hulu,” have a cookie! For all the talk of Google TV this and Boxee that, the numbers couldn’t be more clear: hardly anybody plans on ditching cable TV for a world of Internet-delivered content. It’s a nice idea, and maybe one that will gain traction in the future, but right now? Not happening, sorry. → Read More
Verizon has tested gigabit Internet access “in the field,” that is, at actual locations and not merely in some laboratory somewhere. (This, as the company tries to say that providing broadband to Americans will be damn near impossible in the future. Odd.) We really are reaching the point where there is very legitimate reason to have gigabit Internet access, based on current Internet infrastructure, but nothing wrong with testing out the cables, I suppose. → Read More
The Pew research center put out survey results today on broadband adoption and Internet use in America. There was one data point that I found startling. According to the survey, 21 percent of American adults say they don’t use the Internet. One fifth of all Americans.
This isn’t just people who do not use broadband (which is 66 percent of American adults). It also includes people who don’t use dial-up (another 5 percent). These people don’t use the Internet at all. That is like not using the telephone. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
