Reuters tells us that the FCC will be proposing a dedicated spectrum for free wireless Internet. Not much else has been said about the implementation of “free or very low cost wireless broadband service,” since the recommendation, under the National Broadband Plan does not release until next week.
If this happens, we won’t be the first to offer some sort of public Internet access. Apparently Finland has plans for 100mb broadband by 2015, as Harri Pursiainen, secretary at the transport and communications minister, believes “data connections are no longer entertainment but a necessity.” A slower 1mb broadband has been slated to start in July for the interim.
And the Finnish aren’t the only ones who believe Internet access is a right… BBC World Service recently conducted a study where “almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the Internet is a fundamental right.” The survey included the opinions of over 27,000 adults throughout 26 countries.
So, back home? Will it happen? I suppose only time will tell…
It’s not uncommon that airports have free wi-fi. It’s also not that uncommon that your flight has (possibly not free) wi-fi now. I’ve even frequented a commuter van pool that had wi-fi for us to continue working while traveling up and down the canyon — a way of encouraging more time to work or a nice gesture allowing you to escape work sooner (hmm… you be the judge). What’s next?
Well, according to the China Post, 1,000 taxis in Taipei will soon be offering Internet services. By March 9th, VMAX Telecom Co., one of six WiMAX licensed operators in Taiwan, will launch the service through taxis installed with WiMAX technology. “For the first time ever, taxis will be equipped with WiMAX technology to offer passengers wireless access to the Internet,” said a VMAX spokesperson. The service will be free for the initial trial period to assess whether the service will make any money long-term. As passengers use the Internet services provided during their ride, they will also be polled.
VMAX Telecom predicts the 1,000 equipped taxis will poll a minimum of 15,000 people a day. The capital city of Taipei is home to over 2.5 million people — that’s more than 10x the population of Salt Lake metro. It’s also home to a widely used bus system, train system (including the fairly new MRT) and subway system. I think it’s fair to say that Taipei is a metropolitan city where taxis are utilized fairly often. Actually, I think there was a day when I was in town and commuted in four separate taxis, all during lunch time! But, I wonder just how much the Internet can be utilized during a short car ride though…
A couple of eye-brow raising stats came out recently. The Society for New Communications Research released a study regarding journalists and their use of social media. It’s no shock that the study revealed the “use of social media tools by journalists is surging, growing in double-digit percentages in some cases.” But, as ZDNet points out… there’s interesting insight to how many of the 341 journalists surveyed are not taking advantage of social media sites.
Beck & Lee (Miami) and the Weston Firm (San Diego) filed a class action lawsuit against Yelp yesterday. Why? Well, according to the Yelp Class Action Website, “the lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of ‘advertising contracts,’ in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website.”
Last year, Kathleen Richards at East Bay Express wrote an article about how several businesses in the Bay Area were contacted by Yelp. John, a restaurant owner in the Bay, was contacted about negative reviews that were featured prominently on his Yelp site. “We can move them,” said the Yelp sales rep. Then came, “Well, for $299 a month.” Ha! What?! Although the article mentions this issue is addressed in the Yelp FAQ, there are a number a local business owners that challenge the statement. Yelp denies the statements addressed in Richards’ article though. The Wall Street Journal did an article on these events.
Beginning March 1st, Google’s tipping over the dominoes and starting the phase-out of Internet Explorer 6. March 1st begins Google’s drop for IE 6 support in regards to Google Docs and Google Sites. “As a result, you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers,” says Google.
March 13th begins (Google-owned) YouTube’s drop of IE6. “The latest YouTube interstitial (messaging) is part of a campaign to encourage users to update their browsers in order to enhance their overall site experience,” notes the YouTube blog. And, as forewarned, Google will also be dropping IE6 support for Gmail and other Google Apps sometime in 2010.
So, what’s a web surfer to do? I channel Beyonce when I say I’m going to “introduce you to some new things and upgrade you, I can up, can I up, let me upgrade you.” Upgrade to a more modern browser! Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox are all great choices. There’s also Opera and Safari.
Yay? Nay? According to Ars Technica, IE6 held 1/5th of the browser market early this year — not too surprising since Windows XP came packaged with the product. This may be largely due to the fact that many IT departments haven’t made that upgrade decision yet. But lots of people, including a numerous web developers and designers, despise the outdated browser and some have even come together via the “Hey IT” group.
Aten Design Group, a Denver-based design company with a sense of humor, will be bidding farewell to IE6 on March 4th. The funeral services will be held at their offices.
Come mix and mingle with Denver’s top IE6 mourners. We’ll have a special time of remembrance, a round of IE6 darts, and plenty of food & drinks.
Remember not too long ago when pagers were the fad of the times? I believe I was pretty cool by knowing that “8181″ in pager code meant “bye-bye.” Well, at least, it did amongst my peers when I lived in San Gabriel Valley, California — where the Asian population ranked fairly high (in Chinese, “8-1-8-1″ sounds very similar to the English, “bye-bye”).
Then, remember when cell phones took over the pager fad? Ahem, Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell and his brick phone? I know I’m not getting any younger, but those days just don’t seem that long ago…
Well, whether it be by mp3 player, cell phone, portable gaming device, desktop, laptop or netbook, I’d say we are in the fad of Internet usage these days. Actually, I take that back, I don’t think it’s a fad — Internet is here to stay! Either way, Pingdom came out with interesting numbers today regarding Internet usage.
Is China going too far? Was the Chinese government behind, as Google puts it, “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack” that’s gotten Google ready to pull out of China? In mid-December Google and, apparently, about 20 other companies, were attacked. Google’s investigation discovered “that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties.”
A blog post from Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, declared that Google is “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn.” Google doesn’t necessary dominate the internet search market in China (about 15% or so), but there is lots of potential for growth — especially since Google will soon dominate the world. And if they pull out, Baidu, China’s leading search engine, will surely saturate the market even more.
Did you know that over 20 threats emerge every minute? Actually, there is a new one every 2.5 seconds. Most of these threats are from the web. According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, the average adult Internet user spends an average of 13 hours a week online — a trend that has been increasing over the years. Hence, more cause for concern in our technological future?
Cloud-computing and virtualization are becoming increasingly popular. At cheaper costs, the ease of work mobility, increased reliability, lighter installations and improved efficiency, it’s hard not to progress with this trend. But with the ups must come the downs, I suppose. The Trend Micro 2010 Future Threat Report (released December 2009) predicts the grounds on which cyber-criminals prey are also expanded due to the expansion of cloud-computing and virtualization.
The Federal Government in Australia is introducing an internet filter that will block access to sites containing obscene and criminal content — think child sex abuse, sexual violence, bestiality, detailed tutorials on how to commit crimes and other things that are most likely found in the Anarchist’s Cookbook. The Huffington Post reports that such material is already banned from Australian sites, but the government has no control over its access on servers overseas.
The reasoning behind such censorship? Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says, “The Government believes that parents want assistance to reduce the risk of children being exposed to such material.” Conroy also believes that some internet content is just not appropriate for civilized society.
In a recently released study from the University of California, San Diego, Americans were found to consume about 1.3 trillion hours of information. in 2008 Eating up 3.6 zettabytes of information and 10,845 trillion words, that equals out to 34 gigabytes and 100,500 words each day, per person!
Uh, Zettabyte?!? A zettabyte = a 1 with 21 zeros. In regards to the 3.6 zettabytes… the study points out “if we printed 3.6 zettabytes of text in books, and stacked them as tightly as possible across the United States including Alaska, the pile would be 7 feet high.”
This isn’t to say that we read 100,500 words a day though… In the paper “How Much Information?,” authors Roger Bohn and James Short define “information” as “flows of data delivered to people.” They measure the data by “the bytes, words and hours of consumer information.” So, rather, it means that we come across 100,500 words a day. The leading source of information is video sources (1.3 zettabytes from television and almost 2 zettabytes from computer games) with radio and Internet rising not too far behind. Reading has even tripled from 1980 to 2008, “because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet.” An even more shocking jump – a previous study estimated only .3 zettabytes consumed worldwide in 2007 (3,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 more than UCSD’s recent findings for 2008).
Reuters tells us that the FCC will be proposing a dedicated spectrum for free wireless Internet. Not much else has been said about the implementation of “free or very low cost wireless broadband service,” since the recommendation, under the National Broadband Plan does not release until next week.
Is China going too far? Was the Chinese government behind, as Google puts it, “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack” that’s gotten Google ready to pull out of China? In mid-December Google and, apparently, about 20 other companies, were attacked. Google’s investigation discovered “that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties.”
Did you know that over 20 threats emerge every minute? Actually, there is a new one every 2.5 seconds. Most of these threats are from the web. According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, the average adult Internet user spends an average of 13 hours a week online — a 
The Federal Government in Australia is introducing an internet filter that will block access to sites containing obscene and criminal content — think child sex abuse, sexual violence, bestiality, detailed tutorials on how to commit crimes and other things that are most likely found in the 
In a recently released study from the University of California, San Diego, Americans were found to consume about 1.3 trillion hours of information. in 2008 Eating up 3.6 zettabytes of information and 10,845 trillion words, that equals out to 34 gigabytes and 100,500 words each day, per person!
