Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
Google‘s Chrome web browser just passed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to become the most-used browser in the world, says the latest data from a digital analytics service.
Although Chrome has edged out IE before for short periods, the last week marks the first time Chrome was the No. 1 browser for a sustained period of one week. Exactly 31.88% of the world’s web traffic was done on Chrome, according to StatCounter, while IE is a close second at 31.47%.
[More from Mashable: The State of Windows 8: Cheap Upgrades, Better Apps [RUMORS]]
Although the difference is slight, Chrome has been trending up for some time, while IE has been trending down. IE is still the top browser in many regions, including North America, but Chrome is extremely popular in both India and South America — the latter being a region where Google’s Orkut social network also has significant market share.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share
[More from Mashable: Chrome Now Syncs Tabs Across Devices]
IE is still king in most other regions, though, for obvious reasons: It’s the default web browser for Windows machines, which still constitute about 90% of the world’s computers. Tech-savvy Internet users tend to prefer Chrome, however, due to its minimal user interface and loading speed.
The browser trends are expected to continue at least until the general release of Internet Explorer 10 later this year. IE10 is tied to the launch of Windows 8, and it may introduce a wild card into the browser game.
While the desktop version of Windows 8 will support third-party browsers just like Windows has in the past, there’s some question whether certain Windows tablets will limit their functionality, in effect forcing users toward using IE10 if they want the abilities of a full web browser.
SEE ALSO: Google Confirms It’s Working on Chrome for Windows 8While StatCounter’s numbers, which are based on page-view data on 3 million websites, are often seen as a reliable barometer on browser popularity, other services that look at unique visitors to determine market share tell a different story. The most recent numbers from Net Applications, for example, show IE with a commanding lead of 54% to Chrome’s 19%. Mozilla Firefox is slightly more popular, at 20%.
Which data do you think is more reliable? Have your say in the comments.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, andrearoad
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-chrome-now-no-1-browser-world-111324988.html
Between Facebook, Google+, Myspace, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and even Lady Gaga’s new social network, there are more social networks than you likely know what do to with. But if you really insist on having yet another in the mix, then Microsoft’s got just the thing: So.cl, a new … Continue …
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/watch-celebs-super-slo-mo-exclusive-125433469.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s antitrust chief on Monday ratcheted up the pressure on Google, giving it a matter of weeks to settle an investigation into allegations of anti-competitive behavior and avoid formal charges and a possible fine.
Even if the world’s most popular search engine offers concessions to resolve the issue, it will still be under the EU spotlight following fresh complaints over its Android mobile software, the top operating system for Internet-enabled smartphones.
The European Commission launched an investigation into Google in November 2010 after competitors, including Microsoft, accused the company of manipulating search results and promoting its own advertising services while demoting rivals’.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said regulators were as keen as Google to avoid lengthy proceedings due to rapid developments in the technology industry and that if remedies were offered by Google within the coming weeks, the antitrust investigation could be brought to a close.
“I believe that these fast-moving markets would particularly benefit from a quick resolution of the competition issues identified. Restoring competition swiftly to the benefit of users at an early stage is always better than lengthy proceedings,” Almunia told a news briefing.
“Google has repeatedly expressed to me its willingness to discuss any concerns that the Commission might have without having to engage in adversarial proceedings, this is why today I’m giving Google an opportunity to offer remedies to address concerns that we have identified,” he said.
Almunia said he had sent a letter to Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, with a deadline for a response.
“In this letter, I offer Google the possibility to come up in a matter of weeks with first proposals of remedies to address each of these points,” he said.
Google said it disagreed with the Commission’s conclusions but that it was happy to discuss the issues further. It controls 86 percent of the European search market, according to online data tracking service comScore.
LAST CHANCE FOR GOOGLE TO SETTLE?
Almunia is offering Google a last chance before issuing formal charges, said David Wood, a lawyer for lobbying group ICOMP whose members include Microsoft, British price comparison site Foundem and German online mapping company Hotmaps, all three complainants in the EU case.
“This is effectively the Commission demanding remedies, failing that there will be a statement of objections (EU charge sheet),” he said.
If Google can come up with remedies and the Commission finds the proposals acceptable following a market test, it could then drop the 18-month-long investigation without levying a fine on the company, Almunia said.
There are currently 16 complaints against Google before the Commission, with the latest grievances coming from several online travel agencies such as TripAdvisor, Opodo and eDreams.
The majority of complaints are from small competitors across Europe. U.S. authorities are also investigating Google, which controls more than two-thirds of the global search market.
Almunia said there were other investigations into Google that would continue irrespective of the antitrust issue.
“We continue the investigations on other issues, on other complaints we received recently, for instance all those complaints referring to Android or some complaints referring for instance to the way travel agencies are dealt by the Google search engine,” he said.
He declined to provide details on the Android investigation. Android-equipped smartphones compete with Apple’s iPhone and other systems.
The Commission can fine companies up to 10 percent of their global turnover for breaching EU rules and has handed down multi-million euro fines to Microsoft and Intel, among others, in the past.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Mark Potter)
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/eus-almunia-offers-google-chance-settle-antitrust-case-103438933--sector.html
Between Facebook, Google+, Myspace, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and even Lady Gaga’s new social network, there are more social networks than you likely know what do to with. But if you really insist on having yet another in the mix, then Microsoft’s got just the thing: So.cl, a new … Continue …
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/more-40-000-orthodox-jews-hold-rally-risks-145035767.html
Between Facebook, Google+, Myspace, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and even Lady Gaga’s new social network, there are more social networks than you likely know what do to with. But if you really insist on having yet another in the mix, then Microsoft’s got just the thing: So.cl, a new … Continue …
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/copyright-cop-system-u-isps-delayed-173558067.html
That ultra-Orthodox rally in New York this weekend all about the evils of the Internet used the Internet in so many ways. At the gathering of 40,000 Jewish men in CitiField, a rabbi warned about all the horrible things the Web is doing to the chosen people. “This is reprogramming our way of life! It’s changing who we are!” said Rabbi Rav Ephraim Wachsman, according to BetaBeat’s Adrienne Jeffries, a woman who went undercover to the event on Sunday. “Children are being turned into click-vegetables!” he continued.
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Meanwhile, there were some click-vegetables in the crowd. And to up the irony just a notch: The event’s organizers both relied on and benefited from the evil tubes.
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- Tickets were sold on e-Bay. As we learned this from both Jewish Humor and a site called Frum Satire, we at first did not believe this absurd detail. But, we double checked $10 tickets were in fact available on eBay.
- There was an event sanctioned live stream. An event spokesperson Eytan Kobre told The New York Times‘ Michael Grynbaum the livestream would only broadcast into Orthodox houses. But, at one point, before YouTube removed it, there was this video of the event. And Jeffries confirmed at least two sites streamed the asifa.
- A lot of the rally-attendees were tweeting. From Jeffries: “This reporter was live-tweeting from the asifa, and we weren’t the only ones. We also glimpsed an iPhone, an Android phone, and saw one attendee clearly emailing from his BlackBerry.” And, thanks to Jewish Humor, we get a round-up of the funniest tweets from the asifa, including the following: “Were it not for social media I would not be able to keep track of the asifa” and “Oy the Internet is evil…but I’m still watching a live stream.”
- And, the ones who weren’t tweeting at the rally, got it out of their system pre-event. “On a No. 7 train headed toward the stadium, several men wearing the clothing of the ultra-Orthodox whipped out smartphones as soon as the subway emerged from the East River tunnel, poking at e-mail in-boxes and checking voice mail messages,” writes Grynbaum.
- Not to mention, there were, all the Internet sites giving the cause publicity. See above.
Not so evil after-all, eh?
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/lot-internet-ultra-orthodox-rally-against-internet-182711797.html
European Union antitrust regulators launched an investigation into Google’s search practices in November 2010 after rivals accused the company of promoting its own services ahead of theirs. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia on Monday said regulators and Google were not looking at a lengthy proceeding, and if the Internet giant could meet certain demands, the antitrust investigation could be brought to a close, Reuters reported. “Google has repeatedly expressed to me its willingness to discuss any concerns that the Commission might have without having to engage in adversarial proceedings, this is why today I’m giving Google an opportunity to offer remedies to address concerns that we have identified,” Almunia said, adding that he wanted a proposal from Google “in a matter of weeks”. The Commission can fine companies up to 10% of their global turnover for breaching EU rules and in the past has fined both Microsoft and Intel, among others.
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Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/europe-gives-google-one-last-chance-end-antitrust-183055414.html
HAVANA (AP) — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba‘s Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.
More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.
Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project.
“They did some photo-op … and then that scandal came out, and then it just disappeared from human consciousness,” said Larry Press, a professor of information systems at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who studies Cuba, referring to foreign media reports and whispers by diplomats that several executives at state phone company Etecsa and the two senior officials in the Telecommunications Ministry were arrested last year.
The cable was strung from Venezuela with the help of key ally Hugo Chavez. Government officials said from the start that the bandwidth boon would be prioritized for hospitals, universities and other usage deemed in service of the common good; the legions of Cubans with little or no access to the Internet from their homes would have to wait.
But a dozen employees of public institutions interviewed by The Associated Press said they have seen no noticeable improvement in their work connections. If anything, they say, download speeds have even gotten a little slower.
Going online in Cuba will try the patience of anyone who’s ever had a taste of high-speed DSL connections.
The problem is that connection speeds here are still Web 1.0, while the world has moved on to fancier, bandwidth-hogging platforms like Flash. YouTube is irrelevant on Cuban dial-up, and barely useable on the rare broadband connections. Want to watch the latest episode of “Mad Men?” At 3-5 kilobytes-per-second dial-up transfer speeds, a 500-megabyte video file would theoretically take somewhere between 28 and 46 hours to download from iTunes.
Artists and photographers say it’s nearly impossible to view others’ work online. People swap digital pictures in person on memory sticks rather than simply sending them as email attachments. Students have difficulty accessing research databases.
One doctor in Havana said she only has access to Cuba’s domestic intranet, a bare-bones internal network of island-hosted sites that also lets users get email. Moreover, her institution recently began cracking down on the few who do have full Internet access, ordering them not to use sites like Facebook under threat of punishment.
“I had high hopes, great expectations for the cable. … For me, doing a postgraduate degree, (the intranet) is no good. It’s too basic and poor for our needs,” she said. “They haven’t given us any explanation.”
She and the others spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of getting into trouble with their state employers.
Multiple attempts to get Cuban and Venezuelan government officials to comment were unsuccessful.
The Venezuela branch of Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent, which was contracted to lay the cable, referred questions to the Cuban-Venezuelan joint venture Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe, where an official said he would need approval from Venezuela’s science and technology ministry to talk about the project. The ministry did not respond to requests to interview officials.
Diplomats in Havana privately tell consistent stories of reported corner-cutting on the project that let corrupt officials skim millions of dollars from its budget.
A senior French official told AP that Alcatel had upheld its part of the contract and whatever problems exist must be on land with the network it was meant to be attached to.
“The cable must be connected to something or it won’t work,” said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the politically sensitive project.
The lack of transparency is not unusual for Cuba, where all media is state-run and tightly controlled. But it flies in the face of Fidel Castro’s own enthusiastic words about the cable and the transformational power of the Internet.
“Secrets are over. … We are facing the most powerful weapon that has ever existed, which is communication,” Castro told Mexican daily La Jornada in an August 2010 interview in which he hailed the coming cable.
While some hold out hope that faster Internet has merely been delayed, others interpret the government’s long silence as a sign Cuba’s broadband dreams will be the latest grand pronouncement to end in disappointment.
“I have no expectations for the cable,” said Marlene Blanco, a 25-year-old independent worker. “Nothing is going to change for ordinary Cubans. So why talk about it?”
According to government statistics, 16 percent of islanders were online in some capacity in 2011, mostly through work or school, and often just to the intranet. The National Statistics Office said last year that just 2.9 percent reported having direct Internet access, though outside experts estimate the real figure is likely 5 to 10 percent accounting for black market sales of dial-up minutes. For a variety of reasons including the 50-year-old U.S. economic embargo, Cuba is the last country in the Western Hemisphere to get a fiber-optic connection to the outside world, and has relied instead on costly and slow satellite linkups.
Some speculate that the Internet-fueled Arab Spring revolts, which began months before the cable’s arrival in Cuba, could have altered the government’s plan or at least made officials rethink the wisdom of making it widely available.
“They’re afraid of it. They don’t want a ‘Cuban Spring,’ so to speak,” Press said.
President Raul Castro’s administration has warned of a supposed plot by enemies in the United States to wage a “cyberwar” to destabilize the Communist-run government. In 2011, a Cuban court sentenced U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross to 15 years after convicting him of crimes against the state for importing restricted communications equipment that he insists was only meant to help the island’s Jewish community gain better Internet access.
The official silence over the fiber-optic cable has given rise to other rumors: that the cable is operational but being used selectively. A pro-government blogger known as Yohandry Fontana wrote at the end of 2011 that people who attended a closed forum on social networks reported it was working fine.
“Here’s a brief summary: 1. The cable has no problem, it is working. 2. Public Internet spaces will open on the island. 3. Costs for public connection will go down. Note: I am seeking more information,” Fontana said.
Cuban-born economist Arturo Lopez-Levy said Havana has badly bungled the whole affair, and if it’s true that corruption killed the cable, officials should “make heads roll over the scandal” and give an open accounting of what went wrong.
“The Cuban government failure to achieve this goal is one of the worst-managed situations,” said Lopez-Levy, a lecturer at the University of Denver, “aggravated by an even worse public relations fiasco to address it.”
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Associated Press writers Peter Orsi, Paul Haven and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
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Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-mystery-shrouds-fate-internet-cable-180553388--finance.html
BOSTON (AP) — A former Boston University student who was ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs on the Internet says he will continue fighting the penalty, despite the Supreme Court‘s refusal Monday to hear his appeal.
Joel Tenenbaum, 28, of Providence, R.I., said he’s hoping a federal judge will reduce the amount.
“I can’t believe the system would uphold a six-figure damages amount for downloading 30 songs on a file-sharing system that everybody used,” Tenenbaum said. “I can’t believe the court would uphold something that ludicrous.”
A jury in 2009 ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000, or $22,500 per song, after the Recording Industry Association of America sued him on behalf of four record labels, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Brothers Records Inc. A federal judge called the penalty unconstitutionally excessive and reduced the award to $67,500, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reinstated it.
The 1st Circuit said a new judge assigned to the case could reduce the award again, but the record labels would then be entitled to a new trial.
Tenenbaum, who said he just graduated Sunday from the university with a doctorate in statistical physics, said he doesn’t have the money to pay the judgment.
“I’ve been working on a graduate student’s stipend for six years now and I have no such money,” he said.
Tenenbaum argued that the U.S. Copyright Act is unconstitutional and that Congress did not intend the law to impose liability or damages when the copyright infringements amount to “consumer copying.”
During the trial, Tenenbaum admitted he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Green Day, Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins and others. His lawyer suggested the damages should be as little as 99 cents per song, about the same amount Tenenbaum would have to pay for a legal online song purchase.
Lawyers for the recording industry argued that illegal downloading hurt the recording industry by reducing income and profits. A lawyer for the recording labels described Tenenbaum as a “hardcore” copyright infringer.
“”We’re pleased with this decision,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said after the Supreme Court’s announcement Monday.
In the only other music-downloading case against an individual to go to trial, a judge last year reduced the penalty imposed on a Minnesota woman from $1.5 million to $54,000. An appeals court has scheduled arguments for next month in the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
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Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-wont-reduce-students-music-download-fine-144922490.html
Major U.S. Cable Companies Join Forces on WiFi
Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable Will Share Access to over 50,000 Hotspots, Expand WiFi Availability and Simplify Access for their High Speed Internet Customers
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable today announce that they will enable each other’s high-speed Internet customers to access their metro WiFi networks, totaling over 50,000 hotspots. To simplify access, a new network name, “CableWiFi”, has been created for subscribers to use when accessing the WiFi hotspots outside their home market. The first implementation is already complete as Bright House Networks and Cablevision launched “CableWiFi” alongside their branded WiFi networks in the New York City area and central Florida earlier this month. Over the next few months, the “CableWiFi” network name will be added by each of the cable companies to their branded WiFi hotspots.“This effort adds great value to our high speed Internet customers by providing free wireless Internet access on all of their WiFi enabled devices in our markets and additional areas across the country,” said Nomi Bergman, President of Bright House Networks.
“We believe that WiFi is a superior approach to mobile data, and that cable providers are best positioned to build the highest-capacity national network offering customers fast and reliable Internet connections when away from their home or business broadband service,” said Kristin Dolan, Cablevision’s senior executive vice president of product management and marketing. “We’ve built an extensive WiFi network in our own service area, and see real value and potential in other leading providers joining with us to extend that connectivity to major markets across the country.”
Dave Watson, Chief Operating Officer of Comcast Cable added, “Mobility is an increasingly important part of our Xfinity services product roadmap. WiFi technology, coupled with our agreements with Verizon Wireless, are two significant ways we are executing on our strategy to deliver the best in- and out-of-home communications experience for our customers.”
“The way customers are using our service continues to evolve,” said Jill Campbell, Cox Communications COO. “This is a new area of opportunity that we need to explore.”
“We have long been the leading providers of high-speed internet services in our customers’ homes. Through our rollout of WiFi and the benefits of this collaboration we greatly increase the value and reach of our high-speed internet service, providing access to broadband outside the home and in cities across the country,” said Rob Marcus, President and COO of Time Warner Cable.
When traveling outside their home markets, high-speed Internet subscribers of the participating companies will look for the “CableWiFi” network and through a simple sign-on process connect using the same credentials as when accessing their providers’ WiFi networks. In the coming months, users will be able to have their devices auto-connect to the Internet when located in any of the “Cable WiFi” hotspots.
The participating cable operators currently offer more than 50,000 WiFi hotspots located in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State area, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando, and Philadelphia. The operators plan to continue to grow the number of WiFi hotspots and expand into several additional cities. The network has both indoor and outdoor WiFi hotspots located in popular, high traffic locations, such as shopping districts, cafes, malls, arenas, restaurants, parks and beaches. Subscribers will be able to find the nearest WiFi hotspots by visiting the WiFi homepage of their current cable provider or going to www.cablewifi.com.
This is the largest and most inclusive WiFi sharing effort among cable operators to date. In early 2010, Cablevision, Comcast and Time Warner Cable entered into an agreement allowing their customers in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Connecticut to access WiFi hotspots offered by each operator in these areas.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/cablewifi-offer-more-50-000-free-access-points-193555017.html
