Hasta La Gadget!

Even with the popularity of cloud computing and terabyte servers, most US offices are still drowning in a sea of dead trees; around 10,000 sheets of paper a year per worker, according to the EPA. Enter Paperless 2013, a campaign that will email you monthly tips on how to make the paperless office a reality. It’s funded by the “Paperless Coalition,” a group of digital solution companies comprised of Google Drive, HelloFax, Manilla, HelloSign, Expensify, Xero and Fujitsu ScanSnap — none of which have any ulterior motive behind encouraging this paper-free existence. None at all. Of course, you don’t have to go with these specific companies to go eco-friendly (Dropbox and PDFPen are a couple of other options) but if you need some advice on how to shed those wasteful printing habits, then go ahead and sign up at the source. Or you could do what we did and unplug our printers altogether — just in case it gets possessed.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Paperless 2013

Here’s a pretty interesting report: according to the Associated Press, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt might be taking a trip to North Korea this year. Details are pretty slim, but according to the two sources the Associated Press spoke to, Schmidt won’t be alone when he goes. He’ll be accompanied by former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who has made the trek to North Korea more than a few times in the past.

Why is Schmidt packing up and going to North Korea? That remains unclear, but this trip could happen as early as this month. In his role as executive chairman of Google, Schmidt has met with lawmakers and governments around the world, so it doesn’t seem too far of a stretch to assume that he’ll be going to North Korea to talk about the country’s Internet policies.

Those policies, as many of you already know, are among the most restrictive in the world. Google maintains that the Internet should be free and open, which it most certainly is not in North Korea. Perhaps Schmidt will look to change that with his visit to the country? We’ll have to wait and find out – remember, this trip hasn’t even been made official yet, so there’s no telling what’s really going to happen.

Google, for its part, refuses to comment on the speculation surrounding Schmidt’s purported trip, telling Reuters “We do not comment on personal travel.” That statement could be a sign that Schmidt’s alleged trip isn’t business-related, so there’s still plenty of mystery enveloping this visit. If this rumor is legitimate, then we should be finding out more about it soon, so stay tuned.

Google boss Eric Schmidt reportedly headed to North Korea this year is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve seen several reports over the last week about Intel’s set-top box efforts, and an impending CES launch. According to GigaOM, some of those rumors simply aren’t true. The site has confirmed with several sources at Intel that a set-top box (and a whole lot more) is in the works, but a CES announcement has not been planned. Instead, Media, the mysterious Intel division, which is run like a startup with staffers hired from other Silicon Valley companies rather than shifted from different departments, could be unveiled in March, or perhaps even at the AllThingsD Dive Into Media conference in February.

A detailed GigaOM report outlines the company’s plans, which do include a STB manufactured by Intel that would compete with Apple TV, but also solutions for other platforms, including computers, tablets and smartphones. According to GigaOM sources, the company has spent more than $100 million on Intel Media, so it’s clearly taking the effort seriously. Still, until Intel Media has been exposed to the market, it’s too soon to judge its success. Hit up our source link for the full scoop.

Update: Now the Wall Street Journal has chimed in, with its own reports from usual unnamed sources indicating that a launch could be pushed as far as Q4. The reason for the wide launch window? Trouble negotiating content agreements for those unbundled packages (at much higher rates than the channels currently receive) it reportedly wants to offer, although the rumors say Intel has reached at least one content deal — we’re guessing it wasn’t with ESPN. Whether this will ever appear or simply remain vapor like so many other rumored Intel software products remains to be seen, but just like the often hinted at Apple television, the licensing issues will probably be much harder to work out than any software or hardware.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Intel

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Source: GigaOM, Wall Street Journal

Today might be the day that’s considered New Year’s Day, and where millions of people around the world are recovering from a long night of partying, but it’s also the anniversary of when the modern internet was born. 30 years ago today, the ARPANET officially changed to using the Internet Protocol, creating the internet as we know it today.

Of course, the actual internet was said to be born several years earlier in the early 1960s, but the transition from Network Control Protocol to Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol happened on January 1, 1983, and while it may not have been the biggest moment in internet history, it was a key transition that paved the way for today’s internet.

The Network Control Protocol had some limitations, including how many computers it could connect together. Back then, the ARPANET only had about 1,000 computers interlinked, but as the years progressed and more computers were being added, admins realized they would need a new protocol to accommodate the much larger and more complicated network.

Vint Cerf is credited with co-designing the TCP/IP protocol with along with Robert Kahn, and the two began working on the new technology ten years before its grand debut. British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee later used the new protocol to host a system of interlinked hypertext documents in 1989, known as the World Wide Web.

Image via Flickr

The modern internet turns 30 today is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Still wondering what the heck happened with Netflix on Christmas Eve? Cloud architect Adrian Cockroft has returned to fill in the details with an official blog post. As we already knew, Amazon Web Services was to blame for the issue — the company issued an apology earlier today — with the Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) service causing the outage. The interruption began at 3:30PM ET on December 24th, though some users had normal service until later that evening, at which point many TV-connected devices in the US, Canada and Latin America were affected. Notably, customers in the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries did not experience issues.

Netflix uses hundreds of ELBs, but only “a handful” failed — devices using these specific ELBs, including game consoles, were unable to access the server. While the Elastic Load Balancers serving Mac and PC streaming were unaffected, those users experienced latency issues, and may have needed to reload a stream. Cockroft explains that at 1:30AM ET on Christmas Day, the ELBs were restored by AWS, and most users were reportedly up and running at that point, though some still experienced downtime throughout the morning. Ultimately, Netflix plans to improve redundancy, which will be costly and could take some time to accomplish. For now, let’s hope that AWS manages to avoid future failures. You’ll find Netflix’s full explanation at the source link below.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet

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Source: The Netflix Tech Blog, Amazon Web Services