Jun 30
MySpace was just sold like a GameCube on Craigslist, snatched up by a no-name advertising firm (and Justin Timberlake?) for less than a tenth of what NewsCorp bought it for in ’05. But it wasn’t always a disaster. Let’s reminisce. More »
Jun 29
Visualized: a zettabyte
Posted in: cisco, network, networking, Online, Today's Chili, web
Remember the good old days when a gigabyte was considered a lot of space? Improvements in hard disk technology have allowed the humble magnetic drive to reach the dizzying heights of multiple terabytes of storage, but Cisco foresees a future that’s a few orders of magnitude more impressive. Pinpointing 2015 as the commencement of what it calls the zettabyte era, the company has put together a handy infographic to show us just how much data can be fit into one: you can alternatively think of it as the equivalent of 250 billion DVDs, 36 million years of HD video, or the volume of the Great Wall of China if you allow an 11oz cup of coffee to represent a gigabyte of data. So “zetta” must be Greek for one hell of a lot, but what Cisco expects is that we’ll be pushing that much information around the web each year by 2015. Any bets on how many exabytes of it will be to stream videos of cats diving into cardboard boxes?
Visualized: a zettabyte originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 29
NC State discovery finds optimal connections 10,000 times more quickly, ResNet admins do a double take
Posted in: network, networking, research, Today's Chili, university
Ever wondered how just one message in an average Chatroulette session finds its way to whatever destination fate may deem suitable? Sure you have. As it stands, every single pulse from your Ethernet socket starts its initial journey by hunting for an optimal connection path; in some cases, that involves routing through massive ring networks crossing over untold miles of fiber optic cabling. Using traditional techniques, nailing down an optimal solution for a ring can take eons (or days, whichever you prefer), but there’s a new methodology coming out of NC State‘s den that could enable the same type of scenario to reach its natural conclusion 10,000 times faster. Dr. George Rouskas, a computer science professor and proud Wolfpacker, has just published a new paper describing the scheme, with the focal point being a “mathematical model that identifies the exact optimal routes and wavelengths for ring network designers.” More technobabble surrounding the discovery can be found in the source link below, but unfortunately, there’s no telling how long it’ll take your impending click to be addressed using conventional means. Here’s to the future, eh?
NC State discovery finds optimal connections 10,000 times more quickly, ResNet admins do a double take originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 29
Skype gets Congressional approval, will help Representatives stay in touch with the common people
Posted in: Online, politics, skype, Today's Chili, us, usa, web
Look, Capitol Hill is a nice place to be, okay? There are interns eager to please, lobbyists keen to buy you dinner, why would you ever want to leave? Unfortunately for US Congressmen and women, the schleps who elected them insist on getting face time with their supposed representatives, which means a regular schedule of commuting getting in the way of some critically important foot massages and aromatherapy treatments. Never fear, though, Skype has come to the rescue. Microsoft’s latest acquisition has scored a stamp of approval from the House of Representatives, permitting Congresspersons to use it to interact with constituents, attend virtual town hall meetings, and collaborate with other members of the House. All fun-making of lawmakers aside, this strikes us as a step in the right direction and Skype promises that it’s done its homework on keeping communications secure. Let’s hope so.
Skype gets Congressional approval, will help Representatives stay in touch with the common people originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 03:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 28
World of Warcraft Starter Edition lets you reach lvl 20 for free, Night Elf Mohawk still only available to Mr. T
Posted in: free, Games, gaming, Online, Today's Chili, video games, VideoGames, web
If there was one thing, one thing, keeping humanity safe from total enslavement to the grind of World of Warcraft, it was the fact that you have to pay to play the game for longer than a couple of weeks. Well, now we’re all doomed. Blizzard is replacing its 14-day WoW trial with a so-called Starter Edition of the massively multiplayer life usurper, which lets you reach level 20 without shelling out a penny. Of course, like any good gateway drug, this freebie is capped at the thoroughly insufficient 20 number and is sure to agitate folks into buying the full product. One small step for a software company, one giant leap forward for global obesity rates.
World of Warcraft Starter Edition lets you reach lvl 20 for free, Night Elf Mohawk still only available to Mr. T originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 28
Google starts highlighting content creators, will never forget that music blog you had in college
Posted in: Google, search, Today's Chili
Google has a lot of pictures of people. Google also indexes a lot of content written by people. Ponder those two facts for just a moment and you’ll come upon the search giant’s Next Big Thing: highlighting authorship. Now, with a little markup magic, Google can not only track you but track what you wrote online, tying it all together so that search results written by you pop up with a picture of you, linked back to your Google Profile. It’s a great way to highlight who’s up to what online but, if you’re not into it, opting out is as easy as doing nothing. Don’t add that markup and you’re free to keep musing about Muse to your heart’s content without those words ever corrupting future vanity searches. Right now the program is rolling out to a select few in a pilot program, but look for it to embrace more personalities in the coming months.
Google starts highlighting content creators, will never forget that music blog you had in college originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 28
Why Anonymous Isn’t LulzSec
Posted in: Today's Chili, top
LulzSec’s dead. They had their streak of chaos, hacker-on-hacker pissing matches, takedowns, limelight, laughs, silly Tweets, monocled mascots and general web frenzy. But it was just that—frenzy. And at least Anonymous will carry on the mad hacker spirit, right? Nope. More »
Jun 28
What do you love, asks Google with a new portal to its many web services
Posted in: Google, Online, search, Today's Chili, web
Say hello to your new online friend, wdyl.com. An eagle-eyed TechCrunch tipster spotted this freshly launched Google portal, whose purpose it seems to be to gather up all of the company’s multifarious web services under one umbrella. A Google search for Google products, in other words. Punching in a topic brings up its popularity in Google Trends, lets you set up Google Alerts, plan related events in Google Calendar, email someone in Gmail, or hit up Picasa, YouTube or Google News with the same query. You get the picture. It hasn’t yet been made official and hitting up the site without the “www.” prefix throws up a bad URL error at the moment, but it’s there and seemingly fully functional. Give it a try and let us know which search terms bring up the most humorous results.
What do you love, asks Google with a new portal to its many web services originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 23
FTC to put Google under a microscope, try to uncover anti-competitive ways?
Posted in: Google, Law, legal, search, Today's Chili, web
Google’s drawn the ire of the Federal Trade Commission before for failing to follow its own privacy policies. Now, however, the Mountain View crew is apparently facing a formal inquiry from the FTC as it seeks information about Google’s search and advertising business. The civil investigative demands are set to be sent out within the next five days, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the commission will be looking into whether Google’s search engine illegally routs all those internet eyeballs scanning its site to its own services instead of those offered by competitors. Sound familiar? It should, because Google’s under investigation for similar anticompetitive accusations made in Europe — somewhere Steve Ballmer is smiling.
FTC to put Google under a microscope, try to uncover anti-competitive ways? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 23
Google Sites simplifies iOS and Android viewing with automatic mobile rendering
Posted in: Android, Google, ios, mobile, Today's Chili, web browser, WebBrowser
Do you use Google Sites to publish to the web? The search giant just added automatic mobile rendering to make your website more mobile-friendly when viewed on an iOS 3.0 or Android 2.2+ device. A new setting to “Automatically adjust site for mobile phones” can be activated in the site management page, at which point pages designed for desktop viewing will be displayed in a much simpler web format, so readers won’t need to pinch-to-zoom just to see a page’s content. Google also added mobile versions of the site list, sites search, and browse sites categories, for easy access from your smartphone. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but if you happen to run a Google Site or have a friend that does, it wouldn’t hurt to flip the switch on mobile viewing — your visitors will appreciate it.
Google Sites simplifies iOS and Android viewing with automatic mobile rendering originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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