Again, it’s not surprising to learn that broadband is moving from “the thing that brings you websites and email” to “the thing that brings you video.” But change over time drives it home: Sandvine says that five years ago, video/audio represented 35 percent of prime-time usage. Now it has doubled, to 70 percent.
Source: Streaming Video Is 70 Percent of Broadband Use – Sandvine | Re/code
But, with more cities joining the Smart City revolution and investing in sensors and other IoT devices, the risk of a new tech bubble is rising. The same technology giants that helped Barcelona become a smart city are now pushing more pilots of newer technologies with little regard for solutions that already work and can be shared without incurring additional expenses.
Let’s consider a few of the most worrisome issues related to IoT today:
Source: Is the IoT a Tech Bubble for Cities
In the long run, we are being faced with a bunch of independent devices that can’t be managed by a single platform or protocol. Manufacturers are now being required to develop different versions for different standards, effectively increasing manufacturing and engineering costs, and reducing their market potential.
Telephone calls haven’t declined because we have become anxious or lazy. They’ve fallen out of favor because using the telephone feels mechanically ungainly as much as socially so.
So are comments on news websites still useful, or have they had their day? Trending asked The Daily Dot editor Nicholas White and Marie Lyn Bernard, aka Riese, of the LGBT website Autostraddle for their, um, comments on the issue.
Source: Is it the beginning of the end for online comments? – BBC News
Professional gaming – e-sport – is a huge deal in South Korea. There’s a government department dedicated to its development.
Source: The real scars of Korean gaming – BBC News
At the top-end of gaming, the players are undeniably well looked after, healthy and happy – even if the gruelling routine means they clearly don’t enjoy playing anymore. It’s work.
Between March and April, here is how the browser market changed, according to the latest figures from Net Applications:
- Internet Explorer: down 0.71 points to 55.83 percent
- Chrome: up 0.69 points to 25.68 percent
- Firefox: down 0.19 points to 11.70 percent
- Safari: up 0.12 points to 5.12
- Opera: up 0.05 points to 0.48 percent
Source: Chrome passes 25% market share, IE and Firefox slip | VentureBeat | Dev | by Emil Protalinski
FTC staffers spent enormous time pouring through Google’s business practices and documents as well as interviewing executives and rivals. They came to the conclusion that Google was acting in anti-competitive ways, such as restricting advertisers’ from working with rival search engines. But commissioners balked at the prospect of a lengthy and protracted legal fight, former FTC officials said.
via The FTC’s internal memo on Google teaches companies a terrible lesson – The Washington Post.
Silent Circle is all about security, but security is about more than just a phone that features encryption. There is an entire ecosystem in place starting with the secure PrivatOS 1.1. The latest upgrade to the operating system introduces a feature called Spaces which allows for OS-level virtualization and the ability to keep work and personal apps and data completely separate from each other. These features are also due to rollout to first generation Blackphones through an upcoming update.
via Blackphone 2 caters to the enterprise, the security-minded and the paranoid.
Still, the era of plastic instruments has passed. You can’t find the controllers in stores anymore, but your local Salvation Army or Goodwill probably has a giant pile of them. Even those who love Rock Band have trouble justifying all of the primo living room real estate the full suite of controllers consumes.
via Rock Band and Guitar Hero May Be Returning in 2015 | WIRED.
Another is Ekko.net, a privacy-focused service that is currently invite-only. It gives users the ability to create policies that govern specific accounts or even communications, explains Ekko.net founder Rick Peters. For example, a user might decide to assign a password to protect a specific e-mail thread, text message, or social media communication. Or they might set a “self destruct” date for a message, causing it to be erased at a predetermined time.
via Web privacy is the newest luxury item in era of pervasive tracking – CSMonitor.com.
Will tools such as Blur and Ekko.net tilt the playing field in favor of consumers and their privacy?
Privacy experts say: Probably not.