A European country is once again showing the US and the rest of the world how to be progressive and forward-thinking. Finland has decided to make broadband Internet access a legal right and the minimum bandwidth is 1Mbps, on its way to 100Mbps by 2015.
Other countries that have already made Internet access a human right include: Greece, France and Estonia.
Here’s another place to go hang out with your laptop and surf the Web – Borders bookstores. They’re rolling out free WiFi starting about the middle of this month in most of their stores nationwide.
Comcast just launched a trial of an automated service that would alert its customers if they have possible virus or malware infections on their home computers. Great, but… it works as a browser toolbar. Granted the average customer probably uses their Internet connection mainly to surf the Web, but what happens if they switch browsers or simply stop paying attention to pop-ups or blinking text?
My experience working with end-users is that they need an out-of-band alert. Email doesn’t do it. Pop-up alerts on their computer doesn’t do it. Telling them does! I’d like to see Comcast stick with the original idea – calling customers. They can automate that too.
Don’t get me wrong; I give Comcast a lot of credit for being the first to institute something like this – it should have been done ages ago and by many ISPs, but I’m a bit concerned about its eventual effectiveness. Well, it’s a trial, so hopefully they take the results to heart.
Another device jumps on board the Android bandwagon. This time it’s Archos whose latest Internet tablet, the Archos 5 runs the Google OS. The tablet hasn’t been released yet, but it’s already available for pre-order at Amazon.
I finally got a chance to test out Virgin America’s in-flight WiFi service for myself on a Boston to Los Angeles flight and found that it performed quite well. Download speed (which is what most folks care about) was well over 1Mbps in all of my various speed tests; in some cases, I got as much as 2.5Mbps. However, those folks looking to do some more serious work that involved uploads should be cautioned – I barely got 300kbps and those uploads tests stuttered in more than a few cases.
Virgin America uses Aircell’s GoGo service and while I find that $12.95 for a cross-country flight is a bit pricey (especially on top of the $20 they charged me for my 1 piece of luggage), business users shouldn’t blink for this chance to be more productive. I was also pleased that the staff announced prior to take-off that WiFi coverage could be spotty as we crossed Canada briefly, so we were duly warned.
If you’re on a VA flight, and you need to get on those addictive Interwebs, then you should be pleased with this service.
One thing to love about the Internet and entrepreneurs in general is that despite what sometimes seem like insurmountable dominance, such as Google has over the search engine market, new attempts to break them down occur all the time. New search engine, Duck Duck Go, is trying to do just that with their quirky name, simpler, uncluttered search results page and in particular less garbage in the results.
The home page is simple and bright. Underneath it lies a fast search engine that does its best to produce relevant results free from parked domains, spam sites and the like. Other features include the Zero-Click Info displays that provide info directly on the results page; Special Pages that group similar topics; Related Topics; links to Official Sites at the top when it can determine that.
One particularly nice feature is the ability to search 27 related sites with the same search query with a single click (in the sidebar). Sites include YouTube, CNN, Wikipedia and much more.
Duck Duck Go was founded by MIT graduate and serial entrepreneur, Gabriel Weinberg.
The Myine Ira (acronym for Internet Radio Adapter) is another take on Internet radio, this time in a (mostly) standalone device that plays any of the over 11,000 free radio stations available on the Net.
Hook it up to your wireless network and then plug it into some speakers or your AV system, and you’re good to go. You can filter by location, store up to 40 of your favorite stations and program it to play back podcasts.
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $129.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
Like GoToMyPC and LogMeIn, Laplink Everywhere offers folks the ability to gain access to their PCs at home remotely. Apart from standard browser-based access, Laplink Everywhere 5 also comes with a free application for Win Mobile users to access their desktops at home.
Other interesting features include: desktop control, file transfer and synchronization, Outlook access and access to Web bookmarks.
You can try out LLE5 free for 30 days after which it falls back to the limited version. Upgrade to the full version for $49.95/year.
Buy now!
Price: $49.95/year
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
Cisco predicts that global Internet IP traffic will get to 2/3 of a trillion GB (a trillion GB is a zettabyte) per year by 2013. They also predict that video will constitute 90% of this traffic, which is not surprising.
Consider that a Google insider revealed that YouTube streams about 1.2 billion videos per day. Ahh, remember the good old days when getting a million hits to your website per month was considered ‘big traffic’? Now think a billion per day and it’s streaming video!
via Techcrunch
If you’re ever on a slow, nail-biter of an Internet connection and it’s taking forever to load your feature-rich Gmail Inbox, you will love this new Lab feature – Inbox Preview. It simply shows a very simple, static page of your inbox with the 10 newest messages. What’s the benefit? Imagine yourself on the run and need to quickly check if you have any new, important e-mails.
Inbox Preview to the rescue. Of course, if you’re like me and get hundreds of e-mail per day, this may only help a tad. Active Inbox Preview by heading into the Gmail Labs section of your account.
