In developed countries, it’s easy to take the Internet for granted. It’s such a big part of our lives, and access is so readily available, that imagining life without the web seems crazy. But it’s not crazy — many regions around the world have limited or no access to the Internet. And even worse in some ways, many people in regions that do have Internet access are subject to infuriating amounts of censorship. More →
In celebration of the launch of OneDrive, the Dropbox rival formerly known as SkyDrive, Microsoft is offering 100GB of free cloud storage to the first 100,000 people who sign into their OneDrive accounts once the promotion kicks off on Wednesday, CNET reports. Those users that will get the extra storage should know that the offer is only valid for one year, after which time users will have to pay for the same amount of storage. More →
What’s that you’re hearing? Could it be the real stirrings of actual competition in the American broadband market? Google on Wednesday announced it was considering expanding its services to nine different metropolitan areas and it turns out that several of those areas are strongholds for Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the two cable titans that want to merge and create an ISP superpower. More →
Have your Netflix streams been much more laggy or choppy in recent months? If so then you’re not alone. As The Wall Street Journal shows, Netflix streaming quality has tanked at multiple major ISPs since this past October and much of it stems from behind-the-scenes wrangling over who will pick up the tab for all the added traffic demand Netflix’s services are generating. More →
Google Fiber is now only available in three different markets but that could soon change very quickly. Google announced on Wednesday that it is considering expanding its Google Fiber services to nine new markets: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and San Jose. A move into San Antonio would be particularly provocative because it would put Google Fiber right in AT&T’s home town. More →
Comcast has said repeatedly that it has no intention of throttling Netflix’s traffic and there may be a good reason to believe it’s telling the truth. Not because Comcast executives are benevolent cherubs, of course, but more because they’re smart enough to know that throttling Netflix’s traffic would lead to a public relations battle that they would lose very, very badly. More →
The Federal Communications Commission has decided not to appeal a recent court ruling that shot down its net neutrality restrictions and will instead write fresh regulations to keep ISPs in check, reports The Washington Post. The Post’s Cecilia Kang says that the FCC plans to rewrite net neutrality rules under its authority granted by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Reuters, via CNBC, adds that the commission is still very interested in making sure ISPs can’t discriminate against traffic for rivals’ services but adds that it wants to make sure it does so in a way that doesn’t get struck down by the courts.
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Who runs the Internet? Is it Google, the global search leader that trades fantastic free services for borderline frightening insights into user behavior? Is it Apple, whose iPhones and iPads are reportedly used to connect people to the Internet more than any other mobile devices on the planet by a massive margin? Is it the Illuminati? According to a new feature from the team that taught us how to disappear online, there are actually six organizations that secretly run the Internet and you might not have considered any of them. More →
New documents leaked by former NSA employee turned whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA and GCHQ consistently spied on WikiLeaks in the past years, recording information regarding the people who accessed the site in the process, regardless of their citizenship. The Intercept has seen documents that reveal the extent of WikiLLeaks-related spying that targeted “the human network that supports WikiLeaks” including readers. More →
There are a number of fears that come to most pay TV and Internet subscribers’ minds when they think about the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger that was announced last week. Will my bill go up? Will real competition in the industry become even more rare? Will the resulting mega-ISP be ruthless and evil? Also high on the list of concerns in light of net neutrality’s death is whether or not a combined Comcast-TWC entity would use its newfound heft to throttle Netflix and other online video providers. More →
During a conference call with the press on Thursday, one reporter asked Comcast executive David Cohen whether his company’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable would lead to some relief for customers who are tired of seeing their monthly bills keep going upward. Cohen’s response was refreshingly honest but also a depressing reminder of just how broken the market for home broadband services is in the United States. More →
After the original Flappy Bird game was removed from the App Store and Google Play Store out of addictiveness-related guilt, a plethora of Flappy Bird copies and clones emerged, some safer to play than others. Further proof of the popularity of this simple, yet difficult to play, game is the fact that even Sesame Street has created its own Flappy Bird clone, ABC News reports, appropriately called Flappy Bert. More →
