Linked by Howard Fosdick on Fri 27th Jul 2012 02:57 UTC
A free, new report from the New America Foundation compares cost, speed, and availabilty of internet connectivity in 22 cities around the world. The report concludes that U.S.
consumers face comparatively high, rising connectivity costs, even while the majority have very limited choices -- often only one or two providers. The report argues that U.S. broadband policies need to change, otherwise consumer choice will continue to deteriorate.
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RE[2]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds?
by tomcat on Sun 29th Jul 2012 03:03
in reply to "RE: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds?"
Member since:2006-01-06
Dunno why this got downvoted so much. It's not clear to me that fast residential speeds are that important. I have a few handkerchiefs to lend to those poor souls who can't watch Netflix while their children torrent the latest episode of Gilmore Girls and stream YouTube.
Agree. There are plenty of modern routers that allow you to explicitly throttle the bandwidth of specific IP addresses. Use static IP assignments. Nobody should be allowed to monopolize the entire pipe.
RE[3]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds?
by Alfman on Sun 29th Jul 2012 04:43
in reply to "RE[2]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds?"
Member since:2011-01-28
tomcat,
"Agree. There are plenty of modern routers that allow you to explicitly throttle the bandwidth of specific IP addresses. Use static IP assignments. Nobody should be allowed to monopolize the entire pipe."
Not to contradict anything you said, but throttling bandwidth of non-critical tasks is usually the opposite of what is wanted, which is guaranteeing bandwidth of critical ones. It's actually very difficult to guarantee bandwidth for "critical" tasks like VIOP and netflix while simultaneously maximising bandwidth utilisation among non-critical tasks due to varying conditions in the network.
OT: what gets me is that ISPs add port restrictions and charge even more for premium accounts to unlock them. One of my providers blocks incoming SSH (in fact all ports below 1024), this is very annoying to say the least!
Edited 2012-07-29 04:43 UTC
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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Dunno why this got downvoted so much. It's not clear to me that fast residential speeds are that important. I have a few handkerchiefs to lend to those poor souls who can't watch Netflix while their children torrent the latest episode of Gilmore Girls and stream YouTube.
On the other hand, as a principle, innovation occurs when there is opportunity. Imagine if when you grew up there was no practical difference between a SATA connection and an Internet connection. What would you have come up with, how might you have hacked differently? Instead of becoming a _______ developer, who might you be today?
On the other other hand, the absurdity of software patents shows that invention in software does not require the same kind of investment in resources that other fields do. That is why I am skeptical about the necessity of ultra-broadband. Rolling out a 500 KB/s to rural America would be enough. (Besides, for all the hype about South Korea's broadband saturation, they still have a rather insular intranet, and as far as I can tell the U.S. still leads the way in terms of creating important web apps.)