Stuff I Stole From The Internet: Internet

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Sunday, 6 November 2011

The Internet Weighs About as Much as a Strawberry

Last week, the world was shocked—shocked!—to discover that downloading an electronic book to a device such as a Kindle actually increases the weight of the Kindle. Not by any truly measurable amount, said the New York Times, but still: adding data to a device apparently results in trapped electrons which "have a higher energy than the untrapped ones."

And though the amount of data contained in a tiny e-book file is so miniscule as to render it almost irrelevant, the results become more meaningful when you measure a much larger set of data. In that spirit, how much does all the information on the entire internet weigh?

The conclusion: about as much as a strawberry. Check out the above video for the explanation, which includes details about the Kindle stuff, too.

How Much Does The Internet Weigh? [YouTube via Buzzfeed]

Monday, 31 October 2011

Do We Really Need to Protect Children From the Internet?

Jeff Jarvis on Why We Don't Need to Protect Children From The Internet | TIME Ideas | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion

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InternetDo We Really Need to Protect Children From the Internet?By focusing on the dangers of the Internet, we risk losing sight of its benefitsBy Jeff Jarvis | @jeffjarvis | October 18, 2011 | View CommentsTweet

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Jarvis's latest book is Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live.

The Federal Trade Commission is recommending updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which sounds timely, wise, and worthy. But it is doing so blind to the impact and unintended consequences of its regulation.

COPPA requires that sites serving children under the age 13 must give parents notice and get consent if they collect and use personally identifiable information — which is broadly defined—about a child. Under the proposed changes, parents may no longer use email to grant consent but must jump through hoops — printing, signing, and scanning or faxing forms or holding videoconferences with the site’s employees.

The unintended consequences of COPPA are many, but the most obvious is that children have learned to lie about their age. On the Internet, everyone is 14.

(MORE: Should Kids Be Allowed on Facebook?)

On a conference call organized by the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry group, I asked Mamie Kresses, senior attorney for the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, whether there had been any study about how truthful children are reporting their ages online. They have no such research, she said. I asked whether the FTC had any data about how often parents use the means of notice and consent COPPA provides. None, she said.

The most disturbing unintended consequence of the regulation, I think, is the chill it likely puts on serving children online. In the early days of the web, I started the Yuckiest Site on the Internet — about goo, bugs, and science — to serve young readers at the local news sites I ran. After COPPA, my employer decided the risk in serving young people and even inadvertently recording a child’s name or targeting an ad was too great.

We don’t know how many sites have not been started to serve children online. Isn’t this the group we should be serving best? I asked Kresses whether the FTC had done research on the extent of a chill. No, she said.

Finally, I asked whether the FTC had revisited the reasons for COPPA. What harm are we trying to prevent by restricting identity online — and is it effective? She responded with circular logic: They are giving parents the opportunity of notice and consent regarding children’s information.

But why? In the panic around privacy brought on by technology — the Internet today and the portable camera a century ago — the discussion is being driven by the worst case, the often unspoken, presumptive fear of what bad could happen. Could children be exploited online? Sadly, yes. Are they sometimes kidnapped from streets? Tragically so. But they still play outside under our watchful eye, because they need to.

Children need to play online, too. They should create and get credit for their creativity. They should be able to establish a relationship with an educational site where they can track their own progress. Technology and the net don’t just present danger; they afford opportunity. But by focusing only on the former, we can risk losing sight of the latter.

So how do we protect young people? In the research for my book about publicness and privacy, I learned much from Danah Boyd, a leading researcher in social media and youth for Microsoft and NYU. In matters of privacy, she cautions against concentrating only on the gathering of information and suggests we focus more on regulating the use of information. That a site knows my child is from New Jersey isn’t necessarily sinister, a case of stranger danger; it’s what the site does with that knowledge that matters. In not addressing that issue, COPPA both overreaches and underserves.

Jarvis, author of Public Parts, directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University of New YorkRead other related stories about this:Update Urged on Children's Online PrivacyThe New York TimesRelated Topics: COPPA, Internet, Jarvis, online privacy, Business & Tech, Internet
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Saturday, 22 October 2011

Unprecedented Demand For iOS 5 And iCloud Almost Broke The Internet – How Did It Go For You?

Unprecedented Demand For iOS 5 And iCloud Almost Broke The Internet – How Did It Go For You? iOS 5

Yesterday was probably Apple's biggest days when it comes to software launches with the release of iCloud - its new cloud based services and iOS 5 - its next generation mobile operating system.

Unfortunately, it also meant that there was unprecedented interest from users to download iOS 5 and migrate from MobileMe to iCloud services.

It seems to have also exceeded Apple's expectations as things didn't go off that well for Apple, many users had trouble upgrading to iOS 5 and were hitting error 3200 due to the high load on Apple's servers.

The Next Web reports that the traffic due to Apple's software updates was so high that it was just not Apple but even the entire internet infrastructure was experiencing difficulties under the load.

The traffic at the LONAP (LONAP is a London Neutral Internet Exchange Point where Internet and content providers exchange traffic) increased from a normal peak of around 18Gb/s to around 28Gb/s.

Andy Davidson, Director of another London-based network exchange, LONAP, told Cult of Mac:

The traffic last night was around twice what we would see on a typical Wednesday evening. There was as much traffic as we would see for a major sporting event (such as England playing in the World or European cups). Such volumes have never been seen before for a software upgrade.

Apple also had issues coping with the migration requests coming from users who wanted to move their data from MobileMe to iCloud. They eventually had to limit the number of migrations and requested customers to come back later:

Due to high demand, we are temporarily limiting the number of users moving from MobileMe to iCloud. Please try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience.

It looks like most of the traffic and with it issues have settled down today, but MacRumors reports that some users are reporting that iCloud mail has been down for some users.

This obviously brings back memories of 2007 when Apple launched MobileMe. Let's hope that things settle down quickly.

Let us know how was your experience in updating your iOS device/s to iOS 5 and migrating from MobileMe to iCloud.

Related PostsApple Allows Developers To Migrate From MobileMe To iCloud; Gives 25GB iCloud Storage Until June 2012Apple: Web Apps For Mail, Contacts, Calendar And Find My iPhone Will Be Available In iCloudSurvey: Unprecedented Demand For Apple’s iPhone 5iCloud.com Goes LiveSome iCloud Services Maybe Free With Mac OS X Lion

Monday, 17 October 2011

Apple’s iPad Grabs 97% of Tablet-Based Internet Traffic; Races Past iPhone

Apple’s iPad Grabs 97% of Tablet-Based Internet Traffic; Races Past iPhone iPad 2

comScore released a report yesterday that analyzes internet consumption in light of recent cross-platform trends. It highlights iPads as being the top consumer of tablet-based traffic with an overwhelming 97% of the tablet market. They also account for more traffic than iPhones, highlighting how tablets are making some new market trends.

The report's scope includes non-computer based access - such as cell phones and tablets - and compares it in light of total traffic and activity through the month of August 2011. Overall, the following statistics are noted:

Apple's iPad made up 97.2% of all tablet-based traffic in the US.iPad had the highest share of all iOS traffic at 46.8%iPhone had the second-highest share of all iOS traffic at 42.6%

comScore states that Android devices have a higher percentage of the smartphone market, but when looking at all connected devices - that is, including tablets and PMPs - iOS comes out a clear winner with 43.1% of all connected devices. Android's share was only 34.1% in this regard.

Furthermore, when looking at how much traffic is consumed by these devices, iOS again emerges on top. iOS had 58.5% of all non-computer based internet traffic, compared to Android's 31.9%. Not only does iOS beat Android, but when comparing iOS's traffic consumption (58.5%) to its device share (43.1%) we can see that iOS users also consume more on average than other users.

The report also highlight some other interesting facts about tablet use in general. Tablets significantly help real-time social networking, with 3 out of 5 owners using a tablet to update their statuses. Further, the same ratio consume news of some kind on their device, and 25% of them use their tablet for this purpose almost daily. All of this is likely helped by the increasing numbers of free-to-use WiFi hotspots across the country.

Lastly, comScore explains that tablet users by and large are "early technology adopters." Characteristically, this means young males in upper income brackets. The statistics corroborate this with 54.7% of all tablet owners being male, 30% being between the ages of 25 and 34, and 45.9% belonging to households whose income exceeds the $100K mark.

So what does this mean for the future? Aside from iOS being a favorite of heavy users, we can see that tablet use comprises a large portion of internet-connected devices. They're here to stay, as evidenced by iPad traffic exceeding iPhone traffic. And, although currently they're dominated by a minority of the market (young men with higher than average incomes), the trend will continue to grow as prices fall and make tablets available to more consumers.

[via comScore]

Posted by Yatri on October 11, 2011 in Apple News, Apple Tablet, iPad News | Permalink|Comments (2)

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fingers21 said...

I think anyone with any sense kind of already knew this! iPads rock! iPhone’s are awesome, but Internet on iPad is just that bit better with the bigger screen. ANDROID SUCKS! The sooner people admit it, the better!

October 11, 2011 at 9:40 AM Reply